Back in 2002, photographs of a somewhat plump Jamie Lee Curtis appeared in many popular magazines. At the time, Curtis was just two years into pursuing sobriety and had gained upwards of 20 pounds. It appeared Curtis was flaunting her new look, perhaps even giving the public permission to be happy in their own skin. Not a bad thing, right?

It was a bad idea, says Curtis who now regrets communicating to the masses that letting yourself go is OK. Because it's not. Now fit and trim -- not skinny, just trim -- Curtis says in the July 2007 issue of Ladies Home Journal, "So I think what some people took from those photos was: Love yourself, no matter what. And the problem with this is: What if what you're doing is unhealthy?"

"And the problem is that how many of us are killing ourselves every day? Who here has high blood pressure and is still eating salt and French fries? Who has been told that her liver is enlarged and unless she stops drinking she's gonna end up with liver disease and/or need a liver transplant? We create senseless acts of violence against ourselves every day. And we live in this amnesia that we're not."

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Go to the Our Heroes website to learn how you can get your own Tribute Fund started!

Recently, International Agency for Research on Cancer researchers concluded a study which stated that 3.6 percent of all cancer cases worldwide are related to alcohol drinking. Today, the Centre of Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University published a report that alcoholism and binge drinking in the northern Britain cities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Liverpool and Durham will shorten the lives of men and women who live there and create years of health-related illnesses.

The blame for the drinking problems focuses on the government's allowance of 24-hour drinking, inexpensive booze, a night-time economy of bars and clubs and a failure to educate the public on the dangers of excessive drinking, binge drinking and alcoholism. This report, along with political conservatives, are making a public statement against what they call irresponsible actions on the part of the British government that would create an environment that promotes excess drinking, binge drinking and alcoholism.

The report indicated almost three in ten people admit binge drinking. According to director of the Centre for Public Health Professor Mark Bellis, "We hope that making these statistics widely available will highlight that we are no longer a nation enjoying a harmless tipple but increasingly one developing a dangerous alcohol addiction."

Crime novelist and American author Frank Morrison Spillane, better known to his millions of fans as Mickey Spillane, creator of the fictional detective Mike Hammer, passed away at his home from cancer.

Spillane, who grew up in a tough blue-collar neighborhood, started his career as a writer for pulp magazines and comic books. He was paid twelve dollars a piece for a block of copy and could do as many as fifty blocks of copy a day.

Spillane, who began his novels on a manual Smith Corona, referred to himself as a writer, not an author, because a writer is someone who writes books to sell them. When a friend told Spillane he didn't care for the sex and violence in the crime novels, Spillane told him, "That's what sells, and I need the money."

When literary critics objected to the level of sex and violence in his novels, Spillane was quoted as saying, "Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar. If the public likes you, you're good."

Jane Spillane, his wife, said she could think of nothing she didn't adore about her husband. "He was the most generous man who walked the Earth," she said. "He was kind to everyone, even strangers."

About his death, Jane remarked, "He had cancer, and he was doing so well. Everybody thought he would be around for a long time."

Spillane also wrote two children's books, appeared in the films Ring of Fear and The Girl Hunters; the television show Colombo and series of commercials in a parody of his tough guy image for Miller Lite. He was 88.

Despite a threatened lawsuit, The National Enquirer is refusing to back down from its exclusive cover story that Whitney Houston has a brain tumor and states they are standing by the story 100 percent. Meanwhile, multiple-Grammy winning singer Whitney Houston, and her representatives, are denying there is any truth to the rumor and are threatening the tabloid with legal action. Houston has suffered turbulent challenges both professionally and personally over the years, and has been the focus of more than one tabloid story concerning her alleged drug use, career and marriage. It would be sad if she indeed has a brain tumor, but considering the source of the news announcing such a diagnosis, it is difficult to know at this time how much truth there is to the story. Hopefully -- none.