Pop star Kylie Minogue has been voted the most inspirational breast cancer star for her willingness to speak openly and honestly about dealing with the disease. The Australian singer, 42, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and underwent surgery and hair-losing chemotherapy.
But Minogue, whose career began on the TV soap opera Neighbors, returned to the stage within a year and continues to perform. She toured 21 countries last year, and just released her 11th studio album, Aphrodite.
Minogue topped an online poll of 1,000 participants by British-based mastectomy-wear specialist Amoena, coming ahead of other celebrities affected by breast cancer like the late Linda McCartney and singer Olivia Newton-John.
“Kylie inspired many women to be more direct about their own fears, encouraging them to believe they would get through their ordeal,” Amoena spokeswoman Rhoda White said.
Other celebrities to publicly battle breast cancer include singer Sheryl Crow who campaigns for women to have regular mammograms, and British actress Lynn Redgrave who died of the disease earlier this year after writing a book about her battle.
The list also includes actresses Maggie Smith, Christine Applegate, Maura Tierney, Cynthia Nixon, Edie Falco, Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson, Sally Whittaker, singers Melissa Etheridge and Carly Simon.
Hip-hop star Kanye West is facing another kind of pain: embarrassment over his ambush of Taylor Swift last year — and he’s expressing his pain all over Twitter.
West unleashed a torrent of emotions on his official Twitter account Saturday, acknowledging once again that he was wrong for jumping on stage, grabbing the microphone from Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards and saying her trophy should have gone to Beyonce.
But the rapper-producer said that he has experienced enormous pain, been the subject of death wishes and suffered tremendous setback to his career. “How deep is the scar ... I bled hard ... cancelled [a] tour with the number one pop star in the world ... closed the doors of my clothing office,’’ he tweeted.
The multi-platinum, Grammy-winning superstar had been one of the decade’s most successful and critically acclaimed stars, despite sometimes boorish behavior and meltdowns at other awards shows when things did not go his way.
A recent member of Twitter, West has been an active user, posting not only his feelings, but new songs and other updates. He has over 900,000 followers since he joined earlier this summer.
“Man I love Twitter ... I’ve always been at the mercy of the press but no more ... The media tried to demonize me,’’ he tweeted Saturday.
Actress Maggie Cheung, in Venice on Saturday to promote a new film, said one reason she has pulled back from acting for now is the industry’s focus on youthful beauty.
In the meantime, she is pursuing a new passion, music, and allowing the aging process to take hold so she can in the future consider roles that don’t require the kind of youthful beauty she displayed in In the Mood for Love. Cheung said she has had no problem playing unglamorous roles, noting she has played a cat and a snake.
Cheung regrets she doesn’t play any instruments. Instead, she works with musicians to write music, which she then takes home and listens to over and over again until she is ready to write lyrics, and then sings over the tracks. She collaborates with the musicians by e-mail until it is time to record.
So far, none of the projects are for release. But Cheung said she would one day love to score a film, and is working on learning to edit images.
Taiwan, once relegated to the backwaters of international news media and viewed as a subset topic of “greater China,” is now a hot topic. Words associated with Taiwan include “invasion,” “contingency” and, on the more cheerful side, “semiconductors” and “tourism.” It is worth noting that while Taiwanese companies play important roles in the semiconductor industry, there is no such thing as a “Taiwan semiconductor” or a “Taiwan chip.” If crucial suppliers are included, the supply chain is in the thousands and spans the globe. Both of the variants of the so-called “silicon shield” are pure fantasy. There are four primary drivers
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
Two years ago my wife and I went to Orchid Island off Taitung for a few days vacation. We were shocked to realize that for what it cost us, we could have done a bike vacation in Borneo for a week or two, or taken another trip to the Philippines. Indeed, most of the places we could have gone for that vacation in neighboring countries offer a much better experience than Taiwan at a much lower price. Hence, the recent news showing that tourist visits to Pingtung County’s Kenting, long in decline, reached a 27 year low this summer came
Japan is celebrated for its exceptional levels of customer service. But the behavior of a growing number of customers and clients leaves a lot to be desired. The rise of the abusive consumer has prompted authorities in Tokyo to introduce the country’s first ordinance — a locally approved regulation — to protect service industry staff from kasuhara — the Japanese abbreviated form of “customer harassment.” While the Tokyo ordinance, which will go into effect in April, does not carry penalties, experts hope the move will highlight a growing social problem and, perhaps, encourage people to think twice before taking out their frustrations
RSS