The Daily Newds 2/26/09

• The Kennebec Journal in Maine regrets publishing a page one photo which implied that a waitress was topless at a newly opened coffee shop, but does not regret running the front page story which did more than imply that the woman was topless. In a related story, it is reported that 150 people applied for the 10 available jobs at the new cafe.
• Citizens for the Preservation of Bay2Breakers claim to be 20,000 strong and will make their case before the San Francisco city committee to keep the floats, nudity and booze as part of the annual event. Another story is here.
• Representatives in North Dakota are considering legislation to make it a class B misdemeanor to transmit a nude photo with a cell phone even if there is consent for the photo to be taken in the first place.
• The Theta Phi Alpha sorority at Suffolk University sponsored a "How to Look Good Naked" forum to critique how the media portrays body image.

  Throughout history, the public image of women drastically changed. In the 1950's, Marilyn Monroe, who (speaker Lynn) Saladino says "looked good," was actually a size 14, which surprised many of the students who attended the talk. However, only ten years later, British model Twiggy rose to international fame at 5'7'' and 91 pounds. By the 1990's, five million American women were suffering from eating disorders, which Saladino says is because of an unreachable standard that is now spreading to other cultures.

• The Naked People Project, a German web site, has photos of 24 people of various ages and body types, and when you click on them, their clothes disappear. The goal of the art project appears to be to challenge our perceptions of clothing and how it obscures or stereotypes people in the minds of others. [Hat tip to Just Out]
• A Canadian life drawing class is free to high school seniors.

  Maeve O'Connell (better known in the local art world by her maiden name, Maeve Bellmore) is now offering a unique opportunity to learn the finer points of capturing the many dimensions of the human form with paper and pencil. "Drawing the human form is one of the hardest things you can draw," she explained, "Because what you're doing is you're taking something 3D and ... trying to put it on 2D."

• In a typical move, the momlogic web site is all upset about the latest topless photos of Lindsay Lohan, but has all the photos for anyone to see with the subtitle "Lindsay topless and skinny!"