Green Beings

Fashionable Animals

Luckily, Rob MacInnis knew the Angela and Frazer Hunter through a mutual friend. Had he called them out of the blue with a proposal for a fashion shoot on their organic dairy farm, they might not have been quite as receptive.

“I take the conventions from the fashion world and apply them to the underclass barnyard animal,” MacInnis (see website) said.

“I would have thought he was crazy,” said Mr. Hunter. “Who wants to take a portrait of an animal?”

Rob MacInnis is clear about his mission.

“My photographs are inspired by photographers such as Annie Leibovitz and David Lachappelle except I use barn animals as my portrait subject. This allows me to draw parallels between the idealization of the human form in contemporary fashion photography and the subjugation of animals by humans.”

In Spring 2010, Rob MacInnis showed his animal portraits in a show Exploring the Complex Relationship Between Humans and Animals. The overview introduces readers to John Berger and his essay ‘Why Look at Animals?’

Learn more about Angela and Frazer Hunter via the ACORN Blog: Nova Scotia about to get even cheesier!

Smile | Clive the fashionable pig @ ACORN blog

Sensual & Superyoung

Cigarette Ads Go Upscale

FDA reveals bigger, graphic warning labels for cigarette packages CNN

America’s Food and Drug Administration unveiled nine new graphic cigarette warning labels today, part of the agency’s first major reform in 25 years. A similar reform is underway in Europe, where it’s believed to already be decreasing smoking.

Cigarette packages will now carry one vivid color image and one of these warnings about the consequences of smoking: “Cigarettes are addictive”; “Tobacco smoke can harm your children”; “Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease”; “Cigarettes cause cancer”; “Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease”; “Smoking during pregnancy can harm your baby”; “Smoking can kill you”; “Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers”; and “Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.”

The World Health Organization, supported by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s private philanthropy initiative The Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use is battling smoking in impoverished countries with a vigorous, blunt confrontation between business and their marketing of cigarettes in developing countries.

The WHO has asked cigarette companies to stop targeting women by glamourising cigarettes in a perfume-like container.

“The tobacco industry is spending heavily on seductive advertisements that target women especially in low- and middle-income countries,” Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO’s tobacco free initiative, said at a news briefing: “The advertisements try to dupe women in believing that tobacco use is associated with beauty and liberation.”

Smoking during Pregnancy Lowers Levels of ‘Good’ HDL Cholesterol in Children Science Daily

RedTracker

Michelle Obama In Africa

Michelle Obama Meets with Nelson Mandela, Says President Is ‘Pouty’ ABC News

US First Lady Michelle Obama visits former president Nelson Mandela at his home in Houghton. (Debbie Yazbek/ Nelson Mandela Foundation)America’s First Lady Michelle Obama characterized her husband the President as ‘pouty’ that he wasn’t able to join his family in South Africa. Mrs Obama met Nelson Mandela for the first time, visiting with the Mandelas at their home in Houghton.

Mrs Obama Arrives in South Africa

The First Lady is traveling with her daughters Malia and Sasha, her mother Marian Robinson and nephew Avery Robinson, 19, and niece, Leslie Robinson, 15.

During a visit earlier in the day to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory in Johannesburg, Michelle Obama was given an advance copy of the soon to be released book “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Quotations Book.”