today

If I hadn't spent many years trying to be as compassionate as Mother Teresa, as positive a thinker as W. Clement Stone, as prolific a writer as Stephen King, and as good a speaker as many of the legends I have studied, I would not be as successful as I am today.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them. One day I put a post on Facebook that said, 'God is not mad at you.' Within a few hours, we literally had thousands of positive responses from people saying things like, 'That is exactly what I needed to hear today.' Obviously, this is a message we need to hear.

Negative freedom is freedom from - freedom from oppression, whether it's a colonial power or addiction to alcohol oppressing you. You need to be freed from negative freedom. Positive freedom is freedom for, freedom to be. And that's what's routinely ignored today.

I think Dr. King, if he were alive today, he wouldn't disrespect the flag or the anthem; he would use his words and his voice to send a message for positive change.

Sexy in India is not considered positive. But, with today's crop of fresh faces in the modelling arena, being sexy is an asset.

I've seen terrorism close up, but I don't live in a state of terror at all. I'm comfortable going to the Manhattan Thanksgiving Day Parade, the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, Times Square on New Years Eve. For perspective, the world today is a safer place than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Airlift, World War II.

Obviously, Jay-Z is one of the greatest entertainers of the world today. Not only is he a remarkable rhetorical genius, he's also a man of deep sympathy and empathy for those who are lost and vulnerable, but especially under-educated youth of all cultures and stripes.

As you think, you travel, and as you love, you attract. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.

Even today, when the Obama administration has liberalized travel to Cuba - and failed to reverse that liberalization when Alan Gross was imprisoned - there are limits.

Today, we have private airline companies, but if you take a look at a Boeing plane next time you travel, you'll see that you are basically taking a ride on a modified bomber.

Today, few terrorist organizations still employ the 'al-Qaeda model' in which individuals travel to terrorist training camps overseas and then are deployed to the West to inflict atrocities.

One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the South today, you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievance and hate.

I am blessed for what I have, but I believed in it from the beginning. Today, the dream is the same: I still want to travel, I still want to entertain, and I most certainly still want to have fun.

Today, diabetes is now epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the American Diabetes Association and other national healthcare leaders.

It's time to look beyond the budget ax to assure access to health care for all. It's time to look for bipartisan solutions to the problems we can tackle today, and to work together for tomorrow - building a health care system that works for all Americans.

Today there are people trying to take away rights that our mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers fought for: our right to vote, our right to choose, affordable quality education, equal pay, access to health care. We the people can't let that happen.

We face a choice this election. President Obama is fighting for changes that grow the economy from the middle out and help all Americans succeed - jobs, education, health reform, the DREAM Act, equal pay for women. He is moving us forward with opportunity today for prosperity tomorrow. Mitt Romney wants to take us back to yesterday.

Many companies today are reducing hours of full-time people to get under the minimum so they don't have to pay health care costs. I just shake my head because that's not going to build long-term value and trust with your people.