I BLINKED AND MY KIDS WERE IN PUBERTY

This is before the blink... when they were sweet:


I blinked and my kids were in puberty. I was too busy for a few minutes and they went from being sweet 10 and 11 year olds to obnoxious jerks!! I wish I had savored the sweet phase a little longer.



Regarding Sarah Palin, I think maybe she woke up in the nick of time and realized her blind ambition was destroying her family.

I am viewing her decision as a mother would. With so many people in the public eye dying lately, it brings home the point that life is too short to waste a moment at a job you despise if it is taking you away from your children and the things you love. I believe a parent with a stressful job can ruin children's lives more than being unemployed. I would rather do with less, and spend quality time with my family — than work long hours earning a lot of money. Time is not replaceable, nor is peace of mind and health.



At Max's Barmitzvah. Everyone is 13, except for me. I'm 12.
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Charity King: Michael Jackson Holds Guiness World Record

I have always adored Michael Jackson and want to mention that he was in the As the world continues to mourn the loss of a great artist, the Basham and Cornell Radio Show! Guiness World Record book remembers Michael Jackson instead as the king of charity.

The Millenium issue listed the music legend under Most Charities Supported By A Pop Star, with a staggering 39 international organizations including the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the American Cancer Society. Those are only the known ones however, as Jackson was also prone to giving away impulsively and anonymously.

Jackson had been known to hand over the proceeds from concerts to local charities and hospitals as he did with the History tour in Bombay, or donate personal items for auction to organisations like UNESCO. It’s been estimated he may have given up to $500 million to charity in his lifetime.
Jolly People.com Guinness World Record h
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I get a kick out of this picture. I love Chris McDonald! Look at how cute his face is!

Lydia Cornell, Chris McDonald, Antonia Bennett (Tony Bennett's daughter); Lindsay Clubine from Deal or No Deal; and pop artist Steve Kaufman. The Mrs. USA judges together in Vegas.

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In this photo at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas having dinner with Uncle Lou Tabat and Aunt Annie Tabat. Uncle Lou is 88, and is the former Constable of Las Vegas and retired boxing judge (Ali, Frasier, etc.) We love Uncle Lou and Annie!

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UPDATE ON THE Basham and Cornell Radio Show!

To all our fans, sorry for the delay in letting you know that we had a family emergency and are on hiatus for July and August. We will be back in the fall, bigger and better than ever!

The Basham and Cornell Show broadcasts weekday mornings at 8 am Pacific (11 a.m. Eastern) on KLAV 1230 AM Radio live in Las Vegas. Again, all shows are simulcast worldwide on the Internet (and archived) and can be listened to at Basham and Cornell Radio

REST IN PEACE MICHAEL JACKSON * Sarah Palin is doing the right thing

MICHAEL JACKSONS MEMORIAL SERVICE

Right now, news helicopters are hovering over our house which is near the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where the Jackson family is convening after the amazing memorial service.

The saddest part: Paris Michael Katherine, 11, broke down in sobs and said "My daddy was the best father you could ever imagine..."

Jermaine Jackson touched me deeply, with his beautiful voice and quiet suffering, singing "Smile" by Charlie Chaplin, Michael's favorite song from "Modern Times."

I adore Jermaine, and got to introduce him on Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve. What a loving, gentle soul.

Brooke Shields was wonderful too.

To all the cynics who believe he was guilty: he was innocent. Not only was he found innocent by a jury of his peers, but at the deepest level he was the purest soul. he was COMPLETELY innocent of all charges, and I know it as I know my own children, as I know the sun will come up tomorrow.

People just can't understand a pure soul. If anything, Michael was asexual.

Rest in Peace, Michael.

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From 5pm, MTV News will be covering the event with a special 1 hour build -up to the show, followed by the full star-studded service which will include the likes of Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, Usher and Stevie Wonder.

Also performing is 12-year-old Britain's Got Talent star Shaheen Jafargholi who will sing his rendition of Who's Lovin You.

The full line-up confirmed so far include Kobe Bryant, Mariah Carey, Berry Gordy, Jennifer Hudson, Magic Johnson, Martin Luther King III, Bernice A. King, John Mayer, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Brooke Shields, Usher, Shaheen Jafargholi and Stevie Wonder.

An estimated one billion viewers worldwide will watch today's event as mourners tune into Jackson's send-off at the Los Angeles stadium.

Update: I actually find myself liking Sarah Palin now. Today I watched her again when she made her resignation announcement from Wasilla, and I saw a sweet, world-weary, vulnerable woman with a deep sadness and disappointment in Washington for its prissy, 7th grade Gossip Boy mentality, and for the predators in the media.

Look, I had nothing good to say about her during the disgusting election campaign — and was horrified that she used race-baiting and right-wing fringe-loony baiting, in saying President Obama was "paling around with terrorists". And at the time I judged her harshly and assumed she was a narcissist. Even now I have no idea if she's being authentic right now, but I suspect her heart has been damaged by the ugliness of politics. I actually think she is making the smartest decision for her family. Anyway, as Abraham Lincoln said: "A winner never quits and a quitter never wins." So she wouldn"t stand a chance winning the GOP nomination.

"It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit." - Anna Quindlen

All the recent deaths have made some of us wake up and realize life is too short. We have to cherish our loved ones and go for our dreams.

After reading Anna Quinlan's letter about family values, I admire Sarah Palin for choosing to get out of politics, and I will take her at her word.

As a mom, from a mom's point of view — with so many people in the public eye dying lately -- it brings home the fact with startling poignancy — that life is too short to waste a moment being unhappy and ruining your children's lives.

I think maybe she woke up in the nick of time and realized her blind ambition was destroying her family.

I blinked and my kids were in puberty. I was too busy for a few minutes and they went from being sweet 10 and 11 year olds to obnoxious jerks!! I wish I had savored the sweet phase a little longer.

I have a hunch she read the following speech and decided life was too short to abandon her children for the dirty mud-slinging world of politics.

This was a speech made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Anna Quindlen at

the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an

Honorary PhD.

Most brilliant, to the point speech to get all of us thinking....

"I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don't

ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here

this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be

hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands

of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only

person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your

entire life. Not just your life at a desk or your life on a bus or in a car

or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your

heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to

write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a

winter' night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've

received your test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never

to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider

myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am

a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what

they say. I am a good friend to my friends and them to me. Without them,

there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard

cut out. But I call them on the phone and I meet them for lunch. I would be

rotten, at best mediocre, at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So

here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic

pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do

yo think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm

one afternoon or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a

breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed

hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration

when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love

you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone.

Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And

realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business

taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to

spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to

charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want

to do well. But if yo do not do good too, then doing well will never be

enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It

is so easy to take for granted the colour of our kids' eyes, the way the

melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is

so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the

destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is

the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world

and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and

utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had

learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the

fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the back yard with the sun on your face.

Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you

do, you will live it with joy an passion as it ought to be lived".

Here is a picture of Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, my son took this with his i-phone last week.