Our country was thereby saved from the consequences of its distracting individualistic conception of democracy and its merely legal conception of nationality. It was because the followers of Jackson and Douglas did fight for it that the Union was preserved.

From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner I think if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.

I taped my first series for PBS in 1982 at WJCT-TV in Jacksonville Florida. The show called 'Everyday Cooking with Jacques Pepin ' was about saving time and money in the kitchen - and it was a celebration of simple and unpretentious food.

I'd die if I was Madonna. I'd die. God what a horrible way to live. And Michael Jackson! To be so famous and to feel so isolated. I feel so bad for them. I don't know how it feels and I hope it never happens to me.

When you look at Michael Jackson there's nobody who loves him in that family nobody. If they did they'd tell him he didn't have to do all that in order to be famous. All he has to do is keep doing his music and be himself. Michael's been a little touched for about 20 years but somebody needs to pull him aside and tell him they love him.

We are not interested in cloning the Michael Jordans and the Michael Jacksons of this world. The rich and the famous don't participate in this.

People had this image of the Jacksons as the perfect American family and I destroyed that image. But what people have to understand is writing that book was very healing for me.

At an incredibly divisive point in pop history Donna Summer managed to create an undeniable across-the-board experience of mass pleasure - after 'Bad Girls ' nobody ever tried claiming disco sucked again. It set the template for what Michael Jackson would do a few months later with 'Off The Wall.'

I listened to the radio so I was influenced by everyone from Michael Jackson to Milli Vanilli. But thankfully my dad had a collection of Cat Stevens albums while my mom was listening to jazz.

The simplest way to do something cool is the cross-turn. Like in the '80s - Michael Jackson did it. You jump and cross your legs together at the same time and then spin out of it. That's it.