Making a Christmas album is looked upon by some people as the thing you do when you are heading towards retirement.

I'm excited about there being more of a sisterhood these days. Back in the '90s there was a lot of hate - the women I looked up to as artists were dissing me! It's not so patriarchal these days - there's more love and a lot less hate!

I remember when the wave of Jennifer Lopez Salma Hayek and these beautiful Hispanic women came into light and I looked up to them and I loved them but I was like 'Where are Middle Eastern women?'

We were succeeding. When you looked at specifics this became a war of attrition. We were winning.

Say what you want to say about the rest of his presidency including his tone-deaf response to Katrina and a war waged in Iraq on false pretenses Bush connected with Americans in the aftermath of 9/11 because he looked as frail and unforgiving as we felt.

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar it will cease to be popular.

Rumi who is one of the greatest Persian poets said that the truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.

The Broken Bow group is such a great family and seem like a group of tight-knit people. When I looked for a new label I wanted to feel I could trust everybody. I wanted motivation to be at an all-time high.

I wish my parents hadn't made me feel that how I looked was linked to how much they loved me. But I do also see how hard it must be to see your child pile on the pounds and trust they'll find their own way back to a healthy weight.