Sweetness in the Belly: A Novel by Camilla Gibb

This beautifully written and impeccably researched tale contains a wealth of information about the battered country of Ethiopia and the strength and resilience of its people. It is obvious that Camilla Gibb had first-hand experience in the field and has the highest regard for those who went through the terrible years of war, famine, upheaval and dictatorship.

Sweetness in the Belly personalizes this unthinkable social and political tragedy so that we have an inside view into the life of Lilly, a privileged Muslim woman with an ill-fated attraction for Aziz, a doctor and a man of another class. The book goes back and forth between Ethiopia and England as Lilly reflects back on early years in her homeland before she was forced to flee. It is a testament to human nature that anyone can survive the atrocities that were perpetrated on these blameless souls, and can emerge with any kindness, decency and dreams for the future.

That makes this a book of hope with a wealth of fascinating information, although at heart, it's also just a great story. I'll be looking for more books by Gibb, after I've watched some lightweight comedies on DVD that will serve as a buffer from reading about so much pain.

Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

I absolutely adored this critique of religion by Richard Dawkins. He is a preeminent scholar who backed up his arguments against the existence of God, or rather the probability of the existence of God, beautifully. Dawkins also made a compelling argument for the fact that religion is not simply a benign preference that one adopts; it can be and is indeed frequently used to justify sexism, homophobia, territorial disputes and futile, bloody wars.

It seems politically correct nowadays to separate fundamentalist religions from the mainstream, in particular when we are talking about Muslims; however, Dawkins argues that all religion is a form of fanaticism because it's based on myth and compulsion. He talks about how frequently we overlook the fact that suicide bombers truly believe that they will be rewarded in the hereafter for their heinous deeds.

The only complaint that I, as an agnostic, would have about The God Delusion is that it offers no solace. Dawkins seems to find comfort in science and the evolutionary theory but I don't and I don't imagine that a terminal cancer patient would either. That's not to say that fear of mortality justifies a belief in a higher being whose presence we can't confirm -- it is to say that I understand why people embrace the concept even if it runs contrary to what we know scientifically.

Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario

Bush's Brain -- SCARY!!!

If you want to rent a true horror movie, watch Bush's Brain, based on the book by two Texan reporters. Their assertion that Karl Rove is running the White House is frightening because apparently he's a brilliant but ruthless man that no one elected. This DVD was released in 2004. Much of the information is outdated. Only brief allusions were made to the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq whereas much attention was paid to the background of Karl Rove -- if even 1/10 of that is true, he is a man without a soul or a conscience and he's directing our domestic and foreign policy.

The big surprise is not so much how Bush and Rove pulled this scam off; the true surprise to me is how the electorate put these men in for a second term! The first term was quite "iffy." It could be argued that Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court because that race was so damn close, but all that really says is that the country was divided right down the middle in terms of partisan politics. When we knew perfectly well that Bush revealed himself as a war president, why, oh why elect him for a second term?

Thankfully, he'll be ousted in 2008 but that's not soon enough for the dept that he's run up, the programs that he's destroyed, the American troops that he's sent needlessly to die or be maimed, and the horrific damage that he inflicted on the country and the people of Iraq. And this is only January. He's got lots of time to expand his reign.

Sigrid Macdonald, Ottawa, Ontario (formerly from New Jersey)

Promise Me by Harlan Coben

This is the second book that I've read by Coben and I was immediately engaged by the people and the story line. He manages to weave an intricate plot without dropping characters along the way, overly complicating matters, confusing the reader and developing shallow protagonists. I loved Myron and will look forward to reading about his previous adventures.

The basic premise of this one is that one night, without thinking about the consequences, 42-year-old Myron Bolitar, an ex-athlete turned entertainment lawyer, overhears a conversation between two teenage girls, one of whom he knows quite well. They're talking about drinking. It's senior year in Bergen County, New Jersey (where I grew up, BTW!) And the number one priority for affluent parents and their children is getting those teens into a decent university.

Myron remembers that a classmate in his high school never made it because she was killed by a drunk driver. He makes the girls promise him that if they're ever in trouble in the middle of the night, they can call him at any time -- no questions asked. Little does he anticipate where that promise will lead him and us, the readers.

Much like his other book, whose name I have forgotten, this was a page turner. I will put Coben at the top of my list and go back to read his other books. Very well done and highly recommended, although it stretched the imagination a bit at times.

Sigridmac, author of D'Amour Road

America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It

Mark Steyn makes a chilling and compelling argument that we need to be more concerned about international demographics than global warming and compact fluorescent light bulbs. He enumerates the birth rates for countries around the world, starting with North America and moving on to Europe, the Middle East, Africa, China, India and Russia. Steyn claims -- and I have no reason to disbelieve him -- that Europe and Canada are failing to repopulate themselves. Some countries are really bad like Germany, Japan, Spain and Italy, which Steyn also criticizes for their left-leaning, socialist tendencies since he believes they contribute to unemployment and far too great a reliance on government.

What will happen down the road is that we will have nations, or perhaps entire continents, with such aging populations that they don't have enough young people to support them in retirement. And their tax bases will be so high that fresh blood won't want to immigrate there.

The countries that are doing very well in terms of fertility are mainly Muslim countries and that scares Steyn because of their anti-Semitism, opposition to Western ways and lack of "forward thinking." He quotes a UN statistics from 2002 that said that in one year more books were translated into Spanish than into Arabic over the last one thousand years -- pretty frightening and evidence to Steyn that the Arab world is quite xenophobic.

As an independent, I'm not prone to taking a conservative position on most issues but I do like to read all sides. And in this case, much of what Steyn argues is irrefutable in terms of sheer stats about populations. For that reason alone, I give this book 5 stars because it was a serious eye-opener for me and it was very well-written, researched and funny as hell.

However, there are some things that I don't think that Mark Steyn fully addressed. The first is that he pats the United States on the back for managing to at least have a fertility rate above 2.0. He mentions that this is NOT coming from the average 30 year old couple who live in his hometown in New Hampshire; we can thank the large number of Hispanics and Mormons for keeping the US population high. Latinos are largely Catholic so it seems that both groups in the US may be keeping the population afloat for religious reasons. Thus, it's not so much that *America* is enlightened or any different from Europe or Canada when it comes to having children or being concerned about keeping the population growing; it's the Red states (Republican women) and certain religious groups that are doing so.

Another area that I think he could have focused on more was women's rights. I've been a long-time feminist since the early 70s but I concede that ready access to abortion, more reliable birth control, women entering the workforce in large numbers and thus being able to support themselves financially, along with increased cultural and social acceptance of divorce have all contributed to these declining birth rights. Therefore it's hard to recommend that giving Islamic women more rights and equality will do anything but reduce their rate of breeding.

There's no going backward and who would want to? But we need some form of education in the schools and campaigns on television and print that will raise awareness about our declining population. So many women my age were raised with the idea that they should delay having children until they were established in their careers; and by the time they reached 38 or 40 they realized that their eggs weren't that good. All of this info needs to get out to the public when they're much younger. I don't think it's that people aren't interested in having children or in keeping the population going -- much of this is simply ignorance about the fact that we even *have* a population shortage. I grew up thinking that we were having a global population explosion. The word needs to get out and reading this book is a great place to start.

Sigrid Macdonald, Author and Editor Ottawa, Ontario

When the Levees Broke -- The Enemy within

9/11 was terrifying. For the first time in decades, we were attacked on our own soil. But the assault came from outsiders. Even more frightening is to think there may be a malevolent group within the country that kills people by its own negligence. Prior to watching Spike Lee's masterpiece, I had naïvely thought that New Orleans was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. In fact, Lee argues that the United States Army Corps of Engineers designed the levees so poorly that they could not withstand anything stronger than a category two hurricane.

Given the fact that the city is surrounded by water on all sides, it was inevitable that it would be hit by a storm much more powerful than category two, thus, the engineers-- who can't be sued -- bear an enormous amount of responsibility for the catastrophe that befell hundreds of thousands of people.

Worse was the downright embarrassing and disgraceful response of the Bush administration. It took George Bush 12 days to get down to New Orleans. Meanwhile, he was on vacation and making speeches about Iraq (hey, let's get our priorities straight!) while Dick Cheney was flyfishing and Condoleezza Rice was buying shoes. Spike Lee shows some old footage of Lyndon B. Johnson making a clumsy appearance in New Orleans following Hurricane Betsy -- old LBJ was out there in the dark with his flashlight and down-homey kind of way but at least he was there. People knew that he cared.

FEMA, as we all know, took five days to get to the city although somehow it only took our government two days to go across the world to help the tsunami victims. One can only conclude that it is deliberate disdain and racism or a complete lack of concern for people of lower incomes that resulted in such a horrifically slow and inadequate response to this tragedy.

Spike Lee, who I've always loved, tells the story of Katrina through the words of those who lived through it -- from rich to poor, black to white, the important to the "ordinary." Their tales moved me to tears and to an angry rage as the story unfolded from the beginning of the chaos to the cleanup -- or so-called -- and the bailouts of so many insurance companies who refused to pay up.

One thing that I would have appreciated in this HBO series was a few more facts. After watching for four hours, I still don't know exactly how many people were killed or injured. Also, there was a reference early on to the fact that the levees had been dynamited during Betsy and that some people suspected that the same may have happened during Katrina in order to flood out the homes of the poorest people to save the rich. That's a serious allegation and it deserved more time and attention in the film.

Otherwise, this DVD was fantastic. It was moving and irreverent -- a real eye-opener and must-see. Hope that it's resurrected before the next election!

Sigridmac, American living in Canada

Derailed

Although I'm not a big fan of Jennifer Aniston's, I thoroughly enjoyed this fast-paced thriller about a married man who meets an attractive woman on a train and arranges a hookup. His relationship with his wife is strained because their young daughter is seriously ill and the woman that he, Clive Owens, meets, Aniston, offers the promise of soothing his pain. Little does he know that the heartache and nightmares are about to begin!

Jennifer Aniston plays a different type role, which is nice to see since she's usually typecast in that boppy, upbeat and giggly kind of way. She is serious, almost too much so, as a high-powered businesswoman.

Owens, who I just saw in Children of Men, does a marvelous job and I loved the unpredictability of the story. Looks as though he's on his way to being the next Nicolas Cage.

Sigridmac

Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home

SEND is a great book that reminds us to check our knee-jerk reactions to e-mail. Regardless of how many years we've been on the Internet or how savvy we think we are in terms of e-mail etiquette, it doesn't hurt to brush up on some of the basics.

I can't count how many e-mails I receive in a given day that have a subject line that is completely unrelated to the topic; so many people, myself included, will continue a correspondence back and forth without ever changing the subject of the e-mail.

Due to the rapidity of the medium, we often expect unreasonably quick replies to our e-mails. And many people have no idea when to end a conversation. In person, we know how to do that easily. Most people are in agreement as to when a conversation is over but chitchat in e-mail can go back and forth into cyber eternity and someone has to know when to say stop, when to delete an e-mail or just reply with one line.

Much of the advice in this primer is based on common sense but I found it to be an excellent reminder that in general my own e-mails tend to be too long, partly because I dictate with a voice program, and that I reply too often instead of hitting the big "D" on my keyboard. Something here for everyone, particularly beginners, but also for old-timers too.

Sigridmac

The Secret -- So unlike old-fashioned positive thinking

The Secret has a lot of things going for it. It emphasizes the importance of thinking positively and acting with confidence. It encourages people to affirm the abundance in their lives and to be grateful for what they already have. All of those are good things. If we think negatively and feel depressed, we're not likely to have amazing outcomes.

On the other hand, there are times when people work as hard as they possibly can but encounter numerous obstacles. If they don't succeed because they struggle against systemic racism, poverty, discrimination or debilitating illness, it's not their fault and there's no way that they can talk themselves out of that situation. They might be able to deal with it better but I preferred the more rational thoughts of Norman Vincent Peale to The Secret because he never blamed anyone and he was always sane and rational about who could and who couldn't further themselves.

There's a reason that the serenity prayer became very popular in 12 step programs and that's because there really are some things that we CAN control and other things that we CAN'T. Rape, child abuse, sudden dismissal from a job, a spouse dying, working at a crappy job for minimum wage... those things are out of many people's control. When we get into Third World issues, applying The Secret becomes ludicrous. Can we feed Ethiopians, eradicate HIV, boost sagging economies that are strangulated with debt? Hardly. No matter how much someone with AIDS in Kenya affirms that he is healthy, he won't be!

Don't get me wrong. I own The Secret and have watched it several times. For middle-class folks who are reasonably healthy, it's possible that the techniques here can make them happier and more successful. Having an attitude of expectancy is always a good thing unless we blame ourselves when our dreams don't materialize and we never had a chance in the first place.

Sigridmac

The Queen -- One of the best movies I've seen in ages

The Queen was a fantastic depiction of the way that Queen Elizabeth may have felt following the death of Princess Diana. Despite all of the media hype about the latter, this movie is new, fresh and surprisingly funny. I laughed out loud a number of times both at the Queen and with her.

How can an apple become an orange? That's what Elizabeth had to do after the sudden and shocking death of her son's ex-wife, whom she had never liked to begin with. A reserved, imminently proper woman, Elizabeth was completely out of touch with the need of the public to grieve. She wanted to mourn privately but didn't understand that the country lost Diana too and had to have more closure. Although she wanted a private service, she needed to bend and come round to something that eventually included pop stars like Elton John -- a 180° turn that was most difficult for her.

As always, Helen Mirren is nothing short of amazing. I've loved her since her early days in Prime Suspect and have watched every episode! She doesn't disappoint here either; neither does the character who plays Tony Blair, whose name escapes me at the moment. Acting is great, story is wonderful. Only question I had was the reliability of the details and facts -- were those leaked by palace insiders? Interesting to know..

This is a movie I could watch two or three times and probably will!

Sigridmac

Who was the monster?

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino is a compulsively readable book which grabbed my attention from the very first page when the narrator confessed a seething hatred for her unspeakably beautiful sister. Kirino shows exactly what kind of a curse striking beauty can be for a woman in the same way that ugliness or ordinary features work against women. She provides a scathing indictment of the highly competitive nature of Japanese female schools as well as the workplace and introduces a number of self-loathing individuals whose lives appear to be full of promise when they're young but in fact, their fate has been sealed early on.

Male-female relationships are portrayed as a form of combat; at one point, Kirino says that in order to decay, plants need water and that in the case of women, "men are the water." Ouch! Cruelty, competition and class are the big issues in this book along with sex and what might make a woman choose to prostitute herself.

In the end, Karino concludes that women become prostitutes because they hate other people -- a bit simplistic and dismissing a more obvious reason which is that many prostitutes, male and female alike, sell themselves simply for the money; because they're hooked on drugs or too young to get decent jobs or sexually abused and need to reenact the pattern.

The ending was ambiguous and left me with some unanswered questions but nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed every single page of this beautifully written, wonderfully analytical, wildly entertaining and provocative story about a young woman who grows up with an abnormally attractive sister who she calls the monster. "The monster" eventually becomes a prostitute along with another schoolgirl known by the narrator -- 6° of separation? -- and in the end we must conclude that all of the characters are monsters: mean-spirited, self-loathing and ridiculously self absorbed.

Well worth the read. Sigridmac

Meet Marilyn Celeste Morris!

Marilyn Celeste Morris is on a Virtual Book Tour to discuss the release of her scintillating new book, Once a Brat, which is all about her life as a military brat following World War II.

Marilyn attended schools overseas, in Seoul Korea, 1946-47 and Linz, Austria (1949-1952) and various schools stateside. From this background, she has crafted her autobiographical Once a Brat, relating her travels with her army officer father from her birth in 1938 to his retirement in 1958.Her first novel, Sabbath’s Room, was published in 2001, and her most recent work, Diagnosis: Lupus: The Intimate Journal of a Lupus Patient was released in December, 2005 by Publish America. She has taught creative writing at Tarrant County College, Fort Worth TX and survived numerous book signings and speaking engagements. She is co-facilitator for the Fort Worth Lupus Support Group, North Texas Chapter of the Lupus Foundation of America and advisor to the Board of Directors. When not writing or editing emerging writers’ manuscripts, she enjoys searching for former classmates and true to her Brat heritage, she has a suitcase packed under the bed, ready to travel at a moment’s notice.

I was fortunate enough to interview Marilyn recently and would like to post the content of our e-mail exchange here. If you have any further questions or comments, you can reach Marilyn Celeste Morris directly at (817) 246-2639 or by email: marilyncmorris at sign sbcglobal.net. See also http://www.freewebs.com/graceworksproductions/ for excerpts of all three books. Her publications may be purchased by calling the publisher at 877-333-7422, from the website at http://www.publishamerica.com/; http://www.amazon.com/ or your local bookstore can order for you. AND You can read an excerpt of Once a Brat here.

INTERVIEW WITH MARILYN CELESTE MORRIS


SIGRID: What was it like for you as a child growing up in war-torn countries like Austria and Korea? I understand that you had to keep a suitcase packed under the bed so as to be ready to evacuate if necessary. Wasn’t that frightening?

MARILYN: I would say maybe a bit apprehensive. When we were in Korea, we were aware that the Russians were above the 38th parallel, not far from Seoul, and it was commonly assumed that at some point, they would try to invade South Korea. Which they did, on June 25, 1950. We had left Korea by that time, and my dad was stationed in Linz Austria, but we were on a family vacation in Paris on that very day. What concerned us at that time was the possibility of war breaking out in Europe, too, and there we were…I may have been too confident in my assumption that if anything were likely to happen, the army would take care of us.

SIGRID: Was it difficult for you as a teenager being an Army brat? Most teens need to individuate and separate themselves from their parents; they want to rebel or act out in some fashion. There would have been serious consequences for you if you had done that.

MARILYN: Fortunately, by the time I reached high school age, we were back in the States and I was able to complete all three high school years in one school, Lawton, OK. As for trying to rebel, I just couldn’t do that; therefore, I was somewhat of a goody-two shoe who never acted out. (I saved that until my second divorce, lol!)

SIGRID: You've said that your life of moving from place to place has resulted in the ability to simply walk away from jobs, marriages or relationships without looking back. That must have been a helpful mechanism for you when you were young but has it put a damper in your adult life?

MARILYN: Yes, it was a helpful mechanism as I was growing up. I learned not to get too attached to a person or a place, so my relationships were superficial. Unfortunately, I carried that into my adult life and marriages, until I realized I was repeating that pattern. I did, however, enjoy my work as a “temp” in many job assignments, knowing I would be there only for a certain amount of time and I didn’t have to take any work-related problems home with me at the end of the day.

SIGRID: What do you think of the armed services today and the mixed feelings that people have about the Iraqi war? Unlike Vietnam, this time around the people who disagree with us being there seem to be much more able to separate their respect for the troops from their disapproval of the war.

MARILYN: The armed services today are completely different from when my dad was on active duty. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I might point out, however, that during WWII, we had a draft, and our young men came through. With today’s culture, I kind of cringe when I hear people protest against the war in Iraq, and this can’t help our soldiers’ morale. My feeling is, you can be against the war in the Middle East, but please support the troops over there.

SIGRID: Do you have any advice for young people who are growing up as Army brats today? Words of wisdom, perhaps.

MARILYN: As with yesterday’s army being completely different from today’s armed forces, the children of the military are no doubt experiencing a much different life than I did. My daughter and I went to Europe about ten years ago and stayed with some friends in an army base in Germany. It was like a Little America, with all the conveniences of home. But I suspect these kids still have a struggle with being moved around so much, just as I did. My words of wisdom would be, “You are experiencing a life others can only imagine, and maybe some day you will come to appreciate your nomadic way of life. I did.”

SIGRID: Marilyn, you've given us a lot to think about. Thanks so much for visiting my blog. It was great having you here and I wish you the very best success with your book!

Please Welcome Francine Silverman!

Hi everybody. This is Sigrid Macdonald, author of D'Amour Road. Today I'm pleased to welcome our guest, fellow author Francine Silverman. Fran has written four books altogether and the last two have to do with marketing and promoting. Fran is here today to talk about her latest book, Talk Radio for Authors – Getting Interviews Across the U.S. and Canada.

Before we start, I'd like to explain a bit about the format of doing a blog interview. I will ask Fran a number of questions and she will respond by clicking on the "comment" icon at the bottom of my post. After 20 minutes or so, I will open the floor up so that you readers have a chance to participate. Please reply the same way that Fran does via the "comment" button, and ask as many questions or make as many observations as you like. Now, down to business.

Hello Fran. How are you doing on this Monday afternoon?

... Stay tuned everybody. Fran is with me but she is just figuring out how to make a comment. We should be broadcasting momentarily.

Author Alert!

Coming Soon! March 12 at 2 p.m. right here on my webpage. Virtual Interview with Talk Radio Host Francine Silverman

Talk Radio for Authors – Getting Interviews Across the U.S. and Canada, by Francine Silverman, is hot off the press from Infinity Publishing.

The book is a valuable resource for authors and others since the guest criteria includes several specialties.

There are 40 categories and each listing contains the show’s theme, guest criteria, email address and website, along with host and guest bios providing background information and host opinions on what constitutes the best and worst guests. All this is designed to simplify the process of matching the guest with the show’s specialties and provide an intimate look at each program.

Talk Radio for Authors is available at Infinity Publishing at toll free number 1-877-BUY-BOOK

http://www.buybooksontheweb.com/search.asp?cat=Business%20
%26%20Economics/Marketing&action=browse

Francine Silverman was a newspaper reporter for many years but her writing/marketing career really began in 2003 when she was author of two local guidebooks, Catskills Alive (1st and 2nd editions, 2000 and 2003) and Long Island Alive (2003), both published by Hunter Publishing. Having trouble marketing them and hungry for ideas, she decided to start an ezine for authors of all genres.

Book Promotion Newsletter was born in March 2003. She compiled a questionnaire with all her burning questions that she continues to send to each new subscriber. Two years later, she had so many creative marketing strategies from subscribers that she put together a book called Book Marketing from A-Z (Infinity Publishing 2005), containing the best marketing tactics of 325 of them.

Fran was spending so much time on the computer that she decided to start an on-line publicity service and began offering a membership service to her subscribers in which she sends out Expert Sheets with their bios to radio hosts and columnists. At present, Fran has 50 clients and continues to find them radio and newspaper spots.

Then she began a radio show on Achieve Radio, http://www.achieveradio.com/, called "Book Marketing with Fran," in which she interviews authors about their marketing strategies. Meanwhile, she had accumulated so many radio show websites while doing publicity for her authors that she decided to compile her new book, Talk Radio for Authors - Getting Interviews across the U.S. and Canada. http://www.bookpromotionnewsletter.com/

I can personally attest to Francine's effectiveness since she landed me an interview on Sirius radio last year. I was a guest on The Good Life Show with Jesse Dylan -- a program that has featured Deepak Chopra and health guru, Andrew Weil. In fact, my interview is still up on The Good Life Show Web site, which ended up being an excellent advertisement for my first book on total hip replacements.

Fran will be doing a virtual interview with me on March 12. It will be posted here on D'Amour Road and it's entirely free! If you're a writer who is interested in promoting your work on air, make sure to tune in and participate in my interview with Fran. It will be well worth your while.

Sigrid Macdonald

Mature Reflections on Aging

A few months ago, my friend and I went to a little indoor, glow-in-the-dark miniature golf place that I love. It's Day-Glo inside with psychedelic decor and reminds me of a bar without the alcohol. Also, I developed an addiction to mini golf a few years back but only inside. Outside I find it really boring but I love this indoor place because there's great music and the holes have banks, so I feel more like I'm playing pool than golf because I'm banking most of my shots. And two years ago, I was the only female who qualified for a tournament at this place, and at the time there was a very handsome charming young manager who spent a lot of time with me.

Moving along, as my friend Anna would say, and returning to the subject of aging. My friend Cathie and I played our game of golf and I did better than her but being the thoughtful, sensitive person that I am, I subtracted a few points from her score so she wouldn't feel hopelessly depressed at the end of the game since it was her first time playing and I didn't want her experience of being deflowered to be unpleasant.

As we were leaving, one of the twentysomething kids who works there, and who I talk to all the time, was chatting with us. Cathie looked up at the sign above the cash, which said that seniors received discounts and that a senior was someone who was 55 years or older. Much to my dismay, Cathie volunteered the fact that she was over 55 and the twentysomething woman by the name of Andrea says, "No! You guys can't be over 55?" Cathie replies, "Yes" and I shout NO, NO, NO and point to Cathie and not me, although I'll be 54 in December, but don't tell anyone. I'm sure that when I do become 55, I will continue to argue with people and be happy to pay full price up until the age of 82 or so rather than having someone call me a senior.

How we feel with the passing of each decade and how differently society treats us is an issue that has preoccupied me since I turned 40. I made it one of the themes of my novel and am quoting a few passages from D'Amour Road here to give you a better idea why I like the song Forever Young. My main character, who is 39, is just leaving the apartment of a 25-year-old guy who she's fallen for. She is headed for the parking lot, feeling old.

As I was walking towards my car, I took off my jacket because the weather had turned humid. A scruffy looking pair of men walked past me. One had an unruly beard and the other had a leer on his face.
"Nice tits!" The second guy grinned at me.
"Up yours," I replied automatically. They both laughed. I walked faster to get away from them and put my jacket back on. I was annoyed, offended and repulsed, but I’m ashamed to admit that I felt vaguely flattered and pleased to have been noticed.
WAR (my women's collective) would consider me to be a lost cause, but I couldn't help but ask myself how many more years of sexual harassment I had left before I became completely invisible. Sheila and Diane often joked that one of the few benefits of being close to sixty was that they didn't have to deal with men whistling, calling them lewd names, and attempting to grope them on the street.
Once, I heard Germaine Greer on a talk show, saying that she’d lost her sex drive after menopause, and felt relieved not to be at the mercy of her hormones and desire anymore. Although my ardor for Alain had become painful, I definitely did not want to be "liberated" from it.

One of the Best DVDs of all times -- Six Feet Under

One of my all-time favorites is Six Feet Under. If you're not familiar with this Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning series, run, don't walk, to the nearest store to rent Season One. You won't be sorry.

The fifth and final season of SFU was just released on DVD. Watching it is a lot like eating the last piece of fudge after Christmas. I want to savor it, rewind and play it again, delaying the inevitable finale. But all things must die and that’s one of the central points of this gem created by Alan Ball, who soared to celebrity with American Beauty.

Six Feet Under follows the lives of the Fisher family. Father Fisher is killed in a car accident. He leaves the family funeral parlor to his sons David (Michael C. Hall) and Nate (Peter Krause). David is an overly responsible, serious type who’s already been running the business with his dad. But Nate escaped to work in a health food store in Seattle, partly to get away from the constant presence of death, but also to avoid his quirky and crazy family. Now Nate must decide if he can forsake his freedom and commit to helping David so that the business doesn't fold. Loyalty versus following one's own heart.

This HBO show is full of ethical conflicts and philosophical questions about the meaning of our lives. Every episode starts out with a new person who dies and whose body will be embalmed in the Fisher's basement: some person who got up in the morning, assuming that it would be an ordinary day with its regular, mundane stresses and challenges, but it wasn't.

Six Feet Under is a “dramedy” that is funny as hell. It's also erotic and filled with endless conflicts, insights and struggles within relationships.

Maybe I won't finish Season Five; that way it will remain alive for me forever.

Sigridmac

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Suze Orman Kicks Ass!

If you have the misfortune to be home on a Saturday night, don't despair. One of the best things that you can do with your time is to tune in to CNBC and 9 p.m. to watch the Suze Orman show. Multimillionaire financial planner Orman is feisty, brilliant and quick on the draw. Her razor sharp mind allows her to analyze a wide variety of financial situations in a short period of time. She conducts live interviews, talks to people on camera, and answers desperate pleas on e-mail from people who need her advice about everything from how to get out of credit card debt, to the best way to mortgage a home, to handling conflict over money within relationships.

In fact, aside from offering astute monetary advice, Orman has an uncanny talent to discern who is in a healthy marriage or relationship and who is wallowing in toxic mire. Often, people call into the show thinking that their problem has to do with money, but Suze tells them that it really has to do with their spouse.

Orman recommends that people do what they love, even if they can't make a living at it. She suggests getting a second job or cutting back on one's lifestyle rather than giving up a satisfying career. A strong advocate of individual responsibility, Suze frequently advises parents not to give their adult children money but rather to pay off their credit card debt if they want to do something wonderful for them financially.

Orman is sincere and passionate; obviously, she cares about the people who contact her. However, at times she is too quick to judge a situation -- after all, she's not Dr. Phil! -- and I'm not always amused by the way that she teases her assistant Jeff about everything from his shoes to his girlfriend!

Nonetheless, Orman is hot and brimming with wisdom. Run out and buy one of her books on money management or set the DVR to tape her show if you're going out. You won't be disappointed.

Kinsey: Let's talk about sex -- Well worth watching!

Last year, I skipped the movie about pioneer sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey, because I thought that I already knew everything about him and that it might be dry. Was I ever wrong! The dialogue in the movie was crisp and unexpectedly funny and the acting was stellar. (What else could be expected from Liam Neeson, Chris O'Donnell and Laura Linney?)

The movie traced the puritanical and oppressive upbringing that poor Kinsey endured as a boy who was born in 1894 and raised by a fire and brimstone, preacher father. Those were the days when no one talked about masturbation and it was widely thought to cause blindness or insanity; oral sex was feared in the event that it resulted in infertility; and no one knew a clitoris from a clavicle!

Kinsey was one of the first to break down those barriers in the 1920s and 1930s. He started classes at university for young couples who were about to get married in order to give them proper sex education, rather than the abstinence message that they had been receiving in their hygiene class. He interviewed 18,000 people and wrote books about his findings, for which he was widely criticized because what he found was that there was a large disconnect between what people said was "moral" sexual behavior, and what they actually practiced behind closed doors.

Moreover, he stated that "37 percent of U.S. men (and 13 percent of women) had had at least one homosexual experience, while 62 percent of women (and 92 percent of men) masturbated. Premarital sex was common. Half of married men and a quarter of married women had cheated on their spouses." [Source -- National Geographic News]

In addition, Kinsey concluded that the majority of people were bisexual. This was during an era when adultery, homosexuality and oral sex were illegal in many states!

Kinsey had two great failings: firstly, as a zoologist, he could never understand that the human mammal with different from other animals. Humans had feelings that were intricately tied to their sexuality. Animals did not. Secondly, Kinsey's research methodology was questioned by many sources as being skewed and lacking objectivity. He interviewed most of his people face-to-face and then transcribed his findings. At least one quarter of his subjects were prison inmates, 5% were male prostitutes and they were all volunteers. A good research design should have a randomized study, preferably double blind so that the researcher and his assistants did not directly interpret data from subjects in order to avoid potential bias on their parts.

The movie clearly discussed Kinsey's first failing but was not explicit enough about the second one regarding research methodology. Having said that, Alfred Kinsey was an amazing man and this is an awesome movie. Great entertainment and it made me feel that despite our cultural ambivalence about sex, we definitely have come a long way, baby.

Sigrid Mac

Jonathan Fesmire -- Fantasy Author

Check out the awesome books by one of my MySpace friends! Jonathan Fesmire is a well-renowned fantasy writer who lives in California. His articles have appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, SpaceWays Weekly, Jackhammer, Lexikon, The Wandering Troll, and elsewhere. And he has done cover art for Venus Press, Twisted Dreams Magazine, Gryphonwood Magazine, Andrea Dean Van Scyock's novel, "A Man of Two Worlds," and Joseph Yakel's novel, "The Legend of Juggin Joe."

Listen to the free audiobook version of Children of Rhatlan at Podiobooks.Com. Then post comments about it here.

Sigridmac

Missing in Ottawa -- Gina Smith

To my great surprise, I read an article in the Ottawa Citizen the other day about a woman by the name of Gina Smith who has apparently been missing from Ottawa for almost two years. Could have fooled me. With all of the publicity that surrounded other women who disappeared in this town starting with my own friend and acquaintance, Louise Ellis, and moving on to Ardeth Wood and Jennifer Teague, how could someone else have gone under the radar without receiving a tremendous amount of media attention?

Easy. She was a drug addict and a prostitute. Does that sound familiar? Think East Side of Vancouver and the dozens of sex trade workers who ended up on Robert Pickton's pig farm.

Recently, bones have been discovered in the Rideau Canal and the police are wondering if they belong to Gina Smith. She disappeared under suspicious circumstances in that she was about to testify against her old boss and ex-lover, saying that he had "threatened to bash her head in with a hammer." No one questioned the fact that she didn't appeared in court because people without addresses are often dismissed as "transients" who move from place to place.

Andrew Seymour of the Ottawa Citizen, source for this article, wrote that Gina was "lost before she disappeared." So true, so sad and so infuriating that we haven't evolved to the level where we treat all people equally regardless of their occupation or circumstances.

Sigridmac