During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.

But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes spirited competition and booming prosperity gave birth to dreams of expansion both within the major leagues and around the world.

How much obesity has to be created in a single decade for people to realize that diet has to be responsible for it?

My dad was a bartender. My mom was a cashier a maid and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They never made it big. They were never rich. And yet they were successful. Because just a few decades removed from hopelessness they made possible for us all the things that had been impossible for them.

Although the war in which you fought took place more than half-a-century ago your courage your sacrifice and your patriotism reaches through the decades and inspires us today.

Overcoming the Cold War required courage from the people of Central and Eastern Europe and what was then the German Democratic Republic but it also required the steadfastness of Western partner over many decades when many had long lost hope of integration of the two Germanys and Europe.

One of the biggest challenges we had in the first decade was not that many people had personal computers. There weren't that many people to sell to and it was hard to identify them.

It was used for decades to describe talented computer enthusiasts people whose skill at using computers to solve technical problems and puzzles was - and is - respected and admired by others possessing similar technical skills.

During the past few decades modern technology with radio TV air travel and satellites has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts.

In a free society government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it.

I never had the high-paying job or the company car. It took me over a decade to pay off my student loans. I never had to worry about where to dock my yacht to reduce my taxes.

I was turning 20 during my first record. Those decade birthdays always kind of cause me it seems to reflect look back and then look forward. I just was closing this period of my life where I was living in a car and scrambling my whole life to then signing a six-record deal with Atlantic.

I am especially grateful that I have been able to keep my own style over the decades in spite of the many changes that have taken place in the world of fashion and in its business.

As you watch the world crumble try taking your Armageddon with this sprinkling of irony: Over the last three decades business has got virtually everything it wanted and its doomsday scenario from the 1970s has come true because of it.

Billions are wasted on ineffective philanthropy. Philanthropy is decades behind business in applying rigorous thinking to the use of money.

We can choose a future where we export more products and outsource fewer jobs. After a decade that was defined by what we bought and borrowed we're getting back to basics and doing what America has always done best: We're making things again.

I think the 1970s will always be the decade for me. Obviously I grew up in that era but the beauty standard was touchable kissable.

After a decade this glum we deserved a shot of 'Glee ' a show that restored our faith in the power of song the beauty of dance and the magic of 'spirit fingers' to chase our cares and woes into somebody else's backyard.

The 1990s after the reign of terror of academic vandalism will be a decade of restoration: restoration of meaning value beauty pleasure and emotion to art and restoration of art to its audience.

Art is for anyone. It just isn't for everyone. Still over the past decade its audience has hugely grown and that's irked those outside the art world who get irritated at things like incomprehensibility or money.

A saboteur in the house of art and a comedienne in the house of art theory Lawler has spent three decades documenting the secret life of art. Functioning as a kind of one-woman CSI unit she has photographed pictures and objects in collectors' homes in galleries on the walls of auction houses and off the walls in museum storage.

After its hothouse incubation in the seventies appropriation breathed important new life into art. This life flowered spectacularly over the decades - even if it's now close to aesthetic kudzu.

I'm noticing a new approach to art making in recent museum and gallery shows. It flickered into focus at the New Museum's 'Younger Than Jesus' last year and ran through the Whitney Biennial and I'm seeing it blossom and bear fruit at 'Greater New York ' MoMA P.S. 1's twice-a-decade extravaganza of emerging local talent.

I also take pleasure in the so-called negative power in Grotjahn's work. That is I love his paintings for what they are not. Unlike much art of the past decade Grotjahn isn't simply working from a prescribed checklist of academically acceptable curator-approved 'isms' and twists.