A FLOWER IN YOU HAIR IS NO LONGER ENOUGH

November 21, 2012

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted by six to five to ban public nudity in the city. District Supervisor Scott Wiener said that he proposed the ban after mounting complaint by all demographic sectors including the gay community. Naturists had become a common sight, particularly in the predominantly gay Castro District. Exceptions will, however, be permitted on special occasions, such as street fairs and parades.

Whilst there is something quite liberating and even innocent about naturism, most people are not ready for it and they may not be for centuries to come. So it would seem best, then, to keep it where it belongs: out of the public eye. This is not pandering to narrow-mindedness, it just a matter of consideration and respect. We have after all been wearing clothes or covering up for millennia. Of course some may say that the same argument can be used for eating meat or persecuting homosexuality, but the difference here is that the inconvenience of wearing clothes is slight in comparison to the discomfort and embarrassment people may feel at the sight of naked people running around the streets.

In the meantime, perhaps art is the best way of gently prodding the taboo. I just wished I could live in a country where one could consider nudity without the prospect of freezing to death!

HEY WORLD!
The Globecatcher website is being developed and the aim is to have regular bite-sized impartial news from every nation in the world. We have started writing on all mainland South American countries, just to get Globecatcher moving, but we need correspondents form all over the world to breath life into the project and and make Globecatcher a record of world events as they unfold. If nothing noteworthy happens in a particular country, for period of four weeks or so, then a feature on its culture, history or geography, for instance, will keep it in the picture. We will also have fact files on every country, like the one that has just been completed on Australia.

If you would like to be a part of this exciting project, please follow this link and I will get back to you with all the information you would need.

I look forward to hearing from you.