AFP: France may slap warning on retouched fashion photos

YAY France. THis is the coolest thing I’ve heard in months. Such an amazing and proactive stance. Thank you.

AFP: France may slap warning on retouched fashion photos

PARIS — French parliamentarians concerned by eating disorders and body image want a warning slapped on ads and fashion photos that are digitally enhanced to make models more appealing, they said on Tuesday.
Parliamentarian Valerie Boyer, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party, and some 50 other MPs, have proposed a law aimed at fighting touched up images that distort reality.
“Such images can lead people to believe in a reality that often does not exist,” Boyer said in an explanatory statement.
The proposed legislation calls for photographs of people “whose body image has been digitally manipulated to be accompanied by a statement saying ‘digitally enhanced to modify a person’s body image.’”
It also calls for fines of 37,500 euros (55,000 dollars) for non-compliance with the health warning.
The aim of the proposed legislation, Boyer said, was to improve public health and protect consumers.
The warning should apply not only to press photographs but to packaging, political campaign pictures and art photography, the parliamentarian added.

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Mirrored from Lemmingworks.

Pull the plug on Pandas, declares BBC man

Pull the plug on Pandas, declares BBC man and he has a point that some would agree with. Death with dignity… and his comments on humans? Heee heee. Irresponsibly witty.

A BBC wildlife presenter has come off with a novel approach to saving the Giant Panda – don’t bother.

Chris Packham, who is all set to present the BBC’s flagship Autumnwatch program, said the cuddly but rather useless Asian bears, whose diet of bamboo shoots means they never store enough fat to hibernate properly, were soaking up conservation cash that could be better spent elsewhere.

“I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go, with a degree of dignity,” the no-nonsense conservationist told Radio Times.

He condemned the ursine freeloaders as “T-shirt animals” saying “Here’s a species that, of its own accord, has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac. It’s not a strong species. Unfortunately, pandas are big and cute and a symbol of the World Wildlife Fund.”

Warming to his theme, Packham said we could take a similar attitude to other species – with civil servants top of his list.

“Go into the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with a flamethrower and torch all of the stupid bureaucracy that dogs our farmers,” he ranted. “Let’s start organising fair pricing for UK farmers.”

In fact, said Packham, he’d like to see the entire human race extinct: “No question. That’s the only one.”

Which is certainly an option.

But short of genocide, Packham will have to settle for boring humans to death with the latest series of Autumnwatch, which will be kicking off sometime later in this season of mellow fruitfulness. ®

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Mirrored from Lemmingworks.