{{In the U.S. Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish, a new law bans the low-slung, undies-exposing jeans look popularized by hip-hop culture.}}
The ban, approved Wednesday and expected to be signed into law this week, targets the public wearing of pants—and, oddly, skirts—that hang “below the waist” and “expose the skin or undergarments.”
Violators will be slapped with fines: $50 for the first offense, $100 for the second, and $100 plus 16 hours of public service for each subsequent offense.
many constituents had called upon the council to do something about what has apparently become a widespread saggy pants problem.
The ban was approved at an April 10th Parish council meeting by a vote of 8-1 and is expected to soon be signed into law by council president Michel Claudet.
The only council member to vote against the ban was Beryl Amedée said, “The problem is our young men are emulating prisoners. It sends a sign that you’re available for sex. It’s a bad example to set.”
The idea that wearing low-slung pants in prison signals some sort of sexual come-on has been a long-held, generally disputed belief about the controversial style’s origins.
Another theory is that folks who let their pants sag below their undies are emulating prisoners who have their belts taken away (for fears of suicide) when they are locked up.
{{Women have long been told that a good bra can help support the chest, relieve back pain and prevent sagging.}}
However, a new 15-year French study reveals the opposite: bras do little to reduce back pain and, over time, they can actually make breasts sag even more.
Researcher Prof. Jean-Denis Rouillon, a sports science expert from the University of Besançon in eastern France claims that “bras are a false necessity,” according to The Local.
“Medically, physiologically, anatomically – breasts gain no benefit from being denied gravity,” said Rouillon. “On the contrary, they get saggier with a bra.”
Rouillon and his team spent years measuring the changes in the breasts of 330 women using a simple slide rule and caliper at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (University Hospital) in Besançon, where he carried out his research.
He found that no evidence that bras helped ease back pain. Instead, he found that the chest supports could even add to the problem.
According to The Connexion, the findings suggest that breasts would gain more tone and support themselves if no bra was used.
Researchers explain that bras limit the growth of supporting breast tissues, leaving the breast to wither and degrade more quickly.
The study found that women who took off their bras for good experienced a 7mm lift in their nipples each year they didn’t wear a bra. Researchers also found that bra-less women developed firmer breasts and saw their stretch marks fade.
Some of the women who took part in Rouillon’s study told France Info that not wearing a bra helped ease their back pains.
Capucine, a 28-year-old participant in Rouillon’s study, swears by the results and hasn’t worn a bra for two years.
“There are multiple benefits: I breathe more easily, I carry myself better, and I have less back pain,” Capucine said, according to France Info.
However, Rouillon says the findings do not mean all women should throw away their bras.
“It would be dangerous to advise all women to stop wearing their soutien-gorge as the women involved were not a representative sample of the population,” Rouillon said, according to The Connexion.
While his initial results “validated the hypothesis that the bra is a false ‘need’,” he says that women who have been wearing bras for a long time would not gain any benefit from stopping now.
{{President Vladimir Putin defended Russia’s treatment of homosexuals in Amsterdam, where 1,000 gay rights activists waved pink and orange balloons and blasted out dance music to press home their protest.}}
Western nations need Russia for energy and as a market for exports but are uneasy about Putin’s human rights policies and his treatment of opponents in his new Kremlin term.
In Amsterdam on Monday, Dutch and Russian companies signed a batch of energy deals and Putin met Queen Beatrix and Prime Minister Mark Rutte, while about 1,000 protesters blew whistles, played loud music and waved the gay pride flag nearby in the city famous for its liberal attitude.
Putin, who laughed off a topless protest earlier in the day in Germany, said Russia did not discriminate against gay people.
“In the Russian Federation — so that it is clear to everybody — there is no infringement on the rights of sexual minorities,” he said.
“These people, like everyone else, enjoy all the same rights and freedoms as everyone else,” he told a news conference held at Amsterdam’s Maritime Museum, in a nod to the days when Peter the Great worked as a young man in an Amsterdam shipyard.
Russia’s parliament has given preliminary approval to a ban on “homosexual propaganda” targeting minors, which critics say would effectively ban gay rights demonstrations. The United States has said the legislation “severely restricts freedom of expression and assembly.”
Many houses and bridges in the historic canal district of Amsterdam were draped with banners and the rainbow flag of the gay pride movement, protesting what human rights organizations say is institutional repression of gays in Russia.
“Putin go homo,” read one, echoing the message “Putin go home” on the front page of Friday’s NRC Next daily newspaper.
“I’m protesting against the anti-gay law in Russia because it’s unreal. You can’t tell people to go back into the closet,” said one protester, who gave his name as Connie Feather, dressed in a rainbow striped chiffon dress and blue feather boa.
{{Tshepo Cameron Modisane and Thoba Calvin Sithole, both 27, met several years ago while studying in Durban, but lost contact with each other.}}
A chance meeting in a gym in the suburbs of Johannesburg led to them becoming training partners, then a couple. After three years as boyfriends Mr Modisane proposed in June 2012.
South Africa legalised same-sex marriage in 2006, but the pair still drew media attention as the area’s “first legal gay wedding”.
On 6 April the pair were married in a ceremony drawing on traditions from both Mr Modisane’s Tswana and Mr Sithole’s Zulu ancestry.
Both wore traditional regalia, asked their ancestors for blessing, and a cow was slaughtered. Gifts were presented to the parents of both men as thanks for raising them.
Speaking to ENCA at the ceremony, Mr Modisane said the wedding went “against the idea that being gay isn’t African. Being gay is as African as being black.”
Mr Modisane said: “People are still ashamed because the vast majority of the black community is not accepting of being a homosexual. They see it as largely being a ‘Western trend’ that is in fashion lately.”
The view that homosexuality is a Western trend is often promoted by media and politicians in Africa, with perhaps the most notable recent example being the Ugandan President blaming European culture for encouraging “deviant” gay behaviour, such as “luring of young people using money into gay acts” in March.
The couple hope their wedding sets an example against this view, said Mr Modisane: “If people are inspired by our love and actions and want to do the same to follow in our footsteps then we don’t mind being labelled as ‘role models’ in the LGBTI community.”
Mr Sithole agreed: “Hiding who we are is what makes people judge us even more and makes them not accept us for who we are.
If we can just live life openly then in time people will get used to the idea that gay and lesbian people are part of society and we are here to stay.”
{{Wearing of miniskirts could soon land one in jail or attract heavy fines if Parliament approves a new piece of legislation that seeks to further clarify the offence of pornography in Uganda’s laws.}}
The government is riding on its view that pornography has become such an “insidious social problem” to get the Bill through Parliament.
It also argues that because there has been an “increase in pornographic materials in the Ugandan mass media and nude dancing in the entertainment world”, there is need to establish a legal framework to regulate such vices.”
In its current form, it is proposed that those found guilty of abetting pornography face a fine of Shs10 million under the draft law titled: The Anti-Pornography Bill, 2011 or a jail stint not exceeding 10 years, or both.
But the draft law ran into early turbulence in the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee yesterday after some members expressed concerns about its implications for freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution.
MPs in the committee also criticised the government’s attempts to legislate for sex, a course of action which could see it labelling some age-old cultural practices as pornographic.
The Bill defines pornography as any cultural practice, form of behaviour or form of communication or speech or information or literature or publication in whole or publication in part or news story or entertainment or stage play or broadcast or music or dance or art or graphic or picture or photography or video recording or leisure activity or show or exhibition.
It also prohibits any combination of the preceding that depicts unclothed or under clothed parts of the human body such as breasts, thighs, buttocks and genitalia, a person engaged in explicit sexual activities or conduct; erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement and any indecent act or behaviour tending to corrupt morals.
Lawmakers said the Bill’s definition of pornography was too broad and that it went against Uganda’s tradition of being tolerant of cultural diversity.
{{Syria’s military is warning rebels against pressing an ongoing offensive into Damascus, saying the push by opposition fighters into the capital means their “certain death.”}}
Rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad have established strongholds in the suburbs surrounding the capital during the two-year-old-conflict.
In recent weeks, they’ve stepped up mortar attacks on the center of the city, bringing the conflict closer to the seat of Assad’s power.
A military commander told the pro-government al-Watan newspaper that any advance by the rebels on Damascus means “certain death for them and their leaders.”
The commander, who is not named in the Wednesday report, said the bravery of government troops on the battlefield is keeping Damascus safe.
{{Reports from Malawi indicate that U.S. pop diva Madonna has arrived in Malawi for an unannounced visit.}}
An aviation department worker said Madonna’s jet landed at the Kamuzu International Airport in the country’s capital, Lilongwe, early Monday. It was not clear if she came with her children.
The aviation worker spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the press.
The singer has previously stayed at the exclusive Kumbali Lodge in Lilongwe, and an employee there says all other guests were checked out.
The employee spoke on condition of anonymity because he didn’t have permission to speak to the press on the matter.
Madonna adopted two children from Malawi. She promised the court she would bring her adopted children twice “every two or three years.”
{{Hats and T-shirts of the late Venezuelan president are flying off the shelves at his street-side stand faster than he can keep them in stock.}}
Ditto demand for Chavez tattoos, Chavez earrings, Chavez mugs and talking Chavez action figurines.
One can even buy Chavez boxer shorts and panties, part of a cult of personality that began while the former paratrooper was still alive but has exploded in the week since he succumbed to cancer.
“It’s really a shame the president died, but the souvenir business is booming,” said the 42-year-old Carrillo, who says he is selling five times as much merchandise as when Chavez was alive.
“It isn’t good to make money off the death of someone like the president, but what can we do? People are asking us for it.”
Analysts say we are witnessing the supersizing of a myth — and an industry.
“Chavez died in perfect condition to be mythologized and marketed,” said Luis Vicente Leon, president of the respected Datanalisis polling firm, who predicted the Chavez industry would only grow.
“He was young, he died in power and he was recently re-elected. It’s like James Dean or Marilyn Monroe.”
Leon said that even when he was alive Chavez embraced his brand, unlike historical figures such as Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who became a marketing phenomenon after his death — and contrary to his anti-capitalist ideals.
“President Chavez was a stimulator of his own cult of personality,” said Leon. “He’d be all for it.”
Yet others doubted Chavez would ever go global because his death from cancer wasn’t seen as heroic and didn’t coincide with an international movement
{{Ugandan music superstar, Jose Chameleon has arrived in Kigali where he is expected to perform at the Launch of Knowless’s Second Album titled, “uwondiwe”.
Chameleon touched down at Kigali International Airport at about noon where he was also recieved by several fans.}}
Although the singer has performed solo several times in Kigali, he has told IGIHE that this time he has travelled with his two sons with whom he will perform live on stage.
({Rwandan Commandos undergoing tough training at a base})
{{On first blush, you probably think that struggle is a bad thing. After all, it has the connotation of weakness, indecisiveness, and incompetence, thanks in large part to societal taboos.}}
Yet despite what society would have you believe, years of research into the topic indicates that struggle is actually essential for career advancement.
Rather than avoiding struggle — or worse, denying it exists — those looking to take their career to the next level must learn how to embrace struggle as an opportunity for learning and growth.
Making this shift requires determination; it means bucking beliefs that have surreptitiously seeped into our collective sub-conscious — that struggle is a sign of weakness and therefore a source of embarrassment and shame.
This attitude toward struggle is not only counterproductive — leading to self-defeating behaviors including retreating inward with self-doubt and avoiding necessary risk for fear of failure — it is also wrong.
The fact of the matter is that struggle is a natural and inevitable part of career growth. But it doesn’t have to be painful.
By breaking away from cultural stereotypes to embrace struggle as an art to be mastered, you open a new set of possibilities for career growth.
{{Seek challenging assignments and difficult goals}}
If you are constantly doing the same things over and over again, chances are you are not growing. Instead, seek out situations where there is rapid change.
This will keep you on your toes. Look for projects that can expand your skills and capabilities, ideally those that give you the charter to work autonomously, so you have the freedom to experiment.
Numerous psychological studies find that performance is at its best when goals are difficult but still attainable with effort and imagination.
If you find yourself breezing through your day, easily meeting your goals, it could be a sign that your goals are too easy.
See what happens when you set a higher bar for yourself.
{{Treat negative feedback as a gift}}
It’s natural to cringe when you receive negative feedback. It may feel like a personal attack and can evoke a whole host of powerful emotions.
But receiving valid feedback is the most valuable of gifts, allowing you to step outside your delusional cocoon and become connected with external metrics of success.
When you stop doing the things that aren’t working, you clear a space for more things that get you the results you want.
My friend and former Microsoft CFO Frank Gaudette used to say: “I reserve the right to wake up smarter every day.” In this mindset, you interpret all feedback as a learning opportunity.
If you don’t have the skills you need, rather than feeling angry or upset about it, find a way to get them.
{{Learn how to remain grounded and centered}}
The more anchored and centered you are, the less likely you will be thrown off balance by the inevitable challenges that come your way.
Train yourself to become more stress-resistant by engaging in a set of daily and weekly practices that keep you on a steady course.
There are many options, including: exercise, meditation, journaling, prayer, or even just becoming immersed in nature by walking in the woods, sitting by the water, or planting in the garden. Choose the mix that’s right for you.
Personal centering practices are only part of the answer. In addition, build a support community—family, friends, peers, mentors, and coaches—to give you the advice and assistance you need during stressful times.
By challenging yourself, readily embracing feedback, and remaining grounded and centered, you can embrace struggle head on and use it as fuel for your career growth.
These practices are like the foundation of a building; they keep the building steady, even through storms and the passage of time.
The sturdier the foundation, the taller the building it will support.
CNN
{Author is the managing director of Snyder Leadership Group, a consulting firm dedicated to cultivating inspired leadership. He is the author of “Leadership and the Art of Struggle”}
