Mr. Obama's approach to engagement to some degree makes him dependent on people who wish neither him nor America well. This doesn't have to end badly and I hope that it doesn't - but it's not an ideal position after one's first year in power.
When I design a garment or a piece of accessory, the first question I ask myself is, 'Would I wear it?'
I have a room dedicated to music and recording. I go there first thing in the morning and just before I go to bed. And it has a window to my street, so I can watch all the crazies walking by.
I'm a first generation American. My mother is Italian and Russian and a lot of other things, and my father is Uruguayan. In fact, my mother's been married twice, and both men were Uruguayan. So I grew up in a very European/Latin American-influenced home.
I remember where I was when I first heard 'Boyz N The Hood' - 126th Street and Normandy, South Central, Los Angeles. I remember that I was on my porch. What they described in that song was so vivid and so clear to me because it was the kind of life I was used to witnessing and partly experiencing in my neighborhood.
My first album, 'Get Lifted,' was a hip-hop soul album that had some of its roots in the church, as far as the sonic choices, in the way that I sing and write songs. I have always had that as part of my background and part of my influence when I am making music.
Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.
I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me.
My first jobs were all civil service. At 14, I worked for the Canadian National Railways. At 16, I worked for the Canadian Penitentiary Service.
The first song I ever wrote was when I was 12, and it had, like, four lines in it. You progress and get better.
All my first albums, they're full of heart and emotion, and the songs are wonderful, but they wouldn't have been the takes I would have chosen.
Most Americans are unaware that Thomas Jefferson was the first American president to go to war against radical Islam. Jefferson was very concerned with Islam's war-like doctrine and its inability to separate mosque and state.
My father, if anything, first and last, was a man of words. He loved stories; he didn't live for stories, exactly, but I think he lived through stories. I think, like many writers, he loved stories about things he had experienced as much as, if not more than, he loved the experiences themselves.
My record was so bad that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing.
I was about 7 and my family was eating at a restaurant when we saw my first Elvis impersonator by total accident.
The United States is the first nation to regularly conduct strikes using remotely piloted aircraft in an armed conflict. Other nations also possess this technology. Many more nations are seeking it, and more will succeed in acquiring it.
I filed the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history in 1972 in the legislature, one of the first in the country.
Making $30,000 on my first business deal was exciting, but not as exciting as the sudden knowledge that I did not have to work for anyone again.
I like to keep most of my bats. I think I have about 250 bats, including my first - which cost Rs 2000 - a gift from my dad in 1998, when I moved to the hostel.
I was writing songs as a kid about leprechauns and Catwoman and teapots - whatever it is that little girls wanna sing about. The first song I wrote was called 'Kitten.'
I can't remember the first time, but I've worked with supermodels almost from day one.
If anybody asks me where I'm from, my first inclination is to say, 'Washington,' because that's where I grew up meaningfully.
Two of the first plays I saw after I arrived in Britain were 'King Lear' in Liverpool, and 'Antony and Cleopatra' at Stratford. One was produced with hardly a backdrop and the other with gigantic scene changes. I was impressed by what connected the two: the words and their life beyond the stage.
Gavin Lambert was the first person in the movie business my wife and I met when we moved to Los Angeles in 1964.
Queen Latifah was the first time I had ever professionally written with another woman of any color.
My colleague Bill Keegan has written a very short book ('Saving the World?') on an unlikely topic - he is the first economist to try to rehabilitate Gordon Brown.
Probably my favorite artists to listen to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder - I haven't gone back in a really long time and really listened to them - my first guitar influences. It's been awhile since I revisited that.
In 2011, I released my first album called 'International Villager.' I had no support, and whatever money I had made, I put it all in the album. I shot the music video for 'Brown Rang' with one lakh dollars. I spent so much money, as I just wanted to put it up on YouTube, as I knew that my market was there, and it became a huge hit.
My hobby first and foremost is collecting automobiles. I have a fairly nice, finished 6,500-square-foot structure that I call my garage.
I endured quite a few injuries when I was younger and had my first surgery on my foot when I was 15. But I love dancing. 'Anna Karenina' was great for me as it meant I could combine the two and I actually went back and did some classes.
Walking at random through the streets, we came by chance upon the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I shall long remember my first impression of the scene within. The lofty gothic ceiling arched far above my head and through the stained windows the light came but dimly - it was all still, solemn and religious.
America was magnificently characterized in November of 2008 when we elected, for the first time, an African-American President of the United States.
I don't say I was the first, because, who knows, maybe there was a guy out in Minnesota doing it before me.
My parents being Bengali, we always had music in our house. My nani was a trained classical singer, who taught my mum, who, in turn, was my first teacher. Later I would travel almost 70 kms to the nearest town, Kota, to learn music from my guru Mahesh Sharmaji, who was also the principal of the music college there.
I started making music videos in my twenties and made my first feature, 'Guncrazy,' at 29. I then spent the greater part of my thirties directing features.
Too often, people get elected to a body, to any office, and the first thing they do is talk about how this year, it's going to be different.
