Food & Fashion
Got it?
OK, I googled "skinny model" and this was the first image I found that I felt I could post where the line between fashion and slimness was well made on both sides of the equation. The photos I rejected screamed concentration camp, cancer or starvation. Don't look if your dreams are easily influenced into nightmares.
Sure we all know these celery consuming anorexics are poisoning the psyches of children and young adults. But what can we do about it. Well the Israel parliament is trying something, which troubles my feelings about life, liberty and free will but I wonder...
A new law passed by Israel lawmakers on Monday requires that male and female models in Israel must have a body mass index (or BMI, a measure of weight proportionate to height) of no less than 18.5—a standard used by the World Health Organization before they can be hired for a modeling job. A six-foot-tall model, for example, must weigh no less than 136.5 pounds.
Lawmakers are hoping the measure encourages a healthier body image among teens and fights the spread of eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia.
"Beautiful is not underweight," Rachel Adato, one of the lawmakers who voted for the bill. "Beautiful should not be anorexic."
Adi Barkan, a top modeling agent in Israel who helped Adato craft the law, described underweight models favored by the fashion industry a bit more bluntly.
"They look like dead girls," Barkan told the AP.
So how do we feel about the government regulating body mass when tied to employment? Remember weight restrictions for flight attendants.
Political Signage
With the ability to post a picture on Facebook available to anyone with an internet connection there is a lot of political commentary that crawls through the photoshop process before leaking out into the collective unconscious of the cyber cesspool. Most of the messages are silly or mean; partisan and generally wrong. I tend to rate them on a scale from flat-out stupid to deliciously devious.
But every once in a great while one comes along that I just can't dismiss. I mean when politicians get so outrageous that they make both sides of their own inane argument, you just gotta marvel at what we produce in the way of political candidates. He is a brilliant example thus just defies rebuttal.
Saturation Saturday Redux: Green
Seems an appropriate day for some green exploration, above - the Chicago River dyed for St. Patrick's Day.
another timely photo
Lip Dub
"A lip dub is a type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video. Usually made by filming a group of people lip synching while listening to a song or any recorded audio then dubbing over it in post editing with the original audio of the song. Lip dubs can be done in a single unedited shot that often travels through different rooms and situations within a building, campus or even a city."
I first saw a lip dub in 2009 or perhaps early 2010, it was sort of a takeoff on flash mobs. Recently I was sent the link to a truly amazing lip dub done in Grand Rapids, Michigan and set to Don McLeans American Pie.
If after watching you want to know more, here is the Making of GR LibDub.
Of course there are now hundreds of variations on the web, my personal favorite is LipDub Sorbonne Paris - Coldplay Viva La Vida.
Mississippi For Instance
Yes, between them the ultra-conservative Santorum and the slimy not as conservative Newt Gingrich got over 64% of the vote yesterday.
No, all of you liberals and other sane voters there is no need to worry. The wacko fringe of the republican party is not about to take over the country. Here are the numbers.
2012 Republican Primary Mississippi
Santorum 93,200
Gingrich 88,700
Romney 86,000
Paul 12,500
Total Vote 283,000
2008 National Election Mississippi
McCain 687,266
Obama 520,864
Total Vote 1,224,000
Only the heavily motivated conservative vote turned out yesterday. The great middle of the voting public is really not "anyone but Romney" they are "anyone but Romney except not these guys." Given an actual general election between Obama and Santorum or Gingrich there are some red states that will go for the republican party but the margins will be much smaller than those McCain numbers from '08 and the overwhelming majority of the country will be blue.
This Obama reelection scenario does not make me particularly happy but I have to admit the potential for a strong third party showing in '12 is being slowly eroded by the republican road show. The more these guys talk, the more independent and liberal voters who have been turned off my Obama are thinking - "anyone but these guys."
The Government Made Me Do It
There is one and only one way to address that assertion - "Bullshit!" Unmitigated, unfounded, truthless bullshit! But presented with the facts, some people still need to cling desperately to their own fantasy version of reality.
Here are the facts, you only need to consider two numbers:
$1.4 trillion U.S. dollars
$140 trillion U.S. dollars
Notice that the second number is 100 times larger than the first. So here goes the easy explanation even for those who consider themselves math challenged. In the U.S. the grand total of "bad" real estate loans at the peak of the financial crisis was 1.4 trillion dollars. If the U.S. government wanted to step in to prevent the near financial collapse caused by these "bad" mortgages it could have done so for 1.4 trillion dollars. Just buy up all those bad loans and manage the portfolio. Crazy? Well since the U.S. government spent 2.5 trillion in the bank bailout, 1.4 trillion would have been a discount. And. . . less than half of those "bad" loans actually defaulted, the other half are still making their monthly payments.
So why didn't this happen? Well let's go back to the ridiculous argument that the banks and their Wall Street backers were forced to make these credit risky loans. Say the U.S. government had bought all the loans for 1.4 trillion and apologized for forcing the banks to be so financially irresponsible, wouldn't all of the financial problems gone away?
Well no, you see the 1.4 trillion of subprime ("bad") mortgages were not the problem, no matter who originated those loans or why they made them. You see Wall Street (AIG) used those 1.4 trillion of actual mortgages, loans with real property behind them; Wall Street used those loans to create 140 trillion dollars worth of fake collateralized investment paper . Mortgage default swaps and other byzantine derivative investments all based on that original 1.4 trillion in actual loans. That 140 trillion was sold worldwide and other bankers in other countries followed Wall Street's lead and ventured into the same speculative investment instrument creation based on their real estate markets.
Understand these "other" investment contraptions had no financial basis other than the actual mortgages. One hundred times more money was generated in investment paper than the real estate mortgages held in value.
1.4 trillion in mortgage debt X 100 = 140 trillion on top of the actual mortgage paper
Nothing justified the creation of wealth out of thin air. The mortgage back securities were worth 1.4 trillion the rest of the 140 trillion was slight of hand. No one, not one single soul on Wall Street has ever suggested that the government made them create that pile of worthless investment paper. It was fraud, it was irresponsible, it was greed and it was criminal.
And most of all, the government did not make them do it.
Now does anyone want to know why there is this movement called Occupy Wall Street?
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