Thursday, December 28, 2006

'Lamb Ladies' respond to 'Lettuce Ladies' in Kaz

Kazakh ‘Lamb Ladies’ Respond to British ‘Lettuce Ladies’ with Gusto


Two Kazakh models, Assel and Aliya, staged a counter-demonstration on Almaty’s main square on Independence Day calling on their compatriots to reject calls from foreigners to go vegetarian and continue eating meat.

This was a response from Megapolis, one of Kazakhstan’s leading newspapers, to a protest by two People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) activists earlier in the week who sported lettuce bikinis and bras and called on Kazakhs to reject horsemeat, or any other meat for that matter. (See Kazakhstan News Bulletin, December 15.)

“Lettuce is for goats” and “Meat helps us study and live” read the banners of Assel and Aliya who made their point by wearing sheep skins. People around them were gleaming at their sight and cheering them up.

“I saw those British ladies on TV, and they were so pale… Who cares about what we eat? We have such a climate that we simply must eat meat! Meat helps us grow!” said Professor Madeniet Kobdikov of a Kazakh college who was on the square to join in the December 16 festivities.

“One should not exclude meat altogether,” said Professor Olga Bagryantseva of the Kazakh Academy of Nutrition in Almaty. “Meat has protein, and protein has eight irreplaceable amino acids which play a major role in the life of a human and must definitely come from food because they are not produced by the body. Those who are vegetarians need to very carefully select their food so that it does provide them with the necessary proteins.”

“In fact, there is such a thing as an ideal standard of protein. Horsemeat and beef are 90 percent close to this standard. So, indeed a Kazakh’s body is predisposed to eating meat, and the complete renunciation of meat can have negative consequences,” she explained.

People do love their meat in Kazakhstan, as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns noted recently. There is even a popular joke the Kazakhs love to tell their foreign guests which goes like this. They first ask: “Did you know that Kazakhs are the second in the world in terms of meat consumption?” This usually invites a moment of puzzled silence followed by a natural question: “Who’s first?”

“Wolves,” goes the answer to the belly laughs of everybody in the room.



More: http://www.kazembassy.com.ua/

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

'Lettuce Ladies' protest meat in Almaty, Kaz.

Freezing Animal Rights Campaigners in Almaty


Chilly Vegetarians by tienshan

Michael Steen of Reuters reported an odd happening on Almaty Square: two British animal rights campaigners wearing bikinis made of lettuce leaves urged people of Kazakhstan to stop eating horses and go vegetarian in a freezing -8 °C in Almaty.


Whereas Borat is ridiculing the country, we’re trying to come here with a positive message,” Yvonne Taylor, 35, told Reuters. “We’re saying that going vegetarian is the best thing people can do for their health and to stop animals suffering.” “We’ve got stronger immune systems because we’re vegetarian,” Taylor told reporters and photographers wearing winter coats in front of Kazakhstan’s independence monument”, writes Steen.


More: NewEurasia Blogzine

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Miami Herald: 'Creating an Artistic Universe for Your Child'

Creating an Artistic Universe for Your Child


Published 12/6/2006


GUEST ADVICE DIVA: Robert Chambers, artist


Q: My wife and I are expecting, and want to raise our child in a hyper-creative environment that goes beyond ant farms and monthly trips to the museum.


RC: As a former NYU art teacher and father of three children under the age of 2, I have some advice. You, your wife and child are already off to a great start on your journey to creative nirvana. To begin, I would suggest thinking about light arriving to Earth from galaxies billions of years away. Use this as a form of meditation while you prepare to hyper-create your child's universe. It is a process to break the bonds enshrouding your imagination.

Learn to think outside the cube. Expand your imagination and your child will blossom. Train now by studying Eva Hesse, Joseph Beuys, Robert Smithson, Hannah Wilke, Louise Bourgeois, Vito Acconci, Jessica Stockholder, Fischli & Weiss and Beverly Semmes. There is a ton of online info on these artists. Read John Cage's Manifesto. Begin to think like these ''rule breakers'' and you will be able to help your child's mind hyper-develop. Use this four-step program during your child's first year.

1. Purchase giant sheets of colored paper and tape them to the ceiling and walls for a few days. Next, begin to remove various squares and cut with scissors in big egg-like shapes. Over a week, replace all squares with egg shapes. Change order and location frequently. This will stimulate the Precambrian in the child specifically and theoretically the Proterozoic eon of Earth's earliest animal history. Read Emotion and Meaning in Music by Leonard B. Meyer.

2. Apply Leonard B. Meyer's concepts of music theory to art projects for the child, such as a dozen large exercise balls in different colors, half deflated and in a state of amorphousness. Flop/roll balls out into room with you hiding behind something in baby's view while singing numbers and colors in various languages. (This might even work wonders on your partner. ) Think about expectation, continuation, saturation and association. Even early word/form stimulation is important. Don't be stymied by ''experts.'' Sing words from books instead of reading out loud. Even if you are not a diva, your child will remember the sound of the nurturing parent and the cadence of the words. Plus, it's fun to sing.

3. Home Depot or similar stores are the new über-Toys 'R' Us. Buy four 20-foot lengths of PVC pipe, an inch in diameter. Have them cut into many lengths of one-, two-, three- and four-foot sections. Buy a few dozen one-inch connectors -- 90-degree, etc.; also, a huge pack of zip ties and Velcro. Now go to the fabric store and purchase one-, two- and three-foot-square pieces of fabric and vinyl. You now have everything you need to make experimental dwellings that you can change every day. Sit inside these morphing structures with your child.

4. Read a paper titled Visual Perception in Karesansui(http://www.mis.atr.jp/~mlyons/pub_pdf/IAEA.pdf). Substitute rocks, sand and water with huge chunks of foam rocks (get custom-cut at foam store), orange safety cones and Astroturf sheets cut into organic island shapes. Assemble into the order of the gardens pictured in the paper and into the natural order of other Karesansui gardens you have researched. Show these ''gardens'' to the baby, but don't expect a reaction. It's all about imprinting an image and feeling. Think about the macro/micro of objects using this paper as a guide. Go to Kinko's and print out 3' by 4' photos of known Karesansui gardens on oversized regular Xerox paper. Place these images on the ceiling above the child. Rotate images. Develop your own creative terms. Your mind will temper with your child's creative development.


Copyright © 2006 The Miami Herald Media Company