Presidential leadership is best evaluated not on the basis of one's agreement with the policies, but on their effectiveness in using their powers to transform the nation and our understanding of ourselves.
When I was 26 or 27, I gave up journalism. I came to England after my mom died, to let serendipity take its course. And I just found myself back in journalism again.
When everyone in the world spoke the same language, God came down in judgment, breaking the world apart. But at just the right time, he came down again, this time to reconcile that sinful world to himself.
I loved journalism until the day my journalism teacher, a man I revered, came by my desk and said, 'Are you planning on going into journalism?' I said, 'Yeah.' He said, 'I wouldn't.' I said, 'Well, why not?' He said, 'You can't make a living.'
Citizen journalism is rapidly emerging as an invaluable part of delivering the news. With the expansion of the Web and the ever-decreasing size and cost of camera phones and video cameras, the ability to commit acts of journalism is spreading to everyone.
My interest in Virtual Reality (VR) films began for me when I began a fellowship with MIT's Open Documentary Lab. It was a profound experience to be on MIT's campus one day a week and to enter a new world of storytelling where breaking convention and traditional methods were expected. This was deeply challenging and inspiring.
Up until the rise of electronic music, if you were a musician in Portugal or Germany or Italy or Japan, and you didn't sing in English, you really were limited: You could be successful in the country where people understood your language. The world of electronic music is completely international. You have DJs from Finland making huge records for people in New Zealand, DJs in South Korea making huge records for people in France. By the fact that it doesn't cost anything to make, and that it transcends language, nation it accidentally accomplishes a lot of really remarkable things.
Directing plays lacked the immediacy and connection to real world events that journalism offered; journalism lacked the drama, theatricality and subjective storytelling of theater. It wasn't until I had the idea of making a documentary film about the 1992 presidential campaign that these two passions came together in 'The War Room.'
In some ways it's hard to see electronic music as a genre because the word "electronic" just refers to how it's made. Hip-hop is electronic music. Most reggae is electronic. Pop is electronic. House music, techno, all these sorts of ostensibly disparate genres are sort of being created with the same equipment.
Effectiveness comes from those qualitative things that give you the ability to network, communicate, and lead people toward an outcome they can't see.
I never thought electronic music would get as popular in America as it has. When I first came to Vegas in 2009 for my residency - we were they only people playing electronic music at that time.
Our priority has always been to have the lowest cost so we can be comfortable with weak freight rates. A big part of having the lowest cost is maintaining the largest network, and this means growing market share.
The most powerful military in the world cannot invade, kill or capture a network or destroy every loose weapon on the planet. The best response to this network of terror is to build a network of our own -- a network of like-minded countries and organizations that pools resources, information, ideas, and power. Taking on the radical fundamentalists alone isn't necessary, it isn't smart, and it won't succeed.
Definitely there has been a decline in journalism. It wasn't there at all when you fought an election, won, lost and came back to become an editor. That must have been the golden age of journalism.
The gunner's mate came up and started breaking the locks on the ammunition. Everything was locked up for fear that someone might go in there with a cigarette or something.
Prior to 'The Shield,' basic cable was just a wasteland of reruns and NASCAR. When we came along, I think there was a collective, 'Hey, if they can do that, why can't we?' from the basic-cable networks of the world. We ended up being the cornerstone for a network, and a great one.