Grow Your Own Lashes

For those of you who want long, lushes, lashes, the beauty industry's new motto is: Grow your own.

Earlier this year, the makers of Botox unleashed Latisse on Americans. Health Canada is reviewing Latisse for distribution here. Allergan introduced the drug after the company discovered that a side effect of a glaucoma medication is longer lashes.

Researchers at L'Oréal laboratories in France are rushing to push their new eyelash-extending gel onto a cosmetics counter near you.

While the beauty giant continues to extol the virtues of mascara, their researchers have gone to the heart, or rather, the root of the lash matter. They've discovered that the hairs on our heads grow for years before falling out, while eyelashes hang in there for three months before collapsing on your pillow.

Their goal: to get eyelash hair to behave more like the hair on your head.

According to an article in The Sunday Telegraph, L'Oréal's gel is made from a cocktail of "citric acid, an amino acid known as arginine, and extracts from a Mexican plant known as Centella asiatica."

The treatment is applied to the roots of eyelashes each night for three months, the article continues.

A three-month clinical trial involving 32 women revealed that lashes increased in length and density by about 30 per cent.

Dave Lackie, editor of Cosmetics magazine, is overwhelmed by the recent deluge of advancements in eyelash technology, from motorized, vibrating wands to treatments that combine vitamins and testosterone blockers (testosterone being the arch-enemy of the hair follicle).

Lackie says Canadian women spent $368 million on eye makeup last year, in attempts to get those sultry, Cleopatra by way of Amy Winehouse eyes using mascara, eyeliner and eyeshadow.

Karen Szlamkowicz of L'Oréal is excited about the lash gel, a "pro-keratin complex" to be unveiled in 2010.

She'll reveal little about the "concentrated, lash-boosting serum" – except to say its applicator looks more like a spatula than a mascara wand.

While some beauty experts are mourning the end of an era, others are convinced mascara will hold onto its place in most beauty regimens. Even women with naturally long lashes will continue to enlist the power of mascara, says Szlamkowicz.

"Mascara is the little black dress of makeup. It drives cosmetics growth in Canada," she says.

More poetically she adds, "Your eyes are the window to your soul. Mascara enhances your personal reveal to the world and that includes your inner beauty."

Women Eat Less Calories Around Men

A new study suggests that women are more likely to consume less calories at mealtime if they're in the company of men.

At McMaster University in Hamilton, Researchers observed 469 people sitting down at tables either alone or with others during lunch and supper times for four weekdays during the course of one week at three large cafeterias.

Observers used a technique called scan sampling, looking around the room and gathering all the data that happens to be there in the moment. Researchers recorded the gender of individuals and all the food items in front of each person. Food items such as fries, fruit, hamburgers, pasta, pizza, and salad. Beverages were excluded.

Based on information they obtained from the management of each cafeteria, the food items were converted into caloric equivalents.

When women ate with other women they averaged about 670 calories. However, when eating with a male, the average dipped to 550 calories.

Lead author Meredith Young said the effect grows with group size. In mixed-gender groups, women averaged about 450 calories, far fewer than the average of 700 to 750 calories in the company of an all-female group.

"When women eat with women, there's little difference between how much they eat and how much men eat," she said Wednesday from Montreal.

"However, if there's a gentleman present at all in the group – so whether they're eating with a partner who's a male or whether there's a male in a larger social eating group – they start to reduce the caloric value of the food they're choosing to eat.""

Young said the study findings weren't surprising, and that there's research
demonstrating that women are seen as more attractive when eating smaller meals.

Researchers wrote that women who were observed "adjusted food selection not so as to match men, but perhaps in accordance with beliefs about what men find attractive."

"If you see the same woman eating a meatball sandwich and the same woman eating a salad, that same woman when she's eating a salad is not only seen as more attractive, but she's given more positive personality characteristics," Young said.

Young said intuitions of how women behave seem to fit with a proposed hypothesis in the study – that food is a way to signal to a potential mate.

"These are undergraduate students (and) ... very few of them are in long-term relationships, so it's possible that food is acting as a cue or a signal of attractiveness to other potential mates, which might be why we see this decrease in caloric intake with the increasing number of men around.

Gwen Chapman, associate professor in food, nutrition and health at the University of British Columbia said, Women can feel they're being judged by what they eat and don't want to be viewed as someone who eats too much – particularly in relation to men."

"I think there are a lot of messages that are still promoted in society about what women should look like, and that there's a very strong relationship that's perceived between what people eat and what they look like," she said from Vancouver.

"What their body looks like, particularly for women, is really crucial in terms of finding a mate potentially and the way that you're judged by potential partners, potential friends."

Chapman has conducted some research regarding gender and food and said people in Canada are somewhat resistant to the idea there are gender differences or societal expectations about how women might eat versus men.

"If you ask people directly they might say, 'No, it doesn't make a difference,' but what this study shows is that there are differences, whether people are aware of them or not.

Researchers did not record whether the food observed was consumed. And Young said there are other possible variables such as whether individuals finished their dishes, snacked from someone else's plate or even ate before they arrived, potentially curbing their appetite.

"Those other factors might be coming into play, but I don't think those other factors could fully explain the kinds of results that we found."

Disney to Buy Marvel

LOS ANGELES – The Walt Disney Co. said Monday it is buying Marvel Entertainment Inc. for US$4 billion in cash and stock, bringing characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man into the family of Mickey Mouse and WALL-E.

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters. Including the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, which were co-created by the comic book legend Stan Lee.

The acquisition, according to Analyst David Joyce of Miller Tabak&Co., will help Disney appeal to young men who have flocked to theatres to see Marvel's superheroes in recent years. That contrasts with Disney's recent successes among young women with such fare as "Hannah Montana" and the Jonas Brothers.

"It helps Disney add exposure to a young male demographic it had sort of lost some balance with," Joyce said, noting the $4 billion offer was at "full price."

Disney said Marvel shareholders will receive $30 per share in cash, plus 0.745 Disney shares for every Marvel share they own. That values each Marvel share at $50 based on Friday's closing stock prices.

Marvel shares jumped $10.17, or 26 per cent, to $48.82 shortly after the market opened. Disney shares fell 47 cents, or 1.8 per cent, to $26.37.

Disney said the boards of both companies have approved the transaction, but it will require an antitrust review and the approval of Marvel shareholders.

Disney CEO Robert Iger said the acquisition combines Marvel's ``strong global brand and world-renowned library of characters" with Disney's "unparalleled global portfolio of entertainment properties" and ability to maximize value across multiple platforms and territories.

High-Tech Gyms=Better Workout?

Not even the gym’s multiple television screens could distract Arianne Thompson from the drudgery of her cardio workout.

Bored, the 35-year-old would trudge along until the cooking shows and courtroom dramas grew unbearable, then call it a day.

“The channels they show, and the time of day that I work out, made for a really boring workout,” Thompson, a member of Gold’s Gym, wrote in an email.

A gym renovation last year gave her a much-needed jolt of motivation.

The new addition, dubbed the “cardio theatre,” has a cinema-size screen and rows of elliptical trainers, stationary bikes, and treadmills. In the darkened room, members watch movies while they sweat.

“When the movie is good or even tolerable, I get into it and become so absorbed that I don't notice I'm exercising,” wrote Thompson, who lives near Salt Lake City, Utah. “I can work out twice as long with half the pain and boredom when I work out to a movie than I can to the TV or music.”

About two-thirds of Canadians say lack of motivation is a reason for not exercising, according to 2007 data from the nonprofit Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute.

As Nintendo’s Wii Fit got video game fans to move by turning exercise into play, more and more gyms are hoping gadgets and gizmos will lure less-than-enthusiastic exercisers.

In the U.S., where “exertainment” is firmly entrenched, gyms are racing to install the latest tech toys, which experts say it won’t be long before Canada follows suit.

“Customers want something that helps the time go by, that helps the mind escape the drudgery of exercise,” says fitness consultant Gregory Florez, head of FitAdvisor Health Coaching Services in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Nowadays, gyms “have to be in the tech game,” Florez says. “There’s this expectation from customers to have newer and cooler things.”

Cardio theatres, like the one Thompson uses, are multiplying. This spring, a new Gold’s Gym in London, Ont., opened one of the few cardio theatres this side of the border. The chain introduced similar facilities in the U.S. more than two years ago.

Meanwhile, the Ohio chain Fitworks launched Game On!, an arcade stocked with active video games that make kids break a sweat.

It takes from six to 18 months for American trends to move north, says Rod Macdonald, vice-president of Can-Fit-Pro, Canada’s largest certification body for fitness professionals. The latest technologies will be showcased in Toronto this month, at the International Fitness and Club Business Conference and Trade Show.

But while everyone loves a “shiny new toy,” gym owners and members shouldn’t expect miracles from technology, Macdonald warns.

“Typically, technology doesn’t attract people into clubs,” he says, because customers only see it once they’re already inside. And anything too complicated could turn people off, he adds, noting that many ignore the programmed functions on cardio machines.

Meanwhile, exercisers engrossed in technology could tune out important physical cues, such as breathing and heart rate – the best measures of exercise intensity.

Thompson is quick to point out the pitfalls of cardio theatres.

“When you jog in the dark, staring to the side rather than straight ahead, you can lose your footing,” she says.

And gym-goers should prepare to endure uninspiring movies, she says, or worse – scary ones.

But Thompson isn’t deterred.

“Mostly I just deal with the issues, because the cardio theatre is so much more to my liking than any other cardio workout.”

Of course if you want the best results then the obvious solution is to hire a personal trainer.

Facebook & Privacy Changes

OTTAWA - Facebook has agreed to change some of its privacy policies over how much personal information it was keeping on file and sharing with third-party application developers. Changes, such as altering language in its privacy policy, will take place within the next month or so. More complicated technical changes will take up to a year.

"We are satisfied that with these changes Facebook is on the way to meeting the requirements of Canada's privacy law," federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said this morning after revealing the popular social networking site has agreed to change the way it collects, stores and shares personal data within a year. "The privacy of people using the site, not only in Canada but around the world, will be far better protected.

"This is hugely significant," Stoddart continued. "Facebook has 12 million users in Canada alone - that is about a third of our population - and well more than 200 million users of Facebook worldwide. All those users will have a far clearer view of how they perceive information is being shared once Facebook implements our recommendations. They will also have far more control over what they are sharing and with whom."

Richard Allan, director of European privacy and policy at Facebook, noted Stoddart had praised the company for its cooperation.

"They shared with us as a common goal making the Internet more privacy-friendly for users around the world," Allan said in a conference call from London.

Stoddart released a scathing report last month that said Facebook violated Canadian privacy legislation by keeping the personal information of its millions of users around the world on file indefinitely even after they deactivate their accounts.

The in-depth investigation began when students at the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa filed a complaint to the privacy commissioner identifying potential problems with Facebook's privacy policies and practices.

Stoddart had also criticized Facebook for sharing user information with third-party software developers - almost a million around the world - who create the popular applications like quizzes and games.

Facebook has agreed to retrofit its application platform so that developers cannot obtain any personal information without express consent from users for each of the categories it wants to access.

The company will also make it clear to users wishing to close their accounts that they have the choice between deactivation - which will allow Facebook to keep information on file - and deletion, which will erase all personal information from its database.

It will also update its privacy policy so that users can provide "meaningful consent" to letting Facebook keep their profile pages up after they die so that friends can post comments and pay tribute.

Information about the privacy of non-users will also be included.

Stoddart added that users must remember they are responsible for protecting their own privacy and urged them to read policies before signing up.

"Users must constantly bear in mind that once something is online, it's there for eternity," she said.

Exercise Goal: Mrs Obama's Arms

HEALTH - U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama 's toned biceps, triceps and shoulders – often displayed in sleeveless dresses and shirts – have become the summer's hottest accessory. But is there any exercises you can do to get arms like that? Apparently weightlifting is the answer.

1. Stand tall, with your abs tight and your feet shoulder-width apart. Take a dumbbell in each hand, enough weight that you get tired after 15 repetitions.

2. Hold the weights at shoulder height, elbows bent and palms forward.

3. Press your arms up above your head, turning so your palms face each other. Make sure you don’t arch your back.

4. Lower the weights to your shoulders. Do 15 in total; that’s one set.

Do three sets.

Move over Oprah, here comes Hugo Chavez

POLITICS - Want to promote your book? Forget Oprah. Call Hugo Chavez.

Back in September 2006, Chavez flourished a copy of Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival during an anti-American speech to the United Nations, transporting the trenchant analysis of United States foreign policy to Amazon's No. 2 position and sparking a 25,000-copy reprint from the publisher.

And just recently, thanks to the flamboyant Venezuelan president, Uruguayan political writer Eduardo Galeano's 1971 'The Open Veins of Latin America' also shot to No. 2 on Amazon's bestseller list 24 hours after Chavez gave a copy to President Barack Obama. The same Chavez who once compared George W. Bush to the devil, added a tender note: "To Obama, with affection."

Galeano's book "analyzes the history of Latin America as a whole, from the time period of the European discovery of the New World to contemporary Latin America, arguing against European and later U.S. economic exploitation and political dominance over the region."

The gift – and the unexpected friendliness between the two leaders – sent Galeano's book to the top of Amazon's "movers and shakers" category for books that make the biggest 24-hour gains.

Sorry Oprah, you've got competition.

Obama's Family Values

FEMINISM/POLITICS - Thanks to Michelle Obama, balancing your career and work has suddenly become sexy and cool.

Traditionally some people have frowned on people who try to balance (dare we say juggle) work and kids, but the statuesque United States First Lady – with her global presence, Ivy-league education, law career and two young daughters – seems to do it with ease.

I disagree however. I think women who manage to find time for both work and family should be admired, not disliked. After all, what is a gal supposed to do with all that free time while the kids are at school?

Its not like we need women as dishwashers/etc any more. These days technology has replaced the role of the homemaker. We have robotic vacuum cleaners, automated dishwashers, frozen TV dinners, pizza delivery (yes, the White House has been ordering pizza since the 1970s) and if you're wealthy enough, in a position of prestige, meals prepared for you by servants.

Of course most of us don't have servants, but the point is still made. In modern America eating out or ordering in has become relatively normal, and there is now a lot more women can do than cooking and cleaning while the kids/husband are away at school/work, so why not have a career?

Well, lets look at what Michelle Obama has been doing. She has her beautifully sculpted arms, the Portuguese water dogs (including new pet Charlie-Bo), has become a fashion icon, and yet still manages to carve out lots of family time.

For women in the USA and around the world Michelle Obama is a role model, and no less a busy one. As a U.S. First Lady, Obama gets a staff, an office and is expected to champion a cause... in the past First Ladies have championed issues like literacy, health care and education.

Right now Michelle Obama seems to be championing family values.

The Obama family hardly live the life of the mainstream masses, walking the dog on the sprawling White House lawns and surrounded by a cast of thousands. She talks about "date nights" with her husband, the hassles of making healthy school lunches and why her daughters should make their own beds, Michelle Obama touches on the stuff of everyday life for ordinary families.

She is also growing a vegetable garden. She has spoken about how managing two careers and children put a strain on her marriage and how her mother has helped out with childcare (we've all done that, if anything the granparents enjoy it).

Its been a long time since there's been young children in the White House, let alone a First Lady who has young kids and a career, and Michelle Obama sends a powerful message that balance is important and also achievable.

It will likely be translated into domestic policy, too. Mrs Obama is pushing for more family-friendly leave policies from U.S. employers and incentives for community service. This is alongside her husband's priorities of investing in childcare, working families and education.

While Canada is far ahead of the United States on policies like health care, child care programs, maternity and parental leave, and flex-time, many countries will feel the effects if family issues move up the U.S. public agenda.

It comes at a time when lack of affordable childcare in the USA is stressing families, the post-Bush recession is pressuring workers, and boomers grapple with caring for aging parents.

For both working mothers and homemakers, Mrs Obama's role to play is to show that the "one-size-fits-all" approach for supporting parents and children doesn't work for everyone. Parents need more flexibility to work out their own needs and determine what is best for their kids.

There are those who despair of Obama's evolution from tough Harvard lawyer to a role Michelle Obama once described as "Mom-in-chief." Obama has put her career on hold while her husband takes over the running of a nation and tries to fix the mistakes of the past 8 years. Its a big role to fill actually, and frankly she will be far too busy doing political work anyway on behalf of America.

That's not something people should be slamming her for. Its something to be praised. True, its kind of sexist she had to put her career on hold because of her husband's career... but the Presidency isn't a normal career.

After all... its not what your country can do for you, its what you can do for your country.

And I believe Michelle Obama is going to give America her best.

Susan Boyle

Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent
Uploaded by dwarthy

Susan Boyle, an unemployed church worker from Scotland's West Lothian district has captured hearts after a single audition on Britain's Got Talent got another boost with an appearance via satellite on CBS's The Early Show.Talking about her journey so far, she told the morning show that she reacted to the titters in the audience during her audition by focusing on the performance.

"You have to take yourself seriously, so what I did was concentrate on the song."

The hosts asked her about people making fun of her as a child and she graciously answered:

"Well, the ones who made fun of me, they're now nice to me, so I may now have won them 'round."

She also sang a few lines from "I Dreamed a Dream" a capella and chatted a bit with Patti LuPone, whose original rendition of the Les Misérables song is considered to be the gold standard. LuPone told her she had "pluck" and admired her courage.

As a way of explanation for why she went on the show, Boyle said: "I wanted to make this a tribute to my mother, so it was something I wanted to do, so I had to get on with it. That's where the courage came from, my mother."

While Boyle is now considered the favourite to win Britain's Got Talent, her journey has only just begun. She's only appeared on an early, regional qualifying portion of the show. A spokesperson for the show said her next official appearance will not be until the end of May.

She lives alone with her cat, Pebbles, and previously cared for her ill mother, who died a couple of years ago.

This week, she has been inundated with media requests and, talking to the Associated Press, she admitted the instant fame has been an incredible experience.
"It has been surreal for me," Boyle said.

"I'm going to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS and other American networks. I didn't realize this would be the reaction, I just went onstage and got on with it."

Boyle's celebrity continues to grow as YouTube clips from her audition have already been watched more than 18 million times.

She also has a few Facebook fan pages and the most popular have already logged 93,000 fans. A Wikipedia page has even been dedicated to her and a fan page at Susan-Boyle.com has signed up more than 6,000 members.

Her newfound fame has also had a dramatic effect on the village of Blackburn, population about 4,800, 20 kilometres west of Edinburgh on the road to Glasgow.

Agnes Boyle, who lives around the corner from Susan Boyle(no relation), said she's been getting phone calls from people trying to find the Susan Boyle.

"This is the 10th phone call today I've had," Agnes Boyle said, adding she wishes Susan well. "I'm happy for her ... life's not been good to her actually."

Jackie Russell, manager at the Happy Valley Hotel on the village's main street, Bathgate Rd., where Boyle has sung karaoke on a regular basis, said she's "a very quiet person, very unassuming ... just a normal down-to-earth girl."

"People in the village – it's just a village, there's only 5,000 people in it – but everybody knew that Susan could sing," said Russell. "It just took a while for the world to hear her sing," she added.

Russell also expressed confidence that Boyle will win the Britain's Got Talent competition.

"I don't think she (Boyle) will need a job now. I think she'll just continue to do what her heart wants her to do and that's sing."

A Peek inside Zimbabwe's Prisons

POLITICS - What you are looking at is not starving people in Ethiopia.

Its not a country that is in the midst of a drought. Its images from Zimbabwe's prisons, a country with plenty of food to go around, but ruled by dictator Robert Mugabe.

And what is the crime of these prisoners? Its not stealing or murder. Its petty things like... speaking out against Robert Mugabe, helping foreigners, speaking to foreign reporters, helping Robert Mugabe's political rivals... or just voting against Mugabe.

The unlucky ones go to prison and die slowly. The more fortunate ones get killed and their bodies dumped in an unmarked grave. Difficult to say which is better.

The newly released images provide a rare look inside a Zimbabwean prison show emaciated inmates too weak to stand and eating as if they can barely bring food to their mouths.

Human rights activists and former prisoners have spoken of horrifying conditions in the country's jails and prisons but there has been little firsthand evidence available... because most of the prisoners die of starvation or organ failure.

Godknows Nare spent four months on the behind-the-walls documentary, training insiders to capture the footage. His documentary "Hell Hole" aired Tuesday on SABC, the South African state broadcaster, and is now being syndicated internationally by Associated Press Television News today. Nare says he hopes the footage will persuade foreigners and Robert Mugabe's new coalition government to step in to help.

But what is chances of Robert Mugabe helping people that disapprove of his government? Its a snowball's chance in hell.

In one scene from "Hell Hole" emaciated prisoners, wasting away because of vitamin deficiencies, are shown on mats in cells furnished with only blankets and the thin mattresses. The prison menus have been reduced to tiny bowls of corn porridge (one per day, and the inmates barely have the energy to bring the food to their mouths. The inmates are also given salt water to drink, to make them thirsty all the time.

Annah Y. Moyo, a Zimbabwean lawyer who works with the Southern African Centre for Survivors of Torture, said conditions in Zimbabwean prisons were "a form of torture." Moyo now lives in exile out of fear of being tossed in "Zimbabwe's Prisons of Death".

Moyo, who was not involved in making the documentary, says Zimbabwe's soaring inflation, supply shortages and rampant corruption have played a role, with prison officials taking food that should go to prisoners and selling it on the black market.

Knowledge of the bad prison conditions is actually common. Security officials make sure political activists know of the prison conditions as a bullying tactic.

"Everyone knows that if you're sent to prison, your chances of coming out alive are slim," says Moyo.

Lack of medical care in jails and prisons also has been an issue, with concern that cholera, at epidemic levels among free Zimbabweans, would take an even higher toll in crowded cells.

Many doctors in Zimbabwe have fled the country and now live in exile. Indeed anyone with wealth or education has pretty much left, becoming refugees in neighbouring countries. The few that remain are trying to fight against Mugabe's reign of terror.

Last year, the Zimbabwean civic group 'Women of Zimbabwe Arise' dedicated a report on the collapse of the country's health system to one of its political leaders, Thembelani Lunga, who died in prison after only four days.

Earlier this month, Roy Bennett, an opposition politician was released from prison after he was granted bail (he was essentially ransomed) and is now speaking out against the harsh prison conditions. Bennett was noticeably a lot thinner after his jailing and says five people died during his incarceration and it took prison authorities 24 to 48 hours to collect the bodies.

Starving political rivals, mass unemployment, a cruel dictator who cares only about wealth and power... its not just the prisons that are a hell hole.

Note: There are plenty of videos on this topic on YouTube. Some of them are pretty graphic.

See Also:
2024 people die of cholera in Zimbabwe
Ten Worst Places to Live
Tutu wants Mugabe out