Involvement in Afghanistan, I thought, was totally warranted. We were attacked, we attacked back, but after six months of being in Afghanistan, I thought we had pretty well effectively wiped out al Qaeda.
Most people respond to my paintings quite generously, but there have been cases where I think people - a few critics in particular - were actually moved by the work but were disturbed by the feelings it evoked, so they attacked it. Some people find the realm of my work quite uncomfortable.
Progress is always relative: to the oppressed, it can only be viewed as an all or nothing deal - if oppression continues, even in a modified form, then the system must still be attacked until that injustice is eradicated.
My husband, a.k.a. Swede, and I both come from athletic backgrounds, so once we identified the goal - get book published - we attacked it. At any given time, I would have my writing out in 25 various forms - either contests, mentoring critiques, agent/publisher queries, etc.
Anytime I met an actor, I just attacked them and said, 'How did you do this?' Eventually, I began to realize that you went to school for it. I wasn't a bright kid, so it took me a long time to figure that out.
We need more leaders speaking up for minority groups who have been marginalized and attacked.
Back on September 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of America's great cities. They did that because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most.
