Honestly, if they were Christian refugees coming in, I think the Obama administration would vet them a little more toughly.
During my first open ocean dive, I went down to 800 feet and turned out the lights. I knew I would see bioluminescence, but I was totally unprepared for how much. It was incredible! There were explosions of light everywhere, like being in the middle of a silent fireworks display.
For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn't poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.
I used to date Kellan Lutz. We were together for two and a half years, but the distance and travel really kept us apart. In the end, we decided it wouldn't work, but we're still good friends.
My parents took me to see plays, starting from when I was very little. Oftentimes, I was too young to understand. I don't know what my parents were thinking - 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' when I was eight years old, that kind of thing. So lots of times, I didn't understand what was going on, but I just loved the sound of dialogue.
My grandparents - both of my mother's parents - were actors, and they ran the Reading Repertory Theatre Company, through the town of Reading, where I come from.
My mother was in Scientology my whole life. Most people don't know that we were raised in it - I didn't decide to get into it. I was brought into it by my mom.
And right away as soon as I started doing Pilates, about 2 to 3 weeks into it I could tell that my clothes were already fitting differently. And I felt stronger than ever. My core felt tighter than ever.
Some of my clothes are things that we'd play dress up with when we were little, and it's funny that now I'm wearing it, like, as an everyday thing. But if I say 'vintage' or 'thrifted' on the blog, there's this community of fashion bloggers, and I've become sort of tight with some of them, and we, like, just send each other packages.
People think floating should be the easiest and happiest time for a company, but it's actually really hard. We were meant to think we'd won - we'd gone public and could go on to new things. But we were only just getting started.
My parents had four children quickly, divorced quickly - when I was two - and my mother remarried quickly. We were suddenly in a different environment with a different father.
When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.
I just had a normal African childhood; we played football a lot, but it was always in the street and always without shoes. Boots were very expensive, and when there are seven in your family, and you say you want to buy a pair, your father wants to kill you.
All my life, Americans have been accustomed to thinking of theirs as 'the richest, freest' country in the world. By most measurements, it was long a contender for that honor, and - among the larger countries, if equal weight were given to wealth and indices of freedom - probably did deserve to be so described.
The first time I came to New York in 1952, I was busy with music. I made the acquaintance at this period with John Cage, and also the acquaintance of Varese for the first time. We were very good friends. He gave me some scores, and we recorded them a little later.
When I was growing up I loved reading historical fiction, but too often it was about males; or, if it was about females, they were girls who were going to grow up to be famous like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, or Harriet Tubman. No one ever wrote about plain, normal, everyday girls.
I continue with the illusion of serving Colombia. Only God knows if it were to be from the presidency.
The years I raced in were fantastic. There was so much change in the cars. We went from treaded tyres to no wings right through to slicks to enormous wings.
My values - going back to my childhood - were always based on respect for all people and rejection of bigotry and racism.
The places we'd play were full of bikers, brawlers, and drinkers coming off a day of work looking for a good time, and all these guys would be looking at me like Hannibal Lecter looking at his next victim.
Since its inception, the American nation has had on its official seal the following motto: 'e pluribus unum,' which in Latin means, 'from the many, one.' That would change dramatically if Puerto Rico were to become a state.
Coming from the Midwest, I didn't know about stand-up as an art. I just thought stand-up comedians were old men in suits talking about their wives.
Two famous happy warriors - Reagan and his political soulmate, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - knew they were fighting their own ideological and external wars. But they did so with the sunny dispositions and positive outlooks of those who knew they were on the right side of history.
In my industry, a shirt and a shoe are still made the exact same way they were 80 years ago.
I'm a really good cook. I left home to start my career at 15 - so my choices were to either learn to cook or eat Ramen noodles for the rest of my life.
Those of us who were 12 or 13 when the war started were absolutely thrown into the mainstream. We had to grow up instantly and take care of ourselves.
I consider myself fortunate that in my home, acting or the creative arts were a good option. This was a respected tour of duty in my family. Acting wasn't something that was left to tragic bohemians. But we weren't a family that obsessed on cinema.
I don't feel like millions of people are wrong because they love who they love or they were born how they were born.
We have a mantra: don't be evil, which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone. So I think if we were known for that, it would be a wonderful thing.
If people were able to afford to eat nutritious food, I think they would make better choices.
When we were working on 'Taxi to the Dark Side,' we would purposefully not show it to certain people in the cutting room, because we would include a lot of horrible material and would need a fresh pespective. They would look at us and say, 'Are you out of your minds? You can't include that!'
I'm from Santa Cruz in Northern California, and the 49ers were my dad and I's bonding time.
If I were to put on Barbra Streisand and Duke Ellington, one might say the combination isn't good.
I have to say that sports is what kept me out of trouble. No matter the circumstances, my mom kept us playing sports. She worked hard to provide for us and even harder to make sure we always stayed active. Whether it was football or basketball, we were playing one sport or another year-round.
My mom was a big feminist, and when I was growing up, I wasn't allowed to have typical girl toys: she did not let me have dolls. Barbies were banned in our household. She read feminist books to me; my mom was a major feminist.
I think the '70s was a much healthier period for music because people were more innovative and creative.
