Thursday, October 12, 2006

Dove soaps continues their North American “Campaign for Real Beauty” advertising with a television commercial that explores the alterations that can be done on models.

Labeled “a Dove film”, the commercial is entitled “evolution”. Beginning with a woman walking into a photo shoot. From there, she is primped and plucked by hair and makeup artists, then tweaked on a Photoshop-like program.

The photo-manipulation is then posted on a billboard for the fictional “Easel Foundation Makeup” brand. Two young, teenage girls walk past, glancing at the board.

“No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted” ends the ad in text, “Every girl deserves to feel beautiful just the way she is.”

Dove runs the Dove Self-Esteem Fund as a part of their Campaign for Real Beauty. In the marketing campaign, Dove uses “real” women, instead of professional models, in an attempt to instill self-esteem in their customers.

This continuing promotion, launched in 2004, was on the forefront of a current trend in Western culture to abandon the overly idealised images the media portrays of women. Recently some fashion capitals have mandated minimum body mass indexes for runway models. The top rated comedy in the United States and Canada is Ugly Betty, a series that stars an average girl coping at a fashion magazine. The series is based on Betty la Fea, an extremely popular Colombian telenovela, which has been reproduced internationally.

Only two percent of women surveyed worldwide consider themselves beautiful, according to ABC Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts, whose program debuted the commercial this morning at 8:07 am EST.

The ad is currently playing on the Campaign for Real Beauty’s homepage.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Satire site Uncyclopedia, a parody of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, has been labeled by the Malaysian government as dangerous. The Internal Security Department of Malaysia issued the warning today, saying that the site has “messages and information insulting Malaysia”.

The warning notes the creation date of the website as being 5 January 2005, and hosted by Wikia, Inc., both of which are correct. However, it claims Wikia owns Wikipedia; Wikipedia is a charitable non-profit website owned by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, while Wikia is an independent, for-profit company.

The report evidently mentions that Uncyclopedia covers Malaysian “history, culture, the political leaders, the government, the national song and the name / history of the national flag,” none of which is “correct”. They accuse the website of helping to reinforce a bad international image of their country.

There are no reports of the site being blocked from access within the country, only this statement, which urges Malaysians not to circulate the content.

Uncyclopedia’s article on Malaysia begins:

The site has fired back with a parody article posted at the site under their UnNews section, titled Uncyclopedia Internal Security Department warns on Malaysia. The article suggests that the “Internal Security Department of the Uncyclomedia Foundation,” which is a facetious and fictitious parent organization of Uncyclopedia, identifies Malaysia “as a dangerous country… It warned its people not to use the country today.”

There are forty-seven individual language editions of Uncyclopedia, including Tolololpedia, which is written in Bahasa Melayu, the Malay language. This is in addition to fictional “language” editions which include Oscar Wilde, Newspeak, N00b, White Supremacist, and Re: PharmaccgRy.

Friday, November 30, 2007

A major oil pipeline in Minnesota exploded and caught fire, killing two workers. The pipeline carries oil from Saskatchewan, Canada to close to Chicago, United States, representing 16% of America’s total oil imports.

The section of the pipe that exploded was undergoing maintenance at the time to address a pinhole leak first identified three weeks earlier, and patched at the time with a metal sleeve. On Wednesday, the entire section was removed and replaced with a new one. When oil was reintroduced on Thursday morning, oil leaked where the new section joined the pre-existing pipe, triggering the fatal explosion.

The fire was extinguished later the same day.

The line is split between four separate pipes. After the explosion, all four pipes were shut down, resulting in the global price surge, but this subsided for the most part after it became clear that the three undamaged pipelines had returned to normal operation, restoring 80% of the line’s capacity, and that the accident pipe is expected to be back in use in a matter of days.

“There were no problems found in that area where the leak occurred,” reporters were told by Larry Springer, spokesman for Enbridge, the Canadian company that owns the line. High-tech equipment had been through the line in 2006 to check for any signs of problems.

Enbridge identified the deceased as Dave Mussati Jr. and Steve Arnovich, both of whom were contract workers based in Superior, Wisconsin. The damaged section of pipe is in Clearbrook, which is approximately 350 miles Northwest of Minneapolis.

Enbridge metallurgists have been sent to examine the failed section in an effort to determin the cause of the accident. Other Enbridge workers are working to clear spilled oil from the site. It is expected that once this is complete, the pipe will return to service.

Global crude oil prices temporarily spiked by over US$4 per barrel but closed yesterday slightly above original prices.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

At least 20 people have died and 20 more are injured after a partially constructed flyover (overpass) in Hyderabad, India collapsed onto traffic.

The disaster occurred at the Panjagutta junction, near Nagarjuna Circle. Two large concrete sections dropped onto oncoming cars and motorised rickshaws, damaging several severely.

A large emergency effort was immediately activated, but experienced severe difficulties in reaching the site due to congested traffic resulting from the collapse. Ambulances from the 108 EMRI Service and Appollo Hospitals attended the scene, and rushed the injured to a variety of nearby hospitals. All the region’s major hospitals, particularly the nearby Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences, have placed their medical staff on emergency alert. Rescuers are now using cranes and cutting equipment in an effort to reach anyone who may still be trapped. It is expected that the death toll could rise further as many vehicles remain trapped under tons of debris.

Various politicians also attended the scene, including the local district collector, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy, Senior Congress Leader and MLA from Khairathabad P Janardhan Reddy and several other ministers.

Police have asked both the public and the press to keep away from the area, in order to prevent further collapse of the unstable structure. Preliminary investigations suggest the flyover had been been poorly constructed. The construction project had been carried out by leading contractor Gammon India Limited. It had been delayed, the original foundations having been built in 2005. After a successful request by the company to have the deadline for the project extended, work was slated to cease in November of this year, with the flyover entering operation by December. It is believed heavy rains in the area a few hours prior to the collapse may have contributed to the disaster.