Washington is agonizingly slow at learning from its mistakes. Especially in the Middle East.

As I'm learning, Republicans seem to only care about deficits when a Democrat is in the White House.

The United States has the best intelligence-gathering operation in the world. We should provide a greater level of training and assistance to the E.U. to help them develop a more robust counter-terrorism platform.

From the outside, Qatar and U.A.E. likely look like twins - small, oil-rich Sunni monarchies that are largely friendly to the U.S. But their philosophies on the region are very different - Qatar does not fear Islamism as does the U.A.E.

Artists often have mental health issues. And their lifestyles are unstable because of all the travelling and the media commentary on their lives.

Writing comes from that territory of being invalidated. But I had a sense of purpose, too. I wanted to stop apologising for my health, and I thought I might do some good.

Once you have a disease like cancer, you look at life a bit differently. Some things that were important no longer seem as important as they were.

It's been a long road back to health and fitness for me. I am just glad to have been given the opportunity to do what I love most.