We are losing sight of civility in government and politics. Debate and dialogue is taking a back seat to the politics of destruction and anger and control. Dogma has replaced thoughtful discussion between people of differing views.

We need to have a purpose in this life. I'm pleading with you, I'm begging with you to do the right thing. And do it not for the sake of how it will impact your own lives, but only for the sake of doing the right thing.

I realized that I had screwed up my life living different parts of my life in different places. I wasn't whole. I wasn't integrated. I wasn't a complete person. And after that, came out, spent some time at a psychiatric hospital.

I try to be grateful for the abundance of the blessings that I have, for the journey that I'm on and to relish each day as a gift.

More than anything else I recall being, or trying very deliberately to be, a perfect child. Not a Goody Two-shoes, but a kid who did good, who worked hard and met every expectation. I strove to achieve in the excessive way that psychotherapists tend to regard with concern.

I have two extraordinary daughters, who, I can say proudly, are doing very well in school and in piano. Daughters are a father's joy.

I'm enjoying prison ministry, particularly with the women in Hudson County Jail who have suffered tremendously in their lives.