TwitCause is helping honey bees this week! For every tweet that includes #HelpHoneyBees between November 5th and November 11th, Häagen-Dazs will donate $1 to the Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis. This bee lab is doing amazing research into the causes of Colony Collapse Disorder in hoping to find a cure for this mysterious disease.

Bee populations are disappearing at alarming rates and since Häagen-Dazs relies on honey bees for many of the natural ingredients that go into their ice cream, they started HelpTheHoneyBees.com.

You can learn more about honey bee research from UC Davis on Twitter by following Kathy Keatley Garvey (@keatleygarvey).

Get tweeting and help keep these inestimable pollinators buzzing!

Love Stonyfield yogurt? Have questions about sustainable agriculture and organic farming? Well now is your chance to ask Gary Hirshberg co-founder and CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm as well as the National Family Farm Coalition about food, food politics and Food, Inc.

Join us for a live chat with Gary on November 5th at 9PM EST/ 6PM PST. He will be accompanied by Josh Trought of the D Acres farm and supporter of the National Family Farm Coalition. Grab your friends and family to watch Food, Inc. on DVD and then join our live discussion! The DVD hits shelves Tuesday, November 3rd but is available for pre-order now. Thank you to Stonyfield Farm and National Family Farm Coalition for their support!

Here is how to participate:

1) On November 5th at 9 pm EST / 6pm PST go: http://www.livestream.com/foodinc
2) Type in your question to Gary and Josh to the right of the video player where it says “Type your chat message here”
3) You will see all of the questions, in real time, to the right of the video player
4) Gary and Josh will be taking the questions live, on camera

On the next episode of South Park,  Stan and the fam visit the Denver Aquarium to swim with dolphins on Stan’s birthday. But things turn bloody when Japanese attack and kill all the dolphins, ruining the celebration. Apparently Stan makes it his mission to save the dolphins from the Japanese.

Sound familiar?

Don’t miss the all new episode, “Whale Whores” Premiering On Wednesday October 28 AT 10:00 P.M. On Comedy Central.

Director Louie Psihoyos traveled to Japan for the premiere of The Cove at the Tokyo International Film Festival. When he arrived at the Tokyo airport, he pledged to give the town of Taiji profits from any Japanese screening of the film — if the town of Taiji ends the hunt.

Psihoyos told the Associated Press: “Any of the money that is generated out of Japan, if they stop dolphin-hunting, will go to Taiji.” He continued, “Once the Japanese people see this film … I think they will shut down the cove. “This is not an animal-rights film. This is a people’s rights film for the Japanese people.” You can read more from the AP here.

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The Cove will be screened in Japan for the first time as part of the Tokyo International Film Festival. The TIFF previously rejected the film but reversed its decision in September and they have included it in their lineup.

The Cove screening is set for Wednesday October 21, 10:30 am. Advanced tickets are already sold out but there will be “walk-up” tickets available on the day of the screening.

Louie Psihoyos, the director of the film, is attending the festival and will do Q&A session following the screening. According to a press release from the Oceanic Preservation Society, Psihoyos decision to attend the festival coincides with a recent letter of invitation that he has extended to Taiji’s Mayor, Town Council and local citizens for The Cove movie to be shown in Taiji. “The Japanese town of Taiji is testing its residents’ mercury levels for the first time,” said Psihoyos. “The issue of mercury-laden dolphin meat being sold in Taiji and across Japan, often as mislabeled whale meat, was exposed through the release of the film ‘The Cove’. The multi award-winning documentary reveals the connection between the capture of dolphins in Taiji and the poisoning of those that eat the toxic dolphin meat.“

Visit the TIFF website to learn more about The Cove screening.

Yeah, you heard right. Participant went fruit picking over the weekend with Food Forward, an amazing LA based all volunteer grassroots group that gleans excess fruit from lovely properties they are invited to and donates 100% to local food pantries. On Sunday morning, we all met at a beautiful home in Sylmar to pick oranges and grapefruits. Here’s a little taste of our fruit picking fun! (and HUGE thanks to Yelena Rachitsky for these gorgeous photos!)

The fruit picking team!

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Tomorrow evening, Participant Media is co-sponsoring a Congressional event inspired by Pressure Cooker. We are heading to DC along with BET, Viacom and the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) to help raise awareness and increase funds for career and technical education. The primary federal funding stream for career and technical education is the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. Over the past few years, funds have been decreasing and it’s time to call upon Congress to fund the Perkins Act at no less than $1.7 billion in Fiscal Year 2010.

Students who are part of the CTE programs will be with us tomorrow to give demonstrations of the projects they are working on. Some culinary students will be cooking live for the Congressional staffers who are attending including Rep. John Adler (D-NJ-03), Rep. Robert Brady (D-PA-01), Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO-06), Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ-02), Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA-05).

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Got questions about food, food politics and Food, Inc? Food, Inc director Robert Kenner will be on twitter taking your questions live from the Center for Food Integrity’s 2009 Food Systems Summit tomorrow October 6th at 5:30 PST/ 8:30 EST.

Here is how to participate:

1) Go to www.foodintegrity.org , click on the “Live Chat” button on the homepage and login.
You will need to have a registered, public (not private) Twitter account to participate in the live chat. If you do not have a Twitter account, but would like to follow the chat, a live feed will be available here.

2) Login to your twitter account by clicking Login to Twitter on our Live Chat page.
a. You will be prompted, “An application would like to connect to your account. The application Twubs by 360Hubs Inc. would like the ability to access and update your data on Twitter.”
b. At the prompt, enter your Twitter username information and click “Allow.”
c. You can also chat via www.Twubs.com/CFISummit

3) You must include the hashtag “#CFISummit” to ensure your tweets appear during the online session.

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Los Angeles is hosting the first ever Middle Eastern Comedy Festival from September 22nd to 25th in Hollywood. Why a middle eastern comedy fest you ask?

Well, the mission of the festival is to bring together the most talented comedians, actors, writers, directors and creative folk of middle eastern heritage to help:

1. Dispel negative stereotypes of Middle Easterners in film, television and other media;
2. Provide opportunities for Middle Eastern talent to further their careers in the entertainment industry, with the long-term goal of ensuring a more balanced view of Middle Easterners;
3. Instill pride within Middle Eastern communities across the country and educating American and global audiences about our rich and diverse cultures;
4. Bridge inter-cultural gaps between Middle Eastern communities within the United States and abroad;
5. Provide audiences of all backgrounds with an entertaining, memorable and fun-filled experience.

Some of the performers include:
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