The last couple of weeks have certainly been big in the news business. The Boston Marathon bombing on Patriot's Day shocked us all and broke our hearts. The manhunt that followed along with the live coverage of the capture of the second suspect had us all glued to our televisions,...

In the early 1960s when Gloria Steinem inspired American women across the country to burn their bras, I was just another boy-crazy high school girl. I still remember sitting in the living room with my family watching these impassioned women set their Maidenforms alight. Even though I didn't quite understand...

In the last couple of years the disturbing trend of teen suicides at the hands of bullying has launched the topic into the national spotlight. Since then, many sources ranging from ABC News to the Mayo Clinic have offered up strategies on avoiding and reducing the harm of emotional bullying....

Once again it's that time of year that all of us movie buffs love -- awards season. The red carpets, designer gowns and beautiful hairstyles are all so glamorous and exciting. There are so many wonderful films up for Best Picture Oscars this year and they are all so different...

Every year after Thanksgiving I get a little nostalgic about the approaching holidays and the end of yet another year. This year, the news was dominated by two doomsday prophecies -- the fiscal cliff and the end of the world as predicted by the Mayan Calendar. In a year that...

Just a month after Hurricane Sandy with residents of Staten Island, Long Island and the Jersey shore still recovering from the devastation, we find ourselves celebrating Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, the idea of giving thanks in the aftermath of such unbelievable hardship must be difficult for everybody who suffered life-altering losses....

With the election just days away, the fate of the White House, key senate races and laws will soon be determined. Just like other election years we've heard a lot of rhetoric and controversy about the same old issues our two party system tends to drag out of the political...

Just the other afternoon while I was sitting in the Los Angeles traffic I heard a very amusing news story about a woman who had thrown away her husband's absentee ballot after promising to mail it. Completely unrepentant, she was very proud of herself, claiming her husband had voted for...

Earlier this summer I was invited to the ultimate pajama party in Paris -- the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, that is. Fifteen hundred dynamic women in their signature red hats converged upon Sin City for the annual convention of the Red Hat Society. Celebrating its fifteenth anniversary, the Red...

For many singletons, the anxiety starts as soon as the Valentine's Day advertising blitz kicks off. Those first big red hearts in store windows call out to us like strangers in a foreign land. The romantic television commercials for jewelry and flowers prompt cynical remarks out of us all.

Having...

We've always been a family of animal lovers. We've had dogs, birds, rabbits, goldfish and turtles! In fact, I'm only half joking when I say the reason I'm partial to oversized furniture is because I need to make sure there is a place for me to sit at home. At...

I can still remember being a part of what is now called the "backchannel" of the school classroom. Like everyone else, I passed notes to my friends and snickered rebelliously when the teacher wasn't looking. Today, the "backchannel" consists of texting, Tweeting and uploading to Facebook pages. Originally, school administrators...

I recently completed the final walk through of my home of twenty-two years. "The Manor," as it was affectionately christened by my daughter Tori, truly had a life of its own. Over the years, it garnered a lion's share of press attention ranging from architectural magazines to influential financial blogs....

Before the last guests had left Prince William and Kate Middleton's evening reception, rumors were already swirling about their first official tour. St. James Palace definitely caused a buzz in Southern California when it announced that the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would head due south to

Just a year after Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to take the stage and accept the Oscar for best director for The Hurt Locker, I was surprised to read recently published findings by SDSU's Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. It was sobering to say...

It is said there are no coincidences or irony in Hollywood, so I'll just say it's interesting that today's Hollywood trades are making news themselves, rather than reporting other show business news.

And, the two stories couldn't be more different.

The Hollywood Reporter announced it will become a weekly, glossy-large...

I've never been sure how to conjugate the verb, but do know that I tweet, I can twit, I do twitter, I have twitted, sometimes I twittled while signing in to Twitter and I will twitomorrow. On second thought, I think I've twitched while twitting, too. Wait, that brings up...

I'm not a big fan of quotas, so I was surprised that I initially liked the idea that France wanted to increase the number of women on corporate boards.

Statistics showed that only nine-and-a-half percent of members of corporate boards were women. So, someone came up with the idea...

In between producing television shows and movies, writing and re-writing scripts, casting, running a giant company and fulfilling the mantle of "TV's most-prolific television producer," my husband always tracked the research into how teens and younger audiences were watching their television.

If there are any doubts, remember that his career...

Many people think famous people all know each other. They don't. I'm a fan like most people, and there are a lot of people I'd love to meet. There are some - like Bette Midler - for whom I drove across the Mojave Desert to see perform in Las...