This morning, anyone caring to tune in could be subjected to Sarah Palin and Oprah Winfrey at the same time. Sarah is hawking her new book because it will make her a ton of money. Oprah is hawking anything she thinks will support her flagging viewership - and right now that something is probably Sarah Palin.

You can’t turn to any medium right now and not get Sarah and Oprah, Oprah and Sarah. Sara in short shorts on the cover of Newsweek. There’s presidential material. Oprah, thank goodness, not in shorts. Don’t kid yourself. Sarah is not presidential material, nor is she interested in being president of anything. She’d probably quit in mid term. She is interested in a couple of million bucks that will come from the sale of this book. Why will the book sell? Ya got me.

But it will. In a time when Pulitzer Prize-winning writers are unemployed and long-respected publication go toes up, this gunk will sell so Sarah Palin and her co-writer(s) pd their bank accounts. Perhaps it’s just another indication that the demand for quality writing is giving way to junk content. Perhaps just salacious curiosity. Ms. Palin, like her never-quite-made-it son-in-law, trashes lots of people in her book. Readers like seeing people trashed.

As for Oprah - she’s just getting really scary. She books anyone who is controversial, difficult to look at, tragic, or slimy. Then she either grills them or hugs them, depending on what her handlers tell her will make for a better audience reaction.

I used to like Oprah for her sort of rogue, er, maverick, positioning. Now, she’s just stale. Sarah? I’m embarrassed for her each time she opens her mouth. I can do without both of them - and I did, choosing reruns of Jerry Seinfeld over Oprah’s show this morning. What was it Letterman said? Something about the Mayan prediction of the end of the world in 2012 being linked to any possibility that Sarah could be president. Whew. Could you tolerate the simpering and giggling for four years? What a thought. Bring on the Mayans.

The United States National Women’s Hall of Fame is a delightful place to get virtually lost for an afternoon. I tripped over this site today as I was browsing the Web and I couldn’t tear myself away. You don’t have to leave your comfy chair, or go out in the rain. Just click on the alphabetical links and read about women who have impacted our lives.

• I read about how Lucille Ball was not only a comedian, but a true entrepreneur and the first woman head of a major studio.
• I learned that Mary McLeod Bethune was an African-American teacher who, with only $1.50, began a school to help educate other young African-American women. Maybe she wasn’t as flamboyant as Oprah, but she did her part.
• Leontine Kelly was the first female Methodist bishop. Awesome power for us.
• Ida Tarbell’s expose of the Standard Oil Trust in the 1904 publication, The History of the Standard Oil Company prompted the federal government to prosecute and break up Standard Oil for anti-trust violations. She became an icon of journalism.

The articles are very short - teasers, really, with nuggets of susinct information in them. They are often linked to larger pieces, and can inspire you to browse. Learn about women. Read a few of these to the children you care about, girls or boys.

You might become inspired to write a brief or two in your social media spaces about the women who have inspured your life.

Take a moment to check out my guest post at HealMyPTSD.com for PTSD and Invisible Illness Awareness Week. I was invited to do a guest column because two of my family members are dealing with PTSD. It’s really tough to cope with an illness or condition that is invisible. There are physical symptoms, but often, people chalk those up to some other cause. HealMyPTSD is a valuable website by people who have knowledge and great concern.

While we’re at it, let’s visit some of my favorite posts over the years of compiling WomenDayByDay and Ontext:

A guest post from Thistle Farm, where women work to fix the hugely challenging problems in their lives. This one is terrific.

Women who read us honor their military loved ones for Memorial Day.

Proof that Jesus was a woman, and other funny stuff.

The courts are failing to help battered women.

22 ways to earn aliving at home - work at home

Basing marriage on positive thinking

Dr. Phil and the drunken teenage girls

Half dozen good ways for women to enter the blogsphere

Light therapy for pregnant women

There. That’s a little journey through the last few years of Women Day By Day. It’s rewarding to spend time digging up great information for my readers and empowering women to manage some of the things we face everyday. I’ve really loved finding guest writers to do a post here and there this year. Let me know if you know someone with something important, funny, or entertaining to tell us. Write me — maryan at ontext.com

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

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.

Women keep each other afloat (Photo by Oddsock)

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Doing some housekeeping today, I dove way back into the contents of Women Day By Day and found some articles our newer readers may have overlooked. Here, then, are some of the best web articles for women from Women Day By Day.

Sexy Stories for a Hot Summer Beach Read

Women in need find recovery and independence

Low Cost Activity Books for Young Children and Moms

Pro-Life Thinking: Understanding the Basics

Pro-Choice: The Basic Issues

Aging Tissue Can Be a Risk Factor for Breast Cancer

Lose Weight or Lose Yourself - Truths About Dieting

Resources for Military Women, Women Veterans and Families

Women-Fix Your Own PC? Windows Ailing? Tips from Computer Guru

Our site for writers and freelancers

Take a look at some of these and then dip into our archives. Tell me what you think - add your comments or contact me about doing a guest blog! I want to engage with you.