Most of American life consists of driving somewhere and then returning home wondering why the hell you went.

What the New Yorker calls home would seem like a couple of closets to most Americans yet he manages not only to live there but also to grow trees and cockroaches right on the premises.

From secrecy and deception in high places come home America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation come home America.

I seek to call America home to those principles that gave us birth.

Yes Americans can still get credit for cars and trucks and refrigerators and those businesses are doing well. But just try to get a home loan now.

It's also much clearer how much damage the occupation of Iraq is doing to America's reputation and prestige around the world and that's just starting now to hit home in the United States.

Here at home when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again and rekindle an American spirit of community.

I am not suggesting that all those missionary organizations working in Haiti should pack up and go home but I am urging them to understand that Haiti does not need clever Americans with newly contrived schemes for saving their country.

I came here in 1974 to do a play and then I went to L.A. I really like living in America. I feel more at home here than anywhere else.

Because of my parents' love of democracy we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia - first by Hitler and then by Stalin.