Dear Emily,

I was fortunate to be joined by Sean Penn (who happens to also be my favorite actor), Viggo Mortensen (no slouch himself), Frances Fisher (Oscar nominee and terrific activist), James Cromwell (also a progressive activist for many years) in supporting and promoting Kucinich. Unfortunately, the media never gave Dennis a chance: MSNBC barred him from the Nevada debate, and ABC barred him from their debate. Most news stories on the race for President didn’t mention his candidacy, and the LA Times had the gall to call him “Mr. Kucinich” in an article even though he has been a US Congressman for years and should be titled “Representative Kucinich”, especially in an article about the candidates for President. Texas tried to take him off the ballot, and the heavily entrenched Democratic Party didn’t like him bringing what they thought were radical ideas to the Presidential campaign . It was a disgrace to democracy.

This bias against candidates with vision, who think out of the box, is shameful. I continue to support Dennis for Congress, as he is up for re-election in Ohio this spring. He does such important work being a US Representative, and it is vital that his strong views on a Dept of Peace, protecting the environment, international treaties that need to be signed by the United States, health care for all and animal rights continue to be heard on a national level.

For more information on Rep Dennis Kucinich, go to http://kucinich.us/ or http://kucinich.house.gov/

I voted for Barack Obama for President, since Kucinich was no longer running, and I will support the Democratic candidate against a Republican no matter who it is.

Alexandra

Dear Stu,

In 1982, when Christine was shot, you could go to the Department of Motor Vehicles and ask for a list of all the 1952 Plymouth Furies. Production then tracked them down and bought them – all in varying states of repair, and used the ones that looked particularly bad for the early scenes, the ones that didn’t run for the scenes when the car didn’t move, the ones with engines did the chase scenes etc. Each car had a name “Muscle Christine #1” for example. There were 21 cars and 20 of them were destroyed in the course of filming. I heard that the producer kept the last one, but I am not sure if he still has it.

By the way the special effects department fashioned parts for the car that blew up with air as Christine repaired herself. Clever.

Glad you like the film. I am proud to have been part of it. John Carpenter is terrific to work with, and my costars Keith Gordon and John Stockwell were great. Each have gone on to become respected writers and directors too. 2008 is the 25th anniversary of Christine and I have been asked to participate in several events honouring the movie.

Alexandra

And you are Canadian too! I love Canadians, and recently got my Canadian residency so I can work there more often. It is wonderful that you are openly gay – this is such important role modeling for everyone who is afraid to be out of the closet.

Thank YOU for being a vegetarian and for caring about the planet. It is so important that each of us do what we can to make this world a kinder, better place, and not eating meat makes a huge difference: Not only do cattle produce 130 times the fecal waste that a human does, but every quarter pounder took more than 500 gallons of water to get to your table. And since we import so much beef from South America, one football field of tropical rainforest is destroyed every second in order to produce 257 hamburgers. In short, not eating meat will:

• save massive amounts of water – 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of water for every pound of beef you avoid
• avoid polluting our streams and rivers better than any other single recycling effort you do
• avoid the destruction of topsoil
• avoid the destruction of tropical forest
• avoid the production of carbon dioxide (Your average car produces 3 kg/day of CO2. To clear rainforest to produce beef for one hamburger produces 75 kg of CO2. Eating one pound of hamburger does the same damage as driving your car for more than three weeks)
• reduce the amount of methane gas produced (I imagine the next bumper sticker: stop farts, don’t eat beef)
• reduce the destruction of wildlife habitat
• help to save endangered species.

(Thanks to http://earthsave.org/environment/foodchoices.htm for this information).

Kent, keep it up!

Alexandra