from Sigourney::

I was so looking forward to spending the evening with you in May for Smart Talk.   I will now be shooting on that date and cannot join you.  I am playing  the fabulous leading role of a woman Secretary of State in a cable series called Political Animals for the USA Network.

Sigourney Weaver

Andie MacDowel

Andie MacDowell has established herself as an accomplished actress in a career that shows no signs of slowing down. Her undeniable charm and talent has resulted in worldwide recognition. She has acted in hits such as “Groundhog Day”, “St Elmo’s Fire”, and “Unstrung Heroes”.  She earned the title of #1 female box office draw worldwide with her performance in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” as well as receiving Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe nomination for “Sex, Lies and Videotape”.  Along with acting you can find her dedicating her life to healthy heart awareness including teaming up with “Time to Talk Cardio” which helps you get the most out of your medical visits!

Send your entry to artwaves@hotmail.com  with the names of you and your guest and what you love about Cathy!

With humble beginnings in Louisiana Donna became interested in politics when a local politician made a promise to build a playground. Donna is an alumni of Louisiana State University and went on to work in Washington for several advocacy groups. Since then, Brazile has worked on several presidential campaigns for Democratic candidates, including Jimmy Carter- Walter Mondale, Jesse Jackson, Walter Mondale-Geraldine Ferraro and for Richard Gephardt. In 1999, Brazile was appointed deputy campaign manager and was later promoted to campaign manager of the 2000 presidential campaign of Vice-President Al Gore, becoming the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign.

With a career like this Donna knows a few things worth fighting for. She advises us to always look ahead, know your values like honesty and hard work and to remember that reason has no humility. In Washington, the political traffic is going in circles and the people are divided but standing. So while we may have a financial deficit of 4 trillion dollars there is a deficit of trust going on that calls for a return to civility.  Donna recalls the government programs that saved her generation provided immunizations and food to the poor.  She would love to see more people involved with public service and if you are going to run for office give Donna a call – she would love to help you with your campaign… if she has time!! This lady is in demand!

Donna stars in two episodes of the Good Wife series and if you aren’t watching a sci-fy program or a forensics drama on tv  – you can find her on CNN!

For the upcoming elections, Donna prepared us for some intense political campaign ads and commercials. She informed us that 80% of the facts on these commercials are false with the intention of marketing fear to the American people. Donna is an encouraging voice though in this world with a heart that wants to right wrongs and stand up for what she believes.  I enjoyed meeting Donna very much!

Hope and love are great things to spend 300 days out of the year on… Jane travels around the world inspiring people to care for one another and protect the environment and land that we live in. Jane sees hope in the young people she meets all over the world. They want to protect the earth. the resources, the animals – the people.

Beautiful Jane Goodall told how as a child she had a dream that one day she would go to Africa and write stories about the animals that lived there. This is exactly what she did – but how did a young woman without a college education and very little money become such a world reknown messenger of hope and peace?  Jane is a UN messenger of peace – but it is really about the hope if you ask me.

Jane said that it was her mother who believed in her and nurtured her to take a first trip to Africa. With a dream in her heart she went and with the opportunity to work under Louis Leakey as his secretary – Jane began her work researching chimpanzees in Tanzania.  There Jane named the chimps she encountered and knew their ways and behaviors through observations. Jane documented a revolutionary finding when she observed a chimpanzee utilizing grass to retrieve termites from a mound. This important observation made Louis Leakey question how we define mankind. If man is defined as tool- maker, he wrote, “We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human! “The discovery led to the funding Jane would need to continue her research and as Leakey insisted, she would achieve a doctorate from Cambridge University.

Jane transformed from young woman with a dream to woman with a mission. Within her study Jane became aware of how little we really know about animals and also how little we understand about our own behaviors. Jane became an activist when she saw how the behaviors of people throughout the world ultimately affected the eco systems, and lives of people and animals living in Africa. The greed and carelessness of the world results in poverty and violence, not to mention the demise of natural habitats.

Jane established the Jane Goodall Institute  in 1977 and in 1991 a wonderful program called “Roots and Shoots” began as an effort to bring awareness to the world through young people that come up with environmental projects. Roots and Shoots is catching on and there are over 10,000 groups. Roots and Shoots participates in the UN Day of Peace by creating larger than life size doves made from sheets that are paraded down the streets of the festival.

In meeting Jane, I saw a woman who is driven by a hope that people can make a difference. My friend Sylvia Barreiro – Thomas came with me to meet Jane backstage where we learned about a children’s book about Jane called ” Me…Jane.” This sweet book tells the story about how Jane followed her dreams.

Jane’s Journey is a documentary about Jane’s life and just watching the trailer will get you excited!

Jane has an indomitable spirit of hope and persevereance; Indomitable is a word derived from indomitus a latin word meaning untameable – or impossible to subdue.  One determined and passionate woman is teaching the world how to survive – and her name is Jane Goodall – Jane thank you for your indomitable spirit!

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Environmental activist Erin Brockovich spoke to a room full of paralegals and sponsors of the Delaware Paralegal Association’s 35th Anniversary on Friday at the Wilmington, Delaware Chase Center.

Erin spoke about family, environment and ethics.  Erin Brockovich, the movie is about Erin’s confrontation with PG&E and was a glimpse at how Erin shaped her career on a gut feeling about hazardous chemicals in the water of a small town in Hinkley, California. Her investigations led to the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in US history.

Today she gets about 60,000 emails a month from all over the world. Erin is working with Google to map areas where people are reporting excessive disease and is researching hometowns where these clusters originated from. It is her passion to teach about water quality and is coming out with a film called Last Call at the Oasis.

She recounted how when she was in high school her parents taught her values that have shaped her. Stick-to-it-iveness was something her mother said Erin just had and she told her daughter to “persevere even when you don’t want to!”

Her father once wrote a letter to Erin that she now reads every day of her life. In the letter he tells Erin that her being a member of a family is the finest position on earth. He also included an article written by Jimmy Carter on the  Issues of Lying and explained to his daughter how important telling the truth is.

Erin combines her values with her love for the environment to encourage people worldwide to maintain their momentum and live by logic, leverage, loyalty and love.

Thank you Erin for sharing with us how it is out there… saving the world takes everything you’ve got! So we are going to need to believe in what we are fighting for – and we’ll need a good pair of stilettos too!

Organized by the Oxford Arts Alliance, the designer showcase is open to the public from May 11-30.Tickets are $25. Come prepared to dream a little as you peruse your way through 3 floors of grandeur.

Last Wednesday I went to my first Great Dames event and I met their speaker Anne Coleman.  Anne is divorced and when her pattern of life got turned onto its head -she decided to not just take a vacation but to go and live in Tanzania for 3 months. The trip did not change her life but now she is a volunteer. She went as a teacher -but she was there to learn how to help women in need, what it is like to live in a part of the world where clean water is hard to come by and she learned that hope is a very strange thing.

Anne told us about how people from all over went to see a witch doctor who was said to be able to cure AIDS and malaria with some kind of ginger root. She said that 1/2 of the people did not believe that kind of thing but the other half were so desperate they would believe anything. She told us that it is legal for a man to have 4 wives there and how a woman spoke up to tell her community that it wasn’t right.  This woman said, “Rich people have 1 wife and 2 children. We need to get some control.”  Anne told how this woman was getting educated and how she is becoming a journalist.  The women are learning to read, write and speak up for their rights.

Being single meant that Anne could go and do things she would have never done. Anne came up to me before her presentation and asked, ” Are you single?” Before I knew it she was handing me a copy of  “Matchless” her book about being single and over the age of 50. Anne wrote a book about being single and on the cover there is a frog!

Later, someone asked Anne what women thought about dating International men. She reported that women around the world generally thing that German men are hopeless, the English drink too much, apparently men from Budapest are gems and American men are boring.  That helps a little, I guess…but hope is indeed a strange thing, right?

The book is really about her experiences with online dating -and since I am single I can tell you that it is a ridiculous adventure in meeting all types of people. All I have to say is, “if a guy tells you that he is part wolverine -it is probably a clue that it just isn’t going to be a good match.”

While some of us are searching for love, others are doing some really interesting things with their lives. The room was filled with some really great dames that night and as we went around the room with our introductions I felt like I was in the midst of women who could really make a difference. I am looking forward to the next Great Dames event.