Gummy Bear it to Lift Your Breasts!

The quest for those perky breast is on. In the world of plastic surgery, breast implant technology are constantly revolutionized. The latest addition to the popular line of breast implants comes in a more stable form of pliable yet firm silicone gel implants that mimics the consistency of the yummy gummy bear candies that sweet tooth lovers enjoy.

According to Dr. Paul D. Feldman, a board certified plastic surgeon from Atlanta’s leading plastic surgery center, Advanced Aesthetics, gummy bear implants offers long lasting safety features and the best natural look of the ideal woman’s breasts. Board certified plastic surgeons Dr. Edward S. Gronka and Dr. Joseph Raniere, Jr. both agree that the firm and flexibility of the implant will benefit more women who desired that much natural looking breast tissues.  Women without much natural breast tissues like athletes and women needing breasts reconstruction are most likely candidates for filling their breasts with gummy bear implants after a thorough consultation and examination.

Remembering Hiroshima Through a Tree of Life

Hiroshima…

[image from The Telegraph]

August 6, 1945, 8:15AM

Remembering Hiroshima is a very painful thought but this lone tree have survived and was a witness to its horrors. The tree was believed to be around 390 years old since it has lived in 1765. It was raised and owned by  the family of Mr. Masaru Yamaki who have donated it to the National Arboretum in Washington DC despite some secrets it holds as per Mr. Yamaki. It has been speculated that it must  have been behind the wall of the bonsai nursery of the Yamaki family home when the US war planes dropped the atomic bomb some 2 miles away wiping out everything and anything in the area. Miraculously, the tree survived and witnessed the horrors of war: torn houses and structures and death everywhere. Wasting everything in the area including thousands and thousands of people.  The area became the scene of a horrific sight where people are walking with torn, burnt and mangled body parts from everywhere. 

Thus, it maybe the best way that Mr.Yamaki have donated it instead of keeping it as a prize for the meticulous, long time and hard way of nurturing the said tree however precious and priceless this tree of art has been. For him, maybe the tree is definitely not a prize to celebrate about and donated it instead of selling it at a very huge value. The tree's survival has the memory of more than hundred thousand people's horrific death. Even with the longevity on the life of this tree it simply cannot bring back the lives of those who died in the F bomb live again. Looking at it is very sad and traumatic and one cannot consume thinking its a tree of life tainted with blood and horrors. If only the tree could send messages to those who have died that their fallen lives were as precious and valuable even though they were now just memories of a past worth to be forgotten. A very sad tale for a tree of survival living.

I am Bruce. No, wait! I AM CAITLYN…

The transgender.

A sexual orientation. 
A privilege. 
A right. 
A classification. 
A sex. 
A group 
A relationship. 
A fad. 
A specie.

A he or a she. 
A boy or a girl. 
A man or a woman. 
A man trapped in a woman’s body. 
A woman trapped in a man’s body. 
A term synonymous to LBGT. 
A transsexual. 
A transvestite. 
A cross dresser. 
A gay. A bisexual. 
A homosexual. 
A homophile. 
An outcast. 
A misfit.

What really is a transgender?

A transgender is person whose sexual orientation does not match its normal physiological aspect or assigned sex from birth. The same is the case of most gay people like the celebrated case of the former Bruce and now Caitlyn Jenner.

Ever since Caitlyn Jenner graces the cover of a fashion magazine, everywhere and anywhere issues about transgender and transgendering has been a hot topic. From the cover of people magazines to newspaper to advertising billboards. Even in politics, churches and the army. The issue about transgenders were spreading like fire on a hot summer day.

The Pride march.

Ever since Bruce Jenner came out in the open about his transition, the world is never again in silence about it. The gay group has become even more visible and open to the public. The rainbow flag rises and the Pride group marches out from every corner of the world.

But these advocacies on gay people were not new. The emergence of the gay advocacy have been around as early as the 17^th century. Although their cry had become socially unacceptable starting from the 18^th century due to the imposition of the crimes against sodomy and moral laws.

Caitlyn and the 21^st century.

Caitlyn may have opened the Pandora’s Box on homosexuality for the21st century but the gay cry has been a significant voice even before religion, values and laws were introduced to humanity. The path of a gay person like Caitlyn was not an easy one. She has to live a life of a celebrated macho man in the 70s and undergo physical and mental anguish just to fight and let Caitlyn comes out in the open. The same way that many gay and transgender has gone through sufferings, persecution, trauma and even life threatening experiences. Many like Caitlyn emerge like a catalyst and blooms but many were also unfortunate and died living their fight and transition.

Lives were lost along the way. But for Caitlyn, her coming out of the cocoon is a reason. A reason for someone who at this moment may be suffering and struggling to come out and fight for right. Fight to gain. Fight to come out. Fight to survive. Fight to live.

A life to love.

A transgender may be a he or a she or something in between but definitely they are human just like you and me. Filled with sense, spirit and emotions. Whatever term you call them they are still perfectly human in every sense. Let us welcome them with open arms and loving hearts. For LOVE maybe the only thing that is needed to let them live.

Aruna Shanbaug: No more darkness and pain, free at last!

[image credit:  bbc.com]

It was in November 27, 1973  when then 25 years old Aruna Shanbaug was on duty as a junior nurse at the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Parel, Mumbai when she was brutally sodomized by a ward boy that goes by the name of Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki. Aruna was strangled by her assailant using a dog chain cutting off oxygen supply to her brain and leaving her in a vegetative state and cortically blind since then. Her unconscious body was discovered in the hospital basement by a cleaner the next day splattered all over with blood.

Her assailant was charged not of the case of rape or sodomy but of robbery and attempted murder. The facts of the case were concealed by the complainants maybe to avoid social rejection of the young nurse. Walmiki was sentenced to double seven-year term in prison and was suspected to have changed his identity in order to hide from the public eye.

Aruna since then was lying in a hospital bed in vegetative state. And for over 42 years, hospital staff took turn watching over her and keeping her alive. In December, 2010, Aruna's case caught the attention of Pinki Virani, an activist-journalist who sought the medical condition of Aruna from the hospital to plead euthanasia for her case to India’s Supreme Court.  Under the Court’s directive, Aruna’s medical condition was affirmed being that of a permanent vegetative case. But in February of 2014, a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court have observed some wrong interpretation and inconsistencies in the judgement of Aruna’s case based on the constitution leading to the rejection of the euthanasia plea.

In the early days of May this year, Aruna developed pneumonia and was later moved to the intensive care unit of the hospital and put on a ventilator. She died last May 18 freeing her body from the almost perpetual pain and darkness for over 42 years. A moment she probably have wanted despite what her body have endured for so long. Go forth Aruna! There'll be no more pain and darkness for you to wherever you will go through from hereon.

Enclava: A Kingdom Born From a Patch of Terra Nullius

What’s it like to live in a terra nullius patch of land claimed by a group of Poles as a kingdom? The Kingdom of Enclava, a 1,000 square foot patch of no man’s land near the Slovenian town of Metlika and about 30 miles west of Zagreb, Croatia’s capital city. Enclava, a self-declared Balkan country is in the border between Slovenia and Croatia which might unlikely to be given international recognition yet its founders claim sovereign rights since neither Croatia nor Slovenia have no established claims over the said suburban garden-sized like kingdom.

A kingdom with no citizen.

Micro nations are being born everywhere in the world for decades with only ‘virtual citizens’ as inhabitants recruited over the internet.  And in relation to Enclava, its founding claimants said they wanted to have build the kingdom as an ideal community where its people will enjoy tax free living and will have 5 official languages namely:  English, Polish, Croatian, Slovenian and in the very bizarre inclusion of the Mandarin the language spoken by the Far Eastern Chinese.  More than 5,000 people have signed into its honorary membership while the supposed constitution was being drafted. The concept was to build a nation of ideal minded people who will be able to freely express their minds and speak up regardless of race, skin color, religion and nationality, as pointed by Piotr Wawrzynkiewicz, one of its founders. Both the government of Slovenia and Croatia has not commented about the proclamation of the newly emerged self-proclaimed kingdom nation in their border.

An inspiration.
Enclava’s founders must have got its inspiration from Liberland, a similar micro nation declared last month. Liberland is actually a stretch of woodland along the banks of the Danube. Liberland, also a self-declared independent micro nation by its self-appointed ruler, Vit Jedlicka even carries its own flag featuring an eagle and the sun. Their motto goes something  like that of the lyrics from a popular song – “To live and let live.” Like the kingdom of Enclava, Liberland also couldn’t stop 300,000 people from across the globe in applying for citizenship. Mr. Jedlicka claimed that they were part of a great libertarian movement that is now emerging around the world and that, “Governments are becoming increasingly unpopular,” claiming as the reason why they exists.

Plus Size, MomBod, DadBod, Are you a Selfie IN or OUT?

[image credit: francetvinfo]

Men and women shares on various social media network images of their body that many think are not within what others are saying as not within the standard measure of ideal.  To them, it is their own way of self-expression and conquering their doubts and fears about self-esteem and confidence. It is their way of bravely finding out whether their current physical appearance is something accepted within their circle and beyond if it goes viral and hit.

Dare to bare.            

Cellulites, skin flabs, stretch marks, baby bumps, saggy skins, muscles and all. Piercings, tattoos, holes and body markings. Those are what you can notice on many of the images posted in various social media. Are people getting more and more daring just for the sake of finding out what’s beauty and ideal? Or was it just a fad of flaunting one’s confidence and ego in competing with those who most people think are beautiful and ideal?

Ideal is a just a state of the mind.

Are people getting more and more overconfident deterring that being ‘ideal is just a state of mind’? Are people making the social media a mirror to see if they still appeal despite their looks, whatever other people might think or say? Is it really just about conquering one’s fear of being tagged as unlikely or likely despite the odds that people might say? Is the act a way of getting sympathy and justice for what one’s body has become?

The Selfie generation.

Ever since ‘Selfie’ hype was introduced in the social media circulation, more and more people are making it a standard of what was ideal and acceptable.  The hype pushes the different social media network to police and impose standards and censorship on what images are acceptable to be posted without going through the boundaries of pornography, self-expression morals and decency. The various social media networks tried hard by warning and closing out accounts of those supposedly violating the rules. But because of the global and worldwide circulation of their pages and the laws and rules governing each region and nation, it’s like going into the slim and narrow eye of a needle on every standard and rules being observed by every region in the world. As such, restriction on image viewing greatly lies on every region’s internet access and digital refinements.

A personal choice.

Whichever state of reason or advocacy you may have in showing off your body over social media networks it is definitely changing everyone’s perception and outlook of what was the standard of idealism in terms of beauty and likeness.  A way to outsmart one’s imperfections and regain your lost esteem and confidence. Perhaps, something alternative to fight bullies and avoid going into artificial ways of physical changing of going under the knife of physical makeover. A way to stand by your own personal choice and uphold what you believe suits and is best for you.

What about you?

Are you brave enough to show what you’ve got and be awesome?

Are you IN or OUT?

Building Instant Islands, the China Way of Changing Territorial Maps

[image credit: philstar.com]

All across the world, there is no doubt that the China is  growing as fast as it could be. As their population breaks population charts, so was their rising economy breaking stock exchange tradings. And now there is another venture China is getting into. China is into building instant islands on disputed waters west of the Philippine seas.  Out of nothing, the water territories on the Asian disputed seas suddenly grew islands that in no time became small archipelago-like in the area. China is changing their territorial map by building instant islands on hotly disputed waters. Complete with airstrips and military zones for battle aircraft carriers, the islands are now being inhabited on what China claims as maritime observation facilities. But neighboring countries are getting into the idea that the area could become a military defense zone with all the possible military armaments that could be brought to the site like long range sensors, missile systems and other sophisticated military arsenals. The area seems to be getting more and more a fortress for China's battleground defense in these territorial waters claimed by the neighboring Asian countries other than them..