'Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.

Documentary film without nuanced journalistic sourcing risks being sensational, tendentious or broad-brushed.

When I went on Fox News people asked me why I was going on those shows. Are you kidding? You have to go, especially to people you don't agree with.

After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it.

People who have come of age from the '80s on have experienced a form of activism that's very sterile and annoying. It's not that much fun to be an activist. That's partly by design. They are sterile protests and anonymous e-mail activism - not the kind of thing where people fall in love, form friendships for life, and see the change they make right in front of them. I've seen that, when people start to experience doing these things together and the power that it has.

Sexiness is no longer defined just as whether we are desirable, but also what we desire. The more liberated women become - economically, politically, and personally - the more erotic we are. Freedom is a lot sexier than dependency.

'The End of America' details the 10 steps that would-be dictators always take in seeking to close an open society; it argued that the Bush administration had been advancing each one.