As founder and co-chair of the upper Mississippi River Congressional task force I have long sought to preserve the river's health and historical multiple uses including as a natural waterway and a home to wildlife for the benefit of future generations of Americans.
Challenges of historic import threaten America's future. Action on the deficit economy energy health care and much more is imperative yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.
In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care.
After a century of striving after a year of debate after a historic vote health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land.
The great thing about the United States and the historically magnetic effect it has had on a lot of people like me is its generosity to put it simply.
The United States is at a critical juncture in time. Our government is riddled with historic debt and the limited resources of philanthropic and non-profit efforts cannot meet the scale of social challenges we face with necessary force.
A world in which government is burdened by historic debt philanthropy has limited resources and the private sector is only interested in its own personal gain is simply unsustainable.
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution which can only end in a distorted bastardized form of illegitimate government.
All historical experience demonstrates the following: Our earth cannot be changed unless in the not too distant future an alteration in the consciousness of individuals is achieved.
I can relate to historical characters or imaginary ones. It doesn't matter if a story takes place in the future or in the present as long as the story is compelling.
After all the past is our only real guide to the future and historical analogies are instruments for distilling and organizing the past and converting it to a map by which we can navigate.
I'm not a prophet I can only use historical reality to come to a view of the future and my view is that Africa will return to being African and not European. The advent of colonialism was foreign to the country itself but it will return to what it was before the Europeans arrived.
I look forward to a time in the not so distant future when we no longer look forward to 'firsts' as milestones women have yet to achieve but we look back on them as historic events that continue to teach and inspire.
The dark shadow we seem to see in the distance is not really a mountain ahead but the shadow of the mountain behind - a shadow from the past thrown forward into our future. It is a dark sludge of historical sectarianism. We can leave it behind us if we wish.
Hemingway seems to be in a funny position. People nowadays can't identify with him closely as a member of their own generation and he isn't yet historical.
People should have freedom in their pilgrimages and tours. They should come and visit historical monuments and sites - let's say the sites around Iran - where they can easily engage in wide- scale contacts with others.
My heart goes out to the brave citizens of Syria who each day risk and even sacrifice their lives to achieve freedom from a murderous regime. We in Israel welcome the historic struggle to forge democratic peace-loving governments in our region.