America has a critical place to play in the end of extreme poverty.

Live Below the Line raises real money to help the world's poorest people, but it is also a symbolic demonstration aimed at highlighting - not replicating - the plight of the world's poor.

When I was 13, I did become a Christian. And so it was when I was 13, that I thought... I just... I really saw a good example in Jesus and how he was just so... such a tremendous radical love and service of the poor. I just thought, 'Man, why can't we all do the same?'

History shows that all protest movements rely on symbols - boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, flags, songs. Symbolic action on whatever scale - from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to wearing a simple wristband - is designed to disrupt our everyday complacency and force people to think.

The government can't even do a good job of something as simple as running the Post Office. How can it be expected to do a good job with something really important, like educating our children?

We say to the British government: you have kept those sculptures for almost two centuries. You have cared for them as well as you could, for which we thank you. But now in the name of fairness and morality, please give them back.

There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics, as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

We have a lot of really boring, silly, stupid politics. We need people to point that out.