{"id":65,"date":"2010-06-13T11:14:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-13T11:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/?p=75"},"modified":"2015-04-15T08:13:21","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T08:13:21","slug":"blondes-making-people-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/?p=65","title":{"rendered":"Blondes. Making people happy."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Can blondes women can actually cheer up a whole nation?<\/p>\n<p>Yes, yes they can.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/world\/europe\/10191164.stm\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/world\/europe\/10191164.stm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Obviously.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--> Full BBC Story:<\/p>\n<p class=\"introduction\">Hundreds of blonde Latvian women have been  marching through the capital Riga to try to bolster the national spirit  in time of recession.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the participants dressed in pink and wore high heels.<\/p>\n<p>The blonde parade began last year and was planned as a one-off but it  is back by popular demand and is now a two-day festival.<\/p>\n<p>Latvia has been hit badly by recession. Its economy shrank by 18% in  2009 and it has Europe\u2019s highest unemployment.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"cross-head\">\u2018Proud to be blonde\u2019<\/span>The BBC\u2019s Damien  McGuinness, who attended the festival, says that this might not be  everyone\u2019s idea of female emancipation but if the aim was to bring a  smile to recession-weary Latvians, the idea certainly  worked.<\/p>\n<p>He says there are parties, concerts and a Marilyn Monroe lookalike  competition.<\/p>\n<p>Money collected from the event will go to Latvian charities.<\/p>\n<p>Marika Gederte, president of the Latvian Association of Blondes, told  the BBC the idea came out of the economic gloom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was so tired, you know, every day opening the computer and reading  the newspapers and just reading about problems. We decided\u2026 let\u2019s do  something nice. And I asked myself the question: what can I do for my  country? And this is what I did\u2026 We are very  proud to be blonde.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Next year, our correspondent says, Riga\u2019s blonde ambitions are even  bigger, with a blonde carnival planned &#8211; like Rio, just a little bit  blonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can blondes women can actually cheer up a whole nation? Yes, yes they can. http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/world\/europe\/10191164.stm Obviously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[84],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jamesonline.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}