The Weekly Newds 2/23/09

Catching up with the newds of the past week...

• Like social nudism, discussing menstruation in our society is taboo, but "My Little Red Book" seeks to spark some open dialogue on the subject.
• Samba dancer Dani Sperle has broken Rio's Carnival record for the least amount of clothing ever worn during the event. Sperle sported only a 3 centimeter patch of cloth.
• A Virginia Beach singer will spend a year in prison after receiving a nude image of a 16 year-old girl on his cell phone.
• An official from Denny's restaurants has apologized to a North Carolina woman who was told to conceal herself while breastfeeding her child while dining at the Asheville establishment.
• A 15 year-old Pennsylvania girl has been charged with possession of child pornography, distributing child pornography, and creating child pornography for sending nude photos of herself to a 27 year-old man she met through MySpace. In Michigan, a 14 year-old girl is in a juvenile court diversion program for youthful offenders after admitting responsibility to one count of "displaying a human form indecently" by sending nude photos of herself with her cell phone.
• The Minnesota town of Zumbro Falls is doing all it can to shut down a nude dancing club.
• Lily Allen is not afraid of posing nude. She said: "I'm just very comfortable in my body. I wouldn't do it in a 'Hey-Look-At-My-Boobs' kind of way."
• A Filipino activist staged a nude protest against man-made environmental damage, and was not arrested, but a Filipina woman was fined $1000 for exposing her breasts in Singapore.
• Photographer Rodney Braun, a devout Mennonite, specializes in artistic nudes, but it took some convincing from his wife Sonya to move from weddings and family portraits to nudes.

  It all started when Sonya booked a pregnant woman into the studio for a maternity shoot.
  
  "I said, 'Call her back and tell her I don't do that,'" Braun recalls. "But Sonya said, 'This is God's ultimate creation. Why wouldn't you want to do that?'
  
  "It was the most awkward photo shoot of my life. I just kept thinking, 'I'm way out of my zone and this is not what I grew up thinking was acceptable.' I really had to figure out where my moral line was.'"

• Beginning today, riders on the New York subway will see posters with real naked people advertising a new play "Reasons to Be Pretty". The tagline will be "Does this play make me look fat?"
• San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi is calling in Bay to Breakers organizers to "lighten up" and allow floats and nudity in the annual event, but keep the ban on booze.
• A British woman has been banned from competitive boxing because she has breast implants.
• The Century Project, a collection of nude portraits of women aged from birth to 100, is stirring up controversy at the College of William and Mary.

  “It should not be shown,” John Foubert ’90, a former education professor at the College, said. “I don’t think it’s right for William and Mary to pay money to a man who takes pictures of young girls in the nude. I think William and Mary can spend its money in better ways.”

• "I'll Catch the Sun" by Richard Langdon Cook, a retired Fortune 500 business executive, chronicles his worldwide adventures in nudism.
• Since attendance is down at the Sleeping Bears Dunes National Lakeshore, one naturist advocates consideration of the establishment of a clothing-optional area.
• A Malaysian legislator has quit after photographs showing her sleeping naked were circulated to the public via cell phones.

  "I have done nothing wrong. I wish to state that I am not ashamed of my sexuality as a woman and as a single person. I have broken no law," she said, her eyes brimming with tears.

• Peaches Geldof wears 20 tattoos and little else when at the beach.
• Maggie Gallagher is afraid, very afraid of the teen sexting phenomenon.

  After all, if the thought that their fellow students, their teachers, their employers, their college admission officials, the entire football squad, their mothers and the local district attorney may well see these cell phone photos is not enough to discourage teens - then we really have a problem on our hands.

• A woman finds that getting naked in a Louisiana spa is a lot less acceptable than doing the same in Hawaii.
• A former Ohio State University student recalls how legendary football coach Woody Hayes used to handle the press after a loss.

  "If the team lost or tied, he would conduct an interview in the nude. He was an ugly guy so it would clear the locker room out pretty fast."

• Newsweek contributing editor Dahlia Lithwick "gets it" when it comes to teen sexting.

  Judging from the sexting prosecutions in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana this year, it's clear that the criminal-justice system is too blunt an instrument to resolve a problem that reflects more about the volatile combination of teens and technology than about some national cybercrime spree. Parents need to remind their teens that a dumb moment can last a lifetime in cyberspace. But judges and prosecutors need to understand that a lifetime of cyberhumiliation shouldn't be grounds for a lifelong real criminal record.

• A real life streaker streaked a play in which he is portrayed by an actor.
• You can win $10,000 if your nude video is judged to be the best at http://www.worldnudeday.com/.
• Promoters for a Swedish television show "I'd Do Anything for Money" used a naked man as a publicity stunt.
• A Taiwan clinic and two of its nurses face fines and other consequences for nude photos used in an advertising campaign.
• Glasgow's "National Review of Live Art" lives up to its avant garde reputation.

  True to form, the first thing I saw on Wednesday night was an installation in which a man lay naked on the floor, his body wrapped around the carcass of a pig. Occasionally he twitched, but was otherwise motionless. So did the pig. A cameraman was filming the event, but don't expect to see it at your local multiplex any time soon. Downstairs, I watched a film in which the planets orbited a woman's breasts and, in a neighbouring room, I rather liked lying on the floor and putting on 3D glasses to watch Billy Cowie's hologram film of a naked dancer appearing to dangle from the ceiling.

• Lindsay Hansen exposes Orlando's Nude Nite.
• An "angry" Utah woman who exposed her breast outside an elementary school has been arrested. Granite Police Chief Randy Johnson said, "We could not tolerate this level of behavior, so we took her into custody."
• While going through an old crate of family photos, a woman came across a photo of her 20ish grandmother holding hands with her juvenile mother and aunt - all naked.

  My mother gleefully plucked it from the pile giggling to herself. "See,I told you that gramma and grampa went to a nudist colony". She put the picture far too close to my face. I flinched. "Uh, no. No you definitely did not tell me about this."