Hasselbeck Hassett cat fight

Burgeoning author Susan Hasset, for some reason, sent a copy of her self-published book to Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Now, Hassett is suing Hasselbeck for plagiarizing Hassett’s book about surviving and managing celiac disease, which, if you follow the media, half of America seems to have.

Hasselbeck is the abrasive, blonde pseudo-celebrity who sits at the table on ABC’s The View and complains about practically everything on earth. I find her most annoying and most untalented. My opinion only, I’m sure. I love the idea of having opposing points of view. But Hasselbeck is such a parrot. I can’t really believe anything that comes out of her mouth is actually her opinion or that she actually has researched, studied or even read about the issue at hand.

Hassett is a Cape Cod resident, tile installer, and entrepreneur. Hassett says she can’t work because of celiac’s disease. She wrote her book, she told me in a quick phone conversation, to help other people .

According to a blog post about her, by a woman named Kelly,

On June 23, 2009, Sue Hassett

I found a new Internet-based background check service that has potential to save lives, or at the least to prevent some of the problems unsuspecting women encountered constantly on web-based dating services. Finding your soul mate on line is not impossible, but it can be a risky prospect if you’re all on your own. Cathy Taylor’s new product, called SweetheartChecks, offers a way for you to search public records, confidentially, easily, and quite inexpensively. To my mind, this could be an invaluable tool. I talked to Cathy about her product - see what you think.

Cathy Taylor

Can I have a little background, Cathy? Where you’re from, family, and so on.

I was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario Canada and came to California in February 1979. I married in 1985 and had one son, Christopher who is now 22. I raised him as a single mom. I have been an entrepreneur pretty much since I began working in my teens. I run SweetheartChecks as a tool to help women understand they need to be careful when dating. Running a national criminal check is a beginning but doesn

From Nintendo Wii Sports Resort to Libby Hellmann’s latest novel - here’s a collection of interesting links and tidbits today. By the way - Wii Sports Resort comes out this weekend - great family activity.

An interview with Maryan Pelland - how funny to be on the receiving end of questions.

I just discovered, Eat This, Not That, the latest nutrition book series and love it. I encourage you to check it out. Yes, I know it’s from Men’s Health Magazine. It reminded me how much I love pesto and sent me running to the grocery store to get some pinenuts so I can make pesto with my garden basil. Can’t wait!!

Health news for women - something to check with your doc about. If your body mass index is over 30, oral contraceptives may lose effectiveness for you, according to a Reuters report. The study results were not consistent, but there needs to be some attention paid to how medications react in larger bodies, since most Americans have larger bodies.

They say the economy s turning around. I don’t know if that’s true or not but it never hurts to be ready. Blackvoices.com has an in depth video blog entry about women purchasing real estate. I found it interesting - give it a look so when the market turns, you’ll be ready to make your smartest move.

Nintendo is releasing a new game series this week called Wii Sports Resort. It has added technology and a lot of physical activity. Since women are the biggest group of Wii buyers, thought I’d give you a headsup.

In a program geared toward financial empowerment of women survivors of domestic abuse and in support of women in abusive situations, ClicktoEmpower.org has a poll that you can participate in. They have a list of four charities partnered with Allstate - click the one you like best. The charity with the most votes will get a $10K grant from the Allstate Foundation. It only takes a moment - may be worth a click.

And lastly, let me recommend a book I just finished. For mystery fans - of even just good book fans, try Libby Hellmann’s Easy Innocence - I really enjoyed it. Set in Chicago’s North Shore Suburbs, it deals with teen prostitution and how much we take the wholesome aspec tof our communities for granted.

Joyce Dewitt - Janet from Three’s Company - was arrested this weekend for DUI. I wonder if it’s about money, loss of money or loneliness. Are there really more celebrities who make bad decisions or do we just hear more about those? They end up arrested or embarrassed because they abuse alcohol or drugs, or they slug someone with a phone.

The Michael Jackson media frenzy is putting the spotlight on anyone who could even loosely be called a celebrity. So much money is being made by media outlets milking Jackson’s demise that the desire to keep some kind of hysteria going must be very strong.

But Joyce hasn’t, to my knowledge, done anything celebrity-like in many moons. No one is a fan anymore - except, of course, those folks who know and love her in real life. But let the woman have a couple of cocktails (ok, the blood alcohol level wasn’t released, so it might have been more than a couple) and reporters come out of the wood work. But I think Joyce is too old to create much of a stir. She’s 60 - born in 1949.

I feel sorry for Joyce - her mug shot - touted all over the internet as a front runner for “worst celebrity mug shot” - looks sad to me. Not scared, not really terribly bleary-eyed and drunk. I just see a wide-eyed, deer in the headlights, how did I get here kind of look.

Look at the photo - her eyes seem so surprised. Her mouth is turned up, Mona Lisa-like in a mysterious hint of a smile. It almost looks like she’s going to flash the happy, brilliant Janet smile. You can hear her, drawing out the one syllable name into several, “Ja aaa ckkk,” as John Ritter does something charmingly silly to annoy Janet.

But Joyce can’t quite pull off that gorgeous smile. She’s not on the set - she’s in a police station and wondering about the fragility of life.

Some of us spend a lot of time pining for the money and fame that celebrities amass during that period when they are the bomb. But I wonder if the downslide- the money is frittered away or stolen by managers or agents, the camera is no longer a friend, and life has gotten so quiet you can hear your career drop - I wonder if that now-I’m-lost feeling is worth it.

Michael Jackson is dead and I’ll be dipped if I can figure out why, after more than a week, he’s still the lead on the nightly, daily, and noonly news. For me, it’s sad that a human life ended, especially such an obviously tragic, possibly empty, and likely regretable life. He died because he was taking drugs that stopped his heart. That, too, makes me sad. The stupidity of it. The waste. The lameness. I felt the same when Balushi croaked.

What did Michael do to deserve all the hype and hoopla?

Am I wrong here? Was Michael Jackson not suspected of pedophilia? Did he not pay a huge hush money settlement to the family of a child he allegedly molested? I’ll happily change my mind, if someone can cite the material or information that exonerated him.

Isn’t this the same singer whose record sales plummeted to nothing over the past couple of years? He was staging a comeback concert to help resolve millions of dollars of debt, yes?

Isn’t there a question about whether he even parented those kids held in post-mortem limelight?

Didn’t Michael dangle a masked, helpless infant upside down out a window? I SAW the video. So did you.

I don’t know the man. Never did, never wanted to. I hold all life as valuable and worthwhile. Ok, most life. Dunno about Gacy and those guys. Don’t know about mosquitos. I may not be able to revere them.

But this isn’t about the dignity of revering a death. It’s about a bunch of people frantically buying records made by a man who, two weeks ago, a month ago, a year ago, they hadn’t given a single thought to in eons. It’s about young adults rapidly approaching that big four-oh birthday. They’re panicking over the death of a washed-up celebrity who marched just ahead of their generation. It’s about seeing their group-mortality and attempting to somehow mask Michael’s tragic end — before they crash into their own.

We all get there. We all become mortal. When our parents die, we find ourselves the oldest generation in the family, mortal selves inexorably marching toward the end of a road.

My grandparents saw that milepost when Valentino died.

My parents felt it when Kennedy expired.

My peers and I - well, we had John Lennon.

Gen X or Y or whomever has Michael. God gave him a voice, a huge talent and the intelligence to parlay that into a money making business. He, himself made the darker choices. Michael is dead. You’re not. We have to move on now, no matter how long or short our road.