Earl Bockenfeld: Body

Breast-feeding Image Freaks Out Readers

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 16:06:00 GMT

Breast-feeding Image Freaks Out Readers

This just in: An exposed lactating breast is causing a bit of a stir. The offending breast, shown in all its glory on the cover of this month's Babytalk magazine, is attached to a blissfully contented babe to illustrate the cover story, "Why Women Don't Nurse Longer."

Many readers took issue with the cover art. One mother was concerned about her 13-year-son seeing it. "I shredded it," says Gayle Ash of Belton, Texas. "A breast is a breast - it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that." Amen, Gayle. God, if he'd seen that, the next thing you know, he'd be robbing convenience stores for the Playboys and Penthouses. While you're at it, Gayle, you'd better take away his computer and any other device that could connect him to the outside world. Oh, and forget cable, as well as any NFL halftime show.

Babytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breast-feeding in public. "There's a huge Puritanical streak in Americans," she says, "and there's a squeamishness about seeing a body part - even part of a body part." "It's not like women are whipping them out with tassels on them!" she adds. "Mostly, they are trying to be discreet." Kane says that since the August issue came out last week, the magazine has received more than 700 letters - more than for any article in years.

The editors of Babytalk tell MSNBC they were surprised at all the fuss. Not sure I believe that. More likely they figured, put a bare tit on a magazine cover, and it's going to get noticed. Smart thinking. Better than showing a mother cradling her bundle of joy with circles under her eyes the size of doughnuts from four months of midnight and 3 a.m. feedings. I remember asking my wife why she stopped doing it after what seemed like a relatively short time, and she said something like, "If the critter was chomping at your breast five times a day every day, you'd know why, you idiot. It hurts!" Not a pretty picture.

Via The Consumerist, who have their own complaint: that the breast isn't big enough. The religious right is at it again. I believe that they mentioned that it is a breast, and all references to breasts are sexual in nature. Really? I'm sorry that whenever you (Christian Republican prude) see a child breast-feeding, you (Christian Republican prude) assume that both the mother and the child are getting sexual satisfaction out of it. Just because you (Christian Republican prude) somehow get moist thinking about a child suckling at your (Christian Republican prude) breast doesn't mean that the rest of the country feels the same way.

I find it absolutely disgusting that our culture is SO detached from the true nature of the human being that we now find cutting open breasts and putting in saline packets to make them look larger acceptable, yet using and showing them for their intended purpose is wrong....I just don't get it. Are women that self-loathing? Do they think those sacs of flesh are there to be boxed around, or stuffed into cute sweaters?

You know what? Even if it WAS a nipple showing - so what? The milk can't come out without an OUTLET, aka "The Nipple." It is not your personal erotic object with no other meaning. It is simply a valve, a physical means to keep the human race alive, to keep the human child fed, to be as proud of as your nose, or your lithe and nimble quality, or your hair, or your leg. Why is everyone so afraid of themselves? And of human sexuality, to boot?

The only boobs that offend this family are the ones that are running our country.

Urinal Mirrors "Deliver The Truth"

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:19:39 GMT

Urinal Mirrors "Deliver The Truth"

CAUTION: OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR MAY APPEAR TO BE LARGER THAN THEY REALLY ARE.

Bild is a (tabloid) newspaper in germany. They have come up with an interesting guerilla campaign in men’s bathrooms. The line says: “Nothing is harder than the truth”.
Now we see that the newspaper Bild has installed tilted mirrors above urinals in Germany, more or less forcing men to contemplate their masculinity while taking a leak.

The headline on the mirrors delivers the newspaper’s brand message while at the same time insulting the viewer (or at least the less-endowed viewer): “Nothing is harder than the truth.”
“Nothing is harder than the truth” In german hard doesnt have anything to do with an erection, to clear the misunderstandings.

I don’t think that it’s such a bad idea. the advertising aspect is a little bizarre, but I’ve seen wierder. In a texas “steak hous styled” resturant, there are pictures of suggestive women in “cowboy” gear above the urinals. That’s a little too much. it’s a tough enough challenge to “go” with somone else standing next to you, do you need the added pressure of sexy images while you are holding your stuff?

Actually, coming up with urinal advertising that doesn’t have an element of grossness might be harder, but there you go. Link via Advertising/Design Goodness.

Stripper to Apprentice Trump?

Wed, 14 Sep 2005 07:46:35 GMT

Stripper to Apprentice Trump?

According to dubious source, the television-viewing public should feel shock and awe this morning to discover that The Apprentice will feature thirty-one-year-old self-made millionaire, Alla Wartenberg, who was once . . . a stripper. E! Online reports that Wartenberg’s business savvy began when she discovered the goldmine of the strip joint, performing under the name Ecstasy at Las Vegas’s Palamino Club.

Legitimately troubling, however, is Wartenberg’s alleged relationship with client Robert Acremant, a convicted murderer. Acremant was in love with Alla and was known to shell out $500-$1,500 a night to the dexterous dancer, though she says that she only "liked him as a client. . . [it was a] platonic friendship." In fact, in order to maintain the financial stability he needed to stay in Alla’s life, in 1995 Acremant robbed and killed two women in Oregon. Later, he pulled a stun gun on Alla when she told him she didn’t love him. She was called to testify in his 2002 trial. Acremant was convicted of murder in Oregon and California (where he killed a young man in another mangled robbery attempt) and left Alla "emotionally injured and scarred for life."

Wartenberg later established a salon and spa chain and was one of eighteen hand-picked contestants for the fourth season of "The Apprentice." Alla’s bio is fairly vanilla and describes her business feats, such as purchasing her first building at the age of nineteen. Although major news outlets are scrambling for the stripper story, they seem to have overlooked the truly debaucherous aspect of her character—she cites The Notebook as a favorite movie.

The Boys Do Dove

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 06:37:11 GMT

The Boys Do Dove

Dove soap’s European-wide "Campaign for Real Beauty" has taken on a local twist in Düsseldorf, Germany. The people next door at the local Ogilvy & Mather office have not only sold their souls to their client, but their bodies as well. These local posters are being used in conjunction with the real "Real" campaign and placed on bus stop shelters. The headline reads: "They’re not models, just soft Dove admen from Ogilvy Düsseldorf."

if I understood what was said about it on Brutal women, those are, in fact, the ad execs who came up with the dove "real women" campaign. the specific guys, which is why they aren't models: they aren't, they're ad execs

These men are perfectly average-looking white-collar white dudes, but unlike the women in the ad, they're OLD. And they're clearly not models, which the women in the original ad obviously are -- you know, gorgeous features, perfect skin, no cellulite, perfectly proportioned. The equation breaks down there. Again, what's the point? And why didn't they find younger average-looking dudes?

I'm all for something that makes fun of the squeamish dorks who complain about the Dove ads in the subway (although I also don't pass judgment on anyone's sexual preferences -- a man is allowed to be attracted only to skinny women if that's his thing). But this parody doesn't do the trick -- it's too muddled. As many have said here, these guys seem cute and likeable -- so how does this work as parody? What statement is it making?

Harris: Mean Media Manipulated Pics

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 19:13:25 GMT

Harris: Mean Media Manipulated Pics

Voter disenfranchisement expert Katherine Harris complained today that newspapers have artificially “colorized” photographs of her, thus damaging her public image: the mean liberal media “colorized” her photos to accentuate her blue eye shadow in order to make fun of her during the 2000 presidential recounts.

The fact that no pictures with the aforementioned eye shadow can be found is just part of the plot. Really. And the idea that most people actually saw Harris on TV rather than in print is just a distraction, or maybe CNN employed legions of kids with crayons to mark up the live video feeds as they went out. Or something.

On Monday, on a conservative radio talk show, Harris, now a congresswoman from Longboat Key running for the U.S. Senate, hit back, blaming newspapers for the criticism and charging that some - without saying which - altered her photographs.

“I’m actually very sensitive about those things, and it’s personally painful,'’ Harris said when host Sean Hannity asked about her image problems from 2000.

“But they’re outrageously false, No. 1, and No. 2, you know, whenever they made fun of my makeup, it was because the newspapers colorized my photograph,'’ Harris said.

She didn’t explain what she meant by “colorized.'’

Asked Tuesday to point to an altered photograph, Harris and her staff could not.

Her response to the question, said spokesman Adam Goodman, was, “I haven’t worn blue eye shadow since the seventh grade when I was in the Girl Scouts.'’ She didn’t name a newspaper that showed blue eye shadow.
……

Most newspapers, including the Tribune, forbid changing photographic images.

“Manipulating an image in any form is not allowed'’ by The Associated Press, which distributes photos to newspapers nationwide, said David Ake, AP national deputy photography director. “We’re pretty adamant about that. We have terminated people for it.'’

Ake was AP photo editor in Florida during the 2000 recount, “and I can tell you we did no manipulation whatever,'’ he said.

Some political experts say Harris’ charge makes little sense because most Americans got their visual image of Harris from television.

At least two Harris news conferences in November 2000, detailing her decision to enforce a deadline and forbid recount results, got national TV coverage.

“Of course it wasn’t newspapers, it was television,'’ said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “I can remember watching her and thinking she learned all the wrong makeup lessons from Al Gore in the debates.'’

Beauty is skin deep, but rabid wingnuttery goes all the way to the bone.

Vienna museum opens 'Naked Truth' to nudes

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 17:28:17 GMT

Vienna museum opens 'Naked Truth' to nudes

Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured by an offer of free entry to "The Naked Truth," a new exhibition of early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit -- or nothing at all.

With a midsummer heat wave sweeping much of Europe, pushing temperatures into the mid-90s Fahrenheit (mid-30s Celsius) in Vienna, the normally staid museum decided that making the most of its cool, climate-controlled space would be just the ticket to spur interest in the show.

Peter Weinhaeupl, the Leopold's commercial director, said the goal was twofold -- help people beat the heat while creating a mini-scandal reminiscent of the way the artworks by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and others shocked the public when they first were unveiled a century ago.

"We wanted to give people a chance to cool off, and bring nakedness into the open," he said. "It's a bit of an experiment. Egon Schiele was a young and wild person in his day. He'd want to be here."

Most of those who showed up in little or no attire Friday opted for swimsuits, but a few hardy souls dared to bare more. Among them was Bettina Huth of Stuttgart, Germany, who roamed the exhibition wearing only sandals and a black bikini bottom.

Although she used a program at one point to shield herself from a phalanx of TV cameras, Huth, 52, said she didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

"I go into the steam bath every week, so I'm used to being naked," she said. "I think there's a double morality, especially in America. We lived in California for two years, and I found it strange that my children had to cover themselves up at the beach when they were only 3 or 4 years old. That's ridiculous."

For years, the Austrian capital has been known for a small but lively nudist colony on the Donauinsel, an island in the middle of the Danube River where people disrobe, often startling the unsuspecting joggers, cyclists and rollerbladers who happen upon them.

Overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Austria has always been somewhat more conservative than many other European countries. The Viennese were scandalized when native art nouveau masters like Klimt -- best known for his sensuous "The Kiss" and the subject of an upcoming film starring John Malkovich -- began producing works that some critics panned as "indecency," "artistic self-pollution" and borderline pornography.

The 180 works on display at the Leopold through Aug. 22 include Klimt's "Nude Veritas," an 1899 painting of a naked young woman with wildflowers in her hair, and Schiele's "Two Female Friends," a 1915 rendition of two nude women entangled in each other's arms.

Max Hollein, director of Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle art museum, likened the public uproar at the time to "the visible outcry at the live transmission from last year's Super Bowl when, for a few seconds, CBS broadcast shots of the singer Janet Jackson's exposed nipple."

Mario Vorhemes, a 20-year-old Vienna resident who strode into the Leopold on Friday wearing nothing but a green and black Speedo, was nonchalant.

"What's the big deal?" he asked. "We're born naked into this world. Why can't we walk around in it without clothes from time to time?"

Elina Ranta, a fully clothed tourist from Finland who checked out the art -- and the audience -- left amused.

"I thought, 'This is strange. How is this possible in a museum?"' Ranta said. "We've been in many galleries and I've never seen people walking around like this."

"In English, my name means 'beach,"' she added. "That's pretty funny under these circumstances, isn't it?"

"Real beauty" -- or really smart marketing?

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 19:26:48 GMT

"Real beauty" -- or really smart marketing?

The words appear slowly, against the familiar powder-blue shape of the bird in flight -- the Dove soap symbol -- like soothing, watery poetry:

For too long
beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling sterotypes [sic].
You've told us it's time to change all that.
We agree.
Because we believe real beauty comes
In many shapes, sizes and ages.
It is why we started the Campaign for Real Beauty.
And why we hope you'll take part.

This is the lilting intro to the Web site that Dove has dedicated to its "Real Beauty" advertising campaign, for which it has picked six women who are not professional models -- each beautiful, but broader than Bundchen, heftier than an Olsen twin -- to model in bras and panties.

The campaign is massive; these six broads are currently featured in national television and magazine ads, as well as on billboards and the sides of buses in urban markets like Boston, Chicago, Washington, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco. And they've made quite an impact. Apparently, this public display of non-liposuctioned thighs is so jaw-droppingly revelatory that recent weeks have seen the Real Beauty models booked on everything from "The Today Show" to "The View" to CNN.

All the hoopla is precisely what Dove expected. According to a press release, Dove wants "to make women feel more beautiful every day by challenging today's stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves." The use of "real women" (don't think too hard about the Kate Mosses of the world losing their status as biological females here) "of various ages, shapes and sizes" is designed "to provoke discussion and debate about today's typecast beauty images."

It's a great idea --- a worthy follow-up to Dove's 2004 campaign, which featured women with lined faces, silver hair and heavy freckles, and asked questions like, "Wrinkled? Or Wonderful?" and also got a lot of attention, including a shout-out on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show."

As Stacy Nadeau, one of the Real Beauty models and a full-time student from Ann Arbor, Mich., says on the campaign Web site, "I have always been a curvier girl and always will be. I am proud of my body and think all women should be proud of theirs too. This is my time to encourage and help women feel great about themselves, no matter what they weigh or look like. Women have surrendered to diets and insane eating habits to live up to social stereotypes for too long. It's time that all women felt beautiful in their own skin."

But let's hope that skin doesn't have any cellulite. Because no one wants to look at a cottage-cheesy ass.

That's right. The one little wrinkle -- so to speak -- in this you-go-grrl stick-it-to-the-media-man empowerment campaign is that the set of Dove products that these real women are shilling for is cellulite firming cream. Specifically, Dove's new "Intensive Firming Cream," described as "a highly effective blend of glycerin, plus seaweed extract and elastin peptides known for their skin-firming properties." It's supposed to "go to work on problem areas to help skin feel firmer and reduce the appearance of cellulite in two weeks." There are also the Intensive Firming Lotion and the Firming Moisturizing Body Wash, which do pretty much the same thing.

But as long as you're patting yourself on the back for hiring real-life models with imperfect bodies, thereby "challenging today's stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves," why ask those models to flog a cream that has zero health value and is just an expensive and temporary Band-Aid for a "problem" that the media has told us we have with our bodies. Incidentally, cellulite isn't even a result of being overweight! It's the result of cellular changes in the skin. Skinny people have cellulite. Old people have cellulite. Young people have cellulite. Gwyneth Paltrow has cellulite. All God's children have cellulite.

Why not run an ad that proclaims, "Cellulite: Uniquely MINE!"

Or, more realistically, why aren't these women selling shampoo? Or soap? Or moisturizer?

It's a great gimmick -- one that few of us can take issue with. But just like Dove's "love your ass but not the fat on it" campaign, much of this stuff prompts grim questions about whether it's even possible to break the feel-bad cycle of the beauty industry. Blanchett, after all, recently signed on as spokeswoman for SK-II line of cosmetics. And while it's all well and good to tell 8-year-old girls that real beauty is about trust, it's sort of funny to think about doing it while selling them minty lip shine or fruit-scented "My Way Styling Gel" for eight bucks a pop.

Let them be. After all, they have decades ahead of them in which to worry about eradicating the cellulite from their really beautiful curves.

Yes, You Can Hear Again! All You Have to Do Is...

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:28:27 GMT

Yes, You Can Hear Again! All You Have to Do Is...

Throughout history and right up until maybe the 1950s, hearing people believed deafness to be so terrible it had to be "cured" in any way imaginable, even if the cure risked bodily harm. Even the book Deaf Heritage paid homage to the history of attempts to cure deafness, by reprinting an old advertisement for a cure for hearing loss. Here are some of the "cures," some of which are humorous, from quacks, old wives tales, and superstitions:

Stick a twig in the ear and keep it there all day and night until the deafness is cured.
For acquired (non-congenital) hearing loss, surgically catheterizing the ear and washing it out with gas or water.
Heat your urine using two dishes, and use the water that boils off, in the ear. The water in the ear will stop the deafness.
Fry peach kernels in hog lard and put drops in the ear until deafness is cured.
Climb up very, very high then suddenly jump down. The sharp fall will restore the hearing.
Take opium. The drug will cure deafness.
Cut the body and let out some blood (bloodletting). This will cure deafness.
Let yourself be hypnotized; when you come out of it, you will hear again.
Take a certain brand of snuff. It will cure you of deafness.
Use any of a number of drugs or herbs to restore hearing.
Electrical treatments for deafness, called "electromedicine."
Various special oils that can cure deafness (as well as other ills).
Cell salts and mineral products for treating deafness.

About Deafness visitors submitted the following tales:

My Deaf friend and I were backpacking around the world, of course I am myself Deaf. We stopped in Fiji for a week in October 2003, and there was a woman came in our room to begged us to come with her to see her priest. She believed that her priest put his hand on our heads that will cure our deafness and explained to us that priest cured many Deaf Fijians for last 100 years. I burst to laugh, and explained to her that I am very happy to be Deaf, and nothing can change my deafness. She was shocked to hear that I am happy, and refused to accept it. I realised that everybody in Fiji believe that the priests are healers.
My parents were told in the late 40's or early 50's that taking my brother to a chiropractor would cure his deafness.
My father and two of his siblings are deaf. He grew up in a rural area of southwestern PA. In the early 1930's his grandparents melted bear fat and poured it into his ears in an attempt to cure his deafness.
Back in the 1960's,when she (a deaf friend) was discovered at 2 years old to be deaf, her Italian mom flew her over to the vatican in Rome to get guidence from the priests and bishops. They assured her that when the deaf daughter began to menstruate at the onset of puberty, she would most certainly become cured.
A boy and his parents went on a high mountain top to visit a wise man and he put oils in his ear and prayed with him and said that if he is good and his soul is good and he prays for 7 days the deafness will go away. If he was bad and his soul was black and that he was (associated with) the devil then in 7 days (then) his deafness would not go away and to send him into the woods. I heard this story from my ASL teacher.
I'm living in Norway. When I was a little boy, my grandmother took me to a "healer" to cure my deafness. The "healer" said to my grandmother that I have to eat 20 tomatoes each day. Then I could hear again! I started to eat tomatoes, but - stopped after a half day! Still deaf!
Sit ina chair for 3 days and 3 nights without food or water and deafness will be cured.
While yawning put pepper in mouth and the sneeze will take away your deafness.

'SURVIVOR' JENNA TO BARE IT ALL

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 04:32:06 GMT

'SURVIVOR' JENNA TO BARE IT ALL
By DON KAPLAN

June 9, 2003 -- JENNA Morasca, the swimsuit model who won $1 million last month on "Survivor: Amazon," won't need the swimsuit in her next photo spread.

Jenna, 21, is taking it all off for the August issue of Playboy - to show viewers what they couldn't see last season when she and fellow contestant Heidi Strobel went topless for one of the challanges.

Heidi, 24, a phys-ed teacher from Missouri, will also appear in the Playboy feature.

It was something of a first when CBS showed the two women shirtless - albeit with their breasts obscured by video scrambling - on network TV.

"To my mind that was a classic moment of primetime television," Playboy editorial director James Kaminsky told The Post.

Playboy claims it is another first to get the big-money winner of a reality show - not a runner-up- to pose.

Jenna could earn another $1 million or more - depending on sales of the magazine - with the Playboy cover feature.

The photo session took place in a Brooklyn studio last month, the morning after Jenna was crowned the winner on a live telecast on May 11.

"Jenna actually went from her appearance on the Letterman show directly to our studio," Kaminsky said.

The sexy pictorial got the green light from "Survivor" executive producer Mark Burnett and CBS - both could have blocked the girls from posing nude. Under the contract "Survivor" contestants must sign, CBS has final say when and where participants may appear and who they may give interviews to for up to a year after the show airs.

Last month, CBS blocked Jenna from posing in an anti-fur ad for the animal rights group, PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The network has since reversed that decision.

<snip>

There may have been one hitch, say insiders.

Shortly after the shoot, one or both of the girls were said to have had second thoughts about posing nude and tried to pull out of the deal, a source told The Post.

But Kaminsky said to his knowledge everything went easily.

"As far as I know there was no problem.," he said. "Everything went as smooth as you hope these shoots go."

This will also be the fastest Playboy has ever turned around a photo project. The magazine's editors typically spend months working the photo shoots into each issue.

The "Survivor" project will go from photo session to print in the less than 90 days.

"It's about as fast as we're capable of doing it," Kaminsky said. "I'd love to think that we can use this as a model for the future because we often spend an awful lot of time on the photo shoots, it's just sort of the process."

[More..]

[Via NYPost]

Researching Circumcision

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 03:25:00 GMT

Researching Circumcision

By razniq
Wed Jan 15th, 2003 at 08:15:07 AM EST

For most of my life I have never given circumcision a second thought. It was done for health reasons and that's it. As far as I knew every guy was circumcised and an uncircumcised penis was unsanitary. About three years ago I was just walking through my university library when I noticed a book on the floor. It was about circumcision written by a member of a group called Mothers Against Circumcision. Why any mothers or anyone for that matter would be against circumcision was beyond me. I just skimmed through it briefly and dismissed it as absurd and continued on my way. I didn't think about circumcision again until this past October when a friend told me that the vast majority of men even in 'civilized' countries were uncircumcised so I decided to research it for myself.

Circumcision was originally introduced into the United States in the late 1800's as a panacea for many illnesses including 'masturbation' [1]. By the 1950's non-religious circumcision was common in many English-speaking countries but has since declined dramatically in every country except one. Presently the US is the only nation to routinely circumcise a majority (65.3% in 1999 [2]) of its baby boys for non-religious reasons. There is no medical organization in the world that recommends routine infant male circumcision for medical reasons, yet hygiene and believing circumcision is inevitable later in life are the most oft-cited reasons why parents decide to circumcise [3].

For most American men circumcision was their parent's choice. Unfortunately however most parents were/are not aware that the foreskin is actually not a 'small piece of extra skin'. The foreskin provides almost half of the penile skin, enough to provide partial to full coverage of the glans (head of the penis) when erect [4]. The glans is an internal organ that was never meant to be exposed to the abrasion of clothing and be allowed to dry out. The foreskin protects the glans from desensitization and keeps the glans in a mucosal environment that provides natural lubrication during masturbation and sex so that the use of artificial lubricants is not necessary. If you are circumcised you may have noticed that the skin from your scar to the head of your penis is sexually sensitive; so was your foreskin. The foreskin is the primary erogenous tissue of the penis and necessary for normal sexual function [5]. Without a foreskin the sensitivity of the glans can become dulled which may be the reason why circumcised men are more likely than uncircumcised men to seek out oral and anal sex [6].

Even though female circumcision (as it's called in countries where it's part of the culture) or female genital mutilation (as it's called here) can be significantly more impairing than male circumcision (as it's called here) or male genital mutilation (as it's called by those who know the foreskin is erogenous tissue), both are involuntary surgical alteration of a minor's genitalia for cultural reasons. In the US it is now illegal to surgically alter the genitals of a girl, yet why can't we offer boys the same protection?

In the circumcision debate consider these three things: that it is controversial, irreversible, and there is a sizable number of men who are not happy with the choice that was made for them [7]. Just considering these three things alone is enough to conclude that we should end routine infant male circumcision and instead let circumcision be a choice each individual makes for himself when he reaches an age where he can decide what's best for his body.

References

Wallerstein E. Circumcision: the uniquely American medical enigma. Urologic Clinics of North America 1985;12(1):123-132.
Trends in circumcisions among newborns, National Center for Health Statistics.
J.D. Tiemstra, Factors affecting the circumcision decision, Journal of the American Board of Family Practitioners 1999; 12(1): 16-20.
Taylor JR, Lockwood AP, Taylor AJ. The prepuce[foreskin]: specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision. British Journal of Urology 1996;77:291-295.
Cold CJ, Taylor JR. The prepuce [foreskin]. British Journal of Urology 1999;83 Suppl. 1:34-44.
Laumann, EO, Masi CM, Zuckerman EW. Circumcision in the United States. Journal of the American Medical Association 1997; 277(13):1052-1057.
T. Hammond, A Preliminary Poll of Men Circumcised in Infancy or Childhood. British Journal of Urology International (83, Suppl. 1), p. 85-92, January, 1999.

[Via Kuro5hin]

Add "public nudity" to the nightmare scenarios associated with terrorist attacks

Wed, 05 Jun 2002 05:21:26 GMT

We'd rather die than take our clothes off, disaster planners say

By Dru Sefton
Newhouse News Service

WASHINGTON — Add "public nudity" to the nightmare scenarios associated with terrorist attacks.

A new report by a disaster-planning expert confirms what others have said: In the event of many biological or chemical attacks, removal of victims' clothing is one of the most important and effective means of decontamination.

"You hold them, you strip them and you wash them," said Henry Siegelson, report author and clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at Emory University in Atlanta.

But the reluctance of modest victims to strip naked in front of co-workers or strangers "has been one of the issues that has prevented us from moving forward and developing a scheme to manage mass casualties," he said. "Some people would rather be dead than strip in public."

The situation has occurred several times. On Christmas Eve 1998, an anthrax threat forced more than 200 at a Mervyn's store in Palm Desert, Calif., to disrobe and be hosed down in a makeshift tent in the parking lot.

"We tried to give people as much privacy as possible," said Wayde York, emergency-services coordinator for the Riverside County Fire Department.

Another anthrax decontamination in October 2001 left 24 employees of the Fifth Third Bank of Naples, Fla., wet and clad only in plastic tarps.

Michelle Balon, marketing director, said she finally ran to a store to purchase "shorts, T-shirts, anything we could get our hands on."

Both were false alarms.

But those "strip and hose down" decontamination procedures are necessary, said Siegelson, who helped create the Section of Disaster Medicine for the American College of Emergency Physicians.

"The mere removal of clothing removes the vast majority of the contaminant, then the victims can safely enter a bus or ambulance or car for transportation to a hospital," he said.

Modesty about public nudity has emergency responders rethinking procedures.

York said Riverside County now has portable showering facilities with a private changing area. "And we are not doing mass decontamination without more evidence," he said.

But Judi Ditzler said she's "just kind of floored" that this nudity would be a problem.

"It's terribly sad if that's the situation, that people would rather die than be seen without their clothes on," said Ditzler, editor of Nude and Natural, the magazine of the Naturist Society, a 27,000-member, Oshkosh, Wis.-based nudist organization.

Wed, 22 May 2002 06:15:04 GMT

http://www.cosmiverse.com/news/science/science05210209.html

For Food Addicts, Hamburgers No Different than Cocaine
May 21, 2002 8:30 CDT

Brain dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure, may be responsible for food addiction. Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory found that obese individuals, like drug addicts, had fewer dopamine receptors than normal control subjects.

In an effort to study the relationship of dopamine to obesity, researchers used positron emission tomography (PET), a brain-scanning technique, to measure dopamine levels in 10 food-deprived volunteers. Each was injected with a radiotracer designed to bind to dopamine receptors in the brain. The PET camera measures the level of the tracer.

Because the tracer competes with dopamine in binding to the receptor, the amount of bound tracer can be used to determine the concentration of dopamine. More bound tracer indicates less dopamine. The levels of dopamine were determined in four experimental conditions- with and without food stimulation paired with and without an oral dose of methylphenidate (Ritalin). Methylphenidate blocks the reabsorption of dopamine into nerve cells.

Researchers wanted to see if it would amplify any subtle changes in dopamine levels. Participants' brains were scanned four times over a two-day period with and without food stimulation, paired with and without an oral dose of methylphenidate. Food stimulation included foods previously reported as the participants' favorites.

Warming the food to enhance the smell, subjects were allowed to view and smell the food. Using a cotton swab, a small portion of the food was also placed on their tongues. During scans when food stimulation was not used, subjects were asked to describe their family history in as much detail as possible as a control method.

Study participants also described, on a scale of 1 to 10, whether they felt hungry or desired food prior to food stimulation and then at five- minute intervals for a total of 40 minutes. Researchers found that food stimulation in combination with oral methylphenidate produced a significant increase in extracellular dopamine in the dorsal striatum. There was also a correlation between the increase in dopamine triggered by food stimulation and methylphenidate and the changes in self-reports of 'hunger' and 'desire for food.'

According to a BNL news release, "This suggests the dopamine increases during the food/ methylphenidate condition reflect the responses to food stimulation and not the isolated effects of methylphenidate," said Nora Volkow, a psychiatrist and the study's lead investigator. The study shows that low doses of methylphenidate amplify dopamine signals.

Additionally, it shows that the dopamine system in the dorsal striatum plays a role in food motivation. Interestingly, the same relationship was not observed in the ventral striatum, which includes the nucleus accumbens, the area of the brain thought to be responsible for regulating food intake by modulating reward and pleasure while eating.

"Eating is a highly reinforcing behavior, just like taking illicit drugs," Volkow said in the news release. "But this is the first time anyone has shown that the dopamine system can be triggered by food when there is no pleasure associated with it since the subjects don't eat the food. This provides us with new clues about the mechanisms that lead people to eat other than just for the pleasure of eating, and in this respect may help us understand why some people overeat."

The study will appear in the June 1, 2002 issue of Synapse.

Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Fri, 10 May 2002 01:26:23 GMT

Wine may be Cure for the Common Cold
May 9, 2002 8:30 CDT

Much ado was made about research that indicated moderate amounts of alcohol actually helped reduce the risk of heart related problems. Now, Spanish researchers have helped to boost wine drinkers everywhere by announcing that research indicates those who drink wine have less colds.

Reuters reported that Dr. Miguel A. Hernan of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts and colleagues from the University of Santiago de Compostela and the University Hospital of the Canary Islands studied the habits of 4,272 teachers at five Spanish universities.

For the course of a year the participants, age 21-69, kept a journal of cold symptoms such as sneezing, chills, runny nose, headaches, nasal congestion and cough. When the data were compiled, researchers reported that those drinking fourteen or more glasses of wine each week caught colds 40% less than those who did not drink alcohol at all

Red wine drinkers faired better than those drinking any other single wine. Those who consumed red and white wine both did even better. The results were not the same for participants drinking other types of alcohol. Risk factors for catching a cold, such as exposure to children, smoking, allergies and other diseases, were taken into consideration.

Adjustments for those risk factors did nothing to change the results of the study. These type results cause one to wonder what makes the wine drinker more resistant to colds? The study did not investigate the reasons for the results, but researchers did offer some ideas.

Perhaps it goes back to the grape instead of the wine itself. Grape skins contain an antioxidant called flavonoids. Earlier research suggests that flavonoids fight the rhinovirus, a common cause of colds. Further research will be necessary to determine the exact reasons. In the meantime, drink to good health.

Tue, 07 May 2002 17:49:15 GMT

EXERCISING HER RIGHT TO WORK
    Fitness instructor wins weight-bias fight
     Elizabeth Fernandez, Chronicle Staff Writer
     Tuesday, May 7, 2002
     ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/07/MN223501.DTL

Jennifer Portnick, a 240-pound San Francisco aerobics instructor rejected by Jazzercise because of her size, has reached an agreement under which the firm will drop its requirement that instructors look fit.

After weeks of mediation with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, Jazzercise Inc., the world's biggest dance-fitness organization, agreed to change company policy.

The case, which drew international attention, was the first to be settled under San Francisco's "fat and short" law, an ordinance barring discrimination on the basis of weight and height.

"I'm absolutely thrilled with this outcome," said Portnick, 38, a computer systems training manager who works out six days a week and has sufficient stamina to lead back-to-back aerobics classes.

"I'm lucky to live in San Francisco, where there's a law to protect people like me."

Busy running her own fitness program, Portnick said Monday that she no longer intends to apply for work with Jazzercise.

"My goal in filing the complaint was to make sure that no one else would have to be discriminated against based on their so-called lack of fit appearance," said Portnick, who to her astonishment found her measurements fodder for daytime talk show commentary after her complaint was filed.

"From now on, the evaluations of applicants will be based on their skill."

JAZZERCIZE CHANGES STANDARD

In the settlement, Jazzercise acknowledged: "Recent studies document that it may be possible for people of varying weights to be fit. Jazzercise has determined that the value of 'fit appearance' as a standard is debatable."

The terms of the agreement were announced Monday to great jubilation at a "street circus" at Justin Herman Plaza celebrating the 10th International No Diet Day. The message: Health and fitness are what counts, not size.

The rally featured rotund cheerleaders waving pompons, poetry about poundage and assorted fat activism: "Two-four-six-eight, we do not regurgitate.

Three-five-seven-nine, love your body, it's just fine."

Amanda Piasecki, 27, a graduate student in Oakland, wore a lavender slip, fishnet stockings and a photo of herself as an anorexic teenager. Shackled by a chain on her ankles were two scales.

"A lot of women are shackled to the scale," says Piasecki, who weighs 225 pounds. "I went on a lot of extreme diets. I ate 800 calories a day for two years. I'm now at my natural body size, and I'm a lot happier."

15 YEARS OF AEROBICS

At the rally, Portnick, with characteristic bounce and high spirits, led onlookers in a few aerobics routines.

A semivegetarian who stands 5 feet, 8 inches tall and wears size 16 to 18, Portnick had been doing high-impact aerobics for 15 years.

Last spring, her Jazzercise teacher was so impressed by her stamina and ability that she invited Portnick to audition to become a Jazzercise certified instructor.

But a company manager said Portnick would have to develop "a more fit appearance."

Portnick won certification through the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America.

Her attorney, Sondra Solovay, who specializes in weight-discrimination cases and is the author of "Tipping the Scales of Justice," said the settlement is a victory not only for the fitness industry but for civil rights.

"The reality is there is very little protection from weight discrimination in this country," she said.

The YMCA of the East Bay recently hired Portnick to work as an aerobics teacher and consultant.

"About 65 percent of the adult population does not exercise," said President and CEO Robert Wilkins. "Many people will look at Jennifer and say I can be healthy too."