This Just In...

Wonder Bras? In Dressed to Kill , Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer
suggest that bras are more than just the foundation for a shapely figure.
Released in book form, not in a medical journal, this recent study charges
that the longer women wear bras each day, the higher their chances of
getting breast cancer. 
The husband-and-wife authors began to investigate bras as a menace to
women's health when Grismaijer discovered a lump in her breast and
subsequently noticed that her bra had dug red marks into her skin.
Although his wife's lump disappeared, Singer hypothesized that a
chronically constricted breast could cause blockages to the surrounding
lymph system, thus preventing the removal of toxins from the area and
creating a more likely site for cancer. 
Of the 4,730 women surveyed by the couple over a two-year period in five
U.S. cities, half were diagnosed with breast cancer. Ninety-nine percent
of the women with cancer reported wearing their bras more than 12 hours
per day (versus 80 percent of the cancer-free group); they were also twice
as likely to report chafing and other irritation.
While this study seems to be highly inconclusive (weight or lifestyle
habits were not included in the survey), it's interesting that at a time
when the incidence of breast cancer is rising, the women surveyed who went
braless had a cancer rate 21 times lower than the national average. I say
strike the first match and burn baby burn.
  --Nina Ascoly

Paper Cuts: It's been quite a summer for the corporate media. First,
Times-Mirror decided to enhance its profits by shutting down New York
Newsday--according to just-departed columnist Sydney Schanberg,
Times-Mirror's owners made $1 billion off the resulting rise in stock
value. Then there was the renewed bout of media mergermania, with
Westinghouse buying CBS, Disney buying almost everybody, and Time-Warner
making eyes at Turner. According to Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting's
latest figures, over 50% of the nation's media are now owned by less than
20 corporations.
At the other end of the spectrum, we've seen the piecemeal self-destruction
of the Village Voice and the city's sale of WNYC-TV to pay for more cops
(and more tax breaks for Disney). Even us zines are affected: When zine
distributor Inland filed for bankruptcy protection this year, leaving many
zinesters with unpaid invoices, it was in part because Inland was not
being paid by independent bookstores, which are being decimated by
corporate chains like Barnes and Noble.
In other words, now would be a fine time to start supporting independent
media--not just us and other zines, but radio stations like WBAI and WFMU,
TV producers like Paper Tiger and small bookstores like those where BMT is
sold. It's either that, or sit idly by as the specter of the Mouse grows
ever nearerÉ
  --Neil deMause 
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