This past year has been something else... it's opened my eyes to many things and many people. It's had its ups and downs and ins and outs. And I believe we've all been able to take something from that and grow in our own imparticular ways. We've over...
I have lived by one crucial principle since I was 24 years old. I don't blame or complain about things like the economy, the government, taxes, employees, gas prices, or any of the external things that I don't have control over. The only thing I have...
I always am a firm believer in you compensate people for their job, and so I did give them bonuses. We accomplished a lot in Congress, we passed health care reform. There were threats against their lives; they had a tough two years. They'd forgone an...
Cantwell is so extreme that she doesn't see anything wrong with 11-year-old girls getting Plan B without a prescription. She is more liberal than Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and more liberal than President Obama. That is pre...
I've been a Cub all my life. I came up here when I was 20 years old and spent my whole career here in Chicago. I've always been an optimist; I believe you have to be in order to survive, to be honest with you - in health, with what I've been through....
If my colleagues stop eating donuts and are more active, it saves me money on next year's insurance premium, and I get to work with people who have more energy and creativity each day. Yet most organizations fail to make health a cultural priority. I...
I was 16 when I entered the foster system, and know firsthand the statistics for 'aging out.' When I was in the group homes, I saw some of the kids being moved into foster homes with the potential for adoption. I remember well asking a social worker ...
Growing up in New York, I was sort of shocked when I realized that my children are Californians. They are 14 years old, and I explain to them frequently that they will never realize the glory of a snow day. You wake up and the world says, 'Oops, it's...
I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for me the night before I left Calcutta: Spend two years studying creative writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, then co...
When I do a movie, that's just a couple months out of my year and out of my life. All the other months I'm just at home, running around doing errands with my mom and going to sleepovers. I feel like I have that side of my life, and then I also do the...
I'm a firm believer that lighting affects mood, and twinkly lights on strings bring something magical to occasions ranging from concerts to weddings, though I'm fond of using them as year-round home decor. There's a reason why they're sometimes calle...
I think it can be hard for any man to sometimes be upstaged by his wife. So when I'm home, I work very hard to be Todd's wife and Jade's mother. I have no problem going back to those traditional roles. I try to be Giada, the young girl that he met 20...
The very first role I ever played was as a 17-year old South African girl who dreamed of being a star and left home to meet her mother in the big city so that she could pursue that dream. I left South Africa and met my mother in Vancouver and not lon...
I'm lucky because I have a job I love. I really miss being away from home, being in my own bed, seeing my animals and siblings, having my moms cookies. I have a couple cats. I got a kitten about a year ago and now Im going on the road so I wont see h...
It's time to pull the bandage off America's foreclosure problem. The economy is ready to emerge from its recent dark period, but to make it happen soon we need to speed the resolution of millions of troubled home loans. Six years have passed since th...
As a kid, I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays, and I would walk home at night. For several years, I read the children's library until I finished the children's library. Then I move...
I'm moving on. I should have made that clear when I made the announcement. I guess I wasn't clear. If people think you're leaving a show after all these years, you might be retiring. So I understand where they're coming from, but I should have impres...
If you look at the history of technology over a couple hundred years, it's all about time compression and making the globe smaller. It's had positive effects, all the ones that we know. So we're much less likely to have the kind of terrible misunders...
I've always been interested in Vietnam, feel it's a seminal event in our nation's history, and have explored it over the years - but I hadn't been interested in doing a documentary about it. I felt there had been a lot done about Vietnam, and didn't ...
When I turned 18, my agent was like, 'You should change from Ricky to Rick.' So I thought it was a good idea. Rick never really fit. I tried for 18 years to make it work, and no one wanted to call me Rick. It should always have been Ricky. That's wha...
For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I nee...
