So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights we'll be called a democracy.

Music has a poetry of its own and that poetry is called melody.

At this point we've answered about every question you could possibly imagine about Deep Space Nine so we do this thing called Theatrical Jazz where we do a show of bits and pieces of things from plays and literature poetry... stuff that we like. It's fun.

So poetry becomes a means for useful dialogue between people who are not only unknown but mute to each other. It produces a dialogue among people that guards all of us against manipulation by our so-called leaders.

While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called song in modern poetry or for what's usually called music I really don't think of speech as so far from song.

Those who say we should dismantle the role of Poet Laureate altogether the trick they miss is that being called this thing with the weight of tradition behind it and with the association of the Royal family does allow you to have conversations and to open doors and wallets for the good of poetry in a way that nothing else would allow.

On July 26 1916 I announced to all my friends in America that from now on I resolved to write no more poems in the classical language and to begin my experiments in writing poetry in the so-called vulgar tongue of the people.

The poetry of this one is called philosophical of that one philological of a third rhetorical and so on. Which is then the poetic poetry?

I got a pet monkey called Charlie Chan.

In Hawaii we have something called Ho'oponopono where people come together to resolve crises and restore peace and balance.

The so-called peace path is not peace and it is not a substitute for jihad and resistance.

I've also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament - it was about 1982 - they called it Peace Sunday.

I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.

Military hardliners called me a 'security threat' for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.

One is called to live nonviolently even if the change one works for seems impossible.

There's intense national feeling in America that could be called patriotism.

So it's been a slow process and it's taken some patience. That's why patients are called patients I think - patience is required.

The days of our lives for all of us are numbered. We know that. And yes there are certainly times when we aren't able to muster as much strength and patience as we would like. It's called being human.

For decades parents were told by so-called parenting 'experts' that offspring would be best raised on the belief each is special and entitled to all life has to offer.

Don't reward bad behavior. It is one of the first rules of parenting. During the financial cataclysm of 2008 we said it differently. When we bailed out banks that had created their own misfortune we called it a 'moral hazard ' because the bailout absolved the bank's bad acts and created an incentive for it to make the same bad loans again.

We have been working with Habitat for Humanity and we have built eighty homes 80% of which are being lived in by New Orleans' musicians. It is called the Musicians' Village and at the center is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

And why is our music called world music? I think people are being polite. What they want to say is that it's third world music. Like they use to call us under developed countries now it has changed to developing countries it's much more polite.

I felt that the elegance of pop music was that it was reflective: we were holding up a mirror to our audience and reflecting them philosophically and spiritually rather than just reflecting society or something called 'rock and roll.'

It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers like Frank Sinatra and myself we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written we go back to the greatest songs.