sacred bird » health

jessica simpson’s show won’t be sponsored by vaseline

180 — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:33:58 +0000

not sure if anyone watched it, but jessica simpson had a show on vh1 called the price of beauty, a show designed to “explore how different cultures define beauty and the extraordinary lengths that women will go to in order to achieve it”. the show is being retooled, and is rumored to be yet another makeover show. i’m pretty sure though, that this product won’t be on the market–a skin whitening product called ’skin white’ from vaseline.

the product got a little bit lot of bad publicity last week when facebook india debuted an app, also sponsored by vaseline designed to whiten skin. it features the effect of the product on indian actor and bollywood star shahid kapur’s face–he gets a few shades lighter. men are invited to try out the product using the application. not surprisingly, people were kind of appalled by the application and many protests came up. in response, vaseline said

Vaseline is committed to creating culturally relevant products that meet the needs of its consumers in markets around the world.Much like self-tanning products in North America and Europe, skin lightening products are culturally relevant in India. In India, men use these products to lighten and even out their natural skin tone and to reduce the appearance of spots while protecting their skin from the sun. The Facebook application was created for the Indian market as a culturally relevant and engaging way for Indian men to interact with this product.

i guess they were trying to show how relevant the product is in this print ad.

[vaseline app for facebook, price of beauty, print ad via copyranter]

/’fat/

180 — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:58:04 +0000

well filled out : thick, big b : full in tone and quality : rich Irish Digest> c :d : prosperous, wealthy Time> e : being substantial and impressive well stocked

somehow i’m guessing that the center for science in the public interest didn’t have this definition in mind when it threatened to sue mcdonald’s not for the toxic toys we reported on a couple weeks ago but for the toxic food that accompanies them. it claims that the toys sold with happy meals are deceptive marketing and entice kids to add bad foods that are hazardous to their health “McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children…It’s a creepy and predatory practice that warrants an injunction” said stephen gardner their litigator.

of course mcdonald’s says the suit is crizazy and their spokesperson said “McDonald’s is committed to a responsible approach to our menu, and our Happy Meal offerings…We have added more choice and variety than ever before, a fact that has been widely reported and recognized.”while it may be true that mcdonald’s made it on a list of the top 10 healthy fast food options, it can’t be overlooked that the fast food industry spent 520M bones on toy advertising last year.

this was also interesting because of another report on nbc related to their ‘be well, be healthy‘ series that talked about the soaring rate of childhood obesity, it’s reaching epidemic levels– 4% of kids in the united states are extremely obese and more and more kids are getting weight loss surgery.

[cnn money , cbs for 2009 list of healthy fast food options, nbc nightly news photo via bioethics blog]

how to know if you should give up your seat

180 — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:43:43 +0000

i remember when my friend was pregnant with her first child, she declared that chivalry was dead as evidenced by the refusal of dudes riding the blue line from bucktown to downtown chicago to offer their seats on the subway–we of course were all appalled. turns out men are very afraid to offer up their seats because they often get berated if not cursed at for making the fat/pregnant faux pas. to help out these poor fellows a group of british women put together a list of signs to help determine whether the woman on the train is pregnant or fat. is she:

huffing and puffing (short of breath)?
rubbing her belly or back?
wearing sensible shoes (not stilletos)?
reading some sappy book like a romance novel?
sportin’ cankles?
displaying a tummy you could bounce a quarter off of (pregnant bellys are tight, fat ones are mushy)?

some of these items are still signs of fat people so my advice is, look for 50% of the signs in one person.

[bbcnews]

employees jumping for joy, not

630 — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:43:03 +0000

with 4g iphones expected to ship this summer, it’s no wonder that there’s a lot of pressure at the chinese company, foxconn. the pressure has been too much for the 9 people, the most recent this past week, who have committed suicide since january by jumping from one of the foxconn buildings. foxconn is the main manufacturer of all great things apple (iphones, ipads and ipods) as well as some intel, dell and hp products. the largest of the manufacturing plant houses over 400,000 employees who work from 60-100 overtime hours per month (yes, I said overtime hours). employees live in foxconn villages where their lives consist of working, sleeping and eating. said the ceo of foxconn in response to the latest suicide “We believe that we are definitely not a sweatshop. It’s very difficult to manage a manufacturing team of 800,000 something.” foxconn has hired counselors and even buddhist monks in attempts to get control of the situation but it doesn’t seem to have helped. i got a crazy idea, foxconn. why not adhere to the legal limit on the number of overtime hours a person can work(currently 36) and raise the monthly base salaries from the measly 900 yuans (equivalent of $132) so that people don’t feel their only way out is by jumping off a building?

[engadget, gizmodo]

photo courtsey of jeff croft

you might learn more than you want to know

630 — Thu, 13 May 2010 21:29:44 +0000

my neighbor told me the other day he had bought a genetic testing kit for his dog from petco because they weren’t sure what breed of dog she was*. i’ve heard of genetic testing kits for dogs but was surprised you can just walk into a petco and pick it up like you would some doggie treats.

seems i might not be the only one who thinks things like this may all be a little too casual. the fda is considering requiring a genetic testing company, pathway genomics, to provide information before they are allowed to sell their (human) genetics testing kits in walgreens, a pharmaceutical chain. until now, genetics testing was done in healthcare facilities and not within the fda’s scope of regulation. the fda is concerned that the test results may not be accurate and have “limitations based on existing science, and consumers should not be making important medical and lifestyle decisions based on these tests without first consulting a health-care professional”.

if the fda doesn’t get involved, you’ll soon be able to spend $19.99 to buy yourself a kit at any one of the 6,000 walgreens store in which you swab yourself for some saliva and send it to a lab. $79 will get you the results for drug-response (how the tester will respond to certain drugs), $179 get you “pre-pregnancy planning” results, $179 for health condition results and $249 for all three.

*the dog turned out to be a purebred shih-tzu, which was what they were told when they adopted her, even though she looks nothing like a shih-tzu.

**apparently, despite what we all learned in high school biology, the curling tongue is not a genetic trait.

photo courtsey of tamelyn

maybe obama will attend a workshop*

630 — Thu, 06 May 2010 01:19:46 +0000

participants are asked “to pull their empty pockets out to laugh at each other’s lack of cash, and to point and laugh at themselves.” in some neighborhoods that i know of, laughing at someone like that will get you killed but in the laughter clubs in zimbabwe, it’s considered a good thing. two women, shilpa shah and celina stockill, got the idea to conduct laughter workshops in zimbabwe in response to the economic situation which has gotten so bad the country no longer has its own currency. the workshops teach zimbabweans to aim for 10 minutes of hearty laugher a day. said stockhill of the benefits of laughter, “there are three benefits – emotional, physical and mental. We release stress by laughing, we activate our lymphatic system and it’s a very strong cardio work-out.”

*giggling is good
**since laughter is a good thing, i thought we could all use some. hope the jazz hands do it for you.

photo courtsey of phizphaz1

mickey mouse could’ve done a better job

630 — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:50:24 +0000

i’ve got a few new ones to add to the dumb criminals list

the bank robber who left his wallet, with his driver’s licenses, in the bank after a robbery
the guy who tries to do a little drive-by shooting only to forget to roll down his own window

and maybe we need a new list, dumb and crazy

the christmas day bomber on the dumb and crazy list, you’ve got the times square bomber, who rather than bring down a plane, just got himself a nasty burn in his privates
the times square bomber who 1)couldn’t manage to get his bomb to cause the mayhem it was meant to 2) he left the keys to his house in the car and 3) was stupid enough to waited 53 hours before he boarded a plane to try to get the hell out of town

i sleep a little better each night knowing there are dumb criminals.

photo courtsey of kyle pellet

giggling is good

180 — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:04:52 +0000

dear mr. president:

it’s probably been a while since you’ve felt like this but i wanted to share some good news with you. recent research suggests that laughing does a body good. we already knew that it relieves stress and lightens moods but a recent study revealed that it can have effects like exercise “The new research suggests repetitive laughter can affect hormones in the same way that exercise does…14 volunteers had their blood pressures and blood samples taken before and after watching two videos — one was the violent 20 minutes of the movie “Saving Private Ryan” and the other was a 20-minute clip from comedies or stand-up routines. After watching the funny videos, the volunteers had changes in their hormones that regulate appetite. Like the mechanisms seen after exercise, the appetite-repressing hormone leptin decreased. Ghrelin, which makes people hungry, increased.” the people that watched the depressing videos showed now change.

it doesn’t mean that you can skip the workout to get your funny on, it does mean, though that it can have the same hormonal outcome as exercise. so get out there, watch some youtube videos, take a look at an episode of modern family (everyone says it is the best. show. ever) or go and read some bad protest signs or listen to some people trying to sound really smart.

i recommend that you stay away from jay leno, or this guy, or that guy though.

sincerely,

180.

forget the cheating husband, check out the cute baby

630 — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:54:14 +0000

after weeks of being chased by the parpazzi with only the news that george lopez had visited her several times, sandra bullock emerges.. on the cover of this week’s people magazine. she tells us that not only is she leaving her cheating husband, jesse james, but that she is also planning to adopt a baby boy. 3 ½ month old baby louis joined the james/bullock household in january shortly after he was born but they decided to keep the adoption a secret until after the oscars. shortly after the oscars, james’ many women starting to come out of the woodwork.

if it were anyone else, the public would probably be a little suspicious. not only does she come out of the scandal more loved than before (if that were possible) but now she’s a single mother with a newborn. you know if it were tom cruise, we’d all be wondering how he managed to find someone to sell him a newborn on such short notice.

*just the other day, tito ortiz, ultimate fighting champ and celebrity apprentice from the first season was arrested for domestic violence (his girlfriend is ex-porn star jenna jameson). jesse james was on celebrity apprentice season 2. bret michaels from celebrity apprentice 3 is currently in critical health due to a brain hemorrhage. one has to start to wonder if there’s some sort of celebrity apprentice curse.

is this a preview of what happens on lost?*

630 — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:45:00 +0000

like the other black smoke monster, the volcanic ash from the eruption underneath the eyjafjallajokull glacier in iceland has been causing all kinds of problems. since last week, hundreds of people have been evacuated, thousands of european flights canceled and a presidential funeral has been missed.

losing over $200 million a day, the airlines took things into their own hands this weekend. dutch, german and french airlines have run test flights without passengers and have all returned safely with no problems to the planes. the concern is the ash, which when caught in a plane’s motors can cause them to shut down like it did in 1989 with a boeing 747. meterologists are saying the winds are varying and the volcano’s eruptions irregular so it’s still not safe.

it’ll be up to the national aviation authorities when the airspace is opened back up but if i were stuck in europe on vacation, you can bet i would be hoping it’s not anytime soon.

*there’s been some very smart marketing around the tv program, lost. for the past few weeks, the big question has been - what happens if the black smoke were to get off the island? btw, the photo is a picture of oceanic 815, when the plane broke apart. did you ever notice before now that the black smoke trails behind it?