BETTY WHITE

What would I do if I were you, Betty White?

I'm thinking that your next career move ought to be --
THE BETTY WHITE SHAPE UP SHOW.

Lights up on you doing a little dance, loose, relaxed, sort of like what Bill Cosby did ...

Start with you shimmying around, feet doing the Suzy-Q, then shimmy your shoulders -- do a step kick, step kick, and talk-sing, just for few seconds, with ... maybe a great performer like Danny Kaye.



Now, with the camera on you, while you are moving in a hefty-looking chair (the job usually done by a stage-hand), this is what you say:

BETTY: "Here I am -- they say I'm Hollywood's white hot new It girl -- everyone knows my face from 'Golden Girls,' or has seen me as the Aunty., Granny, or Nanny, in one of the many, many -- " (You're interrupted.)

BARBARA WALTERS VOICE: "You've done 94 TV shows, Betty White, 20 films. (Barbara appears, and settles herself on the chair that Betty's positioned.) And right now you're delighting audiences in the sitcom "Hot in Cleveland" -- you're playing 'Elka,' the house-keeper for Valerie Bertinelli and two of her friends."

BETTY: "Barbara Walter is one of my guests today."

(Improvising, a bit clumsily but deliberately avoiding her age -- she's 7 years younger than you -- you ask Barbara how she's doing, mentioning her recent heart surgery.)

(As Barbara W. speaks, you move in another hefty-looking chair.)

GUEST VOICE : "Oh no! Please, Miss Betty, I can do that -- let me do that!"

Mylie Cyrus, about 70 years your junior, sits in the second hefty-chair. As you greet her you move in a 3rd chair for yourself.

The three of you discuss getting ready to do a show -- hair, shampoos, makeup for street-wear, for TV, for strong lights -- the cruel camera, brand names for moisturizers, liquid makeup, pancake, lipsticks, powders, and where you do your makeup -- what kind of mirrors, and lights. You mention problems -- weight, exercises, dieting, relaxing -- and a serious concern for performers -- getting a good night's sleep with or without medication, when you're so busy.

And that's it -- the cue for "Balling the Jack" -- talk-singing, moving with the music, inviting your guests to join you. You announce the guests for your next show -- suggesting you might be talking about clothes and what to wear on various occasions. The lights fade to black.

Your next show guests could be Susan Sarandon, age 63, and Bridget Mendler, 17, an up-and-coming new Disney star.

All of the older or younger show biz "names," more and more of them, have been appearing on the entertainment shows every day, every evening. They need exposure, and audiences love hearing and seeing them, learning more about their personal lives -- especially their trauma-dramas.

Producers, sponsors will grab The Betty White Show -- it's a hey-day for advertisers. Men, women, older and younger -- practically everyone I know -- worries about growing older, and staying in shape.

Betty, you are fascinating because of your age, and all the things you've done, and what you're doing now.

Betty White, this is a show we need!

QUIZ TIME FOR ELENA KAGAN

Kagan's center stage this week -- the Supreme Court nominee faces the Senate Judiciary Committee and it may be a fun week for observers -- a lot of ugly jabs, and quite possibly a filibuster.

I like her.

Okay -- she doesn't have experience on the bench as a Judge. The Republicans are going to go after that. Will it hurt her chances? I don't think so.

Here are the main issues, I think, that are going to debated:

How would she vote about Gun Rights? At the moment, we just learned that the Supreme court overturned the ban on handguns in Chicago. (I'd hoped they wouldn't.) What about the paper Kagan wrote during her years with Clinton, advising that automatic weapons be banned? No doubt about it -- Gun Rights will raise a lot of hackles.

What about her Jewishness? In her master's thesis she wrote that Judges have prejudices and goals, and said that it was "not invalid or wrong" for a judge to promote his personal ethical values and social ideals. Though she's said, "I was just a dumb kid when I wrote that," that is going to be thoroughly dissected, and attacked.

And abortion? Roe v Wade? Pro-lifers are crusading against her, claiming her recommendations to Clinton supported pro-choice. Though the White House says she was just a staffer presenting Clinton with a variety of legal arguments, the National Right to Life Committee has written all the senators asking them to oppose Kagan. This is a big, big issue that can't be solved in this hearing, and there's going to be a lot of fiery talk.

What about Gay Rights? The GOP claims Kagan is anti-military -- she banned military recruiters when she was dean of Harvard. Kagan has openly stated her opposition to "Don't ask, don't tell," but on Gay marriage, she's said she'd defend the "Defense of Marriage Act," under which states don't have to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Feathers are going to fly -- this could get very muddy and nasty.

And then there's "Executive Power?" Kagan has stated that she believes federal spying laws are constitutional. She's suggested that only in "the rarest of circumstances" could a president circumvent Congress to conduct warrant-less wiretapping. She's agreed with Attorney General Holder, that terrorist detainees could be held without trial at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. (The issues are complicated. I'm not sure what I think -- it's major, but I don't think it'll drag on and on.)

There are other issues. But Kagan can say she has never promoted her own ideas -- she's just been doing the job she was hired to do.

Will the Republicans filibuster her? Will Elena Kagan be attacked as a Jew and Lesbian? Will those words be muttered, or called out?

It'll be a very interesting week of television.

My fingers are crossed. I think she's the right person, a good person to have on the bench of the Supreme Court.

MESSAGE FOR SARAH PALIN

Dear Mrs. Palin :

Did you smile when you saw this picture on the cover of Newsweek Magazine ...? Were you and your family pleased and proud of the "Saint Sarah" five- page cover-story by Lisa Miller ...?

Miller says: "To white evangelical women, Sarah Palin is a modern-day prophet, preaching God, flag, and family--while remaking the religious right in her own image."

(Mrs. Palin, how do feel about remaking the religious right in your own image?)

Miller says: "The Christian right is now poised to become a woman's movement -- and Sarah Palin is its earthy Jerry Falwell."

(Is it a compliment Mrs. Palin? I remember Jerry Falwell coming on strong about issues that felt wrong to me, but he lost ground and sort of faded in importance, as I recall, because he was promoting himself too much.)

Miller says: "With her new faith-based message, Palin gathers up the Christian women traditional feminism has left behind."

(Hmm ... that statement, to me, Mrs. Palin, seems to suggest that these women, who are your devoted fans, and admirers, are women who are behind the times.)

Miller says: "Palin's lack of expertise on policy questions bothers not just her critics but even some of her most devoted fans."

I am not a fan, Mrs. P., but the women who love you and support you are women I know, and are part of my husband's family, whom he loves and cherishes, though politically, he doesn't agree with them.

Your rise, your ever-enlarging base of supporters worries me because you, spur of the moment, latch onto ideas that i believe are destructive, I think, of what America stands for.

Please, Mrs. Palin, think out and research carefully -- much more carefully -- what you say about Obama, about BP, about the environment, about what America needs to do about its wars.

We elected Barack Obama. You undermine him, and the people who voted for him and elected him, when you suggest that he is doing what Hitler did. Aside from the wrongful attacks on our black President that you have supported -- that he's not an American, that he's a Muslim -- the comparison to Hitler is like the oil, killing animals, ruining lives of people, oil ruining the land.

We can't wash it away.

MARIJUANA

I planted seeds in pot full of store-bought earth, put the pot on the window sill that got the most sunshine. I watered it and waited. I have a green thumb. My potato plants always grow strong, long vines, but the pot seeds in the pot did nothing for a long time.

Suddenly, a quarter-inch high, teeny shoot appeared. It grew very slowly. I bought soil nutrients. I installed a lavender light on the window sill, and turned it on every night.

All my friends said Mary Jane/Pot/Weed was great. Pot-smoking was IN. Expensive -- my seeds came from the packet my agent gave me at his Christmas party, where I tried his marijuana fudge and loved it.

Some of my arty friends who loved weed, recommended the serious stuff -- hash, heroin, cocaine -- they said "Coke highs are beautiful!" "You lose your inhibitions!" "It's a profoundly exciting, artistic experience!" But I was just starting out as a dancer. I wasn't taking chances on anything that I might get hooked on.

The pictures in my "How to Grow Plants" book showed a bountifully lush plant. When my plant was a scrawny twenty-inches tall, with about twenty leaves, I tried a pinch in a glass pipe I bought at a Head Shop.

The odor of marijuana was there. As for the high ... well, I wasn't a smoker. Inhaling made me cough. And swallowing what I inhaled with a sip of wine didn't work -- it just made me hungry (and dancers do not want to gain weight). But I wanted to learn how to smoke pot because ... because it was fun, it was IN and sort of wicked.

That's what worries me about Medical Marijuana. It's good news for people who need it for chronic pain, and various incurable diseases. It's good for the fourteen states that allow it to be purchased with a prescription at pharmacies.

It's good for unemployed auto industry workers in Michigan. A young man, formerly a car detailer, opened the "Med Grown Cannabis College" on the outskirts of Detroit. In a six-week course, a person can get the skills they need to cultivate marijuana, package it, and talk knowledgeably, as they fill prescriptions in the new dispensaries that are opening up all over the state.

I can't help wondering what would have happened if cocaine hadn't been an illegal drug. Would we have crack, meth addicts, pills, and all the other illegal substances?

I'm very glad more people can get cannabis with a prescription. But I think it will create more users -- more kids will go after it. It's sexy, wicked, challenging, and hey -- it's potentially dangerous -- that's fun with a capitol F.