Anderson Cooper Rockets Away

How much in danger are you? The place where I've been staying, Kiryat Shmona, has been hit really hard, particularly in the last several days. A couple of reservists were killed here.

I've seen rockets fall. Everyone has experiences where they've seen rockets fall. There's constant shelling here, most of it outgoing. That you ignore. But you very quickly adjust to the sound of incoming. For outgoing it's boom-whoosh. For incoming it's whoosh-boom.

So when you hear the whoosh first, you know you're in trouble.

Do you get frightened?  Yeah. Anybody who claims never to be scared is a fool or a liar or probably both. I've been doing this for 15 years. There are some things I'm used to, like being around soldiers and being in a combat environment. The things that scare me go beyond. Kidnapping, that really scares me. Being taken hostage really scares me.

Anderson Cooper's Daily Show

Angelina Does Anderson

Jennifer Lopez's Bikini Blast

• I guess we can call off the baby bump watch now.  Jennifer Lopez definitely doesn't look pregnant in this bikini she's wearing...
• Free household products!!  Pick up a Swiffer Sweeper, Dyson Vacuum Cleaner, and Tide Detergent!
• Now it's sister's time!  Jessica Simpson's nose job.
• Brandon Davis wearing a TEAM FIRE CROTCH t-shirt.  Classy.
  
• Natalie Portman and Gael Garcia Bernal Back Together?
• Be sure to check out CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° on Tuesday for Angelina Jolie's interview. It should be absolutely fantastic hearing both of them giggle at the same time.  Giggle heaven.
  
• Sounds like Cameron Diaz will be getting a nose job of her own...
• Beyoncé gets confronted by two PETA members at NYC's Nobu restaurant for her usage of fur in her clothing line, House of Dereon..  How embarrassing!
  
• Check out the pictures of the youngest Hanson brother's wedding photos -- Zac Hanson.

Anderson Cooper Shoots Off

Hangin' with Mr. Cooper

Last year was insane. From tsunamis and hurricanes to the insurgency in Iraq, all manner of calamity reared its ugly head in 2005. During all the madness, one of the few constants was Anderson Cooper on our TV screens. Unlike other talking heads on the front lines, he delivered the news in a sincere way that stood out. Viewers recognized it, making Cooper the breakaway star of cable news. Now the host of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360° has a new book, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival. In it, Cooper shares stories from the scenes of last year's tragedies while also looking back at the deaths of his own father and older brother and the start of his journalism career. He took time out from informing the masses to talk with us.

Live with Anderson and Kelly

Anderson :: I'm not down with K-Fed.  Not yet.
Erica Hill :: Word
Anderson :: Alright. Out.
Erica Hill :: Catch ya later.

Ashlee Simpson: The Boxer

• Ashlee Simpson dressed like a boxer on the set of her new music video, "Invisible."  You can watch the full music video below.
  

• Looks like Scarlett Johansson is totally getting a wedgie.
• Hurry, claim your free $500 gifts cards from: Kenneth Cole and Home Depot.  Or maybe a $250 Olive Garden Gift Card!!
• 90210's Brian Austin Green gets groped by girlfriend Megan Fox (NSFW).  Nastiness!
  
• More candid pictures of the shrinking Janet Jackson.
• I'm sure many of you will be thrilled to hear that the Aishwarya Rai rumors are not true.  She is, in fact, still alive.
• Faye Dunaway falls victim to Madamism (one too many face lifts).
• Paris Hilton shoots a music video of her own on the beach... wow, in a one-piece.
• Candid pictures of Jessica Simpson shopping at Kitson... without hairdresser Ken Paves.  Say what?
• Lost's Michelle Rodriguez starts jail time... then vows to leave the U.S. for good.  Makes sense.
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen will be launching, of all things, a nutrition TV show. Ummmmmm.......
  
• CNN's Anderson Cooper no longer watches My Super Sweet 16 (it has gone downhill this season) because he watches Tiara Girls!

  But you do have a lighter side as well. Like your affinity for My Super Sweet 16?  Oh, yeah. Totally. But now I've moved on to Tiara Girls. My god, they should all be lined up and shot. It's fantastic! And these parents... I don't know if you saw the promo, with the mother encouraging her daughter to get liposuction?! The girl's already getting collagen and the mother's like, "How about some liposuction." I'm also addicted to Idol.

Cooper's Own Sad Story

"The past is all around, and in New Orleans I can't pretend it's not."

"For so long I tried to separate myself from my past. I tried to move on, forget what I'd lost, but the truth is, none of it's ever gone away," writes CNN correspondent Anderson Cooper in an exclusive excerpt for Vanity Fair from his new memoir, Dispatches from the Edge (HarperCollins). The horror of Katrina forced Cooper to confront his painful past, including the death of his father when he was 10 and his brother Carter's suicide in 1988. "The past is all around, and in New Orleans I can't pretend it's not."

Cooper writes that his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, once told him that she survived the traumas of her own childhood because she always felt that inside she had a crystal core, a diamond nothing could get at or scratch. "I'd felt that same rock form inside me when my father died [in 1978]. In New Orleans, however, it started to crack."

Cooper writes of the effect the loss of his father had on him and his older brother, Carter. "After the funeral, both of us retreated into separate parts of ourselves, and I don't think we ever truly reached out to each other again. I can't remember ever discussing my father's death with my brother. Perhaps I did, but I have no memory of it."

Following his father's death, "the world seemed a very scary place, and I vowed not to let it get to me. I wanted to be autonomous, protect myself from further loss. I was only 10, but I decided I had to earn my own money, so I could save for a future I couldn't predict." Although his mother was wealthy, Cooper "got a job as a child model and opened a bank account," because he "didn't want to have to rely on someone else."

Moments before Carter Cooper leapt to his death from his mother's balcony, he asked her, "Will I ever feel again?" "It didn't make sense to me at the time. I'd even forgotten he said it until my mother recently reminded me," Cooper writes. "We both had tried to cauterize our pain, push our pasts behind us. If only I could have told him that he wasn't the only one. I abandoned him long before he abandoned me.

"I see that now. I could have reached out to him, talked with him, but he didn't make it easy, and I was a kid, and had myself to worry about."

Self-reliance was a recurrent theme in Cooper's childhood, and when he was in high school he began taking "survival courses: monthlong mountaineering expeditions in the Rockies, sea kayaking in Mexico," because, he says, "I needed to prove to myself that I could survive on my own." As for his brother, "I assumed he'd come up with his own way to deal with the loss. I thought he could take care of himself."

Cooper tries not to imagine the last moments of his brother's life, he says. "That's the thing about suicide. No matter how much you try to remember how that person lived his life, you can't forget how he ended it. It's like driving by a car smashed on the side of the road. You can't resist craning your neck to take stock of the damage."

People often ask Cooper if he was close to his brother. "Inevitably I get that question," he writes. "Sometimes it's right after a person finds out about my brother's death; sometimes it's only after weeks of their knowing me. Were we close? Not so close that I knew he was going to kill himself. Not so close that I understood why he did."

Cooper writes that he keeps some of his brother's things and will go through them someday. "I keep the pictures, as well as his scribbled notes and magazines—the things I found in his apartment. I tell myself that one day I'll go through them and perhaps discover some clue that will help me understand, help me answer the question: Were we close?"

Although his childhood was a privileged one, Cooper writes, and his mother played host to the likes of Truman Capote and Andy Warhol, "I didn't know my mother was famous until I was about 12. I was in middle school when she designed a line of jeans that became wildly successful. On the street, suddenly people began to stare at us and point. My brother and I thought it was funny. We'd count how many times we saw our mother's name stitched on the back pocket of somebody's pants."

Jessica Alba Almost Slips Up

Jessica Alba’s Dress Almost Slips!  EEK!

Mmm!!  $100 Worth of FREE Krispy Kreme Doughnuts!!

Don't Park Next To Paris Hilton

Anderson Cooper To Become 60 Minutes Contributor

Mandy Moore On Unfortunate Cosmopolitan Cover

Adam Brody Makes Losing Elle Girl Just A Little Easier

Eddie Murphy Enjoying Women's Feet

Jennifer Lopez tells People, "I’d say ‘I’m creative and that’s what drives me.’ I think people think I’m driven by the money things..."  Uh-huh...

Tom Cruise Copters Into Paris (Video)

Anderson Cooper's Shiny Beads

U.S. television reporter Anderson Cooper gives beads to a spectator during the Endymion parade along St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans February 26, 2006. Mardi Gras revelers crowded the sidewalks of storm-shattered New Orleans in a turnout that was lighter than years past, but large enough to line the streets, fill the bars and remind people of better days.

It's a very public event, of course, but there's something intensely personal about the throwing of the beads. You make eye contact with someone, toss them a necklace. They say thank you, and you roll on. The only beads people want are the ones they catch themselves. I find that very telling. The beads that fall on the ground are rarely picked up. They lack the personal connection, the bond has been broken.