There are similarities between business and sport in the pressures involved and in the fitness aspect too.

Our children are obese either have or being threatened by diabetes high blood pressure high cholesterol and not socially adjusting properly to others because of a lack of fitness.

We had a booming stock market in 1929 and then went into the world's greatest depression. We have a booming stock market in 1999. Will the bubble somehow burst and then we enter depression? Well some things are not different.

People feel uncomfortable talking about racial issues out of fear that if they express things they will be characterized in a way that's not fair. I think that there is still a need for a dialogue about things racial that we've not engaged in.

I say let's go back to a truer use of the word 'freedom.' Let's start with President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and expression freedom of worship freedom from want and freedom from fear. I would add the freedom to bargain collectively. Those freedoms are under attack today.

President Obama's 100-day plan is pretty impressive. I think it's a Wow 100-plus days. The administration is not operating from fear it is trying to drive change for the future and that's a good thing.

Going to parties usually makes me feel depressed just because I have such social fear after meeting people.

As repressed sadists are supposed to become policemen or butchers so those with an irrational fear of life become publishers.

I always say three things make a writer: inspiration obviously perspiration doing the work. But the third is desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted.

Yet it ought to be obvious that good music generally occupies a higher plane that mere politics. Great writers can express moods through melody and capture experiences we share most powerfully - love lust longing joy rage fear triumph yearning and confusion.