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Rejecting science, HHS maintains 1985 gay blood ban

Joshua Meadows — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:17:19 +0000

Last week the HHS Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability held a two-day talk to reconsider the 1985 ban on accepting donations of blood by men who have had sex with men since 1977. The US' ban has repeatedly been criticised by blood banks, medical experts and various associations as being based on no science but simply paranoia. Even though it's come up for reconsideration a few times, the ban has never been removed and sadly last week's attempt was no different. Despite soliciting opinions over the issue, the committee voted 9-6 to leave the ban in place, ignoring the advice from people who know what they are talking about who said such a ban was discriminatory and worthless.

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Open letter to Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine

Joshua Meadows — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:02:24 +0000

Dear [DNC Chairman] Tim Kaine: My name is Joshua Meadows. I am writing you in response to an email I've seen circulated from yourself to the gay community soliciting their perspectives and opinions about this Pride Month. I would like to take this opportunity to share some things with you about myself as a gay American.

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Piracy is not killing PC gaming

Joshua Meadows — Sun, 23 May 2010 06:23:23 +0000

Last week, Yahoo!'s Plugged In site ran an interview with Epic Games' president Mike Capps detailing why his company has decided to leave the PC platform and switch focus to console games. Inevitably, his claim of rampant piracy has been picked up on a number of news sites and thrown up as validation that PC gaming is somehow "dying."

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Steam comes to OS X: a bit bumpy, but welcome nevertheless

Joshua Meadows — Thu, 13 May 2010 17:35:56 +0000

As you may have heard, yesterday Valve (mostly) met one of their rare scheduled dates and released the OS X version of their popular digital distribution client, Steam. While the move to OS X is certainly a welcome one, as it gives access to a subset of computer users often left out when it comes to games, Steam's arrival hasn't been completely graceful.

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This article was originally posted on ctrlclick.com

98 percent of Australians support R18+ classification

Joshua Meadows — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:25:50 +0000

No real surprise: the preliminary results of December's public solicitation over an R18+ classification for video games have started to come in; overwhelmingly, the public is in favour of introducing one. Last year the Minister for Home Affairs released the long-awaited discussion paper and gave Australian citizens and lobbyist groups the chance to voice their opinions on implementing a classification for games higher than the existing age-15 limit we have today. Even in February it was clear that the results would be firmly in the for-camp and although final numbers haven't been tabulated yet, so far only a small percentage of Australian citizens oppose the measure.

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This article was originally posted on ctrlclick.com

Diversity, and the obligations of game developers

Joshua Meadows — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 07:25:48 +0000

BioWare is again being questioned about the lack of same-sex love interests in the Mass Effect franchise. When 1UP writer Tracey John spoke with project lead Casey Hudson and BioWare head Ray Muzyka, she just wanted to know, in a game built so much around choice, why couldn't her female Shepard have a romance with the female quarian Tali'Zorah vas Neema. This is the paradox that studios like BioWare find themselves in: the more choices you give players, the higher expectations those players have that more and more diversity will be available as a choice.

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This article was originally posted on ctrlclick.com

Our advocates are letting us down

Joshua Meadows — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:01:32 +0000

Lt. Dan Choi, an individual who has inadvertently become the face of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the US, got arrested last week for an act of civil disobedience wherein he chained himself to the gates of the White House to draw attention to the issue. What started out with Choi apparently gatecrashing a Human Rights Campaign rally with Kathy Griffin ended with Choi marching to the front of the White House and handcuffing himself to the fence. He was arrested, along with the co-chair of GetEqual, Robin McGehee, and Cpt. Jim Pietrangelo (who had also chained himself alongside Choi). What had begun as a photo op for HRC got hijacked by Choi and, tellingly, HRC refused to get themselves involved.

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This article was originally posted on ctrlclick.com