In Illinois, where legislators are paid $45, 000, plus as much as $10, 000 for leadership work, about half are full-time politicians.

Some parents believe that competition helps prepare children to succeed. Others fear that their children will not be able to handle failure.

Disclosure of private e-mails from government officials has been a legal issue in many states.

John Glenn's father, known as Herschel, was mostly deaf from injuries in World War I. To help out at home, young Glenn sold rhubarb all over town from the family garden.

In Chicago, integrated neighborhoods do not stay integrated for long.

Cities vary widely in the use of DNA testing.

History is the best guide to the future.

FEMA says that it does not factor in previous losses into its decisions on applications to redraw the flood zones.

I never bought a man who wasn't for sale. -W.A. Clark, ascribed

Companies are accustomed to dismissing employees for misuse of computers at work.

While the House of Blues slogan has been 'In blues we trust, ' its stages are usually filled with more reliable moneymakers - Neil Diamond and A Tribe Called Quest among them.

My plumbing is all screwed up. Because it turns out, I do not own a garbage disposal.

Without ice cream there would be darkness and chaos.

Don King was good to me through my years as champion, but I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. He's a wheeler dealer and you've got to be careful. He's a great con artist.

You ask anybody what their number one fear is, and it's public humiliation. Multiply that on a global scale, and that's what I've been through.

Attitude creates your world and designs your destiny.

Lord, I am a surgeon and music is my knife. It cuts away my sorrow and purifies my life.

The capacity to be intrinsic and vulgar is American.

I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.

People have a lot of different beliefs, and at the end of the day, we all have deeply held beliefs that probably don't make sense to anyone else.

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability, and something is bound to come of it.