I was 12 when my father passed, so I didn't have a father during my teenage years.

Growing up, music was an important part of my childhood. I see it being just as important in my children and all children's growth and development, and in a parent's connection with their children.

I make music that I know that people will enjoy, and balance the ideas and philosophy that we put in music with music that when we play it live, people can move to it and groove to it.

I think my type of personality has all music inside of it, so I am full of music, without even knowing it, without even learning it, without even hearing it.

The U.S. government uses cash accounting. That is illegal for any enterprise of any size in America except for the U.S. government. Every for-profit business, every not-for-profit business, every state and local government has to use real accounting except for Uncle Sam.

It's a sense in Minnesota that we need to get back to common sense. We need to get back to taking sensible looks at positions and understanding the proper role of government.

I don't believe the government should determine what a woman does in this area any more than it should tell a chief executive how to run a company. Personal and family matters, relationships between doctors and patients should not be within the purview of government.

On the human rights side, administration policy has been marked by indifference. When the people of Iran flooded the streets to protest the theft of their presidential election in June 2009, President Obama was silent for 11 days.