Scaredy Cats and Dogs: Halloween Event in Manila
A girl models her costume at the “Scaredy Cats and Dogs” Halloween fund-raising event at a mall in Quezon City. (Reuters)
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If Superbarrio Not Exist, Would Have To Invent
A popular Mexican social activist known as Superbarrio, claiming to seek to improve the financial situation of the working class and the poor and homeless, stands outside the Stock Exchange building in Mexico City October 20, 2011. Superbarrio and members of the Occupy Together movement stuck a banner, reading Closed in Spanish, outside the building during a protest against economic inequality, according to local media. (REUTERS/Carlos Jasso)
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A Sweet Time for Chocolate Lovers in Paris
Rows of chocolate products are displayed during an exhibition that opened to public in Paris on Oct 20, 2011. Salon du Chocolat, at Porte de Versailles in the French capital, is a heaven for chocolate lovers with some 160 companies showing the latest sweet industry trends to the public. The event is the world’s biggest chocolate show where fashion designers and chocolate makers join forces to create some tasty treats. (Xinhua)
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“Occupy” Protesters’ Creative Impact Against the System
A cat passes by graffiti reading “re-evolve” in front of a closed hotel, occupied by protesters, next to Madrid’s landmark Puerta del Sol. (Reuters)
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Southern California Enjoys Unseasonably Warm Temperatures
Two paddle boarders walk their bikes at Venice Beach, California on October 13 as a mini-heat wave hit southern California. Temperatures soared 20 degrees Fahrenheit over normal highs reaching into the nineties and hundreds in the region tying record temperatures. (Mike Nelson / EPA)
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Paradise for the Chickens: Heritage Hen Farms in Boynton Beach
If only you knew just how hard Svetlana and Marty Simon — and their few hundred chickens — worked for each egg they harvest, you’d never look at breakfast the same way.
The Boynton Beach farmers are up at 4 a.m. to feed the animals at their Heritage Hen Farms, change their water, chase the goats to the pasture, clean out the coops, collect eggs, find rogue egg layers, scrub the duck tubs, check the bees, check the fences. Then they go to their day jobs, only to return later for more farm work.
“To produce nutritious food like this takes so much labor,” Svetlana says.
Yes, but it’s paradise for the chickens. The Heritage hens (and geese and ducks and guinea hens and one lone turkey named Thomas) live a truly free-range lifestyle. (Photos by Libby Volgyes)
A sign welcomes visitors to the coop, where families can see firsthand where the eggs come from.
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Peru Processes Migratory Birds’ Dung to Help Small Framers
The Ballestas Island in Peru, like the other 21 islands along the Peruvian coast, is home to nearly 4 million migratory birds such as guanays, boobies and pelicans. These birds’ nest on the island, located south of Lima, and their excreta make up for the world’s finest natural fertilizer.
The bird dung, also known as guano, reached its greatest economic importance in the 19th century as a coveted resource being exported to the United States, England and France, reports Reuters. According to the Rural Agrarian Productive Development Program (Agrorural) reports, the current guano production in Peruvian island is about 20 thousand tons per year. Peru hopes to benefit mostly small farmers by boosting organic agriculture through these natural fertilizers.
Workers scrap stones to collect bird dung on the Ballestas island, south of Lima, October 8, 2011. (REUTERS/Pilar Olivares)
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Superhero Arrested in Seattle for Assault Investigation
This Feb. 18, 2011 file photo shows Seattle superhero Phoenix Jones during a patrol of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Seattle’s superhero, who has gained fans and a bit of fame as he works the streets of Seattle, was arrested and booked into King County Jail early Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011 for investigation of assault after an early morning incident involving pepper spray. His spokesperson says he was breaking up a fight and they have video of the incident. Police say he came up behind a group of people leaving a bar and sprayed them with pepper spray. (Joshua Trujillo / seattlepi.com via AP)
Plastic Surgery Superman: Fan Goes Under Knife to Look Like Superhero
A 35-year-old Filipino man has been having plastic surgery for the last 16 years to look like Superman. Meet Herbert Chavez, a “pageant trainer” who has been going under the knife since 1995 to resemble the popular flying superhero.
His home in Calamba Laguna (south of Manila) is littered with Superman memorabilia, from t-shirts to bed sheets, life-sized Superman figures to pillows. What’s out of place is a life-sized figure of Spiderman, which appears to be climbing on a wall outside the house. Since 1995, Chavez has had a chin augmentation, rhinoplasty, silicone injections and thigh implants, according to local news program Bandila. One expert suggests that Chavez may have a condition known as body dismorphic disorder.
“They will never be satisfied by just one surgery… [they feel like] there’s still something wrong,” she told Bandila.
Superman hype reached a peak when late actor Christopher Reeve donned the familiar red and blue suit in the 1978 film, which was followed by three sequels. In 2006, Brandon Routh starred as the man of steel in the Bryan Singer-directed “Superman Returns.” Chavez’s surgically-enhanced body and face resembles an eerie combination of the two actors. (IBITimes)
Herbert Chavez poses with his life-sized Superman statues inside his house in Calamba Laguna, south of Manila October 12, 2011. In his idolization of the superhero, Chavez, a self-professed “pageant trainer” who owns two costume stores, has undergone a series of cosmetic surgeries for his nose, cheeks, lips and chin down to his thighs and even his skin color to look more like the “Man of Steel”. The final result bears little resemblance to his old self. (REUTERS / Cheryl Ravel)
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Forever Alone: A One Man Village in Greece
A German man from Hamburg, who identifies himself only as Yiorgos, carries wood in the village of Skafi some 500 kms north of Athens, September 27, 2011. Skafi once had a population of about 45 families but today it is populated by Yiorgos alone in the winter and about a dozen elderly Greeks who come in the summer. Greece’s population has shrunk by more than 1 percent over the last 10 years, according to a census carried out earlier this year, thereby bucking the trend of the last few decades. The world’s population is projected to reach 7 billion on 31 October, according to official U.N. population projections, presenting what the United Nations Population Fund called both a challenge and an opportunity. (REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)
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