All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.
“I just got a call one day from Ringo asking me if I wanted to go out on the tour. It was as simple as that. He was putting together this band and he heard of me in the context of doing this and he gave me a call. I jumped at the chance.”
“In Poland, my audience is all women between 18 and 30. At U.S. conventions, you have the fantasy and science fiction crowd. At Harvard you have an entirely different audience. It's so schizophrenic.”