Born in Czechoslovakia in 1937, her family fled to England just ahead of the Nazi invasion, and converted from the Jewish faith to Catholicism.  Albright didn’t learn of her true roots until later in life, when she also learned that the Holocaust claimed the lives of three of her grandparents.  The family arrived in the U.S. in 1948, and Albright began an impressive educational and professional journey that brought her to the attention of the nation.

Today is Madeleine Albright’s birthday. I  think we owe her a big thanks and a wish for a fulfilling year ahead.  Three cheers, Madam Secretary!

But a courageous group of women returned to this nuclear wasteland.  A pull from their ancestry or an irrational effort to resettle?  The reason is debatable.  What’s important is to recognize that women have an organic and inherent need to establish community.  Read the full story about these courageous women here.

What the Brassen team found through experiments with participants ranging in age from their 20’s to their 60’s was that young people tend to fixate on their regrets.  Older adults, on the other hand, generally learn not to waste time wallowing in remorse about past circumstances they cannot change.

Brassen’s brain-imaging results suggest that stronger spasms of regret rippled through the minds of young people and depressed adults than through those of healthy older adults.

My personal experiences over the last year have caused me to begin to examine life in the same way.  Basically, stewing over our our life challenges won’t change them, so why not step outside of the situation and try to find a positive that could come from the adversity.

My family celebrated the long and wonderful 97 year long life of my darling Auntie Ethel last weekend.  She epitomized Edith Piaf’s words of no regrets.  How courageous and if it’ll get me to 97, I’m in!

An interesting side development comes from current statements that if there were more women in the Secret Service, such a situation might not have arisen.  I tend to agree, but not for the obvious reason.  To suggest that female agents could act as babysitters for their more randy co-workers is ludicrous.  (However,  it’s a pretty sure bet that a woman agent could do a week in Columbia, or anywhere else for that matter, and not need to have intercourse.)  What  many federal agencies, and most corporations, fail to understand is that women offer entirely different types of reasoning, communication, and myriad other skills, than do their male counterparts. Not necessarily better, but different.  And different is good.

Furthermore, since the women who apply for positions in male-dominated fields are clearly swimming upstream, I think the level of courage they exhibit is a great lesson for either gender.

Currently 11% of the active Secret Service agents are women.  Similarly, 14.6% of active American military personnel are women.  While neither the CIA nor the FBI publish such numbers, I’m guessing theirs are similar.  Yet more than 50% of the American population is female.  The time to rethink things has, come and come again.

I’m referring, of course, to Pat Summitt, the Lady Vols’ (University of Tennessee) head coach.  Summitt announced her transition from head coach to an emeritus status yesterday (April18) as the result of a diagnosis last year of early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type.

Summitt’s career included 1,098 victories and eight national championships.  It doesn’t matter how much of a basketball fan you are.  Those numbers are pretty darned impressive.

Much more impressive are the courage and grace Summitt has exhibited in the face of her diagnosis.  We are once again reminded that no one is exempt from life’s trials, but the way in which we handle them will serve to coach others in their challenges.

Thanks for your leadership, Coach Summitt.  You are a winner!

Then the organizations finances come into question, capped off by some pretty unusual behavior on the part of one of the founders.  That’s the bad news.

And I hate that there’s bad news associated with trying to make a difference in millions of young lives. I hate that funds donated for such a good cause may be misappropriated. Politicians, journalists, and yes, bloggers, are all making their voices heard.  But I think many are missing the point.  What’s important is NOT so much how this horrific scenario is stopped, but THAT IT IS STOPPED!

I also think a huge piece of the puzzle was revealed last fall’s in the fabulous PBS series, Women, War and Peace.  If you haven’t, check it out.  Change will occur much more easily and rapidly when women are involved and education becomes the primary weapon.  What do you think?

I can’t speak for Nancy Borowick’s private motivation for her photo project, entitled “Dessert First,” which you can view here.  It was a solution to two issues for her: to complete her work as a student at the International Center of Photography and to spend time with her mother, facing a second go-around with cancer.

Her motivation isn’t what’s important. The beautiful photo essay that is the result of her work speaks volumes, both to those of us who’ve walked that trail, as well as to those who have witnessed it from afar.

Seeing what cancer treatment is, how it affects family members, and understanding it is a means to an end, gives strength to those who are newly diagnosed as well as those who are cancer veterans.  I thank the Borowicks for giving us this glimpse into their lives.

It has been one week since Ashley Judd addressed the vicious attacks on her appearance. I have always like Ms. Judd’s skills on the camera.  I think she is beautiful – the skin-deep kind that doesn’t need make up, fancy up-do’s, or designer labels.  But I think now she is one of the MOST beautiful women in America.  And one of the most courageous.  Her voice has been heard above the clamor: who decides what’s beautiful and who gets to judge others’ beauty?

Remember the presidential campaign of 2008?  No one ever made mention of Bill Clinton’s thighs when he ran for president in the 90′s.  Yet his wife’s thighs were a topic of conversation for months.  Here we are, four years later, still holding an obsession about public women’s appearances.  It’s not only damaging to the women of today, it is having a disastrous affect on the girls following us.  I know it’s not new.  In many societies, it is the women who go out of their way (sometimes dangerously so) to adorn themselves in the name of beauty.  But I’ve had enough!

Anna Holmes, a journalist for the Washington Post wrote,”Rapid-fire, image-based appraisals of women’s worth — what I call ‘objectify first, ask questions later’ — have become so commonplace that they are less exception than rule. Perhaps even more troubling, the instigators of such discussions seem either unaware or heedless that such assessments have real psychic consequences.”

These consequences damage on all levels, from women in their 90′s, whose inner beauty far surpasses any outer beauty, to young girls who look at the years ahead and already feel insignificant because they’re “not pretty enough.”  While we fight the wars against terror and drugs and cancer, could we please fight a war against irrational criticism of women’s appearances too?

Where do we start?  What do you think?  Things get started because of the power of one baby.  And Ashely Judd just became that one.

Our Christmas in Britain produced more than just new Christmas toys and a few extra pounds.  Inspired by all that had happened to our family in 2011, it produced the idea for a new book as well.

It’s Just Hair: 20 Essential Life Lessons will be available on Amazon.com and at other book retailers March 15, 2012.  It is not a book about cancer.  Rather, it’s a collection of 20 lessons that apply to any life challenge.

Stay tuned for excerpts and news about book signings in your city!

Serving a 6 month deployment in Afghanistan, this son, husband and daddy sent wonderful handcrafted gifts.  We would have exchanged them, and all the others we received, to have him home.  But we are so proud of the courageous sacrifice he, and his family, are making.

Among the gifts were scarves my son purchased from a very special shop called Kandahar Treasure.  Launched by Ragina Hamidi in 2003, the business employs women artisans from the Kandahar area who make home decor items, clothing, accessories and more.  The scarves we received are embroidered with the unique stitchery of this region.

Even more importantly, purchases from Kandahar Treasure supports an organization whose purpose is to develop an economic base for the province and support the advancement of women throughout Afghanistan.  Afghanis say, “A woman is the light of the family.”  But they are also the light of their society, and Ragina Hamidi’s vision has supported this thought.  This, despite the fact that she’s lived through decades of war and internal strife, and saw her father, Kandahar’s mayor, assassinated in July.  Read more about this woman of courage.