Dear McCollonough,

What I like most about acting is being able to explore other characters, and thus other sides of myself. I like being a character in all these different situations, and in different states of emotion, with all these different people in the scene with me and behind the scenes. I get to be a mother, lover, heroine, wife, businesswoman, whore, psycho, drug addict, cop, friend, lesbian, neat-freak, free spirit, hard-ass – you name it! What could be funnerer? 🙂 I love the collaboration on a set too. One becomes those characters with help and input from the director, makeup artist, wardrobe department, the writer, director of photography etc.

I don’t like shooting at 3am, in the rain and cold, a boring running-away-from-bad-guy scene. I also get homesick when I am on location away from Ian, but the good thing about location is that you don’t get distracted by Normal Life. The hours on a set can be long, so the cycle of film, go back to hotel room to rest for next day of filming, film, go back to hotel room to rest up for the next day again etc. works well.

I have never particularly enjoyed fight scenes. My male co-stars always dig them, and I just want to stop running and shooting and get back to communicating. I am such a girl!

Thanks for saying I would make a good writer, but my twin sister, Caroline, is the author in the family (www.carolinepaul.com). She has just finished her third book and yes, I have encouraged her to write about Jonathan and I hope she does some day. We are both extremely proud of him!

Best wishes,

Alexandra

Dear Shaun,

I register people to vote one day a week, and was a volunteer at the polls on election day, so the whole process is important to me. The fact that Obama won was a huge relief, as I believe that the George W Bush stole votes in 2000 and 2004, and that is why he won. I was concerned it would happen again this year, but thank goodness it didn’t. I was originally a supporter of Representative Dennis Kucinich, but when he dropped out of the presidential race before the California primary, I voted for Obama without hesitation.

There are two things I want to see Obama do as soon as he gets into office:

• Begin withdrawing troops from Iraq immediately and continue a steady exit of all troops, personnel and equipment for the months that it will take to get us OUT of that country and not an occupying force of any kind.
• Mandate that ALL vehicles purchased by and for the federal government must be a plug-in hybrid or a full battery electric. This will give a huge built-in buyer base to automakers. To increase that base, the federal government should give also generous tax deductions towards the purchase of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. Rebates too, to bring down the price of the vehicles so that more consumers can purchase them, and strong incentives to auto manufacturers so that they will build the cars.

Some serious diplomacy needs to happen on the part of the United States to restore our reputation in the world. For the last 8 years, we have been an international bully with imperialist intentions. Actually, if you read the excellent book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, or the equally eye-opening A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, you will realize that we have been an imperialist, bullying country for 200 years, but we definitely sunk to new lows during George Bush’s presidency. I think Obama will help restore peace, but ONLY if he has the guts to resist the warmongering tactics of the US government that was fueled by a lazy American media and uneducated, un-introspective American citizens.

In all, I am thrilled with an Obama presidency. He has a lot of work to do, and I worry he is too centrist to really make a difference with global warming and resource depletion and this horrible war the United States has started, but we will see.

Thank you for writing!

Alexandra

This is an excellent question, and I am happy to answer it. Firstly, the raising of sheep for wool means that we are exploiting animals for our own use.

Domesticated sheep are unable to shed their wool, like wild sheep. Merino sheep, for example, are bred to have 30% more wool, which is often uncomfortable and sometimes causes death from overheating in the summer. Fleece rot is very common.

Flies also grow eggs in the folds of their skin, hidden among the thick wool, and the hatched maggots can literally eat the sheep to death. To prevent this, farmers often perform a cruel procedure called mulesing: "without anesthesia, large strips of flesh are cut from the backs of lambs and around their tails. Other procedures performed without anesthesia include punching a hole in the ears of lambs several weeks after birth, docking their tails and castrating the males. The castrations are done when the male lambs are between 2 and 8 weeks old, with the use of a rubber ring to cut off their blood supply". http://www.veganpeace.com/animal_cruelty/wool.htm

The shearing itself is also cruel. Sheep often die of exposure when they are shorn in the early spring. In Australia, a million sheep a year die from cold this way. They are also usually handled roughly as the shearers tend to be paid by the amount of wool they can get. After their life as wool-bearers is over, the sheep are killed for food, often exported long distances in very crowded conditions. Many lambs and sheep die this way. Those that survive are inhumanely slaughtered factory farming style: without regard to their suffering.

For more information on this, see: http://www.veganviews.org.uk/vv77/vv77wool.html; http://www.savethesheep.com/; http://www.alv.org.au/issues/sheep.php

I hope this answered your question.

Alexandra