I think everybody knows that Africa is in a very deep crisis. There is economic misery and social deprivation and that Africa needs help but the question then is how. And also we have to make sure that we don't repeat old mistakes; this help is only short term. It doesn't address Africa's long-term fundamental needs and how to put Africa on the right track to development. What Africa needs to do is to grow, to grow out of debt.
I think that everybody needs four things in life. Everybody needs something to do regardless of age. Everybody needs someone to love. Everybody needs something to hope for, and, of course, everybody needs someone to believe in.
Everybody needs some inspiration, Everybody needs some motivation, mix it up with some imagination, and use your natural gifts.
I feel like everybody needs to take a sabbatical and go to Russia and Africa and work in orphanages and really witness true suffering. And then you'll just feel ridiculous for ever complaining about anything. Everybody needs that kind of reality check.
I've been working with Pat Robertson on Africa debt-relief, and we disagree on virtually everything except certain very specific, inalienable rights, and the truth is that morality and patriotism come in all shapes and sizes.
America needs to hear some good sounds from Africa, man. The sanity of the world is going to be generated from Africa through art.
The human instinct for self-preservation is strong. I know, because mine pulls at me, too, like the needle on a compass. And everybody - I've been reading some philosophy - everybody seems to agree that the instinct and responsibility of all humans is to take care of themselves first. You have the right to self-defense. You have the right to survive, if you can.
What Africa needs to do is to grow, to grow out of debt.
The Catholic community, with many others, has long worked for this new commitment on global health and debt relief (President George W. Bushs proposed $15 billion Global AIDS initiative). I hope that Congress will now appropriate the money needed to make this legislation a reality, and that the U.S. government will press for strengthening the debt relief program along the lines proposed by this legislation.
So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.
She felt some measure of relief knowing that in the very least, on the open road she would have some time to think.
Everybody has the blues. Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to love and be loved. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called jazz, there is a stepping-stone to all of these.
What our economy needs is direct job creation by the government and mortgage-debt relief for stressed consumers. What it very much does not need is a transfer of billions of dollars to corporations that have no intention of hiring anyone except more lobbyists.
Every acknowledgment of gratitude is a circumstance of humiliation; and some are found to submit to frequent mortifications of this kind, proclaiming what obligations they owe, merely because they think it in some measure cancels the debt.
The time has come to end this charade. The debts are unaffordable. If they won't cancel the debts I would suggest obstruction; you do it yourselves. Africa should say: 'thank you very much but we need this money to meet the needs of children who are dying right now so we will put the debt servicing payments into urgent social investment in health, education, drinking water, control of AIDS and other needs.'
Beauty is something everybody longs for, needs, and tries to obtain in some way - whether through nature, or a man or a woman, or music, or whatever. The soul yearns for it. Psychology seems to have forgotten that.