If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true there would be little hope of advance.

I hope that anyone I worked with wouldn't exploit our relationship.

The rich are always going to say that you know just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you. But that has not worked the last 10 years and I hope the American public is catching on.

When I was at college I worked in a department store called Brit Home Stores which is a pretty lackluster department store selling clothes for middle-aged women. My job was to walk the floor and find anything that was damaged take it to the store room and log it.

However I was a restaurant critic at Chicago magazine before I worked at Esquire and I've been a really enthusiastic home cook for a long time. It's just something I'm passionate about.

Bad psychoanalysis would say I enjoyed pleasing people working really hard and pleasing people which is probably related to my father in some way. But I really liked working hard. When I worked at Disneyland I'd do 12 hours straight and go home thrilled.

My father was a member of the Teamsters Union in California where he helped to organize better health care for workers. My mother worked for more than 20 years on an assembly line.

People really do make the assumption that I had some weirdo Hollywood upbringing but my parents are incredibly down-to-earth people who worked really hard to raise us in a way that was health.

I have worked to expand the health care debate beyond the current for-profit system to include a public option and an amendment to free the states to pursue single payer.

I'm not into animal rights. I'm only into animal welfare and health. I've been with the Morris Animal Foundation since the '70s. We're a health organization. We fund campaign health studies for dogs cats lizards and wildlife. I've worked with the L.A. Zoo for about the same length of time. I get my animal fixes!