As efforts to fix this failure at the Veterans Administration continue I also intend to persist in demanding answers and action on the establishment of a new clinic to serve the veterans in North Central Washington.

You have to look at the history of the Middle East in particular. It has been one of failure and frustration of feudalism and tribalism.

Within the U.S. the Obama presidency will be mainly measured by the success or failure of his economic policies. And here I fear the monstrous stimulus package with which this administration stumbled out of the gate will prove to be Obama's Waterloo.

The Bush Administration's failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman the formula the command of right about face which turns us from failure to success.

I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.

While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery and the projections of the Bush Administration.

The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.

The simple act of saying 'thank you' is a demonstration of gratitude in response to an experience that was meaningful to a customer or citizen.

The new spirituality is that it will produce an experience in human encounters in which we become a living demonstration of the basic spiritual teaching 'We are all one.'

The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.

Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other.

This Bush administration has a growing credibility gap maybe even a credibility chasm on environmental policy. The President has lost the trust of the American people when it comes to the environment.

There has been a banking crisis a financial crisis an economic crisis a social crisis a geostrategic crisis and an environmental crisis. That's considerable in a country that's used to being protected.

By adopting the control strategy the nation's environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.

My entry into the environmental arena was through the issue that so dramatically - and destructively - demonstrates the link between science and social action: nuclear weapons.

Research shows that children do better in school and are less likely to drop out when fathers are involved. Engaged parents can strengthen communities mentor and tutor students and demonstrate through their actions how much they value their children's education.

When they favor the access of other people to education and health care the countries of the North not only demonstrate generosity or solidarity but also implement the principles of respecting and promoting human rights.

The Obama administration now has regulations that tells them that they can no longer promote marriage to these young girls. They can no longer promote marriage as a way of avoiding poverty and bad choices that they make in their life. They can no longer even teach abstinence education. They have to be neutral with respect to how people behave.

Misdirected focus on paperwork on procedures and on bureaucracy frustrates teachers and fails to give children the education they need.

In his first year in office President Obama pulled us back from the brink of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and worked to lay a new foundation for economic growth. The president identified three key strategies to build that lasting prosperity: innovation investment and education.

If adolescent pregnancy prevention is to become a priority then our strategy as advocates must contain two key elements: civic engagement and education.

Scientific research and other studies have demonstrated that arts education can enhance American students' math and language skills and improve test scores which in turn increase chances of higher education and good jobs in the future.