September 12, 2011
Kraft Singles is a processed ‘cheese product’ manufactured and sold by Kraft Foods, introduced in 1949. Although processed cheese was first invented in 1911 by Walter Gerber of Thun, Switzerland, it was James L. Kraft who first applied for an American patent for his method in 1916. Kraft Foods also created the first commercially available sliced processed cheese, which was introduced in 1950.
One of the more famous ad campaigns in the 1980s claimed that each ¾ ounce slice contained ‘five ounces of milk’ (with milk being poured into a glass next to Kraft Singles), which makes them taste better than imitation cheese slices made mostly with vegetable oil and water (with oil being poured into a glass next to imitation cheese) and hardly any milk. The campaign was lambasted for its implications that each slice contained the same amount of calcium as a five ounce glass of milk and also more calcium than imitation cheese slices, which eventually led to a ruling by the Federal Trade Commission in 1992 that ordered Kraft to stop making false claims in its advertising. Kraft removed the ads, but continues to taut the use of milk in its ‘cheese products.’
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September 11, 2011
The US government, led by the CIA’s Special Activities Division, has made a series of attacks on targets in northwest Pakistan since 2004 using drones (unmanned aerial vehicles). These attacks are part of the US’ War on Terrorism campaign, seeking to defeat Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan. Most of these attacks are on targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the Afghan border in Northwest Pakistan. These strikes have increased substantially under the Presidency of Barack Obama. Generally the UAVs used are MQ-1 Predator and more recently MQ-9 Reaper firing AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. The drones have become a weapon of choice for the United States in the fight against al-Qaeda. Some media refer to the series of attacks as a ‘drone war.’ The US defence budget for 2011 asked for a 75% increase in funds to enhance the drone operations.
There is tremendous debate over the civilian casualty ratio of drone strikes. The CIA claims very few civilians are killed in relation to militants. Pakistan’s government, on the other hand publicly condemns these attacks; its Interior Minister has said ‘Drone missiles cause collateral damage. A few militants are killed, but the majority of victims are innocent citizens.’ The strikes are often linked to Anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and the growing unease with the scope of CIA activity there. However, in secret cables leaked by Wikileaks, Pakistan’s Army Chief not only tacitly agreed to the drone flights but in 2008 requested Americans to increase them.
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September 11, 2011
In armed conflicts, the civilian casualty ratio is the ratio of civilian casualties to combatant casualties, or total casualties. The measurement can apply either to casualties inflicted by a particular belligerent, or to casualties in the conflict as a whole.
According to a 2001 Red Cross study, the civilian-to-soldier death ratio in wars fought since the mid-20th century has been 10:1, meaning ten civilian deaths for every soldier death. In 2007, Israel achieved a ratio of 1:30, or one civilian casualty for every thirty combatant casualties, in its targeted killings campaign on militants in the Gaza Strip. According to Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, ‘No army in history has ever had a better ratio of combatants to civilians killed in a comparable setting.’ Richard Kemp, former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, made a similar assessment of Israeli operations during the Gaza War, saying this civilian causalty ratio ‘was by far the lowest in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.’
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September 9, 2011
Malingering [muh-ling-ger-ing] is a medical term that refers to fabricating or exaggerating the symptoms of mental or physical disorders for a variety of ‘secondary gain’ motives, which may include financial compensation (often tied to fraud); avoiding school, work or military service; obtaining drugs; getting lighter criminal sentences; or simply to attract attention or sympathy. A common form of malingering in legal procedure prosecution is sometimes referred to as fabricated mental illness or feigned madness.
Malingering remains separate from somatization disorders and factitious disorders in which primary and secondary gain, such as the relief of anxiety or the assumption of the ‘patient role,’ is the goal. The symptoms most commonly feigned include those associated with mild head injury, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and chronic pain. Failure to detect actual cases of malingering imposes a substantial economic burden on the health care system, and false attribution of malingering imposes a substantial burden of suffering on a significant proportion of the patient population.
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September 6, 2011
Slip-Slop-Slap is the name of a health campaign in Australia exhorting people to ‘slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat’ when they go out into the sun, in order to protect themselves against an increased risk of skin cancer. ‘Seek shade’ and ‘Slide on some sunglasses’ was added a year later. It is probably Australia’s most recognizable health message. The campaign started in 1981; its mascot is a seagull called Sid. It is also used in New Zealand, where the mascot is a lobster, and some Canadian cities have also started their own Slip-Slop-Slap campaigns.
Since the campaign was introduced along with advertisements and a jingle, the incidence of the two most common forms of skin cancer (basal and squamous cell carcinoma) in Australia has decreased. However, the incidence of melanoma – the most lethal form of skin cancer – has increased. An epidimological study published in 2002 concluded that skin cancer increases could not be associated with the use of sun creams, and recommended continued use of the current campaigns as a means to reduce melanoma risk. Vitamin D deficiency has also greatly increased (which can lead to cancers, since sunblock also prevents vitamin D production in the skin. Doctors recommend spending small amounts of time in the sun without sun protection to ensure adequate production of vitamin D.
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September 6, 2011
Sunscreen (also known as sunblock) is a lotion, spray or other topical product that helps protect the skin from the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and which reduces sunburn and other skin damage, with the goal of lowering the risk of skin cancer. However in the United States, the term suntan lotion usually means the opposite of sunscreen, and instead refers to lotion designed to moisturize and maximize UV exposure and tanning rather than block it. These are commonly called indoor tanning lotions when designed for use with tanning beds or just suntan lotion if designed for outdoor use and may or may not have SPF protection in them.
The most effective sunscreens protect against both UVB, which can cause sunburn, and UVA, which damages the skin with more long-term effects, such as premature skin aging. Most sunscreens work by containing either an organic chemical compound that absorbs ultraviolet light (such as oxybenzone) or an opaque material that reflects light (such as titanium dioxide, zinc oxide), or a combination of both. Typically, absorptive materials are referred to as chemical blocks, whereas opaque materials are mineral or physical blocks. The sun protection factor (SPF) of a sunscreen is a laboratory measure of the effectiveness of sunscreen — the higher the SPF, the more protection a sunscreen offers against UVB.
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August 26, 2011
The Venus Project is an organization that advocates American futurist Jacque Fresco’s visions of the future with the aim of improving society by moving towards a global sustainable social design that they call a ‘resource-based economy.’ Such a system incorporates sustainable cities and values, energy efficiency, collective farms, natural resource management and advanced automation, focusing on the benefits they claim it will bring to humanity.
The name of the organization originates from Venus, Florida, where its research center is located, near Lake Okeechobee. Within the center are ten buildings, designed by Fresco, which showcase the architecture of the project.
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August 16, 2011
Stańczyk (c. 1480–1560) was the most famous court jester in Polish history. He is remembered as a man of great intelligence and a political philosopher gifted with formidable insight into Poland’s current and future situation. He used his job to criticize and warn his contemporaries through satire. His witty jokes often pertained to current political or court matters.
The best known anecdote about Stańczyk is that of a hunting incident. In 1533 King Sigismund the Old had a huge bear brought for him from Lithuania. The bear was released in the forest of Niepołomice near Kraków so that the king could hunt it. During the hunt, the animal charged at the king, the queen and their courtiers which caused panic and mayhem. Queen Bona fell from her horse which resulted in her miscarriage. Later, the king criticized Stańczyk for having run away instead of attacking the bear. The jester is said to have replied that ‘it is a greater folly to let out a bear that was locked in a cage.’ This remark is often interpreted as an allusion to the king’s policy toward Prussia which was defeated by Poland but not fully incorporated into the Crown.
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August 15, 2011
A smiley, or happy face, is a stylized representation of a smiling human face. It is commonly represented as a yellow circle with two black dots representing eyes and a black arc representing the mouth. ‘Smiley’ is also sometimes used as a generic term for any emoticon (a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood).
The first unhappy face recorded on film can be seen in Ingmar Bergman’s 1948 film ‘Hamnstad.’ Later on, in 1953 and 1958, the happy face was used in promotional campaigns for motion pictures ‘Lili’ and ‘Gigi’, respectively.
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August 15, 2011
Josh Keyes (b. 1969) is an American contemporary artist who works with painting, drawing, and installation art. He currently works out of Portland, Oregon. His work has been described as ‘a satirical look at the impact urban sprawl has on the environment and surmises, with the aid of scientific slices and core samples, what could happen if we continue to infiltrate and encroach on our rural surroundings.’
Josh’s work brings to mind the detail and complexity of natural history dioramas, and the color and diagrammatic complexity one might find in cross section illustrations from a vintage science textbook. His work has developed over the past years into a complex personal vocabulary of imagery that creates a mysterious and sometimes unsettling juxtaposition between the natural world and the man made landscape.
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August 15, 2011
Fuck for forest, or FFF, is a non-profit environmental organization founded in Norway by Leona Johansson and Tommy Hol Ellingsen, which raises money for rescuing the world’s rainforests by producing pornographic material or having sex in public. They are the world’s first eco-porn organization. However, their unorthodox methods have made it difficult to distribute monies. The Norwegian chapter of the Rainforest Foundation Fund as well as the WWF both in the Netherlands and in Norway have refused to accept donations from FFF. As a result, Fuck for Forest is working on a project to work directly with indigenous communities in Costa Rica and the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.
The group gained notoriety when its two members had sexual intercourse on stage during a 2004 Quart Festival concert featuring Norwegian singer Kristopher Schau and his band The Cumshots, after delivering a brief talk on the impact humans have on forests. The group then faced legal action as a result (including a fine imposed on the group after its male member dropped his pants in a courtroom), and consequently moved its headquarters to Berlin, Germany.
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August 15, 2011
During the Vietnam War, in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held two week-long Bed-Ins for Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal, which were their non-violent ways of protesting wars and promoting peace. The idea is derived from a ‘sit-in,’ in which a group of protesters remains seated in front of an establishment until they are evicted, arrested, or their demands are met.
Knowing their March 20, 1969 marriage would be a huge press event, John and Yoko decided to use the publicity to promote world peace. They spent their honeymoon in the presidential suite (Room 702 at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel for a week between March 25 and 31, inviting the world’s press into their hotel room every day between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. After their other stunts, such as the nude cover of the ‘Two Virgins’ album, the press were expecting them to be having sex, but instead the couple were sitting in bed—in John’s words ‘like angels’—talking about peace with signs over their bed reading ‘Hair Peace’ and ‘Bed Peace.’
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