AB FLEX

Take a look at this ridiculous contraption!!


I was thinking about working out, and working out in the nineties. I remembered that when I was about 13, which was 1996, I some how convinced my Dad to buy an Ab Flex! The infomercial made me think I was going to get a super flat stomach if I used it for - I dunno, seven minutes a day.
Truth be told, when it arrived, we used it for a week or two, then buried it in the cupboard at the back of our TV room, only to drag out on occasion to humour/impress friends.

The below news release from 1997, states that the infomercials and advertisements for such exercise equipment made exaggerated weight loss claims, which is certainly obvious, if you remember the abs they used.
I still feel the fact that I got my Dad to order one was a great feat, as Dad's never usually buy into this crap!

FTC Puts Exercise Device Weight-Loss Claims on a Diet

60 Minutes on DRC

Watch CBS News Videos Online

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENJAMIN JACK TINDALL

Ben, Happy 20th
You are truly wonderful, talented and fun
Love you

Kenya scandal splits political elite

As a bitter power struggle rumbles on among Kenya's elite after the suspension of two ministers amid corruption scandals, the BBC's Will Ross in Nairobi assesses the impact of the graft on the country's young.

Donors are worried funds are being looted from Kenyan schools
In a primary school in a Nairobi slum more than 80 students are squeezed into one classroom.
As the teacher tests their science knowledge, the wide-eyed children raise their hands in unison. There is a real hunger to learn here.
But these students and others across the country are the victims of just one of the high-level corruption scams eating away at the public coffers.
"In Kenya of course corruption is pervasive and has been for a long, long time ever since independence but it doesn't get much worse than taking money from a child I think," US ambassador Michael Ranneberger told the BBC.
In solidarity with other donors the US withheld $7 million intended for a programme in the Ministry of Education.
Britain held back £10 million ($15 million).
This action was taken after an audit showed that roughly $1m had disappeared from the Education Ministry in just one month.

to read more
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THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES FRIDAY 19 FEB, LONDON

The Vagina Monoglogues is performed around the world in February and March each year to raise awareness and funds for local Women's organisations, which all work to end violence against women. If you can go to a Vagina Monologues near you, you should.



THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, 7PM £6
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL UK
The Human Rights Action Centre
17-25 New Inn Yard
London EC2A 3EA

Stephen Malkmus - It Kills

Refuge.org.uk Valentines

www.refuge.org.uk

V-Day's Five City 'Turning Pain to Power' Brings International Attention to the Women and Girls of the DRC

V-Day's 'Turning Pain To Power Tour' took place during the month of February, 2009 making stops in NYC, LA, the San Francisco Bay Area, Atlanta and Washington, DC.

The tour featured Dr. Denis Mukwege, winner of the 2008 UN Human Rights Prize and Founder of the ground breaking Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, in conversation with Eve Ensler, reaching thousands of women and men throughout North America and bringing attention to the violence against women in the Congo, and V-Day's joint campaign with UNICEF.

Interview with Dr. Denis Mukwege

FROM CONGO WITH LOVE





Rankin's photographs, in collaboration with Oxfam will feature in a huge exhibition 'From Congo with Love' at the National Theatre, London for a month: 12 February - 11 April. The images focus on the love and solidarity found in the midst of the DRC, one of the world’s worst conflict zones. There are images and stories exploring romantic love, love lost, mother's love and the kindness of strangers, as well as photos taken by Congolese villagers with Rankin's guidance, providing an extraordinary insight into their everyday life.

New View Campaign

New View Campaign

The New View Campaign was formed in 2000 as a grassroots network to challenge the distorted and oversimplified messages about sexuality that the pharmaceutical industry relies on to sell its new drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry wants people to think that sexual problems are simple medical matters, and it offers drugs as expensive magic fixes. But sexual problems are complicated, sexuality is diverse, and no drug is without side effects.

The goal of the New View Campaign is to expose biased research and promotional methods that serve corporate profit rather than people's pleasure and satisfaction. The Campaign challenges all views that reduce sexual experience to genital biology and thereby ignore the many dimensions of real life.

E V E E N S L E R

Eve Ensler: writer, activist, founder of the V Day movement to end Violence against Women. This woman is inspiring, a kind of most extraordinarily excellent human and role model.

piece from The Vagina Monologues
Eve Ensler Interview

Are we listening to each other?

Tonight, while waiting outside to meet two friends I heard people talking as they passed by.
It seemed the listeners weren't listening to the other, the speakers not noticing the listeners not listening,
while they kept gabbing.
Perplexing.

C l e m e n t i n e

Lovely Clementine,

You are a precious, exotic creature.
Happy Birthday from the depths of my heart.

I love you,

Kate

Many Lost Everything

Special report: The rise of 'the African Taliban'

More than 500,000 displaced people live along the 20-mile Afgoye Corridor, west of Mogadishu. Many have lost everything, including their families, in their flight from the Shabaab – Somalia's terrifying Islamist militia

Rabbit and the Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland Party; Mick and Clementine in Paris, pixelated