Anyone who lives in New York or follows the national press on public health issues is probably aware that Mayor Bloomberg has been pushing a nutritional agenda whose primary method of implementation is to force New Yorkers to eat better whether they like it or not.  Recent measures have included banning the use of trans fats in restaurants and requiring chains to prominently post calorie counts for all of their foods.  His latest hobby horse has been pushing restaurants and manufacturers to reduce sodium levels in their foods.  Well, the New York Times today ran an article discussing Mayor Bloomberg’s own eating habits, which apparently include copiously salting pizza.  I can’t quite decide if this is hypocrisy, or if it just means that Bloomberg’s sense that New Yorkers needs the food police to watch them is based in his own need to have the food police watch him.

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I know that our readership includes a number of fans of Mark Bittman, the author of the New York Times’  The Minimalist column in the Wednesday food section.  (Betsy, for example.)  I’ve got to step out today, however, and take exception to something he said in an article about seafood in yesterday’s Dining & Wine section.  His article, which is certainly worth a read, discusses the problems inherent in being a seafood lover in a world where the ocean is becoming increasingly fished out to meet vastly increased worldwide demand for seafood. All well and good and true.  Knowing for sure what to eat and where to buy to avoid contributing to unsustainable or damaging practices is extremely difficult and seems to become more so with the passage of time (although this dilemma is definitely not exclusive to seafood, as anyone who’s tried to parse out the issue of local and organic foods is aware). It’s definitely an issue worth being aware of.

Here’s my issue with this article: read more »

Because I know you’re all dying to think about taxes some more, I thought I would highlight this amusing article from yesterday’s New York Times about taxation in the animal world.  (Yes, I’m a huge sucker for all things animal kingdom.)  My favorite bit?

If hope and fear don’t guarantee compliance, there’s always embarrassment. Vampire bats are famous for their willingness to regurgitate a blood meal to feed fellow bats that are down on their luck. In fact, hiding one’s wealth is a problem. A fully fed vampire bat is as bloated as a fraternity water balloon, and the bats appear to rub bellies to see who is in a position to share. “It’s hard to cheat when your stomach is obviously distended,” Dr. Santos said.

Now tell me true, don’t vampire bats seem a propos for the tax season?

The New York Times posted a video about this very subject.  I can’t embed it, but the video can be found by clicking here.

All in all, it’s a good piece in a strictly journalistic sense.  Thought provoking, full of great sources and examples (including a recent Lucky cover, which merged four different images into a new one that was actually a composite of two different models).  But, as always, the fact that this is news left me scratching my head.

We all know that airbrushing is de rigeur nowadays.  Yes, stars (via their publicists) demand it – but let’s be honest, magazines depend upon it to sell issues.  There’s no arguing that humans are visual creatures, and magazines do see a huge difference in sales when they have attractive, aspirational (read: perfect) people on their covers.

Is it right?  From a business standpoint, yes it is.  Consumers vote with their pocketbooks, and they overwhelmingly vote for magazines that feature airbrushed images.  I realize that what consumers say they want and what they actually go out and buy are completely different, but that’s the unfortunate reality.  Companies are often put in a position of looking good and losing money, or making money and looking evil.  That said, I completely agree with the Times video, in which airbrusher says that retouchers should be included in the credits for layouts.

But is it news?  Hardly.  The general media has made no secret of the infamous Redbook cover with Faith Hill, which Jezebel compared side-by-side with its unretouched version (incidentally, this was the story that “made” Jezebel after it was featured in media outlets such as ABC News, VH1 and AOL):

Image courtesy of Jezebel

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I’m almost afraid to look at the business pages each day.  Stocks seem to be in a nose dive, my financial friends are out of their minds with worry about their jobs and the empty aisles (lined with drastically reduced merchandise) at local stores spell doom and gloom for my own industry.

So what’s a girl to do?  Apparently, party like it’s 1929.

The Barcelona Delusion, courtesy of the New York Times

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Following up on my post of last week on the subject of the insanity of wild animal ownership, the New York Times had an interesting article today on the subject of primate pets, particularly topical given the proposed legislation that just passed the House regulating interstate primate sales.  The whole article’s worth a read, but I’ll just provide you with a representative extract (emphasis added):

Bob, who’s owned wild animals all his life, admits Higgins [a Hamadryas baboon] has not always been a model pet. When Higgins was 3, he slept with the couple, often awakening Bob in the morning by climbing to the bedroom rafters and dropping onto Bob’s stomach. On one occasion, they got in a wrestling match, and Higgins put one of his “steel-like fingernails” through Bob’s scrotum.

Bob has considered moving him to a sanctuary, but “I’m just too attached to him,” he says.

Need we say more?

A New York Times photographer, Greg Kessler, captured the transformation of a model from everyday, very (very) young girl into a full-out runway model.

Check it out.

There are other entries in the “Model-Morphosis” series, but this model is the most compelling, IMO.

Courtesy of the New York Times.