A generous basic state pension is the least a civilized society should offer those who have worked hard and saved through their whole lives.
I believe much trouble would be saved if we opened our hearts more.
On Sept. 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked, 'What God do you pray to?' What beliefs do you hold?'
I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.
There are strengths in Islamic tradition. Islam actually, as a monotheistic religion, which defined man as a responsible agent by itself, created the idea of the individual in the Middle East and saved it from the communitarianism, the collectivism of the tribe.
Fiorello LaGuardia saved City Center. The real man saved it, and he made this building into a performing arts venue.
As I detail in my new book: 'Hard Measures, How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,' there are many myths surrounding the detention of a relatively small number of top terrorists at CIA-run 'black sites' from 2002 until they were sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
Very rarely am I attracted to characters that are 'woe is me.' I'm not a big fan of women that have to be the victim and need to be saved, at all times. I don't necessarily think that's how it is, in real life, and I don't think that's how it should be in films.
During a trip to Iraq last fall, I visited our theater hospital at Balad Air Force Base and witnessed these skilled medical professionals in action and met the brave soldiers whose lives they saved.
Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.