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Cannes Film Festival enters shocking tabloid hell: distasteful Princess Dy film shame!
May 10th
Outrage at screening of dying Princess Diana photo: Cannes documentary to show graphic picture for first time
By MICHAEL SEAMARK
By MICHAEL SEAMARK
A shocking paparazzi photograph of a dying Princess Diana is to be screened for the first time in a documentary about her fatal crash.
Unlawful Killing, which will be shown at Cannes this week, is backed by the actor Keith Allen and Mohammed Fayed, whose son Dodi died with Diana.
The 90-minute film will include a graphic black and white close-up of Diana taken moments after the Mercedes carrying the couple crashed in a Paris underpass.
Crash: A photographer is first to reach Diana’s smashed up Mercedes in 1997. The public have never seen close-up images of her dying
The distressing image, Diana’s blonde hair and features clearly visible, has never been publicly seen in this country.
It will be shown around the world but not in the UK, prompting Allen to say: ‘Pity, because at a time when the sugar rush of the Royal Wedding has been sending republicans into a diabetic coma, it could act as a welcome antidote.’
Similar pictures shown to the Diana inquest jury had her face heavily pixellated.
News that Allen, father of pop star Lily, is using the full photograph outraged close friends of the late Princess of Wales.
Icon: Diana’s fame has meant that her death has been the subject of intense scrutiny. An inquest – held a decade later – found she was unlawfully killed
Rosa Monckton, who went on holiday with Diana a few weeks before she died, said: ‘If this is true this is absolutely disgusting.
‘The fact people are trying to make money – which is all that they are doing now – out of her death is quite frankly … words fail me.’
A spokesman for St James’s Palace declined to comment but royal sources said Diana’s sons would be sickened by the news.
One said: ‘They rather hope people would treat this with the contempt it deserves.’
He suggested that William and Harry would not be drawn into commenting for fear of giving Allen the oxygen of publicity.
Sources told the Daily Mail that the princes will never publicly comment about their mother because they view the issue as ‘the most intensely personal and private aspect of their very public lives’.
Allen’s film is due to be screened amid a blaze of publicity at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday and Mr Fayed is reported to be travelling to the south of France to help with the launch.
In 2008, after a six-month inquest which heard evidence from 250 witnesses and cost taxpayers an estimated £12million, a jury concluded that Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed were unlawfully killed as a direct result of grossly negligent driving by drunk chauffeur Henri Paul, who also died in the crash.
The actions of photographers following the car were also cited.
Mr Fayed has accused Prince Philip of masterminding the 1997 crash in which Diana and Dodi died and even suggested that Prince Charles was involved.
He alleged the death plot took place to stop Diana marrying his Muslim son.
During the 2008 Diana inquest, the former Harrods owner described the royals as ‘that Dracula family’.
The photograph of Diana forms part of the trailer to Allen’s documentary on the film’s official website available in the UK.
Backers: The film, Unlawful Killing, is being supported by Mohammed Fayed, whose son Dodi died with Diana, and left-wing activist and actor Keith Allen, right
Getting ready: A screen is prepared on the beach for the 64th Cannes Film Festival in France, which is where the Diana documentary will be shown
The website proclaims: ‘Unlawful Killing is the story of the deaths of Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed and their driver Henri Paul.
‘It reveals a cover-up by the British Establishment culminating in a six-month inquest. Keith Allen’s ground-breaking documentary recreates key moments from the inquest and demonstrates how vital evidence of foul play was hidden from public scrutiny, how the royal family were exempted from giving evidence and how journalists, particularly those working for the BBC, systematically misreported the events and in particular, the verdict itself.
‘This is the story of how the world was deceived.’
Allen, in a piece for the Guardian newspaper last weekend, said: ‘My “inquest of the inquest” film contains footage of Diana recalling how the royals wanted her consigned to a mental institution, and the coroner repeatedly questioning the sanity of anyone who wondered if the crash was more than an accident.’
He said he asked every major UK broadcaster to commission a TV documentary about the inquest but they all refused.
Mourned: The gates of Kensington Palace adorned with tributes in 1997
He said Unlawful Killing was ‘not about a conspiracy before the crash, but a conspiracy after the crash. A conspiracy organised not by a single arch-fiend, but collectively by the British establishment’.
He said the film was being premiered in Cannes ‘because British lawyers insisted on 87 cuts before any UK release.
‘So rather than butcher the film, we’re showing in France, then the U.S., and everywhere except the UK.’
A spokesman for the filmmakers said: ‘The picture has been published in full before, in many parts of the world. We acquired the image from an Italian magazine, which had already published it in full. It is also widely available on the web.
‘We are therefore not publishing anything that the rest of the world has not already seen elsewhere.’
A spokesman for Mr Fayed said: ‘He was not aware that any photograph taken of any occupant of the car was going to be in this film.
‘He is appalled by that and will be taking all necessary steps to make sure it is not in the film.’
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People: Diana, Keith Allen, Henri Paul Places: Cannes, France, United Kingdom, Wales
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385357/Princess-Diana-dying-photo-shown-Unlawful-Killing-Cannes.html#ixzz1LzSCanTG
ANCIENT BIPEDAL HOMINID DUBBED ‘NUTCRACKER MAN’ PREFERRED GRASS TO NUTS, NEW STUDY FINDS
May 2nd
An ancient, bipedal hominid sporting a set of powerful jaws and huge molars that earned it the nickname “Nutcracker Man” likely didn’t crack nuts at all, preferring instead to slurp up vast quantities of grasses and sedges, says a new study.
The hominid, known as Paranthropus boisei, ranged across the African landscape more than 1 million years ago and lived side-by-side with direct ancestors of humans, said University of Colorado Boulder anthropology Professor Matt Sponheimer, a study co-author. It was long assumed Paranthropus boisei favored nuts, seeds and hard fruit because of its huge jaws, powerful jaw muscles and the biggest and flattest molars of any known hominid in the anthropological record, he said.
In the last several years, research on the wear marks of teeth from Paranthropus boisei by other research teams has indicated it likely was eating items like soft fruit and grasses, said Sponheimer. That evidence, combined with the new study that measured the carbon isotopes embedded in fossil teeth to infer diet, indicates the rugged jaw and large, flat tooth structure may have been just the ticket for Paranthropus boisei to mow down and swallow huge amounts of grasses or sedges at a single sitting, he said.
“Frankly, we didn’t expect to find the primate equivalent of a cow dangling from a remote twig of our family tree,” said Sponheimer.
Published in the May 2 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study was led by University of Utah Professor Thure Cerling. Other authors included Emma Mbua, Frances Kirera, Fredrick Manthi and Meave Leakey from the National Museums of Kenya, Fredrick Grine from Stony Brook University in New York and Kevin Uno from the University of Utah.
“Fortunately for us, the work of several research groups over the last several years has begun to soften prevailing notions of early hominid diets,” said Sponheimer. “If we had presented our new results at a scientific meeting 20 years ago, we would have been laughed out of the room.”
For the new study, the researchers removed tiny amounts of enamel from 22 Paranthropus boisei teeth collected in central and northern Kenya, each of which contained carbon isotopes absorbed from the types of food eaten during the lifetime of each individual. In tropical environments, virtually all trees and bushes — including fruits and leaves — use the so-called C3 photosynthetic pathway to convert sunlight into energy, while savannah grasses and some sedges use the C4 photosynthetic pathway.
The isotope analysis indicated Paranthropus boisei individuals were much bigger fans of C4 grasses and sedges than C3 trees, shrubs and bushes. The results indicated the collective diet of the 22 individuals averaged about 77 percent grasses and sedges for a period lasting at least 500,000 years, said Sponheimer.
The research team also compared the carbon isotope ratios of Paranthropus teeth with the teeth of other grazing mammals living at the same time and in the same area, including ancestral zebras, hippos, warthogs and pigs. The results indicated those mammals were eating primarily C4 grasses, virtually identical to Paranthropus boisei. “They were eating at the same table,” said Cerling.
Paranthropus was part of a line of close human relatives known as australopithecines that includes the famous 3-million-year-old Ethiopian fossil Lucy, seen by some as the matriarch of modern humans. Roughly 2.5 million years ago, the australopithecines are thought to have split into the genus Homo — which produced modern Homo sapiens — and the genus Paranthropus, that dead-ended, said Sponheimer.
“One key result is that this hominid had a diet fundamentally different from that of all living apes, and, by extension, favored very different environments,” he said. “And having a good idea of where these ancient creatures lived and what they ate helps us understand why some early hominids left descendants and others did not.”
The first skull of a Paranthropus boisei individual was discovered by co-author Meave Leakey’s in-laws, Mary and Louis Leaky, in 1959 in Tanzania.
In 2006, a team led by Sponheimer found that a cousin of Paranthropus boisei known as Paranthropus robustus had a far more diverse diet than once believed, clouding the notion that it was driven to extinction by its picky eating habits. Published in Science magazine, the study showed that Paranthropus robustus had a diverse diet ranging from fruits and nuts to sedges, grasses, seeds and perhaps even animals.
So what led to the end of the line for Paranthropus? It could well have been direct competition with Homo — which was becoming skilled in extensive bone and stone technology — or it could have been a variety of other issues, including a slower reproductive rate for Paranthropus than for Homo, he said.
The new study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the CU-Boulder Dean’s Fund for Excellence.
-CU-
Boulder’s 2011 Community Cleanup Day
Apr 20th
Boulder’s 2011 Community Cleanup Day
Online registration is now available for the ninth annual Community Cleanup Day, which will be held from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 14. The event, sponsored by the City of Boulder, Boulder City Improvement Association II (BCIA 2) and the Daily Camera, provides volunteer opportunities for individuals and groups to help clean up a variety of parks, greenways, creeks and paths throughout the city.
After the cleanup, participants meet for an ice cream social from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Scott Carpenter Park, located at the southwest corner of 30th Street and Arapahoe Avenue. All participants will receive a free one-day pass to the Boulder Reservoir and have a chance to win one of several gifts offered in the prize drawing.
Registration is available online at www.BoulderParks-Rec.org, (click on “Community Cleanup Day – Sign up today!”) or by calling303-413-7245. Online registration will close on Wednesday, May 11, and day-of-event registration will be held from 8 to 8:30 a.m. at Scott Carpenter Park.
For more information about the City of Boulder and other city-sponsored events, visit www.bouldercolorado.gov/.
