[OMG] Mass Nude Dead Sea shoreline shoot, Artistic Photography

JERUSALEM: American art photographer Spencer Tunick is seeking funds and models for one of his trademark mass shoots of naked volunteers, this time at Israel's Dead Sea shoreline.

A statement from online art fundraiser Kickstarter.com said that the goal was to raise $60,000 (S$73,578) by June 6 to fund the project entitled "Naked Sea."

Some of Tunick's previous shoots included one of 18,000 nudes in Mexico City's Zocalo Square and another of 7,000 in Barcelona, Spain.

Kickstarter said that Tunick had been motivated to try the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, because of its natural beauty and to draw attention to the danger to its future caused by evaporation of its salt-saturated waters.

"This project is dear to me, one that I have dreamed of since my early days as an artist," Tunick wrote in the statement.

"I look forward to your support in exposing a part of Israel that has not been seen before and at the same time bring attention to the deteriorating situation of the the Dead Sea."

Experts have repeatedly warned that the Dead Sea could dry out by 2050 unless vital measures are taken to halt the decay of the world's lowest and saltiest body of water, experts say.

The surface level is plunging by a metre a year and the shoreline has receded by more than a kilometre in some places, according to some calculations.

Both Israel and Jordan are exploiting the Dead Sea tourist trade, with luxury hotels on either shore.

Both have also set up massive evaporation pools that harvest Dead Sea minerals like potash, or potassium carbonate, used to produce soap, glass, baking soda and fertilisers.

For centuries, the sea's delicate balance was maintained by the Jordan river, its only year-round water source. But in recent decades Israel and Jordan have been diverting its waters into large irrigation projects.

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[OMG] Porn-viewing MP waiting for permission to quit

Arifinto, a legislator and member of the conservative Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) who handed in his resignation after being caught red-handed viewing pornographic media during a House session, was spotted at the House of Representatives on Friday, apparently still waiting for the President to approve his resignation.

"As long as a presidential decision had not yet been issued, my status remains as an [active] member of the House," Arifinto said Friday.

He added that what mattered most to him was that he had submitted a resignation letter to his party.

According to Arifinto, his letter of resignation also needed to be approved by his party's executive board (DPP), and then the General Elections Commission (KPU), followed by the Internal Affairs Ministry, before it finally reached the State Secretariat.

"The letter sent to the [PKS] executive board was submitted yesterday," Arifinto said, as reported by tribunnews.com.

-The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network

[OMG] Women addicted to PORN, when marriage fails

FOR hours daily, she was transfixed by the computer screen, watching steamy love scenes play out in front of her


The 32-year-old Singaporean engineer was aware that she was hooked on pornography and tried to stop.

But she was unsuccessful and became compulsive towards porn when her marriage hit the rocks.

She is one of a handful of women suffering from porn addiction, whom senior consultant psychiatrist Associate Professor Munidasa Winslow has seen in the last three years.

On why women turn to porn, Prof Winslow said: "Porn is easier - you don't need to pay attention to being nice to each other. And you can do it anytime, anywhere.

"Also, it gives them a thrill and acts as a stress reliever."

Prof Winslow, who is now in private practice, previously headed the Addiction Medicine Department at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

He was also director of the Community Addictions Management Programme at IMH, providing professional case management in the treatment of addictions.


Internet

While not many women here are coming clean about their porn addiction, it is a different story elsewhere.

Last week, The Guardian newspaper reported that more women in the UK are admitting that they are hooked on Internet pornography.

When she went through a rough patch in her relationship with her husband, porn became an easy escape.

The report quoted Mr Jason Dean, the founder of the main porn counselling service in the UK, Quit Porn Addiction, as saying that about one in three clients are women struggling with watching porn. In the case of the Singaporean woman, her interest in porn "started even before the Internet", she told The New Paper in an e-mail interview.

Her friend in Australia had sent her a porn magazine seven or eight years ago. By the time she was done flipping through it, her interest was piqued.

Soon, she began desiring more porn and went onto the Internet for more of such fixes. And as Internet usage became more prevalent, it became much easier and faster for her to get porn online, she added.

When she later went through a rough patch in her relationship with her husband, porn became an easy escape.

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