The Weekend Newds

• Nude Protest: Students in Manila snarled traffic by running nude along a busy street as a protest to tuition hikes.
• Moss Mania: Six nude photos of Kate Moss taken by art photographer Chuck Close sold for more four times the expected amount at a Christie's auction.
• A Pot in Every Chicken: A Spanish councillor was elected after he promised to dress up as Elvis, turn the town square into a nudist pool, and plant marijuana in city parks.
• Boob Tube: The Australian Breastfeeding Association has recommended that television shows begin to include normal scenes of breastfeeding mothers as a means to change societal attitudes.
• Leave the Swimsuit at Home: USA Today profiles 10 of the best places to go swimming in the nude.
• Naked on Your Coffee Table: A number of celebrities including singer/songwriter Kelis and actress Erika Christensen have posed nude for "Nudes", the new book by art photographer Marc Baptiste.
• Strip Club Pioneer Dies: Terry Koumoudouros was told by a court that dancers at his Toronto clubs could not be completely nude, so he had them first dance just topless, then just bottomless, eventually winning his case against the no-nudity bylaw.
• Rocky Mountain High: Mountain Air Ranch is located on 150 acres southwest of Denver, Colorado, and boasts 440 members.

  Dave Walker, 57, and his wife, Nancy, 55, of Fort Collins don’t worry about keeping their lifestyle a secret. The Fort Collins couple visited Mountain Air Ranch with friends eight years ago. “We came home and told our daughter,” Dave said. “I thought she was going to die of laughter.”

• Naked Boys Singing: Soon coming to the local multiplex. Well, maybe to the local art cinema house.
• No Nipples and No Pink: Vixen Kabarett at Chapman University is a politically charged erotic dance show that has been playing once per semester for the past three years.

  (Creator Josh) McKaine’s mood may have been particularly soured by the death of a friend serving in Iraq the prior month, and by the culture’s war against the human body in general. “Bodies can be blown up on cable, but show a nipple, and the station loses a license.”
  
  A blond dancer named Kendall McKenzie — a 25-year-old Chapman graduate who lived for a year in New York and has returned to the O.C. to work for Planned Parenthood — sidles up to McKaine and drapes one arm around him. She was wearing only underwear and pasties.
  
  “I had liberal parents,” she says. “My mom started a sex-education class for the sixth grade. My house was very naked, so I’ve always been comfortable with my body, and showing it off. Now I’m a crazy feminist...” she quips. To show their power, some people start wars; others take off their clothes and dance.

• No Rules, Just Right: Filmaker Rolf de Heer had to improvise when working with tribal villagers when making "Ten Canoes".

  Though de Heer is modest about his involvement with Ten Canoes, one story illustrates the 56-year-old director's contribution to the film, while providing an insight into his success as a filmmaker. (His previous films have included Alexandra's Project and Dingo, featuring Miles Davis.) "Missionaries persuaded villagers that nudity was unwholesome, so it wasn't easy [photographing them naked]," de Heer recalls. "I started with the men during photography. I said, 'Okay, how about taking off your clothes.' They grumbled, so I took off my clothes. They laughed and stripped. After that, it wasn't hard."

• Best Feet Forward: Nudism is great for helping people overcome body image problems, but one woman spent nearly a lifetime living with the perception that she had ugly feet.

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