Affirmative action makes employers think, 'Black woman nuclear physicist? Hah! Probably let her into Harvard 'cause they were looking for a twofer. Bet she got C's in high school practical math. Give her a job in personnel.'
I didn't respond to people thrusting microphones at me and asking me questions that were unanswerable in a sound bite.
There has always been something less than wholesome about New Labour. But Blair for a long time had an easy ride. There was the whopping majority. There was the relief that the Tories were finally gone. There was the grand hyperbole.
I have to choose my words carefully because I don't want to sound like one of those who goes on about how things were better in my day.
My undergraduate years at the University of Nebraska were a special time in my life: the combination of partying and intellectual awakening that is what the undergraduate years are supposed to be. I went to the university with the goal of becoming an engineer; I had no concept that one could pursue science as a career.
When I was first elected I was puzzled why they were holding events in my honor as a mere freshman. I asked myself, why is a federal entity so involved in political activity?
One of the things about the Constitution - that our forefathers wrote, and basically, there were none of our foremothers that were there. There were none of our fore-sisters there. There are changes that can take place, and there is room to change.
Small businesses provide 75 percent of new U.S. jobs and are the backbone of our economy, and no outdated ban should be keeping small business owners from collecting the same interest their money could earn if it were held by an individual.
I've made peace with the fact that the things that I thought were weaknesses or flaws were just me. I like them.
I got plenty of grief for 'Blackwater,' because in the books, there's this huge chain across the harbor that features prominently in the battle. And we simply weren't able to do it with our budget and do it any justice, so we had to lose it.
I actually went to an Oasis concert. I thought they were a brilliant songwriting band.
Holland was one of the first countries to adopt dance music into their culture, and we were the first ones to have really big raves. I grew up in that atmosphere in the early 1990s, and I was very interested in how dance music was made.
The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people.
There were times when I didn't think I would even be at the European Championship. so to be walking off the field, having scored the winning goal in front of our home fans, just got too much for me.
I was in New York. I had been doing theater for many years, and then I got hired to a little part - they weren't calling it an extra, but I didn't have lines. It was a 'featured' part.
I was really excited by the idea that people were sharing information now and discovering information in a totally new way on the Internet via Twitter and Facebook, yet that experience was pretty clunk and just lots of bit.ly links.
Sometimes when I'm going to sleep, I think, 'Oh God, my future husband is out there somewhere and I might know him, or I might not, and I wonder what he's doing and I wonder if he knows me.' I just always think that's so fascinating, that even when you were two years old, your future husband was out there somewhere.
I've had the luxury of working on a lot of our great brands here at Warner Brothers, including a lot of the DC ones. I've also worked on a lot of great brands that were not DC.
I was thinking of writers living in East Europe before the Berlin Wall came down. They wrote fantastic stuff but were dealing with a situation that was almost impossible to deal with, but they found a way.
I'm not always optimistic. You wouldn't have all cylinders cooking if you were always like Mary Poppins.
For 'Pariah,' people were surprised Kim Wayans was there, but comedians have a dark streak; they're comedians for a reason.
I would have had an easier life if I were straight, but I would not be me. And I now like being myself better than the idea of being someone else, someone who, to be honest, I have neither the option of being nor the ability fully to imagine.
When my grandfather was born, there was no healthcare. There were no airplanes. There were no boats. There were no trains. There were no communications. No Internet. No widespread knowledge. It will be a completely different world but a much better place in a hundred years.
One time I tried bangs, and people just weren't feeling it at all, but it's my hair. It's my unicorn mane, and it's definitely very important to me. It's also my body, and so I don't really care about other people's opinion of it.
When I talk about movies like 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'Stepford Wives,' I really noticed that these movies were able to address fears surround the women's lib movement in a way that was engaging, not preachy, but fun.
A huge part of Apple profits generated in Europe, in African countries, Middle East, and India were all booked in Ireland. And I think it is a very basic principle in taxation that your profits are taxed where the profits are generated.
Tinguely wasn't the first artist to work with machines. But others were more interested in precision, in what machines are meant to do. What made him different was the random element. He introduced the mechanical accident. He was always interested in the immaterial, in sound, smoke, speed, light, shadows.
We went to L.A. as a family, with a sort of vision that we were going to 'make it,' whatever that meant.
'The Paris Review' was always the pinnacle: it was the place to be published. You were thrilled if you were published in 'The Paris Review,' and George Plimpton himself was practically mythical. He was a legendary figure.
I have yet to meet members of a leadership team who I thought lacked the intelligence or the domain expertise required to be successful. I've met many, however, who failed to foster organizational health. Their companies were riddled with politics, various forms of dysfunction, and general confusion about their direction and mission.
Lepers were a common sight all over India and in every part of Calcutta, but extending help beyond dropping a coin or two into their rag-wrapped stumps was not. As a child I was convinced even touching a spot a leper had rubbed against would lead to infection.
In the 1820s, the U.S., Japan, and the U.K. were some of the only countries where the average population received at least two years of formal schooling.
My brothers were tremendous shack builders. My shacks were horrible. My brothers once built a two-story shack from the ground up that was awesome!
Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.
I remember my father taking us to meeting with lawyers, interviews with immigration officers, doing everything he could to get us that treasured Green Card - and the happiness, the sense of relief, when he finally did - we knew that we were welcome now, and we would be welcome tomorrow.
Unlike most government programs, Social Security and, in part, Medicare are funded by payroll taxes dedicated specifically to them. Some of the tax revenue pays for current benefits; anything that's left over goes into trust funds for the future. The programs were designed this way for political reasons.
