Healthy Happy Travelling Feet Ode

Whether hiking in Canada's Rocky Mountains
They get what they wants; yet continues to pout.
It's just like vacation fountains,
And they lost their bothers both inside and out.

Healthy and Happy Feet While Travelling - A Travel Expert's Advice

Whether hiking in Canada's Rocky Mountains or admiring art at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, travelling takes its toll on the feet, and sore feet can ruin the pleasure of a vacation.

Toby Saltzman is a freelance travel writer and editor and publisher of the travel website, www.travelterrific.com. Her globe-trotting job takes her to destinations around the world and requires her to spend countless hours on her feet, visiting various tourist and cultural attractions.

After years of experience caring for and treating her feet, Saltzman has some basic tips on how to keep feet healthy and happy, no matter where travellers adventure to this summer.

1. Wear comfortable walking or athletic shoes

It may sound simple, but wearing comfortable shoes is essential when spending hours of vacation time on your feet. Comfortable shoes can help to alleviate the discomfort caused by corns and calluses and help to prevent blisters.

For those travellers with corns and calluses, plan to see your podiatrist before embarking on your trip. You may wish to ease the discomfort by packing over-the-counter cushion treatments to protect feet while on vacation. Blisters are one of the most common travelling foot injuries. Avoid missing out on enjoyable vacation excursions by using over-the-counter treatments such as Dr. Scholl's® Cushlin® UltraSlim Blister Treatment to help heal and prevent blisters.

In addition, comfortable shoes with proper arch support delay the occurrence of tired, achy feet, a common culprit that hampers the enjoyment of much anticipated travel activities, such as hiking. Many over-the-counter insoles and devices can improve the arch support of a shoe, allowing for more "on your feet" time during a vacation.

2. Do not pack shoes that need to be "broken in"

Always avoid shoes that require a break-in period and instead, purchase shoes that feel comfortable right away. This also applies to packing for a vacation. If the shoes hurt your feet at home, they'll hurt them on the road as well. Always be conscious of how vigorous the vacation activity is and how comfortable your shoes are.

3. If shoes do not have sufficient padding or support, improve the performance of your shoes by adding inserts/devices

Quite often the shoes that "best match" a vacation outfit - whether for an afternoon shopping in New York City or an evening of entertainment on a cruise ship - are not beneficial to our foot health. Wear shoes that support feet, allowing for ease of movement wherever your vacation adventure may take you. For additional support, there are a variety of over-the-counter inserts that provide additional cushioning and support, such as Dr. Scholl's® Advantage™ PowerWalk Insoles.

4. Soak feet nightly

Treating feet each night with a specially designed soak such as Dr. Scholl's® Smooth Touch® Instant Foot Bath will help to ease the discomfort of tired, achy feet. It also moisturizes and softens corns, calluses and rough, hard skin; a luxurious comfort that can be enjoyed in the privacy of a hotel room that will prepare your feet for a comfortable travel adventure the following day.

5. Moisturize and exfoliate feet

Moisturizing and exfoliating feet can help to reduce the build up of dead skin that results in corns and calluses. It is also a nice, relaxing treat at the end of a long day of sight-seeing. Dr. Scholl's® Smooth Touch® Peppermint Foot & Leg Lotion softens skin, as well as provides a soothing peppermint fragrance.

For more information on footcare visit www.drscholls.ca.

News Canada provides a wide selection of current, ready-to-use copyright free news stories and ideas for Television, Print, Radio, and the Web.

Guaranteed Web Traffic Poem

How To Get Guaranteed Traffic With Overlooked And Little Used Methods

Traffic. We all know that without it our sites will sit there lost in cyberspace. Gathering nothing more than the occasional spider crawling across lonely electronic cobwebs.

If you've been around the e-business scene, for at least a few months, you're familiar with the typical and common methods of site promotion.

You've taken the right steps. Submitted your site by hand to the *oh-so-powerful* TOP 10 search engines and directories. Now, it's a waiting game to see if you get listed or if you have to try submitting again.

You've learned the hard way and wasted too much time using Biggy Blasters to post gazillions of links on FFA sites. Only to see little more than a trickle or two of visitors to your site.

You've gotten on the right track by testing and placing ads in ezines. But it'll take you some time to find the RIGHT ezines in your target market that produce results BEFORE you can roll out a full fledged ezine advertising campaign.

Don't lose heart. There ARE some overlooked and little used methods that WILL work to get you that surge of life-giving traffic your site needs.

Here's 3 different methods you can use. Two will cost you (but won't break the bank) and the other will only cost you the time it takes to organize and initiate.

FIRST overlooked and little used method..

Sponsor an online Lottery

I've seen the cost as low as $28 for 1200 visitors! That's only .02 cents per visitor.

There are two basic ways online lotteries send you visitors...

Some lotto sites load YOUR webpage in a frame.
Some have you place a tiny button link on your page during the lottery run.

TIP: You will get more of a *response* from the lottery playing visitors by offering them something for FREE. Some examples would be.... free downloads, free subscriptions to ezines and free access to member sites. Make it easy for them to get it by sending a quick email where your autoresponder will send them the download site and/or any instructions.

Granted this isn't exactly *targeted* traffic. But if you're clever, you can give them a *freebie* that's sure to bring them back again when their not playing the game.

SECOND overlooked and little used method..

Purchase banner click-thru's.

Although many marketers already know about the pay-per-click search engines, very few are purchasing guaranteed banner click-thru's that are available on hundred's of sites.

Look for sites that cater to your target market and look for, or ask for, their advertising rates. Slowly but surely most of the sites that sold banner impressions are starting to offer performance advertising in the form of pay-per-click.

NOTE: For more explanation on pay-per-click search engines visit http://www.successsolutions.com/payperclick.htm

THIRD overlooked and little used method..

Permanent Reciprocal Links

This method won't solve your traffic problem overnight. But it's FREE. (Don't you just love that word?)

Creating a permanent reciprocal link page is the easy part. Actively searching for other sites, then asking if the webmaster would be interested in giving you a permanent reciprocal link is hard work.

I've found a great piece of software called Zeus that is helping me to automate the process from finding sites I would WANT to get a reciprocal link with, to automatically sending out the email to the webmaster of the website.

NOTE: To see a Zeus reciprocal link page, up close and personal, visit http://www.successsolutions.com/links/themeindex.html

Building your business on the Internet requires a great deal of effort on your part. It's important to become a student of marketing and promotion.

As fast as the net is changing there's bound to be new ways to market and promote, to replace methods that no longer work.

Keep your eyes open, read marketing ezines, and apply what you learn. The traffic will come if you never give up.

Evonne Llewellyn - Publisher, Webmaster and successful Home Based Business Owner. Subscribe to Success Solutions Globalzine published since 1998 and get the solutions and resources You need for Your success at http://www.successsolutions.com.

Enjoy Your Wine Serenade

The mere mention of etiquette brings to mind various
Don't wonder why fly flies
What does it mean to regress? It's serious!
Because life is too short to think about why...

Enjoy Your Favorite Wine... But With Some Rules

The mere mention of etiquette brings to mind various images, mainly negative. Etiquette means observing set rules. It’s not about the quaint traditions but where wine is concerned etiquette matter.

The primary connoisseurs of fine wine are oenophiles who are stringent about treating, serving and tasting wine. Then there are wine lovers and those simply appreciating wine. For occasional enthusiasts, collectors and cellar owners, the essence of wine etiquette heightens the experience.

Determine Proper Temperature

Wine is altered by temperature and environment, putting the emphasis on proper storage. Keep red table wines standing in the dining room for approximately 24 hours in advance, for settling sediments, followed by room temperature. White and Rose wines require slight chilling of around 50’F or one hour in a refrigerator.

Sparkling wines including champagnes require longer chilling of a few hours. Temperature levels drown inconsistencies and enhance the taste. A handy tip is to allow 10 minutes for a wine in a refrigerator to chill and for the reversal, in room temperature.

Time The Uncorking

Uncorking a wine calls for basic guidelines. For red wines, remove the cork one hour in advance. Oxidation helps to experience the true flavor. The longer white wines are left open in room temperature, the more the loss in quality. Don’t uncork until just before serving.

Decant The Wine

It may appear pretentious to make such a lot of fuss, but there’s no denying that there is a whole new dimension to the taste. Red wine vintage and port wines are perfect for decanters as they build up fairly substantial bitter sediment at the bottom. Pouring slowly into a decanter therefore separates the wine from the sediments.

Decanting wine is also done for exposure to oxygen. Having been deprived of air and vacuum for years, air adds to the flavor of red wine. For uncorking use a container with an open mouth. The resulting chemical reaction exudes the aroma that is crucial for the tasting experience. For this purpose, red wine glasses have large rims. Having slowly decanted the wine, leave it for about an hour in room temperature. Eventually the difference in taste is unmistakable.

Pour The Wine

Wine etiquette dictates how a glass of wine should be poured. For bubbly wines that sparkle, pour along the side of the glass to preserve the all-important bubbles. Still wine is poured into the center of the glass allowing the flavor to float upwards.

Depending on the wine, never fill a glass more than two-thirds or halfway. On occasions when different wines are being sampled during a meal, the amount being poured needs to be even less.

Use The Right Glass

Highly diverse, wine glasses may prove confusing. Nevertheless they matter as they function with the temperature. The more intense aromas are better appreciated in glasses with wide but thin rims.

The opposite principle is true for white wine glasses. Narrower and more slender, the tulip shape is integral to the hallmarks of white wine. More blunt and less angular than champagne flute or dessert wine glasses, white wine glasses can be easily differentiated.

Follow The Drinking Rules

To the uninitiated wine etiquette may seem unnecessary. However it is an established fact that for the authentic experience of wine in all its subtleties, it is the only way...... Cheers!

Learn more of Wine Etiquette.

Celina Richards is a counselor and dating coach in private practice since 1995. She offers dating-relationship coaching, singles group coaching and ongoing coaching for singles & unmarried couples. She started writing articles to help singles with the knowledge and tools they need to find and sustain lasting relationships. Visit http://www.adultmatchmaker.com.

Anti Scooter Media Frenzy Opus

Anti Scooter Media Frenzy

An estimated five million scooters will be sold this year and according to the U.S. Product Safety Commission 26,000 scooter-related injuries were reported before the end of December 2000! 90 percent of those injuries were to children 14 and under. The Consumer Product Safety Counsel also received reports of two deaths tied to scooter injuries. Several elementary schools are discussing ways to ban kids from riding scooters to school. Newspapers across the country headline that "Scooters Lead to ER Visits"!

Before you buy into the media hype about the dangers of the most popular Christmas gift last year, you should educate yourself by considering the statistics of other play equipment commonly used by these same kids.

In 1999 U.S. Statistical Abstract reported 566,085 bike related injuries. Skate board related injuries from that same year were numbered at 35,751. Doubling those statistics were playground equipment injuries at 73,933 accidents. If you are not sick of statistics yet, consider that there were 63,600 injuries on all-terrain vehicles.

What does this tell us? To wear a helmet! Wearing a safety helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent! These statistics can help educated parents (a.k.a. Consumers) realize that scooters are no more dangerous than other play equipment if you follow basic safety guidelines.

- Snug fitting helmets and protective gear should be worn at all times.
- As with any equipment, children should not ride in the street.
- Scooter should only be used during daylight hours.
- Children ages 5 - 8 should have adult supervision when operating a scooter.
- Scooters are not recommended for children under 4 years of age.
- Ride scooters on smooth, hard surfaces clear of rock and debris.

Instead of trying to ban "potential" hazards I suggest we educate ourselves as parents and our children. Use wisdom and remember safety equipment without buying into media hype.

Author Rachel Webb is a happy consumer of 3 mini-scooters! Her 4 children help her design 100% Magnetic Fridge Calendars, guaranteed not to slide off when the kids slam the fridge door! Visit: http://www.note-ables.com.

Barter or Buying Verse

10 Things You Should Try To Barter For Before Buying

1. Information Products - it could be ebooks, "how to" videos, cassettes, magazines, newsletters, paid e-zines, courses, etc.

2. Advertising Space - it could be banner ads, ezine ads, ebook ads, magazine ads, newspaper ads, tv ads, fax ads, online classified ads, etc.

3. Web Hosting - you could offer a free advertisement for their web hosting service on your site in return for free or discounted hosting.

4. Software - it could be for tax software, web site authoring software, accounting software, newsletter software, graphic design software, etc.

5. Writing/Editing - it could be for web site content, promotional articles, press releases, e-zine articles, promotional ebooks, etc.

6. Accounting/Bookeeping - you could offer a no cost advertisement in exchange for their accounting and booking services

7. Consulting - it could be market consulting, legal consulting, computer/software consulting, business consulting, etc.

8. Copy writing - it could be for brochures, business cards, classified ads, sales letters, product packages, banner ads, promotional products, etc.

9. Merchant Accounts - you could offer no cost insert ads in your product packages in exchange for the option of accepting credit cards.

10. Internet Access - you could offer a no cost pop up ad on your web site in exchange for free or discounted Internet access.

Over 40,000 Free eBooks & Web Books when you visit: http://www.ldpublishing.com.

Dating Tips Date Women Ode

Dating Tips, Date Women

Top 6 Dating Tips To Help You Date Women And Succeed At It! Read About The Rules Of Dating And How You Can Naturally Attract The Right Women.

Dating women is extremely easy once you know what to do. But if you don’t know where to start that’s fine because here are some dating tips on what you should do on dates and how you can attract women while enjoying yourself at the same time.

Tip 1: Look Good

You may not be the most handsome guy in the world but that doesn’t mean that you can’t look good! Self grooming is extremely important and it doesn’t take a lot of effort to clean up before a date and pull on a clean ironed shirt. If you date women looking like a slob it’s no wonder that they’re not interested in you. Small tips to remember include bathing, smelling good, and trimming away nose hair.

Tip 2: Don’t Lie

Out of all the dating tips, this is probably one of the most important once of them all. I realize that more often than not it is easier to lie about certain things or even embellish on the truth to make your life sound more interesting. However the more you life the harder it is to keep track of the details and after your 4th date with the same woman will you actually remember the lies you’ve told since your first date?

Tip 3: Have A Sense Of Humor

Women love to date men who have a good sense of humor. If you can make her laugh half your battle is already won. This is because by making her laugh she is happy and enjoying herself. Laughing is also good because it creates positive vibes and leaves her with good memories of her date with you. When she remembers how fun this date was she’ll want to go out with you again for sure!

Tip 4: Be Yourself

Most dating tips will tell you that there are expectations that you have to live up to in order to attract and date women. This is not true! Men and even women always forget that pretending to be someone else will not work for long. This goes back to the 2nd tip of not lying because sooner or later the truth will slip out. And besides, wouldn’t you much rather have women date you for who you are rather than someone you are pretending to be?

Tip 5: Be A Mystery

One of the most important dating tips is to make sure that you are never always available. Women are curious and naturally attracted to what they don’t know. So if you project yourself as a bit of a mystery they will naturally want to go out with you more. So when they call you it’s advisable to not always be available at their beck and call. This is one of the most important rules of dating. Be nice but don’t be too nice and you will have women always coming back for more.

Tip 6: Enjoy Dating

The final tip to succeed at dating and women is to actually enjoy your dates. There is no point in dating or trying to find someone if all you do is stress out on your dates on how you can make it perfect or how you sound or look like. Dating women is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable. If you are not enjoying yourself she will be able to tell and in turn she won’t have a good date either. Don’t expect too much out of a single date and who knows; even if you don’t find your significant other or soulmate, dating women could get you a new best friend.

Cher Sern Lim, Visit http://www.datingartist.com now to get more FREE tips to double your dating success overnight! Discover the players’ secrets to meeting, dating & seducing women.

Marketing Target Poem

Ready, Aim, Fire...Oops...Where's The Target?

Everywhere you go on the Internet you find the words, "target market." What do they mean? What does it have to do with you? Well it has everything to do with your success in sales.

Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago an online entrepreneur asked me to review a direct sales presentation for him. Let's call him "Joe". His product and service is excellent. Top quality and performance, excellent customer service and support. The product will produce desired results for any business advertising online.

In this particular case, Joe's potential customer is in the furniture manufacturing business. The company owns a small chain of outlet stores and advertises on the Internet. Basically, an excellent candidate for Joe's offer.

Well, Joe sent me his package. In the offline world, it would have required UPS to deliver it with a hand truck! Now, that is an overstatement, but it consisted of a three-page cover letter, with four separate attachments and a CD presentation that he was going to mail as a follow-up.

Here's my response to Joe:

"What a tremendous amount of work you have put into this presentation.

Having been on the receiving end of proposals such as this, I must tell you that it would be the recipient of the "delete" key. Why? Too much to wade through. Too much for me to absorb. Too much for me to do. Nothing to compel me to read on.

Having said that, let's pretend for a moment that I am Mr. Jones.

1. Where are the needs development questions?

2. What tells me that you have done your homework and know about my industry?

3. What are my problems and how will you solve them?

4. How much does the average household spend on furnishings annually? (In the US it's about $1,000)

5. How are you going to help me capture a share of those dollars?

6. How has the economy affected my business?

7. What qualities separate my business from my competition?

8. How extensive and how important are brand names to my customers?

9. What are my specialty areas?

10. What market do I target and why?

11. Why do my customers keep coming back to my stores?

12. What are some of the hot buttons or copy points that you might use to target Mr. Jones?

13. What is his business terminology?

Joe, here are two sites that can help you develop a more "targeted" approach to Mr. Jones:

http://www.furniture-info.com/1061.htm
http://www.furniturestatistics.com/statisticalreviewsales.html

I hope this helps, Joe. Decision makers are bombarded daily and we must be ever diligent that we are focusing in on "WIIFM" (What's In It For Me)".

Now, what was the message to Joe? Do Your Homework. Mr. Jones doesn't give a rip about your product unless it can fulfill his needs, but first you have to know what those needs are.

Joe's presentation, which probably took him hours if not days to prepare, was a classic case of overkill. The two sites referred to would have given Joe all the ammunition he needed to prepare an effective presentation and in just a few short minutes.

By the way, the research tools that I use to study markets, trends, and individual sites are listed below. Both are free to download and are priceless.

http://www.copernic.com
http://www.alexa.com

Ready, Aim ... Get Ready To Fire!

Patty Baldwin is a former Better Business Bureau executive and the owner of several online businesses. A successful net marketer, she invites you to visit any one of her sites at:
http://www.allbizservices.com
http://www.4bstrading.com
http://www.allbizwealth.com

Virus Warning Serenade

Psst... Pass It On... I Found Out It's a Hoax...

When you receive an email telling you about a virus, what do you do with it? Do you send it to everyone in your address book to help them protect themselves too?

A virus warning is probably on its way to your inbox right now, claiming to be from a credible source and warning you of a dangerous virus on the loose. Beware. You might be tricked into taking part in an Internet hoax - chain mail virus alerts.

It is believed that 60% plus of the Virus Warnings in circulation are hoaxes. Further, your anti-virus software may already have a cure for this particular ailment IF it is real.

Even old hoaxes, which have been around for years, can make the rounds again, according to Trend Micro, an anti-virus software company.

'There are a number of new hoaxes because they are so easy to write, you don't need to be a programmer,' the anti-virus company spokesperson said.

What about all of those 'Get Paid to Send Email' schemes? Do you forward them along too, because you do not know if they are true or not, and figure 'why should I take the chance that it is not real?' These 'Get Paid to Send Email' schemes are a fine example of hoaxes that can make the rounds again and again.

There have been at least a dozen incarnations of a 'Get Paid to Send Email' hoax recorded at several of the hoax sites listed in this article. For the complete story, try the search terms 'Bill Gates' or 'Nike' or 'AOL / Microsoft' at any of the Hoax sites.

Let me cut to the chase, no one has the technology to track emails sent through the Internet! No one will ever pay you for sending emails to everyone in your address book! This story is a verified hoax.

Here is a list of Hoax Information Sites that you can check the validity of the warning or the message in your email inbox. You might just be surprised by which items are hoaxes and which are not.

http://www.kumite.com/myths
http://www.snopes.com
http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/
http://antivirus.about.com/compute/antivirus/

For those people who don't know the tell-tale signs of hoaxes, here's a checklist:

1. IBM/Microsoft/Dell/Gateway have verified this. Does anyone think they care? They don't. If it said Norton, McAfee or any other antivirus vendor I might listen. If a virus killed your computer or software the above companies would be delighted because you'd have to buy more computers, and they would be delighted to sell you one.

2. Even if the email proclaims that one of the virus companies is verifying this virus, where is the link to the virus companies website, detailing the important information concerning this particular strain of virus?

3. Published on CNN. Again, where is the link? Could you find it yourself?

4. You'll never be able to use your computer again. Hogwash. If you got a virus the very worst case is that you'd have to format it and reinstall everything. And that's extremely rare anyway. No virus will harm your computer, only the software on it.

5. This virus damages/destroys Windows and McIntosh systems. More hogwash. These are two very different operating systems with very different ways of executing software.

6. Don't even open it! Yea right. 99.9% of virii are carried in attachments to emails not in the emails themselves. Use a bit of common sense and don't open any unexpected attachments from strange sources. And if you keep your AV software up to date, you're most often covered anyway. (The only email software not safe from some types of viruses are Outlook, Outlook Express, and Netscape 6. Users of Outlook and Outlook Express can visit http://Microsoft.com for the patch to protect these email programs from imbedded vb-script viruses. Netscape 6 users can guarantee their own protection by turning off the JavaScripting feature inside of their Preferences.)

7. Forward to all your friends. Now we're down to the crutch of it. This email IS the virus - a social one. Look at the facts. It gets sent to all your friends. It infects peoples inboxes and causes panic. Sounds like a virus to me. It doesn't actually do any harm like most virii but is a waste of your time.

8. Verify these things yourself before forwarding them. To simplify the task of verification, there is a new freeware application on the market designed to help you do just that. It is called 'Quick Swords V' and it has been developed for you by a new company called InternetMusketeers.com. The 'V' stands for 'Virus'.

Here is an overview of how the software works: 'Simply type in your Search Terms, then click on the Virus / Hoax Information Searches drop down list, and then select your choice for expert guidance on the subject of Viruses and Hoaxes. With Quick Swords V, we can help take the guesswork out of your decision making process. We are giving you direct access to the nearly immediate search results of 16 Virus / Hoax sites on the Internet.'

Quick Swords V (virus) ships as Freeware, so you have no excuse not to verify the Virus information before sending it to everyone in your address book anymore. It only takes a minute to verify the latest juicy warning in your email box. I know your mouse finger is itching to click Forward, but your friends will Thank You for verifying this information before hitting Send!

Instead, click here: http://InternetMusketeers.com/apps/QuickSwords

I would like to thank the following people for assisting me in the gathering of the information presented in this article:

- Steven McCarthy, Co-Owner of A Helping Hand at: http://learn.at/ahh
- Christy, Co-Owner of http://Hackfix.org a non-profit site dedicated to fighting worms and trojans
- Mike Banks, the Owner of Mikes What's News at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MikesWhatsNews

Bill Platt - Owner of WindstormComputing.com and The Windstorm Computing and Technical Support Newsletter. Also the Author of the award-winning Quick Swords Family of Software Products: http://internetmusketeers.com/apps/QuickSwords.

3 Steps Coin Collecting Opus

Coin Collecting: Attention Kids: Three Steps To Starting A Coin Collection...

First of all, look around for coins - any coins - and put them in a safe place. A good spot to find the first coins for your collection is right in your pocket. You might find some of the 25-cent coins that the Royal Canadian Mint made for the Millennium. Or the special 50-cent coin commemorating the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Maybe your parents or grandparents have some loose change they could spare to help you start.

Here's another idea: Take your allowance to the bank and buy a roll of coins, then keep the ones you need for your collection. Or check out the newest and coolest coins at the Mint's website (www.mint.ca/en/RoyallyCool/FunFacts) and start your collection with some 'Royally Cool Money.'

Whatever you decide, make sure to keep your coins in a safe place - like in a small jar with a lid or ask your Mom or Dad to hold onto them for you. And always remember, some of the biggest and best coin collectors in Canada started with just a few pennies!

Next - find out what coins you have and make a list. The experts call this part "compilation." To make sense of your cents take out a sheet of paper - graph paper is best. On one side make a list of years. Start anywhere you want - 1900 or 1967 or maybe the year Grandpa or Grandma was born. It's up to you. Then check the dates on your coins and check off those years on the sheet of paper. This may not sound like heaps of fun, but you'd be surprised. You just might find a coin that's really old or has some special mark on it that makes it worth a lot more than you thought!

Once you've compiled, its time to classify and conserve your coins. This means putting the same kind of coins together - like, for example, coins from the same year. Conservation refers to taking care of your collection.

These three simple steps are your ticket to a wide new world of fascinating people and places. Think of it as your own personal Canadian treasure, rich with stories about the incredible history, spectacular geography and unique symbols that make Canada a special place in which to live.

AUTHOR News Canada provides a wide selection of current, ready-to-use copyright free news stories and ideas for Television, Print, Radio, and the Web.

Body Art Verse

Body Art

There are several forms of body art. Body art can be temporary, for example, body painting, or permanent, such as shaping, dyeing, and scarification, tattooing, and piercing. This article will provide some insight into body art.

Body art painting and shaping

Body painting transforms a person into a spirit or work of art; this can include another gender or a sacred place. Emphasizing on the visual appeal of the subject, the protective body paint is what gives it the appeal.

Body shaping is a technique in which to sculpt the body. Culturally defined ideals of beauty have caused people to bind the soft bones of children's skulls and feet, stretched necks with rings, and removed ribs to make their waist smaller. The most common method today of body sculpting is plastic surgery. Plastic surgery can sculpt and define almost any part of the body.

Skin Dyeing

Henna, is used as a temporary skin dye, in which different patterns and designs are applied to the body. The crushed leaves of the henna plant, when mixed with other natural ingredients, provides a thick, aromatic paste used for painting hands and feet. The olive green, dried out henna powder, mixed with such ingredients as black tea and coffee turns dark. When applied to the skin and left on overnight, it will harden and when pealed leaves a red tone to the skin.

Body art piercing, tattooing, and scarification

Piercing is ornamental as it allows the body to hold certain kinds of ornaments, which are inserted through the skin. The most common parts of the body that are pierced is the face although you will often find ear, nose and lip ornaments. Piercing is often part of a ceremony marking the coming of age. Ornaments might be limited to certain people or worn only on certain occasions.

Tattoos are intended to be permanent and the patterns and techniques have varied over the years. The effects of tattooing depend on the country you live in. As an example, in the United States, tattooing is typically looked upon as being rebellious. Tattooing, in the last decade, has become a very popular form of body art throughout the world.

Scarification is much like tattooing, instead of placing a color into the skin with a tattoo needle, the color, or substance is placed into the wound or cut. Once the wound has healed, a permanent mark will remain on the skin.

All of the forms of body art listed above can have adverse effects on individuals. There are health concerns with types of body art. If you are contemplating any of the above procedures, be sure to consider all the risks and facts before making any commitments.

David Chandler, for more information, visit
http://www.bodyartguide.com.