The Daily Newds 12/27/08

Catching up after a very busy holiday season...

• A Seattle columnist is "all for nudity", but...

  ...there's the morality issue. Is it in any way possible to justify nude bicycling on the basis of morality? The most adept philosopher would be hard pressed to make this argument. After all, is it morally acceptable for a physical specimen replete with rippling muscles and firm curves to flaunt his or her charms to the remainder of us who may be challenged in the same areas? I don't think so, nor do I think that those who thoughtlessly parade their physical perfection would think so if they gave it a little thought. Have a little consideration is all I ask. Leave the imperfect among us some pride at the end of the day.

• A New Zealand man has been sentenced to four months in jail for taking off his clothes on National Nude Day.
• Here's a video link to the annual UC-Berkeley student library streak.
• Here's a brief history of nude dancing and the First Amendment.
• One Australian man is trying to make a difference in getting Little Congwong declared an official free beach.

  "Naturists are a good, honest crowd," he said. "Nobody hides anything. I've never come across the bad behaviour or rudeness that you sometimes get on clothed beaches. We love nature and the freedom of just being yourself."

• NPR has a short audio link to a story about one of the Nude Pumpkin Runners who will have to do community service, six months probation and pay $27 in court costs for streaking in public. A blogger on the Denver Post website says that the runners are getting what they deserve.
• A writer is distressed over nudity in locker rooms.

  ...all the skinny people are back from their work-out and strutting their naked thin bodies around the changing room. That seems to be the latest thing. Take off all your clothes and, irrespective of who's behind you, bend down to put on the knickers and shove your bottom in somebody else's face, often mine.

• Here's a photo gallery of celebrities who have taken it all off for PETA.
• A nude portrait of a breast cancer survivor will go on display in The Louvre.
• The staff of Amazon.com reportedly resisted a call for them to drop trou for mass mooning photo.
• Amy Winehouse has been added to the list of celebrities who enjoy topfreedom.
• Naked Rambler Stephen Gough is going back to jail for another 12 months.
• Women are protesting Facebook's decision to ban images of breastfeeding.

  "What about a baby breast-feeding is obscene? Especially in comparison to MANY other pictures posted all over Facebook that really are obscene?'' the event organizers asked on their Web site, called "Hey Facebook, breast-feeding is not obscene!''

• More stories on the Facebook censorship can be found here, and here.
• Marisa Tomei talks about her role in The Wrestler where she plays a stripper.
• The staff at a UK store stripped off for a Christmas card to raise money for Alzheimer's research.
• Two Louisiana elementary school children were suspended from school for viewing a nude photo on a school computer. The Superintendent compared the incident to fights, guns, knives and drugs.
• The Chicago bar which gained notoriety with a nude painting of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is now planning a nude portrait of embattled Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.
• Naturists are saying that there are fewer places to go bare in Orange County.

  "There are fewer places than there used to be," said longtime naturist leader and Huntington Beach resident Allen Baylis, an attorney who is leading the San Onofre State Beach fight. "Because of the prejudice and marginalization we've long suffered, we've kept losing ground."

• A children's charity has turned down the funds raised by doctors who posed for a nude calendar.
• Fifteen artists' models stripped down in front of the Paris cultural affairs bureau to protest a ban on tipping for their services.
• SCNA (Southern California Naturist Association) is rallying supporters for the right to be nude.

  Members have begun a sly campaign to raise awareness among local business owners of their numbers and purchasing power. Armed with fistfuls of $2 bills, naturists use the questions generated by the unusual currency as an opportunity to explain their mission and demonstrate that for a troubled economy, there is profit in numbers.
  
  “We’re trying to say if there were more people down at the beach they’d be buying more hamburgers,” Wilkinson says.
  
  So far, says Ricc Bieber, an activist who has worked to maintain nudist beaches since 1976, “practically everyone has been really positive. They understand the economic consequences.”

Tags: nudism, naturism, nudist, nudists, naturist, naturists, nudity, nudes, bare, au naturel, nude, naked