Punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business.
The intelligent ruler does not value people who are of themselves good without rewards and punishments. Why is that? The laws of the state cannot be neglected, and it is not one man who is being ruled.
You will feel the full force of the law and if you are old enough to commit these crimes you are old enough to face the punishments. And to these people I would say this: you are not only wrecking the lives of others, you are potentially wrecking your own life too.
Some prison officials are determined to keep the people they lock in cages as ignorant as possible about the racial, social, and political forces that have made the United States the most punitive nation on earth. Perhaps they worry the truth might actually set the captives free.
It's not crime that makes us more punitive in the United States. It's the way we respond to crime and how we view those people who have been labeled criminals.
The web is democratising and also the voice of people who don't think they have another outlet. And that voice can be punitive.
Most of the people who call me a sellout were 7 when I was down face-first in the punk trenches.
Where there is young people and vitality, you're going to find punk rock.
I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.
This is what I would say to my pupil: 'You have become only your fame and left behind most of who you were. How are you going to deal with that? Will you lose that person forever? Have you become someone else without really knowing it? Do you always have to stay in character for people to like you? Do you know that you are in character?'.
I get an awful lot of people coming up and saying they went to school with me. There must have been 80,000 pupils at that school!
We need quantitative assessments of the success of education. We need certification and qualifications both for teachers and for pupils. It is not a choice between quantity and quality, between access and excellence. Both of these will happen together if people really do believe in the importance of education to change lives.
I think it's really important that people become aware of the amount, the mass of animals that are sitting in shelters as opposed to people going out and just buying puppies that are being bred.
I used to joke that my next book would be about puppies that have lost a chew toy, and everywhere they went, people were nice and gave them things until they found the chew toy.
There are all sorts of cute puppy dogs, but it doesn't stop people from going out and buying Dobermans.
Humans metabolize their purchases very quickly, even if it seemed worth it for any number of reasons when you first bought it. After some time passes, people will go back to feeling the baseline feelings they had previously felt about themselves, no matter how shiny the object, the hair, or the experience.
Music is the soundtrack to your life. It's not going to go anywhere. But the way people are purchasing music has changed. It's not the same anymore. It will never be the same.
Cooking with your kids is a remarkable exercise to let them in on the purchasing part of the process - kids love to shop, and its great to take them to these ethnic places where people don't always speak the language.
The great thing about doing art shows is you get to meet the people who are interested in your art, and I think that when you're purchasing a piece of art it's a tremendous bonus to get to meet the artist because you get a chance to pick their brain a bit and find out first hand what the piece is about for the artist.
People should have an escape valve for their money, their assets. If you have substantial financial assets, the government is going to confiscate the purchasing power of those assets and spend it.
