MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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Australia

Not nice

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Melanie Reid in the Times of London threw the kitchen sink at actress Nicole Kidman:

Kidman is one of those women who turns other women off. And no, not just because she’s pretty and we’re jealous. It is because we perceive, and men don’t, that she’s one of the most overrated actors in the world, a woman who has been the kiss of death in practically every movie she has starred in.

Kidman is exquisitely accomplished at being awful. Did anyone see Cold Mountain? The sweeping American epic (note: another epic) foundered on the rocks of her gormless mirror-gaze. She can’t act. Instead, she drifts around films like a lost porcelain doll, looking frozen, brittle and vapid, staring at the camera with her oh-golly-look-how-I’m-looking-interesting blue eyes.

And today’s (predominantly male) directors haven’t quite woken up to the fact that it just isn’t enough for female actors just to wander around like supermodels: they need another skill too. Like emotion.

I don’t hate Kidman. There was a scene in “The Hours,” however, when I unconsciously burst out laughing at Ms. Kidman’s face (it may have been because of the false nose she was wearing as Virginia Woolf). I don’t quite remember the scene, except that she was seated in a room, writing.

I won’t confess to this but I may also have been overjoyed when her character drowns in that movie. Yet, Ms. Kidman has always been hailed as a ravishing beauty, Hollywood’s Golden Girl, and a leading actor of her generation.

As Ms. Reid said in her piece, Kidman has tended to leave me cold. I cannot say in which film I’ve ever actually enjoyed a performance by her. There are any number of actors of her generation that I would rather see act in a film than her.

The sky might, er, fall

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Might Mobile Phones Kill More People Than Smoking Or Asbestos? by Christian Nordqvist, Medical News Today

A new study reveals that mobile phones (cell phones) may eventually be responsible for more human deaths than smoking or asbestos. Dr. Vini Khurana, an award-winning cancer expert (14 awards) from Australia, has published some grim study results. Khurana added that government and mobile phone companies should do whatever they can to immediately reduce people’s exposure to radiation.

Khurana, who carried a 15-month critical review of the link between mobile phones and malignant brain tumors, said using mobiles for more than a decade could more than double a person’s risk of developing brain cancer. He added that a ‘solid scientific study’ needs to be carried out on people who have been regular heavy users of mobiles for at least ten years.

Many say mobile phones have not been around long enough for us to make any firm conclusions about their safety. As most tumors (cancers) take about ten years to develop it has been hard to conclude one way or the other. However, we are now reaching a time when certain studies may soon give us some more compelling pointers.

Even so, as a result of previous studies, governments around the world have started telling their people to keep mobile phone usage down to a minimum. The French government has told its children not to use them, while the German government has told its citizens to use them as little as possible. Even the European Environment Agency has advised people to keep exposure down to a minimum.

While Khurana agrees that mobile phones can save lives in emergencies, he states that there is now a significant and growing body of evidence for a link between mobile phone use and the development of some brain tumors. As we move into the next decade Khurana says this evidence will become a reality.

He says that the incidence of brain tumors will grow significantly over the next decade, by which time there is not much that can be done for those who become ill.

Khurana says that the mobile phone danger to public health may be greater than that of asbestos and/or smoking. There are three times as many people globally who use mobiles regularly than there are regular smokers, Khurana points out.

According to the Mobile Operators Association, Khurana’s study does not present a balanced analysis.

— Dr. Vini Khurana
— Read what Khurana has written in more detail

Written by – Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today