Singer Urban enters rehab clinic

Country music singer Keith Urban the - husband of actress Nicole Kidman - has entered a US rehabilitation clinic to be treated for alcohol dependency.

The 38-year-old musician, who married Kidman in June, said in a statement that he "deeply regrets the hurt this has caused Nicole".

It also stated that the Oscar-winning actress was with Urban when he voluntarily entered the facility.

The Grammy winner has previously disclosed an addiction to cocaine.

Postponed

"One can never let one's guard down on recovery, but I'm afraid that I have," the singer's statement continued.

Urban's forthcoming album will be released on 7 November as scheduled, but the singer has postponed all promotional appearances.

He is also unlikely to attend the Country Music Awards next month, where he has been nominated in four categories.

Urban won a Grammy award earlier this year for best male country vocalist for You'll Think of Me, and was named best male singer by the Academy of Country Music for the second year running.

Kidman and Urban, who were both raised in Australia, were married in Sydney and later moved to Nashville, where the singer records.

Beauty is being discriminated

The other day came across a rather amazing thing: beautiful women seem to be discriminated! Sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it? The thing that made me think so was TV. Having that rare moment of doing nothing, I was watching through different programs; and since it was evening, the channels were mostly broadcasting serials. You know, I never had a good opinion of this stuff, but it was the first time that they really amazed me. Actually, a good half of the soaps was telling sweet Cinderella-like stories, where ugly but witty and pleasant ladies were struggling to prove that no matter how you look like, you can get not only the highest post in any company but also the most handsome prince to marry. Yeah, it’s hard to disagree that such way of brainwashing may help plain females to get rid of certain complexes. But if to get deeper into the thing, it may become clear that presenting things this way may provoke a social prejudice to good-looking women. I mean beauty has started to be treated as something opposite to intellect. Employers tend to hire less pleasant women, giving preference to nothing-special-but-nothing-ugly-as well ones. It is done for the reason that customers refuse to deal with beauties thinking they have been employed to perform whatever function but not a business one. You can make sure of that the next time you go to any store to buy something technically more complex than a hamburger. If you spot two salesgirls, one plain and the other nice, pay attention which of them is more popular with clients. I bet it’ll be the plain one, because most customers believe she is here for her brains while the other one is here to charm the visitors with her long legs and stupid smile. And I may suppose the same thing is happening to handsome and smartly dressed males, when they are viewed as either gays or lovers of middle-aged female-bosses. So, there is something to think about: isn’t it better to urge people to improve their image, to advise them to visit beauty saloon, to go on a diet, to take up yoga, to go shopping for smart clothes, etc, rather than make them believe beauty leaves no chance for wit and encourage them to explode in anger every time they see a beautiful person coming past?

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