Hugh Hefner, Crystal Harris Dress as Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke From Their VMas Performance For Halloween: Pictures

Let the Miley Cyrus Halloween costumes begin! Hugh Hefner and his wife Crystal Harris sure got into the Halloween spirit Saturday night. Shortly before kicking off his annual Mansion Halloween party at the Playboy Mansion, Hefner shared a photo of himself and Harris dressed as Cyrus and Robin Thicke from their controversial 2013 Video Music Awards performance.

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"Robin Thicke & Miley Cyrus," the 87-year-old Playboy founder wrote via Twitter on Oct. 26. Alongside the caption, Hefner shared a selfie with Harris in his Los Angeles home.

PHOTOS: Girl Next Door through the years!

Hefner wore a black and white striped top just like the R&B crooner, while the Playboy model, 27, rocked her blonde locks in two top knots. Harris also is seen holding a red foam finger that the "Wrecking Ball" singer vigorously waved around between her legs and against Thicke during their Barclays Center set. Shortly after, Hefner also shared a picture of Harris "twerking" on him, as she stuck her tongue out.

Hugh-Hefner tweets a picture of himself and his wife Crystal Harris dressed as Miley Cyrus & Robin Thicke for Halloween on Saturday, Oct. 26
Credit: Twitter

PHOTOS: Hefner's former girlfriends

Hefner and his stunning wife sure like to keep their marriage fun and fresh. The couple -- married since New Year's Eve 2013 -- were spotted in early September getting the VIP treatment while riding on motorized scooters in Disneyland with a group of friends.

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/hugh-hefner-crystal-harris-dress-as-miley-cyrus-and-robin-thicke-from-their-vmas-performance-for-halloween-pictures-20132710
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Bored, bothered, and bewildered: Exploring the reaction to the 2013 iPad & Mac event

It's almost impossible to actually take in an event when you're covering it live. Whether you're transcribing what's being said, or providing play-by-play commentary, color, and analysis, you're forced to pay only partial attention to what's going on because the rest of your attention is busy digesting, translating, and expounding on it for your audience. So, after I finished doing the live iMore show during Apple's 2013 iPad and Mac event I had to go back and watch it properly in order to fully appreciate everything that went on, to get the subtleties and nuances, to catch the slips and hints, and to formulate an overall opinion of the event. I've done that twice now. And overall, I'm conflicted.

I can understand how Nick Bilton of the New York Times feels about the event:

Lately, however, [Apple] events have replaced the “wow” with the “boring.”

Bilton thinks the products are still good, but the presentation is getting old. Marco Arment experienced similar:

Something felt a bit off about this week’s Apple event.

Arment chalks it up to a combination of lack of surprise, flat presentation, repetitive messaging, and a lack of timely preorders.

I can also understand what John Gruber of Daring Fireball experienced:

Apple’s events are more like watching episodes of the same TV show, but with different bits each time. The show itself grows ever more familiar, but the content changes with each episode.

And Jim Dalrymple on The Loop:

If there was any event in recent memory that demonstrated the depth and scope of Apple’s products, it had to be this one. Every new product tied into the last and the next announcement in one way or another. Whether iOS or Mac, software or hardware, the connection was there.

So, what's going on, and how do these feelings reconcile?

Predictability

The iPad mini going Retina was predictable, but would anyone rather have had it go down in display density instead? That would have been a surprise, but not a good one. The iPad turning into the iPad Air was predictable too, but would anyone have better welcomed it getting heavier and thicker? This, of all arguments against the Apple event, is the most emotional, the most human, and the most inexplicable. Absent new products, most updates to existing products will be logical and incremental. A triangular iPad Air would have been different, but it would just as likely have been stupid.

Mavericks and the redesigned Mac Pro were technically new, but Apple had already shown both off at WWDC 2013, so they were expected, and hence not really, truly new. Likewise the new MacBook Pros, even though the 13-inch ended up being thinner and lighter again, were anticipated because their product cycles are linked to Intel's processor roadmap and Haswell had already come to both the MacBook Air and iMac lines. It was their turn. So, again, not really, truly new.

The iWork and iLife app updates were new, but also existing product lines, and it turns out some people aren't very happy with them, so they get to be both not really, truly new, and, to some, unwelcome for their not really, truly newness.

Add to that Apple's massive manufacturing scale, which makes leaks more likely than ever, and we have people doing the gadget equivalent of reading a movie script before going to the theater, and then being upset the movie doesn't surprise them. Spoiler. Alert.

The world tends towards patterns, and humans are really good at spotting patterns. When things make sense, they're predictable, and as much as we love that, we also kind of hate it. We want movie sequels to be more of the same, but not the same. We love our favorite food, but the twentieth time we eat it is never as good as the first. And much of how we experience things is tied to how we feel at the moment we experience them - a sensitivity to conditions.

Making the iPad Air as thin as it is wasn't easy. Going to Retina in the iPad mini this year was even less easy. Apple barely got it done in time (look no further than the "later this November" shipping date). Pushing Apple A7 chipsets across the entire new iPad lineup wasn't easy either. It was, dare I say it, a surprise. (Or more technically, a payoff years in the making). Not having Touch ID in the new iPads, most likely because Apple is struggling to produce enough sensors for the iPhone 5s lineup as it is, was also a surprise. Also an unwelcome one by many.

Like "one more things", true surprises at Apple events are few and far between. They're the iPods and iPhones and iPads. They're 2001 and 2007 and 2010. Apple will almost certainly attempt more of them, perhaps even as soon as 2014, and we'll likely suffer the same "oh, a wearable, we expected that!" and the follow on "oh, an updated wearable, where's the iCar?!"

We're an incredibly connected, keyed in, revved up, informed, insightful, and grown up community and customer base now. We've bitten of the Apple, and we've lost the paradise of - and appreciation for - the mysteries of our youth.

In this case, with this complaint, it's not Apple that's failing to deliver, it's our expectations that can no longer reasonably be met.

Presentation

Yeah. There were stumbles. Black Knight? It was like watching dad try to twerk. (Or watching me try to use twerk in a sentence.) It was a script pulled too tightly over too much event. Apple used to release new iPads in the spring, new iPhones in the summer, new iPods in the fall, and new Macs whenever they were ready. For the last two years, they've released everything but iPods, iPhones, and a smattering of Macs at one mega-event in October. It is, arguably, too much.

Mavericks, new MacBook Pros, the new Mac Pro, iWork for iOS, OS X, and iCloud. The iPad Air. The Retina iPad mini. And updates to a bunch of other Apple apps. It's almost inarguably too much. I'm tired merely from typing them all out. Yet October was when Mavericks was ready. It was when the new MacBook Pros got the Haswell chipsets they needed. It was when the iPad Air and, especially, the Retina iPad mini could be shipped before the holidays. It was Apple putting the pedal to the metal and getting stuff out as fast as technology and components would allow. It just all happened to, once again, fall on the same month. It was exhausting just to watch, never mind how exhausting it must have been to orchestrate.

Eddy Cue in his Kung Fu shirt, and Roger Rosner awkwardly, slowly helping him make mock album art was painful. But there have been awkward - and painful moments at keynotes for years. It's when it all adds up, the slips, the pace, and the pain, that it begins to create that "off" feeling.

Steve Jobs wasn't immune to this either. Tossing cameras into the audience, losing it over Mi-Fis, getting lost in small features for minutes at a time. But he was Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, he's who Apple's current slate of presenters, from Tim Cook on down are following. Worse, the romanticized memory of Steve Jobs is what Apple's current slate of presenters, from Tim Cook on down, are following. And that's an impossible position for anyone to be in. Apple is still lightyears ahead of most other tech companies when it comes to presentations, but they're held to a higher standard than any other tech company because of it.

There were moments - "mind blown", for example - that stood out, but given it was an Apple event, given all the announcements were recapitulations or upgrades, given the sheer mass of them, and given the stumbles, there weren't enough.

What would make it better is a little more relaxation on stage. A little more energy and a little more sense of fun. Apple introduced some great products. The executives knew that as well as the media. We just needed to see that they knew it. That they loved it. And that they were willing to worry less about script, and risk getting lost in it just a little more. That's the key to any great presenter - they transcend the presentation and make it feel natural, organic, alive, and human. They have fun, and through them, the audience does too.

This, I think, the complaint about the presentation is what rings most true, and what tipped the balance for everything else.

Repetitiveness

As a result of incremental updates and presentation problems, Apple's events have felt more repetitive than they have in the past. They're not, of course - Apple events have been repetitive for years - but once an illusion shatters, it tends to stay that way.

The advantage to repetitiveness is that, when it works, it's magical. It's the chorus in the song you can't stop playing over and over again. It's the signature line you're always waiting for the hero to utter. It's the moment when anticipation becomes reality.

The disadvantage to receptiveness is that, when it doesn't work, it falls absolutely flat.

There's an old saying that the key to a great fight is in the matchmaking. Fighters can have great skills and great game plans, and without changing a thing, explode one night and fall apart another. Likewise with presentations. An off night for Apple's executives, a malaise among the media, and a few flubs plus a few long moments of silent non-reaction, and things start to go south fast.

Does that mean Apple's gotten stale? Does it mean the media is hopelessly jaded? Maybe, and of course not. It's not immediately clear to me how Apple could, or even if Apple should change their event formula. Having attended numerous events by other companies, including almost all of Apple's competitors, I can objectively say no one else comes close in terms of clarity of message delivered. Apple tells you what they're going to say, says it, then tells you what they said. With big, helpful, charts detailing products, pricing, and availability.

Would sideways cars on a broadway stage, or HALO jumpers landing on the roof make Apple events more interesting? Maybe. But would it make them better? I'm not convinced.

Introducing the 5th iPad is going to be repetitive, nailing the chemistry of the event is what makes it not matter.

Immediacy

There were no pre-orders for the iPad Air, just like there were no pre-orders for the iPhone 5s. My guess is its for similar reasons - there's simply not enough stock to allow for meaningful pre-orders and to supply retail stores for launch day at the same time. Instead of having an almost immediate sell out thanks to low pre-order quantities in advance, and under serve people who go to the actual stores on day one, Apple is opting to give retail some breathing room by starting online orders the same day. In a perfect world, Apple would have enough iPad Air stock to have started pre-orders last week, but we live in the real world and sometimes deadlines are sprints all the way to the end.

Likewise the iPad mini, which is crossing the finish line so hot it isn't even going to be ready to ship with the Air. Whether or not Apple announces pre-orders for it remains to be seen, but there simply aren't enough to start selling this week. Even more so with the new Mac Pro. However, that's such a niche, high-end product it doesn't have the holiday sales pressure on it that the iPad line does.

Mavericks, iWork, iLife, and the new MacBook Pros shipped the same day as the event. Can't get any more immediate than that.

So

As Apple events go, the products announced last week were absolutely amazing. The equivalent of nuclear weapons in a conventional theater. I still can't believe they managed to get the iPad Air and Retina iPad mini ready to go as quickly as they did. Mavericks is solid, and the new Mac Pro is porn. I understand the complaints about the new iWork suite, but I also have an idea of the compromise that had to be made there. And the new MacBook Pros are pretty damn fine as well.

But the presentation was rough. They had all the elements, but they just didn't come together. It happened, but it's absolutely something that can and should be improved. We'll never see the iPhone getting introduced again, or the iPad, and we'll never again, not ever again, see Steve Jobs on that stage. But Apple's got a phenomenal set of products and the best team in the tech industry. If an when they can relax, they can let the joy out, they can pace themselves, and they can have fun up there, we'll have fun with them. The predictability, the repetitiveness, those are things that shouldn't and almost certainly aren't concerning Apple.

Keep making great products and nail the presentation, and few, if anyone, will complain about either of those things next time.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/J29amVGiMvE/story01.htm
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Groundbreaking art critic Arthur Danto dies at 89

NEW YORK (AP) — Arthur C. Danto, a provocative and influential philosopher and critic who championed Andy Warhol and other avant-garde artists and upended the study of art history by declaring that the history of art was over, has died. He was 89.

Danto, art critic for The Nation magazine from 1984 to 2009 and a professor emeritus at Columbia University, died of heart failure Friday at his Manhattan apartment, daughter Ginger Danto said Sunday.

An academically trained philosopher, Danto became as central to debates about art in the 1960s and after as critic Clement Greenberg had been during the previous generation. Danto was initially troubled, then inspired by the rise of pop art and how artists such as Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein could transform a comic strip or a soup can into something displayed in a museum, a work of "art." Starting in the '60s, he wrote hundreds of essays that often returned to the most philosophical question: What exactly is art? Danto liked to begin with a signature event in his lifetime — a 1964 show at New York's Stable Gallery that featured Warhol's now-iconic reproductions of Brillo boxes.

"Is this man some kind of Midas, turning whatever he touches into the gold of pure art? And the whole world consisting of latent art works waiting, like the bread and wine of reality, to be transfigured, through some dark mystery, into the indiscernible flesh and blood of the sacrament?" Danto wrote in "The Artworld," a landmark essay published in 1964.

"Never mind that the Brillo box may not be good, much less great art. The impressive thing is that it is art at all. But if it is, why not indiscernible Brillo boxes that are in the stockroom? Or has the whole distinction between art and reality broken down?"

Danto would refer to the show as the moment when art history ended and "progress could only be enacted on a level of abstract self-consciousness." In such essays as "The End of Art," Danto noted the progression of styles in the 19th and 20th century— impressionism, modernism, abstract expressionism, pop art. After the Brillo show, art had reached its ultimate expression and became a medium not of trends but of individuals — some brilliant, some ordinary, none advancing the overall narrative.

"When I first wrote about this concept, I was somewhat depressed," Danto later observed. "But now I have grown reconciled to the unlimited diversity of art. I marvel at the imaginativeness of artists in finding ways to convey meanings by the most untraditional of means. The art world is a model of a pluralistic society in which all disfiguring barriers and boundaries have been thrown down."

Danto would be praised by The New York Times' Barry Gewen as "arguably the most consequential art critic" since Greenberg," an "erudite and sophisticated observer" who wrote with "forcefulness and jargon-free clarity." But his ideas were not universally accepted. Danto frequently had to explain that art wasn't dead, only art history.

Rival critics such as Hilton Kramer questioned whether the story was over and whether Warhol deserved to be part of it. In an essay published in The New Criterion in 1987, Kramer likened Danto's views to one of "those ingenious scenarios that are regularly concocted to relieve the tedium of the seminar room and the philosophical colloquium." He also dismissed Warhol's work as "a further colonization of the aesthetically arid but nonetheless seductive territory" of avant-garde art.

In "What Art Is," a book published in 2013, Danto responded that his "effort was to describe art differently from that of the conservative taste of most of the New York critics."

"From my perspective, aesthetics was mostly not part of the art scene. That is to say, my role as a critic was to say what the work was about — what it meant — and then how it was worth it to explain this to my readers," he wrote.

Danto's other books included "Encounters and Reflections," winner of a National Book Critics Circle prize in 1991, "Beyond the Brillo Box" and "After the End of Art." He was an editor of The Journal of Philosophy, a contributor editor to Artforum and president of the American Philosophical Association.

Arthur Coleman Danto was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and raised in Detroit. He served two years in the Army during World War II and was stationed in Italy and in North Africa. He then studied art and history at Wayne State University and received a master's and doctoral degree from Columbia University, where he taught from 1952 to 1992 and chaired the philosophy department for several years. He was especially influenced by the 19th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and drew extensively upon Hegel in his theory of art history.

After the Warhol show, Danto pursued a definition of art that could be applied to both the Sistine Chapel and a Brillo box. He rejected the ancient Greek idea that art was imitation and the Renaissance ideal that art was defined by aesthetic pleasure. Danto was shaped by the 20th-century rise of "ready-mades," ordinary objects turned into "art," whether Warhol's Brillo boxes or the urinal Marcel Duchamp submitted to galleries during World War I. In "What Art Is," Danto concluded that art was "the embodiment of an idea," defined not by how it looked but by what it had to say.

"Much of contemporary art is hardly aesthetic at all, but it has in its stead the power of meaning and possibility of truth," he wrote in "What Art Is."

Danto's stature as a critic overshadowed his early career as an artist. He was an accomplished printmaker whose woodcuts were exhibited in the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art and elsewhere in the 1950s. He later donated his prints to Wayne State.

"When I became a critic, I met everyone under the sun. But I knew very few artists when I was an artist. Some printmakers, some second generation Abstract Expressionists. ... They were the great figures of my world, like Achilles and Agamemnon in ancient times," he wrote in a 2007 essay about his own work.

"The heroes today are very different, and so the artists for whom they are heroes have to be very different. I could never have been an artist shaped by such heroes, though as a writer, I like their art well enough. I am glad to see that my work holds up despite that. In a way, I feel like an old master."

Danto was married twice — to Shirley Rovetch, who died in 1978, and since 1980 to Barbara Westman. He had two children, Ginger and Elizabeth.

• Visual Arts
• Arts & Entertainment
• Andy Warhol
• Danto
• art history
• pop art

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/groundbreaking-art-critic-arthur-danto-dies-89-140013426.html
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Candice Swanepoel: Instagram Yoga Stunner!

She never disappoints her fans, and Candice Swanepoel delivered some serious sex appeal thanks to a new photo on her Instagram account on Tuesday (October 22).

The 25-year-old South African hottie stretched into a half pigeon yoga pose for a new Victoria’s Secret workout video shoot, and the resulting picture perfectly displays her perky posterior.

Candice is also planning some big things for her own online presence, including some sexy video content.

She gushed, “Very excited to relaunch my website at the end of this month. Here is 1 of the 3 personal videos I did exclusively for the site. My good friend shot them on a day off in miami. This one is quite intimate....Hope you like it.”

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/candice-swanepoel/candice-swanepoel-instagram-yoga-stunner-947917
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'Makers at Work' Offers Inspiring Journey Through the Creative Process

Filled with the tales of 21 unheralded makers who helped to change the way we think and interact with the world, Makers at Work offers new insight into the technologies driving today's industrial revolution. It also leaves readers with one particularly worthwhile takeaway: By breaking down the barriers to entry, open source hardware and software are opening new doors and enabling whole new categories of products.

Makers at Work
By Steven Osborn
Apress Media LLC
Sept. 23, 2013, 324 pp.
Available eBook Formats: EPUB, MOBI, PDF
Print Book Price: US$29.99
eBook Price: $20.99

The maker mentality has no starting point in modern history. People have always honed their creative skills to make things, and societies have always had visionaries who turned their garage hobbies and kitchen table inventiveness into industrial breakthroughs. Today, the maker mentality is essentially an extension of the do-it-yourself craze.

Makers at Work by Steven Osborn offers an insightful look at 21 unheralded makers who helped to change the way we think and interact with the world through the products they created.

Steven Osborn is a serial entrepreneur, software hacker and hardware enthusiast. His startups include Urban Airship, a mobile messaging company that powers mobile applications on iPhone and Android devices for companies like Starbucks, Redbox and ESPN, as well as Smart Mocha, a company combining cloud services and digital sensor network technology.

Osborn's experience gives him a solid working view of the maker process and its impact on technology today. He uses this view to zero in on some of the most significant players in the maker movement.

Forward Looking

In the forward to Makers at Work, Brad Feld, managing director of the Foundry Group, notes that for the last 20 years, people have become immersed in creating new things based on bits. That process is fueled by the growth of the Internet, which he says has woven itself into the fabric of everything we do.

Osborn admits to being in awe of the CEOs of massive, successful Internet companies who overcame numerous obstacles and failures.

"Great projects, great companies and great products don't just happen," he writes in the book's introduction. "These things start with one or more people who have the enthusiasm and desire to challenge what everyone else has done before them. These folks also have stories not just about triumph and achievement but also about failure, overcoming adversity and persistence."

Making It Work

Success stories usually leave out too many details about the frailties of humans at work, with the result that industrial superstars such as Henry Ford and Steve Jobs are often idolized instead.

That is not what this book is about. Rather, Osborn is intrigued by how entrepreneurial makers overcome both failures and challenges. In Makers at Work, he introduces readers to the people at the heart of this maker movement.

The author highlights the new technologies these makers are inventing and shines the spotlight on their building and sharing processes. The reader can't help but gain an appreciation for the way these makers are changing the way we think and interact with the physical world.

A Conversational Approach

Osborn takes an unusual but very effective approach to exposing the lives and activities of his selected makers in this book. Specifically, he does not write in a traditional third-person fashion to retell their stories as gleaned from interviews and research. Instead, he brings the reader into an intimate conversational setting through the use of a question-and-answer format, creating for the reader a feeling of actually being present at the interview.

This approach is not an easy one to pull off well -- questions can fall flat, and responses can be long and filled with self-puffery -- but Osborn does not let that happen. Rather, he guides the conversation into a smoothly told revelation of what each maker has experienced.

Tales of Inspiration

Makers at Work tells the stories of 21 success-driven makers whose struggles produced advancements in the development and use of technology. The makers are not the well-known industry giants of big-name technology companies, and in part for that very reason, it is an amazingly interesting read. The individuals portrayed may not be the luminaries so often extolled in the media and beyond, but their names and stories are no less inspiring.

A separate chapter is dedicated to each maker, illustrating in full color the highs and lows of what it is like to live life as a maker. For instance, Osborn begins his real-life storytelling with Erik Kettenburg. As a boy Kettenburg taught himself electronics and programming. We soon discover how his curiosity for hardware electronics pushed him to build some impressive projects, such as the open source Digispark project featured on Kickstarter.

Anyone who admires the skills of hackers and programming hobbyists will especially enjoy the description of how Kettenburg fell into exploring small-scale manufacturing methods.

The chapter on Becky Stern, who is now director of wearable electronics for Adafruit Industries, is equally compelling. You could say Stern wove her way into a new line of fashionware by applying her childhood skills in sewing and VHS editing. Stern now melds fashion, fabric and geeky devices into wearable electronics. She shares many of her designs with the open hardware community, and she brings a new thread of interest to hardware hackers and stitching students alike with her video and Web content.

What You Get

Makers at Work is not only a enjoyable read. It is an inspiring and satisfying journey through the creative process as experienced by 21 entrepreneurial makers.

The stories told through each interview offer insight into the tools and technologies that are driving today's industrial revolution. The interviews also provide the reader with useful tips on how to turn a weekend project into a profitable business. They reveal how others have used crowdfunding to make their visions a reality.

Perhaps more than anything, Makers at Work leaves readers with one particularly worthwhile takeaway: Namely, by breaking down the barriers to entry, open source hardware and software are opening new doors and enabling whole new categories of products.

---

Jack M. Germain has been writing about computer technology since the early days of the Apple II and the PC. He still has his original IBM PC-Jr and a few other legacy DOS and Windows boxes. He left shareware programs behind for the open source world of the Linux desktop. He runs several versions of Windows and Linux OSes and often cannot decide whether to grab his tablet, netbook or Android smartphone instead of using his desktop or laptop gear.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/79233.html
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Indonesia to ban masked monkey shows in capital

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia's capital is saying no to monkey business. Literally.

Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances.

The order came from Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo, better known as "Jokowi," who wants all roadside monkey performances — known here as topeng monyet — gone by next year.

He said that besides improving public order and stopping animal abuse, the move is aimed at preventing diseases carried by the monkeys.

The city government will buy back all monkeys used as street buskers for about $90 and shelter them at a 1-hectare (2.5-acre) preserve at Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo. The handlers and caretakers will be provided vocational training to help find new jobs.

Animal rights groups have long campaigned for a ban on the shows, which often involve monkeys wearing plastic baby doll heads on their faces. They say the monkeys are hung from chains for long periods to train them to walk on their hind legs like humans. Their teeth are pulled so they can't bite, and they are tortured to remain obedient. The monkeys are often outfitted in dresses and cowboy hats and forced to carry parasols or ride tiny bikes.

Femke den Haas of the Jakarta Animal Aid Network welcomed the decision, saying at least 22 monkeys have been rescued since the sweep began last week and quarantined for health issues. She estimated about 350 animals work as street performers in Jakarta, adding they are no longer able to live with other primates in zoos and cannot defend themselves in the wild.

In 2011, backed by the city administration, the group rescued 40 monkeys used in shows, which are often performed when traffic is backed up at Jakarta's notoriously congested intersections. Many suffered illnesses, including tuberculosis and hepatitis.

Many of the macaques are trained at a slum area in eastern Jakarta, known locally as "monkey village." A trained macaque can be sold for up to $135.

Sarinah, 37, who owns 13 monkeys used in the daily street shows, said the ban has hurt her livelihood. Seven of her macaques have been confiscated in recent raids.

"Of course I'm disappointed ... but I cannot do anything!" said Sarinah, a mother of three who uses a single name like many Indonesians.

She said she takes good care of the animals and loves them like her own children.

"They are the source of our life, how could we be cruel to them? No way," she said, adding that she earns about $3 daily from each monkey rented out to handlers.

She said she will keep her remaining monkeys hidden while waiting for a new job.

The mayor of Bandung, the provincial capital of West Java, has announced plans to ban monkey shows there as well.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/indonesia-ban-masked-monkey-shows-capital-090623593.html
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Following Bloomberg's Lead, Mexico Aims To Fight Fat

A street vendor fries food for lunch customers in Mexico City on July 10. Mexico has now surpassed the United States in levels of adult obesity, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ivan Pierre Aguirre/AP

A street vendor fries food for lunch customers in Mexico City on July 10. Mexico has now surpassed the United States in levels of adult obesity, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ivan Pierre Aguirre/AP

Nearly a third of all Mexicans are obese, putting Mexico at the top of the list of overweight nations — ahead of the United States.

In the battle against the bulge, lawmakers are taking aim at consumer's pocketbooks. They're proposing a series of new taxes on high calorie food and sodas. Health advocates say the higher prices will get Mexicans to change bad habits, but the beverage industry and small businesses are fighting back.

Moises Orozco's convenience store in a middle-class Mexico City neighborhood has been in his family for more than 30 years. He says he's watched eating habits change over that time.

Just look at his sales of gansitos, the spongy yellow cake akin to a Twinkie, filled with strawberry jelly and covered in a thin layer of chocolate. Orozco says he used to sell about 10 a week; now he sells easily six times that many. Some weeks, when he's well stocked, he sells as many as 150 gansitos.

Orozco says if the government really wanted to combat obesity it would have taxed sodas and junk food 10 years ago. He says politicians just want more money, so they go after small business owners like him and the poor, who buy the cheap junk food.

Lawmakers are proposing a 10 percent tax on sodas, about a peso per liter, and a 5 percent increase on high-calorie snacks.

Small business owners, the powerful beverage industry, and billionaire bottlers have launched an aggressive ad campaign against the proposal. Some full-page ads in major newspapers have focused in on the foreign influence for the taxes, especially the financial backing by U.S. billionaire Michael Bloomberg's philanthropic group.

Cuauhtemoc Rivera, head of the national association of neighborhood stores, says the New York mayor should mind his own business. He says obesity in Mexico is more complicated than just drinking too many sodas. Rivera says Mexicans' whole diet is bad, filled with what he jokingly calls too much "vitamin T."

"Tacos, tamales, tortas; we eat everything that starts with a 'T'," Rivera says.

According to the World Health Organization, which has helped aid the pro-tax advocates, nearly 70 percent of Mexicans are now overweight. Diabetes is now one of the top killers in the country.

Alejandro Calvillo of the group Consumer Power says Mexicans are the biggest consumers of soft drinks in the world, drinking about 40 gallons per person a year. He says a 10 percent tax per liter of soda will reduce consumption by as much as 12 percent.

"We need to act," Calvillo says. "We cannot permit that this situation happen in Mexico for more time."

Calvillo, whose group lobbied for a higher soda tax and does receive money from Bloomberg Philanthropies, says the new income should be used to encourage people to drink more water.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/10/24/240340885/following-bloombergs-lead-mexico-aims-to-fight-fat?ft=1&f=1001
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