What's going on in Venezuela in a nutshell (English version)

A former student, Persida from Venezuela shared this video with me this morning with a short message asking for prayers for her country. Apart from news headlines, many of us are oblivious as to what is happening around the world. Let's keep them all in our thoughts & prayers.

What is 'play'?

Early morning reading from Psychologies January 2012.

New Word: Unlightened

Early morning reading & just came across: "Unlightened". This is a feeling one gets after a particularly mundane conversation where you feel as though you've wasted precious time talking nonsense. I like it! (...the word, not the concept!)

Herschelle Gibbs offered a Bollywood role

From Bollyspice.com

Image from Google Images

Herschelle Gibbs, former South African cricketer has revealed in his autobiography, To the Point that he has been offered a "lucrative role" in a Bollywood movie.

"A totally unexpected surprise came my way recently when I was offered a role in a Bollywood movie that will start filming at the end of May 2011. I'm not sure what the part is or what I'm supposed to do, but my agent has told me it's very good money for only a day's work," Gibbs wrote in his book.

Saying that "India is always full of surprises", Gibbs says that he is not interested in playing a negative character and would first find out more about what his role entails. He wrote, "Playing a bad-boy cricketer who gets involved in a match-fixing probably won't be the smartest career move."

Gibbs has said that he loves going back to India. The former Proteas batsman stayed away from the country for about five years in fear of being arrested by Indian police, who wanted to question him about his role in the 2000 Hansie Cronje match-fixing debacle. "I always used to love coming back to India as it is - especially after the match-fixing issue was settled and I knew I wasn't going to be arrested the minute I set foot in the country," he said.

The autobiography has caused a great deal of controversy in which the veteran batsman has made "startling revelations", the main one being of his sexual escapades while on tour with the South African cricket team in Australia. He also revealed behind the scenes of the 2001 dope-smoking scandal in the Caribbean.

The controversy has gone legal, with South Africa's cricket board asking its legal counsel to investigate the allegations that were made.

Feel the force: Tube-nosed bat

From Korea Times

A tube-nosed fruit bat with an appearance reminiscent of the Star Wars Jedi Master Yoda has been discovered in a remote rainforest. 

The bat, along with an orange spider and a yellow-spotted frog are among a host of new species found in a region of Papua New Guinea. 

More than 200 animals and plants were revealed for the first time after two months of surveying in the rugged and little-explored Nakanai and Muller mountain ranges last year

The findings included two mammals, 24 species of frog, nine plants, nearly 100 new insects including damselflies, crickets and ants, and around 100 spiders.

South Korea: Ban on 'gay drama' in prison creates stir

From Korea Times

   From Google Images

By Bae Ji-sook

Does watching a TV drama featuring a homosexual relationship cause men to become gay?

The Ministry of Justice and some parents apparently think so. 

The ministry ordered the authorities in charge of managing correctional facilities nationwide to stop showing “Life is Beautiful,” an SBS TV drama, to inmates from Aug. 4, expressing fear that the portrayed gay relationship in the show would affect them negatively. 

The ministry runs the “Borami” network, which records TV programs and reruns them for inmates. “Life is Beautiful” used to air every Wednesday.

“The program was promoted as a family drama. However, the focus seemed to have moved to a gay relationship, which does not suit the purpose of the Borami network,” a ministry official said. 

Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India

I could not believe this when I read the headline last night.

Skincare group Vaseline has introduced a skin-lightening application for Facebook in India, enabling users to make their skin whiter in their profile pictures.

The download is designed to promote Vaseline’s range of skin-lightening creams for men, a huge and fast-growing market driven by fashion and a cultural preference for fairer skin.

The widget promises to "Transform Your Face On Facebook With Vaseline Men" in a campaign fronted by Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur, who is depicted with his face divided into dark and fair halves.

"We started campaign advertising (for the application) from the second week of June and the response has been pretty phenomenal," Pankaj Parihar from global advertising firm Omnicom, which designed the campaign, told AFP.

In 2005, Indian cosmetics giant Emani launched the first skin-whitening cream for men, called "Fair and Handsome", 27 years after the first cream for women.

Since then a half dozen foreign brands have piled into the market for men, including Garnier, L’Oreal and Nivea, which promote the seemingly magical lightening qualities of their products in ubiquitous advertising.

In 2009, a poll of nearly 12 000 people by online dating site Shaadi.com, revealed that skin tone was considered the most important criteria when choosing a partner in three northern Indian states.

Beijing Bus Explodes

My colleague just showed me these pics from a Korean site.

In sweltering Beijing, where the temperature is approximately 40 degrees Celsius, a city bus exploded in thick flames this morning. Terrible...

* Luckily, people got out of the bus in time and escaped with injuries. Thank goodness there were no deaths.

South Korea: Will World Cup players be exempt from military duty?

By Kang Shin-who
Staff reporter (K-Times)

Whenever Korean athletes make outstanding performances at international sports events, a sensitive issue surfaces: the exemption of players from completing mandatory military service.

Right after the South Korean football team secured their ticket to the round of 16 at the South African World Cup, the chief of the football organization said he plans to propose the government to revive the exemption of the players from military duty.
 
Cho Chung-yun, chief of the Korea Football Association, said, "What the players want is to be exempted from their military duties."

His remark is causing a fresh round of disputes on the Internet.

In Korea, all able-bodied men over 20 are required to serve in the military for about two years under the country's conscription system. Olympic medalists and gold medalists from the Asian Games have been exempted from the national service.

World Cup 2010 Cartoon on N + S Korea

From Korea Times

'Vuvuzela Day' honors Bafana ahead of 1st match

Story & pics from Associated Press.

by Mia Snyman

JOHANNESBURG — The deafening din of the vuvuzela filled the air Wednesday, all to honor South Africa's national soccer team as it prepares to open the World Cup in two days.

About 25,000 fans flocked to the streets of Sandton, an upscale suburb of Johannesburg, to blow on their long plastic horns on what some are calling "Vuvuzela Day."

Many danced in the square in front of a massive statue of Nelson Mandela, shouting "Ayoba!" — South African slang for super or awesome — while others climbed trees and let their vuvuzelas ring out on those standing below.

World Cup version of Scream painting

Cartoon of the day from K-Times - Scream by Edvard Munch.

3D Porn

Image from Google Images

The other day, I posted a story on Porn you can touch, and now, it goes 3D?! I heard about this a few weeks ago, but just read about it on Korea Times:

Pornography is expected to play a key role in vitalizing the 3D video industry, Bloomberg has reported.

In Japan, where adult films account for 30 percent of total video sales, makers of X-rated material have already begun to take advantage of the new technology. Popular porn actresses Mika Kayama and Yuma Asami will appear in the country's first 3D title, which is coming out this month.

"It was a different filming experience using a new camera," said Sakon, the producer of the upcoming 3D adult flick. "Actors needed to move more slowly, furniture had to be relocated and lighting rearranged to make it work. But it was worth it. We'll make a profit out of this."

Analysts expect that by next year about 10 percent of the flat screen market will be 3D capable as an increase in availability of 3D content coincides with improved technology for television makers.

Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics, Sony and Panasonic have recently announced each company's plan to introduce more 3D-compatible televisions to the market.

Social media can help save the planet -Greenpeace

I just posted the Greenpeace ad campaign clips to stop Nestlé from using palm oil in its products. In this story from CNN, Greenpeace's executive director, Kumi Naidoo speaks about the power of the Internet and social media to help save our planet.

(CNN) -- Greenpeace is well-known for taking direct action in the name of saving the environment, but key to its campaigning now is the collective power of the Internet and social media, says Greenpeace's executive director, Kumi Naidoo.

Naidoo was talking to CNN about a recent campaign to stop Nestlé using palm oil sourced from plantations that it says are responsible for deforestation, primarily in Indonesia.

Palm oil used in Nestlé products

Palm oil is used in a number of consumer products, from chocolate to washing powder. One of the companies that uses it in its products is Nestlé. Palm oil is sourced from plantations, which is said to be responsible for deforestation (primarily in Indonesia).

Take a look at these two powerful clips from a recent Greenpeace campaign to stop Nestlé from using palm oil. The first one shows an office worker biting into a bloody orangutan's finger instead of a bar of chocolate.

This one has a caption reading, We all need a break, but the orangutans of Indonesia don't seem to be able to get one:

Porn you can touch

From New York Daily Times:

The New York Daily News reported that a Canadian artist is creating porn for the blind by turning nude photos into raised images.

The news report said Lisa Murphy of Toronto takes the pictures herself, then uses materials like clay, metal, cardboard to make a relief that's put into a machine that spits out formed plastic pages.

It's an involved process: An individual image takes up to 50 hours to make, and in turn, every book page is made by hand. Thus, the steep price - a copy of "Tactile Mind" goes for $225 Canadian dollars each.

"Even sighted people want to touch it," Murphy, 35, told the News. "Everyone needs outlets to use their imagination, whether they are sighted or not."

Since completing her book about two years ago, Murphy has made about 60 copies of her book.

Sex & the City 2: Anti-Muslim?

Image from Google Images

Article from here.

While I'm waiting with baited breath for the release of Sex & the City 2, I've also been waiting for critics to make headlines with something like this. What do you think?

Los Angeles: Carrie Bradshaw is in trouble and it has got nothing to do with Mr Big. The much awaited sequel 'Sex And The City 2' has been accused of being "anti-Muslim" by critics who have also panned the film for lacking "script and soul."

The sequel to the 2008 hit sees the four New Yorker girlfriends travelling to the far-flung sand dunes of Abu Dhabi, but reviews say that the sojourn conjures up a "scathing portrayal of Muslim society", according to industry bible 'Hollywood Reporter'.

Earth Day (1970)

I love this photograph
on the National Geographic website:

        Student in Gas Mask

• Photograph courtesy AP

  
  On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, a college student sniffs a magnolia blossom through a gas mask in New York City. Such street theater--along with teach-ins, rallies, and other events promoting environmental awareness--drew an estimated 20 million people.
  
  Corky Parker, now director of sustainability for drugstore.com in Seattle, was a teenager when she attended a 1970 Earth Day event in New York. She jokes that she was "more excited about wearing a yellow crocheted miniskirt" her mother had made for the event than any consciousness raising. But, Parker said, she ended up majoring in environmental economics in college and credits the 1970s environmental movement with awakening the country.
  
  "Now it's called sustainability, or green, [but] it's still the same thing," Parker said via email. "Finally the masses are getting it. Now we know 'being ecological' is not separate from business, or health, or community. But it is a part of everything we do."
  
  --Mark Anderson
  

  Published April 20, 2009
        

New TV series about Jesus Christ

Thanks to my brother for telling me about this article.

New York - Comedy Central has a cartoon series about Jesus Christ in the works.

Titled JC, the series depicts Christ as a "regular guy" who moves to New York to "escape his father's enormous shadow".

His father is depicted as an apathetic man who would rather play video games than listen to his son talk about his new life.

Comedy Central has pushed the envelope in the past: the long-running South Park features Christ as a regular character.

The network says JC is on its development slate, steps away from the pilot stage and eventual airing. Many television series in development never make it to air.

- AP
 

Trade movie popcorn for yogurt?

One of the best things about going to the movies is the popcorn, right? What do you think of this? Just read this on the CNN website:

(CNN) -- Some silver screen couples were just meant to end up together: Bogey and Bacall, Harry and Sally, Saturday matinees and ... a cup of low-fat yogurt?

If Sony executives get their way, U.S. moviegoers will have the option of healthier snacks with their flicks -- and they won't even have to smuggle them in.

In a recent speech at ShoWest -- the country's largest tradeshow for the movie theater industry -- Sony Pictures Entertainment Chief Executive Michael Lynton called upon concessionaires to supplement classic, high-calorie soda, candy and popcorn options with more healthy fare like fruit, granola, yogurt and vegetables with dip.