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Adult Burmese pythons can swallow prey as large as deer. Now, researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder say the way the python's heart balloons after it eats could help treat human heart disease. Molecular biologist Leslie Leinwand discusses her team's python experiments.

JOE PALCA, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Joe Palca.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Next Tuesday at this time, NPR's TALK OF THE NATION will be broadcasting live from National Geographic in Washington, D.C. Neal Conan and his guests will talk about how to feed seven billion people without destroying the planet. If you'd like to go, there are free tickets available. Send an email to talk@npr.org and put tickets in the subject line.</s>Next up: Do you know that pythons can go without eating for months at a time? Well, here's a diet for you. But it's what their bodies and, in particular, their hearts do after they finally had a meal after this long gap that's even more remarkable.</s>Next up: What is that? Well, my next guest can tell us. Dr. Leslie Leinwand is a professor of the Biofrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her study on the python heart appeared in the journal Science, and she joins us from Killarney, Ireland, where she was nice enough to interrupt her vacation to come on to the program. Welcome.</s>Next up: DR. LESLIE LEINWAND: Thank you for having me, Joe.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: You're welcome. And if you'd like to join us, this is going to be - I mean, this heart study is just amazing. You got to hear about it, but it's 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK, or you can tweet us @scifri.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: So, Dr. Leinwand, I guess that's the question. Why - you - you're a molecular biologist, biochemist and you study hearts in humans. What got you interested in the python?</s>LEINWAND: Well, when I read an article written by my colleague, Stephen Secor, a collaborator, and his colleague, Jared Diamond, about the amazing biology of these animals, I was immediately drawn to it. I have had such a curiosity about how they could go for such long periods of time without eating and nothing terrible happened to them.</s>LEINWAND: And when they do eat, they eat this massive meal, and what happens is quite extraordinary that the mass of most of their organs, including the heart, almost doubles in size in less than 24 hours, then goes right back down again after they've digested the meal. And we were quite interested in that because we're cardiac biologists, after all, and we were interested in enlargement and how a heart gets smaller after it's enlarged.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: So wait a minute. When human hearts get larger, sometimes that's associated with increased illness, but that's not happening here. What's going on there that's not going on here?</s>LEINWAND: Yes. So, in many cases, people's hearts get larger because they've got high blood pressure for - that's untreated for, you know, many years, and that's a bad thing. But people like Lance Armstrong or Michael Phelps or a highly conditioned athlete also have bigger hearts, and that's associated with increased cardiovascular health.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Uh-huh.</s>LEINWAND: So our hypothesis was that the pythons would not have evolved something happening with their heart that would be akin to a diseased state, but instead might be more like a highly conditioned athlete's heart.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: So why would these organs in the heart grow after a meal?</s>LEINWAND: Because they need to to be able to digest this massive meal. The meal can be equal to the body mass of the python, which is quite an extraordinary metabolic demand to be put on that animal.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: So, in other words, just to finish eating their meal, to finish digesting it, they need a lot more energy and a lot more blood pumping through the - their bodies and like that.</s>LEINWAND: Exactly, exactly.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: I see. And why - the python is a reptile. I mean, it still is not clear to me that anything it's doing would have any relevance to a mammal.</s>LEINWAND: Well, we weren't sure that it would, but we bet on it. It was an instinct that I and my postdoc both had, that we would be able to translate these findings into mammals. But to tell you the truth, it was one of the first experiments that the postdoc did after establishing that we could grow these reptiles and feed them the meals and their organs would increase.</s>LEINWAND: She asked a pretty simple question, which was if there was something circulating in the python blood that might be able to make heart cells from a mammal, a rat, in culture get bigger, which would mimic the python's heart getting bigger. And, lo and behold, that experiment worked.</s>LEINWAND: I thought it was a big leap to go from - directly from python blood on to mammalian heart cells, but it worked. And that gave us the resolve that if we did keep after this and study this organism, that we might, in fact, be able to translate the - further findings to humans.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: We're talking about a remarkable study involving python hearts that appeared in Science not too long ago with Dr. Leslie Leinwand. Give us a call. If you want to join the conversation, our number is 800-989-8255. That's 800-989-TALK. And it's something in the blood. Were you able to find out what in the blood was causing this growth spurt?</s>LEINWAND: Yes, we were. We were able to identify three fatty acids, and those were basically the fuel of the heart that enables it to generate the energy that is required to digest this meal and pump this blood. And in terms of - if you looked at the blood from these snakes after they've eaten one of these meals, they're almost milky. They're almost white with so much fat in it that it seemed like a likely candidate that it might be the fats in the blood themselves.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: And they were a certain set of fats or...</s>LEINWAND: Yes.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: ...ratio of fats or how did that work?</s>LEINWAND: So it was a specific combination of three fatty acids that in - it requires just those three and in a certain combination. We've tested other ones, and it really is these three. And those three are not found typically in that combination in any, let's say, dietary source that a human might eat.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Hmm. All right. Well, let's invite some of our listeners into the conversation. And let's go first to Doug(ph) in Denver, Colorado. Doug, welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY. You're on the air.</s>DOUG: Thanks very much to your staff for my allowing my call through.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Sure.</s>DOUG: I'm curious as to what happens with the python being as they are reptiles, therefore coldblooded? And in their environment, a temperature change occurs that creates for a significant cooling even as they're trying to or are working to digest one of their very often quite large meals. I've heard that they can eat an animal as large as a deer whole. And I'm wondering how cooler temperatures would impinge upon this biological effect or biological phenomenon of the enlarged heart, the increased blood flow if suddenly temperatures were to turn cooler in their environments.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: What about that, Dr. Leinwand?</s>LEINWAND: Yes. So, certainly, we, nor anyone else that I know of, has deliberately put the pythons in the cold after they have eaten such a meal. They do generate quite a bit of heat when they're digesting this meal. And as you probably know, the reptiles will stretch themselves out in the sun to generate heat, or cool themselves down in the water if it's too hot. I would guess that a decrease in temperature that was extreme might have, you know, some physiological impact, but it might not be so relevant to the wheres that pythons live in the wild normally.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: OK. Doug, thanks for that question. It's very interesting.</s>LEINWAND: Thank you.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Let's take another call now and go to Vic(ph) in New York City. Vic, welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY. You're on the air.</s>VIC: Oh, thank you very much. I'm wondering, what is the application, though, for humans? Is it for people who might be born with a defective heart, somehow the mechanism - the muscle is defective? Or is this for people who have abused their - just, you know, been, you know, through their lifestyle have ruined their hearts and somehow this will undo that damage or help to repair?</s>LEINWAND: Well, our hope is not that we would be suggesting that people take some pill instead of exercise. But it's well known that when people exercise, it's very cardio protective. And when people with heart disease can exercise, it also is very beneficial. Unfortunately, many people who have heart failure, let's say, when the heart is not functioning well at all, can't get the benefits of exercise because they can't undergo that kind of exercise.</s>LEINWAND: So we're at least envisioning testing in animals, whether or not these fatty acids might be beneficial in the setting of heart failure. And heart failure, as you may know, can be brought about by many, many different causes. And certainly lifestyle contributes to it, but it's by far not the only thing that can result in heart failure.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: OK. Vic, thanks very much for that call.</s>VIC: Thank you.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: You're welcome. Let's now go to Eric(ph) in New York City. Eric, welcome to the program. You're on the air.</s>ERIC: Hey. How are you?</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Good.</s>ERIC: Thank you for doing this. I'm really excited about it because I work with snakes all the time. I've worked with reptiles for 15 years. And my question is...</s>ERIC: ...fact that the snake's heart enlarges during the time that they're eating, does this affect the growth rate at all? Because I've worked with Burmese pythons. Actually, that's my other question (unintelligible) - what type of snake was it? What type of python was it?</s>LEINWAND: These are Burmese pythons.</s>ERIC: What type was it?</s>LEINWAND: These are Burmese.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: These are Burmese pythons. Yes.</s>ERIC: It was a Burmese python. OK, perfect. Yeah. So I have had a Burmese python, and I actually still work with them now. And the one that I have, it grew from one foot to three feet, I'm sorry, one foot to nine feet in two years time. So in a very short period of time it grew really fast.</s>ERIC: And at one point in time, I did an experiment where - not an experiment, like, you know, official but, you know, I fed it a whole bunch - I fed it about nine mice at one time, and it ate all of these mice. And I remember, literally, I was like, I'm going to measure it to see if it grew.</s>ERIC: It grew about two inches just from that one time eating. So my question is does the growth rate - the heart size increasing, does that affect the growth rate at all, do you think? Hope you know.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: OK. Eric, good question. Thanks. So is the - does the animal, in toto, grow or just these heart organs?</s>LEINWAND: Yes. So these are experiments where the animals have been fasted first as they are in the wild, so they are not being continuously fed. Anecdotally, I could tell you that when we have done something somewhat similar to what you have done, we see that the animals just grow continuously and they get larger and larger and larger. And people are thinking that that, in fact, is what is happening with the pythons in the Florida Everglades because their source of food is not so limiting as it is in their native environments.</s>LEINWAND: And so the snakes do appear to have a very, very large capacity to continue to growing if food is plentiful. In their normal environment, food is not so plentiful, which is why they are these opportunistic predators. So these experiments that are in this publication that's being referred to are conducted on snakes that have been fasted. So the snake itself with just one big, big meal does not tend to get longer or its skull enlarged.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Hmm. I'm wondering though, these organs that grow, it's - certainly the process by which they shrink is interesting too. I mean, are they losing cells? Are they losing size of cells? I mean, what's happening in the shrinkage part of the story?</s>LEINWAND: Well, I think that's - I agree with you. I think that that is equally interesting to the growth and is something that we've only just started understanding. One of the things that is true that when - and I should've said this at the beginning - when the hearts and the organs get bigger, they're not just swelling up with fluid. They're really building new tissue as they grow. So they got to get rid of it somehow, and our suspicion is that it's going to be somewhat organ specific.</s>LEINWAND: I think in the case of the heart, we're expecting that the cells are going to shrink. I think in some organs where the cells are likely to be dividing that there probably going to lose cells. But as I said, I think it's going to be quite organ specific, and we're excited about going into that new area of research.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: We're talking with Dr. Leslie Leinwand about an experiment she did with pythons or an observation she made in pythons about how their heart grows after a large meal. I'm Joe Palca, and this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. So, Dr. Leinwand, what's next? I mean, what do you look for? Are you going to continue with snakes? What do you have to do next to extend this research?</s>LEINWAND: Well, we're certainly going to continue with the snakes. We've kind of got our hands full with the experiments that we're doing now. And our next step is to try to ask whether the fatty acids will have some kind of beneficial effect in the setting of heart disease. We believe that this is a crucial experiment to do, and we're gearing up to do that. We're also interested in the potential to learn something about how snakes may be protected from various insults that would be toxic to you or me such as these extremely high triglycerides, and we have some insight into that.</s>LEINWAND: Also, insulin levels appear to go very, very high and nothing harmful happens to the snake, so we believe that there is a lot to be learned from many of the other organ systems in the snake as well as understanding how the organs get smaller again after the meal is digested.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: OK. We have time for another caller too. Let's go to Shawn(ph) in Butler, New Jersey. Shawn, welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY. You're on the air.</s>SHAWN: Thank you. My question is this: You mentioned about the snakes have fatty blood. If you were to move this into humans, wouldn't that create problems for humans because we store fat and reptiles don't store fat?</s>LEINWAND: So what we have seen so far is that because it is these three specific fatty acids, we are seeing no signs whatsoever of any kind of toxicity. We have put these fatty acids into mice and - into just healthy mice, and we've screened for many, many markers and assays in the blood that would tell us whether we're creating any kind of toxic state as we would see with other types of fatty acids or individual ones. We're not seeing any of that.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: So - but it's not - I mean, you're certainly - you're a long way from saying take these fatty acids to improve your heart.</s>LEINWAND: Oh, absolutely. We're very, very early stages, and that's why we're going quite slowly with these animal studies because we want to make sure that we're not inducing any kind of toxicity. But as I said, so far, we have no indications that we're inducing anything toxic.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Do you have any sense that the - we were talking that there - this healthy heart that you - that these athletes' heart that the Lance Armstrongs have where their hearts grow and grow stronger. Is there any sense that the mechanism might be the same between pythons or might there be something completely different going on between pythons and humans?</s>LEINWAND: Well, it's probably too early to say. We're going to be doing some experiments to ask about these fatty acids in the context of highly conditioned mouse athletes that run enormous amounts, and we can begin to probe that, but it's a relatively unexplored area.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: All right. Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have for this segment. And so, Dr. Leinwand, you can go back to vacation now.</s>LEINWAND: Thanks so much, Joe. Nice to talk to you again.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Thank you. Dr. Leslie Leinwand is a professor of the Biofrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado, Boulder. And thanks to all of you for listening today.

Amidst rising food prices, farmers are using more of their land. Fallow fields help protect wildlife habitats and keep soil healthy, according to the National Wildlife Federation's Julie Sibbing. Will there be consequences to this new approach?

ALEX COHEN, host: Farm the best and conserve the rest. That's an old saying among farmers. It's advice for how much land to harvest. The U.S. government agrees. It even pays farmers to keep some of their land fallow. Not growing crops helps prevent soil erosion and it protects animal habitats. But recently with rising food prices and a tight economy, farmers are putting conservation land back to work. Julie Sibbing is with the National Wildlife Federation. Thanks for talking to us, Julie, and if you can tell us about this program, it's called the Conservation Reserve Program. It's voluntary. How much land does it usually keep fallow?</s>Ms. JULIE SIBBING (Senior Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation): Well, right now we have about 34 million acres of land, and that's down significantly from just a few years ago. We've lost about four million acres in the last couple of years due to those increased pressures to plant more corn and to plant more soy beans, as crop prices have grown.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: And where is that acreage? What states is this happening in?</s>Ms. JULIE SIBBING (Senior Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation): A lot of the land coming out is typically in the corn belt because that's, you know, the land that most people are growing corn on, and they want to try to expand and take advantage of the record high commodity prices right now. But a lot of it is in the northern Great Plains, a very, very dry area, and we're very concerned about this land going back into production.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Now, can you breakdown the numbers for us? If you're a farmer, how much could you make by keeping the land fallow, and how does that compare to what you could earn if you grew crops on it?</s>Ms. JULIE SIBBING (Senior Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation): Well, it's really variable. The Conservation Reserve Program is supposed to operate by paying people at what they call an agricultural rental rate, or what you would pay somebody to rent their agricultural land to farm it. This is adjusted, however, at every county level. They will have a committee of folks that will set how much they will pay for a farmer to take that land out of production. It's supposed to be competitive. Unfortunately, those rates have just not been keeping pace, so most people will say, well, I can get, you know, so and so dollars per acre if I reenroll this land into the conservation Reserve Program, but, you know, I think I could probably grow crops on it and make a lot more, so I think that's the calculus a lot of people have been making.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: And what are the environmental consequences if farmers start growing again?</s>Ms. JULIE SIBBING (Senior Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation): Well, there's a lot of environmental consequences. The thing about the Conservation Reserve Program is a lot of that land is what they call highly erodible land. So, without a really serious soil conservation plan, a lot of that will erode steadily into our streams, and along with it are all the fertilizers they put on the land to grow crops. And there's at least three species that I know of right now that are not listed on the endangered species list only because there's enough habitat right now on Conservation Reserve Program lands to keep those species viable. If those areas start losing a lot of CRP, these birds, including the different species of the sage-grouse and Prairie Chicken, will probably have to be placed on the endangered species list.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: This program, this conservation program, is part of the Farm Bill that we've been hearing so much about lately. What's the status of this program now?</s>Ms. JULIE SIBBING (Senior Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation): We think this week they might finally put the finishing touches on the overall Farm Bill. We're hearing it's not really a rosy picture for the Conservation Reserve Program in that right now there can be up to 39 million acres enrolled in that program before they will cap it and say you can't enroll any more. We're down to about 34 million acres, but they're going to take it down to even lower, and say that maximum amount that you can enroll will be 32 million acres is what we believe will be the final result.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Julie Sibbing is the National Wildlife Federation's senior program manager. Thanks so much, Julie.</s>Ms. JULIE SIBBING (Senior Program Manager, National Wildlife Federation): Thank you.

As the Euro crisis continues, Germany and France have proposed giving European Union leaders more power to demand fiscal discipline from member states. The crisis has raised difficult questions about national sovereignty for many E.U. member states. Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European Studies, Oxford University Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, senior fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Today and tomorrow, European leaders meet again in yet another attempt to resolve what some describe as the world's most boring crisis. But if we step back out of the weeds, there are a couple of pretty compelling story lines.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: One centers on Germany, which tried to dominate Europe by force of arms twice in the past 100 years and now finds itself both a reluctant leader and a deeply resented one. The other revolves around a dilemma Americans know well, the relative power of sovereign states and a central government. We held a constitutional convention and fought a civil war.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In Brussels today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy hope to persuade proud countries with thousands of years of distinct history and culture to cede power to save both the euro and the European idea.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you describe yourself with a European dash - Polish-American, say, or Italian-American - how much sovereignty should your old country surrender to Brussels? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, Kyra Sedgwick on closing "The Closer," but first the future of sovereignty in Europe. We begin with Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European history at Oxford and author of "Facts Are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name." He joins us from his home office in Oxford. Nice to have you with us.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Hello, good evening.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it's going to be hard enough to convince these 17 members of the eurozone to surrender power over their budgets. What's in it for the other 10 members of the EU, like Britain, who still use their own currency?</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Well, listen, it is the most dramatic moment in the whole story of European unification because in monetary union we put the cart before the horse. We had a monetary union without the kind of political union you have in the United States, and now the politics have to catch up.</s>And the question is: Will even those 17 states be ready to do what's necessary to make a kind of political union?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we've heard that, up until now, there have been half-measures, Band-Aids, something to paper over the crisis. But we heard that the can has been kicked down to the end of the road.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: You know, we've also heard the - we heard - we've been at the end of the road, and then somehow another stretch of road has appeared. I don't think that it will be solved tomorrow. But to your point of sovereignty, the question for this, so a country like Britain or a country like Poland, proud independent countries with long histories for fighting for freedom, is the tradeoff between your formal sovereignty, the legal position, and your effective sovereignty, your actual power.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: And Britain is tending to say we want more sovereignty even if that means less effective power. Interestingly, Poland, a country which has fought even harder for its freedom in recent years, is saying the precise opposite. They want to be in the eurozone. They want to be in there with Germany because they think their effective power, their effective freedom, will be greater.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's interesting. Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski, who has described the situation as the edge of a precipice, said the other day I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity...</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: What an extraordinary moment. What an extraordinary moment when the Poles are calling for more German leadership.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And let's bring another voice into the conversation, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. And he joins us from New Jersey. Nice to have you with us today.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Good afternoon.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I borrowed that quote from a recent piece you wrote in the Washington Post: Why isn't Germany stepping up to save the eurozone? And you've described this as - well, perhaps the last moment for the European leaders to reach an agreement.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: It's certainly a very important moment, and the question of German leadership is in the room here. This country - for Germany it's a historic moment as well. As you've alluded to, for a couple of times in the last 100 years there was a unilateral moment for Germany, and it was unilateral in the sense that arms and tanks were involved.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Now, this is a moment where nothing can happen if Germany doesn't move. So this is a test of German leadership, whether it can exercise leadership responsibly and in conjunction and in agreement with its neighbors.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that's going to be difficult to do. There may be a majority in Germany convinced of the European idea and the future of the euro, but many of them are not in the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: She has the opposition within her own group, the conservatives. They are most concerned about sovereignty and the transfer of sovereignty. The euro, in fact, has never had - when it was introduced in '99 - never had a majority at that moment in the German population. However, Germans did understand the deal, that Chancellor Kohl, in 1992, when this was all decided, had struck with President Mitterrand of France.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: France was very reluctant to see German unification, and actually even - so in 1990 the two had agreed that Germany would accept the euro while France would accept German unification. So for Germany that was the moment to regain national sovereignty while at the same time sharing sovereignty, losing a piece of sovereignty, in exchange.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: And I think we're approaching a similar moment now that sharing sovereignty as a means to regain freedom of maneuvering and freedom of action and effective power in a world of globalization and Europeanization is the challenge that leaders need to convince their people of, that in a multi-polar world in which Europe is only a small piece, is the way to go to retain influence.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Timothy Garton Ash, Germany, whether it decides to take decisive action or not, at least is in commend of its own future. There are plenty of countries in Europe, like Greece and Portugal and Ireland, who fear that they've already lost their sovereignty.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Yeah, sure, but let's spend another moment on Germany, 'cause it's absolutely crucial, and Thomas is completely right. You know, the joke at the time, in the early 1990s, was half the deutschemark for Mitterrand, the whole of Deutschland for Kohl. And that was the deal. And the great irony of that deal is that for Mitterrand, for France, the whole idea of the euro was to bind this new big united Germany more closely into Europe, to bind Germany in.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: And 20 years later, it's precisely the European Monetary Union which compels Germany to step forward into a leadership role that it absolutely has not sought. I mean, most of the Germans would rather be a greater Switzerland. Leave us alone to get rich and be free and to live our lives. They're not seeking to dominate anyone.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: But because they are the central economic power and because the euro is in this crisis and because it's they who will have to bail other people out, they are compelled to step into a leadership role, and like Radek Sikorski, my problem is that Chancellor Merkel has not yet done what it takes, has not yet done what it takes to convince the market.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: So the great irony is that suddenly at this moment, you know, almost 100 years on from 1914, Germany's neighbors are looking for more German leadership, but of course of a different kind.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University, and Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. We'd like to hear from those of you who identify yourselves with a European dash - Irish-American, Polish-American - what powers should your country cede to Brussels, if any? 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. We'll begin with Bob(ph), and Bob's with us from Winnemucca in Nevada.</s>BOB: Hello. Yeah. Hello?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yes, you're on the air, Bob, go ahead.</s>BOB: Yeah, I'm actually a German-American, and I've also been a citizen of Germany, and I'm also half Polish-American. And the fact that they should – the whole - as a sovereignty they should go back to their original currencies, each of the countries, and at the same time be able to use the euro so that the banks and the people have a better way of building up the economy both individually and as a sovereign unified Europe.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Bob, I'm not sure you can have your cake and eat it too. Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, excuse me, the Germans would love to go back to the deutschemark, but you can't have one and the other at the same time.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: I think fear is reigning at this time. And people do understand that the consequences of going back to the deutschemark would be disastrous because it would come with a huge appreciation of the currency, and an export-oriented economy like Germany's will be unable to export goods. So going back to the original currency would probably produce mass unemployment, while the euro has now produced the highest level of employment in post-war German history.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Bob, thanks very much for the call.</s>BOB: Since Willy Brandt?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Since Willy Brandt? I'm sorry?</s>BOB: Yeah.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Is that Bob talking about Will Brandt?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I think it's Bob talking about Willy Brandt, yes. Well, I mean that's one former German leader. There was another one, Helmut Kohl, who of course brokered reunification and brokered the deal with the euro as well. We mentioned him before. A stark choice: Abandon economic orthodoxy, you say, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, or give up the - break up the euro, which would be a disaster.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Yes, so there is something that I would call a residual nationalism or economic nationalism in the country. As in post-war Germany, nationalism was a no-go area, in post-war Germany. I was a basketball player, I played for the national team myself in the late '90s, and we used to roll down our socks because they had the national flag down there. So we weren't proud of displaying the national colors.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: But what was acceptable in that time was the pride for the post-war economic model, and that pride was symbolized through the currency. So currency in the German post-war history is a way to express national pride and nationalism. That is one reason why it's so hard for Germans to give up that currency.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Now that they have given it up, it is hard to explain to them why they should enter into something that they call - that is called a transfer union, in which funds from the rich countries would be transferred to the poorer countries to bail them out.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Now, the reality is that we already are in a system of a joined (unintelligible) liability...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I'm afraid we're in a situation where a lot of countries worry about Germans metaphorically rolling up those socks again. Stay with us. We're talking about European sovereignty. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. European leaders met today to determine the fate of the euro and the shape of the European Union itself. At stake: the stability of Europe's economies and much of the world's for that matter and the balance of power across the EU.</s>The question hanging over the summit: Will member countries agree to give up even more power to EU leaders in Brussels or make decisions about budgets and spending themselves? If you describe yourself with a European dash - German-American, say, or Polish-American - how much sovereignty should your old country surrender to Brussels? 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org.</s>The question hanging over the summit: Our guests are Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University. His book, "Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name," I should say his most recent book. Also with us, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, previously Washington bureau chief for the German newspaper Die Zeit.</s>The question hanging over the summit: Let's see if we can go next to - this is Alex(ph), Alex calling from Detroit.</s>ALEX: Hi, Neal, always - thank you, I always love your topics. I'm a Romanian immigrant, and for a country that won its independence or, if you will, had such a bloody struggle to achieve its current national identity, I think it will be tough to give up any sort of national rights in order to support a European Union that's at the very least ill-defined.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Timothy Garton Ash, countries like Romania, they are relatively recent adherents to the EU, and he describes their dilemma accurately, I think.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Well, you know, I might say half-seriously that Romania had a fair amount of perverse independence under Nicolae Ceausescu. Look, the slogan of 1989, of the velvet revolutions, was the return to Europe. And the post-communist democracies saw their future, their independence, their freedom - economic, political, also military - secured in the European Union and in NATO. And that's why a country like Poland wants to be at the very heart of the European Union.</s>So we come back to this essential point: What is sovereignty? Is it simply what's on the paper, that you're in theory a totally independent country? Or is it the practical ability to secure the freedom and the prosperity of your own people, in other words effective sovereignty?</s>So we come back to this essential point: And I think that the right choice - and this is a choice, by the way, most East European leaders are still making - is to secure the effective sovereignty for your own people.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Alex, thanks very much. Let's go next to - this is Collin(ph), Collin with us from San Francisco.</s>COLLIN: Hello. I am an Irish-American, and my opinion with respect to what Ireland would need to concede as part of any new treaty, is - would basically be give whatever the Germans or the other creditor countries are demanding. Case in point would be Ireland's extraordinarily low corporate income tax rate. He who pays the piper calls the tune.</s>COLLIN: Germany and a number of other countries have expressed their irritation with the lower corporate income tax that Ireland has had over the years. I think that would be something that would be fair for Ireland to give up under a new treaty.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we're talking in the economic realm, Tim Garton Ash, because that's where concessions are being asked for. But these are budgetary controls. And you're talking about paper sovereignty. These are powers that are fundamental to the definition of a state, no?</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Yeah, but first of all, Ireland has never had it so good as it did since it joined the European Union. And it was that EU membership that really - and I would say this to Collin - which secured Ireland's independence and its pride. And suddenly it was richer than Britain, or appeared to be richer than Britain and, you know, looked Britain in the face as an equal and so on. So that it's a classic example of where you do get more effective sovereignty.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Now, where you're right is now it's in a very, very hard place. And the truth is that for Germany, a collapse of the eurozone would be an absolute disaster because they're the great exporters, and they're - you know, if you went back to the Deutsche mark, its value would go through the roof, and it would be very difficult to continue to export so much.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: For Ireland, the calculus is actually more difficult because if you don't have the possibility of devaluing your own currency, and you're not getting the kind of transfers that a state inside the U.S. gets from the federal budget if it's doing badly, you're in a very tough place.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: So the quid pro quo is, okay, you've got this really tough, if you like, German-style budget discipline, but in return, you get major transfers from the richer, from the better-off members of the eurozone. And that would be the deal that I think Ireland should take.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Collin, thanks very much for the call. And Tim Garton Ash, we've got to let you go in a few minutes, but I wanted to ask you: You pointed out in a recent piece that, well, obviously these changes to the European charter, even if they're agreed to, will take months at best, much more likely years to be approved by each individual parliament.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's a long process, and there are many other obstacles coming up in the very near future.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Notably the fact that a number of the weaker eurozone countries have to go to the bond markets to borrow many billions of euros for their government borrowing. And there is still the possibility that the bond markets will say, for example to Italy early next year, no, sorry, we're just not going to buy, it's not secure enough.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: And so there's a huge problem of the difference between the time scale, the pace of the bond markets, which are measured in nanoseconds, instant reactions, vast swings, and the pace of the politics of the European Union, which as you say if you have to change a treaty is a matter of months and years. And it's that gap between the speed of bond markets and the speed of European politics which could still bring the euro down, I'm afraid.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that lack of agility, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, that is something that is going to make it difficult for any German leader to position him- or herself in this case to take advantage or to try to position him- or herself to take that decisive measure and yet face those short-term problems that are going to demand quicker action.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: What we're seeing is the attempt of a two-speed solution to the crises. There have got to be crises resolution measures in any of these European summits that are now perpetually - in Brussels, the next one today and tomorrow - and the long-term fixes.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: And treaty change, certainly, is such a long-term fix, which completes the idea of a currency union and adds the fiscal component with it that was missing, and indeed that will be - it'll take a long time in a process that is fraught with political risk to ratify it.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: On the other hand, the markets that are the drivers and the short-term actors in this game will need something to satisfy them, to show that it's actually safe to buy Southern European bonds. And there are a few of these measures being discussed right now.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: But it is - we've come to learn over these past months of this slow-moving euro crisis that the politics can never, certainly not European politics, can never in one step deliver the big solutions that the markets demand, and this weekend won't be any different.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Tim Garton Ash, in your piece in The Guardian, you wrote that just as the euro was once seen as a rival to the dollar that Europe was once seen as a big player in the balance of power between the United States and China and Russia and now not so much.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: If you talk to the Chinese, who 10 years ago loved the European Union actually as a counterbalance to George W. Bush's unilateralist United States - you know, they had this idea of a multi-polar world, and Europe would be one of the great poles - and now they're almost contemptuous of Europe, and that really is the bigger historical picture.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: As power shifts from West to East, as it shifts to the emerging powers like China, India, Brazil, where will Europe, the old continent, be in that world of giants? Will it manage to remain a giant itself, or if it fall aparts(ph), will it be a quarreling family of 27-and-more dwarves? That's what's really at stake in this crisis.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Timothy Garton Ash, thanks very much for your time today, and appreciate it.</s>TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: A real pleasure.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University, also the author of "Facts are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name." Let's go to another caller, and this is Kevin(ph), Kevin with us from Ann Arbor.</s>KEVIN: Yes, hello. I was an exchange student back in the '80s and then studied overseas in college in the '90s. And in '92, they were adopting the euro form, and so there's a lot of politics back and forth as to whether they approve. One of the T-shirts that you can buy in Germany at the time said ich bin ein euro, sort of playing on the words of JFK when he said ich bin ein Berliner. Now, I would argue that the main issue really is ultimately does Germany want to be a part of a larger spiritual Europe, and the economics simply ties into that.</s>KEVIN: So I kind of wonder really at the core what does Germany see itself as - seeing and spreading that overall thought of a unified Europe, and really, they do need to step up the leadership but, as a part of that, defer some of their autonomy to Brussels in a larger context.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, this idea of Germany and the larger spiritual Europe, this is something that's fraught with, well, emotional problems and historical problems.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: I think that's the key question that you've asked. And Germany has seen European unification as a part of a national goal because the Germans understood that German unification could only be achieved in unifying Europe. However, in 1990, when unification was achieved, that connection with the overall European aspiration was gone. So the rationale and the link between a national narrative and a European narrative has grown weaker over time.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: And with the generational shift, the idea that Europe is a question of war and peace is also not resonating with the younger generation because they take for granted visa-free, border-free travel and that there would be never be a war again in Europe. I wouldn't be so sure. If we see a succession of defaults, of depression, of disintegration and, finally, of decline, we're on the road back to a multi-polar Europe, as what Tim Garton Ash described, as a quarreling family, and then all bets are off.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: So it is clearly on the Germans to define for themselves what their European aspiration is and whether the idea that a unified Europe can actually play a role in this larger multi-polar construction of the world with rising powers led by the Chinese, whether they are willing to cede sovereignty to that larger European body and the idea of Europe.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Kevin, thanks very much for the call.</s>KEVIN: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about European sovereignty as European leaders meet in Brussels to shape the future of their continent. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Julie(ph) is on the line joining us from Miami.</s>JULIE: Yes. Great topic. I am an Italian citizen. I've been living in the United States for about 15 years. My comment is that a more unified Europe, a more respected Europe will be able to push through some of the very tough reforms that are so much needed in countries like Italy and Spain. I just don't see those countries being able to change from within.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, you've seen after the new prime minister in Rome, Mr. Monti, submitted a budget, people swallowing very hard as they looked at measures that some say are not even, as harsh as they are, adequate.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Some people say that Italy is the endgame of the crisis because it's the third largest economy in Europe and the third largest bond market in the world. The new prime minister, Monti, is certainly trying to do his best to restore the credibility of the country and also give markets and his fellow European leaders a sense that this country is heading into the right direction and trying to undertake the tough reforms that are necessary. And your caller, Julie's sentiment that the European Union can actually help lend a helping hand to this is probably shared in large parts of Italy because of the disappointment in their own elite that measures of discipline as well as economic reform and liberalization of the labor market particularly can be helped by pressure from Brussels especially and the European Central Bank now led by an Italian.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Julie, thanks very much for the call. Finally, I wanted to ask you how democracy plays in all of this because not only would countries be giving up much more sovereignty to the European Union central government in Brussels, a lot of those officials are unelected. They did elect their governments, their sovereign governments to make decisions for their future, and now, those governments are giving up that power.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Certainly, that's a big problem of intergovernmentalism, which is what we're seeing at the European level these days. So the democracy deficit of the European Union has been a topic for years. They've been addressing it - trying to address it in several ways. But in this crises where you need fast-crisis resolution measures, it's come to the forefront again that people want to have a say, which is why in the end, a referenda about treaty changes as well as about these far-reaching measures that are asked of certainly southern European countries and eventually northern European countries as well to put them up to a vote.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Now, that might be inconvenient, but the longer this crisis takes, people do understand what is at stake. And if politicians make the case to population and show that type of leadership, there need not be a democracy deficit and there need not be an outcome that these elites don't like in the end. So in the end, I think there is a democratic process will need to be restored, but the question is can it be done immediately in a crises situation, and we're seeing that Europe is turning to technocrats and to technocratic solutions for this interim to bridge this time.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, thank you very much for your time today. We appreciate it.</s>THOMAS KLEINE-BROCKHOFF: Thank you, sir.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States and former Washington bureau chief for Die Zeit, the German newspaper, joined us on the phone from New Jersey.

The U.S. Postal Service has announced it will move forward with plans to close some 250 processing centers and lay off workers. The cuts may help save $3 billion a year by 2015, and could add a day to the delivery time of many shipments. The USPS is also reviewing post offices for possible closures. Ian Lee, professor, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University Elisabeth Rosenthal, reporter and blogger, New York Times Bill Snodgrass, pharmacist in North Platte, Nebraska

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Yesterday, the United States Postal Service announced plans to close about 250 processing centers, lay off about 28,000 workers and accept slower first class service as a consequence. As many as 2,000 post offices could close, and Saturday delivery could be on the block, as well.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All those cuts could reduce losses, maybe even put the USPS in the black, but when your mailbox is stuffed with direct mail ads, some raise what was once unthinkable: Has the post office outlived its usefulness?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Our phone number, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Later in the program, a federal appeals court approves compensation for bone marrow donors. But first, post offices.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ian Lee joins us from the CBC studios in Ottawa. He's a professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton and an historian of both the U.S. and Canadian postal services. Nice to have you with us today.</s>IAN LEE: Good afternoon, Neal, it's a pleasure to be on NPR.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And when postal workers in Canada went on strike in 1990, there was outcry, pressure on the government to make changes, which they did. When postal workers went on strike this past summer, I gather the response was quite different.</s>IAN LEE: It was, and to even - to further unpack the story, years ago in the '70s, I was in the bank, a major Canadian bank, lending money to small, midsize businesses. And I lived through several postal strikes, and I saw the devastating impact at that time because the cash flows of the businesses would just come to a halt, a complete halt.</s>IAN LEE: This past strike, this last strike in June of 2011 was completely different. There was great indifference across the country towards the postal strike, and many people didn't even notice it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Didn't even notice it?</s>IAN LEE: Well, in past strikes - and there's been, I should point out there's been quite a few postal strikes. Between 1965 and 1997 in Canada, there were 19 strikes and/or walkouts. Seven of them were legislated back to work by the parliament of Canada. So we have a lot of experience with postal strikes.</s>IAN LEE: And in past postal strikes, in the '70s, '80s and '90s, there was an immediate demand from the business community and citizens to get them back to work because of course it was so devastating. People couldn't get their pension checks, their unemployment insurance checks, their old-age pension checks, and businesses couldn't receive - obtain their cash flows.</s>IAN LEE: You know, they would mail out their invoices, and they couldn't get the payments back, which was devastating. This time, there was not that hue and cry from people across the country to the politicians, to the government, saying you must do something now because people were no longer dependent on it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There are differences between the Canadian system and the American system, but one similarity between the two countries is large, rural areas with people who are a long way away from the nearest post office or postal sorting service. What was the reaction like in places like that?</s>IAN LEE: You raise a very good point. In fact, that is the - I think the major sticking point that probably prevents governments from privatizing the post office or really cutting it back more because the rural communities - where in Canada and I'm sure the same in the States there's a disproportionate number of elderly people - who grew up in a different era and have a visceral attachment, an emotional attachment to the post office.</s>IAN LEE: And so that is where the greatest resistance lies to any attempt to scale back postal services because - partly because, as I said, this visceral attachment and partly because the high-speed Internet hasn't completely rolled out and penetrated in all rural parts of the country, and so that they're not as easily able to switch to electronic communications.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ian Lee's account of the Canadian postal strike was cited in a recent story in the New York Times with the headline "The Junking of the Postal Service." Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote that piece. She raises the question of whether the postal service has outlived its utility.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A few weeks ago, she reached into her mailbox in the lobby of her building in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, pulled out two credit card offers, an ad for a sale on running shoes, pizza coupons, among a lot of other junk mail, and joins us now from a studio at the New York Times, where she's a reporter and blogger. Nice to have you with us today.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Hi, nice to be here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And again, Canada and the United States are different, but the trend is unmistakable. In this country, it is almost all direct advertising.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Oh, that's right, and one of the reasons I decided to write this article for our Sunday Review is, as I mentioned, in the lobby of my building, there was a petition recently that said: Save Saturday delivery. And I was somewhat surprised at the emotional outpouring of support, you know, signatures just pouring onto this paper.</s>And I thought: Well, are people thinking about the utility of Saturday delivery to their lives? And so two days later, I tried to collect what was in my mailbox, and it certainly wasn't anything I couldn't have waited until Monday for, and frankly, most if it I could have waited forever and been happy not to have.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And indeed there are any number of places around the country, you're saying this is a terrible waste of paper. We should find ways to ban this.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Right. I mean, I cover the environment. That's my usual beat. And I know that cities everywhere in the United States are struggling to get more things recycled, get paper out of the landfill, and this is an enormous burden on cities and on taxpayers because much of this mail is never even looked at.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Not even looked at.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Yup.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as you look at what is - the trend is unmistakable. I mean, people do request that their - I guess their credit card bills, most of us, show up on paper. We tend to pay them, though, electronically.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Right. I think there's a bit of a lag there. Many people now will pay electronically. The post office says, and research shows, that they still mostly want to see the paper statement, although frankly I've gone over to pretty much all electronic.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: And I should mention in terms of what came to my mailbox that Saturday. I have in the last year used a service that's mentioned in the article called Catalog Choice, where you can opt out of catalogs that you don't want. So the amount of direct mail that was in my mailbox that Saturday was vastly less than it would have been a year ago.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, without the L.L. Bean and the Harry and David and the Macy's and Bloomingdale's...</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: I get almost no catalogs now.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. Let's see if we can get some listeners involved in the conversation, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Has the postal service outlived its usefulness? We'll begin with Mark(ph), Mark calling us from St. Louis.</s>MARK: Yes, thank you for giving me the opportunity. I don't think the postal service has outlived its usefulness, and in regard to the comments about direct mailing, I certainly understand some people's aspect of looking out for the environment and saying, well, I don't really want that.</s>MARK: However, American business clearly utilizes direct mail, and in this economic climate, they don't throw money away. So it must have a payback for American business to advertise through the mail.</s>MARK: I would hate to see that thrown in the dumpster as we're trying to - so to speak - as we're trying to see some economic rebound, that that direct advertising goes by the wayside. And with regard to e-bill pay and those sort of things, there are still a great number of people who either choose not to avail themselves of electronic finance but don't have access to it, not to mention the rural constituent.</s>MARK: But to criticize direct mailing as being this great pariah I think is somewhat misplaced because, again, American business obviously finds a useful component with direct mail economically.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Elisabeth Rosenthal, in addition to that argument - and he's right, they don't send this stuff out if it doesn't work - there are other economic arguments, including, what, half-a-million employees in the United States Postal Service.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Yes, I think, you know, the extreme is to say do we need a postal service at all. The reality is that we need to think what kind of postal service do we need? And I think the business argument - I mean, to me, I wanted to raise two questions. One is, do we need mail every day, when, for example, recycling gets picked up in my building once a week? Maybe the proportions should be different.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Also, yes, direct mail is clearly invaluable for businesses, but is that something, then, that should be a government service, or should it be privatized the way it has been in Europe? Certainly when mail services, national mail services have been privatized in Europe, direct mail still continues to be delivered, and it even expands. But that's not considered a government function anymore.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Countries in Europe, for the most part, don't have Alaska to worry about. But Ian Lee, the - I wonder, how is this debate going on in Canada? And is there Saturday delivery in Canada, for example?</s>IAN LEE: Well, to deal with the last question first. We eliminated Saturday delivery. Oh, it must have been 15, 20 years ago. But we've been cutting - in addition to that, we've been cutting back or pulling back on service. All new homes since 1985 no longer receive mail to the door. There are green boxes set up in every suburb at the end of each street, and they basically have an external, outside post box with addresses, and you have a key, and so it's - they've done this to try to, you know, to save money by eliminating door-to-door in all new housing projects that have been built from that point forward.</s>IAN LEE: But if I can just turn to the - your other question, because we have been having a very similar debate on the, you know, the ad mail. The volumes are plummeting on first class mail because people are switching to electronic banking and to electronic payment deposit.</s>I obtained a figure from the government of Canada: 91 percent of all pension checks are deposited electronically. Well, 98.5 percent of all payments to the clearing system are now digitally cleared, that is to say not using a piece of paper. And on the flyer side, the newspapers, of course, are competing - the post office is competing with the newspapers to deliver those flyers. And then another substitute is coming along called electronic coupons.</s>I obtained a figure from the government of Canada: Companies like Home Depot are now offering the possibility of obtaining your flyer electronically by providing your email address. So there are alternatives to the post office that are emerging.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There's an email here from Doris in Oklahoma, and she writes: In the debate about the future of the USPS, I've heard many complain about the proliferation of junk mail. We should consider many households may use circulars from the grocery and discount stores to help plan increasingly tight budgets.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And yes, there are some coupons available electronically. There's also, of course, sites like Groupon. But again, some people don't have access to those materials.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're discussing has the postal service outlived its usefulness or perhaps what kind of postal service do we need. Does it need to be a federal service? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. In 2006, nearly 100 million pieces of first class mail passed through the post office. That number dropped to 78 million this year and should be cut in half by 2020. That's a lot of money being lost to email and online bill payment.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Last year, the United States Postal Service lost more than $5 billion. It's projected to lose a record $14 billion next year. In response, the postal service continues to look at cuts in jobs and services, which raises a question: Has the post office outlived its usefulness?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Our guests, New York Times' Elisabeth Rosenthal, she wrote a recent piece headlined "The Junking of the Postal Service;" also Ian Lee, a professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa. He's studied the postal services in both the United States and in Canada. Let's go next to Ben(ph), and Ben's with us from Barilla in Ohio.</s>BEN: Yeah, hi. Yeah, I think instead of scrapping the post office, it does a lot of things, and in fact I think it should be given more responsibilities than it already has.</s>BEN: I spent a year in Germany, and if you want a bank account with the National Bank of Germany, you open an account, you do all your banking at the post office. You also go there if you want telephone service or, you know, since the Internet, you want Internet service, you get that at the post office, too.</s>BEN: You know, and in light of all the problems we've been having with these private banks worldwide, all the failures there, I think it would be good just to have, you know, a reasonable, not, you know, give-me-all-the-cash-you-can kind of banking system, but, you know, normal banks like we used to have.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, has the banking system outlived its usefulness is another program entirely, Ben, but...</s>BEN: Well, sure, but what I'm saying is that there's a lot more that the post office can do. You already have an office in, you know, every town and city and burg in the country. I mean, it's a great resource; we ought to utilize it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Elisabeth Rosenthal, it's - USPS is, well, it's got a charter. It's covered by Congress, too.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Right, and I think some people would say that that charter is too limited in just in the way that our caller has mentioned. When you look at the German postal service, they very long ago decided to - saw that mail volume was decreasing and decided to see what else they could do. And they got into a whole array of other services, such as banking, they sell phone cards, they have, you know, Internet exchanges for labor, different kinds of work. You can do an awful lot in the German post office.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: They actually own DHL. So when I get a package from DHL here in New York, I'm doing business with the German post office. And they've been very, very creative in doing things like that. Someone from the German post office told me that, well, we have someone on every block in Germany every day, almost in every home.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Why don't we do things like delivering meals to the homebound elderly? I mean, the postal service could do a lot of things, but its charter at the moment prevents it from doing so.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ben, thanks very much for the call. And Ian Lee, we need to go back in time a little bit to remember that at one period, and indeed for many, many years, the postal service was considered, well, one of the essential functions of government.</s>IAN LEE: Indeed. The - when I did my research, I was interested not so much in the history as in the policy: Why was the government the owner of the post office from the very beginning? So I went back to the origins of the Canadian, and that didn't really provide the answers. So I went back to the origins of the U.S. Postal Service, and then that drove me back to the origins of the Royal Mail in England.</s>IAN LEE: And I found that it was at the very beginning, the monopoly was passed by the king, and this was in the 1500s, to ensure private communications through private means could not occur. In other words, you had to put your postings in the Royal Mail so that they could ferret out or discover seditious or treasonous activity.</s>IAN LEE: And then once that threat to the king had gone away, the emerging government, meaning the emerging democracy, quickly realized that the post office was an absolutely vital way of communicating with citizens, and it became far more critical in the United States and Canada because the distances of these two countries are so vast.</s>IAN LEE: And so it became - you know, in the early records of looking at Hansard for the early Canadian parliament and looking at the early records in the Congress, I found that they were spending most of their time debating the post office. It was a really, really important organization.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Jennifer(ph), Jennifer with us from Amagansett in New York.</s>JENNIFER: Hi, thank you so much for taking my call.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Go ahead, please.</s>JENNIFER: Sure. I'm actually sitting outside of my local post office. I live on Eastern Long Island, and there is no mail service directly to any of our houses in our village. So we get a free post office box from the post office, which we - I was just explaining, we basically, it's just used for junk mail. I come two or three times a week, and I clean out all the catalogs and the junk and the credit card offers and the political flyers.</s>JENNIFER: I rarely get any actual mail. And it's a big inconvenience for people like me because every time I order from a catalog, it can't go to my post office, it has to come to my home. So it's a completely useless institution out here, I feel.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Useless and wouldn't make a lot of difference if that was the USPS or the Ben Jones Private Mail Service?</s>JENNIFER: Yeah, it wouldn't really make a difference. I only - I literally only come to clean out my mailbox once or twice a week because it just gets overstuffed with junk.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Interesting, Jennifer, thanks very much for the call. Good luck.</s>JENNIFER: You're welcome.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Joining us now is Bill Snodgrass. He's with us from North Platte in Nebraska, where he's a pharmacist and the owner of a USave Pharmacy. Nice to have you with us today.</s>BILL SNODGRASS: Nice to be with you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I wonder: How important is the postal service next-day delivery, which was one of the things that may be sacrificed in this latest announced plan of cutbacks?</s>BILL SNODGRASS: Well, in our particular area, it's really important. We mail probably 100, 200 prescriptions a day up to rural areas from the city of North Platte. And most of those are mailed to people that are 60, 65 years and up that live in small, rural communities. It may be as far as 60, 70, 80 miles away from here that it's really hard for them to drive.</s>BILL SNODGRASS: And they rely on the mail for a lot of their services, one of which is their prescription delivery, so, you know, their heart medications, their diabetic supplies. We mail most of that to them, and if we mail it today, in most cases they have it tomorrow. If not, they always have it within two days.</s>BILL SNODGRASS: And with - they're closing the distribution center in North Platte, and when they do that, we'll probably go three to five days, maybe longer. And that could put a real hardship on those people, you know, receiving their medications on time.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I wonder also how are your customers reacting to the prospect.</s>BILL SNODGRASS: Well, you know, as usual, they have - the problem really isn't there yet because the distribution isn't closed, and I think the awareness of it is a little bit on the lacking side. So we really haven't hardly had much feedback. It won't be until it doesn't show up is when the feedback will occur.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, have you considered the idea of switching from the USPS to FedEx or United Parcel Service or one of those other delivery companies?</s>BILL SNODGRASS: That's what we're going to have to do. Currently, we mail out free. And our average package size, the postage on it runs about $1.68. And if we go to FedEx Second Day Ground or UPS Ground, it raises it to the $4, $4.50 level.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So that's a considerable addition on to everybody's prescription.</s>BILL SNODGRASS: Right, exactly. You're adding, you know, $300, $400 a day.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's quite a change. This - you've seen this prospect creep up and service slow down and change over the years. Can you characterize the difference?</s>BILL SNODGRASS: Well, up to this point, we really have had no difference. The service level out here is just really very high. Like I was saying, we do have a distribution center here, and if we mail that up into the most rural part of the state, if we drop it in the mail this afternoon, it's there tomorrow. I mean, you can't get much better than that.</s>BILL SNODGRASS: And the - we've had just excellent service. Now with the closing of the distribution centers, and there's about four of them, I think, in the state that are going to be closed, they're going to move our distribution to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and that's where we're going to run into the multiple-day problem. You know, they've got to truck it there 300 to 400 miles, and then it's sorted and then re-distributed out of there.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There's more than a few times during the winter that can be a...</s>BILL SNODGRASS: That's going to be a problem. And so, you know, it's kind of a unique situation, and it's such a lifeline to a lot of people in those rural areas. Now, obviously they choose to live there, and they can choose to, I guess, drive that way, but a lot of them, that trip's going to be 150-mile roundtrip.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, we wish you the best of luck, thanks very much for the call.</s>BILL SNODGRASS: Well, I appreciate it, thank you for the time. You bet, bye.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Elisabeth Rosenthal, you mentioned going down to your post box in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, that's a long way from Cheyenne or remote communities in Montana or Nebraska or Wyoming or Alaska.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Well, it sure is, and I don't think I would advocate that people in rural states, rural areas of rural states wouldn't be able to get their medicine on time. I guess what I wanted to question is whether flooding the Upper West Side of Manhattan with junk mail is a good way to finance that. Maybe we have to think, you know, outside the traditional mailbox. Maybe there's a different kind of structure that would serve the current needs of the country much, much better.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email we have from Jeremy(ph) in Cincinnati. The United States Postal Service has announced that the time to deliver periodicals will now be between two and nine days. The change could be fatal to weekly news magazines and daily newspapers. These publications rely on fast delivery in order to maintain their subscription base and keep articles relevant. The more time it takes to deliver the magazine, the earlier the deadline for printing is, so the magazine can arrive on a specific day.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Therefore the more days between printing and delivery, the fewer people will subscribe because the articles will be more dated. Would the newspapers and periodicals be able to sue to prevent these delays on grounds of hindering their right to free speech because at the moment federal law requires subscriptions be sent through the U.S. Postal Service? Is that true? Is that accurate? Do you know, Ian Lee?</s>IAN LEE: Well, if I can - I'm not sure about that part, but I wanted to really to respond to the larger issue that's involved that Elisabeth has really touched on very nicely, and it shows that the model, the business model of the U.S. Postal Service is no longer viable because 90 - and I estimate about 90 percent of citizens don't really need it that much anymore. They don't notice it. But 10 - the other 10 percent need it very, very badly, as the previous caller pointed out.</s>IAN LEE: And why the business model is flawed is that their costs are going up each year. There's more addresses, a million more addresses a year that must be served, but the volumes are declining, which - and, of course, the volumes are declining most rapidly in first-class mail, which is by far and away the most profitable. And I think it's 45 cents a letter now in the U.S. And so ad mail is only generating two or three or four cents a piece. So if you're losing every letter that the post office loses - and I mean that is no longer mailed to the post office - has to be offset by, you know, 20 or 30 pieces of ad mail. And so this business model is failing. It's declining before our eyes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Elisabeth Rosenthal, you also note that this is a business afflicted by nostalgia that many people remember that invitation that they got through the mail or that wonderful letter they got from the boyfriend or the girlfriend in summer camp.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Sure. I mean, I love the nostalgia - I love the experience of opening my mailbox and hoping there's something good and wonderful inside, but there isn't most of the time anymore. And there certainly isn't every day, so maybe we should think about no Saturday, maybe we should think about twice - I don't know what the answer is, but I'm - I do know that as the U.S. Postal Service is struggling to survive financially, the model isn't serving the people very well at the moment.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Elisabeth Rosenthal is a reporter and blogger for The New York Times. Also with us, Ian Lee, a professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa and a historian of both the U.S. and Canadian postal services. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And here's an email from Jennifer(ph) in Fort Worth. Please note the U.S. Postal Service is a private entity that does not receive taxpayer money. However, it is the only private company mandated by law to prefund health and retirement funds.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Wouldn't it make sense to let go of all the government control and let the post office run like every other business? Elisabeth Rosenthal, I think quasigovernmental agency is probably more accurate.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Well, yes. I mean, most of the European post offices have now been privatized. The irony at some level is that they look very much like the U.S. Postal Service from the user perspective. I don't think when you're getting mail in Germany or Sweden or Denmark, you think, oh, this feels really different. It's the same. So, yes, maybe that's the answer.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to - this is Gary(ph). Gary with us from Wichita.</s>GARY: Yeah. Hey, I love the show.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thank you.</s>GARY: In fact, it was on a previous show that I found out that UPS and FedEx actually use the United States Postal Service as like a last-mile delivery service. And it seems like there's a lot of that that can be utilized to add efficiency and to change the postal service and think outside the box. Say, this guy in Kearney, Nebraska, you know, maybe a way to get it to the distribution service - center would be by overnight and then let the post office send it the rest of the way.</s>GARY: But another point I've been wanting to bring up for a long time is I think they should get rid of Saturday service but do it in a way - if you take one-sixth of the postal carriers off the street and then you give everybody an option where they pay like a dime a week or whatever, and they can have their mail set aside if they have to have Saturday service, set aside at their local post office, and now, there's an extra one or two employees at the desk. And so businesses or anybody that needs medication or whatever can still get that on Saturday, but you can take a lot of feet off the ground by doing that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Get a lot of feet off the ground, well, again, Elisabeth Rosenthal, there's an awful lot of feet to get off the ground. This is a major employer.</s>ELISABETH ROSENTHAL: Yes. And I think that's certainly a huge issue particularly in the time of recession. You know, what should we do with all the people who work for the post office as - if we want to downsize it? But then, again, we could go back to the caller who lived in Germany, there's certainly incredible room if the post office charter is changed for thinking of new and different things the post office can do. I mean, it's an incredible institution. At one level, it gets mail delivered across the country overnight. It is there on every block in the United States every day. So maybe we can think of other things it could do.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much for the call, Gary.</s>GARY: I have a great idea if you want - that you came up - when you talked about another idea. Why aren't they out there reading the gas and the water meters?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Because they don't work for the gas and the water companies but...</s>GARY: No...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...if they could, I understand what you're saying, is you could - here's an email we have from Susie(ph). As a registered nurse, I've noticed the absence of the argument of having someone regularly stop by the homes of the elderly, the ill and the otherwise disenfranchised, many of whom are on short on resources and support, provides a significant public health benefit. The postal carrier provides a pair of eyes that can notice when someone has failed to collect their mail for a few days or when something just doesn't seem quite right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I realize this is not the explicit role of the postal service, but for some reason, for some people, the postal carrier is the only person who regularly comes by. So he or she is particularly positioned to notice changes that may indicate problems given the environment of cuts to social programs and struggling health care systems. The postal service seems a relatively cost-efficient way to provide a check for the medically vulnerable among us. Yet, another aspect of the postal service that we sometimes overlook.</s>IAN LEE: Neal, can I jump in on this?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you're very quick, please.</s>IAN LEE: I'll be very quick. We went through a very similar debate in the mid-'80s, and the post office realized they couldn't carry their costs on their base. So they said we have to diversify our services, offer catalogs, maybe charge to elderly shut-ins. And what happened was conservative party MPs protested because they said this was subsidized competition. Government assets were being used to compete unfairly against small businesses in the private sector.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're going to have to leave there. Ian Lee and Elisabeth Rosenthal, thank you. This is NPR News.

Facebook has developed new privacy features and agreed to 20 years of independent audits of its privacy practices. Google and Twitter previously settled similar cases with the Federal Trade Commission. Farhad Manjoo argues that Facebook, or any social network, can never be truly private.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: When you post those party photos to Facebook or tweet that snarky comment, do you ever think about all the places that information could go? Well, that's what privacy settings are for, right? Facebook recently agreed to make changes after the Federal Trade Commission charged the social network with deception for repeatedly allowing users' information to be shared publicly and with advertisers and developers. In similar circumstances, Twitter and Google made changes of their own. But technology columnist Farhad Manjoo argues that the very idea of making Facebook a more private place borders on the oxymoronic, that privacy and social media will never fit hand in hand, and to some degree, that's our own fault.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: When did you realize there's no such thing as privacy in social media? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email: talk@.npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Farhad Manjoo joins us now from a studio in Palo Alto, and nice to have you back.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Hi. Good to be here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you argue Facebook users - you and me and four billion others - basically share the blame. We complain about the privacy programs, and very, very few of us actually go through with our threats to get off the service.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Oh, yeah. I mean, every year, for the past two, three years at least, you know, there's this huge privacy dustup over Facebook. They release some new feature that, you know, people justifiably get upset about, and then many people threatened to leave if Facebook doesn't shape up. Mark Zuckerberg issues an apology on the site, changes a few things but doesn't really retreat in any way. And then we all just kind of go back to using Facebook again.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: And, you know, the site's growth sort of bears this out. I mean, no - none of these privacy dustups has ever kind of led to fewer people joining. They're - you know, they keep growing. More and more people just keep joining Facebook. And so, you know, I think in some - it's not untrue to say that some people talk about privacy, but they may not really care that much about it - enough, at least, to kind of do anything about it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A lot of people, though, will just send those party pictures to the people who were at that party and say, this is not intended for the entire list of friends.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah. I mean, I think a number of people do that, but more and more we're seeing, you know, that the way people share photos - photos, especially - I mean the - kind of the biggest application on Facebook is photo-sharing - is that, you know, they regard Facebook as the place to do it rather than email. It's a way to kind of get it to all of their friends more easily. It won't get caught in spam folders, and then, you know, it's kind of out there. It's for, you know, all their friends to see whenever they want to.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, in essence, you argue that it's a social network. It's built to facilitate the exchange of things. Why should we be surprised when things get exchanged?</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah. I mean, I don't want to seem to defend Facebook's pretty lax attitude to privacy so far. I mean, I think they've made a number of changes now that are progressive, and this agreement they made with the FTC I think is a good step forward. And there are now tools on Facebook that are pretty good, pretty good way to protect your stuff on the site.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: But there are - you know, those tools aren't foolproof. The site is still complicated. It's still difficult to figure out how - where your stuff is going, who's allowed to see it. And because of that, I think, people should regard the site as not especially private, like you - if you want to post a photo there that you want, you know, only your close friends to see it, but if anyone else saw it, it would ruin you, don't post it on Facebook because the chances that someone else will see it are pretty good.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: So I think that the way to approach Facebook and all other sites on the Web, actually, is to think of them as a public forum, as a place where if you post something, potentially everyone you know and everyone beyond everyone you know will be able to see it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it's one thing to do the head smack after you realize that the college admissions officer or the hiring official at the firm is going to go back and look at those party photographs on your Facebook site. It's another, though, if Facebook is somehow providing those to advertisers.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah. So part of the FTC - one of the things the FTC charged Facebook with was providing some information and some personally identifiable information to advertisers. Facebook says that their actions there were a mistake. It was a bug, and they fixed that even before the FTC settlement that they just announced. What they do is, you know, they don't - the kind of normal practice for them is they don't share the information about you with an advertiser, but they will, kind of, offer advertisers ways to target ads to you.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: So, you know, an advertiser will say, I want to reach everyone between these ages who likes this kind of music. And then, you know, if you fit into that demographic, you'll see that ad.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're with Farhad Manjoo, technology columnist for slate.com, talking, yet again, about privacy and the World Wide Web in various aspects. 800-989-8255. When did you realize that Facebook or other social media sites were pretty darn public? 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. Henry is on the line calling from Denver.</s>HENRY: Hi. I've always read that, you know, odd and kind of obscure things on the Internet. And it really hit home for me that the things that people post on any kind of a social network are probably not private and are probably going to be seen by everyone when I read the - a logged copy of what's allegedly the conversation in the early '80s, where people invented the emoticon. And this was something that had happened on a public bulletin board system, but it was allegedly also a very transient conversation.</s>HENRY: So even though it was public, there wasn't the, you know, three months later, a persistent record where people could go read it for better or worse. And yet this was in the early to mid 2000s that I was reading this. And I realized, even when things are supposed to be private, are not. And so something that, by definition, social, like Facebook, that's going to be even less private, and it's treated accordingly. If you wouldn't put it on a bulletin board at a coffee shop, you might need to think twice about putting it on Facebook.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Even if your enthusiasm - you'd think, oh, this is just ephemeral. Nobody's going to ever keep a copy of this.</s>HENRY: Exactly. And yet somebody probably will.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Farhad, everybody keeps a copy of everything, don't they?</s>FARHAD MANJOO: I mean, that's the other problem. It's very difficult...</s>HENRY: Actually, now the storage is cheap.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. Storage is cheap, the cloud.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah. It's difficult to erase something on the Internet, you know? So soon Facebook will unveil this tool, this new profile tool called Timeline, which is really well designed, and it's kind of a good way to curate your own profile. And as part of this, they say they're going to have a way for you to delete anything you've ever posted on Facebook. So even if it's something you've posted, you know, four years ago, you're looking through your Timeline and you discover that, you know, you don't want it up there anymore. It'll be easier for you to take that photo, offending photo, or blog post or whatever down.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: But, you know, one of your friends could have copied that photo and put it on his Facebook page or put it on his own personal blog. Or it could, you know, been indexed by a search engine. It - anything you post on the Internet might be copied by any number of people and be sort of everywhere else. So that's the other thing. If you post something, taking it down is very difficult.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Henry, thanks very much for the call.</s>HENRY: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we could go next to - this is Steven(ph). Steven with us from Detroit.</s>STEVEN: Hi. How are you?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good. Thanks.</s>STEVEN: Just sort of on that same vein. I graduated from Michigan State University in '09, and I've had a number of friends who were rejected from jobs or fired from jobs because of things that were private on their Facebook pages or MySpace pages that they never intended to be public. So some things that you intend to be public or private might not necessarily be that way.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The laugh-a-minute picture of you with the lampshade on your head at that raucous party?</s>STEVEN: Something like that, yeah.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Something like that. I think we probably need to go no further.</s>STEVEN: Yeah.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And these stories, Farhad, are legion.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Oh, yeah. This...</s>STEVEN: Absolutely. I heard of a story of a teacher who got fired for a private picture of her drinking on her Facebook page that was not made public.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah. I think there have been a number of teachers in that situation. And, you know, you can see why. I think that, you know, a number - everyone does - we all do things in private that, you know, are private for a reason, and we don't want the whole world to know. And if the whole world to know - does know, you know, they might frown upon us doing that thing even if other people do it.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: I wonder if, you know, one of the things I think about with Facebook getting so, you know, central to our culture is I wonder if people's attitudes, especially employer's attitudes, will change over time if, you know, if every one of their job applicants has some morally questionable photos on their Facebook pages. Maybe it won't be so shocking anymore. You know, maybe at some point, you know, even every Supreme Court nominee will have something to hide on their Facebook page. And so, you know, it won't be such a big deal anymore. But we haven't reached that point yet, so you should still be careful.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There's another way to turn that argument, though, just as some NFL players who failed drug tests coming back from the lockout, people who knew the drug tests were coming. People said, look, that wasn't really a drug test. That was a stupidity test, and you flunked. And so maybe...</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah, it's true.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...if you're job has a morals clause in it, posting those kinds of pictures anywhere, it's not - that's an intelligence test.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Right. The only problem with that is, you know, we all do things when we're 12, 13, 15, 17, you know, we might not want to hunt us when we're 40.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Steven, thanks very much for the call.</s>STEVEN: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with slate.com technology columnist Farhad Manjoo. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And this tweet from JamieMcQ15(ph). This, of course, an answer to the question, when did you realize the privacy on the social networks was not really very private? That'd be when my aunt in another state downloaded and printed our pics to send us to - send us for Christmas. Surprise.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And this - from Carol. Fellow Facebook users, we are not the customers. We are the product. Get real. Get over it. Is that an accurate way to think of it? Like the television networks delivering eyeballs to advertisers, are users on Facebook the product?</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Oh, certainly. I mean, that's the whole business model. You know, I don't think that the people at Facebook think of it that way, and I think, you know, they're genuinely trying to build a site that appeals to people, but the kind of end goal of appealing to people is to get advertisers to come to the site, and, you know, they're doing very well with that. I mean, Facebook is a free service, and people don't have to use it. I think that's sort of, you know, something to keep in mind. If you really want to stay private, just don't put stuff on there or don't use it at all. But, you know, it's a perfectly fine place to put up stuff that, you know, you aren't - you wouldn't mind everyone else seeing.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next Angela, Angela with us from Kansas City.</s>ANGELA: Hi. In regards to that question, I realize that Facebook was not private when this summer - I'm a teacher, and I was taking a graduate class this summer on social media. And my professor told us that - and I had no idea - that if we have ever logged into Facebook from a school computer or if we, you know, use our school email as our Facebook email account, then we, I guess, lose rights to it.</s>ANGELA: Basically, like, if human services was to ever call me in and, you know, have a question of something I posted on Facebook or a picture of me on Facebook, because I have - I've logged in using a school computer, they have access to my account. Like I would have to give them my password or face - I don't know if - what I would face, but I would not be in a good standing with them, I think. And there have been teachers I've known who have - that has happened to, not in my district, but in other district. It's - wow. It's scary.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's a very small portal. And, Farhad, I know that if you have a company email account and anything you write on that, the company can look at it. It's their property. But this small portal, if you ever logged on to Facebook through a school computer, they have access to everything you ever did on Facebook? Is...</s>ANGELA: That's - my professor told me, and I'm assuming it's true. I don't know. Maybe he knows.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Have you heard that, Farhad?</s>FARHAD MANJOO: You know, I have heard not specifically that, but I have heard of companies trying to essentially police their employees' Facebook use. And, you know, this is an interesting question because Facebook sort of straddles this line between, you know, it's a service for individuals, but it's individuals who have a public persona. And so they, you know, if I work for a company and I don't have a very reputable Facebook page, I reflect poorly on that company.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: And so, you know, I think that a number of businesses are trying to sort of get a good balance here between allowing their employees, you know, to use these services but to not let them kind of hurt the business' reputation, or in the case of a school district, you know, to cause harm to come to the students or just the reputation of the district.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Angela, click carefully, I think, is the answer. Thanks very much for the call. This email from Marcella in Houston: I realize the things on Facebook weren't private when my teen daughter had a picture pulled and copied from Facebook, and the person altered the picture and posted it for other students at the school to see. So many negative comments were placed to make fun of her weight on the altered picture, which placed her next to a hippopotamus, and the students would vote on who was heavier. This set her off onto a three-day crying spell and continued sadness. So it's not just professional consequences that can be caused by having pictures taken off your Facebook account.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah. I mean, I think this is one of the main problems that Facebook is trying to deal with is that the way kids use it and especially the way it sort of interferes with very already rough social dynamics of being in high school. You know, Facebook is not - has kind of exacerbated all the worst parts of high school and, you know, for many people.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Farhad Manjoo, nice to have you back.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Yeah, good. Thanks. Nice to be here.</s>FARHAD MANJOO: Farhad Manjoo, technology columnist for slate.com. He joined us from a studio in Palo Alto. You can find a link to his piece, "It's Not All Facebook's Fault," on our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Tomorrow, how to stop hazing in college marching bands, plus reading the tea leaves in Egypt's elections. Join us for that. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

A federal appeals court ruled that most bone marrow donors can be paid. The decision has sparked debate among advocates who believe compensation will create incentives for people to donate bone marrow, and the Justice Department, which argues compensation may compromise patient safety. Carol Williams, Los Angeles Times legal affairs reporter

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Last week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled it should be legal for many bone marrow donors to receive compensation. Up till now, bone marrows been treated like an organ, and getting paid for a kidney, say, is illegal under the 1984 National Organ Transplant Act. But because of a new less invasive procedure, the court ruled donating bone marrow is now more like giving blood plasma. The Justice Department opposed that argument and may appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We'd like to hear from you. Is this the start of a slippery slope? 800-989-8255. Email, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Carol Williams is legal affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times and joins us now from her office. Nice to have you today.</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Hi, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what exactly did the court do in this ruling?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Essentially, the court redefined the bone marrow stem cells that are extracted from a donor's bloodstream as blood parts instead of organ parts. So this takes it out from under the ban on sale of organs that the 1984 act of Congress instituted.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We think of bone marrow donors as - it's a terrible operation with ugly needles that go in through the bone to the marrow. This is a much different procedure.</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Yes. It used to be very painful and risky because the donor had to go under anesthesia in a surgical setting, and there was residual pain even after the anesthesia wore off because essentially the surgeons inserted a very large needle into the hip through the bone into the marrow and siphoned out the marrow cells directly from the bone. Now, the new procedure that's been developed over the last 20 years allows the donor to take some medication that stimulates the ejection of bone marrow stem cells from the marrow into the bloodstream. And then, the doctor or, you know, the clinic that is harvesting the marrow cells can just filter blood taken through an IV, like you would, you know, if you were getting some medication in a hospital.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Now, a lot of us donate blood, drives at the office or various other places, but some of us also sell blood, so this would be treated like that?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Exactly.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And...</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Donation of bone marrow stem cells takes a little longer than a typical blood donation extraction, but it's pretty much the same discomfort level or, you know, lack thereof, in this case.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So the big problem, as I understand it, with bone marrow donation is that there are relatively few donors. There's a very small universe of people willing to undergo the procedure.</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Well, the real problem is that there are many more types of bone marrow than, say, blood. You know, there's only four types of blood, so it's not too difficult to find somebody who can make a donation that's suitable for somebody who needs a blood transfusion. With bone marrow, there are millions of different types, and it's particularly difficult to find a suitable match for people who have mixed race, you know, heritage because the properties that affect their genetic composition become much more diverse and complicated. And it's particularly difficult attempt to find suitable donors for people of mixed-race heritage when they need a transplant.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And bone marrow transplants are needed for people who are undergoing cancer treatments.</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Right. In leukemia victims and people who have genetic disorders. The lead plaintiff in the case that went before the 9th Circuit is a mother with three daughters who are going to need bone marrow transplants after their treatment for a rare genetic disorder, and she's thrilled that now there will be a much higher likelihood that suitable donors can be found when her daughters need this.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Suitable donors, how much might one be paid for a donation according to the court?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: There's a pilot project that's being promoted by a California nonprofit that would provide $3,000 scholarships or housing payments. It's a sum they have decided is enough inducement to get somebody to make the donation to a stranger. But not so much that it would foster the development of a black market.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And so somebody would go in and make a donation not knowing to whom it would go. It would go to some central clearing facility of some sort?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Exactly. The donors and the recipients would not know about each other. So that's another, you know, hedge against any kind of, you know, extortion or, you know, black market pressures coming to bear on the operation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It also that if you donate a pint of blood and you - I assumed if you sell a pint of blood, you get cash on the barrelhead. If you donate bone marrow, I assume it would take some time before your marrow is matched up with a recipient.</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Well, I think the monetary awards would only go to people who have been identified as appropriate donors for somebody who's in need of a transplant. There's testing they can do short of actually extracting the marrow that will tell the doctors whether this particular donor is the right one. And they're not going to give $3,000 grants to everybody who says they're willing to be tested and see if there's anybody who needs their particular type of bone marrow.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And the government opposed this. How come? What was their argument?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Well, I think their concern is that redefining types of - parts of organs could be a slippery slope to, you know, allowing people to donate livers or kidneys or, you know, parts of their organs that can, you know, regenerate themselves. The definition that the - claimed Congress institutionally put on the bone marrow cells is organ hearts and that, you know, we shouldn't be trying to alter the intent of Congress in having an activist stand.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There is a very elaborate and carefully set up system across the country to make sure that organs are provided to those on a waiting list on the basis of need. And this is a constant source - people die from lack of kidney transplants all the time, and other organs as well. Is there some concern that this could impinge on that system?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: No. The proponents of this pilot project insist that it wouldn't change the priorities that are assigned to people who are looking for transplants. It would simply increase the donor base and allow for the saving of many more lives every year. They point out in an appeal they made to the Department of Justice today, asking that they not appeal the 9th Circuit's ruling that 6,000 people have died from lack of, you know, of suitable donation of bone marrow in the two years since they've filed their lawsuit.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we get some callers on the conversation. 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. And we'll start with Matt, and Matt's with us from Lee in Indiana.</s>MATT: Yes. That's Leo, Indiana.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I saw it. Goodness. My eyesight. I apologize.</s>MATT: That's quite all right. I became a Be The Match donor three years ago, before the - or before I was at least aware of the new process, when I was assuming that if I became a match, it would be painful. I'm pretty passionate about it. In fact, it is all I've asked for from family and friends for the last two years for Christmas is that they also sign up. And knowing now how much easier and less painful and less intrusive it is, it is, again, my single wish list for my Christmas stocking.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, that's great. But how does that - how does the prospect of getting $3,000 credit of some sort - how does that suit with you?</s>MATT: Unconscionable. I can't imagine trying to - health care costs are so expensive. And when people are going through a blood cancer or a cancer situation where they need a marrow transplant, they're already going to be economically strapped beyond belief. And it just doesn't make sense to try to profit from their loss.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Carol Williams, there are always concerns that the sale of organs and by extension, I guess, bone marrow, that it will be more available to the wealthy rather than to the poor.</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Well, under the current system, the registry that's been in effect for decades, the recipients do not know who the donors are, and the donors don't know who the recipients are that they're being matched to. So they would have no way of knowing whether this was somebody who's impoverished or extremely wealthy or from, you know, whether further compensation could be, you know, extorted from them.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And would somebody who's poor get help to pay the $3,000?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Well, it wouldn't come from the patients. It's coming from a nonprofit that has gathered donations on behalf of cancer victims. And their plan for the future should this become something that's, you know, compensated on a fairly regular basis, their hope is to enlist the insurance companies into providing some of the payments because this would be a great savings against the alternative, which would be to be doing transplants of less suitable matches which have all kinds of complications and require expensive follow up care. So, I mean, the hope and expectation is that, as you expand the pool of donors, you get better matches. And this brings down the cost of doing the actual transplants.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lee - Matt, thanks very much for the call.</s>MATT: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Email from Nicole(ph) in Baltimore. I remember being in college in an HBCU, and the pleas that would go for African-American students to donate. But the invasive aspects and the lack of motivation was a setback. I see this helping that market extensively in saving lives. I'm all for it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This email from Vanessa. I've always wanted to donate bone marrow, but I was afraid of the process. I'm afraid of needles, and I always picture the old process with the very large needle. I think if they educate the public on the new process use, they would find many new volunteers. I think most people were afraid of the pain instead of looking for money.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Carol Williams, that leaves the question for the Justice Department. This was, as I understand, a unanimous vote by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Is this going to be appealed to the Supreme Court?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: The plaintiffs expected to be appealed just because they think the Department of Justice wants a definitive ruling on whether they can change the definition of bone marrow stem cells or if that somehow interfering with the intent of Congress that, you know, put a ban on sales of organ parts 27 years ago. So I don't know that the Department of Justice is appealing this or, you know, opposing the plaintiffs' objectives because they are against expanding the donor registry in saving more lives. I think it's more an effort to make sure that all the legal considerations are made and that, you know, they're not seen as advocating...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: But will this pilot program be going on in the meantime?</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: No. That would have to wait until the high court makes a ruling if it is - if the DOJ does petition the Supreme Court for writ of certiorari.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Carol Williams, thanks very much for your time.</s>CAROL WILLIAMS: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Carol Williams is a legal affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times. You can find a link to her article at our website. She joined us from her office at the paper. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

NPR's Debbie Elliott and Richard Gonzales spent a month on the road across the nation, reporting stories of economic struggle for the NPR series "Hard Times." They heard stories of people and places grappling with economic hardship, and also found a few bright spots along the way.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Over the past month, NPR reporters have set out on a recession road trip, to find out how we're adapting to these challenging economic times: from Maine to Mississippi; Billings, Montana, to Solano County, California. They reported on stories of people and places confronting economic hardship and going through a process of change.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A business owner in New Orleans trying to reinvent tourism post-Katrina, a single mother forced to leave her career for a job, a town searching for new purpose when the main employer leaves.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We'd like you to be our reporters today. Whether it's a family, a business or a town, tell us a story about adjustment to hard times, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: NPR's Debbie Elliott and Richard Gonzales led the reporting for the "Hard Times" series, and Richard Gonzales joins us now from his base in San Francisco at member station KQED. Nice to have you on the show, Richard.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: Good afternoon, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I know one of your stops was Billings, Montana. Well, there are hard times in a lot of places - not necessarily in Billings, where there's a lot of optimism. Veritae Thalen(ph) is a 29-year-old nanny there, and has quite the sales pitch for her town.</s>VERITAE THALEN: There's a job here waiting for you, I promise. I know that because everywhere I go, there's always help-wanted signs up. There's help-wanted signs on restaurants. There's help-wanted signs in retail stores. Banks even have help-wanted signs up.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we have to remember: Hard times in many, many places, but that is not universal.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: That's correct, Neal. You know, this was a counterpoint to our theme of hard times. We also wanted to go to places that seemed to be doing very well. So we wound up going to Billings, Montana, which has a very diverse economy. They're right on the edge of the huge oil boom that's in western North Dakota. They've got gas refining, cattle, agriculture. Their banks are strong. Their financial services are very strong.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: And Billings also has world-class medical facilities there. And so we went there to find out, you know, what people were saying and doing, and try to get a sense of how they saw these times that we're in.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We should also point out, you visited closer to your base there, Solano County, California, which has the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: Yes, Solano County is smack dab in the middle of San Francisco and Sacramento. It's largely a bedroom community that serves both those metro areas. And what we found there were a lot of people who were very distressed over the foreclosure crisis and the unemployment problem.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: And we - I talked with a lot of people there who were just - you know, they were just trying to figure out when this thing is going to end.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And one of the big cities in that county, Vallejo - we did a story a little while ago - they're hoping to come out of bankruptcy but boy, that didn't help.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: Well, that's right. You know, Vallejo is probably the poster child for this county. But there's also communities such as Vacaville, Fairfield, Sassoon City, that have just seen just massive foreclosures. Basically, there was some overbuilding there. People were overextended. We know this story very well.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: And you visit just about any block in some of these cities, and people will just point and say, you know, every other house on this block has been foreclosed upon.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Debbie Elliott now joins us from her office in Orange Beach, Alabama. Good of you to be with us.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Hi, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And one of Debbie's stories took her to Collinsville, Mississippi, where she met a couple who recently discovered they had slipped out of the middle class.</s>NORA SKALADIS: I can't work. I'm just unfit for just about anything. So I'm stuck with what I get from Social Security disability, and from the V.A. And that money makes it very difficult for us to do much more than just eat and pay the power bill.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Debbie Elliott, as we hear stories of people adapting to hard times, people like this family - boy, adaptation is not in the cards.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: No, they're really in a rough place. That was Nora Skaladis(ph). He was wounded serving in Iraq and is 49 years old. So he was put on early retirement and ended up not getting his full benefits because of the number of years of service that he'd had.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: And so the family found their income cut in half, basically, yet they still had the same bills they had before he left for the war. So they were really struggling to try to figure things out. And I think they were most frustrated because they felt like nobody was looking out for their interests. They feel like, you know, every - especially leaders in Washington are looking out for themselves and making money and that nobody really is looking out for them anymore and that there is really no middle-class hope.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: You know, they're at that age, he was 49, she was in her 50s, that they should be thinking about how to retire. Well, they are retired, and it's nothing like they had planned.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's interesting, you talk about people being frustrated with Washington. Now, Richard Gonzales heard a lot of anxiety and complaints about that, too. You spoke with - he spoke with Anthony Moscherelli(ph), who's a retired machinist from California who said politics are just corrupt.</s>ANTHONY MOSCHERELLI: Everybody knows the politicians will lie to get into office, and as soon as they get into office, they become either a Democrat or a Republican and go the party way and not the way of the people. And people have seen this more and more and more. And they're getting tired of it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Richard, as you listen to that, I'm sure it was a fairly common complaint in some variations.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: You know, absolutely, Neal. You know, and it went beyond this debate about whether the United States needs a smaller government or a bigger government. There's this echo everywhere I went where people just felt like, you know, as Debbie just said, nobody is looking out for little people, and that the politicians are corrupt, the system doesn't work for everyone, and that people are just getting tired of it, and they recognize it, and they're fed up with it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Debbie Elliott...</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: They feel a bit powerless. They're just - sorry, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Go ahead.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: They feel a bit powerless as to what to do about it. I mean, everybody comes to the conclusion, well, I can vote, but I've been voting all along and we're still in this situation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We wanna get stories from our callers. We've asked them to be our reporters to tell us a story about how a friend, a colleague, a neighborhood, a town has adapted to hard times. 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. We'll start with Dan. Dan is with us from Jacksonville. Dan, are you there? And Dan may have left us. So let's see if we can go next to - this is Wayne. Wayne with us from Trenton in Missouri.</s>WAYNE: Yes. I'm a social worker, and I actually specialize in home-bound vets and people in assisted living. And last year, I mean, I have to go bury four veterans because they basically have to choose between food, medication or paying their heating bill. And unfortunately, they didn't get the medical attention they needed, and they're now passed away. I have a grandmother that's in her upper 90s that every - I mean, every time I go to her house, it just makes me sad because she has no food hardly in her coverage anymore because the little bit she gets from Social Security she can't use to buy food because there's - she has to buy her medication to keep her heart working.</s>WAYNE: So, I mean, my families having to give money at that, we can't afford to help keep her afloat. And, I mean, I had four vets die last year because, like I said, they're just not getting the help, and there's a lot of frustration because they see the pay cuts in their kids and their grandkids are having to take it work. But, you know, Washington given themselves a pay raise.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I hear the frustration. And, Richard Gonzales, I'm sure this is a theme you hear in California, that in this place that is blessed, so blessed in so many ways, people are so hard against it.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: You know, we've got our own set of problems here in California, blessed with climate and great natural resources and yet the state, in many respects, is on its back. And you hear, time and again, people not quite understanding why things don't work the way they use to. I met a young couple in Solano County who are getting foreclosed upon. He's a former sheet metal worker who got hurt on the job, fell behind his payments, is - has no plans to walk away from the house, but he simply can't get any help. And he's just trying to figure out, how can I make my house payment stay on this small bit property I have and do what I wanna do, which is work and pay my taxes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about hard times with NPR's Debbie Elliott and Richard Gonzales, lead reporters for the series you've been listening to over the past month on NPR News. They'll be finishing it up, I think, later this week. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Deborah(ph) in Chamita, New Mexico: Roadside sales have always been around in northern New Mexico. Lately, it seems there are more of them. And the items for sale seem to be more personal, as if people are taking their houses apart room by room and putting them up for sale. A few that come to mind - a man selling his horses, a family selling children's bed sets, another man selling tires, tools and windows. Also, while selling truckloads of wood, logs, is common, it seems there are more people selling wood, sometimes small amounts. Debbie Elliott, I wonder, in your travels, have you seen things like that?</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Yes, a lot. And, you know, in the region I cover - I cover the Gulf South or the Deep South - you do see certain places where people have almost like permanent yard sale set up in their front yard. And those are usually in more rural, poverty-stricken areas, areas that have struggled with poverty for decades. But you are seeing more and more of that now as you drive through the region, and not just in the rural areas. Sometimes you see it in suburbs now, where people are just sort of unloading anything they can to piece together a few pennies to get that next meal or make that next payment or whatever it might be. You also see a lot of folks, you know, the old-fashioned truck farmer, you know, out with a pickup truck load of turnip greens or sweet potatoes for sale. And you - I'm seeing a little more of that than I think I have in the past.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can get to Virginia. Virginia with us from Charlotte, North Carolina.</s>VIRGINIA: Good afternoon.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good afternoon.</s>VIRGINIA: I teach kindergarten, and we definitely feel the crunch with the economics and the way they are. We've had 46 percent of our supplies are down now in the classrooms. We're not able to order some of the books that we usually would order. And the teachers haven't had a raise in five years, so, you know, I started gardening last summer and learned to do my own repair to cut back a little bit.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A lot of places laying teachers off. Is that happening there too?</s>VIRGINIA: Yes, it is, unfortunately. I mean, they're trying the best not to, of course, but (unintelligible) can't come up with specifics and how much they're going to retain people. Unfortunately, it happens too often. But we definitely feel it in the classroom a lot. And a lot of the parents that are upset with their own lives and then it kind of comes up to us, unfortunately, sometimes, like we're kind of the scapegoats for the economy (unintelligible). But I appreciate you taking my comments and the time. Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And thanks for the call, Virginia. This email from Richard in Hereford, Arizona: The area was hit with the Monument fire earlier in the year. At this time, some folks are still recovering from that fire. In general, the various charities here are nearly inundated by demand for services. Most still have their head above water, but it's a constant struggle, not just difficult economic times, but people challenged in all sorts of circumstances.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with NPR's Richard Gonzales and Debbie Elliott about some of the reports they did on "Hard Times," which you heard on NPR News in the past month. Be our reporter. Give us a call. What's happened with your friends, your colleagues, your neighborhood, your town? Adaptation to hard times. 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Right now we continue talking about "Hard Times." In recent weeks, NPR reporters traveled the country and told us stories about how people in places are changing in the face of a challenging economy. The lead reporters, NPR's Debbie Elliott and Richard Gonzales, are with us. And it was not all gloomy news. They also found the occasional bright spot. Richard Gonzales talked with Mike Wilson, president and co-owner of Whitewood Transport, a business doing very well.</s>MIKE WILSON: I don't want to be penalized for being successful. I don't want to be penalized for making a profit. I'll pay my share. I'll help my community. I'll help my neighbors. I'll pay my taxes. I will do what I'm supposed to do. But don't make me feel bad about it, and that's what I feel.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Richard, sometimes we hear complaints that Occupy Wall Street and movements like that have demonized the 1 percent. I guess he's the 1 percent.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: Well, I think that's what Mike Wilson was getting at. While we were in Billings, you know, the Occupy movement was very big in the headlines. All these encampments were still alive and thriving. And at the end of our interview with Mike, who's, as I recall, a native of Billings, we asked him, you know, is there anything else you want to talk about, Bill, while we have the microphone on? And that's when he just volunteered his views on Occupy, and he basically wanted to say, you know, I feel like I'm in this, too, but don't make me out to be a villain.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Don't make me out to be a villain. Obviously some people continue to do very well. We forget in these hard times that the majority of Americans are still working and have jobs and are doing OK. It's just that so many more people in these hard times falling out of the middle class, struggling with any number of changes. And, Debbie Elliott, struggling to change, to find if their previous lives weren't working out, let's find something else.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Right. And that was something that was sort of the theme when I visited Huntsville, Alabama - Huntsville, the place where they developed the rockets that put man on the moon. And when that program ended, the Apollo program ended, Huntsville found itself saying, what now, what next?</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Well, Huntsville is now in a very similar situation with the space shuttle program ending, and very uncertain times in the defense industry, which - it's a huge town for contractors, government contractors in the Army and whatnot. So the question is what now? And there are a lot of 50- and 60-year-old rocket scientists out of work, wondering what they're going to do and very concerned. But the mayor there seemed to have a little hope.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: He said, you know, we figured things out last time and we can do it again. When you - you know, we had all these rocket scientists unemployed back in the '70s, and they developed, you know, all kinds of companies that are the foundation of our economy today. So even in these uncertain times, they felt like, you know, maybe something good could come of it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Chris, and Chris is on the line with us from Paducah, Kentucky.</s>CHRIS: Yes. I am - I enjoy hearing the comments from your reporters. The perspective that I guess I've had is from almost into the middle class, and then I've been seeing it kind of slip away. Got myself back into school when I was dried up at a job and it wasn't paying the bills. Went and found new work during the day. Went and found new work during the night. Burning the candle from both ends, but still I have a smile on my face.</s>CHRIS: The thing that has always been for me is I've had to expand my vocabulary and expand what I read, authors that, you know, I wouldn't have known otherwise. I'm reading James Howard Kunstler, Wimberley folks that have an idea of, to me, what the root of the problems really are.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I have to say I was a little concerned on a family radio program, when you say you had to expand your vocabulary.</s>CHRIS: No. I'm also had to get into some work that has expanded my vocabulary in other ways. But I try and constrain myself for the sake of my kids and my wife. But, to me, the issue - I see the Tea Party. I see the Occupy Wall Street. And when I hear them discuss on the radio or television or whatever it might be, they're spoken of as being two different poles. When - I see them actually founded in really the same point. To me, my government is too big to really be able to address my concerns and my needs as a father and as a husband, and as someone who's trying to live life the way that I should.</s>CHRIS: On the other hand, I see corporations that, you know, the revolution that founded this country wasn't just against the big king, but also against the East India Company. Now, the Tea Party was fighting a business as well. But I see businesses getting big enough that the same way, it's more than likely going to chew me up and spit me out if I let it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Chris, keep the smile on, OK?</s>CHRIS: Trying to.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. Thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it. Let's see if we go next to - this is Dan. Dan with us from Jacksonville.</s>DAN: Hi, Neal. Can you hear me?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yes. You're on the air. Go ahead.</s>DAN: Hi. My name is Dan from - originally from Detroit, Michigan. I'm in the military, a naval aviator, down in Jacksonville, Florida. And nobody that I grew up with is left in the town that I grew up in. Anybody who's there is unemployed and living at home. It's even depressing going home for Christmas. Friends that I went to high school with whose parents had, you know, very well-paying jobs as auto executives are now unemployed, moving out of the city themselves, of if not, their houses are going into foreclosure.</s>DAN: And it's just - it's depressing. My brother and I both put ourselves through the University of Michigan on academic scholarships, and I did well there. And wouldn't be able to get a job out of college, so I, you know, joined the military and went through flight school. My brother stayed and put himself through law school in a private school in Detroit and tried to work, and could barely ends meet, so he also joined the military. He's now a National Guard JAG. I spent the last 10 months overseas in the Middle East, and my brother is getting ready to probably spend a year over there. And it's kind of tough when the only way to earn a paycheck is to go fight in a war.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: What do you fly, Dan?</s>DAN: I'm a P-3 pilot, a P-3 Charlie Orion.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A reconnaissance plane that spends a lot time over water.</s>DAN: Yes, sir. We actually spend a lot of time over land too. But yeah, several hundred combat hours over Iraq. And it's tough. You know, I was about to move back to Michigan and start a family and stay there and help build the area back to what it was, like when my grandparents were there. And, you know, both my grandfathers - my own grandfather works for General Motors. And his health care has been cut to almost nothing.</s>DAN: And it's a depressing seeing these proud men there, having everything pulled away. And it's a microcosm of the city of the whole, you know, the proud city's heart has been ripped out of it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So do you plan to move back?</s>DAN: If I could find a job there - back there. You know, I still have about five years left on my commitment from flight school. So my goal will be to, you know, get a graduate degree and move back and be part of the recovery. But to be honest, you know, I don't really see that happening any time soon.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Dan, we hope you're wrong about that, but thanks very much for the call.</s>DAN: Me too. I appreciate your taking it. Thanks a lot.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So long. Here's an email from Ashley in Charlotte, North Carolina: I have really seen a change at my daughter's school. Children need assistance with snacks, lunches and clothing. This year's angel tree had over 200 gifts given to help those families. Debbie Elliott, I know you were talking - you mentioned your trip to Huntsville. You were talking to some people there who were coming up on Christmas.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Right. And there was a question of, you know, how am I going to get through this. In fact, one woman said she was very frustrated watching the debate in Washington over - the supercommittee was working at the time and deciding, you know, what - failing to do its job. And this woman said, you know, they can't fail, because I have, you know, I'm making decisions of whether or not to go buy my groceries this week or buy a Christmas gift for someone. And it makes me mad to watch this happen from afar, you know, the sense that they didn't understand - that people in Washington didn't understand what just average Americans were going through.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: I wanted to pick up on something that that Jacksonville flier was talking about. And some of our colleagues have been doing reports, as well, and (unintelligible) did a story out of Maine from a paper mill. And a paper mill had just reopened, but the jobs were starting at, like, $11 an hour. And the comment was, this is not your grandfather's job. And I think that line is very telling. The job - the factory jobs that were once the promise for the middle class, are no longer so.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This was in Millinocket, Maine, where, in years passed, if you went to get a job at the mill after you graduated high school, you were there for life, and it was a ticket to the middle class.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And no longer true. One her reports was about the young people of that town. And I guess, like the town in Detroit or near Detroit, that our caller was mentioning, many having very little future in the place they grew up where their families have been for generations and facing the prospect of, well, moving elsewhere if they're going to find work.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Debbie Elliott is with us from her office in Alabama. Richard Gonzales with us from KQED, our member station in San Francisco, which is his base. We're talking about Hard Times. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's go next to Jennifer, Jennifer with us from Milford in Pennsylvania.</s>JENNIFER: Hi. Thank you for taking my call.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure.</s>JENNIFER: I'm a director of a food pantry here in Milford, and we've seen a real change in the composition of who's coming to ask for help these days. As you would imagine, you know, our attendance is higher on the last year or two years, because of the economy, but the dynamics are changing the family structure. We're seeing a lot more combined household, consolidated household, like adult siblings that have all moved in together with their children or back in with their parents and, obviously, the grandchildren.</s>JENNIFER: We're seeing a lot of people who've never had to ask for help before in their lives, who - sometimes they are actual volunteers, regular volunteers, who are now in a position where they're having to come to us because they do not see any jobs in sight and they're in a position they've never been in before. These are people - skilled professionals with college degrees, people who, up to a couple of years ago, were - on paper were millionaires in terms of their IRAs, their pensions, their house values. I've talked to people who have liquidated their children's college funds and are basically - there's nothing in sight for them. It's quite devastating and heartbreaking, you know, week after week.</s>JENNIFER: Our pantry was designed, originally, to provide temporary assistance. That, hopefully, after a year, you'd be back on your feet, and we usually drop the number of times you can visit after your first year in the pantry. And now we're at a point were, ethically, I don't feel very good when I have to look at these people, and I know they're looking for jobs, and it's been a year, and there's nothing out there. And what do I do? How do I drop down the amount of food I'm offering to them, you know, after a year? Anyway, that's what it is from my neck of the woods.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, I'm sorry it's so bleak, Jennifer.</s>JENNIFER: Yeah, it is. It's shocking, and people are, I mean, the good side of it is that it's also taught me very good things about the community I live in. People are incredibly generous, even people who don't have very much to give are pulling together in ways that you would never imagine. And, you know, just when you get to a point where you think, I have nothing I can give this person, someone walks in the door with, you know, 30 turkeys to donate. And it's not an endless, you know, chain of donations, but people around here seem to get that their neighbors are, in fact, really in dire circumstances.</s>JENNIFER: I just wish we could offer them more than, you know, a meal this week, a meal that week. I wish there was a way, locally, we could affect greater change to change the economic situation for these families.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jennifer, thanks very much for the call.</s>JENNIFER: All right. Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Richard, there - she mentioned the loss of wealth. There can be few places – we'll get calls complaining about Florida, and Arizona and Nevada, but there are a few places where housing prices had plummeted as much as California, and that sense that people had of that huge investment in a home that they could always rely on, maybe even retire on, that has really changed.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: Oh, absolutely. You know, it's - you get the sense from talking to people, a lot, that they are in shock because, literally and figuratively, the rug has been pulled out from under them, and they're standing, they're going, what just happened? And in some cases, you know, people will say, I kind of get it. I was over extended, but did I really deserve to be out on the street like this where I'm trying to fit, you know, me, my family and three kids in a two-bedroom apartment when we used to have 3,000 square feet? And whose fault is this? Well, there's plenty of blame to go around, but this situation is really tough.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, we want to read some more emails. I find myself worried that the adaptations my family and friends have had to make in these hard times. This is from Ashley in Reno. In short, we've stopped consuming. We grow our own food when possible. We mend and fix things before we think about buying. When we do buy, we buy used. I worry about the broader economy when so few of us can buy goods. From Nicole: My friends and I are all in their 20s and have seen many of our college ideals flip away. Many were hoping to be journalists, writers and designers. We're all now heading back to school for more steady line of work, like nursing, medical professions, social work. It's not entirely bleak, but it's certainly not what we expected.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Last year for Christmas - this is from Madonna in St. Louis. Last year for Christmas, we sent out a post card to all our family and friends, letting them know we would not be giving gifts because my husband's employer had gone out of business. We also asked no one give us gifts because it wasn't fair. We'd feel even more guilty. Well, thanks to our savings and unemployment, we were able to make it through nine months of unemployment. Now, thanks to the federal stimulus program, my husband is back to work on a large construction project for a new police station in the town next to us. It took 527 resumes and nearly 40 interviews for him to get a new job. This year's Christmas is looking a whole lot brighter.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We should also point out, yes, the housing market is still terrible almost everywhere, but there is an up tick in manufacturing. There was a big up tick in the jobs created last month, so the unemployment rate down to 8.6 percent. Of course, that, in part, because fewer people are out there actually looking for work. And we'd like to thank Richard Gonzales out of KQED and our national correspondent there and our national correspondent Debbie Elliott from her base in Orange Beach in Alabama, for telling us stories of hard times. Guys, get back to sunnier stories.</s>DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Thanks, Neal.</s>RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: Thank you, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Tomorrow, it's TALK OF THE NATION: SCIENCE FRIDAY. We'll see you again on Monday. Have a great weekend, everybody.

When they both worked at Princeton, Howard Stone and Jeff Aristoff used to play basketball at lunchtime. One day, when Dr. Stone was warming up with his jump rope, the two wondered if anyone had mathematically modeled the shape of the rope. The two researchers decided to give it a whirl.

JOE PALCA, HOST: Aha. I see someone in the studio, the mists are clearing. It's Flora, Flora Lichtman.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Joe.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Time for the Video Pick. What have you got for us, Flora?</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: This week, the video is - was inspired by a pickup basketball game between two researches at Princeton. They were Princeton at that time, Dr. Howard Stone and Jeff Aristoff. And they, apparently, frequently play basketball lunch. Dr. Stone would warm up with a jump rope. And like curious scientists, they wondered themselves - no, this is not something that I had ever wondered - they wondered, could you mathematically model the shape of that jump rope?</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: But wait a minute. I mean, you swing the jump rope, it's like a parabola or something like that.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Yeah. So I've thought this too. And actually, in our Video Pick of the Week this week, which is on our website at sciencefriday.com, we have the daughters of Dr. Stone because they're real jump rope experts. And they, too, are sort of like, what are you talking about with the shape?</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Right.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: But apparently, it's more complicated than that. You have to take into account centrifugal course and tension and air drag. That was sort of the big contribution of their paper, is looking at the air drags effect on the shape of that jump rope. So if you imagine a jump rope, you - it's not all in one plane, if you look at, say, with a high-speed video camera, which is what they did. It bends backwards, away from the direction that you're actually spinning and that's drag.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: So you could model it with a rope that was not subject to wind resistance. But if you model it with a real rope, you can - and then you can say, well, it's a different picture if you're at ground level or sea level than if you're up in Denver or something like that?</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Well, this was the question that I had. You know, does that mean that it takes less twirling force to jump rope at - in a high altitude place where the air is thinner? And, you know, of course, it's a very complicated model. So it's hard to predict. But, yes, it does seem that you will see less drag on your jump rope if you're jump roping at high altitudes. But Jeffrey Aristoff pointed out that that may not make it easier because there's also less oxygen.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Less oxygen, right. Right, right.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Yeah. Yeah.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: You're not thinking about moving on to something like jacks or pick-up sticks or something that for (unintelligible)?</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Ah, probably, actually, if you know of any jacks research, I'd, of course, be interested.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: I see.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: But, you know, the thing that Dr. Stone said about this work is that these types of questions are things that he thinks about all the time because he's into modeling slender things in flow, like in air or water. So this is, you know, jump roping was a good exercise.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Well, there's a lot - yeah, I get it.</s>JOE PALCA, HOST: Where's my rim shot? OK. Exactly. All right. Flora, thanks very much. And I guess that brings us just about to the close. But before we go, I wanted to remind people that last fall, I ate smoked eel with James Prosek, and I'm sure that's something that everybody remembers. Well, if it's not, you can relive that moment, or take a look at Prosek's latest work by surfing over to our site, Art's page on sciencefriday.com. There's a new story there on James Prosek's paintings and a link back to our eel chat of some time ago. It was - he's a very interesting painter, and it's worth taking a look if you have the chance. In New York, I'm Joe Palca.

In Michigan — a state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation — some officials are banking on the notion that casinos are recession-proof. While some Detroit gambling centers are doing well, however, others are laying off workers.

MADELEINE BRAND, host: Now for our series we call "The Bottom Line." It's about how people and businesses are being affected by the recent downturn in the economy. Today we hear how casinos are faring. From Detroit, Celeste Headlee has more.</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: There's an assumption out there that casinos are basically recession-proof.</s>Mr. RICHARD KALM (Executive Director, Michigan Gaming Control Board): When times are good, they do good. And when times are bad, they still seem to do good or OK.</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: That's Richard Kalm with the Michigan Gaming Control Board. And the definition of OK is one hundred ten million dollars in revenues from Detroit's three casinos in February. Kalm says that's a lot of money, but profit growth has slowed significantly for the casinos. And this year, earnings will likely remain flat, or see a very slight increase. Scott Grigg of the MGM likes to say that casinos are recession resistant, not recession proof.</s>Mr. SCOTT GRIGG (MGM Grand Detroit): We've seen that market slow a little bit, and flatten out. And the same thing is happening in Vegas right now where it's a slower market. So, I think that we're entering an area where nobody has been before right now.</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: It's Friday afternoon, and the rows of slots in the MGM are already filling with gamblers. People are craning over gleaming counters at the buffet to check out the roast beef. And groups of chatting women are waiting to check their coats. But Grigg says business used to be even brisker. The MGM recently laid off nearly 100 workers, and its hotel is running at about 55 percent occupancy. Grigg says it's been perhaps tougher for Detroit's gaming houses because the economy here has been slow for years now, and won't likely recover for some time.</s>Mr. SCOTT GRIGG (MGM Grand Detroit): We're in a singularly different market than everybody else. I mean, we're in the Midwest. Michigan has had the highest unemployment rate in the country now for what, 14, 15 months?</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: Still, local gaming houses may have an advantage over places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Robin Boyle is a professor of urban planning at Wayne State University in Detroit. He says when people are strapped, travel is one of the first things to go.</s>Professor ROBIN BOYLE (Urban Planning, Wayne State University): As the economy is weak overall, there is a pressure for people to stay close by, but they still have discretionary expenditure. And therefore, with three casinos, that's where they are spending their money.</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: Scott Grigg says during tough times, the dollars people spend in casinos are dearer than ever, and houses that scrimp are going to see a drop in business. The MGM Grand Detroit now boasts five star restaurants, a 400-room hotel, a spa, and nightclubs. Grigg says that helps bring people into the doors, along with special incentives to drop a few coins in the slots.</s>Mr. SCOTT GRIGG (MGM Grand Detroit): By doing the slot tournaments, by giving away the car, by doing some promotions with table games, you know, we can - we feel we can increase traffic to the casino. In addition to cutting costs, we also want to increase revenues.</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: No one is claiming that the casinos aren't making money in Detroit. And the city, and the state share in those takings through heavy taxes. The MGM alone paid about 170 million dollars in taxes to Michigan and Detroit last year. And there are a lot of jobs at stake, too. Robin Boyle says there are close to 8,500 workers at these places dealings cards, serving food, and making drinks.</s>Professor ROBIN BOYLE (Urban Planning, Wayne State University): We don't have a large number of entry-level, secure positions in the city of Detroit simply because we don't have a retail sector.</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: Bill Thompson, of the University of Nevada Las Vegas, says the casinos will probably make it through the economic slowdown just fine. But, he warns that gambling isn't the right way to sustain a local economy. He recently conducted a survey of gamers in several states.</s>Professor BILL THOMPSON (Public Administration, University of Nevada Las Vegas): We asked how would you spend the money if you weren't gambling, and ten percent said food. And we said restaurants? And they said no, grocery stores. And 25 percent said household goods. So, even people that have scarce resources will go to the casino.</s>CELESTE HEADLEE: Still, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick recently unveiled an economic stimulus plan for the city that relies heavily on its three casinos. About 29 million dollars a year in taxes is expected to pay for some expensive public works projects. But if revenues for the casinos do remain flat this year, as expected, the city could be in for trouble. For NPR News, I'm Celeste Headlee in Detroit. ..COST: $00.00

The majority of the Rockefeller family is pushing Exxon Mobil to revise its corporate governance and seriously explore alternative energy. Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, great-grand daughter of John D. Rockefeller explains why.

ALEX CHADWICK, host: One thing helping the stock market, oil prices are down today, around 113 dollars a barrel. But Americans' anxiety over the high cost of gas goes on, so does the debate over what to do next.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Joining in this week, the Rockefeller family or many members of it, the heirs to the great fortune of the American oil industry and the company that became Exxon Mobil, well, they want some changes. For instance, all this focus on petroleum.</s>Ms. NEVA ROCKEFELLER GOODWIN (Professor, Economics, Tufts University, Boston): That will continue to be an important part of Exxon's activities for some time into the future, but there are other changes needed.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, an economist and professor at Tufts University in Boston. She speaks for the family group, and they want the company to think green.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: They say the managers now are too oil-influenced. They want shareholders at the coming annual meeting to redirect Exxon Mobil, arguably the most successful company in the world.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: The CEO should go on running things, Neva says. But he should no longer be chairman of the board.</s>Ms. NEVA ROCKEFELLER GOODWIN (Professor, Economics, Tufts University, Boston): So, it's only appropriate to use a very good board, far more effectively than they have been able to act in the past, to use their creativity, their knowledge of things outside of Exxon, to think about where Exxon should be going.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: So, why is the first family of oil calling for these changes?</s>Ms. NEVA ROCKEFELLER GOODWIN (Professor, Economics, Tufts University, Boston): There are some pretty scary things in the future. And we look around the world, and we ask ourselves what we can do that can help make our own children's lives good lives like ours, and help the people around the world who also need that. We worry about corporations which don't seem to get it, and we have a particular reason to be concerned about this particular corporation because we're so closely allied with it. It's a major contributor to the income of our family.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: But, you know any group of Exxon Mobil shareholders, and there are other groups of Exxon Mobil shareholders who proposed the kinds of things that you're proposing, and they do it responsibly, and well and you are as well. But you are doing this as a family. And the family named Rockefeller. Why are you doing it?</s>Ms. NEVA ROCKEFELLER GOODWIN (Professor, Economics, Tufts University, Boston): Because to some extent we feel a responsibility. It's - you know, that's not perfectly logical although the company was founded by my great grandfather. I'm not responsible for everything he did, fortunately. But we feel close to it. We care about it. And we have a tradition of caring about environmental issues, and we have a tradition about thinking long range. We hope that this reputation is good enough to encourage other people to vote for the resolutions on separation of chair and CEO, and also a number of resolutions urging Exxon to pay more attention to a number of climate-related issues in the ballots for Exxon Mobil this May.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Let me cite a posting to a website that Wall Street Journal runs to keep up with market conditions. Here it is. Someone commenting on an article on this and the comment is, "Exxon Mobil is probably the best-managed company in the world. My dividends easily pay my fuel bills. If there are ungrateful heirs that don't like it, sell the stock."</s>Ms. NEVA ROCKEFELLER GOODWIN (Professor, Economics, Tufts University, Boston): Well, that's the Wall Street walk, isn't it? We believe Exxon is building on past decisions which are still working today, which if pursued with blindfolds on as to the changing circumstances are not likely to work tomorrow.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Neva Rockefeller Goodwin speaking on behalf of many members of the Rockefeller family who want changes in the management of Exxon Mobil to, in their view, make the company better able to deal with an alternative energy future. Neva, thank you.</s>Ms. NEVA ROCKEFELLER GOODWIN (Professor, Economics, Tufts University, Boston): Thank you.

Double-digit price rises, easy credit and no money down — these all led to a housing bubble a decade ago. NPR's Rachel Martin asks UCLA economist Stephen Oliner if we are headed for disaster.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: This is Hanging On, our continuing series about the American middle class, looking at the economic pressures of American life in 2016. And today we're talking about the housing bubble. What bubble, you say? Wasn't that the thing that caused the Great Recession? And isn't it over now?</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Yes, all that is true, but our next guest says there are signs another housing bubble may be on the horizon. Stephen Oliner used to be with the Federal Reserve Board. Now he's at UCLA, where he analyzes real estate markets, and he's here now. Thanks so much for being with us.</s>STEPHEN OLINER: Thanks, Rachel. I'm really happy to be with you.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: You track housing market indicators. What are you seeing right now?</s>STEPHEN OLINER: So we're seeing worrying signs of building excesses again in the housing and the mortgage markets. It's not that we're in a crisis today or in a bubble today, but there are trends underway that, if they'd run for a very long time, will put us back into a situation that will look a little bit like what we had in the last crisis.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: That's unbelievable because we went through all kinds of collective strife over this, and there was legislation passed. So before we get into what didn't work in all those changes, what specifically are you seeing? What are the indicators?</s>STEPHEN OLINER: So there are really two types of indicators. The first concerns the risk that's in the mortgage loans that are being made today. So at the American Enterprise Institute, where I have a position as well as at UCLA, we analyze about 80 percent of the individual home mortgage loans made every month to purchase homes. And many of these loans are very risky, subprime-style loans that are now being made with government guarantees rather than being held by private investors. But nonetheless, they're quite risky.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: How can this be possible? I mean, the whole problem, as I understand it, was that people who could not afford these mortgages were being enticed into signing on the dotted line, and the lenders knew it.</s>STEPHEN OLINER: Right, so the element of fraud that was rampant during the financial crisis in the lead-up to the bubble, that's basically gone. But there still are other ways for loans to be risky in many dimensions, and that is still happening. So let me give you just a couple of specifics. Now, we normally think that people in a prudent lending situation will put down 10 or 20 percent. That's so old-school. That's not happening now. The median down payment for a first-time buyer in the United States is 3 and a half percent.</s>STEPHEN OLINER: If they were to turn around and need to sell the house, they wouldn't get enough money to repay the mortgage. So they're actually underwater on day one of the mortgage. There are other ways in which the mortgages are risky. One is that people are still stretching to buy bigger houses with larger monthly payments than is really safe given their incomes, and that is completely allowable under our current mortgage regulations.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Which is good and bad, right? After the housing crisis, people were so scared that nobody wanted to buy anything. And now you're saying we've overcompensated and people are living beyond their means again.</s>STEPHEN OLINER: Yes, that is what I'm saying. And we tend to think that a very strict, regulatory framework was put in place that would prevent this from happening again. And the problem is the following - 80 percent or so of the loans that are being made in the United States today are loans that have a government guarantee of some kind, federal government guarantee, and those loans are exempt from the regulations.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So what do you say, Stephen, to someone who is looking to get into the market right now and might be enticed by the fact that they only have to put 3 and a half percent down?</s>STEPHEN OLINER: Right. So I would say a couple of things. First, I think homeownership is a great thing. And if you want to become a homeowner, that's fantastic. Don't do it, though, because you think it's going to be a great investment. In most cases, it's not. The second thing is don't stretch. Be honest about how much you can really afford to buy given your other expenses and how you predict your income will change over the next couple years.</s>STEPHEN OLINER: And the third thing would be if possible, finance the purchase with a 15 or a 20-year mortgage so that you build up equity quickly and be much less likely to be in a situation where you're underwater at some point in the future.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Beware of the bubble. Stephen Oliner is an economist with the Ziman Center for Real Estate at the University of California, Los Angeles. Thanks so much, Stephen.</s>STEPHEN OLINER: You're very welcome.

The 2008 Farm Bill is essentially done and ready for a vote according to Sen. Tom Harkin, the Chairman of the Sen. Agriculture Committee. The main sticking point, however, is whether millionaire farmers deserve subsidies.

ALEX CHADWICK, host: This is Day to Day. I'm Alex Chadwick.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: I'm Madeleine Brand. In a few minutes, breaking the speed limit. What about driving more than 750 miles per hour? That's coming up.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: First, a big political fight in Washington is going again to extra rounds. It's the farm bill. We spoke at length about this two days ago on the program. President Bush, earlier in the week, said it's time to really reform taxpayer aid going to what he called "millionaire farmers." The farm bill has many critics but also powerful and very focused supporters. We're on the phone with Senator Tom Harkin from Washington. Senator, welcome to Day to Day.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): Hello. Thanks for having me on, Alex.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: One analyst a couple of days ago told us that the farm bill is the worst example there is of government gone wrong, and what he meant was taxpayer money going to people who don't need it.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): I think it's more of a mixed bag than that. I mean, to be sure, there are very wealthy and big farmers who are getting government checks that don't deserve them and shouldn't them. I fully agree with them and I'm the chairman of the committee. On the other hand, we are helping promote a lot of more vegetables and fruit growing in this country.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): We've got more conservation in this than ever before. We've got new provisions in there for nutrition. Almost 70 percent of our farm bill goes for food stamps and nutrition programs, 70 percent.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: I understand that, sir. It's a 300-billion-dollar bill, I think, over the next five years. So, there've got to be plenty of good things in there for 300 billion dollars, things that you could point to. But how is it that the system of direct payments to farmers who make almost a million dollars a year and may not even be farming anymore, how does that go on?</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): Well, you have to remember the genesis of it. It started in the 1996 farm bill, when very conservative Republicans, so-called, ran the Congress. And they pushed through this so-called "Freedom to Farm" bill. That's when these direct payments started. I voted against them, and I have consistently been opposed to the direct-payment program.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): I've already said it. It makes no sense to send hard-earned taxpayers' dollars to a farmer who is making a lot of money. My support for agriculture has always been that we should have a safety net. In other words, when a farmer is making good money and the markets are high, there's no need to get any government help.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): But because agriculture is so different than other endeavors, because we're subject to weather, foreign markets, pests, all other kinds of things, there ought to be a safety net, so that if the bottom falls out, we catch them.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Senator, your committee has put out a notice earlier today saying that the conference committee that you're leading, the negotiations between the House and Senate versions of the agriculture bill, that you've finally reached an agreement on just about everything and you think you've got something the president can sign. Do you have an income level for support that you think President Bush will agree to? And if so, what is that level?</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): Well, we don't know, because the president, quite frankly, has been singularly unwilling to negotiate and to deal with us on this bill. It's like he drew a line in this sand and said that's it. Well, you know, as I've often said, the president can't get a hundred percent of what he wants. Now, we have gone a long way towards meeting the president's concerns. Not everything in the farm bill is to my liking, either. What that level is for the president, we don't know.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: I think he said 200,000 dollars. What's your level?</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): Well, what we put in the bill was 500,000.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: So, the level in your bill is 500,000 dollars. If someone makes up to 500,000 dollars, they'll still continue to get direct support payments from the government.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): Let me be honest about that. That's non-farm income. For on farm income, that issue has still not been settled...</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Ah.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): And we started at 950,000. It may go down to 750,000.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: It's not going to be so good, though, when you have to get up and defend government support payments for people on the farm making 750,000 dollars a year.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): Well, I see ExxonMobil just made record profits last quarter. They've gotten all kinds of government help for over a hundred years. So, rich farmers, well, there are a few. Ninety-five percent are your average, day-to-day, hardworking family farmers that, yes, the government gives them help, too. To be sure, you can always point out the three or four percent, or the one percent, that are sort of the outliers that do get these big payments. You can focus on whichever one you want.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Tom Harkin is the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Senator, thank you.</s>Senator TOM HARKIN (Democrat, Iowa; Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry): All right. Thank you, Alex.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: And there's more in a moment on Day to Day.

A study suggests that if taken in childhood, cod liver oil may lead to decreased bone density in women due to its ultra high Vitamin A content. Medical expert Dr. Sydney Spiesel discusses what types of cod liver oil are worst.

MADELEINE BRAND, host: Remember cod liver oil? Eww. It was a favorite of a lot of people's grandparents. They saw it as a good source of vitamin D. Well, now a recent study suggests that if children do take it, it could lead to decreased bone density in women. Here to fill us in is Day to Day's medical expert, Dr. Sydney Spiesel. He's a professor at the Yale Medical School, also a pediatrician, and he writes for slate.com. Hi, Syd.</s>Dr. SYDNEY SPIESEL (Pediatrician, Professor, Yale Medical School): Hi, Madeleine.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Well, my first question is do people still take cod liver oil?</s>Dr. SYDNEY SPIESEL (Pediatrician, Professor, Yale Medical School): Well, as terrifying as the thought is from my own childhood, the answer is yes, especially in places in northern Europe. For example, the great, great majority of Norwegians and people in Sweden still take cod liver oil, apparently with pleasure.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Well, this is because, right, because they have long winters with little sunlight, and they're trying to increase their vitamin D. And so I thought, you know, that vitamin D is good for the bones. It increases bone density.</s>Dr. SYDNEY SPIESEL (Pediatrician, Professor, Yale Medical School): Well, that - sure. That's the main function of vitamin D is that it helps bring calcium from the bloodstream into - get it incorporated into bones. So that gives bones the added minerals they need to be strong. And in the absence of vitamin D, you get soft, weak, painful bones, which are often lead to kind of terribly bowed legged. And the disease is called rickets. That's vitamin D deficiency. Most of us get most of our vitamin D from the exposure to ultraviolet light in the sun. It strikes the skin, and vitamin D is generated as a result of the exposure to ultraviolet light. But if you're way up north, if you're way in the northern latitudes, you're not going to have enough intrinsic vitamin D production. And so you have to take it in from somewhere else.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: So, it seems a little counterintuitive, then, that if people are eating cod liver oil they will have decreased bone density. How is that?</s>Dr. SYDNEY SPIESEL (Pediatrician, Professor, Yale Medical School): Well, that was a mystery, and certainly was counterintuitive to me. And the answer isn't entirely clear, but it's pretty likely. It was discovered in a Norwegian study of about 3,000 women who were aged 50 to 70. And they looked which ones took cod liver oil in childhood, and which ones didn't. What they found, to their surprise, is that the ones who didn't take additional cod liver oil had more calcium in their bones. They were less of at risk for osteoporosis later in life. Now, cod liver oil has reasonable amounts of vitamin D, but it probably has too much vitamin A for most people. And it turns out that if you're up at the high levels of vitamin A, at the sort of almost toxic levels of vitamin A, it decreases instead of increases the incorporation of calcium into bones.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: So, it was actually the vitamin A that was the culprit?</s>Dr. SYDNEY SPIESEL (Pediatrician, Professor, Yale Medical School): I think so. It looks to me very much as if that is the case.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Now, there are different levels, right, of vitamin A in different cod liver oils?</s>Dr. SYDNEY SPIESEL (Pediatrician, Professor, Yale Medical School): Yes, and when people began to realize about the danger of excess vitamin A, in Norway, for example, they began to decrease the vitamin A to only a quarter of what it originally was in the cod liver oil, but that probably is not true for all cod liver oil in the world. You have to be really careful to read the label and make sure it's a Vitamin A reduced cod liver oil.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Now, you live and work in the northeast, where the winters are long, and dark, and bitter - I say somewhat gloatingly. But, do you recommend to your patients, to your patients' parents, rather, that they give their children cod liver oil, or any kind of supplement?</s>Dr. SYDNEY SPIESEL (Pediatrician, Professor, Yale Medical School): I tend not to recommend that, partly because everybody is already without knowing it, everybody is already getting an adequate amount of vitamin D from the milk they drink. Remember, all drink that is sold in the United States is supplemented with 400 international units per quart, which is about twice the amount that's needed by children or adults.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: That's Dr. Sydney Spiesel. He teaches at the Yale Medical School. He's also a pediatrician, and you can read his Medical Examiner column at slate.com.

Despite fears of a recession and the reality of hard times around the country, the stock market is looking up. An investment strategist discusses the optimism.

MADELEINE BRAND, host: From the studios of NPR West, this is Day to Day. I'm Madeleine Brand.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: I'm Alex Chadwick. Coming up, the great-granddaughter of the greatest oil baron ever says Exxon needs to go more green, and we will talk with her.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Exxon reported big profits yesterday, but Wall Street wanted even more, and so Exxon's stock slipped a little. In general though, stocks are climbing. Yesterday the Dow closed above 13,000, the first time it has done so since January. You might think this is a little strange considering that the over-all economy is not doing so well. Well, here to explain this seeming contradiction is William Knapp. He's an investment strategist for a division of New York Life. And Mr. Knapp, the stock market is up more than 10 percent, what's driving this increase?</s>Mr. WILLIAM KNAPP (Investment Strategist, New York Life): Well, it's optimism with respect to the future. And being a predictive animal, the stock market will look forward to the recovery from the current period of economic stagnation. It may actually still see some negative headlines with respect to things like employment, production, inflation. But in the meantime, the stock market is trying to predict where profitability of the companies that make it up is going, as we head towards recovery later this year and early in 2009.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: So, is it too soon to tell or can you tell right now if this is a permanent turnaround, a permanent increase or...</s>Mr. WILLIAM KNAPP (Investment Strategist, New York Life): Well, I like to be optimistic and I think that it is. And I think recently we've had a pretty big change in sentiment with respect to investors in not only the equity market, but in fixed-income markets and commodity markets as well.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: General Motors announced this week that it lost more than three billion dollars in the first quarter. Lots of other big companies have announced similar big losses, Citibank included. Why haven't these really bad earnings reports dragged down Wall Street?</s>Mr. WILLIAM KNAPP (Investment Strategist, New York Life): Well, again, it's optimism with respect to the future principally, really other than the financial sector, companies in general are doing OK even though the economy has slowed.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: How accurate is Wall Street's health as a barometer of the overall economy? You're saying it's predictive.</s>Mr. WILLIAM KNAPP (Investment Strategist, New York Life): In general, I think it has been pretty accurate, and I think it's very accurate right now. Again, I'm not in a camp that thinks that we have been or going into a recession. And that I think that perhaps there has been a little mongering with respect to the level of economic stagnation that - if you look into the statistics, and if this is actually declared a recession, it'll be the weakest recession that the U.S. has ever had, if it's ever made official.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: You're kind of in the minority of...</s>Mr. WILLIAM KNAPP (Investment Strategist, New York Life): I am. I am, but I think I've got the evidence on my side. And we saw that for instance today in the payroll survey number while it was weak, and 20,000 fewer jobs in the economy, it's certainly not reflective of a severe slowdown. In a severe slowdown, you would expect that number to be minus about 100,000 or minus 200,000. So, while, you know, regrettable for the folks who lost their job, it's not nearly as weak a picture as maybe some other forecasters would portray.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: I guess that might be small comfort to people who go to the grocery store and say, oh, I can't afford to buy as many groceries as I could before. I can't afford to fill up my car anymore or I'm about to lose my house.</s>Mr. WILLIAM KNAPP (Investment Strategist, New York Life): I still think that those prices will come down as supplies pick up in agricultural commodities, as we hopefully will have a pretty decent growing season. And that some of the speculation will be removed from the energy-related commodities as people become more interested in the stock market. That's always been the case after every recession. There is that period of recovery, and I think that the worst is over with respect to the credit crisis, and with respect to this economic slowdown, and then we can start looking forward to a more optimistic future.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Well, thank you very much.</s>Mr. WILLIAM KNAPP (Investment Strategist, New York Life): Well, Madeleine, thank you.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: My pleasure. That's William Knapp. He's an investment strategist for a division of New York Life.

FBI agents on Tuesday raided the Office of the Special Counsel, the agency that investigates whistleblower and discrimination complaints by federal employees. The FBI is examining allegations of political misconduct by agency employees.

ALEX COHEN, host: This is Day to Day, I'm Alex Cohen.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: I'm Madeleine Brand. In a few minutes, Chinese singles sidestep tradition; they go looking for love online.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: But first, NPR has learned that today, six FBI agents searched a federal government building in downtown Washington, D.C. The Office of Special Counsel has been under investigation for two and a half years. Employees there have alleged that the agency has been misused for political purposes. NPR's Ari Shapiro joins us now with this breaking story. Hi Ari.</s>ARI SHAPIRO: Hi Alex.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Can you tell us first of all what is this Office of Special Counsel?</s>ARI SHAPIRO: Yeah, it's one of these organizations with this vague name that doesn't really tell much about what it does. But its job essentially is to investigate whistleblower claims by federal government employees. So if you work for the federal government, you believe that you were discriminated against because of something unrelated to your job performance, the Office of Special Counsel essentially represents you.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: So the investigators have become the investigated. Tell me about the leader. His name is Scott Bloch. What do we know about him?</s>ARI SHAPIRO: Well, he has been controversial almost since the day he took office in 2004. One of his first acts for example was to say that his office would no longer investigate claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation. That caused a huge outcry when it became public. And he apparently blamed career employees in his office for getting that story out. And so he was then accused of retaliated against career employees by arbitrarily - these career employees said, sending them to a new field office in Detroit, Michigan that Scott Bloch created. So eventually the inspector general for the office of personnel management started an investigation into whether Scott Bloch was abusing his power, whether he politicized his office. And as the investigation unfolded, Bloch hired a company called Geeks on Call to come scrub his computer hard drive and two of his deputies' hard drives. Of course, that set off alarm bells. Scott Bloch said that he had just hired the company because there was a virus on the computers that he needed to get rid of. But of course others claimed that he was doing it to get rid of important evidence in this investigation.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: So what happened there this morning?</s>ARI SHAPIRO: Very dramatic chain of events. First, late this morning the entire email system was shut down at the office of personnel management and the San Francisco field office has confirmed that for us. Other offices including the one here in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. And six FBI agents arrived at the main D.C. office, they seized Bloch's computer and some of his deputies' computers. Apparently there is a separate search warrant that has been issued for Block's home, in addition to the one for his office. A grand jury in Washington has also apparently issued subpoenas for several employees at the office of special council. And last we heard Scott Bloch was sequestered in a room at OSC where he is being interviewed.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Now so far nobody's been officially charged with a crime, but do we know what specifically the FBI is investigating?</s>ARI SHAPIRO: Well, we don't know yet, but we can make an educated guess. The inspector general investigation was looking into among other things whether Scott Bloch violated what's known as the Hatch Act. And the Hatch Act is a law that prohibits federal employees from using their government offices for partisan political activities. And sources tell us that in addition to Scott's work computer being confiscated, some of his deputies who dealt with Hatch Act violations also had their computers confiscated. And so it seems a safe bet that while they may be looking into other things as well the grand jury is likely looking at the Hatch Act violations here. Now, this can get a little confusing so it's worth pointing out that there are two separate things going on here.</s>ARI SHAPIRO: There's the Office of Personnel Management Inspector General's investigation which has been happening for two and a half years and as far as we know today didn't bring any new developments on that front. But all the while, apparently, there was this grand jury criminal investigation as well, which no one knew about and which was not public until today and NPR just learned that the FBI is at the office, the search warrants have been issued, the subpoenas have been issued and that means there is a criminal investigation under way.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Ari, I know that information is still just coming out on this. I've read that there's a separate subpoena for Scott Bloch's home. Have you heard any word of this and what they might be looking for there?</s>ARI SHAPIRO: Well apparently if he is alleged to have destroyed information relevant to this investigation by hiring Geeks on Call, obstruction of justice, obstructing an investigation could be another crime that they could be looking into. And it makes sense in that case if Geeks on Call came both to his work and to his home computer it makes sense that investigators would want to look at both those places.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: NPR's Ari Shapiro, thank you.</s>ARI SHAPIRO: You're welcome.

Charlotte, North Carolina is one of the few major cities with rising real estate values this year. Dan Cottingham, co-founder of the Cottingham Chalk real estate company, discusses why this is.

MADELEINE BRAND, host: This is Day to Day from NPR news, I'm Madeleine Brand.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: And I'm Alex Cohen. The US housing market is still looking pretty grim. Recent reports show that home prices in Las Vegas fell by more than 20 percent over the last year. In Miami, they dropped by almost 22 percent.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: But go to Charlotte, North Carolina and things are looking a lot brighter. It's one of the few cities where home prices have actually gone up.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Dan Cottingham is a residential real estate agent there. He's the co-founder of the Cottingham Chalk real estate company and he joins us now. Welcome to the program, and if you could, tell us what is your secret? How did you mange to be one of the only cities with rising real estate prices?</s>Mr. DAN COTTINGHAM (Real Estate Agent, North Carolina): I don't know that there's a secret as much as there's an old adage that what goes up must come down, and Charlotte, North Carolina has simply not gone as high on the appreciation scale. We did not see the appreciation that Las Vegas saw, or that Miami saw or that some of those other areas that have been so hard hit. So we did not have as far to drop and the fact that we haven't dropped at all is a remarkable sign of a healthy economy that we have in our region.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: What kind of business do you have there in Charlotte?</s>Mr. DAN COTTINGHAM (Real Estate Agent, North Carolina): Banking is our primary business and has been for the last couple of decades and it has grown incredibly. Bank of America which is the largest bank in America in assets and Wachovia which is the fourth largest bank in American assets makes Charlotte the number two banking center in the country.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: But there have been a lot of troubles lately in the world of finance. Are you a bit worried about what the long-term of that could be in your city?</s>Mr. DAN COTTINGHAM (Real Estate Agent, North Carolina): Absolutely. We specialize in worry and that concern is one of the things that has made us so strong. We saw the slowdown in textiles and the slowdown in furniture and the slowdown in tobacco 20 and 30 years ago and our business leaders set out to diversify and we now have tremendous manufacturing but it's all plain manufacturing, we just have very few, I don't want to say that we don't have any, but we have very few smoke stacks and so absolutely there's concern.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Your company, I understand is doing about a half a billion dollars worth of business a year, and yet I understand you are still seeing a lot of foreclosures, right? How is that?</s>Mr. DAN COTTINGHAM (Real Estate Agent, North Carolina): We see foreclosures every single year. It's a natural part of the business. We are not an island. We are not an island, and so we are definitely experiencing what the rest of the country is experiencing. We're just not experiencing the price depreciation. We're in a sweet spot here in Charlotte, North Carolina and it has come from a lot of planning and it has come from a lot of healthy growth. Real estate is based on three things. It's based on confidence, interest rates and jobs. And right now confidence is the big issue nationally. And we are a little more confident than the rest of the country but we certainly aren't real estate cocky.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: With all this uncertainty, how are you and your customers handling it?</s>Mr. DAN COTTINGHAM (Real Estate Agent, North Carolina): Well, every single person I ask this one simple question. Do you think the real estate market will come back? One hundred percent of the buyers and the sellers all say yes, I do. Yes, I do. And so that thought that it's going to come back is absolutely the key that drives everything.</s>ALEX COHEN, host: Dan Cottingham is the co-founder of the real estate company called Cottingham Chalk. Thank you.</s>Mr. DAN COTTINGHAM (Real Estate Agent, North Carolina): Thank you Alex.

New research from California State University suggests 1 in 10 students there are homeless and 1 in 5 are food insecure. NPR's Linda Wertheimer talks to George Parker, a once homeless student.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: When many of us think of going off to college, we think of U-Hauls filled with plastic bins, parents helping kids settle into their dorm rooms. A new preliminary study from California State University suggests a much different reality for some of the 460,000 students. About 20 percent don't have enough food to eat, and around 1 in 10 lack stable housing. They stay on friends' couches, in shelters or in cars.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: George Parker, a student at Cal State, has had firsthand experience dealing with those issues, both growing up and later in college. During the academic year with financial aid, he did have on-campus housing. But when school let out, home was a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee.</s>GEORGE PARKER: I had to budget for the summer because I knew it was very hard to find employment (laughter). And I knew that I wouldn't necessarily have a place to stay. So I'd - I have to budget my butt off. And then a lot of the times when I was sleeping in my car, what got me through was just thinking that if I finish my education, I'll figure it out from there and it'll all get better. It'll all be OK.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: One of the things that this study shows is that kids in your situation did not have regular sources of food. Well, how did you do for food?</s>GEORGE PARKER: Oh, wow (laughter) food was (laughter) - during the school year, I worked at one of the restaurants on campus. So that mitigated a lot of that issue. But when I stopped working there, it would be hit and miss. Like, sometimes I would have to ask, like, my peers, even roommates, if I could borrow money or eat with them (laughter). That - that's still something I struggle with actually to this day. I mean, my first semester of my graduate program, I didn't have consistent food.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: I understand that Cal State had difficulty gathering statistics about the extent of homelessness among their students because people are reluctant to say that they are homeless. Did you feel that way?</s>GEORGE PARKER: Oh, absolutely.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Why?</s>GEORGE PARKER: Absolutely. Well, I mean, there's this sense of that everybody's supposed to come from a loving family that can provide the basic needs. And when you can't get the basic needs, you feel othered. You feel less than. And, like, you don't necessarily want to promote that, hey, you know, I haven't eaten yet today and it's, like, 4:30 in the afternoon and I'm starving. Can someone feed me or can someone help me eat, you know?</s>GEORGE PARKER: I can admit, like, I probably can think of a handful of instances where I should have asked for help and I chose not to because I was embarrassed and I was ashamed.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Are you thinking that you're going to get out of college and onto a better life? Has it all been worth it?</s>GEORGE PARKER: I would say so, indeed. There were people on campus that supported me and helped me through. I was truly grateful for that. So I've decided to kind of follow in their footsteps and go into the field of academics but as an administrator.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: And see if you can give them the kind of help you got from some friendly strangers?</s>GEORGE PARKER: Yeah, or hopefully better, you know? I've - they've always encouraged me to do more than they've ever done for me, so that's the plan.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: George Parker is a student at Cal State, Fullerton. Thank you very much for talking to us.</s>GEORGE PARKER: Thank you as well. It was a pleasure.

European leaders gather this week to negotiate what will be Britain's complicated divorce from the EU. Can it be undone? Two million Britons have signed a petition calling for a re-vote on Brexit.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Many have found that Britain's vote to leave the European Union is hard to accept. Two million people there have signed an online petition for a Brexit re-vote (ph). But across the English Channel on the continent, EU leaders are already meeting to discuss divorce proceedings. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports from Paris.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The Gare du Nord station in Paris is where the Eurostar train from London pulls in several times a day. Until now, British citizens could travel, work and live freely across the EU and vice versa. Now, the status of millions of Brits living abroad and EU citizens in Britain is just one of many thorny issues that have to be worked out. Former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe says the separation must also change the EU.</s>ALAIN JUPPE: (Through interpreter) This is a historic shock for Great Britain but for us too. And I think the biggest mistake the EU could make would be to continue on just like before. We have to write a new chapter in the history of Europe.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: How to sever ties with Britain and rebuild a different Europe will be on the menu this week as EU leaders meet at an emergency summit in Brussels. Foreign ministers from the six founding EU nations - France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg - gathered yesterday in Berlin. Several stressed the urgency to break up fast and not stay in an extended state of limbo.</s>MARINE LE PEN: (Speaking French).</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's National Front Party, was just one of several far-right populist leaders to call for a referendums for their countries since Friday. There is fear that Brexit has opened a Pandora's box. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday she didn't think the main point of negotiations should be trying to keep other nations from leaving. She also said there was no reason to go fast or to be harsh with Britain.</s>FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: (Speaking French).</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: French President Francois Hollande said what would happen next was a question the whole planet was pondering. Sylvie Goulard is a member of the European Parliament. She says the treaty that governs quitting the EU is very vague.</s>SYLVIE GOULARD: Of course, there is no precedent, so it's quite difficult to know exactly how we implement it.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Britain must begin the process by giving formal notification, and Prime Minister David Cameron has already said he will leave that to his successor in October. Goulard says EU leaders should use this sad occasion of Brexit to positively transform the bloc. She says to confront the world's real threats, from Chinese competition to ISIS, European nations must come together in a more powerful European Union.</s>SYLVIE GOULARD: Look at the question of the borders. We had terrorist attacks. People were coming from Belgium, and we were not capable of working with the Belgian secret services. We need more cooperation. It's not with less information coming from other member states that we will fight against terrorism.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Britain is the EU's second largest economy and it trades freely within the world's largest common market. Now, the U.K. will likely have to renegotiate trade deals with every EU country.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: This giant antiques market on the outskirts of Paris draws many British customers, but vendors here like Georges Bac say they don't think Brexit will be the catastrophe that many are predicting.</s>GEORGES BAC: I don't know. This is going to be an interesting moment. But it might be also - and as people say - an opportunity for Europe to rethink the way it functions.</s>ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Tomorrow in Berlin, the leaders of Germany, France and Italy will coordinate their strategy to deal with Brexit. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.

Donald Trump heads to Texas for a series of fundraisers. Key players in the state appear to be falling in line with his campaign. Gaylord Hughey is one of them, and he tells host Linda Wertheimer why.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Donald Trump heads to Cruz and Bush country next week. He's going to Texas for a series of fundraisers. Throughout the primary season, Trump boasted he was running a self-funded campaign. He talked about how much he hated super PACs. Texas donors have long had some of the deepest pockets for presidential contenders. And key players in the state, even ones who initially supported other candidates, appear to be falling in line with Trump's campaign now. Gaylord Hughey is one of them. He's an oil and gas attorney in Texas. And he is co-chairing fundraising efforts on behalf of Donald Trump. He joins us now. Welcome to our program.</s>GAYLORD HUGHEY: Thanks, Linda. I appreciate the opportunity to visit.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: You were on Jeb Bush's national finance committee. It's kind of a big switch to move from Jeb Bush to Donald Trump - two very different candidates.</s>GAYLORD HUGHEY: It is. I had a personal relationship with the Bush family. They called upon me to assist. But Jeb did not make the cut in terms of the Republican nomination process. And I felt like it's my - really, a duty of mine to assist the nominee. And I'm happy to do it.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Well, now, tell me about that. What made you decide that Donald Trump was your guy? What did it for you with Donald Trump?</s>GAYLORD HUGHEY: Well, it's really a recognition that, as part of the establishment, maybe we were wrong and that there is a populist, organic movement in our country that really focuses on their dissatisfaction with the federal government. And I think that with Hillary Clinton being well-defined as business-as-usual in Washington, I don't think that's good enough. I think it's time for change.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: There are people who are suggesting that Donald Trump himself is becoming an establishment candidate, in part because he's got people like you who are raising money for him, who certainly raised money for the establishment in other campaign seasons.</s>GAYLORD HUGHEY: Be that as it may - and everybody's motivated by, you know, by - in terms of, say, reflection upon their values and what they think and how they want to spend their time and resources. As for me, it's important that I don't stand on the sidelines, that I do pick a side and help move forward the best I can the principles of the Republican Party.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Questions have been raised about Trump's candidacy and some of the things he's said. For example, what do you think about his remarks that the judge in the Trump University case was biased against him because he is, as Mr. Trump said, Mexican? Judge Gonzalo Curiel is of Mexican ancestry. But he was born in Indiana.</s>GAYLORD HUGHEY: Yeah, I felt it was wrong. I thought it was offensive. And particularly, even from my profession as an attorney, to criticize a federal judge based on a specific case, I did feel like it was appropriate.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Mr. Hughey, you have a lot of heavyweight donors in Texas, the Koch brothers, for example, T. Boone Pickens, who - the oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, as we say in the newspapers. And they're not jumping on board. Why do you think that is?</s>GAYLORD HUGHEY: Well, you'll have to ask them. And there'll be those that may not participate. But what I'm finding is there's a new group that is energized. It's really a different type of network that do want to contribute. Overall, I think it has a cleansing effect and broadens the perspective of the Republican Party and the donor base that supports it.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Gaylord Hughey is a Texas attorney. measured in the Texas attorney. He is co-chair of Donald Trump's fundraising effort in that state. Thank you very much.</s>GAYLORD HUGHEY: Thank you, Linda.

Now that Iraqi forces are retaking Fallujah, what is next? NPR's Rachel Martin sat down with Lukman Faily, Iraq's Ambassador to the U.S., to talk about his country's future and America's role in it.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: In the fast past few days, Iraqi forces have retaken most of Fallujah, which had been under ISIS control. It's a huge strategic and symbolic loss for the Islamic State. Fallujah is one of several key cities Iraq has taken back. But ousting ISIS is only one of the battles Iraq must fight as a country. Political feuds, ethnic tensions and sectarian hatred have fragmented Iraq.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Earlier this past week, I sat down with Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. In July, he's going to be leaving his post here in Washington. And we started our conversation by talking about the deep political divisions in his country. I asked him what he thought about recent suggestions by Kurdish leaders that Iraq just be split into three separate nations - Sunni, Shia and Kurdish. It was an idea, he said, works in theory but not so much in practice.</s>LUKMAN FAILY: There always has to be an interdependency and a need for a mutual beneficial relationship between all the elements of the current existence of Iraq. So you cannot go and say, well, everybody have their own country. Even if we do that, we still need to talk each other. We still have an issue of ISIS as a threat to the region as a whole. The issues of separations and others can be discussed. However, the constitution, which the Kurds have ratified and agreed to, talk about unity of the country.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So why do you think Iraq, with all its disparate elements, with years and years of sectarian conflict - what's the case that all these parties are safer together than they are apart?</s>LUKMAN FAILY: The wealth of the country, the geopolitics within the region - if all of these three entities aspire for democracy in a region which is not democratic, then you want them to work with each other. On the other side of it, let's say you go with a division. What would this contain within the three borders? If you're promoting a new narrative based on nationality, ethnicity and others, why would the current borders of Iraq be contained within that?</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: You're saying it's a slippery slope. Where do you draw the borders?</s>LUKMAN FAILY: I'm saying where would - if the borders are artificial...</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Yeah, where would it end?</s>LUKMAN FAILY: ...Such as those (unintelligible) who are promoting it, there may have been - but (unintelligible)...</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: I mean, many people say that...</s>LUKMAN FAILY: But that's a century now. Surely, we have learned for over a century how to work with each other. So Iraq is already a diverse, complicated situation because of civilizations, history and everything else. We have had generations of dictatorship engineering - socially destroying the fabric of the society - engineered that way. Saddam Hussein did it in culture of wars and everything else. So this requires generational fix. So it's not an issue of separation. Separation is a magic simple solution to a complicated problem.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: How do you see America's role in that?</s>LUKMAN FAILY: It need to have that long view. The U.S., if its policy based on the next presidency politics or view alone, then, unfortunately, it will not be a cohesive policy. It will not be a long effective policy because these issues requires cultural change, requires social change. So it has to be done by us. But we need the Americans and other countries to help us in governance, to certainly help us in getting rid of the tumors of ISIS, to give our politics a breathing space so that we can talk to each other in a more civil or in a more peaceful environment.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The United States, as you know, has spent over $2 trillion in Iraq since the invasion in 2003. That's a lot of money. There's a lot of fatigue among the American population about the investment.</s>LUKMAN FAILY: Let's - this way.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: How do you keep making the case?</s>LUKMAN FAILY: The tragedy's not that. The tragedy is 5,000 soldiers. Tragedy is maybe 50,000-plus injured, maimed and others. The money can be generated. But lives going and so on - that's what I think we need to focus on. The region is...</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Is it complicated to ask the U.S. government to keep writing the checks but to let Iraq make the decisions?</s>LUKMAN FAILY: No, no, no, no. Iraqis have wealthy country. We never said to the Americans we need (unintelligible) on the ground now. On the contrary, we're saying we don't. Even we get pushed, we say no. This is our fight. But we need the U.S. to enable us with technology, with better intelligence-sharing, with, for example, our pilots being trained better, faster. We need to go on a faster track in addressing our issues so that we can help you in addressing the global problem of terrorism.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: You and I have been talking about the long view and the necessity of taking the long view. In that spirit, may I ask you to look back in time and tell me, for the average, everyday Iraqi, is life better today than it was under Saddam Hussein?</s>LUKMAN FAILY: Well, under Saddam Hussein we had what we might call republic of fear. People were not allowed to think. People were - had - certainly had not ability to change, to do anything about their lives. Now we have democracy - nascent democracy, I might add. Society is trying to be empowered. GDP per capita is 10 times better than during Saddam time.</s>LUKMAN FAILY: So I don't think it's that aspect of it. We certainly have high expectations and aspiration as a society. We may not know what it takes to go there. We may want to jumpstart it. We may want to do shortcuts. For example, we tried to fix issues with legislation while, in reality, we need to change the culture, not just legislations. So we need to have a long view of that aspect of it.</s>LUKMAN FAILY: So the Americans need to understand that. They need to understand the complexity of it. Unfortunately, people thought that only give them democracy, everything else will be on an autopilot. That's not working. That will never work. Why? Because the culture was not - the region is not accepting it. Let me give example, Arab Spring - tons of generations tried to change it. It was hijacked. Why? Because the politics were not there. It wasn't just an aspiration. You need the infrastructure of societies, NGOs and others to promote it and to guide it and to shepherd change in politics. That's not an easy aspect of it.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Thank you so much for talking with us, Mr. Ambassador. We really appreciate your time.</s>LUKMAN FAILY: Thank you for having me again. Wish you all the best.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: That was outgoing Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. Lukman Faily.

The presidential campaigns were quick to weigh in on Britain's vote to leave the European Union. NPR's Linda Wertheimer speaks with correspondent Mara Liasson about what we learned and what's ahead.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: The move by British voters to leave the European Union comes just about four months before Election Day here in the U.S. NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us now to talk about how one could affect the other. Good morning, Mara.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Linda.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Now, Donald Trump happened to be in Scotland as the U.K. and the rest of the world were registering the Brexit decision. How did Trump play it, and what about Hillary Clinton?</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Trump was triumphant. He was for the Brexit and in statements and fundraising letters he said it was a great thing. He said they took their country back like we're going to take our country back. In a press conference on his golf course in Scotland, he said this would be good for his business. He said when the pound goes down, more people will travel to Turnberry, meaning that U.S. dollar would go up it would be cheaper to go to England and Scotland. He also was asked whether he's discussed this with his foreign policy advisers, and he said there's nothing to talk about.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, said in this time of uncertainty it only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House. So it's pretty clear who she was not talking about in that statement. Her campaign also unloaded on Trump's response. They called it pathological self-congratulation. They said his first reaction was what's in it for me. So both candidates are using this earthquake event in Great Britain for their own purposes. But it would probably be a big mistake for either candidate or party to ignore the message of Brexit.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Is there a message for American politics?</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: I think there is. The Brexit vote was a referendum on globalization. Donald Trump is the anti-globalization candidate. On Wednesday in that big speech attacking Hillary Clinton, he said there's a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs. So America first, which is Trump's slogan, is the equivalent of the leave campaign with its identity politics and populist nationalist anti-immigrant sentiment. So you could say the simplest prediction is that Brexit helps Trump, or at least amplifies his message. There's another way this might affect the U.S. election, and that's if the economic repercussions of the British divorce from the EU harm the U.S. economy. That would be bad for Hillary Clinton.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: And then you have the fact that the sentiment against global elites has been consistently underestimated. You know, the markets had remain as the favorite to win, but there was, in the end, a decisive win for leave, and that suggests to many nervous Democrats here in the U.S. that maybe Trump's support is also being underestimated.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: So in this election, if Trump is the equivalent of leave and Hillary is the status quo, she has a big challenge, which is how to acknowledge this populism and nationalism, how to say to voters who are tired of slow growth and growth that's not brief broadly shared that she has a plan for them.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Now, Hillary Clinton's message that she's a steady hand in anxious times, you think that works for American voters?</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: I think it's a strong argument. It's also a reason why the Brexit vote may not be a direct parallel to U.S. elections. The U.S. campaign isn't just a referendum on globalization. It's also a referendum on Donald Trump. He has a powerful message, but he has a lot of deficits as a messenger. Another difference is that the anti-immigrant sentiment in Britain was in both parties, Labour and Conservative. Here in the U.S., the anti-immigrant sentiment is really only on one side - the Republicans.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: That's NPR's national political correspondent, Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Thank you.

Many Irish citizens living in Britain can vote in Thursday's referendum on European Union membership. Ireland, with billions of trade dollars at risk, wants them to vote to keep the UK in the EU.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: This Thursday, voters in Britain will go to the polls to decide whether their country should stay in or walk away from the European Union. And citizens from the Republic of Ireland living in the U.K. will get to vote, too. The Irish government hopes they will not vote for the so-called Brexit. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports that envoys from Dublin have been visiting the Irish ex-pat community, encouraging them to vote against leaving.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: The Irish and the British have been mixing for centuries. Well before the Great Famine scattered the Irish to distant lands in the 19th century, they were coming to Britain. They laid the rails, built the roads, sewed the clothes, bringing with them the energy of immigrants and an appreciation for a good old country waltz.</s>JIMMY BUCKLEY: (Singing) It's hard to imagine a baby so tiny and small.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Dancers spin around the floor at the Irish Center in Leeds, a city in Northern England that's home to a sizable Irish community. Bernadette Wray, a retired seamstress, is sitting down for lunch with friends.</s>BERNADETTE WRAY: I've been in Leeds longer than I lived in Ireland. I came here when I was 21 years of age, met a Yorkshireman, got married. And I'm still here.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: She has a general idea why the Irish government has sent envoys to Leeds - to remind Irish citizens to remember their homeland when they vote Thursday on the EU referendum.</s>BERNADETTE WRAY: Because things won't be so great in Ireland if Britain pulls out.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: As far as Ireland is concerned, that's putting it mildly. Since becoming an independent country in the 1920s, Irish citizens have enjoyed freedom of movement to Britain. And whether that would continue after a Brexit is just one of Dublin's worries. Ambassador to the U.K. Daniel Mulhall says the current Irish relationship with the U.K. is infinitely better than it was during what's known as the troubles, when the IRA staged a guerrilla insurgency against British rule in Northern Ireland. Mulhall says thanks to the E.U., trade is now booming.</s>DANIEL MULHALL: With the 1 billion pounds a week in trade back and forth across the Irish Sea, with the investment that's flowing in both directions and anything that risks or jeopardizes that is clearly unwelcome from an Irish point of view.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Yes, he did say a billion British pounds a week. And that include goods crossing Ireland's 310-mile land border with Northern Ireland. What if that border were to become an EU frontier with Ireland in and Northern Ireland out of the E.U.? The leave camp says new arrangements would be negotiated. But the British government has said that border would need to be hardened. Irish jobs and innovation minister, Mary Mitchell O'Connor worries about that.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: MARY O'CONNOR: It will be very hard, apart, you know, to kind of ensure free travel. And we have got used to it. I mean, I remember the time when you traveled to Northern Ireland when there was two and three hours' wait, you know, over and back across the border. And I wouldn't like to see that happen. I don't think it would help trade.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: But on this day, at least, the economic arguments weren't entirely persuasive. As Bernadette Wray finishes her lunch, she says she's got nothing against immigrants, being one herself. But she shares the same worries that have driven Northern voters toward the leave camp. The one she heard that morning was a charge that Britain couldn't even deport immigrants convicted of crime.</s>BERNADETTE WRAY: That's wrong. If you commit murder and rape people, they should be able to deport them. But they can't because of the EU laws. What's the answer there? Put up with it, or vote to pull out. And have our own laws?</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: The Irish envoys say they respect the U.K.'s right to make its own choice. But it's clear Dublin will be watching with more than a little anxiety when the polls open Thursday. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Leeds.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are not the only candidates running. Ken Rudin of the Political Junkie podcast and NPR's Linda Wertheimer discuss the Senate and House races.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: This November, Americans will go to the polls to elect the president of the United States. Also up for grabs are 34 seats in the Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives. So how will the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump affect those so-called down-ballot races? Ken Rudin is host of the "Political Junkie" podcast. He joins us from Los Angeles where he is attending Politicon. Think Comic-Con for all things political. More about that in a minute. Thank you for being with us, Ken.</s>KEN RUDIN: Thank you, Linda.</s>KEN RUDIN: So let's start in the Senate - 34 seats contested, 24 currently held by Republicans. What's catching your attention?</s>KEN RUDIN: Well, the Republicans are nervous. They're worried about the top of the ticket. As you say, there are 24 seats up, and there are quite a few of them that are vulnerable. Matter of fact, Mark Kirk of Illinois, perhaps the most vulnerable of all Republicans seeking re-election, announced the other day that he can not support Donald Trump. And I don't think you've seen that for any Republican senator since Goldwater in '64. So, you know, just because the top of the ticket may not be popular doesn't necessarily mean the party will lose the bottom of the ticket. Think McGovern and Mondale in '72 and '84. Both of them lost 49 states in November, but the Democrats picked up seats in the Senate that year.</s>KEN RUDIN: Are they nervous that people might just decide to stay home, not come out and vote?</s>KEN RUDIN: Well, that's what it really is. I mean, I - every now and then you do see Republicans for Hillary, those kind of organizations popping up. But when you see people like Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, who is up for a tough fight for re-election, she voted for all four gun control measures last week because she just wants something to get done. You have John McCain in Arizona saying - the Latino population in his home state of Arizona, they despise Donald Trump but he's scared to death. You have Marco Rubio in Florida - the Republicans were desperate to get him back in the race because until he got back in the race they felt that it was a lost cause. And it still may be a lost cause. And as you say, Linda, with a lot of Republicans either threatening to bolt to the other side or, even worse, stay home, these Republicans are nervous.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Democrats don't have as much to lose in the Senate, obviously. Do you think they're feeling any kind of pain from Hillary Clinton?</s>KEN RUDIN: No. I mean, here's the difference. I mean, if - look, Hillary Clinton does have high negatives, as does Donald Trump, but her party definitely supports her. There only seems to be only two Democratic seats that are worth looking at in November - the open seat in Nevada where Harry Reid is retiring and maybe Michael Bennet, the Democrat in Colorado. But for the most part, every other Democratic seat seems absolutely safe.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: We keep hearing that Donald Trump has no ground game and that Hillary Clinton has much more money. Does that matter?</s>KEN RUDIN: I think it does, and let me tell you why. Go back to 2012. You think of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Both of them really had the same amount of money, give or take, but Mitt Romney spent a lot of his money on television whereas Barack Obama went to the key battleground states around the country, built up a strong campaign organization. And when all was said and done, aside from North Carolina, Obama won every key battleground state. And I think he used the money the right way by building support on the ground and with organizations in those key states.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: OK. Now, tell us about Politicon. What's it like?</s>KEN RUDIN: (Laughter) I was about to say that it's really surreal 'cause it combines politics and celebrity and entertainment. And then I said, wait a second. I just described the 2016 presidential race, you know, the confluence of politics and celebrity. You have Sarah Palin and James Carville. You have Julian Castro and Glenn Beck. I mean, there's a whole bunch of founding fathers walking around the place. One guy was dressed as Alexander Hamilton. I asked him if he could get me any tickets. He had no idea what I was talking about. But it's really kind of weird stuff but nothing weirder than we've seen in this campaign, I guess.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Ken Rudin is host of the "Political Junkie" podcast. Ken, thank you very much.</s>KEN RUDIN: Thank you so much, Linda.

Over 50 State Department officials signed a dissent memo, criticizing the administration's Syria policy. NPR's Rachel Martin speaks to former ambassador Robert Ford about why many took this action.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Something highly unusual happened in the world of American diplomacy this past week. A deep, internal rift at the U.S. State Department over the war in Syria was made public in the form of a letter. The New York Times got a hold of this memo, signed by 51 State Department diplomats and mid-level officials, urging the Obama administration to use military force against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in order to bring an end to the civil war that has raged on there for five years. To talk more about the significance of this, we are joined by the last U.S. ambassador to serve in Syria before the civil war consumed the country. Robert Ford joins us on the line now. Thanks so much for being with us.</s>ROBERT FORD: Pleasure to be with you this morning.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: This letter - this memo came through a designated channel at the State Department that was set up a long time ago for this very reason - right? - as a place to voice dissent without fear of reprisals. How often is it used, though?</s>ROBERT FORD: In my 28 years at the department, I heard of numerous dissent channel messages - in the dozens. But I never heard of one that had more than four, five, six signatures. So what's really unusual about this is that 51 people signed it. That's remarkable.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The memo essentially says the current policy regarding Syria is broken. The diplomacy hasn't worked. Assad has not given an inch. And there has to be more pressure on him if anything's going to change. So may I ask you where you come down on this? Do you think military strikes are the best way to achieve that?</s>ROBERT FORD: First of all, the political process necessary to get a negotiated deal to negotiate a new government is broken. It's not working. And a cease-fire isn't working. We all saw the bombs falling on Aleppo. So the administration needs to do something different if it hopes to get to the negotiation that it says it wants. U.S. military force should be considered as an option. But it is certainly not the only option. To me, it should be the last option. And I would much prefer to see an effort on - directed towards helping opposition fighters on the ground to put more pressure on Assad to negotiate.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Why hasn't there been more robust support for opposition forces?</s>ROBERT FORD: I think the main reason is that the administration is nervous that either, A, it would topple the Assad government. Of course, the point is not to topple the government. The point is to get the government to negotiate. This is not about regime change. This is about a negotiation. And the second reason the administration has been reluctant is they fear that this would eventually lead to U.S. military involvement in Syria. But the U.S. military already is involved in Syria, out in eastern Syria in the war against Islamic State.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: How much of the complicating factors in Syria has to do with how the U.S. has prioritized the threat? I mean - correct me if I'm wrong - but the U.S. priority in Syria - the administration has prioritized the threat against ISIS, not the instability wrought by the civil war.</s>ROBERT FORD: And the memo that we're talking about - the dissent memo addresses that point precisely and says that it will be impossible to get a sustainable, long-term solution to the Islamic State challenge in Syria if you don't address the broader Syrian civil war because the Islamic State gains credibility and gains new recruits on the ground.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Has this been personally frustrating for you? I mean, it's - you left this position critical of the administration's policy in Syria.</s>ROBERT FORD: I think it's been frustrating for everyone. I think it's been frustrating for the people even at the top of the administration. The real question is not to be frustrated. The question is how to be creative and find ways to resolve the Syrian crisis and how to contain the problems that it's creating in Europe, creating in the Middle East.</s>RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Robert Ford is the former U.S. ambassador to Syria. He is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Thanks so much for talking with us.</s>ROBERT FORD: It was my pleasure.

Families of the 49 dead in the Orlando shooting are holding services, saying good-bye and arranging to bring bodies back home. But what happens if the person killed was living in the U.S. illegally?

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Of the 49 people who were murdered in the Orlando dance club a week ago today, two were undocumented Mexican citizens. For families already grieving, they face additional challenge because of their relatives' immigration status. NPR's John Burnett introduces us to the family of one Orlando victim who lived in the shadows.</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Mourners spill out onto the sidewalk at a modest funeral home in a strip center in central Orlando. On this sticky, humid night, they're attending the wake, or velorio, for Joel Rayon Paniagua. The 31-year-old native of Veracruz, Mexico, was foreman of a crew that works beside Florida highways, picking up trash and cutting the grass under the sweltering summer sun, the kind of work, as they say, that no one else wants to do. His friends say Joel loved tacos de pollo, his Catholic church and dancing to cumbia music. He had two favorite sayings.</s>NICOLAS: (Speaking Spanish).</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: "One was you have to live every day like it's your last," says his brother Nicolas. "And the other was never say you can't. Always remain positive."</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Nicolas and other close friends and family are wearing T-shirts showing the handsome face of his dead brother next to the words, you will always live in our hearts. Funerals are happening all over central Florida these days, as well as in Puerto Rico where many of the victims are from. They're deeply sad rituals, but legally uncomplicated - not so with Joel Rayon.</s>ISAAC: (Speaking Spanish).</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: "It causes lots of sadness because if you're undocumented and you die in this country, you don't have the same rights as we do back home," says another brother at the funeral whose name is Isaac. "But lately," he adds, "this country has supported us a lot."</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Because of the extraordinary circumstances of the Pulse bloodbath, the United States quickly granted a humanitarian visa to Joel's loved ones in Mexico. They have seven days here to tend to his death and escort the body back to his birthplace of Cordoba, Veracruz.</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Moreover, a Florida crime victim's assistance fund is donating $7,500 in funeral expenses, and airlines are giving them free airfare and cargo space. Finally, because Joel was the victim of a violent crime in this country, his survivors from Mexico are eligible to apply for a special visa called a U visa that can lead to legal residency.</s>JUAN SABINES: (Speaking Spanish).</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: "Under ordinary circumstances, it would be a big advantage for the family to have the chance to apply for this special visa," says Juan Sabines, the Mexican consul in Orlando. "But unfortunately, in this case, it's a tragedy for them."</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: The consulate is helping the families of the Mexicans killed in the shooting. Joel Rayon has a big family back in Mexico. His kid brother Isaac is the only sibling who lives here in Orlando. He works construction and, like his brother, is here illegally. Isaac wishes he could return with his family for the burial in Veracruz, but he knows if he leaves he won't be able to return. And he knows they need him here.</s>ISAAC: (Speaking Spanish).</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: "I have to stay here to keep supporting my mom, my grandparents and my brothers and sisters," says Isaac, his face sad and expressionless. Now that my brother is gone, I'm the only one left here in U.S. Everyone depends on me.</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: It's 9 o'clock, and the wake is supposed to be ending. But people are staying. They're still viewing the open coffin to look at Joel's movie star face one last time. They're still out here under the awning remembering their beloved friend. His brother Isaac offers one last thought on this dreadful week.</s>ISAAC: (Speaking Spanish).</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: "We never imagined there would be a massacre here," he says, looking out at the darkened city. "I was very surprised this happened. I thought this country had lots of security, this country where everybody wants to be. It's not as secure as everybody thinks."</s>ISAAC: (Speaking Spanish).</s>JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: John Burnett, NPR News, Orlando.

The Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers are preparing for tonight's NBA showdown. Cleveland sports teams, which haven't won a championship in 52 years, hope tonight breaks the curse.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Tonight's deciding game of the NBA playoffs pits the defending champion Golden State Warriors against their 2015 opponents, the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs are also battling a disappointing Cleveland sports legacy. It's been five decades since a Cleveland professional team has won a championship. David C. Barnett of WCPN Ideastream says fans are desperate to break that losing streak.</s>DAVID BARNETT, BYLINE: Linda Marshall dresses the part of a Cavs fan, sporting the Burgundy team color on her T-shirt and in her matching lipstick. But sitting in a downtown street cafe, she says Cleveland sports can be hard on your health.</s>LINDA MARSHALL: Honestly, about four years ago, I had to stop watching the Browns, the Indians, the Cavs. Even though I have a good heart, my heart couldn't take it because it was just a, you know, a seesaw.</s>DAVID BARNETT, BYLINE: To love Cleveland sports is to know deep frustration. The 1964 Browns were the last professional team to win a world championship for the city. And the intervening 52 years have been a litany of thes (ph) like The Drive in 1987 that denied the Browns a Super Bowl birth, The Shot in 1989 by Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan that knocked the Cavaliers out of the NBA playoffs and The Blown Save in 1997 by reliever Jose Mesa that cost the Indians the World Series.</s>BRIAN VARGO: My father would get so frustrated watching the Browns.</s>DAVID BARNETT, BYLINE: Brian Vargo says exasperation is a family tradition.</s>BRIAN VARGO: I remember being a kid watching the playoffs and having to go outside and play in the snow 'cause it was just too intense, you know?</s>DAVID BARNETT, BYLINE: On the air Friday morning, sports talk broadcaster Anthony Lima of 92.3 The Fan admitted that it's been hard for him to watch this playoff series.</s>ANTHONY LIMA: I think you're not human if you're not always a little bit guarded. As cocky as we want to get, as much as we have LeBron on our side and no one else does, you still want to guard against the unthinkable happening.</s>DAVID BARNETT, BYLINE: But the unthinkable has happened for the past half century. Still, the fans want to believe, even though the game is being played in Oakland. A whole lot of Clevelanders are once again thinking this time will be different, even though no team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA finals. Longtime fan Eric Williams says he isn't even worried.</s>ERIC WILLIAMS: No. At this point, no. We got it. It's historic. It's history. We're a part of it. I'm just waiting for the parade.</s>DAVID BARNETT, BYLINE: And so are a lot of other long-suffering Cleveland sports fans. For NPR News, I'm David C. Barnett.

A gunman opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. overnight. Catherine Welch of WMFE tells host Linda Wertheimer that there are multiple deaths and dozens hospitalized. The shooter is dead.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Police in Orlando, Fla., say some 20 bargain people are dead after a gunman opened fire in a popular nightclub. The gunman was eventually killed by police. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer addressed the media early this morning.</s>BUDDY DYER: Tonight, our community witnessed or experienced a very horrific crime. Many lives were lost and many more individuals were impacted by witnessing the crime.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Here is Danny Banks. He is the special agent in charge at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.</s>DANNY BANKS: Anytime that we have potentially dozens of victims on any of our communities, that I think we can qualify that as a terrorist activity. Whether that's a domestic terrorist activity or an international one, it's certainly something we will get to the bottom of. We're glad to have...</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Catherine Welch of station WMFE was at that press conference. And she joins us on the line. Catherine, could you just take us through what we know about the shooting so far?</s>CATHERINE WELCH, BYLINE: Sure, Linda. It happened at a popular gay dance club just outside of downtown Orlando at about 2 o'clock this morning. Shots were fired. There was an off-duty police officer who was working security. He went after the suspect. There was a gunbattle. A few more officers joined in. After the gunbattle, at that point, the suspect went back inside the nightclub That's when it turned into a hostage situation.</s>CATHERINE WELCH, BYLINE: Orlando police received calls from the bathroom of people trapped inside. Once they got a sense of the scope of the situation, at about 5 o'clock in the morning, they decided they were going to break down the doors. They went inside. They rescued about 30 people inside and say there were about 20 people inside who were dead.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: The shooter has not been named yet. Do we know anything about him?</s>CATHERINE WELCH, BYLINE: What we do know is what police tell us, which is they say he was organized. He was well prepared, not from the area. What they don't know is if he acted alone. They said he had an assault rifle, a handgun. And they would only say he had what they called a suspicious device on him. We're not sure what that means at this point. They are looking for a tie to terrorism. They say that this is not at all related to the shooting death of the voice star Christina Grimmie. That happened yesterday at a completely different nightclub. There's no relation to that. And at this point - now they're just looking to see if there's any kind of a tie to terrorism.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: But so far, not even a name?</s>CATHERINE WELCH, BYLINE: No, not that I'm aware of.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Now, there are 42 people in area hospitals. We have seen television footage of people being loaded into pickups and other kinds of vehicles and rushing off. Do you know what sort of condition those people are in?</s>CATHERINE WELCH, BYLINE: We don't know yet. We - they're at the local hospitals. We're working to hear from the local hospitals. Police did not feel comfortable talking about the 42 suspects. What they will tell you is that they all suffered from gunshot wounds.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Thank you very much, Catherine. We appreciate your talking with us. And we will be back in touch...</s>CATHERINE WELCH, BYLINE: Thank you, Linda.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: ...As the morning goes on. Thank you. Catherine Welch, station WMFE, will continue to update this story, as I said.

What contributes to the links between race and the shortened life expectancy of black men? And what makes a difference in changing black men's lives? Vickie Mays is director of the UCLA Center on Research, Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities. The center has been researching the body's physiological response to racism.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya, and this is NEWS & NOTES.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Many of us have heard about the links between race and the shortened life expectancy of black men. But what lies behind the numbers and what makes a difference in changing black men's lives.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: To help us dig into the issues, we've got psychologist Vickie Mays. She's the director of the UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Thanks for coming on.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Vickie, what do we know about the problem of health disparities among black men?</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): We're at a stage where what we know is that they definitely exist. We're not trying to prove them any longer because when we look at life expectancy, despite the fact that many African-American men are moving up in the economic and social ladder, they're still not living that long.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): I mean, it's pretty sad that an African-American man born in 1999 is expected to live to be 68. But, yet, a white man, born in that same time, is expected to live to be 75.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So what are we talking about with causes or possible causes?</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): There's a range of things. And - I mean, there's the typical suspects where we talk about not enough exercise, diet, and things like that. But what we find is that there are individuals who are dieting, who have, you know, great exercise habits, and still seem to die early.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): And so some of us have started asking this question of why is it that for African-American men, despite the fact that they may have all kind of life stresses in comparison to other ethnic groups who have those same life stresses, that they live longer and African-American don't?</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): One of the factors that we're starting to really pay attention to it is that of race-based discrimination. Race-based discrimination is something that when you think about it, it's all those little subtle things that happen every day - the feeling that, you know, someone's following you in the store, the feeling that, you know, you get passed over for a job, the feeling that, you know, despite all your best efforts, someone is looking at you as being less than, not equal to, they treat you differently, badly, unfairly.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So how does that translate in the body, that kind of generalized stress?</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): Well, what happens - and, you know, you can kind of think about this in lots of ways - but, for example, if you feel that someone is treating you differently like, you know, when we think about that, what you'll find is that even though the incident occurred at that moment, later you're still telling somebody about it. You're still upset about it.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): And what happens in the body is that your brain perceives that there is a problem. It perceives that there is danger - a threat that something is going to put you at peril. And then what happens is your body - and this is, you know, really back from more evolutionary times where, you know, we had to worry about being eaten by lions, and bears, and tigers, and things like that. But it's still the same principle of the body experiences a threat. When it experiences that sense of threat or something that is putting its survival at risk, it then goes into a mode where it gives you, for example, all the things that you would need to do to fight a big fight.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): Well, race - we've underestimated race-based discrimination, and the extent to which, when we experience it, it really is pretty serious. And it puts the body on this alert. And, you know, asking African-American men what they feel, for example, when they see a police car; what they feel, for example, when they walk into an environment and people are looking at them as if they don't belong there - it begins to cause the body to respond in a way in which, if something is going to happen, you feel your heart race sometime, you feel clenching in your teeth, in your hands, you know? What your body is doing is giving you this extra incentive to pay attention, be hyper alert, and to protect yourself.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: But given that, you know, those stresses might be chronic, what can an individual do to, say, you know what, maybe I am stressed out and - you know, and there are real causes, but I'm not going to have a stroke because of this. What can someone do if they recognize that?</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): Part of what we're trying to do is to really learn about the ways in which when the brain notices this threat - we call it self-appraisal - so when the brain notices this threat, it's, like, to help individuals, first and foremost, to understand how responsive do I need to be. It's one thing to see the police, you know, pull up, and it's another thing for me to have someone following me around in a store. But we have to really help people to kind of get a sense of responding at a level that may be more commiserate with this sense of threat.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): The second thing is really to get - what we're learning about in the brain is a little bit of how it is that certain interventions - and those are things like meditation, mindfulness - you will hear people say, oh, you should do a tai chi and yoga and all these things. There are ways in which it really changes the brain, and it gets the brain to go to a place where it actually can relax, recharge itself.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): With African-Americans, who are experiencing this race-based discrimination, may need to have that recharge a little bit more. And so we need to figure out some of the ways that that can be done. There are simple things like affirmation. There are other things like thinking - and this really, you know, some people want to, you know, probably challenge us a little bit, but there is something that happens when people go to a spiritual place. So sometimes prayer for some people, for some people it's meditation, but there is a spiritual place that we can go to.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): And those are things that you can do in your life over time to help you to reduce your stress and to help you kind of have a sense of being able to meet challenges in a way in which those challenges don't involve your whole body responding in a full-pressed physiological response to incidents. So it's a lot of training that, I think, would help in terms of bringing people back to that place where, okay, I see this. I'm not stroking out over this.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Finally, quickly, are you also reaching out to try to educate health care providers?</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): Oh, without a doubt. That is primary for us. We've just started talking to individuals in - who are running primary care practices to really think about giving advice that has to do with noticing race-based stress and coming up with some interventions to reduce that.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Vickie, thanks so much.</s>Dr. VICKIE MAYS (Director, UCLA Center on Research Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities; Professor, Psychology, University of California): Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Psychologist Vickie Mays directs the UCLA Center on Research, Education, Training and Strategic Communication on Minority Health Disparities.

The local district attorney won't challenge a court decision that sends the case of "Jena Six" co-defendant Mychal Bell back to juvenile court. Kirsten Levingston, who directs public programs at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, talks about the legal and social implications of the case.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Looks like the Jena Six co-defendant Mychal Bell should finally get his day in court - juvenile court.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Late Wednesday, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco took the mic. She announced that the local district attorney will not fight an appeals court decision to try Bell as a juvenile. Bell was 16 years old at the time he allegedly assaulted a white student. He's now 17. Bell's supporters argued that trying Bell as an adult was unfair and illegal.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Here's Blanco yesterday.</s>Governor KATHLEEN BLANCO (Democrat, Louisiana): There is no place for racism in Louisiana. We do not tolerate racism. We will not tolerate discrimination nor will we tolerate intimidation in any form, whatsoever.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Blanco spoke just after she met with the Reverend Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III in Baton Rouge.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Bell remains in jail, but Sharpton and others hope Bell's bond will be set low enough for a quick release.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What are the wider legal implications of the case? We've got Kirsten Levingston. She directs public programs at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Kirsten, welcome.</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): Thank you, Farai. It's good to be with you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So let's start with Mychal Bell. What happens to him next and how is it that he's still in jail?</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): We will hear from the prosecutor shortly about his plans for what happens next to Mychal Bell. The fact that he is not - that the prosecutor is not pursuing the appeal is a great move in the right direction. However, the prosecutor still maintains a lot of discretion and can proceed in a juvenile court. If he does decide to proceed in juvenile court, he will also have some discretion in keeping Bell locked up during the juvenile proceedings. So while this is a positive development, for sure, Mychal Bell is not yet out of the rough waters.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Does it make a difference that Mychal Bell has prior convictions on his record?</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): Often times, as the prosecutors exercise their discretion, they look at a suspect, at a defendant. And I think that things like prior convictions, and unfortunately, we see here in this Jena Six case - even the race of the individual involved in the system as well as the race of the victim are factors that are considered when the prosecutor decides what he's going to do. So I think the prior convictions certainly played into things as well as other factors here.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, Reed Walters, the La Salle Parish district attorney, wrote an op-ed that appeared in the New York Times yesterday before this announcement and he defended his choice not to file hate crime charges against the white students who hung the nooses. He quotes a young woman who said, quote, "If you can figure out how to make a schoolyard fight into an attempted murder charge, I'm sure you can figure out how to make stringing nooses into a hate crime."</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, what exactly does that quote say about the kind of latitude that criminal prosecutors have?</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): Well, prosecutors certainly have a great deal of discretion and latitude. I think it's interesting, though, how this whole conversation is being framed because it's being framed as an issue of criminal justice and punishment.</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): When I look at all of the events that have gone on in Jena over the last year or so, you know, I see some problems. There were lots of fights. There's lots of anger. There are incredibly threatening and despicable acts like the hanging of the noose on the tree.</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): But the question that I think the broader society has to ask is what is the solution. And I would argue that criminalizing everything and simply looking at how harshly we can punish those who are involved in the activities is not the only solution. If we really want to get away from a society in which nooses can be hung, I don't think we can rely on the criminal justice system to prevent that. I mean, it's really important to look at the broader social issues and dynamics and really figure out the proper way to solve those underlying problems and tensions that led to this whole scenario.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: But in the criminal justice system, whether it's this case or any cases that might have similar implications, there is this prosecutorial discretion. What exactly does it mean and how does it affect the kinds of charges that young men and women are facing and the kind of atmosphere that they move into in a criminal justice system?</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): Well, a prosecutor essentially has omnipotent power. They are presented with a situation, a set of facts, and they look at those facts and determine whether or not a crime has happened. And if so, what type of crime happened.</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): And you mentioned Mr. Walters' op-ed piece earlier this week. I mean, I think it's fascinating that in that op-ed piece, he really defended the charges that he brought against Mychal Bell and the other kids in Jena. But we see from today's developments that, obviously, he's changed his mind. He's decided that he doesn't want to pursue the prosecution of Bell as an adult, which was a discretionary decision that he made. I mean, even earlier in the case, the charges morphed from, you know, attempted murder to a battery charge or -battery charge. And, again, you saw the prosecutor kind of changing his mind about exactly what happened and what the facts lent themselves to in terms of a criminal charge.</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): So the prosecutor has great, great decision at that charging moment. They have great discretion at whether or not they offer a plea. They have great discretion in terms of the kind of sentence recommendation that they make to a judge. And prosecutors in our system of justice, I believe, really are there to uphold justice, to do justice, not just to win a case and not just to harshly punish.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So final question, is this going to help create an environment in which we, as a society, look at these questions of prosecutorial discretion, race and the criminal justice system, all that?</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): I think we have a real opportunity here, and the question is what we make of this opportunity. The case in Jena comes on the heels of a similar case in North Carolina in which a prosecutor's discretion, I think, all of us agree was abused. So I think on the heels of these two very transparent, very public shows of misused prosecutorial discretion, we have a moment to come forward with some solutions.</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): The transparency is key. We have to know what prosecutors are deciding and the factors that go into their decision-making. And if we could move forward in requiring prosecutors to explain themselves a bit more, that would be a very positive step as well.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: All right. Well, Kirsten, thanks so much.</s>Ms. KIRSTEN LEVINGSTON (Director, Brennan Center for Justice Program, New York University): Thank you, Farai.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Kirsten Levingston runs public programs for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. And she joined us by phone.

A new documentary takes a look inside the Arkansas school at the center of a key Civil Rights moment 50 years ago. Farai Chideya talks with Craig and Brent Renaud who directed the HBO documentary "Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later," and Minnijean Brown-Trickey, one of the original Little Rock Nine.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya, and this is NEWS & NOTES.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: As we mark the 50th anniversary of the Integration of Little Rock Central High, we risk focusing too much attention on the past and not enough on the present. That's the message of a powerful new HBO documentary, "Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later."</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Filmmakers Craig and Brent Renaud visited Central earlier this year to see if the school and the city have managed to move past that fateful day half a century ago. With them for the journey was one of the Little Rock Nine, Minnijean Brown-Trickey. All three join me now.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Welcome.</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): Thank you.</s>Mr. CRAIG RENAUD (Co-Director, "Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later"): Hi. Thank you for having us.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So Minnijean, let me start with you. The beginning of the film is really wrenching when you are outside of Central High - a very emotional moment. So what were you feeling then and how have your feelings about the day that you walked first to Central changed over the years?</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): Well, I guess it depends on the day. Often, I'm outside that and very cool. And the day we did that filming, it just touched me in a way that I was - that was unexpected. So I'm open to feeling it as deeply as I need to.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So Craig, you went to Central. What year did you graduate?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Mr. C. RENAUD: I graduated in 1992 from Central High School.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: When you made this film, how did it help you make sense of what happened to Central during Minnijean's era and then what you saw today when you went into the classrooms?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Mr. C. RENAUD: Well, you know, when you're in high school at Central High School, you're certainly aware of the legacy of the school, but at the same time, I think there's a lot of things that are going on around you that as a high school student, you're not necessarily processing. And coming back as an adult, you know, made me realize a lot of things that were apparent when I was in school there but I wasn't noticing, you know?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And I think the scene with Minniejean at the end of the film, when she is speaking to the students in the classroom and is disturbed because the class is segregated with white students on one side of the classroom and African-American students on the other side, and realizing that the students in that class just feel like that's the way it is and not recognizing the connection to our history and why our society is that way. And I think going back there as an adult and having your life experiences as adult and going back, you see those type of things by coming back to the school.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So Brent, you and Craig followed several different kids around the school - white, black, rich, poor. Segregation still exists per that previous example, but how is it different now than it was?</s>Mr. CRAIG RENAUD (Co-Director, "Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later"): You know, it's different because, you know, black and white students go to the school together, you know? We certainly don't want to imply that things are not better. There's also a lot of very committed people. As you see, there's teachers and white students who, basically, they all want the same thing. Theoretically, the hatred that existed there where you're going to spit on the people and you don't even want to be in the same classroom with them. Thankfully that is over.</s>Mr. CRAIG RENAUD (Co-Director, "Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later"): But there is a risk of just concentrating on how far we've come and not looking at how far we still have to go. And we're not experts on education. So, really, what we decided to do was to go on to the school, pick a nice cross-section of kids - very different life experiences, very different backgrounds - and let them tell the story of what Central is like for them today.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Let's take a look at one student, Brandon. He is black. He's the new student body president, but he also lives in a wealthy, white neighborhood, has mainly white friends. Does that really speak to racial segregation or is some of the segregation at the school economic?</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): They're both. I worry about Brandon because - not him personally, but what he represent - this exceptional, well-off black kid and the burden he must carry being that kid.</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): There are class issues, but they're overridden by race, I think. And I'm willing to state that unequivocally that even the class thing is about race. I mean, it's all about race and racism - to me. And that's the really sad part. But really recently, a black family moved into a suburban neighborhood, and they got hate mail - you don't belong here, go where you belong. So there are some real belief systems that contradict our sort of rhetoric about freedom and justice and…</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Let me play a clip from the film for you. It's from one of the classes that you gentlemen set in on and a white teacher speaking to her predominantly African-American students.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Unidentified Woman #1 (Teacher, Central High School): Raise your hand for me if you know someone in your family. If you have one of them, go to jail.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Unidentified Man #1 (Student, Central High School): Oh.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Unidentified Woman #1: How many of your friends have been killed?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Unidentified Woman #2 (Student, Central High School): My uncle, it was a gang-related. He got shot from his bathroom (unintelligible) his front yard and my other uncle was also killed.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Unidentified Man #2(Student, Central High School): I had a brother who got - it was in the middle of a drug deal and he was tied and beaten, burned to death.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Unidentified Woman #3: Oh, my God.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So Craig and Brent, how does this get to the heart of somebody's issues of the intersection of racing class that we were just talking about?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Mr. C. RENAUD: It's one example. I think one positive thing that has happened in Central, particularly this year, is that because this is the 50th anniversary and because, again, the world's attention's going to be on Little Rock, it has spurred a lot of discussion about racial issues throughout the city and throughout the classroom. And it really brought the conversation to the surface.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: It was forcing people to really deal with a lot of issues that maybe even in another places of the country sometimes go on and discuss altogether. In this particular class, the teacher asked the students, you know, how many of you know someone who's in jail. And every kid in the class raised their hands. And this is just one of the scenes that I think the point is that there are a lot of people who, growing up under conditions in dealing with things that don't allow them to concentrate as much as they could otherwise on education.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Minnijean, when you watched some of the conversations in this film between black students, there was an argument where one kid was like, it's all society that's crushing us. And another one said - these are both black students in an all black class - you know, the world was not set up to keep black people down. How do you resolve the whole question of personal responsibility that comes out when you talk about the ugly side of race and achievement in America?</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): But we're looking at a social structure that keeps them apart, keeps them from interacting and having those kinds of conversations that would demystify those so-called differences. So I think that's what my concern is, is that we continue to watch our children act out legacies that we gained them from another time. Those kids are in great distress - white, black. They need some real sort of understanding of what they're dealing with from really effective teachers who can facilitate some of those conversations.</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): I mean, we have to go a little bit further than the 50-minute class, can talk about whose family has been damaged by some kind of violence. This is about social distress that is debilitating, that is destructive, that is in some ways violent. What the film showed is the kids really are sort of left on their own resources, trying to solve some of this problems and I'm disturbed about that.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Minnijean, Craig and Brent, thank you so much.</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): Thank you.</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): Mr. C. RENAUD: Thank you.</s>Ms. MINNIJEAN BROWN-TRICKEY (Member, Little Rock Nine): Mr. B. RENAUD: Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Minnijean Brown Tricky is one of the original Little Rock Nine. She served as deputy assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior for President Clinton and today, she continues to live and work in Little Rock. Craig and Brent Renaud directed "Little Rock Central: 50 Years Late." It premiers this week on HBO.

Farai Chideya talks about the latest in the Jena Six case with Jordan Flaherty, editor of Left Turn magazine; John Yearwood, world editor for The Miami Herald; and Corey Dade, southern correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And we continue our conversation about Mychal Bell's recent release from jail with our Reporters' Roundtable.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Jordan Flaherty is editor of Left Turn magazine. He was in Jena, Louisiana, all summer reporting on the case. Also with me, John Yearwood, he's world editor for the Miami Herald; and Corey Dade, a southern correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Welcome, gentlemen.</s>Mr. JOHN YEARWOOD (World Editor, Miami Herald): Hi, there.</s>Mr. COREY DADE (Reporter, The Wall Street Journal): Thank you, Farai.</s>Mr. JORDAN FLAHERTY (Editor, Left Turn Magazine): Thank you, Farai.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So Jordan, catch us up. What has been the reaction after the nationwide protest?</s>Mr. JORDAN FLAHERTY (Editor, Left Turn Magazine): Well, I was at the protest, and it was unlike anything I've seen in my life. It was absolutely incredible. And one of the most incredible things was the way it was so grassroots. That this was not really called by any national organization. National organizations did catch up, but it was really called by YouTube, by black radio, by independent media, by MySpace, and Friendster, and Facebook, and social networking sites.</s>Mr. JORDAN FLAHERTY (Editor, Left Turn Magazine): And tens of thousands of people came out, and I think that what I saw was the people of Jena - black folks from Jena were very empowered by it. They were absolutely a part of the demonstration and absolutely out. White people from Jena almost overwhelmingly stayed away from the demonstrations.</s>Mr. JORDAN FLAHERTY (Editor, Left Turn Magazine): In the aftermath, we've seen, I think, a real backlash from white folks around the country. Of course, there were these white supremacist Web sites that posted the phone numbers and addresses of family members of the Jena Six. They've all received threatening phone calls. At least one of them received a threatening visit from a white man she didn't know who is not from Jena but maybe from nearby.</s>Mr. JORDAN FLAHERTY (Editor, Left Turn Magazine): And so there's a tense atmosphere in the town. And I think a lot of media around the country - a lot of corporate media has really been trying to push this as something not about race. And I think part of what captured the imagination of the Jena case was the nooses hanging, the assault by white students that weren't prosecuted. All these things have made people say you can't finally say that this is not about race. But still, people are really tripping over themselves to try and explain how this is not about race. And I think that if we can make clear…</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Let me get to Corey in here…</s>Mr. JORDAN FLAHERTY (Editor, Left Turn Magazine): Yeah?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Go ahead. Finish up your thought.</s>Mr. JORDAN FLAHERTY (Editor, Left Turn Magazine): Well, just - if we can make clear that this is not about the Jena Six, but really about the criminal justice system and about the Jena Six in everyone's town, whether it's been New Jersey Forest(Ph), Shaquanda Cotton in Texas, or the 5-year-old that was handcuffed in Florida, or Genarlow Wilson in Atlanta, then this really will mean something for everyone.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Corey, is that how you're covering it - your newspaper? And what I mean by that is: Has the story moved out from this one specific case to talking about civil rights race relations in the criminal justice system - all that.</s>Mr. COREY DADE (Reporter, The Wall Street Journal): Unfortunately, our newspaper hasn't made a point of covering this closely, but we are monitoring it. And a few things we are looking at are the bigger pictures, and one of them is prosecutorial discretion. And that's a wide and fertile ground for our organization and all news organizations, especially national media, to dive into.</s>Mr. COREY DADE (Reporter, The Wall Street Journal): Prosecutors in each parish in Louisiana and in counties across the nation have enormous berth, enormous judgments that they can make about what to charge and what circumstances under which they can even - they should pursue a case when the same case with the similar facts in the next county over may face an entirely different judgment from the prosecutor.</s>Mr. COREY DADE (Reporter, The Wall Street Journal): And so that's one of the things that, here in Atlanta, has become a key point. The local newspaper here just finished a huge series on the death penalty. And the fact that prosecutors here use their own discretion in whether or not to seek the death penalty, apart from a standard list of criteria that the state dictates that they use.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, Michael - I mean, I'm sorry - John, how are you covering this? You are a world editor and I don't know if this is playing on a world stage.</s>Mr. JOHN YEARWOOD (World Editor, Miami Herald): Well, Farai, one of the things that we are doing, we're looking at it more as a national story, in addition - even though, my title says world editor, I'm also over our national coverage. So as we look at what's been happening, I was really interested in what I heard earlier about how this story has become quite, and it started through the work of the Internet and folks on blogs.</s>Mr. JOHN YEARWOOD (World Editor, Miami Herald): And we've been hearing about it in trickle for quite some time. And then, it became a flood. So that's one of the things that we are looking at. But clearly as we look at the case in a much wider scope, there are a number of issues there that we looked at. One is the role of the Internet in helping with the coverage of the story. And secondly, we're also looking at what the prosecutors are doing in Jena and looking at how that can spread across the country.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: John, I want to stay with you and move on to a different topic. You had these presidential candidates who cited scheduling problems. They didn't go to speak with Tavis Smiley at a debate at Morgan State University - Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain, Mitt Romney, all no-shows.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Kansas Senator Sam Brownback said he was sorry for the empty seats.</s>Senator SAM BROWNBACK (Republican, Kansas): I apologize for the candidates that aren't here. I think this is a disgrace if they're not here.</s>Senator SAM BROWNBACK (Republican, Kansas): I think it's a disgrace for our country. I think it's bad for our party, and I don't think it's good for our future.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Internecine warfare on the Republican side? Is that going to hurt the entire field? John?</s>Mr. JOHN YEARWOOD (World Editor, Miami Herald): Yes, Farai.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Yeah. Do you think this is going to hurt the entire Republican field?</s>Mr. JOHN YEARWOOD (World Editor, Miami Herald): I think it will. However, in looking at what Republicans are doing, I think though that as we look at this race, we're expecting - and we've seen this before where Republicans during the primary process didn't spend a great deal of time looking at whether it's African-American or Hispanic communities. But once that the primaries was over, then there was more of a focus on whether it's African-American or Hispanic. I mean, we have seen it happen with the current President Bush. It happened indeed with his father.</s>Mr. JOHN YEARWOOD (World Editor, Miami Herald): And I expect to see that happening with this, whomever is selected as the Republican nominee. However, I think it would take some time to make up lost ground in this case.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well…</s>Mr. JOHN YEARWOOD (World Editor, Miami Herald): If someone said that they are making a mistake by not attending a number of these - and not accepting a number of these invitations.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, John, stay with us. Also Corey and Jordan, stay with us. We're going to take a quick break. Talking to Jordan Flaherty, editor of Left Turn magazine. He joins us from Audioworks in New Orleans. Also, John Yearwood, world editor for the Miami Herald, and Corey Dade, southern correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.

Mychal Bell, who has been behind bars since December, was released yesterday after a juvenile court judge set his bail at $45,000. NPR's Audie Cornish offers an update on the case.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Jena Six co-defendant Mychal Bell is now free. Late yesterday, he was released on $45,000 bail. Outside the courthouse, Bell was flanked by civil rights activists including the Reverend Al Sharpton.</s>Reverend AL SHARPTON (Civil Rights Activist): Let America know we are not fighting for the right to fight in school. We're not fighting for the right for kids to beat each other. We are fighting to say that there must be one level of justice for everybody.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Earlier in the day, La Salle Parish District Attorney J. Reed Walters confirmed that he would not fight a Louisiana appellate court's decision to re-try Bell as a juvenile.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Bell was accused of beating a white classmate. The 17-year-old was the last of the Jena Six to remain in custody. If Bell is tried as a juvenile, he risked being in prison until he's 21; an adult trial would permit his custody for up to 15 years.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: NPR's Audie Cornish has been following the Jena Six case.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Welcome, Audie.</s>AUDIE CORNISH: Hello, Farai.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So we first heard yesterday morning from the D.A., he said he was not going to appeal a ruling that would permit Bell to be tried as a juvenile. He's 17. He was 16 at the time of the crime. How significant is that?</s>AUDIE CORNISH: Well, District Attorney Reed Walters has said that this is not about bowing to outside pressure. He went out of his way to say this is not about the rally or even about comments from the governor of Louisiana. But perhaps maybe he has seen the writing on the wall with this case because he didn't - it seems as though he didn't want to fight the state appeals court.</s>AUDIE CORNISH: The state appeals court is the one that overturned Mychal Bell's felony conviction saying, wait a second, this case never should have been tried in adult court. This should have been a juvenile court case.</s>AUDIE CORNISH: And Walters said, at a certain point, that he just really wanted to get the case to court at all, and he didn't want to go through the appeals process anymore. And Bell's lawyers had asked that same court for a hearing on Mychal Bell's bail, and they were about to make a ruling there. So at a certain point, it seemed that the district attorney felt that it would be better for his case if he just took it to juvenile court.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, Bell was the last of the Jena Six to remain in custody. How does this affect the other young men, if at all?</s>AUDIE CORNISH: It doesn't. Essentially, four of the other boys were not juveniles at the time and can be tried in - on adult charges. And one - other of the boys like Mychal Bell was a juvenile, and his records are, more or less, sealed because that's in the juvenile court process.</s>AUDIE CORNISH: But originally, this case had these boys charged with attempted murder. And then, at a certain point, during Mychal Bell's trial this past summer, the case - the trial charges went down to battery. And now, it's down to juvenile court. So I think some could argue that the effect of being in the spotlight has really forced this case to move along in ways that, originally, the Bell family didn't think it was go to.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, D.A. Walters said that he couldn't find legal grounds to charge the white students with the hate crime for the nooses. Let's hear Walters on that.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Mr. J. REED WALTERS (District Attorney, 28th Judicial District, Louisiana): There's no crime to charge them with. I've thoroughly researched that. As I've said in my last press conference, I've thoroughly researched it. While I consider that to be - though not the greatest thing that an individual could do, it is simply not a crime.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So how did his comments fly with local residents and/or among legal experts?</s>AUDIE CORNISH: Well, I think that, at this point, the thing to remember is that the noose incident happened in September of last year, and that the fight that led to the arrest of the Jena Six happened in December. And that they did not really - I think that there wasn't a direct link between the two. And that what civil rights activists who came to be involved really were pointing out is that the noose incident at the school where - and the sort of punishment for the white students for that came to represent something of or indicative of the tone in Jena and the tone of racial relations in Jena.</s>AUDIE CORNISH: And that that overshadowed the rest of the semester at the school where there were lots of actually other fights in and out of school that don't get talked about in the press before in which, at one point, white students were the aggressors, and another point, the black students were involved. And that the incident that happened in December that led to the arrest of these boys is really the culmination of a lot of things that happened with the noose incident casting a shadow over the whole thing.</s>AUDIE CORNISH: At this point, the FBI and the Justice Department say that they're monitoring the case And the Congressional Black Caucus says - or, actually, asking the Justice Department to watch the conduct of the district attorney and to make sure that he's sort of on the up and up about what's he's arguing here. So for now, I would say that his opinion on this sort of stands.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: All right. Well, Audie, thanks so much for the update.</s>AUDIE CORNISH: Thank you for having me.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That was NPR's Audie Cornish.

Columnist Betty Baye looks back at how her experiences and mentors helped her professional career and round out her personal development. Baye writes for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: It's time for our Friday Snapshot. This one comes from Courier-Journal columnist Betty Baye in Louisville, Kentucky. Betty recently took timeout to reflect on how far she's come in her career. She says she's gotten some real power out of recalling those memories.</s>Ms. BETTY BAYE (Columnist, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky): Some people say you ought not spend a lot of time looking back. You can't change the past. Yet, looking back actually gives me clarity of purpose. It helps me to see what is likely going to take to keep me moving forward.</s>Ms. BETTY BAYE (Columnist, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky): The other day, I looked back - albeit unintentionally - when, in a stack of papers, I found the outline of a speech that I gave in 1995. My goal, it seems, was to encourage regular folks using myself as an example. Though I've gone further in my life than I could have imagined, I am not a star. I wasn't the valedictorian of my high school class, and no one wrote in my yearbook that Betty Winston was most likely to succeed. I recounted for my audience my circuitous route into journalism. It wasn't my childhood aspiration. How would I have known of such a career where I come from?</s>Ms. BETTY BAYE (Columnist, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky): Anyhow, I talked about some of my champions - my parents and my mentors: Lynn Dozier(ph), the late James Aronson, my Hunter College professor who encouraged me to go to journalism school, Marcia Gillespie, an early Essence magazine editor who published my first major article, and the late Nancy Q. Keith(ph), who gave me my first job as a reporter 27 years ago.</s>Ms. BETTY BAYE (Columnist, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky): But truth be told, there weren't legions of people breathless about my possibilities. I never was one of the designated up and comers in journalism for whom editors go out of their way to give the meatiest assignments. Instead, I worked nights and weekends. I covered routine school board and planning and zoning board meetings, parades and community celebrations. Nevertheless, I always tried to be enthusiastic. I believed then - as I still do - that journalists can make a difference.</s>Ms. BETTY BAYE (Columnist, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky): Moreover, it hasn't escaped my notice that most journalists never win a Pulitzer Prize. Perhaps, like me, the prize is having some little story that we've written actually lift someone's spirit, or maybe it helps to advance some good cause. Contrary to what's being pushed in popular culture, being a star isn't necessarily being the richest or getting the most attention in the press.</s>Ms. BETTY BAYE (Columnist, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky): Some of the greatest among us, I am convinced, are people of whom most of us have never heard. Day in and day out, they just do what they do because it needs to be done. And whether we know it or not, we are all the beneficiaries of their unsung efforts.</s>Ms. BETTY BAYE (Columnist, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky): Greatness, I told my audience a dozen years ago, is hitting your pillow every night, convinced that you've done your best, and it's knowing that, at the very least, you've done no harm to people who don't deserve it.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That was Betty Baye with this week's Snapshot. Baye is a columnist with the Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky.

Activist Kevin Bales is continuing his long fight against human trafficking and contemporary slavery. Bales talks about his new book, Ending Slavery, which presents a plan to rid the world of human bondage.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya. And this is NEWS & NOTES.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: It's an industry that's thriving across the globe, including right here in the United States. I'm talking about slavery. Activists Kevin Bales has spent years spreading the word about modern day bondage. When I spoke with Kevin, he talked about solutions and explained what it means to be a modern day slave.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): You know, what's interesting about slavery is that it hasn't really changed in 5,000 years. A slave is somebody who is under the complete control of another person. They use violence to maintain that control. They exploit them economically, and they pay them nothing. And if you strip away all the different kinds of packaging that's occurred on slavery throughout history, you'd come to those same key attributes. And today, slaves are in exactly that situation.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Are there different types of slaves? And what I mean by that is a lot of people talk now about sexual trafficking or sexual slavery. What kinds of work are the people who are enslaved across the world doing in terms of some of the most common types of work?</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): Well, dirty, dangerous, demeaning work is the key there. It can be agriculture construction. It can be making simple products. You can be enslaved into sexual exploitation or prostitution for sex, that sort of thing. You can be put in anything that a criminal can think up and exploit you at. You can be enslaved to do that.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, you've written two other books on this subject, "Disposable People," and, "Understanding Global Slavery." They have put a lot of people into contact with the very idea that there still are slaves. But do you think that most people in the West have any idea of the magnitude of the problem?</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): You know, I don't think most people have an idea of the size, the fact that there's 27 million people in the world in slavery. But I'm very happy to think and notice that, over the last two or three years, that a lot of people seem to have now an inkling of the problem. So four or five years ago, if you talked about modern slavery, people said, you're lying. It doesn't exist. Today, if you mention a word like human trafficking or you're talking about modern slavery, they say, oh, yeah. There was something on NPR, and it's a bit vague in their minds. But at least there's an awareness growing.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I met a slave once or a man who had been enslaved who told me that his parents sold him off when he was a child - presumably so they could survive or pay off debts. How often is that narrative something that happens to people who are enslaved? Where do they come from in terms of just being born into slavery, being sold, being captured?</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): Well, I have to say, it's all of the above. What you describe is not uncommon. It's usually a little more complex than selling a child. It's usually a kind of devil's choice that you're confronted with as a parent. So you're actually thinking I get - my son or my daughter are - they're starving. They're ill, I can't afford medicine. This person is offering me a chance for them to have an education and perhaps a job. Do I take it and trust that person, or do I keep them here in a situation where they'll probably be damaged? So it's not so much like selling as it is facing a choice that no parent should ever have to face.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): At the same time, there are millions of people in the world in hereditary slavery, particularly hereditary debt bondage slavery in India, Pakistan and Nepal, who - I've met families in their third and fourth generations of slavery. And for them, slavery is not just an event. It's, you know, it's a complete universe of - and it's a complete life for them. They have very little understanding of life outside of slavery.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Tell us more about this idea of debt bondage that transcends the bonds of time.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): Well, it's a kind of debt bondage slavery that's called collateral debt bondage. And it's not like the loans that you or I might take out to buy a house or a car. It works this way: If I'm desperate for some money because I need to buy medicine for my child who's sick and I - but I'm very, very, very poor. And I go to a local moneylender or landowner and I say, well, I need this money to buy this medicine. And they say, well, you know, do you have any collateral? The answer is, no, I'm dirt poor. So they say, well, I could loan you this money, but you and your family, and all the work that you can do will be the collateral against - that I will hold against this loan until you repay it.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): Now, I appreciate for Americas that you actually have to kind of stretch your mind to get around that idea that you and your own work become collateral against a loan. But because everything you do and all your work becomes collateral that the moneylender or the slaveholder now owns forever, it means that you would never have an opportunity to repay that debt because everything you produce goes to that person as collateral. And for that reason, the debt then passes down through the generations and is inherited, and the slaveholder simply owns those families as long as they keep them alive.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So what next? You're looking at a 25-year plan to end global slavery. What exactly is in that plan?</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): Well, my new book basically sets out things that we have learned from getting people out of slavery around the world. And, basically, there's no single, silver bullet for ending slavery. But there are, in a sense, a whole box of bullets that apply to governments and box of bullets that applied to communities and to NGOs and to the World Bank and to the United Nations.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): And that book basically looks to places for the lessons that we know have worked, where people have literally come to - out of slavery, into freedom, into new lives, and then says, if businesses has done this and it's worked, let's see about scaling it up.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): In many ways, it's very exciting because, unlike the past, we don't have some of the terrible problems in - as a challenge in the movement in slavery. There's a law against slavery in every single country.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): And the actual amount of monetary value of slavery in the global economy is minute. It comes to about $30 billion a year, which is - it sounds like a lot to you or me, but it's nothing in the global economy. So there's no big vested interest, and no economy, no industry would collapse if we ended slavery tomorrow. So it's all about scaling up the things that we already know how to do, and those 27 million people can come out of slavery.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: When you speak to African-Americans, and we have, often, a very emotional as well as intellectual reaction to discussions of slavery, is there any difference for you speaking to a black American audience about slavery versus a white American or people from other nations? Is there something that resonates in a particular way? And if so, how do you use that in how you speak to people?</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): Well, indeed, there is. You're absolutely right. And I love to be able to talk to African-American audiences because they have such a great resonance with the issue of slavery. But there's always that first moment when I stand up and say, I'm going to talk about slavery, and all of those eyes look back at me and say, this white man is going to talk to us about slavery? This is our issue. And what does he know about slavery? He's not in history, he's today.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): But what I discover is that if I'm given a chance to go to the second paragraph and have a chance to show film clips, for example, of those young men in West Africa who are enslaved in coco production or other types of slavery around the world. And I explain the exact similarities between those hereditary slaves in Mauritania or India with those of Alabama or Mississippi before the Civil War. African-Americans say, you're right, this is slavery too. And in many ways, we feel this all the more strongly because we have that in our family histories. And we know that if it was bad for our family, it's bad for any family.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Kevin, thanks so much.</s>Dr. KEVIN BALES (Activist and Author, "Ending Slavery"): It's been great.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Kevin Bales is an author and a human rights activist. His book is called, "Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves?" And he joined us from our Washington headquarters.

Black preschoolers are suspended 3.6 times more often than whites—just one of many revelations from the Department of Education. Host Linda Wertheimer speaks to Ed Team reporter Anya Kamenetz.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Remember the black teenager who was thrown from her desk by a school cop? Violence in schools, bullying by other students - these were once dismissed as isolated incidents. But expanded reporting has produced a mountain of data which helps identify patterns of civil rights abuses. The Department of Education now requires information on everything from preschool expulsion rates to whether minority students have access to advanced courses. The latest civil rights data collection has just been released. For more on what it reveals, we're joined by Anya Kamenetz of NPR's Ed team. Anya, good morning.</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Good morning, Linda.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Now, preschool suspensions, I must say that took me by surprise. These are little bitty kids being suspended?</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Yes. You know, it's only been twice so far that the Department of Ed has been collecting these numbers. And I think it surprised a lot of people to learn that thousands of very young children are being suspended each year, a few hundred, actually, expelled. And one of the ironies of this survey is that there's a bright spot in terms of many more districts are offering free preschool programs. And yet, we see, as we did in the last report, that black students in preschool are 3.6 times more likely than whites to be suspended. And so these new programs, which are so helpful for getting students ready for school, for some of those students, it's a very negative introduction.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Much more serious, the report found that disparities between black and white children continue through the rest of their school careers.</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Yes. That black-white disparity in suspensions even gets a little bigger in K-12. We see it with expulsions as well and notably with black girls, who are five times more likely than their white peers to be suspended.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: And a related area to the discipline issues in this release has to do with what is sometimes called the school-to-prison pipeline?</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Yes. That's a term that advocates use to describe the set of structures in place that tend to get certain groups of youth less connected to school and more likely to be in trouble with the law. And so, for example, we see that over half of high schools with large black and Hispanic populations have a sworn law enforcement officer on the premises. And, in fact, there are 1.6 million students who attend a school that has no counselor, but that does have a police officer in the building every day.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: But are those two facts related? Are numbers better where there is a guidance counselor? If cops keep school peaceful, perhaps that works for students other than the ones suspended.</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Well, that may be true. On the other hand, civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center argue that the presence of police in schools is linked to the inappropriate escalation of incidents into the courts. And this survey found that black students are 2.3 times more likely to be than whites to be referred to law enforcement or arrested as a result of something that happens at school.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: There are several items in this report that get at the actual quality of education, right?</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Yes. This report looked at access to AP courses, advanced placement, to advanced math and science and to gifted and talented programs. And, for example, more than half of predominantly white high schools teach calculus. But just one third of predominantly black and Latino schools offer that course. And the same is true with other courses - physics, chemistry, algebra II, all of which are considered really important to getting students ready for college and career.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: When you talk about issues like which school has a security officer versus a counselor or which schools have AP courses, that isn't necessarily racial discrimination, is it? I mean, aren't there budgetary issues and other constraints?</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Well, you raise a good point. And that actually gets to the purpose of all this collection. You know, the education department's Office of Civil Rights (ph) is charged with enforcing civil rights laws that cover race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability. And so the reason to report this evidence of disparity - it's not necessarily evidence of discrimination. But it does highlight a lot of issues that could motivate complaints, investigations, hopefully positive action down the road.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Anya Kamenetz of NPR's Ed team - Anya, thank you.</s>ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Thank you.

The new novel "Rich and Pretty" follows two women who find themselves at a crossroad. Host Linda Wertheimer talks to author Rumaan Alam about writing characters that are nothing like oneself.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Next, we have a novel about women and their friendships. It's the story of two women who have been friends for decades, since sitting next each other, aged 11, at an orientation meeting at a classy private school. Best friends forever had not been invented yet. But these two are BFF - mostly. Sarah and Lauren are at a milestone in their lives when the book begins. Sarah's getting married. Lauren is not. The book is called "Rich And Pretty," a reference to the two friends meeting two guys. One of the girls overheard - you take rich. I'll take pretty. Rumaan Alam wrote "Rich And Pretty." And he joins us now from our New York City bureau. Welcome.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: Thank you so much for having me.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: I have to tell you - you have a nearly flawless ear for the way women talk. And you are a guy.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: (Laughter).</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: How did that happen?</s>RUMAAN ALAM: Well, that's one of my favorite things to hear from a reader, particularly a reader who is, herself, a woman. But this is really what fiction is. Fiction is just lying. And the job...</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: (Laughter).</s>RUMAAN ALAM: ...Of the writer of fiction is to listen and to steal and to lie. And it's not a very honorable profession, I'm afraid.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: There's an old notion that writers should write about what they know. And I'm wondering what you think about that. Is it useful when you're trying to see yourself in your characters? Or did you do that?</s>RUMAAN ALAM: Certainly, many writers have been able to wring beautiful work out of the stuff of their own lives. And I just did not feel that that was something that interested me. Being a writer of Indian descent in particular, I felt a desire to avoid the pressure to deliver something that adhered to some larger critical notion of what it is that writers of Indian descent ought to write about in this country.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: That said, there is a lot of my experience in this book. I'm somebody who - you know, I'm gay. I was a gay - I was gay as a young man. And so my friends tended to be girls on the playground. I went to a liberal arts college where most of my classmates and, indeed, many of my professors were women. I worked in fashion magazines where my bosses and my colleagues were women. I worked in the advertising business. And most of my clients and most of my colleagues were also women. So in some ways, this is writing what I know. It's just that I'm so not present in the finished work.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Perhaps we ought to mention that you have two children as well. I assume that gives you even more of an entree into the souls of women, the ideas of women.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: I think that, for me, my experience of parenting has really made me a more empathetic person. And you often hear writers talk about empathy as being essential to the work on some level. If you can't empathize with other people, then you will never really be able to write well about them. And certainly - having children, having to care for somebody else, having to put somebody else before you at every turn has helped me recede from myself a little bit. And I think that that has been helpful in my writing.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: What if we turn it around? Have you ever had the experience of somebody else writing about your particular identity where they didn't have the kind of empathy that you're striving for?</s>RUMAAN ALAM: I do think that I have a sensitivity to the depictions of maybe all minorities in literature. And I think that the experience of people who look like me is so rarely captured in big, mainstream American fiction that you tend to sort of empathize with any character of color who pops up.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: And I did have an experience a few years ago reading a book that had a character of East Indian descent in it who I thought was quite poorly used in the book. I felt that she was presented as sort of needlessly exotic. And then she was killed off in a way that was sort of silly. And that felt like a lesson to me that, you know, in art, everything should be fair game. But it's the writer's responsibility to approach that with the responsibility that it demands.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Now, the book begins with plans for Sarah's wedding. And it ends when she's pregnant with a second baby and Lauren is still unmarried. Do you imagine that they are still friends going forward?</s>RUMAAN ALAM: I think it's an open question, to be honest. As I said before, in some ways, I think their lives are independent of me. I don't get to decide what happens between them. But I think - I think that's how life works. Things change. One of you gets married. One of you chooses not to for some reason or maybe gets married later. One of you has children. Another one doesn't. And friends do grow apart in that way.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: But I think that doesn't really affect the fundamental intimacy that exists. Or it doesn't mean that it never existed or that it didn't matter. So whether or not they will still see one other for, you know, play dates or Thanksgiving or the day after Christmas, that's an open question. But I think that the bond that exists will probably persevere - I hope. I like to imagine them sort of being friends at some point that I haven't yet imagined.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: So for your next book, are you thinking about writing about experiences as characters who are more like you?</s>RUMAAN ALAM: I am about a third of the way through my next book now. And it is closer to my experience insofar as it is very much about parenthood. But I will say that it is specifically about motherhood. And...</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: There you go again.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: (Laughter) I think that, in many ways, I have been shaped by my reading. When I look at the list of my favorite works, writers who are women do tend to outnumber writers who are men for whatever reason. And so I think, to go back to your previous question about writing what you know, a lot of writing what you know, I think, comes from - is really a matter of writing what you've read. And for me, writing about parenthood was much more interesting to - it was a more interesting pursuit to do it via a mother than via a father - and I think because it affords me that distance. So I don't feel as though I'm writing about myself. I don't feel like I need to be so true to myself. As I said before, fiction is just telling lies. And maybe it's easier for me to tell those lies when it's a little further from me.</s>LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: Rumaan Alam's book is called "Rich And Pretty." Thank you very much for talking with us.</s>RUMAAN ALAM: Oh, goodness. Thank you. This was a real pleasure.

Iran is on track to restore oil production and exports to pre-sanction levels, surprising many analysts. It's one of the areas where Iran has benefited from the nuclear deal it made with world powers.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: When the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was implemented in January, it was widely believed it would take at least a year for the country's oil industry to get back up to speed after years of sanctions. But Iran is confounding the experts and beating expectations. NPR's Jackie Northam reports.</s>JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Iran has the fourth largest oil reserves in the world. The sanctions put in place in 2012 hit oil production and exports hard. Many analysts thought the industry, with its aging infrastructure and lack of maintenance, would have a hard time rebounding when sanctions were lifted in January.</s>JACOB KIRKEGAARD: They have clearly pulled it off. This surprised me as much as anybody else.</s>JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Jacob Kirkegaard of the Peterson Institute for International Economics says Iran's oil industry has done better than expected since sanctions were lifted.</s>JACOB KIRKEGAARD: Both their production levels and their export levels have really increased very, very dramatically since late last year.</s>JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Iran is now on track to restore oil production to pre-sanction levels of 3.5 million barrels a day. That's up more than 20 percent. Robert McNally is president of The Rapidan Group, an energy consulting firm. He says what's striking is the amount of exports has doubled to just over 2 million barrels a day.</s>ROBERT MCNALLY: The big debate amongst the barrel counters is whether those exports are coming from new production entirely or whether the exports are coming from production, but also drawing down of inventories of oil that had been accumulating, both onshore but also in tankers and so forth.</s>JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy specialist at the University California at Davis, says even if the Iranians had been drawing down oil that had stored away during sanctions, it would be running low by now. She says there are two reasons we're likely still seeing high production and export numbers.</s>AMY MYERS JAFFE: One is that they are running their fields as hard as they can, even if that means it would damage the fields in the long-term. The second thing is that, you know, maybe the Xers were wrong about how damaged their fields are.</s>JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: McNally says it's very likely Iran rested or turned off some oil fields during sanctions.</s>ROBERT MCNALLY: When you have time to do that, you can reduce your field's productions in a planned, orderly way and make it so that when you turn on the field again - when you open up the spigot, that field will be able to flow.</s>JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: The Peterson Institute's Kirkegaard says oil is one of the few areas where Iran has benefited from the nuclear deal. Other things like foreign investment into other sectors has been much slower for fear of violating remaining U.S. sanctions on Iran, which are kept in place because of links to terrorism and human rights abuses.</s>JACOB KIRKEGAARD: This is clearly one area or what market which has not been stifled by these remaining U.S. sanctions.</s>JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: But Kirkegaard says those sanctions don't discourage many from buying a tanker or two of Iranian oil. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.

In his book Spontaneous Happiness, Dr. Andrew Weil writes of an 'integrative' approach to mental health, warding off mild and moderate depression with an anti-inflammatory diet, exercise and activities such as yoga and meditation, rather than antidepressants.

IRA FLATOW, HOST: About one in 10 Americans over the age of 12 takes an antidepressant drug, according to a report from the CDC, and the number of Americans taking antidepressants has gone up over 400 percent since 1988. Why the rise? Are we more depressed than we used to be, simply more medicated or both?</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: That's one of the questions my next guest, Dr. Andrew Weil, addresses in his new book "Spontaneous Happiness," and instead of taking medications to treat mild or moderate depression, Dr. Weil recommends a few alternatives, like meditation, daily exercise and what he calls anti-inflammatory diet.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: What is the evidence that these treatments can actually be - put you in a brighter mood? That's what we'll be talking about. Dr. Weil is going to be joining us. Our number is 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK. You can tweet us @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I, or join us on Facebook.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Dr. Weil is here, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." Welcome back to the program.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: DR. ANDREW WEIL: Thank you, Ira.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: It's been a while. And are you spontaneously happy?</s>WEIL: I became happier as a result of writing the book, and I hope people will as a result of reading it.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And what does that mean, spontaneous happiness?</s>WEIL: You know, I think happiness is something that you can open yourself to. You can arrange circumstances so you're more likely to experience it spontaneously, and in using that word, I'm suggesting that it's something really that comes from inside.</s>WEIL: Most people, in my experience, seem to think that they'll be happy if they get something they now don't have. And the root meaning of happiness, this is interesting, it comes from an old Norse root that means luck or fortune. So I think many people imagine that positive moods depend on external circumstances, and that's not a good place to have it linked to.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You write in your book that the notion that a human being should be constantly happy is a uniquely modern, uniquely American, uniquely destructive idea.</s>WEIL: And nowhere is this more evident than as the holiday season approaches. You know, my sense is that in the Northern Hemisphere, the time of the winter solstice is a time of danger. Light and warmth are at their lowest. The period of bad weather is yet to come. I think the natural tendency is to huddle together, feast, tell stories, wait it out.</s>WEIL: It's certainly not to be happy all the time, and the disconnect between that cultural expectation and our individual experiences nowhere more apparent. But I think this extends throughout the year.</s>WEIL: Many parents think that it's their job to make kids happy all the time. We're not supposed to be happy all the time. Our moods are supposed to vary. They're not supposed to vary so extremely that they disable us, but I think it is perfectly normal to have lows, as well as highs, and there may be even some value in those experiences.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right, we'll be back to talking more with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." You can join in the discussion, make yourself happy, 1-800-989-8255. Also tweet us @scifri, @-S-C-I-F-R-I. So stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking about spontaneous happiness with the author of a book by that name, Dr. Weil is here with us. Andrew Weil is also director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, professor of medicine and public health at the University of Arizona in Tucson. And he's actually at our member station there, KUAZ in Tucson.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Our number, 1-800-989-8255. And when we broke for the break, Dr. Weil, you were talking about the notion that people think they have to be happy all the time, and that's not a good notion.</s>WEIL: No, I think a much better goal to strive for is to be content. Contentment is something that comes from within and is relatively independent of external circumstances. One of the research findings that's - I think, find very interesting is that the more people have, the less content they seem to be.</s>WEIL: There is a clear correlation of depression with affluence, and we're seeing an unprecedented epidemic of depression, in our country especially but in the developed world generally. Some of this is manufactured by the medical pharmaceutical complex. The pharmaceutical companies have been very effective at convincing people that ordinary states of sadness are now matters of imbalanced brain chemistry which needs to be treated.</s>WEIL: I think that's spurious, and I don't know how much that is. Maybe it's a quarter of it; maybe it's a third of it. If you remove that, we're still left with a great deal of depression to explain.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And what does it have to do with the state of our society these days? I know you've written in this book and in other books that if you want to really achieve some kind of peace and some sort of feeling of well-being, you have to shut off your TV, stop reading magazines, newspapers, things like that. We...</s>WEIL: Well, you know, another - yeah.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: I'm just saying we're bombarded more now than when you wrote your last books about this stuff.</s>WEIL: True, and I think it has everything to do with modern life. I think in essence the depression epidemic represents a mismatch between our genes - the kind of life our genes have prepared us for and the kind of life most of us actually live. One clue is that major depression is virtually unknown in hunter-gatherer societies. You can't find a case of it in Papua New Guinea.</s>WEIL: So what's different there? Well, everything. You know, people in those cultures are living close to nature. They enjoy strong tribal and community support. They're eating natural diets, not industrial food. They're getting plenty of physical activity.</s>WEIL: So everything has changed, and I think that if you want to attend to emotional well-being, you really have to look at all of the influences on physical health and emotional health, both in the physical realm, mental realm and spiritual realm.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Could not Facebook and Twitter, though, could you not argue that it's creating more of a sense of community?</s>WEIL: I think it's a false sense, frankly. You know, the research is so strong, showing that interpersonal connection is protective against depression and protective of emotional wellness. And I think that more and more of us substitute virtual interaction for real interaction.</s>WEIL: Also, a great deal of what we see as the advancements of technology in modern life make it easier for us to live in isolated cocoons. We think that we live very comfortably, but in fact I think this is at the expense of a kind of social support that people in other cultures and people earlier in this culture enjoyed.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: 1-800-989-8255 is our number, talking with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of the new book "Spontaneous Happiness." Tell us how we might overcome - you give us some recommendations. What would be the top few recommendations?</s>WEIL: First of all, we have - on the physical level, the strongest evidence we have is for exercise and for supplemental fish oil. Both of these interventions work as well as antidepressant medication for mild to moderate depression. I think they're even very helpful as adjunctive measures for severe depression.</s>WEIL: So I think this the first thing, very important...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: What is in the fish oil?</s>WEIL: These long-chain omega-3 fatty acids have a great influence on brain function. One of them, DHA, is the major constituent of cell membranes, of neuronal membranes. And if that's deficient in the diet, as it is generally in the North American diet, brain health suffers.</s>WEIL: So we have very strong evidence here for the - not only the antidepressant effects but I'd say generally the brain protective effects of supplementing the diet with omega-3s. I recommend that everybody take two to four grams of supplemental fish oil a day, whether or not you eat fish. There's really no upper limit: The more you take, the better.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: But aren't fish farms now feeding their fish stuff that doesn't have the omega-3s in it?</s>WEIL: The - most of the high-quality fish oil products are molecularly distilled, and they're therefore free of contaminants like mercury and PCBs and other things we have to worry about.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You say in your book that, well - what you just said, that people would be beneficial from taking fish oil. And a lot of these are in cold-water fish. And I keep wondering where in our evolutionary process we were around all these cold-water fish. We weren't, you know.</s>WEIL: No, but there were several things going for us. The first is that the animals that we ate until recently grazed on grass. And grasses have low levels of omega-3s in them. Animals eat great, tremendous quantities of them. So they concentrate omega-3s in their fat.</s>WEIL: Now the animals we eat are fattened on grains, which are sources of omega-6 fatty acids that have opposite effects. Now, it's not that omega-6s are bad, we need both of these classes of essential fats in the right proportion, but we're getting a tremendous overload of omega-6s today, mostly from refined vegetable oils.</s>WEIL: And this is heavily present in industrial food. The more omega-6s you consume, the more omega-3s you need to consume in order to get tissue levels up to where they need to be. So I think the main things are that our omega-3 sources have been reduced, and our omega-6 intake has greatly increased, and this puts us at a great disadvantage biochemically.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: 1-800-989-8255. Cathy(ph) in San Antonio, Texas. Hi, welcome.</s>CATHY: Hi there.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Hi there.</s>CATHY: What a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Happiness, I think if we all were just happy all the time, what a great world we would live in. And it is available to us, as I know Dr. Andrew Weil knows, all the time. But he made a comment earlier about that he didn't think that we should be happy all the time.</s>CATHY: And I don't want to disagree with that, but I'm a yoga instructor, and I, you know, practice yoga every day, and I just know that I tell my students happiness is a choice. In every situation that you're in, you know, there's options. And you can either choose to be happy, or you can choose, especially if the situation is tough to deal with, you can choose to let that drag you down.</s>CATHY: And one of the things that I tell my students all the time, because they're always asking me how do I change this, how do I change this, and all of us deal with traffic, for example, and this is my best analogy. I tell them if you're in a traffic jam, in general, people start fussing and fussing and being irrational - not irrational but impatient.</s>CATHY: And I say it's the easiest thing to change in the world. Flip that switch and be grateful you have a car.</s>WEIL: I couldn't agree more in principle, and in fact, that principle is the essence of positive psychology. That field, which I strongly support, actually derives from ancient philosophy. It goes back to the Stoics in Greece and Epictetus, who taught in Rome. And the basic message there is that we can't change what happens to us, but we can change our reaction to it.</s>WEIL: And I think you're quite right that this is a choice, but it's not necessarily so easy. It takes practice to do that. I have a friend who - a colleague of mine who's an integrative oncologist, who describes his mother as someone who not only sees the glass as half-empty but thinks that at any moment, it could tip over, spill and break on the floor.</s>WEIL: So I think we do have this kind of choice, but I think it takes some practice to retrain the mind that way, and that's, you know, one of the other measures I recommend.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Thank you, Cathy. 1-800-989-8255. What other suggestions, Dr. Weil?</s>WEIL: Well, you know, first of all let me say something about medication. There is a disturbing and growing body of evidence that the major class of antidepressant drugs, the SSRIs, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, don't work so great, in fact that they barely can be distinguished from placebo even in severe depression now, and it may only be in very severe depression that they show an advantage.</s>WEIL: There is also, I think, great concern about a new problem just coming to light. It's called tardive dysphoria. That means lingering depression caused by the drugs. You know, we were always taught that depression, however severe it is, is self-limited, that it resolves itself.</s>WEIL: Well, it doesn't anymore, and one reason why it may not is because the drugs produce the very problem they're meant to treat, and this is so logical. It's similar to what you discussed earlier about antibiotics and germ resistance, and when you push on the body with an outside force, it pushes back. This is called homeostatis, a basic truth of physiology.</s>WEIL: If you increase serotonin at neural junctions with a drug, the body responds over time by producing less serotonin and dropping serotonin receptors. And therefore, it gets you into a worse situation. It's just like trying to treat acid reflux with drugs that suppress acid: You take it away, and you have a worse problem than you did to begin with.</s>WEIL: So the drugs may create their own need. I'm not going to tell people to get off them or not use them, and I certainly would never tell anyone with bipolar disorder to stop taking medication or people with major depression, but I think if you've been on these drugs for a year, it's worth finding a practitioner who can help give you a schedule to wean yourself off while using the other measures that I recommend.</s>WEIL: And if you have mild to moderate depression, I would really urge you to find out about the other things you can do first before you try medication, and that not only includes the things we've discussed. It may include getting your vitamin D levels checked because there's a clear correlation with low vitamin D and poor emotional health. I think it means working in retraining the mind, and that may be going to practitioners of cognitive behavioral therapy, which can help you learn to make those choices that the caller referred to.</s>WEIL: And I think there are things you can do - I have called it secular spirituality in the book, meaning it has no reference to the supernatural or to a deity. I was very surprised in writing this to discover how much scientific evidence we have for the power of gratitude to improve mood. There's two aspects to this. It's feeling grateful and expressing it. And the good thing here, there's nothing in the way of doing it. All you have to do is remember to do it. You know, forgiveness also has great power, but that's tricky. There's a whole lot in the way of being forgiving.</s>WEIL: But there's nothing in the way of expressing gratitude. There's a simple exercise from positive psychology called keeping a gratitude journal. You get a little notebook, keep it by your bed; during the day, make mental notes of things you have to be grateful for, jot them down when you go to bed. Doing that for one week can cause improvement of mood for up to six months. And that's pretty dramatic.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Is there really research on that?</s>WEIL: There is really research on that.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow.</s>WEIL: Yeah.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Simple stuff.</s>WEIL: So simple.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Let's go to the phones and get some more tips. Edith in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi, Edith.</s>EDITH: Hi.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Hi there.</s>EDITH: My question is this. I have several people in my life who are suffering from mild to moderate depression, and I wondered if Dr. Weil has any strategies for how I can help them without getting - without putting myself at risk, without getting myself caught up in the cycle of depression and (unintelligible)?</s>WEIL: Well, without being...</s>WEIL: Without being too self-promotional, I would suggest you give them this book because it has a program in it, a step-by-step, week-by-week program for doing just that. And, you know, people can follow this at their own rate. All these suggestions that I give are backed by very good scientific evidence, and I think people will find this very helpful.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right. Good...</s>EDITH: OK.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Good luck to you, Edith. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Let's go to Caroline(ph) in Greenwich, Connecticut. Hi there.</s>CAROLINE: Oh, hi. This is a wonderful topic. I didn't tell the screener that my niece, who is a freshman in college, was given antidepressants and committed suicide shortly thereafter.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Sorry to hear that.</s>WEIL: Oh, I'm sorry.</s>CAROLINE: It had the reverse effect. But I was just telling him that there is an off-label use for antidepressants which may explain a lot of the uptick in sales because it really does affect and help with hot flashes, which, you know, us baby boomers...</s>CAROLINE: ...are now getting them, and it cuts down the time and the temperature by, oh, a good 90 percent.</s>WEIL: Hmm.</s>CAROLINE: It's amazing.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Do you know people taking them?</s>CAROLINE: Yeah. I did. I did for 10 years. I have lots of friends who do it.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow.</s>WEIL: Well, I'm a little concerned about that because these drugs also...</s>CAROLINE: It's a (unintelligible).</s>WEIL: ...are not benign.</s>CAROLINE: What?</s>WEIL: They're not benign. No, there are some significant adverse effects of antidepressant drugs. They may increase cardiovascular risk. They may increase cancer risk. A latest finding - although this doesn't apply to hot flashes - is that pregnant women who take them, there are higher rates of autism in their offspring. You know, so these are not benign agents. And in general, I would recommend looking for safer ways of managing hot flashes.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: 1-800-989-8255. We're talking with Dr. Andrew Weil on SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow. What other messages are in your book? What other kinds of techniques can you use - breathing, meditation?</s>WEIL: You know, yes. I think that there is a tremendous amount of research that's been done, and this derives from Eastern psychology, that learning to focus the mind, to concentrate attention in the present moment is very beneficial, that the more the mind wanders into the past and future, the more attention is fragmented, the more vulnerable we are to poor emotional health. This is, by the way, I think one of the problems of information overload today and all the new media. They encourage multitasking, and there's very clear research that the brain really can't do more than one thing at a time.</s>WEIL: All it can do is rapidly switch back and forth. You can get good at that, but I think this leaves you very vulnerable. So learning to, you know, whether it's simply sitting down and focusing on breathing, trying to bring full attention to every act that you're doing - the eating, so forth. This is a very useful practice.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Would you say that this is - that you've written about so many of these things over the years, did you have something new, an epiphany, or you're just basically summarizing what you've learned over the years?</s>WEIL: Well, I think there's a lot of new information here about, first of all, the limitations of the biomedical model in the mental health field, how much all these other options have been ignored. One of the things that was new for me in researching the book is the connection between inflammation and depression. And if I can tell this story, I found it very interesting. Farmers have long known that when domestic animals become sick usually with infectious illnesses, they show a characteristic pattern of behavioral changes, and these are called sickness behavior.</s>WEIL: They include immobility, loss of appetite, loss of interest in socializing with others of their kind, loss of interest in sex, changes that are strikingly similar to the changes that human beings show who have major depression. It was - farmers assumed that this was due to fatigue caused by illness. But in the 1950s, it was found that sickness behavior is mediated by a blood-borne factor. You can take blood from an animal with this behavior, inject it into a healthy animal, and that animal shows the same behavior. Nobody knew what it was. It was called factor X for 20 years.</s>WEIL: And then in the 1970s, it was identified as cytokines, a group of regulatory proteins used by the immune system to regulate inflammation. In - some of these cytokines later become - became purified and available for medical use, like interferon for the treatment of chronic hepatitis and interleukin-2. When these are administered to people for medical treatments, the most severe side effect is extreme depression and suicide. And this is on the label warnings of the package.</s>WEIL: So this has led to the cytokine hypothesis of depression, which I find very compelling. And it is that there is a link between up-regulated inflammation and cytokines and depression. In animals who are sick, this is an adaptive response that the cytokines affect the brain, cause behavioral changes that probably favor healing. It makes more energy available to the immune system. But I think this is a really interesting connection, opens new avenues for both preventing and treating depression by following an anti-inflammatory lifestyle.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right. We'll come back, take a break. We'll talk more with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." Our number, 1-800-989-8255. You can tweet us, @scifri. Stay with us. We'll be right back.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Dr. Andrew Weil, author of "Spontaneous Happiness." Our number is 1-800-989-8255. There a lot of folks - when we posted this on our Facebook page, a lot of folks who said that what you do - integrative medicine, alternative treatments - they're not science. There's no scientific basis in any of this. How do you respond to that?</s>WEIL: Well, I think they're uninformed. And, you know, the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine has trained now almost 1,000 physicians from all specialties very intensively in an evidence-based curriculum in integrative medicine. Many of these people are out there practicing, teaching others, working at academic health centers. A group called the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine now includes, I think, more than a third of the nation's medical schools. This is involvement at the level of deans and chancellors.</s>WEIL: Oxford University Press is publishing a series of volumes for clinicians in integrative medicine. I'm the general editor of that series. We've had volumes come out so far in integrative oncology, cardiology, pediatrics, psychiatry, women's health. This is a very robust field. We're currently working to establish a board certification as a specialty in integrative medicine. I think this is the future. It's not only medicine that makes economic sense. It's what people want.</s>WEIL: And the focus on alternative therapies is really, I think, a distraction. You know, there's a lot more important aspects to integrative medicine, such as really emphasizing the body's own innate capacities for healing and for maintaining health. And I would just say that, you know, everything that we teach and everything that we practice is backed by scientific evidence, and we also encourage research to gather more evidence. And with - specifically as regards the recommendations in "Spontaneous Happiness," the book is very well-referenced, and you'll find, you know, scientific backing for all of the things that I suggest that people try.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Well, are we going to see someday our in-network doctor be an integrative medicine doctor?</s>WEIL: You know, I - yes, absolutely. I think in fact, one day, we'll drop the word integrative, and this will just be good medicine. It's what medicine has been in the past when it's worked well; I think it's what it can be in the future.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Let me go back - we only have a couple of minutes, but you touched on a very interesting topic that we've been talking about for years from a traditional medicine side, and you're now bringing it from another side. And that is the role of inflammation in disease.</s>WEIL: Now, for years, I've been recommending an anti-inflammatory diet as the best strategy for optimizing health, extending longevity, reducing overall risks of disease, and I have devised an anti-inflammatory diet. You can find this in the book or in my website, DrWeil.com. It's a version of the Mediterranean diet, for which we have great evidence of general health benefits. I've tweaked it to make it even more effective. But the theory here is that all of the major chronic diseases - cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease - begin as inflammatory processes.</s>WEIL: And I think most people in our culture go through life in pro-inflammatory states. Many reasons for that - genetics, stress, exposure to environmental toxins. Diet plays a huge role. The mainstream diet, which is heavy in industrialized food-like stuff, is strongly pro-inflammatory. It gives us all the wrong things, the wrong fats, the wrong kinds of carbohydrate and it's deficient in all that can protect us from the damage from inflammation. And now, there is this new connection that our emotional health may also be tied here. So that following an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle may offer great protection as well as a new treatment strategy for managing depression.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And you say in your book that you lay out a diet and an exercise regimen and an integrative approach.</s>WEIL: I do. And, Ira, the simplest step, the first step of an anti-inflammatory diet is simply to avoid eating refined, processed and manufactured food because that's...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You sound like Michael Pollan now.</s>WEIL: Well, we're good friends, and we're pretty much on the same wavelength.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right. The book is called "Spontaneous Happiness." There used to be "Spontaneous Healing." All kinds of great books...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Andrew Weil has put together "Spontaneous Happiness." Thank you very much, Dr. Weil, for coming on the program and talking with us today.</s>WEIL: I enjoy talking with you.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Good luck to you.</s>WEIL: Thanks.

In a new book, Pulitzer Prize winning writer Richard Rhodes tells the behind-the-scenes story of movie star—and inventor— Hedy Lamarr, "the most beautiful woman in the world." Lamarr invented "frequency hopping," a concept that's still used in today's wireless technology.

IRA FLATOW, HOST: Up next, the hidden life of a Hollywood siren.</s>WILLIAM POWELL: (as William Whitley) Scientist, mathematician, physicist, bacon-eater, yes, but not astrologer.</s>HEDY LAMARR: (as Vicky Whitley) Oh, I'm sorry.</s>WILLIAM POWELL: (as William Whitley) Darling, astronomy and astrology may sound alike, but that's all. Astronomy is a science, astrology, a superstition.</s>HEDY LAMARR: (as Vicky Whitley) But aren't you a little bit intolerant? For thousands of years, astrology has been highly respected.</s>WILLIAM POWELL: (as William Whitley) Astrology, my love, stinks.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: That movie clip is from "The Heavenly Body," and the woman with that lovely Austrian accent is Hedy Lamarr. Her scientist husband is played by William Powell. And while Hedy is playing the stereotypical Hollywood dumb broad in that scene, in real life, she was anything but that. In her spare time, Hedy, the glamorous movie star, was an insatiable inventor. Her most famous invention is called frequency hopping, and is still used today in some wireless technology, including Bluetooth.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You can see her patent up there on our website at sciencefriday.com. Joining me now to talk more about Hedy Lamarr, her life and inventions is Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Richard Rhodes. His new book is called "Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World." He joins us from KQED in San Francisco - from San Francisco. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.</s>RICHARD RHODES: Hi, Ira.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You know, I'm a huge fan of Hedy Lamarr. And for many - as my listeners know, I've been talking about her and her accomplishments for decades. There are movie scripts, right, waiting to be produced. A play called "Frequency Hopping" that was produced. We interviewed the writer and director Elyse Singer back in 2008. You're a Hedy Lamarr fan, too, now, I guess.</s>RICHARD RHODES: Yes, absolutely - although, of course, strictly for her scientific bent. You'll find a photo in the frontispiece in the book that I think really shows how extraordinarily beautiful she was.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And she said that was a curse of hers, did she not?</s>RICHARD RHODES: She did. She really felt blinded or blocked from people seeing the real person. She would walk into a room, and people would literally stop talking and look at her. But they never got past her face, which is what that little scene here just played indicates, too.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And how did she get - was she always interested in inventions, from a very young age?</s>RICHARD RHODES: You know, I think I trace it back to the time she spent with her father, who was a tall, athletic bank director in Vienna, where she was born, and who would - she was his only child. He adored her. They would go on long walks together around the city, and he would explain things to her, technologies. This is how that crane works. This is how that bus works. So in her childhood, she obviously associated the warm feelings she had with her - for her father with this business of technology. And I think that's probably the real source of her interest.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Why do you call it "Hedy's Folly"? What was the folly in her work?</s>RICHARD RHODES: Well, I think folly is a word that has several meanings. One of them, of course, is the one we all think of, and that's ironic because of the way the Navy treated her and George Antheil's invention, which was, of course, to throw it into the round(ph) file. But there's another sense of the word folly, which means basically an extravagance. And I think of her inventive side as a kind of rich, extravagant side of a very extravagant woman.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: 1-800-989-8255 if you'd like to talk about Hedy Lamarr. And we'll get into her inventions, and the one that's most famous about having to do with frequency hopping, on SCIENCE FRIDAY, from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Richard Rhodes, author of "Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World." And she was christened that by what - a movie producer, was it?</s>RICHARD RHODES: Yes, Max Reinhart, the great Austrian producer-director called her that when she first showed up in one of his movies as an - almost an extra. And by then - I think she was about 16 at the time. She got more beautiful when she moved to the United States and lost some weight, actually. She was a kind of typical plump Austrian teenager, but she was a knockout by the time she made her first movie here.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah. Yeah. She - and the story goes that - you tell it very well in your book. And you debunk a lot of the mythology about her escape from Austria and her husband. And she - you basically say that she always wanted to be a movie star, and she made her way to America. And...</s>RICHARD RHODES: Someone said of her, one of the first actors who played with her in a play, that she thought of the United States as some sort of large country surrounding Hollywood, which I think is a pretty good idea of where she was. She'd always dreamed of being a movie star. And the only place you could really do that was, of course, in Hollywood. But she had a disastrous marriage at the age of 20 with the third-richest man in Austria, Fritz Mandel, who was an arms merchant who have factories making bullets and cannon shells and so forth all over Europe. And they lived, of course, a very extravagant life.</s>RICHARD RHODES: But she described it as a golden castle, a golden prison. He was a paranoid man who was sure she was cheating on him with everyone who walked through the room, and she simply felt locked up. Plus, he didn't want her to act. She had acted in a movie that had really made her name as a 19 year-old, where she had had a couple of nude scenes. And that was a scandal in Austria and in the United States, as well. Famously, Fritz is said to have tried to buy up all the copies of this film, which, of course, the people who owned the negatives simply kept making more copies, making a nice living. So...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And - yeah.</s>RICHARD RHODES: ...in 1937, she saw her chance and filed for divorce and made her way to London, where she had lots of friends, found out that Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was in town buying up actresses and actors, as it were, on the cheap in the late period of the Depression, and went to see him. He offered her a really bad deal, and she turned him down and walked out - which, I think, is some indication of her self-confidence...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Oh.</s>RICHARD RHODES: ...and then contrived to sail to the United States on the Normandie, the same ship that he was returning to the country in, and got herself a much better contract.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And we'll pick up the story, a very interesting story about Hedy Lamarr, with Richard Rhodes, author of the new book "Hedy's Folly." Stay with us. We'll be right back. Our number: 1-800-989-8255. We'll get into her inventiveness right after this break. Stay with us.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, from NPR.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I am Ira Flatow.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: We're talking this hour about the life of movie star and inventor Hedy Lamarr with my guest Richard Rhodes. His new book is called "Hedy's Folly." Our number: 1-800-989-8255.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So let's continue the story. She gets to Hollywood and she becomes a big movie star, but she doesn't go out and partake in all these Hollywood lifestyle parties, does she?</s>RICHARD RHODES: Exactly. She doesn't drink, and she doesn't like parties. She's - after all, she's a very bright woman, and she - her idea of a good evening is a quiet dinner party with some intelligent friends. So she has to find some way to occupy her time. And what she does is take up, as a hobby, inventing. She sets aside one of the rooms in her house and puts up a drawing table and all the tools, the right kind of lights. There's an entire wall of technical reference books on one side of the room. And she sets herself keeping busy in these off-hours, trying to come up with new ideas for inventions.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And she goes to - I'm sorry. So she's at a party, and she meets the man who's going to make history with her.</s>RICHARD RHODES: She has begun to be very interested in the war, which began, of course, in Europe on the first of September, 1939. She's been following the story, of course, because her country was occupied by Germany, and therefore is part of the Axis empire at this point.</s>RICHARD RHODES: She's particularly interested in the submarine warfare that's going on between the German U-boats and British shipping, because when she went to all these fancy dinner parties with her Austrian husband, he, after all, was talking to German admirals, German officers, German technical specialists about the kind of problems they were having with, for example, torpedoes and submarines. So she knows a lot about this.</s>RICHARD RHODES: And it's particularly interesting to her and horrifying to her in the summer of 1940, when the German U-boats begin torpedoing the ocean liners that are carrying English children out of England to safety in Canada, to get away from the blitz which had begun, the bombing of London and the bombing of England. One ship in particular, in September of 1940, was torpedoed with the loss of the lives of 99 children, and she's horrified. And she thinks: There must be something I, Hedy Lamarr, can do to stop this terrible butchering of children.</s>RICHARD RHODES: And then at this dinner party, just a few weeks later, she meets a young avant-garde composer named George Antheil, who happens, at the age of 18 - this is his technical expertise, from her point of view - to have been an inspector in a bullet factory in the United States during the First World War. Well, as he said later, well, that was the only person she could find who had this particular set of skills. So she says, let's get together and talk about this.</s>RICHARD RHODES: She's also concerned about making her breasts larger, and he happens to have written a series of articles in Esquire - while he's scratching around for a living - about how certain hormones can enlarge the breasts. This is kind of the quality of this story. There all these strange corners to it as we go along.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And it turns out that...</s>RICHARD RHODES: So they get together.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: I'm sorry. You tell it better than I do. Go ahead.</s>RICHARD RHODES: So they get together over a series of evenings, and they start thinking about: How could you build a torpedo that could be made more accurate? And they think: all right, radio guidance. Yeah, but it's easy to jam a radio signal. And this is where Hedy's invention comes in.</s>RICHARD RHODES: With - for reasons that are not quite clear in the record - but I think there are some antecedents to it in her own past - she comes up with the idea that if you could make the radio signal jump around from frequency to frequency at a fairly fast rate, at least a few dozen times per second, that someone trying to jam the signal won't be able to find it.</s>RICHARD RHODES: And if they broadcast a big, noisy signal that covers the whole range of frequencies, it will just occasionally sound like a little blip on the one or two or three or 10 or a hundred frequencies that the signal is bouncing around them on. This is her crucial invention. And they do, together, get a patent on this idea and its manifestation in a torpedo design, and this brings in George Antheil's interests.</s>RICHARD RHODES: He's someone who, in the course of his avant-garde composition, was once faced with a problem of how do you coordinate the playing of up to 16-player pianos. He never succeeded, really, in doing that, but he did learn about the idea of using a scroll of paper or some other kind of tape that's punched with holes to convey the signal to this piano of which key to play. And by adapting that so that the whole signal and electronic signal to be produced, they devised one form of their invention which is the one they use in their patent to show that it's a practical idea.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: But you couldn't cram all of that into a torpedo.</s>RICHARD RHODES: This turns out to be the disaster from the Navy point of view. The Navy officers who are involved in looking at this invention don't really get the idea that this player-piano system is just one idea, that there are many different ways to make this happen. As Antheil wrote later, you could have put it on a piece of wire and run it through a mechanism the size of a wristwatch, which is true. But the Navy didn't see it that way and said, how are you going to put a player piano in a torpedo? And they threw the invention away.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: But many years later, it got picked up.</s>RICHARD RHODES: But after the war, and unfortunately, after the invention had - their patent had expired in the 1950s, a curious electrical engineer with a long Hungarian name, which I can't even pronounce - but he was the son of a series of counts and counts going back in history came - was handed this expired patent. And the Navy said, can you use this to make a jam-proof signal for a sonobuoy, a buoy that would float on the water, send down sonar signals if it registers that there's a submarine underneath, would then transmit the information to a plane flying overhead using frequency hopping to make the signal unjammable.</s>RICHARD RHODES: He says, sure. And he built - designed such a system. At that point, the military picks up on this technology because one of the fundamental problems with military communications is you don't want them to be jammed. And so you find ship-to-ship radios that were on ships during the Cuban missile crisis, control systems for missiles - from the ground to the missile. Ultimately, GPS, the signal that comes back to Earth that we use to read the GPS information is frequency hopping.</s>RICHARD RHODES: And you - and then in the 1980s when this technology was declassified, it was no longer secret, it began to be picked up first on car radios and then on cell phones, wireless telephones, Bluetooth - for a different reason. Now, the problem is you have a fairly low-powered signal going around from, let's say my cell phone to the central tower, and the problem is if everything's on one frequency, they're all going to be interfering with each other.</s>RICHARD RHODES: But if every phone can hop around from frequency to frequency, then you can have 800, 1,000, 40,000, 100,000 phones all communicating with that one tower, and they won't interfere with each other in any way that's meaningful.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Well, she lived long enough to see her work bear fruit. But was she very disappointed or upset that she didn't profit from any of this?</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You know, she didn't want to profit because she gave the patent to the U.S. Navy. It was her contribution to the war effort. But she did want to be recognized and - particularly because she's always had this feeling that no one in Hollywood ever understood that she was an intelligent human being. She was never given particularly good roles. She wasn't asked to act. And she was well trained as actress. So her Hollywood career was a really bitter disappointment to her, even though she made a great deal of money.</s>RICHARD RHODES: And then she had, as actors and actresses do, she had to deal with what do I do for the rest of my life? And she was pretty invisible for the rest of her life. So she wanted recognition that in an interview for a magazine in 1990 when she was then approaching her 80's, she said, people seem to just take and take and they never give back. She really was unhappy about it. Fortunately, some of the early pioneers of wireless computer systems picked up on the fact that this had been Hedy's patent all those years ago and started a quiet movement to get her some kind of recognition.</s>RICHARD RHODES: And in 1998 when she was, I think, about 80 years old, she finally was awarded a Communications Pioneer Freedom Foundation award and was delighted with it. But when they called her up to tell her about the award, Hedy being Hedy, she said, well, it's about time.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And she didn't want to be seen in public at that point, right?</s>RICHARD RHODES: She had had a lot of bad plastic surgery by then and really was not happy with going out at all. So she recorded a thank you, and then her son Anthony carried the recording to the conference, the convention where the award was presented and he received the award and played the tape. And I actually have a copy of a copy of a copy of that tape passed down by these various computer pioneers, which has Hedy's voice on it, saying thank you very much. I hope it's been of some use.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: She - and in between - and there - and while she's in Hollywood she noodled around with lots of little inventions. Name a few of the little I inventions that she was...</s>RICHARD RHODES: I think the most interesting, in a way, is one that she worked on with the help of a couple of chemist who were loaned to her by Howard Hughes. I mean, she dated around quite a bit, and I'm sure Howard Hughes was one of her boyfriends at some point. So he loaned her a couple of chemist. This was a tablet, kind of like an Alka-Seltzer tablet that if you dropped it into a glass of water, would fizz up and make a coke. And it never evidently really worked. She laughed about it many years later. But, I mean, it doesn't sound like a bad idea (unintelligible).</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: There was something called Fizzies when I was a kid. There's something called Fizzies that has sort of worked like that.</s>RICHARD RHODES: Yes. I don't think that was her invention, but they did come along. She had some ideas at the end of her life to improve the French-British supersonic passenger liner, the Concorde. She came up with an improved stoplight signal. She had an idea for a little box that would attach to a Kleenex box so you could put your waste Kleenex somewhere - she was obviously someone who was just constantly looking at the world and thinking, well, I can make an improvement there. She had a chair that you could wheel in and out of a shower, so that people who couldn't stand can take a shower. She was an interesting woman.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: She was - she was Hollywood's first star geek, it sounds.</s>RICHARD RHODES: She was. She was.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Movie star.</s>RICHARD RHODES: And it turns out there were a few others. Harpo Marx, evidently, was an inventor as well. So there are these people tucked away in the history of Hollywood who were doing other things. It's nice to know.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Richard Rhodes, author of the new book "Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World." And it's - seeing him memorize - mesmerized by Richard telling the story, and he tells it as well in his book. It's really interesting book, and people trying to get - now that your book is out, maybe we'll get to see some more productions of the - of "Frequency Hopping," which was a play that was in production a few years ago, right?</s>RICHARD RHODES: That's right.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: There's a movie about it or scripts floating around about her looking to be cast.</s>RICHARD RHODES: There is, and a German actress has recently optioned my book, actually. I think probably because she wants to play Hedy, so let's hope that this motion picture happens. It's a wonderful story.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah. Are there any parts of her story you could not uncover that you - that remain a mystery to you that you would've liked to have touched into?</s>RICHARD RHODES: Well, you know, most of the previous versions of the story, including that script you were talking about, conflate up a love affair between George Antheil, the composer, and Hedy, and I found that questionable. She always dated taller men than she, and she was five foot seven, quite tall for her day. George was an interesting, little guy who was about five-three. Time magazine once called him a cello-sized composer...</s>RICHARD RHODES: ...which I thought was a marvelous description. So it seems unlikely to me, but he was someone who had quite a few affairs in the course of his life, and when he died in 1959, left his wife whatever estate he had and a 6-month old illegitimate son, so...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: No, there's another myth that you - that is well known, and you've debunked it, sort of, that the young Hedy tried to escape from her husband who was meeting all these munitions people, these Nazi munitions people, that she drugged her husband and dressed up in the maid's outfit to sneak out of the country. And you say that there's no real record of that happening.</s>RICHARD RHODES: Well, even more, it's as if her escape was a secret, but I'd looked at the newspapers from the day, and there were big headlines both in this country and in Vienna that Hedwig Kiesler, as her name was then, was divorcing Fritz Mandl, so it was public knowledge that a divorce was underway. The fact that she got out of town is pretty obviously something he was aware of, may even have colluded in. I don't know.</s>RICHARD RHODES: You know, this - he escaped Nazi Germany just to hear later he was Jewish and took with him all of his money, which was considerable, moved to Argentina, and helped build the air force for the notorious dictator of Argentina. So I think they knew that they were both trying to get out of Nazi Germany and Nazi Austria as it was then.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You say in the book that you think that's story was - it sounds like a concoction of a movie agent or a studio agent making up a fantastic tale like that.</s>RICHARD RHODES: Precisely.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And so you're very satisfied with how the book came out and the research and the things that you uncovered.</s>RICHARD RHODES: I am. There's always more than you would like to know, you know, exactly what happened within the government in their decision, first, not to use this patent and then to pick it up and essentially make it one of the fundamental components of our military technology. That's kind of a mystery because it was all secret information, and curiously enough, a lot of the documentation has never been declassified because of some stubborn decision on the part of the agencies involved that there were commercial secrets involved in all of these. So the real inside stuff about that part of the story is waiting to be uncovered.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right. Stuff for another book for you maybe, Richard.</s>RICHARD RHODES: Another book.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: There you go. Well, thank you for writing this one because, as I say, Hedy Lamarr is one of my favorite inventor characters in history, and I'm glad you filled in and debunked a lot of its stuff for us.</s>RICHARD RHODES: It was fun to write...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Richard Rhodes...</s>RICHARD RHODES: ...because it's a fun story.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: It's a great story. Richard Rhodes' new book, "Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World." That's about all the time we have for today.

In 2002, nearly 60% of Americans believed the U.S. was exceptional among nations. But a recent Pew Research study finds fewer than half of Americans now believe their country is superior to others. The shift has many commentators wondering what's behind a general decline in optimism among Americans. Charles Blow, columnist, New York Times Matthew Franck, regular contributor, National Review Online

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. American exceptionalism, once a term reserved for political scholars, is now an item of currency in American electoral politics. Many GOP presidential hopefuls embrace the idea and argue that liberals trample the principles that underlie America's greatness.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: President Obama puts it somewhat differently. He says America has a responsibility to be a leader among nations. Responses to the idea depend a lot on how it's defined, but when the Pew Research Center asked our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others, 49 percent of Americans agreed. That's down from 60 percent in 2002, 55 percent five years after that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Is the United States a nation like any other nation? Our number, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, a reality show follows five families in Dearborn, all American Muslim, but first American exceptionalism, and we begin with Charles Blow, a columnist with the New York Times who recently wrote a piece called "The Decline of American Exceptionalism." And he joins us from the studios at the newspaper. Nice to have you with us again.</s>CHARLES BLOW: Nice to be here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you wrote that Americans have to stop snuggling up to nostalgia and buckle down to get back to an America that is truly great.</s>CHARLES BLOW: Yes, and I mean, as you pointed out, the number of people who say the American culture is superior has dropped dramatically. Now, that could be - what culture means to different countries is - could be a lot of different things. However, if you're just looking at Americans over time, it does drop off.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And if you combine those results with the results of other polls that show that people believe that we are becoming less important as a country, that China may be overtaking us financially in the world, that our military might is not as important to our greatness as it once was, if you look at the cumulative effect of what people are saying about America, you get the sense that people do not see us as singular in the world, not destined to be the leader of the world as we once were.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And what I try to, you know, at least raise in that column is whether or not our greatness was about an anointing from God, or was it about grit. Was it about - you know, what people in America, how our attitudes were about work and invention and striving that made us great, or, you know, can we lean on the idea that something extraterrestrial has anointed the American people and, regardless of what we do, we are destined to be great.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We mentioned Ronald Reagan's phrase shining city on a hill. The other one you quoted in your piece was from George W. Bush: Chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world.</s>CHARLES BLOW: Right, right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's where a lot of people start having problems.</s>CHARLES BLOW: That's where (unintelligible) start having problem, and here's a problem about a hill. You know, people tend to sit down when they get to the top. When you're not necessarily the greatest - and America has not always - I mean, we have to think about America as a very young country, has not always been the great leader of the world and struggled to get to that point and did it with a lot of grit and a lot of work and a lot of inventiveness.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And that spirit of doing great things as a country, climbing, is what I think we have to make sure that we keep in perspective and keep in front of us. You know, once you settle in to the notion that regardless of what we do, we are destined to be great, that is the moment that the greatness starts to diminish because there are a lot of countries who are doing great things.</s>CHARLES BLOW: There are a lot of - if you compare us to other wealthy countries who are leapfrogging us on very important measures of education, number of people in the population who are poor, the number of people in the population who are in prison is much lower, the number of people who have access to health benefits is much greater than ours, we are now the leader in the number of premature babies.</s>CHARLES BLOW: That sort of thing, it becomes problematic because now it's not just about a feeling, it's not just about what you believe, it's actual data that demonstrates that we are not at the peak. And if we continue just to say that because we once were and because we are supposed to be it is thus, that's problematic because then there is no driver to say we must do better than we're doing.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's bring another voice into the conversation. Matthew Franck joins us. He directs the Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute, also a regular contributor to the National Review Online, and joins us from his office in Princeton. Nice to have you back.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: Thanks, Neal, how are you?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm good, thank you. And I wonder: Obviously definitions matter a lot. How would you define American exceptionalism?</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: Yeah, that's a very interesting question. I'm not sure that the Pew survey got at the question in just the way I would have. You read the statement they asked people to indicate their level of agreement with earlier, and it ran as follows: Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: That's not, you know, by its terms a question about American exceptionalism. Now, I understand this was a cross-national survey. They were talking to Germans, Spanish, British, French people, as well. And a question about exceptionalism, let alone American exceptionalism, wouldn't really travel very well across all those countries. So they wanted a question they could ask everywhere.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: But I was talking to a colleague of mine here earlier today, and I said: You know, I could mischievously turn this question around because Americans have always had a bit of an inferiority complex about their culture, you know, looking to Europe for high culture in particular.</s>You could turn it around and ask people to agree or disagree with the following statement: Our culture may not be perfect, but our people are superior to others. And I think you might get different results. You might get higher numbers of Americans agreeing with that proposition.</s>You could turn it around and ask people to agree or disagree with the following statement: Our culture is famously a mishmash of high and low, of import and domestic varieties, and yet there's something about the American people's belief in themselves, whether again it's, you know, that they're anointed by God or that they have a lot of grit. I think it's both those things.</s>You could turn it around and ask people to agree or disagree with the following statement: I think it's the American people's belief in themselves as both blessed and busy that gives rise to the American belief in exceptionalism.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And yet others would argue America is stained by the original sin of slavery, genocide carried out against the Native Americans. Obviously America's done many great things, but, well, it's got a lot of problems, too.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: Absolutely, and there's no - there's nothing to be gained in papering over the sins of our past or our present. You know, for many of us on the right, the scourge of abortion is a great stain on the American character today, as slavery once was.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: So, you know, these - this recognition of America's faults is something that has to be undertaken. Americans are actually, I think, historically pretty good at recognizing their faults. But from the founding to the present, you know, our sense of ourselves, often encouraged by statesmen from, you know, from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and John Adams at the founding, through Lincoln and then to great 20th-century leaders like FDR and Reagan, they've encouraged this sense of American exceptionalism, and by and large, you know, the American people have applauded that.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: You know, the politics of many other countries is, you know, Charles Blow rightly said we're a young country. But we're young in a peculiar way. We're an immigrant country. We're a new country, a frontier country, and we're a country that does not find its identity in throne and altar, blood and soil but in a set of ideas, ideas that began famously with that great statement in the Declaration of Independence that we hold these truths to be self-evident, the first of which was a great ringing declaration of a principle that undermined American slavery.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. There's where I think Americans get their sense of themselves, as a creedal nation, organized around a set of ideas to which anyone can subscribe and anyone is welcome to join in on the great blessing of American exceptionalism.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Charles Blow, I wonder what you think of Matthew Franck's mischievous idea: reverse that, our culture may not be perfect, but our people are superior to others.</s>CHARLES BLOW: I mean, you - it's an interesting idea, like you said, and I'd be interested in how people would answer that question. The problem you run up against though is that because of the digital age, the last 20 years of world history has made the world a very small and very transparent place.</s>CHARLES BLOW: The separation that afforded us a level of - and I don't want to misconstrue this word - but a level of kind of blissful ignorance, to be able to claim a superiority on any metric, no longer exists. And you can now look across countries and see where you stand, and 24-hour news gives you a bit of that, but the Internet does a lot of that.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And there's no longer anywhere to hide. So now you have a lot of data that's stacking up that demonstrates that on a long list of measures, we are not in the position that we once were and that we like to believe that we are.</s>CHARLES BLOW: You know, there was this great study a few years ago where kids were asked how they felt they were as math students. American kids rated themselves highest, but their scores were among the lowest. And that concept that we can somehow hide in the idea that we are great because we should be or that we've always been told that we were quickly starts to diminish as data become more available and as the world becomes smaller because of the Internet.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Charles Blow, the New York Times columnist who wrote a piece in the November 18th edition of the newspaper titled "The Decline of American Exceptionalism." Also with us Matthew Franck of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Is America a nation like other nations, or is America exceptional? Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. President Abraham Lincoln called the United States the last best hope of Earth. Thomas Jefferson referenced an empire of liberty. More recently, President Ronald Reagan described us as a shining city on a hill.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That sense of American exceptionalism, at least by one definition, is no longer shared by a majority of Americans. Several recent surveys show a growing feeling of long-term decline. We'd like hear from you. Is the United States a nation like any other nation? 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. You can join our conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Our guests are Charles Blow, the New York Times columnist, and Matthew Franck, a regular contributor to the National Review Online. And let's go to Jeff(ph), and Jeff's calling us from Little Rock.</s>JEFF: Hi, yeah, I wanted to talk about how America's exceptionalism is basically based on our civil liberties and how they're slowly being taken away from us through the recent SOPA Act and the Detainee Act, I think, that was just passed yesterday in the Senate. So, I don't know, I think that we're slowly just declining in liberty, and that's what decreasing our exceptionalism.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's interesting - and Matthew Franck, you can hear people on both the left and the right very concerned about erosion of their individual liberties.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: Sure, I understand, you know, the war on terror of the last decade worries people on the left about the fate of civil liberties. Obamacare, likewise, worries people on the right about the state of American freedom. These are perennial American concerns. We fight them out not only in the courts but in the court of public opinion and in elections and legislatures.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: And this, too, I think is it's fundamentally a sign of health that we Americans resort to these pole stars of freedom, of civil liberties and try to talk about how to live up to a legacy that our forefathers bequeathed us. You know, the glory of American political life is the Constitution, and everyone has an opinion of how best to live up to its principles. So yeah.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I was just going to ask Charles Blow: Clearly you can pick whatever measure you want - you mentioned poverty, child welfare, that sort of thing - and Jeff is making the point about the erosion of civil liberties. But any one measure does not make the whole list.</s>CHARLES BLOW: Right, and I think you have to look at it a bit larger than that. I mean, I think any one of those areas you could do a whole show on and focus on how we need to deal with that issue. But I think when you look at civilizations over hundreds of years or thousands of years, and you see the arc of a civilization, that's where America and any country should get worried when you see yourself at the top of that arc.</s>CHARLES BLOW: Because what we see over history is that people don't stay at the top of the arc. Civilizations don't stay at the top of the arc, and when you see other signs of countries that are, you know, full steam ahead like a China, where the, you know, they're likely to overtake us in GDP in the next 10 years or so, maybe a little bit longer, who are heavily investing in the areas where natural resources now exist, like Africa, where you see - where you know you have a population that is enormous, and the world has been shrank by technology so that if you were just to assume that the top 15 percent of their population, of their children are honor students then they would have more honor students than we have students.</s>CHARLES BLOW: When you look at the totality of civilizations that are on the rise again - you know, it's a very old civilization - and you look at where we are and what happens to civilizations when they peak and don't deal with the issues of peaking, then you see that they go down.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And that, I think, is what should worry all of Americans, and some of these smaller things are kind of symptoms of that but not the totality of that issue.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jeff, thanks very much for the call, appreciate it. China, we tend to exaggerate our rivals' advantages and diminish our own. China's got some problems of its own, certainly in terms of being an example to other nations. In any case, Robert(ph), Robert's with us on the line from Clinton in South Carolina.</s>ROBERT: Yes, I just wanted to make a statement that I think we're exceptional because we're a nation of immigrants, and when we have a task to set, set to do, we don't ask you what your religion is or what school you went to. We ask you what you can do to make this happen. And that's why we're exceptional.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it's a good point. And Charles Blow, I wanted to point out - and I'm sure you're aware of this, too - a lot of the idea of this, going back to the Founding Fathers, is this idea of an America founded on ideas, an America that has escaped, thus far, religious wars and an America that has escaped a lot of the conflicts that plagued old Europe.</s>CHARLES BLOW: Right, but what you see in our politics today is a worrisome kind of stagnation, where we can't seem to bring ourselves to do great things. We can't seem to bend enough to come to agreement and compromise. And that, I think, is a very worrisome sign and diverts quite a bit from the history of America.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And when you think about what are the big things that America has done in its history and then think about what are the big things that America has done lately, that lately list comes up really short.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And, you know, whether or not it's going to the moon or building a highway system or building dams or building a railroad system or, you know, private enterprise, developing the idea for the Internet or for social networking or whatever the case, when you start to look at what you have done as a country on a grand scale, where we have dreamed together and brought that dream to fruition, that list looks smaller.</s>CHARLES BLOW: And that is where I think we have to recapture our sense of ourselves, to make the sacrifices that are required, to bend a bit from your personal ideology, whether it's left or right, and come to a middle and say we as a nation have to do the great things because that's what great nations do.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Matthew Franck, is part of the problem is we may not be able to agree what those great things are?</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: I think that's right. You know, I agree with so much of what Charles Blow is saying. I loved his column. There are some great expressions of the American spirit in that column, when he says, for instance, we must work our way out of these doldrums, we must learn our way out, we must innovate our way out. And you choose greatness; it doesn't choose you. I couldn't agree with him more.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: And I do think that Americans have to resolve to see their greater days ahead of them rather than behind them. We have to think of ourselves as on the upward climb of that arc that Mr. Blow spoke of rather than on the downward slope.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: When we look to Europe, and the Pew survey suggests that we're - that opinions and attitudes in America are shifting in a direction more like Europe's - it is worrisome. If Europe is, you know, the cradle of Western civilization, and America is the great young outpost of that same civilization, we look to Europe, and it looks like they're farther down that downslope than we are, and we don't want to go there.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: So yeah, I - I'm just, you know, 90 percent in agreement with Charles Blow here, but...</s>CHARLES BLOW: You sound surprised.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: ...what we have to do is resolve together to solve our problems and hash out those issues that can be compromised and fight out those issues that can't be compromised.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: You know, as a political scientist, as I've been for many years, I've always taught my students to think about American political issues as divided into those that are amenable to compromise and those that simply aren't. Slavery, in the end, simply wasn't. It was finessed away for decades, and it simply in the end wasn't subject to compromise.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: There's a great many more issues in American politics that are amenable to compromise, and we have to work on those. The ones that aren't amenable to compromise, we just have to - we just have to struggle our way through, you know, with a hopeful sense that, you know, that decisive victory for justice is the end of things. That's the way, you know, people devoted to justice approached the issue of slavery, the issue of civil rights.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: That's the way some of us in conservative ranks think, for instance, about the abortion issue: You just have to struggle your way through to justice and see it through.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Email from Jeremy(ph) in Lansing: I teach American cultural studies, and this theme is brought up early in my course. I ask students to think about an individual who boasts of his or her greatness versus hearing others speak of his or her greatness.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: To my mind, American exceptionalism was defined by others, such as de Tocqueville. And for Americans to assert American existentialism is patently arrogant, while to be dubbed so by people around the world seems to be the only measure by which anyone or any nation should be considered exceptional. And, Charles Blow, I guess by that measure, we should have asked all those Europeans in the Pew survey what they thought about America - I guess they do from time to time.</s>CHARLES BLOW: Which would have been a very - another interesting set of answers. However, I diverge a bit from the person who wrote the email. I do believe that there is a - that national pride is important to greatness. And I do believe that having a set of values that you believe to be uniquely American and that having that set of values be a driver to accomplish things, and to push yourself as a country to be great is important. And I don't think that that necessarily makes you arrogant to have to do that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Dennis, Dennis with us from Salt Lake City.</s>DENNIS: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I think our decline, our exceptionalism comes down to religious extremists. And by that, I mean, we have religious extremists trying to push through things that - such as in education in Texas, where we basically degrade our education in the name of a religious ideology. And I see that in politics. Your guest has brought up abortion several times. I think we are the only first world country that still holds this much religion in our politics, and that's a real problem.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I think these - well, real problem, but it had - one thing that it's distinctive of - And you're talking about religious fundamentalism, it's not the mainstream of religion, and I don't think you can identify those who oppose abortion rights as a - on the fringes of American society. They form a substantial fraction of the American public. But...</s>DENNIS: The mainstream gives validity to the fringe, though. I mean, that's, kind of, part of the problem?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, I was...</s>DENNIS: Some places have fringe, but they don't have that large majority of religious people giving validity to the fringe.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Matthew Franck, Dennis' right to say that one of the distinctions between the United States and those other country's surveyed, is that there are a great many more religious believers in this country than those countries in Europe.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: Oh, absolutely. You know, I think that religious extremism in this country is a much - I would say it's a much smaller problem than our caller suggests. Religion does, however, loom much larger in American society than in European society. The Pew survey found that half of Americans deem religion very important in their lives. The numbers were more than three quarters if you added those who said somewhat important. And that dwarfed the numbers of Brits, French, Germans, Spaniards, who have ranked religion as very important in their lives, which was well below half, more like a quarter when you talk about very important.</s>MATTHEW FRANCK: And then very interestingly, the Pew survey said that American Christians are more likely than their Western European counterparts to think of themselves first in terms of their religion, rather than their nationality. In other words, American Christians think, I'm a Christian first. My first allegiance is to God. My second allegiance is to my nation. That's about half of American Christians. And, yeah, we're a much more religiously observant and faithful country than you'll find in Western Europe. And I would argue that the decline of religion is a decline of one of those key elements of American exceptionalism and, you know, moving in the direction of Europe on that score alone, would be indication of a worrisome trend, in my view.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Matthew Franck is with the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute. Charles Blow, a columnist at The New York Times. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's go to John, John with us from Columbus.</s>JOHN: Hi, thanks for taking my call</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure.</s>JOHN: Certainly, I think this country is great. There's so many awesome opportunities. And, you know, if we're able to teach statistics, like my grandfather's generation and, you know, what was done for the world - and it's amazing to me. But it's so fragile, and the opportunities can go away so fast. And I think Victor Frankl wrote about, you know, the Statue of Liberty needs a – needs a - needs someone on the other side, maybe a statue of responsibility. And I think it's just that fragile. But the exceptional country that I'm fortunate to live in and be a part of, be a veteran of, couldn't be prouder.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: John, thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it.</s>JOHN: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Just to put a contrary view in this email from Amy in Shinglehouse, Pennsylvania: I am embarrassed and horrified at the notion that America or Americans think we are exceptional. We have a terrible system of health care. We treat our elderly worse than dogs. We seem to think we can kill our way out of anything. We aren't doing a good job of leading by example regarding financial issues, greed or debt. Exceptional? Not even close. Charles Blow, clearly, you can get a lot of different Opinions, again, depending on how you define it. It's an important issue to a lot of people. But is America a nation like other nations? Or is exceptional, do you think?</s>CHARLES BLOW: Well, I think that we have had periods in our history where we have done exceptional things. And, you know, the founding of this country is an exceptional, I mean, it's a very fragile - it is an experiment has always been acknowledged, and it's an experiment that turned out well. It is perfectly positioned with oceans on both sides and neighbors to the North and South who are not necessarily hostile. You know, there's a lot of good fortune that has fallen on this country. But I also think that we have, as a country, done things in our history that pulled us together and meant that we were doing it. It wasn't just good luck. So if you look at the interventions in World War II or whatever - you look at tax rates during that time. And we want to have two wars, and we want to lower tax rates. That's not how that works. You pay for things. You go into massive amounts of debt, but you feel like you are doing this because it is the right thing to do.</s>CHARLES BLOW: At this point, we've decided that we are going to have our cake and eat it too. We are going to run around the world and be the world's police officers. We're not going to pay for that. We can't have it both ways. And if we want to be great, we have to remember that, in our past, we made sacrifices as a country, and we have to do that again.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Matthew Franck, Charles Blow may have wandered into that 10 percent where you disagree, but we're going to have to thank you both for your time, and we appreciate your being with us to discuss American exceptionalism. "All-American Muslim" when we return. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

Rep. James Clyburn, (D-S.C.), is the first black Majority Whip since the days of Reconstruction. He explains "Unleashing the Power," the theme of this year's legislative conference of the Congressional Black Caucus.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now we've got South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn. He's the Majority Whip of the 110th Congress; also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Thanks for coming on.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Thank you so much for having me.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So, let's start out with power because the theme of this entire event is unleashing the power. As the whip, when you crack it, who jumps?</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Well, I, as you know, have a style of leadership that has served me pretty well over the years. This is my first elective office. I've been managing something since the age of about 24 and I have always tried to form coalitions, try to coalesce around issues, trying to reach out and get people to want to do something. And so what I'm trying to do as the Majority Whip is try to bring as much information into the process, get as many people around the table as we possibly can and be proactive in counting the votes.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): So, when I came into office I was presented, symbolically, a whip by the African-American who had this position before I did back in the 1980's, Bill Gray of Pennsylvania. I thank him for the whip and then I ordered it encased. And so the whip is on my wall, in a case and I don't plan to crack it at all. I plan to use a different approach.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now at the CBC Annual Legislative Conference, you've got all sorts of panels on all sorts of things.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Yeah.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: There is the Jena Six case, which has gotten so much attention.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Sure.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What does the CBC intend to do as a group, if anything, about what's been going on there and about criminal justice issues in general?</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Well there in lies one of the real interesting situations. The Jena issue is an issue of the Justice Department, is an issue of law enforcement. And it just so happens that as a result of the Democrats coming back into power, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Not just a member, but he is the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. John Conyers has already started to lay the foundation for having some hearings and get into the bottom of what may or may not have gone on down in Jena, Louisiana. In fact, we are all looking very hard at the background of the prosecutor and some of the things the prosecutor may have said when he met with students down there.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): So we are looking at this already. I cannot tell you exactly where they're going with it, but I can tell you this. But for John Conyers being chair of the House Judiciary Committee, you probably wouldn't have any kind of activity going on as it relates to Jena.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, on Friday, you're going to be speaking on the issue of African-Americans' health care and the environment.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Yes.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That's a big topic. Give us a sneak preview.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Well, as you know, there are a lot of sites around the country that are environmentally challenged. And so many of these sites are in the communities that the Congressional Black Caucus members represent. And for six or seven years now, I have convened this environmental justice brain trust to take a look at what may or may not be causing health problems around -throughout these communities. And we believe that a lot of it is environmental.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): And so we are going to be looking at the issue of the environment as it allege to health issues. In fact, we very often meet in conjunction with the Health Brain Trust. It's headed up by Donna Christian Christianson who happens to be a physician. And we think the connection between health of our constituents and the environments that they live in - these discussion are ongoing, not just during this week, but also throughout the year. So this will be culminating four or five meetings we've had throughout the year.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: When you get a chance to put together a conference like this or be a part of a conference like this, you will run into your constituents. And because African-American congressmen and congresswomen are so high profile in terms of committee assignments, in terms of public leadership right now, do you think that there is paradoxically a tougher road for black politicians? I mean that in once you reach a certain height, you were expected to deliver incredible and immediate results. How realistic do you think your constituents are about what you can do about situations like Katrina and Jena?</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): A small minority are very realistic. A majority of our constituents are not as realistic as I would like for them to be. In fact, just last night, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who is chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and myself held a 90-minute forum, which was taped by C-SPAN over the National Archives on history - history built in here. And some of the issues that came up made me aware of the fact that when I taught high school, I used to teach history and government. And I taught about all the stuff about separation of powers and I taught about how the past bills. I taught about filibusters and vetoes. I never taught the 60-vote rule that we had over in the Senate simply because it was never anything that you taught. And people still don't know that there are certain issues that you cannot get debated, yet to a vote, because you need 60 votes in the Senate to cut off the debate.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Congressman, we have to leave it there. But again, always important to hear how the halls of government work. Thank you so much.</s>Representative JAMES CLYBURN (Democrat, South Carolina; Majority Whip): Well, thank you so much for having me.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: James Clyburn is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He's majority whip in the House of Representatives. The 2007 Annual Legislative Conference of the CBC begins tomorrow and ends on Saturday.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And just ahead, news from the continent in Africa Update and the Jena Six get threats from the blogosphere.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya. This is NEWS & NOTES.

The U.S., E.U., Turkey and others have imposed sanctions on the Syrian regime. But the rapid developments and escalating violence in the region leave many wondering what, if anything, the U.S. can and should do to stop the violence. Peter Kenyon, foreign correspondent, NPR Fred Wehrey, senior policy analyst, RAND Corporation

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Over the weekend, as the number killed rose over 4,000, one U.N. official took the considered step of describing the situation in Syria as a civil war. While much of the opposition to the government of Bashar al-Assad remains peaceful, defectors from the military have taken up arms, neighborhoods have formed ad-hoc militias, political and military opposition groups have established a presence across the border in Turkey.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Today, Syria responded positively to an Arab League peace plan, but whether it will actually implement that plan remains to be seen. France has raised the idea of humanitarian corridors to bring aid to embattled cities. Former ally Turkey suggested safety zones along the border. Opposition groups call for a no-fly zone, which as a practical matter would have to be led by the United States.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: What are the options for U.S. policy in Syria? Our phone number, 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, Herman Cain bows out and plans an endorsement, and we'll talk with educator Freeman Hrabowski. But first U.S. options in Syria, and we begin with NPR foreign correspondent Peter Kenyon in Istanbul. Thanks very much for joining us.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Peter, we begin as news comes in that at least 60 bodies have been taken to hospitals in the central Syrian city of Homs. If people kept hoping that somehow this would go away, it's not going away.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Not at all, Neal. It's been a very bad month from what we can garner...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we're having a little difficulty hearing Peter Kenyon on the line from Istanbul. Peter, yeah, we're just having a little difficulty getting through some of the noise factor. Why don't we see if we can clear that up and get Peter back with us.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: As he says, it's been a very bad month. You couldn't hear him say that; with headphones, I could. It's been a very bad month, as particularly in cities like Homs, there have been entire neighborhoods battled over, tanks in the cities. The Arab League peace plan that the Syrian government has reacted positively to today calls for the withdrawal of armed troops, armored troops from Syrian cities. It also calls for outside observers to come in and for free access for journalists like Peter Kenyon. Peter, are you back with us?</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Yeah, sorry about that technical problem.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We apologize.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: It was a tough month, November, one of the worse months since this began in March, and what we've been hearing from activists who have been diligently providing videos and reports, which of course we cannot independently confirm, it's a matter of trying to get a hold of reports from these activist groups that have been consistently been reporting in the same way, and eventually you can cross-reference some of these things.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: A few journalists are getting in. Our own Kelly McEvers got in with the Syrian Free Army just recently from the Lebanon border. Some of those trips are also taking place from the Turkey border and also from the Jordanian border.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: But the idea of this agreement with the Arab League proposal, that has already now been rebuffed by Nabil el-Araby, the head of the Arab League. He has said they're just wasting time, these conditions are not acceptable. Although then, of course, in true Arab League fashion, he said, well, we're now considering what the conditions are.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: The indications are, though, that these will be difficult conditions for the Arab League to accept, and what happens next in terms of lifting the sanctions, that seems rather unlikely.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, what happens next will seem to have Turkey as a focal point, as we mentioned a former ally of the Bashar al-Assad government and now seemingly among the most determined opponents.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: No question about it. I mean, you were absolutely right. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister here, made a concerted and prolonged effort to rebuild relations with Syria that had grown very bad back in the '90s - this was over the Kurdish rebellion issue - but in any event, once the new AKP government here came in in 2002, there were years and years of rebuilding going on.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: The prime minister and the president of Syria would take vacations together. They would visit each other. A personal relationship began to develop. The free trade agreement between the two countries signed in 2007 showed a booming growth, in relative terms compared to what it had been, between southeastern Turkey, the Gaziantep area and Aleppo in the north of Syria. And now all of that is just reversed immediately, at least for now.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: The - I was just in Gaziantep, and the Syrian consulate there is closed. There's a sign on the door, closed for further notice. The taxis that you used to take into Aleppo, crossing this border without any paperwork to speak of, those are all gone. The businessmen say yes, it's all dried up, and they're really hoping that it can come back because it has been very beneficial for these Turkish businessmen.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: But to keep it clearly in perspective, these trade ties are much more important to Syria than they are to Turkey, and combined with all of the other sanctions, Arab League, European, Canadian, American, this could really start to hurt them.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And last week we saw the Syrian - excuse me, the Turkish foreign minister talking about the establishment of areas of protection for Syrians across the Syrian border in Syria, protected by Turkish armed force.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Well, yeah, and we have to take that with a bit of caution. If you read very carefully what he said there, it was this may become necessary if we see hundreds of thousands of people fleeing, a huge flight of civilians. And the need to protect civilian life is the tag that this would be hung on if it were to happen.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Turkey has also made it very clear that they have no desire to be out front on this effort. They are on the border. They do have the Hatay Province, very mountainous border area, and a much longer border than that even, with Syria. And as a practical matter, that would be a place where this safe zone or humanitarian corridor, whatever you want to call it, could be implemented.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: But there is really very little, if any, desire in the foreign policy circles in Ankara to be out front on this. They would much rather see the Arab League and the U.N. and preferably other folks as well involved before anything like that happens.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that may be problematic, although let's bring in Fred Wehrey. Fred Wehrey is a senior policy analyst with the Rand Corporation who specializes in Middle East policy and joins us from the Rand Corporation studios in Santa Monica, California. Nice to have you with us today.</s>FRED WEHREY: Good to be here, thanks.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it has to be remembered that unlike the situation involving Libya, there is no agreement at the Security Council to issue a Chapter Seven usage, use of force to protect civilian life. It's unlikely that there will be, but Russia and China oppose it.</s>FRED WEHREY: That's right. I mean, for now, the main effort appears to be this Arab League proposal, and I think quite rightly the United States is putting its weight behind this effort, along with sanctions. I think it's important to remember that however flawed these options may be, they are the best ones given the potential consequences of further intervention.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The potential consequences of further intervention, well, clearly many more people killed in Syria than had been killed in Libya when NATO forces intervened there.</s>FRED WEHREY: Absolutely. The - you know, Syria is not Libya for a number of reasons. I mean, it's an ethnic and sectarian mosaic, and the consequences, I think, of increased militarization of the conflict, of greater civil war, would be disastrous for the surrounding region. Syria is connected to neighboring states. It's connected to Jordan and Lebanon. And I think a real risk is that even well-meaning humanitarian intervention could really compel the Assad regime to step up its efforts and make this even worse. It could potentially prompt intervention by its allies, Hezbollah or Iran.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can get some callers in on the conversation. What are the U.S. options with Syria? 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. Lou(ph) is on the line calling us from Orlando.</s>LOU: Hey, good afternoon. Great topic because I - Libya turned out to be a success in my book, with limited I guess U.S. action compared to, you know, Afghanistan and Iraq. But I just - I'm weary(ph) of another conflict, physical conflict. You know, economic aid and assistance to the Syrian people I'm not that upset about, but I just - I don't want to see U.S. drones flying overhead or Special Forces in the country.</s>LOU: I just - all that to me just is a major pucker factor. We're just winding down from two long, protracted wars. I just don't want to see another one.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Fred Wehrey, I don't think anybody's talking at this point about U.S. boots on the ground in Syria. Drones, aircraft? Maybe.</s>FRED WEHREY: Well, even there, I mean, there's tremendous risks associated with that, and I think the caller rightly noted that from a domestic, you know, resource standpoint, we just don't have that capability. And, you know, the real issue is the effectiveness of those kinds of measures.</s>FRED WEHREY: I mean, in many respects, safe zones are already being created by the Syrians themselves in a number of provinces, and I think it's important to remember the symbolic effects of any type of U.S. or multilateral intervention on the Assad regime, that it could really give him the ammunition he needs to increase his crackdown.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Peter Kenyon, let me turn to you. There have been some groups in Syria, opposition groups that say we need a no-fly zone as there was in Libya to protect us, a no-drive zone, too, to keep those Syrian armored groups from moving around and hitting us in our cities. Is there much appetite for that in Turkey?</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: There is not; most especially there is not if a Turkish military involvement is going to be heavy or prominent. As Fred said, the risks and the perception that you are not just dealing with Syria, you're dealing with what is sometimes known as the resistance axis, which includes Iran, includes Hezbollah, just creates an entire new dynamic of risk that was not present in Libya.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: In Libya, you had half the country essentially, in very rough calculations, suddenly breaking away, and you had safe areas almost immediately, within days. Here, these rebels in Syria, they don't have that. They do not have, at this point, an army that is willing to turn on its leader. It is still essentially loyal, especially at the higher officer corps level, and we are seeing anecdotal notes of defections.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: We are seeing more violence, too, with some of these defecting soldiers start to turn against their colleagues, but that is a long, slow, incremental process, it seems at this point.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: And I think the earlier point that Fred made is also very true, that with the U.S. now going into an election year, the kinds of comments we heard from the caller, which I believe are fairly widespread, are going to be getting a much greater megaphone to the extent that foreign policy comes up in the campaign, which I think in the general cycle it may well, once we get through the primaries.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: So I don't think there will be a huge appetite in Washington for raising the profile of this issue if they don't have to.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lou, thanks very much for the phone call. We're talking with Peter Kenyon, foreign correspondent for us based in Ankara in Turkey - excuse me, joining us from Istanbul, which is his base. Also with us, Fred Wehrey of the Rand Corporation. We're talking about U.S. options in Syria, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. We're talking about U.S. policy options in Syria. More than 4,000 people there are dead. The U.N. said last week Syrian forces have killed, even tortured, hundreds of children, including one girl who was two years old.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: International pressure continues to grow on the Syrian regime to stop the crackdown; many countries have called on President Assad to step down. What are the options for U.S. policy in Syria? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. Go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Our next caller is Justin, Justin with us from Philadelphia.</s>JUSTIN: Hi, thanks for taking the call.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thank you, go ahead.</s>JUSTIN: I think if we should have learned anything from Iraq, not just the recent conflict but our whole history, the whole history of the U.S. intervention there, it's that sanctions don't work. They really just punish - they end up punishing the people for the indiscretions of the leadership.</s>JUSTIN: I really - I feel like if we are to do anything with respect to the affairs of another country or a leadership with which we disagree, it should be very much like what we did in Libya, providing the capabilities that the U.S. has uniquely. It's much more targeted. It sort of gets things done. It's not this broad-based sort of shotgun approach that ends up missing more than it hits, which is what I feel sanctions are.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Fred Wehrey, sanctions, can they get the job done in Syria if the job is to remove the current regime?</s>FRED WEHREY: Well, this is a really valid point, I mean, that you could be inflicting enormous costs on ordinary Syrians and that you could only really harden the regime's resolve, and they could dig in and last for quite a long time.</s>FRED WEHREY: I just think it's the best option in light of the other ones. I think the goal here is: A, to change the regime's calculus, to get them to change their policy, to reduce the crackdown but also to induce defections among Assad's supporters, some of the wealthy merchant families in Damascus and Aleppo, some of those who may be sitting on the fence. If they're feeling the economic pain, they may shift over to the opposition. So that's probably part of the calculus. But I think the caller was right in identifying the risks.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Peter Kenyon, is there any indication that the sanctions are causing pain to the people, pain to those business people in Aleppo, for example?</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Well, yes, the pain to the business people in Aleppo, that is very definite in terms of the flow of goods and the movement of people back and forth that has just dried up, and that cannot be happening. I haven't been to Aleppo myself. I've spoken to people who've been there, and they've said it's dramatically down at the moment.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: People are still holding their breath and hoping that it will come back, but it's definitely in a serious lull. I will say on the question of hurting the people versus hurting the regime, Turkey did consider very briefly, I'm told, electricity and water cuts as part of their package. They did not do that, specifically trying not to damage the populous any more than was necessary.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: They have done asset freezes, travel bans and a halt on transactions with the Syrian central bank, which is a fairly significant sanction.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I just wanted to follow up, Peter. You said they're holding their breaths, hoping it'll come back. In other words, things will somehow go back to normal as they were 10 months ago?</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Oh, absolutely. You talk to business men on both sides of that border, and they - in fact, I would go so far as to say that many of them still expect that's what's going to happen. Aleppo was shielded for a very long time, and even today, life there is very normal.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: You see some protests at the university, but the regime has deliberately tried to protect Aleppo, which is a bit of an economic engine for Syria, which it does not have very many of these days. And there was a heavy security presence there. Every Thursday, before the routine Friday, after-Friday prayer protest, that security presence would be beefed-up dramatically, and frankly a lot of people were making money and were not rising up.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: And whether that happens now, that may be an indication of whether, as these people think things will come back or whether it's on a downhill slide that's irreversible.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Justin, thanks very much.</s>JUSTIN: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Susan(ph), and Susan's with us from San Francisco.</s>SUSAN: Thank you for taking my call. I've been to Syria, and it's such a gorgeous place, including the beautiful city of Aleppo. And I'm very concerned about the isolation of the people. And I think that the Arab League sanctions didn't go far enough, and they need to impose commercial air flights because I think that sanctions can be imposed in a way that to not hurt the people who are rebelling, the poorer people, the people Hama and Homs and the outskirts of Damascus.</s>SUSAN: And something really needs to be done to put pressure on the upper classes, the Damascus Souk and Aleppo and the university professors and the upper classes, the Assad regime supporters. And I think it's not going to hurt the poorer people because they are isolated anyway by economics, but it will put pressure on dual-nationals, expatriates.</s>SUSAN: If they can't fly out, if they know that they're isolated, that will keep them off the fence, and maybe they can really, you know, get off the sidelines because there really is a reality distortion zone between the elite classes, the business classes, and the rest of Syria. So thank you for taking my comment.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, thank you very much for the call, Susan. And Fred Wehrey, as she suggests, there are a few more turns to the sanctions ratchet, if you will.</s>FRED WEHREY: That's certainly an option. I mean, it was actually applied in Libya after the Lockerbie incident. I mean, the objective there is, as you said, to really ratchet up the pain on the wealthy supporters of the regime. You know, but there again, just curtailing their travel, their connections to the world, their lifestyle, is that really enough to influence the men with guns? And that's what we just, you know, don't know.</s>FRED WEHREY: I think another important point about the Arab League sanctions that needs to be made is the symbolic effect of ostracizing Syria as a country from the Arab community, from the Arab world and the signal that that sends to some of Assad's supporters who see Syria as the beating heart of the Arab world.</s>FRED WEHREY: I mean, I think this is going to send them a powerful message about whether they should continue to support this president.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can get another caller in on the conversation. Let's go to Rashid(ph), Rashid with us from Monte in Indiana.</s>RASHID: Yeah, hi, thanks for taking this call. As a Libyan, you know, I know how much the no-fly zone did, and what the thing is about Libya is that you could divide it in two. And the problem is with Syria, geographically, it's not helping the Free Syrian Army, the defectors. And there's, I don't know, reports there may be over 20,000 that have defected from the army, but they can't conglomerate in a place.</s>RASHID: So a thing the U.S. could do is maybe encourage Turkey, maybe, to provide a buffer or a safe zone for those rebel soldiers to come and work together and find a way out of this because they're all over the place, and they can't really (unintelligible).</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Peter Kenyon, let me ask you about that. The Free Syrian Army has been organized in refugee camps on the Turkish side of the border. How big is it? How well-organized is it? Are they staging cross-border raids? What's going on?</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Well, it's a bit opaque. The Free Syrian Army is made up, we are told, of defecting soldiers and sometimes entire groups of soldiers. Within Syria, they are somewhat scattered. It's not easy for them to communicate. The commander, Colonel Riyad al-Asad, is, as you say, in a camp in Hatay Province in southeastern Turkey. He's closely guarded.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Occasionally you can get a phone call through to him. I spoke to him once. Other reporters have talked to him, and then there was a meeting of Syrian National Council representatives with him just recently, where they agreed that the free army would be doing defensive maneuvers.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: But what the activists tell us is that in order to really do that and have the freedom to move and do that and communicate, some kind of safe zone is needed. But that brings us right back to the same political cold-feet phenomenon that we're seeing.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Turkey does not want to go into Syria and take territory. There was a moment back in the spring where the two armies were lined up side-by-side, and it was a bit tense. Neither side really wants to get into that kind of a confrontation, and if there's any way to avoid doing that, Turkey will avoid it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Fred Wehrey, there's another point that has to be kept in the back of everyone's mind: If Syria and Turkey somehow get involved militarily, Turkey's a member of NATO.</s>FRED WEHREY: That's right. It could, you know, entangle NATO in this conflict, and I think also the Iran factor needs to be weighed here, as well, and just the larger issue of regionalization, you know, of the conflict if Turkey intervenes and the signal that that will send to Iran.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Rashid, thanks very much for the call. Let's see if we can get one more caller in on this, and it's going to be Bob(ph), Bob with us from Columbus.</s>BOB: Hey, thank you very much for your show. You know, my thought is while it's tempting to get into Syria, with the chaos that's already in the region to just foment more, it's only going to bring trouble. Using Libya as a model for success is, I think, is flawed, and we don't know where all those surface-to-air missiles are. And to think that introducing more chaos into the region is going to enhance stability is just folly, and I'll leave it at that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right, thanks, Bob. And Bob, I should have said Columbus, Georgia. I apologize for assuming it was Ohio. Peter Kenyon, though, chaos, chaos seems to exist. You've got children being tortured and murdered. Another 60 people reportedly killed in Homs today. Chaos is already there.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Well, very much there inside Syria. Even some of the people who have escaped to Lebanon or Turkey are very worried about secret service people they say. There have been reports of kidnappings, people being turned back to the Syrian side of the border. But, of course, the worst is in Syria itself. And I think this problem of touching off more chaos is something that seems to be resonating in Washington, which perhaps in previous regimes we didn't see that.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: There were people focused much more on the goal, results-oriented thinking, and in this case, that would mean, well, if we can change the regime in Syria, they may not be so close to Iran anymore, which would be a huge - practically a sea change in Middle East foreign policy affairs. But the risks in that would entail, I think, are very heavily - need to be heavily weighed at this point.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Risks to doing nothing as well. But, Peter Kenyon, thank you very much for your time today, too.</s>PETER KENYON, BYLINE: You're welcome, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Peter Kenyon, foreign correspondent for NPR, joined us from Istanbul, and our thanks as well to Fred Wehrey, senior policy analyst with the RAND Corporation, who joined us from their studio in Santa Monica.

Doctors are running out of effective antibiotics, as bacteria evolve ways to evade one drug after another. Now DARPA has called for alternatives to conventional antibiotics. Nanotechnologist Chad Mirkin discusses one such weapon—tiny globs of DNA and RNA that can switch off the bugs' antibiotic resistance. Nanotechnologist Chad Mirkin discusses next-generation antibiotics that target a bacterium's DNA.

IRA FLATOW, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. In the battle of antibiotics versus bacteria, the bugs are winning. Not only are they evolving resistance to our arsenal of drugs, but we're running out of new antibiotics to launch at them. And antibiotic-resistant bacteria aren't just a problem for hospitals and patients. Think about wounded soldiers on the battlefield, infected with superbugs or a bioterrorism attack using resistant or engineered pathogens.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Would we be able to handle it? That's why DARPA, the research arm of the Defense Department, has called on scientists to develop new, next-generation antibiotics. One promising technology is DNA-based drugs that not only target the superbugs, but they can evolve right along with them, preventing antibiotic resistance.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Chad Mirkin is director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Welcome back to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Mirkin.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: DR. CHAD MIRKIN: It's a pleasure to be here.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: These are little nanoparticle-sort-of-sized things?</s>MIRKIN: Yeah, they're really interesting structures. In fact, they're structures made out of DNA or RNA that are made on a gold nanoparticle, in fact a variety of different types of particles, but they're strands of DNA that are arranged on the surface of these spherical particles.</s>MIRKIN: And when you make them in this manner, they have properties that are very different from the normal type of DNA that we're all familiar with, duplex, linear type of DNA, and one of those properties is they have the ability to enter cells, including bacterial cells, very, very efficiently.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And when they get in the cell, what do they do?</s>MIRKIN: Well, the beauty is what we can do. We can design them so that they can go in and flip switches, genetic switches, that either turn off resistance so that a conventional antibiotic will work or, better yet, stop replication and ultimately cause bacterial cell death.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So is there then no need for a standard antibiotic?</s>MIRKIN: Well, this would be a different route to the standard antibiotics, which are typically small molecules. This would be a genetic-based route, and the beauty of that is that, as you said in your opening, you can move with the bug. If the bug evolves, you can change the sequence and target different genetic components of the bug so that you can constantly battle its response to the new drug.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So as the bug changes, you tailor-make the new stuff to mimic what the bug is doing.</s>MIRKIN: That's the idea. I mean, this is very early in this whole process. This is actually part of a big platform that we call spherical nucleic acids that we've been developing at Northwestern now for about 15 years and are part of a company that we started called Aurasense that can really go after any sort of genetic disease.</s>MIRKIN: And that's the beauty of it: You can tailor it on a disease-by-disease basis, as long as you have good genetic information about the different types of switches that you have to turn on or off to effect treatment.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: If you have - then if you have genetic diseases that are not, you know, antibiotic-related, maybe like cancer or something like that, could you not go in and stop the cancers from spreading that way?</s>MIRKIN: That's exactly right. In fact, we have a very active program in that regard. The beauty of these constructs, they're part of a larger field called gene regulation, which actually has won the Nobel Prize for its promise, the idea that you could use this - a concept of switching off genes or down-regulating genes so that you could adjust protein levels and take effectively a diseased cell and make it healthy, or in the case of a cancer cell, selectively cause it to die.</s>MIRKIN: The problem with conventional approaches is that they often have to have materials to help carry the genetic material into the cells, and they're not very good at targeting. In addition, they cause all sorts of toxic side effects. So you run into the problem where the therapy causes as many problems as the disease originally did.</s>MIRKIN: In this case, these structures, this kind of spherical form of nucleic acid, has this incredible property that it requires no co-carrier. You can treat diseases based upon that genetic information, and you can either locally deliver - for example we have projects with a dermatologist named Amy Paller, where we have the first constructs that can be delivered through the skin to go after things like melanoma and psoriasis.</s>MIRKIN: Or another project involves a guy named Alex Stegh, where we're going after brain cancer, and we can systemically deliver these. They go everywhere, but they cause no toxic side effects, and so they accumulate in a lot of cells, including tumor cells in the brain, and you can selectively go after those cells based upon the genetic differences of those cells causing them to selectively die.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So even though they get into the cells, their little genetic pieces don't match up with the wrong cells then?</s>MIRKIN: That's exactly right. You've got almost a lock-and-key type of shutoff here.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You know, there are a lot of people who were concerned about pumping a bunch of nanoparticles into their body, and I guess they would be concerned about this, too.</s>MIRKIN: Well, potentially. I mean, the interesting thing about this is, so typically, we will use a gold particle, and we'll arrange the nucleic acid, the DNA or RNA on the surface of the particle. And that itself can be a therapeutic, and we have a lot of therapeutic leads based upon those types of materials.</s>MIRKIN: But we've also figured out ways of what's called cross-linking, attaching the DNA strands on the surface of the particle to each other, and we can dissolve the gold, and we literally can use effectively pure nucleic acid in that case. And those types of constructs work just as well.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right, now for the $64 question, which I know you knew would be coming, right? You could probably ask it of yourself: When are we going to have a product that is going to be available to try?</s>MIRKIN: Well, I think the more important question to ask is when are we going to go into trials. So we have incredible in-vivo data in animals, small animals, that suggests that this works and works extremely well. And it can do things that frankly no other gene regulation construct has ever done before, and that is delivery through the skin, very effectively, knock-down in animals, and also this idea of systemic delivery.</s>MIRKIN: And what's really difficult in this field is getting these big drugs - because they're big particles compared to the small-molecule drugs that we've been talking about - getting them across the blood-brain barrier. And the beautiful thing about these constructs is they show the ability to do that.</s>MIRKIN: And so the real question is how soon will we be into trials? And we're really shooting for next year. So we're hopeful that we're going to be into human trials sometime next year, pushing for the early part but certainly before the end of the year.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And as far as antibiotics are considered, do you consider them old hat now?</s>MIRKIN: No, I wouldn't consider them old hat. I mean, this may end up being a co-therapy, or it may be a replacement for existing antibiotics. But a lot of work has to be done. So the DARPA program is actually new. It was, I think, really insightful for them to take this on and to challenge the community to come up with new ways because the world desperately needs these types of constructs.</s>MIRKIN: We have to really go through and validate these in the context of bacteria, like we have in the context of diseases like cancer in small animals. And so what we're going to be doing over the next year on the bacteria side of things is really starting with cells and then moving up through bacteria and then animal studies.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And why is it that DARPA has to jump in here? What's wrong with our own medical system?</s>MIRKIN: Well, DARPA - I don't know if it's a matter of what's wrong. It's a matter of creating challenges. And so there are business challenges, and one of the problems, of course, in the antibiotic area is that from a drug standpoint, they're not nearly as big a market as, for example, an oncology type of drug.</s>MIRKIN: But there are also just challenges in - grand challenges in terms of chemistry and material science that have to be overcome, and you have to get a lot of different folks together to solve big problems. And DARPA is extremely good at doing that.</s>MIRKIN: They move very rapidly when they recognize you have a big problem. They're able to first of all put together substantial resources, which is needed in this case, to challenge the academic community in this case to come up with alternative solutions and to think outside of the box. And they're one of the best agencies for doing that.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So what you're saying is that the people are willing to spend money on the military to do this where they might not in a civilian case.</s>MIRKIN: Well, yeah, the military has a different set of drivers, right. So they're not...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So where we used to think of the military as making weapons and transistors and things, they're now making drugs.</s>MIRKIN: They make a lot of things. They made our GPS, as well. They make a lot of things that positively affect civilians in day-to-day life, and this would be a big one.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right, thank you very much, Dr. Mirkin, for taking time to be with us. We'll have you back on when you get some results, when the trials begin.</s>MIRKIN: Thank you.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Chad Mirkin is director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

This week's panel discusses how bloggers raised awareness about the Jena 6 case and Jesse Jackson's criticism of Sen. Barack Obama for "acting like he's white."

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya, and this is NEWS & NOTES.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: We continue our Bloggers' Roundtable. My guests are political commentator Jasmyne Cannick of jasmynecannick.com, pop culture critic Desmond Burton of the blog Afronerd, and L.N. Rock - otherwise known as the African-American political pundit. Welcome everybody.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And, Jasmyne, I have just got to get you back in on this one. So New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas is being sued by a former team executive, Anucha Browne Sanders, for sexual harassment. Now, the trial is underway in New York, expected to last several weeks.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Thomas is alleged to have made sexual advances and demeaning statements to Sanders, who was once one of the NBA's highest-ranking female executives. She also claims that the B-word was used to describe her, and Thomas has denied the accusations.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Here's part of his videotaped deposition that was played in the courtroom.</s>Mr. ISIAH THOMAS (Head Coach, President, New York Knicks): A white male calling a black female a (bleep) is highly offensive.</s>Unidentified Man: Would you find it also offensive for a black male to call a black woman a (bleep)?</s>Mr. ISIAH THOMAS (Head Coach, President, New York Knicks): Not as much.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: In response to the video, Isiah Thomas had this to say outside the courtroom.</s>Mr. ISIAH THOMAS (Head Coach, President, New York Knicks): Please don't mischaracterize the video that was shown in court today. I don't think it's right for any man to ever call a woman a (bleep). I didn't do it, and I wouldn't do it.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And yet, why are we discussing this? What's the whole scenario here then of discussing when it's okay?</s>Ms. JASMYNE CANNICK (Political Commentator, jasmynecannick.com): Well, I would start off by saying that that video didn't do anything to help his case. And that - if that's the way he felt, then that's what he should have said on the deposition instead of what he did say.</s>Ms. JASMYNE CANNICK (Political Commentator, jasmynecannick.com): But I suspect that what he did say is probably how he feels, and that also probably mirrors how a lot of black men feel - that it's okay for them to do it and not okay for other people to do it. I mean, Snoop illustrated that earlier this year with the Don Imus controversy. So I'm not surprised. I mean, we hear it every day in our hip-hop music and so it just, you know, it just goes to show you that's not just in hip-hop. It's also in the professional world. It's also in sports, you know?</s>Ms. JASMYNE CANNICK (Political Commentator, jasmynecannick.com): And what I have to say as a black woman is, it's not okay for anyone to call me that - not a black man, a black woman, a white man or a white woman.</s>Ms. JASMYNE CANNICK (Political Commentator, jasmynecannick.com): And until we, as black women, stand up for ourselves and stop allowing people to degrade us and call us those names, people like him will feel that it's okay to do it. And it's even more sadder and hurts more when it comes from a black man who came from a black woman, who understands what we had to go through as black people and black women. For him to even make a statement like that, it hurts a lot more than someone like Don Imus calling me the same name.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Desmond, what do you think?</s>Mr. DESMOND BURTON (Pop Culture Critic, Afronerd): Well, ultimately, the case is going to be about a he-said, she-said situation. Obviously, I'm not for language of that sort. I feel it's embarrassing to a certain degree for someone of his status to make these kind of - this kind of balancing act that just doesn't really play well. I don't - I think it's really shameful.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, L.N., is this the kind of thing where we should be, at this point, not surprised by all these different ways that language is parsed out across race and gender lines? Is it still worth having these conversations or should we be talking on a different level - more about behavior than words? Or are words behavior?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Mr. L.N. ROCK (African-American Political Pundit): Yeah, words are behavior. I think Jasmyne is right in many ways, even though I think, generically, stating that a lot of black men or most black men feel that way, I think, is too general. I don't feel that way.</s>Mr. DESMOND BURTON (Pop Culture Critic, Afronerd): And inaccurate.</s>Mr. ROCK: You got that. And I think it's very inaccurate. There's a lot of black men - there's some proud black men that don't feel that way about black women. They were raised by their mothers, raised by their grandmothers, and they're proud of who they are. And - but it is a conversation that has to be had in the African-American community as well as the community at large in respect for women.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. We've been talking to Jasmyne Cannick of jasmynecannick.com, pop culture critic Desmond Burton of Afronerd, and at our Washington, D.C. headquarters, L.N. Rock - otherwise known as the African-American political Pundit.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: You can find links to their blogs and ours at nprnewsandnotes.org. Our online series, Speak Your Mind, gives you a chance to sound off on the issues.

The Congressional Black Caucus's Legislative Conference ends Friday with an event about civil rights and the Jena 6 — in particular, the case of co-defendant Mychal Bell. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) explains.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: This is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Today, the Congressional Black Caucus kicks off its annual legislative conference. Some lawmakers met with the family of Jena Six member Mychal Bell. He remains in jail although courts have overturned his convictions. Also today, Martin Luther King III, Reverend Al Sharpton and other black activists meet with Louisiana's governor about the case.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee hosted a press conference with Bell's parents and other CBC members on Tuesday. I asked the Democrat from Texas about the focus on Bell.</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): Victory starts with one step. Mychal Bell is one step, but he is a person at this point that is incarcerated, who is in the eye of the public, whose case is so egregious that it is a galvanizer, if you will.</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): But looking at his case broadens the concept of the idea of a broken system. Why are African-American males in particular are the father for the criminal justice system? Why are there not alternative fixes to young men who have lost their way particularly juveniles?</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): And so this is a case that opens the eyes of the American public, but more importantly, the legislature. So no, I don't think that we are narrowly focusing on Mychal Bell. I think Mychal Bell is the, if you will, the significant point of synergism that brings all of the emotions and frustrations and sympathetic viewpoints to try to help a young man in his immediate crisis.</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): But we're not going to finish with this. This has been too devastating to leave the case solely on the shoulders of Mychal and his release. It has to be broadened. And I believe you've seen the igniting of a movement of our young people who came from all over America to Jena, Louisiana. College students on buses from my district - Texas Southern University - outstanding energy in the schools today saying, as I've said, enough is enough.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What do you have planned ahead? I know there's been a call for hearings. What do you want to happen in the near future?</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): Well clearly, we want Mr. Mychal Bell released. We would like to have - I personally would like to have the felony charges dismissed. I'd like to have the charges of the other Jena Five reconsidered. We do not condone schoolyard violence, but it is clear that the governmental structure of Jena, Louisiana failed the community. The school district failed by not addressing the white tree, if you will, the hanging nooses, the fights that occurred beforehand, the beating up of a black student. They have a failed system and they need (unintelligible) reconciliation.</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): But the other plot of our work has to be with insisting that the federal government do the work that it is supposed to do. The federal government is the rainy day umbrella when the nation is in crisis. We don't have a functioning civil rights division in the Department of Justice under this administration. It is imperative that we begin extensive oversights to demand that the civil rights division do its work - begin to prosecute cases that show a direct violation of one's civil rights.</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): I would argue vigorously today that Mychal is an example of his rights being denied. He is now being held without bail. And frankly, could be released. Even if there is a state law to suggest that he has a stand on the appeal, and the reason is because the district attorney, there is a question whether or not he is not acting in good faith. By appealing this and taking a very long time to do so, which will keep Mr. Bell incarcerated. That's a violation of Mr. Bell's civil rights.</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): So we have to get the civil rights division functioning. We have to demand the president to demand of his agency to do the job constitutionally that is required by the agency. Then we need to write legislation that reviews prosecutorial abuse across America. It is happening across America. We're not letting this go to the over side hearing. It is more powerful than one might think.</s>Representative SHEILA JACKSON LEE (Democrat, Texas): And we are very, very grateful that in this new Congress - Democratic Congress - John Conyers is now chair of the committee. And it's evident by the work we've done on the U.S. attorneys, the work that we've done with attorney general - former Attorney General Gonzales that this committee is serious and doing its work on behalf of the American people.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That was Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: We also contacted the office of Jay Reid Walters, the district attorney handling the Jean Six case for a response. Walter's office is under a gag order. It provided only a transcript to the DA's last public statement made a week ago. It reiterates Walters' widely broadcast words that the case, quote, "is not and never has been about race." Walters also says he has not decided whether to appeal the overturning of Bell's conviction to the Louisiana Supreme Court.

News & Notes Web producer Geoffrey Bennett talks about online coverage of the Jena 6 case, the Little Rock Nine 50th anniversary, and the other stories that are making the rounds on the show's blog, "News & Views."

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: The Jena Six case is making news from Capitol Hill to the blogosphere. We've got NEWS & NOTES Web producer Geoff Bennett with more, hey.</s>GEOFF BENNETT: Hey, Farai.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So the cover to the protest in Jena was a big story on our blog last week and it hasn't shown any signs of letting up. So what's going on?</s>GEOFF BENNETT: Yeah it hasn't shown any signs of letting up. That's definitely the case. We've been covering the story for the last few months pretty closely. And last week, there is a groundswell of reaction from folks online. And it's really been a watershed moment for the black blogosphere. I mean, that's where the initial coverage of this case started. That's how the protest was largely organized, and we've just heard about how lawmakers are getting involved.</s>GEOFF BENNETT: And, you know, one can make the argument that that wouldn't have happened without the constant drumbeating from people online. And on our own blog, we have folks young and old, from different backgrounds, some in support of those six young teens, others who say there's a difference between hanging a noose from a tree and doling out a beat down. And there's a few who say that, you know, they're frustrated by the fact that this case is getting so much attention when, you know, in their words, black on black crimes are still a much more devastating issue.</s>GEOFF BENNETT: And because people can remain anonymous when they post in our blog, that's how you really find out what people think about race relations in this country.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What other issues are people taking on on the blog?</s>GEOFF BENNETT: They're talking about the White House official calling Barack Obama intellectually lazy as we heard about. Your interview with the alleged white supremacist who claimed to have a support of the Jena Six - or the mayor of Jena, Louisiana. And they're also talking about the 50th anniversary of Little Rock. In much like our coverage of Jena Six, people are quick to share their own personal stories, you know, recollections about living through that era, and in some cases having to desegregate their own local school systems.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: How does personal storytelling play out differently on the blog than it might in other forms of interaction, like if you were just writing us a regular letter?</s>GEOFF BENNETT: Well, it's, you know, that's the biggest variably, right? Like broadcast media's is strapped for time, print media is strapped for space. And so online, bloggers and people who leave comments can weave in that first person perspective that gives depth to news stories. And that extends to any news story.</s>GEOFF BENNETT: You know, we talked about the mortgage crisis on our blog and people have shared their experiences about buying their first home. And so we're able to sort of weave that personal - those personal experiences in with the news stories in ways that we couldn't in traditional media.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So we've got all bunches of stuff that we want to talk about, but if you want to talk about something that isn't already on the blog, how do you do it?</s>GEOFF BENNETT: We're always looking for people to speak their mind. It's an online series we have where we let people blog about issues that matter to them. They can either e-mail us or go to our blog, nprnewsandviews.org, click the link at the top and find out how to do it.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Geoff, thanks as always.</s>GEOFF BENNETT: Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Geoffrey Bennett is the Web producer for NEWS & NOTES.

Pigeons may not be known for their flying prowess, but they are actually pretty good at maneuvering right angles. Andrew Biewener and colleagues at Harvard's Concord Field Station caught pigeons in a parking garage, made a flying course in the lab and filmed the birds with high speed cameras to see how pigeons make tight turns.

IRA FLATOW, HOST: Next up, it's our spontaneous pick of the week. Well, not quite that spontaneous.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: A little bit.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: A little bit. With - Flora Lichtman is here, our multimedia editor. What video have we got today?</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: This week, we have an unlikely hero just to continue with the happiness or unhappiness. I think it's an organism that may not make everybody so happy, at least here in New York. The hero of our video pick this week is the pigeon. So researchers at Harvard actually caught them, captured them in a parking garage and then filmed them flying. And here to tell us why on Earth they would do this is Andrew Biewener. He's a professor of biology and the director of the Concord Field Station at Harvard University. Welcome to the program, Dr. Biewener.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: DR. ANDREW BIEWENER: Thanks very much. Good afternoon.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: So why? Why pigeons?</s>BIEWENER: Well, pigeons, they're ubiquitous. They're very successful. And as you said, we were able to find them nearby. For those of us who study animals in the laboratory, it was – our field work was involved, going to a local - the mass transit garage. And we were able to capture some pigeons and show that we could be field biologists. And they're very docile animals. They work well. They don't bite you. And as I think our videos show, when you slow down the high-speed motions that they make - we're interested in understanding how they turn. Something that seems fairly straightforward to try to study and understand, but it's taken us several years to sort that out.</s>BIEWENER: They actually work really well. They fly between perches. We could train to fly down a maneuvering course and make a predictive right or left-handed turn. And so, they're large enough to carry the weight of electronics we put on them. And they're large enough to make maneuvering a challenging enough task so we can actually try to understand how they produce the forces that they need to produce to turn.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: And they're actually, you know, one thing that was amazing about looking at your video is they're way more graceful than you think of them as. They seemed to be pretty good turners.</s>BIEWENER: Well, they are. I think the reason you see so many of them in New York City, in any urban landscape is they're well-adapted. They're cliff dwelling, and they're known as rock doves. They have evolved to live in stiff cliff-like environments. And square, rectangular, tall buildings...</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Right angles.</s>BIEWENER: ...provide exactly the right kinds of environments and be successful. And so they are - they're able to fly in a way that makes them very maneuverable at a fairly large body size. They're pretty large bird. And so it's, you know, they're taken for granted because they're so numerous. And I think probably considered a pest species by many. But, in fact, just like a laboratory rat that's - there's reason people study rats and mice. And for those of us that study bird flight, pigeons stand high in the list of why we'd be interested in studying them.</s>BIEWENER: Plus, there's been a lot that's been studied about understanding their neurobiology. And part of what we're interested is trying to understand what birds are looking at, and how they use visual and their sense of balance to control how they move their wings to maneuver in a crowded environment.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: And you found that they move sort of like helicopters. Can you explain that?</s>BIEWENER: That's right. Much to our surprise - we thought - like many biologists, we thought that organisms selection had evolved - animals, they really had some unique capabilities. And we thought, with wings, and a left and a right wing, and they could flap in different directions and change the shape of the wings, we though they could redirect the force their wings would produce, relative to their body. But much to our surprise, very much like helicopters, the forces that they produce with their wings, which keeps them in the air and moves them forward or helps them turn, to make a turn, were actually directed very consistently relative to their body. They don't - aren't able to readjust the direction of the force at a turn. They actually have to change the orientation of their whole body, which changes the forces produced when they're flapping their wings.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: So they're propelled in one direction by the flapping. And then to turn, they roll or pitch or lean, like you do on a bike or something?</s>BIEWENER: Exactly. They roll their body. They direct the force inward to make a turn, just as you would on a bike. When you're turning, you lean into the turn. The birds turn their bodies into the turn, and then they have to reorient their bodies to reacquire a forward flight direction after they've already made a turn. So they, you know, pitch up. They'll swivel around or yaw around, and they also, importantly, roll to initiate the turn at the beginning of the turn.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: And if you want to see this in glorious, high speed, courtesy of Dr. Biewener and his colleagues, including Ivo Ros, go to our website @sciencefriday.com, where we have your awesome footage. It really is fun to watch them. So do all birds maneuver this way?</s>BIEWENER: Well, we – this - we're the first to study this in this kind of detail. It took nine high-speed cameras and a lot of...</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Wow.</s>BIEWENER: ...long of periods of analysis by Ivo and other students working on the project, mainly Ivo. And I think what we know is a lot of work has been done studying how insects turn. And it turns out that most of the insects that have been studied are similarly require changes in body orientation to redirect the direction of their flight forces, to turn.</s>BIEWENER: So the pigeons appear to be a large size for a bird, appeared to turn very much like a lot of the insects that have been studied, the ones that's flying insect. So we're - our suspicions are that birds that fly and turn at lower speeds like this have to use these mechanisms. At higher speeds, it may be possible that birds are able to reorient the wing and its shape and its orientation to redirect the forces necessary to turn independent of - relative to their body.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: So like the flap of one wing differently than the other wing to get a force, sort of, like...</s>BIEWENER: Exactly. When a bird moving more quickly, it's easier to fly fast than it is to fly slow. It's actually very hard. Few birds can hover for very long times. That's why hummingbirds are so notable. Most birds have to fly at a fairly fast speed to minimize the amount of effort they have to put in the flight. And there are good air dynamic reasons for that. And so turning at higher speed probably allows a greater flexibility.</s>BIEWENER: So until we can actually set up the experiments to fly the birds at high speeds - and we simply don't have the buildings large enough. We probably need sort of an aircraft development, aeronautical engineering facility for that sort of an experiment. But the space we had was large enough that we could actually study the turning flight at these speeds at around 10 miles per hour.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Oh, wow. What about other flying organisms that do - that hover, like a hummingbird or, you know, we've done videos on hawk moths...</s>BIEWENER: Mm-hmm.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: ...that seems to have really fine-tune control?</s>BIEWENER: Well, their - you're looking - at least in bird world, hummingbirds are certainly the most maneuverable of any species. I mean, that's the collective group of hummingbirds. But they're noteworthy for being able to hover and stabilize and just highly maneuverable. So they're very easy to study in terms of how they maneuver. But the - and it seems like the work that we've done, in collaboration with some other groups on hummingbirds, suggest that they are able to reorient the forces of one wing relative to the other. So they can change the direction of the force relative to their body more effectively than what we found with pigeons.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: For people who are making little robots that fly or helicopters, are there any lessons that you think they can get from the way pigeons fly?</s>BIEWENER: Well, that's certainly one of the motivations for this work. We, actually, currently are collaborating with groups at MIT, Carnegie Mellon and NYU trying to understand how birds make path planning decisions when they're flying and avoiding obstacles. And the goal there is to be able to understand how information taken with video cameras could be use to guide a small, micro air vehicle. I'd say the - what we have found is that the bird - if you have the ability to be very maneuverable, that is birds are able to change the orientation of force by rotating their bodies very quickly in different directions. So being highly maneuverable has real advantages. And that allows animals like a pigeon or other birds to be able to react quickly to obstacles.</s>BIEWENER: Now, I'd say where we're, you know, we're dealing with animals that are flapping their wings, which have - that adds an additional demand on how they actually propel themselves through the air. A lot of the micro air vehicles are using a typical propeller or a jet engine, would be using a more traditional way of generating the forces of - for flying the craft. So it's - having a fixed wing aircraft is the kind of airplanes that we fly around. And it changes how they might actually change the direction of forces compared to the way a bird is able to change those forces.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hmm. You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY on NPR. I'm Flora Lichtman. And we're talking with Andrew Biewener, who's the director of the Concord Field Station, which I really want to ask you about because I was perusing your website. And there's pictures of, I think, emus on treadmills, and wallabies jumping up hills, and goats being herded. That does not remind me of the Harvard Campus.</s>BIEWENER: No. We're a defunct Nike missile facility that Harvard acquired back in the 1960s.</s>BIEWENER: So we can be glad the Cold War era worrying about Russians coming over to bomb the US ended quickly. And the facility was defunct and Harvard was looking for a field lab site associated with land they had off-campus. And they acquired what became as we come to know as the Concord Field Station. And it's largely been a lab used for larger animal comparative biomechanics and physiology works. So animals - a lot of my lab group studies terrestrial locomotion, animals running around, on the ground, on treadmills or over force plates, as well as the flight studies where we can fly birds there. And so it offers a lot more space and resources.</s>BIEWENER: But it's a special facility that, I think, we've done well with making use of what was created more as a missile defense system that went defunct back in the middle '60s. And it started out its years a facility that my predecessor and who was also my PhD advisor, Richard Taylor, was instrumental in, sort of, understanding the energetics(ph) of animals running on treadmills of different sizes and body shapes, and whether they're bipeds, like a two-legged runners, like a human or an ostrich, or a four-legged animal like a dog or a horse. So all those animals been run on treadmills. And they measure the energetics as they would in a human study by measuring the amount of oxygen that the animal consumes while it's running.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: I can just imagine the challenges of getting an emu on a treadmill.</s>BIEWENER: It - well, we start young. We got someone - they're hatchlings. And when the - most young animals are very docile and not too feisty. And so the emu, as little hatchlings, actually are very cute, and they're all about a little over half foot, three quarters or a foot in size, maybe nine or 10 inches. And they do pretty well. And when they get up to be on the order of 100 pounds when they're adult weight, then you're - they're used to it and you're used to - you've grown up with them, basically, and it's easier to work with them.</s>BIEWENER: But they are a challenge. You have to know how to understand the behavior of the animal that you're working with and understand how to get on a treadmill so that it's not going to be too stressed by that experience.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Dr. Biewener, Ira Flatow here. Thank you for taking time to be with us today. And...</s>BIEWENER: Well, thank you for having me. It was my pleasure.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And if you had - I'd give you the blank check question. Is there's some sort of technological thing you'd love to have to make your research easier? Some sort of a gadget, gizmo, something...</s>BIEWENER: Well, I guess, I'd like to be able to have a way to track animals and their motions in a much more direct way than we have. So we actually - we have to have ways of tracking motion with these high-speed video cameras. So the technology is changing, so where we can actually put a neural sensors on the animal and try to record from what those sensors are telling us about what the animals seeing and doing. But it's a, you know, that's the trick. I think we're working in that direction. But being able to track - I think the work is really moving to trying to study how animals move in their natural environment rather than on a treadmill on a runway area. And it's being able to track motion and seeing what the animal is doing.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Right. You want to replace B.F. Skinner with Konrad Lorenz. Thank you very much.</s>BIEWENER: Exactly. Yes.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Andrew Biewener is professor of biology and director of the Concord Field Station at Harvard University. Thank you, Flora.</s>FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Thanks, Ira.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Plus, Video Pick of the Week is up there on our website. This is great video of watching these pigeons fly. And if you wonder how they do that, and they get around the corners in New York and these other cities, you can actually watch them do this sort of thing.

Many doctors complain that the few patients who refuse immunizations put all patients at risk, and some refuse them treatment. New York Times Ethicist Ariel Kaminer addresses the question of whether it's ethical for pediatricians to refuse routine care to families with unvaccinated children.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: And now the Opinion Page. Frightened by false reports of the risks of vaccines, some parents decide not to get their children's shots. Frightened by outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough, some pediatricians don't want unvaccinated kids in their waiting rooms. In her latest column, New York Times Ethicist Ariel Kaminer responded to the question: is it ethical for pediatricians to refuse routine care to families that do not immunize their children?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So, pediatricians, what do you think? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ariel Kaminer is the Ethicist at The New York Times magazine. We've posted a link to her latest column "Armchair Ethicist, Flu Season Edition" at our website, and she joins us now from a studio at the newspaper. And nice to have you with us on TALK OF THE NATION today.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Thanks. Nice to be here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And like any good dilemma, there seem to be arguments - good arguments - on both sides here.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Indeed. This is a very complicated question. I respond to readers' questions, and sometimes they come in and they seem straightforward, but this is one of those that really opened up, unraveled to reveal a great deal of complexity.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, indeed, the reader could have turned it around. Do pediatricians have an ethical obligation to bar unvaccinated children from exposing the unvaccinated - the vaccinated kids in their waiting rooms?</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Indeed, and that gets to one of the primary questions involved here, which is to whom is the pediatrician primarily obligated? Is the pediatrician obligated to each individual patient or to all the patients in his or her practice?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there is the other question of the greater good.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: And the greater good, indeed. Thank you. That's another important consideration that the community as a - at large, the community outside the doors of the clinic.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And so it is clearly a parent's choice if they choose to - not to immunize their children, but they then take on the role of what you described and others have as free riders. They take advantage of the immunizations that everybody else takes.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: That's right. You know, these childhood diseases used to be a daily fact of life, or I guess I should say, fact of death, because burying young children was a common thing. Sometimes a few in each family. Now these diseases are kept at bay, and that is because of vaccines, which don't just keep the individuals safe, they keep the community safe by eliminating the vectors of possible transmission. But it only works if everyone pitches in. Studies show that unless, I believe, it's 95 percent of a population gets the shots for measles, then that disease, even if it's been eliminated in a - in some area, it starts to creep back in.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: So whether you believe that vaccines carry a risk of autism or not - and I say believe, because this is not something that's backed up by any scientific findings, but, OK, people do believe that and we have to deal with it. Anyway, whether you believe that or whether you just believe that vaccines are a pain in the neck to get - they make your kid cry and they leave your arms sore and your legs sore, and they might bring on a fever and they take time, you have to take time off from work and all of that, whichever of those camps you're in - we can all agree that there is a very small but real risk inherent with vaccinations. That's true of any medical procedure. It's not - that's not in doubt.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: But there's still a much, much, much, much greater risk inherent with huge epidemics, and nobody doubts that, couldn't possibly, you know, hundreds and hundreds of millions of people killed by these diseases that were once so prevalent.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: So as a reader wrote in, as a reader said, parents that don't immunize are - they're gaming the system. They're banking on other parents shouldering the risk, while reaping the rewards of herd immunity - risk-free. That's the quote from one of my readers, which I thought was very smart. That, to me, is unethical. It's like enjoying the benefits of national security but just assuming that somebody else can go ahead and put his life on the line to keep you safe which is, by the way, an ethical lapse which I am, myself, guilty.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There is also then the question, what is the pediatrician trying to accomplish, presumably trying to persuade those free riders into taking up their burden.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: That's right. And I think, in this part of the question, we unfortunately have to get into a bit of speculation, and so leave the realm of statistics and hard evidence and get into speculation. How can a pediatrician be more persuasive? Is it by keeping somebody in her practice and trying to help the family to make a better informed decision and building up a, you know, years, possibly years or more than a decade of trust in the care of a child?</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Or is it by making clear to the family that there are real consequences for their actions? And that if they don't - if they don't take these, sort of, minimal safety precautions, then they're not welcome in the practice. And I don't think it's possible, really, to say.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there is then the real consequences. We've seen outbreaks of whooping cough most recently, I think, in Connecticut.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: That's right. We've seen outbreaks of these diseases that we once thought were in check. And some of those outbreaks have been traced back very specifically to families that chose not to immunize their children, that then went traveling and got exposed to, in California, there's a case of measles. A kid came back from a trip sick with measles but didn't yet know what it was, went to the doctor, and in the doctor's office came into contact with people who had not themselves been immunized.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: I don't know - I'm sorry - I don't know if that's because they had opted out of immunization or because they were not eligible because they had immune problems or whether they were tiny infants who, you know, who were too young to be immunized. But in any case, several of those people came down with measles, which is highly, highly, highly contagious, and they had to be hospitalized. So we have very direct evidence that this does happen and it happens right in the doctor's office.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, let's get some pediatricians in our conversation. 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. We'll start with Nina. And Nina's on the line with us from Birmingham, Alabama.</s>NINA: Hi. I'm actually a family physician, but I treat children in a rural practice in Alabama. And I oftentimes come across parents who don't want their children vaccinated, usually at an early age. Mostly their concern is that too many shots at too little an age just has to be wrong. And it's a topic that's really dear to my heart since I went to medical school in a third world country, and I've seen the consequences of non-vaccination. My approach has been very successful.</s>NINA: Usually, my response will be respectful. I'll tell them that I do respect their decision. They are the parents. They get to make that choice. However, I send them home armed with a lot of data. My resource is usually the CHOPS vaccine education program in CDC. I tell them that if they choose to continue to bring their children to the practice that they will get the same questions at the same visit, and I will remind them at the same - at every visit that they need to be vaccinated.</s>NINA: And I have - I had an overwhelming success within the next well child visit, those parents will come back and choose to get their children vaccinated. So I think for me, it's just being respectful and understanding their concern but being very emphatic at the same time has really been successful.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So it works for you?</s>NINA: It's really worked for me, absolutely. I don't believe children should be non - should not be vaccinated. I - like I said, I've seen a lot of bad consequences. But giving them a little breathing room for maybe a month, a few weeks oftentimes works in our favor.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And - go ahead, Ariel Kaminer.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: I'm sorry. I think that's interesting also from a perspective of ethics because it kind of points up that it is possible to be - it's possible and desirable to be respectful of other people's choices even when they are not the same as yours without descending to a kind of just total relativism where we say that every choice is equally good. In this case, you think this sounds like you'd think that the choice of non-vaccinating families is not equally good to the choice of vaccinating families.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: But you are respectful in the way that you deal with these families and you don't call them kooks, and you don't tell them that they're crazy. And as a result, you win their trust, and they begin to listen to your ideas in addition to whoever suggested to them that they shouldn't be getting a vaccine.</s>NINA: Exactly. It's more about - I think it's more about making them feel that they're being empowered to make the decision whether - rather than being me being paternalistic and making this decision for them even though I'm really the one who initiated it. So it's worked. It's worked wonderfully.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Nina, congratulations. Thanks very much.</s>NINA: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to - this is Hilda. And Hilda's with us from East Lansing in Michigan.</s>HILDA: Hello.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You're on the air, Hilda. Go ahead, please.</s>HILDA: I think Nina has the heart of the matter in her. Of course, respect for patients is important. I just wanted to make the point that physicians really are obligated to care for all their patients. It's certainly not the child's fault if the parents have not vaccinated. The child needs the care. But what the physicians might also think about doing is having a separate waiting room if this is a problem of infecting other patients in the waiting room. And, you know, in some countries, pediatricians make house calls. How would that be?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Some pediatricians might find it, well, either the idea of another waiting room or house calls is inefficient, so they can't serve as many patients as they can, though I'm sure they would like to.</s>HILDA: That's right. But that - if that's what it takes to keep their patients healthy, then they might have to think about taking fewer patients.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ariel Kaminer...</s>ARIEL KAMINER: I agree. I think that would be - the sort of the simplest solution would be to have separate waiting rooms. But I think that for many doctors, I mean, I know I live in New York City where real estate is always at a premium, and I think many doctors just can't really undertake that. But that would be great if they could.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Would it work if you had a infectious day? You know, if you don't take vaccines, everybody could show up on Thursday morning or something like that?</s>ARIEL KAMINER: I think the problem is when people come - people who haven't been vaccinated come because they're feeling under the weather suddenly, but - excuse me. I'm coughing. But they don't yet know why they're sick or really if they're sick.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Take a moment, Ariel Kaminer, if you will, and clear your throat. We swear to you all she's had her vaccinations. Hilda, thank you very much for the phone call. We're talking about The Ethicist column that appeared in yesterday's issue of The New York Times Magazine. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's see if we can go next to - this is - we'll try to get Ariel Kaminer back on the line. She's the...</s>ARIEL KAMINER: I'm right here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, there you are.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: So sorry.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that's quite all right. This happens to everybody. The - is this comparable at all to the situation of, you know, a doctor? There are a lot of patients - doctors tell you, you're doing things that are bad for you. You're drinking too much. You're eating too much.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: It's an excellent question, and that's one that a lot of readers raised when we had an online forum about this. I think that this is an inherently different situation than a doctor saying I won't treat you unless you get on a healthier diet or I won't treat you unless you get this or that surgery that I recommend because I absolutely believe that individual patients have the right to make decisions about their own health, and nobody should ever be obligated blindly to follow a doctor's recommendation if it doesn't feel right. That's if it's a matter of their own health.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: But vaccinations are not just a matter of your own health. I mean, in this case, of course, it's - directly, it's a matter of your child's health. But even beyond that, it is a matter of community concern. This is a public health issue, and the decision that you make can very, very easily - as we've seen with those cases of measles in California or, as you mentioned, the outbreak in Connecticut can very easily become - have an effect on lots of people around you, especially the very, very young, the very, very old people who are most vulnerable.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Fozy(ph), Fozy with us from Fort Smith, Arkansas.</s>FOZY: Well, hi.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hi.</s>FOZY: Yeah, I just had a, you know, I'm an emergency room doctor. I'm not a pediatrician (unintelligible) and I don't read The Ethics column in New York Times. My thing is I think pediatricians should see all the kids like the previous caller said. They can separate and put them in different rooms. But what - if we start doing this, I think we need to do the same for flu vaccine, too, and I'm comparing apples to oranges here. But a lot of people don't get them. We recommend it, and they can do the same waiting room, sit, and, you know, they can infect others too. I'm not sure, you know, how good is that. I don't know if your expert can answer that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, ethically, is there any difference between the, you know, measles, whooping cough and rubella vaccine and flu?</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Well, I'm not an epidemiologist and so I can't really speak to the comparative rates of transmission. But I can say that though for most people, flu, at least in the last few - last many years, flu is generally just a terrible inconvenience, and it's just something really yucky that you get through OK. Obviously, there have been strains of influenza that has killed many, many millions of people.</s>FOZY: Absolutely.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: So, you know, I think that it is important to remember that that, too, is a life-threatening condition.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Fozy, thank you.</s>FOZY: OK. Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Email from Beth. MDs don't punish people for their bad life decisions, i.e., smoking, drugs, et cetera. They will still treat them when they have health issues, even though we all know the risks. Why not in this situation too? Again, because it's not just an individual situation. You're risking the health of others.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Right. I think that this is really a question of trying to keep the community safe in a - sort of in a secondary way but in the primary way. The first question here is, can a doctor choose to limit the exposure that takes place in her own office of her vulnerable patients to potentially life-threatening diseases? And so I don't really think that it's the same as saying I won't treat somebody who smokes because smoking is a known health risk. Or, I won't treat somebody who drinks too much because that's a known health risk. That's just endangering yourself. This is endangering the other patients, and then beyond that, the community at large.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You came down on the theory that the patient had to be treated because it's no fault of theirs. What's been the reaction?</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Well, the column hasn't been published yet, but we did - prior to the publication of the column, we did have a live online forum in which few hundred readers piled on to talk about the different issues, and I was amazed, as usual, by how many different insights they were able to spring to the issue, but also even within the community of pediatricians. Many, many pediatricians wrote in, some of whom said there is no question that a pediatrician's obligation is to treat a patient like this, and many others who said there is no question that a pediatrician's obligation is to keep somebody like that out of their office where other vulnerable people, patients might be.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ariel Kaminer, The Ethicist for The New York Times. You could find a link to her latest column at our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. She joined us today from a studio at the newspaper there in New York. Thanks very much for being with us.</s>ARIEL KAMINER: Thank you so much.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Tomorrow, Joseph Epstein and the value of gossip. Join us for that. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

This week, NPR's Tony Cox cues up the music — "Tanya" by Dexter Gordon. He explains how the song influenced his choices when naming his children.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: It's time now for our staff song pick of the week. The song is "Tanya" by Dexter Gordon. The staff member is NPR's Tony Cox.</s>TONY COX: Finally, you guys let me pick another song around here.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I know. It's a heavy competition. So tell me about this song. When did you first hear it?</s>TONY COX: I heard this song - I think I was, I don't know, I was a kid. I mean, not a little kid, but a kid - maybe 10, 12. Around my house, you know, it was jazz all the time. I mean, and this was one of them. Recorded in 1964 in Paris by Dexter Gordon who was an expatriate - a saxophonist from Los Angeles, by the way. And this song, it was beautiful and haunting at the same time.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So what do you love about it?</s>TONY COX: I like it because it's complex. You know, it starts off - because, you know, people that don't like jazz is like - it sounds like noise. It doesn't make any sense to them, you know? But it had a melody in the beginning and then it broke off into some not heavy bebop jazz, but more than just melodic. And it was entrancing. And I really have always liked that tune. It's one of those tunes, you get it in your head and you end up humming it.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So it sounds like it's affected your life. How so?</s>TONY COX: Well, I have three kids. And, you know, trying to name a kid is something that all parents go through, and that everybody does it differently. But this song I wanted to name one of my kids after it. So when I had a daughter, the second time, I said, you know, I'm going to name her Tanya because I like this song and I thought it would be a cool tribute to her. As it turned out, as she got older, she really is - she really fits the music because she's, you know, cool but complex.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, you can't get better than that, Tony.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That was NPR's Tony Cox with his staff song pick of the week, "Tanya" by Dexter Gordon.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That's our show for today. Thank you for sharing your time with us. To listen to the show or subscribe to our podcast, visit our Web site, nprnewsandnotes.org - no spaces, just nprnewsandnotes.org. To join the conversation or sign up for our newsletter, visit our blog at nprnewsandviews.org.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: NEWS & NOTES was created by NPR News and the African-American Public Radio Consortium.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Tomorrow, are the scales of justice tipped against black Americans?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya. This is NEWS & NOTES.

The Tin & Lint Bar in Saratoga Springs, New York has long claimed Don McLean wrote his hit song, "American Pie," there. But McLean says that's not true, that he wrote it in Cold Spring, New York and Philadelphia. He joins NPR's Neal Conan to talk about the song and its legend.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Forty years and a few days ago, an eight-and-a-half-minute song broke on to the record charts, soon drenched the radio and claimed a permanent place in the lives of millions.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Singer-songwriter Don McLean, of course. All these years later, "American Pie" continues to haunt the imagination and to inspire folklore, including the claim that the song was first written and performed in Saratoga Springs, New York. The facts from the horse's mouth in just a moment.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: For many, "American Pie" recalls a specific moment in time. Where does the Chevy from the levee take you? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Don McLean joins us now from his home in Maine. His latest album is "Addicted to Black." Next year, he'll be on the road in the United Kingdom for his 40th anniversary of "American Pie" tour. Thanks very much for joining us today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : Thank you. Pleasure to talk to you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Last week, the Glens Falls Star-Post published a story that begins by citing a plaque next to a booth in a Saratoga Springs bar called the Tin & Lint that claims that is the exact spot where you started to write "American Pie" in the summer of 1970. True?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : Well, you know, through the years, people have asked me about that. I guess there's a plaque or something there. And I always would say, well, no, that's not really how it was. And so, finally, somebody up there in one of the newspapers said, I really, really want to know this. And he sent me two questions, and I said, well, first of all, it was written in Cold Spring, New York and in Philadelphia, and it was performed first at Temple University when I was just getting started with Laura Nyro. I was opening to her at Temple University. And so that caused The New York Times in this thing. So I think it's kind of funny, and you called, and I said, OK, I'll talk about it, sure.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, do you know the bar, the Tin & Lint?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : No.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: No?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : No. But like I said in the article, in The Times, "American Pie" is a little bit like the Mayflower, you know? Everybody has been on it or their parents were on it or something. People knew me that I didn't know, and people know things about me that, you know, that they imagine, and it's just the way things are. But the funny thing is - and there are other of these kinds of little things, like, for example, for a while, everybody was saying "American Pie" was the name of Buddy Holly's airplane, you know? And that was floated around for a while.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A little like Rosebud, I guess.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : Yeah. So I said, no, actually I coined that phrase. And Buddy's plane did not have a name and wasn't even Buddy's plane, you know? But what makes me think this is funny is that I've been kind of knocking these down for years and it persists. So it makes you wonder, how can you believe history?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : You know? I mean, guys who are dead 100 years and you say, oh, this is how it happened, you know, in 1066. I mean, I don't think so.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There is a venue that you did perform at a lot, though, in Saratoga Springs.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : Oh, no. The Caffe Lena was a terrific place for me when I was just, you know, a boy just getting started, and Lena Spencer was - and, you know, a wonderful lady who really kept me fed. I mean, you know, I was starving, pretty much. And she kept many, many other people working and encouraged. Encouraged - that was the thing. And she was a sculptor's model whose husband ran off with somebody else, and she just - up in Skidmore. And she decided that, you know, she - you know, what she wanted to do is not get married again, but to have this nightclub and she named it after herself and she brought people up there, and it was a great place to fail. A lot of these places, you know, by the time you get a job in New York, you know, you'd bounced around on that stage and everything.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Anything could happen. And you had to play three shows a night to the same audience, so you had to have hours and hours of material. And it was a terrific place to lean how t o perform.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Is it still there?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : Yes, it is. Yup.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, in a way, do you wish you had debuted "American Pie" there, just to lend her some...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : I don't make wishes like that. I'm just - I just think that all of this is fascinating and interesting. And I have songs of mine that turn up in all different contexts and people ask me about them and they're used in different ways. I'll tell you something really funny, is right now, there's a song by the rapper Drake. And he has taken two of my songs from an album called "Prime Time" - one is "When a Good Thing Goes Bad" and the other is "The Wrong Thing To Do" - and used them on a song that he has in his new album.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I think it's called "Do It Wrong" or something like that. But you just - I've had other things like this happen. You know, kids out there in every area of music are pouring over the work of all of us as singer-songwriters from the '70s and the '60s and looking for little things that they can use, you know, and run with.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We want to get some listeners involved in the conversation. Give us a call. 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. And let's start with Tim, and Tim's calling from Cincinnati.</s>TIM: Yes. Good afternoon.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Tim, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.</s>TIM: Thank you. Thank you for taking my call. I just have a comment. I wanted to share a personal story. I met Don McLean from the back row, back years ago, mid-'70s. He played the Temple University outside music festival. And it was just an amazing evening. He came out and thanked the audience for letting him have a career for so long in something that he loved, which I thought was an awesome thing to say.</s>TIM: But the most amazing thing about the concert is that he played "American Pie," as always, and in the very last verse his string broke. He urged the audience to continue to finish the song, although he didn't need to urge us too much.</s>TIM: And then he proceeded to play the entire song a second time. And it's just something that's stuck with me forever. I wanted to thank Mr. McLean for his service for all these years and it was just something that I like to remember.</s>TIM: : Wow. Well, thank you for reminding me, that I remember that, and I still feel exactly the same way. I mean, I've been given a terrific life by the audiences who stuck with me all over the world. And I don't take it for granted, especially, you know, now when times are difficult and it costs a lot of money to come and see somebody sing with a guitar. And it's really an honor to be able to continue this.</s>TIM: Now I've been doing this for 44 years almost. And you know, we have a wonderful band that we love to play with. And of course I play solo stuff too. I sit down and do, like, a half an hour just with a guitar sometimes. But thank you for reminding me of that. And I still feel exactly the same way.</s>TIM: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Tim, thanks for the call. Here's an email from Hardin(ph) in Salt Lake City. I read the article in The New York Times yesterday about "American Pie," and I've been thinking about it since then. My memory, perhaps fogged by 40 years believing what I wanted to believe, is different from Don's. I remember going to a concert in a small church in Greenwich Village in September 1970. Don did a great job, very entertaining. He was called back for a couple of encores in the days before obligatory encores were the norm.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: He introduced his last song by telling us he has just written it and wasn't sure he could remember the words correctly. Of course, no one there had any idea if he remembered the words because none of us had ever heard it, "American Pie." Perhaps when he performed it at Temple, it was the first time it was actually in a set list? Question mark. If he'd already done it at Temple, why would he have waited to do it so late at a little church and introduce it the way he did? Or is my memory totally bogus?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : That I don't remember. But I do remember the church in Greenwich Village. And if I can have a minute, I'll tell you. This is probably one of the most important shows I ever did, and that was before I was ever really famous. It was around the time of the first album I came out with called "Tapestry." And there were people in Greenwich Village who were - who would basically - they were the backbone of that whole music scene. And one of them was a guy named Israel G. Young, and he ran a place called the Folklore Center, which was on Bleecker Street.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it was as different from Larchmont or New Rochelle, where I came from, as anything possibly could be. And, you know, I started to come down there a little bit. Friends would take me because I didn't drive. And when I started to perform, he suddenly liked me. And it was a little bit like, you know, like Lena. You know, I was kind of a, you know, a scrubbed-up white kid from Westchester, and they were used to a lot of hippies and stuff. But something or other in what I was doing struck a chord with Lena and with this guy.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And he said, I want to have the Folklore Center actually put you on in a concert. And it was - people still come back and say that they saw that or - and it really started me going in New York City. And those were the days when, you know, the music business was a secret business. And people knew talent and record companies knew talent. And there were only a few radio stations that if you were number one in 1970 or '71, especially also the '50s, '60s, whatever, you were the biggest thing on the planet, and everybody knew your song. Everybody knew you, and it was a huge thing. Now there's so many outlets, hundreds and hundreds of things, stuff's going on, you're - you just - it's a storm of - it's a sensory assault, you know, that's happening all the time. I can't remember anything.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I watch television. I see these people. I don't remember - none of the songs stick in my head, and that's just me. I'm an old guy, you know? But I knew - in the old days, if a song was a good song, I don't care if it was "Yellow Submarine" or, you know, or "The Times They Are a-Changin'" or "Don't Be Cruel," you knew it, you know? You heard that song, and you were talking about it, and you knew it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's funny you should mention Izzy Young. One of my first jobs in radio was engineering the Izzy Young folk show on WBAI a million years ago.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : That's very funny.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Where I - I don't think in connection to that - met an earnest young man who was pressing a record into my hand called "Tapestry."</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : Oh my God.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Long time ago.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : So funny.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Don McLean is with us. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. We have some emails from people who remember that song distinctly. This is from Ruth in Houston, Texas. I remember driving down the River Road in Baton Rouge, looking at the levee and singing the words to "Bye, Bye, American Pie." Wonderful memories. Thank you for this great song. Melinda in Kansas City: I was in the eighth grade the first time I heard the song, before school. We had a dress code and I remember getting to school that morning and having my skirt measured by a male vice principal, no less, and I remember humming that song, and he told me to be quiet. I'll never forget it, and I did get sent home for wearing such a short skirt.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : I liked to be a skirt measurer. I think that would be a great job.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This from David Jackson in - or Dave in Jackson, Wyoming: "American Pie" was my very first LP. I got it when it first came out in the mid-1970s. I love that album and still listen to it on my iPod. Thanks for the great music. Let's go next to Margaret, calling us from Fairbanks in Alaska.</s>MARGARET: Hi. I'm glad to be here. The memory I have with "American Pie" is growing up in Larchmont, New York.</s>MARGARET: : Oh.</s>MARGARET: Yeah. And spending the night at my cousin's house, and about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, my aunt and uncle had come home from a party. They were probably a little tipsy, and they had gotten the record player, and they were blasting "American Pie" as they were calling their friends on the telephone. So it obviously was a talk of the party, and anyway, my cousin and I just kind of kept looking at each other, laughing, and couldn't believe that her parents were doing this.</s>MARGARET: : But isn't it funny how, you know, a song that was around and in the wind, you know, turned everybody on, you know, and this happened a lot, you know. All the time we were having - even through the '50s there were, you know, every Everly Brothers song that came around and, you know, whatever it was, you know, a Fats Domino tune, you were hearing it all the time.</s>MARGARET: Yeah. Definitely, it's a fun song, fun song to listen to in the radio and sing along.</s>MARGARET: : It came along really at the end of that era, you know? After that, disco came in, and we've been sort of dancing ever since.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Margaret, thanks very much for the call.</s>MARGARET: OK.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: One more call. Let's get Mora on the line, Mora from Nashville.</s>MORA: Hi. I'm from Nashville, as you say, and - but I was born and reared in Ireland. In 1970 - I was very young - '71 when the album with "American Pie" came out. And as you mentioned earlier about the radio, given the fact, we were as much - we hadn't(ph) heard as much about "American Pie" as anybody did in America and which was part of our whole generation's view of life and poetry and everything like that. And also, I just want to say that you did a lovely version of "The Mountains of Mourne" when you recorded it. It was kind of my first vision of seeing an Irish song treated as just a song and not just an Irish song, and I really thought that was beautiful.</s>MORA: : Well, one of the things that I started doing in 1972 was to tour the world, and different recordings were released. Of course, "American Pie" was the biggest song, but there was "Crying" and "Vincent" and "Castles in the Air" and "And I Love You So." But in Ireland, for some reason "The Mountains of Mourne" took off from an album that really didn't do very well called "Playin' Favorites" that I put out. And that's still one of the songs that the people like the most when I tour Ireland, which I will be doing next fall.</s>MORA: Oh, well, good for you. Just one more thing, my husband is a farmer, and he said you can't literally drive to a levee. That's always bothered me.</s>MORA: You can't literally drive to a levee. It's not possible.</s>MORA: : No, you really can't, can you?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Mora, thanks very much.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : But to tell you, once after - nobody knew what levees were until after Hurricane Katrina, and then everybody knew what a levee was.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Don McLean, I know you're going to be touring the UK next year, as you mentioned. There's also a PBS documentary due out. Good luck with all of that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: : Well, oh, thank you. I really thank you for having me on the program.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Singer-songwriter Don McLean joined us from his home in Maine. On Monday, actor John Lithgow will join us to talk about his career and his memoir, one of the books we missed this year. Join us for that. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

Thursday, public television veteran Gary Knell takes the helm at NPR, becoming president and CEO after more than 20 years with PBS. Knell assumes the post after a period of turmoil at NPR. He joins NPR's Neal Conan to share his plans for leading the company. You can find NPR CEO Gary Knell on Twitter @nprgaryknell.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington. Wanted: a high-powered executive to run a nonprofit, far-flung public radio organization. Pluses include a trusted name, award-winning news and music programs, a growing audience and a talented staff. Minuses: some funding problems, a few self-inflicted controversies, the transition to digital media and staff who all think they're smarter than you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Six months after advertising the job, the board of NPR hired a new CEO, but what if that turned out to be you? What would your priorities be as the new head of NPR? Give us a call. 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, we'll talk with Nikky Finney, who just won the National Book Award for Poetry for "Head Off & Split."</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: But first, back to that want ad. Gary Knell takes the helm here at NPR today as president and CEO. He previously spent more than two decades with Sesame Workshop, the organization behind the famous children's television program, and joins us here in Studio 3A. Welcome aboard.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Great to be here, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what's your first priority?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, I think, you know, we want to have some fun at NPR. I think we have a fantastic product with millions and millions of listeners who support us each and every day, and I want to continue in that tradition and try to work to build a sustainable economic plan for NPR that's going to last for years to come. That's the big uber goal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, will that sustainable plan include projections of federal funding continuing for the foreseeable future?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, you know, I think it's a four-legged stool, Neal, and I think public funding is a piece of that, along with corporate underwriting and foundations and private gifts. And I think what we've been able to do is build a great public-private partnership for over 40 years, and we think that should continue.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: I happen to believe that public funding is an important leg on that stool, because it's - it is about supporting primarily state and local journalism in many stations and states in the country where, if public radio were to go away, where there's - becomes sort of news deserts, with newspapers and commercial radio stations abandoning serious news in many ways, that would be a bad thing for America. And I think that's a case that needs to be made to the Congress maybe more effectively.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I should just unpack one of those words you used, which we're all familiar with in public broadcasting, underwriting, which any other listener would completely mistake for something that would sound like a commercial.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Yeah, maybe. You know, but I think, you know, it's really about corporate supporters of public radio who believe in the cause and are supporting the programs and, obviously, getting their messages out and trying to reach our audience.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In terms of the public funding, we've already seen state funding in many places across the country cut - to zero in places like Florida and New Jersey - and threatened very much in other places. Do you fear other states will follow suit?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, look, it's a tough time. It's a tough time for America, and we're not immune and we shouldn't be immune from questions and looking at how effective and how essential we are to the future of our country. And I think we should be considered along with museums and libraries and other things that are important to our culture and important to an informed citizenry. I think that's what NPR and public radio stand for, and I think we have a case to be made.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The Senate, controlled by Democrats, put funding for public broadcasting - not just radio, but TV - back into the budget this year after it was cut by the House of Representatives. It eventually survived. But one of the presidential candidates, Mitt Romney, says PBS, NEH and NEA are wonderful things that we can no longer afford. The - Newt Gingrich, the other current frontrunner, has said - well, he tried to cut public broadcasting back in '94 as speaker of the House.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So do you feel that this is something that can be counted on in the future? Are you planning for a future that does not include federal funding?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, look, I think you've got to look at all these things, and even the private funding is susceptible to headwinds in terms of economic pressures on people, on companies, on foundations and other things. So public funding is no different, and it's not - I'm not going to count on anything. I think we can't take anything for granted, Neal. I think we've got to push forward and make the best case we possibly can and, you know, really push for the best and put our best foot forward. That's all we can do, and work like heck to try to secure that funding.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Email from Kevin in Davison, Michigan: We would not have to worry about federal funding if more members contributed. I love when shows like THIS AMERICAN LIFE and RADIO LAB offer the opportunity to send a text to have a $10 donation to the show added to my phone bill. NPR should consider doing this. It'd be a quick, easy way to help give and fund my primary source for news and entertainment.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Totally agree. I mean, I think - look, we're in the digital age now. We should be no different. We are a mission-driven organization. It's a public trust. We're not owned by a company. We don't have shareholders, so to speak, and we don't have to declare dividends and profits. So this is an organization that is really owned, in many ways, by the American people, and we do need those private contributions.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's owned, in some other ways, by the public radio system, who dominate the board, station managers. In some ways, of course, they're your boss. In other ways, they're also your customers. Is that a plus or a minus?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: It's a plus. Each of those, Neal, are nonprofit, local public radio organizations that are very much based in community/ And I think in this day and age - especially, as I said before - when newspapers and local commercial radio stations have abandoned, in many ways, informing the public about local and state issues, this is the time for local public radio.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: So it's not an either-or proposition. This is part of a collective where the local stations can provide that important local coverage and NPR can provide that really critical national and global coverage, which I think we do a pretty darn good job at doing.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that's the main part of our business. We also - NPR music is pretty important, too.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Absolutely. And music and cultural programming. I dare to say, those genres like classical music, jazz, singer-songwriter music, these are things that, without public radio, would have a very hard time. And these, to me, are - and I know a lot of other people - are critical parts of the future of American culture.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's get some callers in on the conversation. We want to give them the primary role in this inquisition. 800-989-8255. Email: TALK@npr.org. Our guest is Gary Knell, the president and CEO of NPR as of today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We'll start with John, and John's on the line with us from Murfreesboro in Tennessee.</s>JOHN: Hi. I would like to ask if there would be a possibility that we could, as donors , individual donors, contribute toward foreign correspondence, like Navarro's coverage in Egypt, and if we want to donate our general donation in addition to selective donations towards causes such as what she's covering. Is there a possibility to do that?</s>JOHN: Or on the morning show with Tom Ashbrook, is there a way that he could travel through the markets to cover the coverages of the topics that he's discussing? Is there traditional, you know, on-the-road type coverage? We would like to see that, because if he's covering an issue within a general area, it'd be nice to see him actually come to the location. He's got a lot of following, and I think that would generate some...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you were talking, John, about Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR foreign correspondent. Gary Knell?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Neal, you might be in a better position to answer this than I am, because, as you go out as a host to different - I know a lot of our hosts and a lot of our amazing journalists travel the country a lot, John, in trying to reach local audiences in different parts of the country.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: And, obviously, you have the choice of contributing to your local public radio station or to NPR through npr.org, and we would welcome that. And the idea, I think, is a good one of supporting - in this case, that you're mentioning foreign coverage, which is so critical, I think, to the future of our country to have an informed citizenry, and NPR has 17 foreign bureaus. It's more bureaus than any other broadcast organization in the United States right now - pretty darned impressive.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we're - it's very expensive to take the show on the road, John. It's part of the reason...</s>JOHN: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...that show and this show - though we're going to be experimenting with taking Political Junkie on the road to places like Des Moines, Iowa and to New Hampshire before the primary and to Orlando, Florida before that primary. So we're taking up your idea.</s>JOHN: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much for the phone call. This is another email, this - how about - you've been involved in public television for many years. In what ways do you think public radio's situation is like that, or unlike that of public television?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: That's a really good question. I think, obviously, they're both public media organizations that have been around, were invented around the same time, about 40-some years ago.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: I think the public television play, so to speak, in many ways, and its future really is around education, which is what I was trying to promote at Sesame Workshop in many ways and trying to move the needle with pre-K education. PBS is the only place on the dial that does work with six to nine-year-olds. There's really a desert of programming of educational quality for those kids who get beyond preschool on television. It really doesn't exist outside of PBS.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: And in radio, I think it's a different value proposition. I think it's the things we've been talking about in terms of local and state journalism. It's in terms of cultural music programming, etc. So I think they're slightly different value propositions, as those media have changed over the last few years, and they're evolving with the disaggregation of media into the digital landscape.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Bill Moyers just gave a really interesting speech to public television broadcasters in which he took them to task for, among other things, their organization - or some might say lack of same.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: He suggested that the system they're working under now is more like the Articles of Confederation, the first Constitution of the United States, if you will, and it's time for a system-wide meeting for everybody to get together and figure things out again.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Is it time for public radio - we've been in business exactly as long as public television. Is it time for public radio to reconsider some fundamental organizations?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Yeah. I'm certainly open to all suggestions at this point, having been on the job for about 20 minutes. But I do feel that, unlike public television, Neal, I think that public radio has lived in what I would call a cabled universe for many years.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Public television, remember, has been sitting in a universe with lots of different channels, and one could argue about, you know, its unique service against that different sets of channels who are servicing news and documentaries and science programming and dramas and things like that that exist a little more proactively in the television universe.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: In radio, there is no commercial, serious journalistic effort, except in one or two local markets, like New York and LA. There is no classical music to speak of. There is no jazz music on the radio.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: So I think public radio has built a fairly distinct service in a multichannel universe, which is somewhat different from the television landscape. So I don't think we need a total rethink in radio. I do think the future, as I said, in television is really about pushing education, which PBS is very good at. And in radio, it's really about taking advantage of our strength today and pushing that forward.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: First lesson: You hear the music, it means we've got to go to a break. Stay with us, though. We're talking with Gary Knell, NPR's new president and CEO, and more of your calls in a moment. If you were in his shoes, what would your priorities be as the new head of NPR? 800-989-8255. Email us: TALK@NPR.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. NPR's new CEO, Gary Knell, showed up at the office this morning at 4:45 AM, his first day on the job. Since accepting the position in October, he's visited with stations and with many people here at NPR.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Today, he joins us in Studio 3A to take your calls. Imagine you were the new CEO. What would your priorities be as the new head of NPR? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Just after our show at 3:00 Eastern time, Gary Knell will take your questions on Twitter. You can find him @nprgaryknell, all one word. Knell is spelled K-N-E-L-L, and questions can be tagged nprceo - again, all one word.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And a couple of emails, this from Cherry in San Francisco: I feel dubious about someone whose first description of NPR is a product. And David in Palo Alto picked up on the same point. When did NPR become a product, not a service? I know this sounds nitpicky, but there is an important distinction in the corporate world. A product is something for sale or profit. A service is something which is provided, hopefully, independent of vested interests. This country desperately needs information services which are passionately independent and neutral, not a product for sale.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Yeah. I take your point, and I guess I don't draw the distinction as much, and, to me, it's not meant to be pejorative term. I think product is really the content offering, which we can also call a service to the American public. And it's that content offering that I'm referring to that is the most important thing we do in National Public Radio.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Peter, Peter calling from Berkeley.</s>PETER: Well, thanks for this opportunity. Congratulations, sir, on your new job.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Thanks.</s>PETER: If I were president of NPR, I would aggressively promote more public awareness of the real and present danger of nuclear winter, per Alan Robock's shocking and informative comment in Nature magazine last May that new climate models show that it would be far, far, far fewer actual explosions that could trigger this, and the public has an emergency right and need to know.</s>PETER: And what I would do about it, in addition, would be to aggressively hook up with foreign news services and international news bureaus, as you already do so well. But I would really pursue that more on a global level - Radio Russia, Radio India, Radio China, Radio Africa. Hook us all up regularly and do proactive citizen participation, conflict resolution, as well as news reporting, because we have to get ourselves out of this danger.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Peter, thanks very much for the suggestion. Appreciate it.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, thanks, Peter. And, you know, I think one of the distinctive things about NPR is our onsite reporting. And as I mentioned, we have 17 foreign bureaus and a huge collective, I think, of people on the ground who are in those places in which you're referring as, quote-unquote, "hot spots," I think, in the world, that we can be on the ground and be close to them. And I think that is the difference between us and other American news organizations.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Your background is not in journalism, but I have to ask you a journalistic question which arises from that call. A lot of listeners would like NPR to take advocacy positions on things like nuclear winter or global climate change or other issues. Does a news organization threaten its journalistic reputation if it takes up advocacy?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, I don't think we should be, as an organization, taking up advocacy. And, in fact, I think it's probably barred by our charter, so - and the law, I think, which founded NPR. So it's really about fairness and accuracy and honesty in reporting so that our audience can make up their own minds and decide which issues they want to advocate on. That's really the role of public radio.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to George, a heavy West Coast contingent on today. He's calling from San Francisco.</s>GEORGE: Well, thank you. You know, we look forward to seeing your ongoing success in this office. And, for starters, what we need is an hour-long magazine program that can actually go into some depth with a political ear. In other words, MORNING EDITION and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED are two-hour turnaround programs that are magazine shows that have a lot of coverage of local and national politics. But if we had an hour magazine, we could fit it into our local public radio station. That would give us an overview of the political season coming up in 2012. It would fit into the NPR lineup. What do you think?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hope you tune in Wednesdays. But anyway, Gary Knell?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, I mean, I agree with Neal. I think, you know, we have windows in our programs like TALK OF THE NATION and others that we are really going to focus on election coverage. And it's going to be a big priority for our news desk in 2012, and I look forward to that and I hope you will be satisfied as we're promising that our coverage will be extensive and comprehensive in 2012.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It is, George, difficult, sometimes, to create special programs. An hour length is a good idea. That's what most public radio programs are - or two hours, as MORNING EDITION or ALL THINGS CONSIDERED are. But places have their schedules set many months in advance, and to put new programs into a schedule requires years of preparation. It's not a quick turnaround.</s>GEORGE: Oh, we know it's a tough call, you know. We're counting on you to be quick on your feet, Gary.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Okay. Thanks, George.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks. Here's an email from Sandra: What about programming specifically for children? Many European countries, for example, have children's news shows or evening stories for children, just a short segment for short attention spans. This may be a good way to have children grow up getting used to radio as an important part of their day. And if they always listen to the radio, then they probably are more likely to support the concept of public radio when they grow up.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, I agree completely. It's a - and, look, I've just spent two decades in children's media. And you may not know this, but at Sesame Workshop, you know, we publish over 150 books a year, for instance, even though we're thought of as a television company.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: The - NPR has started something called the Backseat Book Club, which is really great for kids and part of a public radio program. And I did ask the staff at NPR to give me suggestions, and a number of people here within the building actually brought up the idea of children's radio. And I think we can take a look at some programming to bring in a younger demographic, which I think, as you point out, is critical to the future growth of public radio.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Kelly, Kelly with us from Tuscaloosa.</s>KELLY: Hi. I was curious about your outlook on the restrictions for employees of - on political activism, because, as a schoolteacher, I felt like some of the rules that I encountered within the system seemed to tell me that, while I was teaching students to be good, civic-minded people, I was limited myself outside of my job to wholly participate in my own community. And I feel like that's somewhat what NPR is doing to their employees by not allowing them to fully participate in the system in which they're reporting on.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, it's a really good question. And, look, it's - I guess I approach this - we are, in addition to our music and cultural programming, primarily a news organization. And I think the important thing here is that our audience does not feel that we are promoting a political agenda. So these questions come in whether there is going to be an impression of a political agenda if reporters, journalists or producers are also advocating political positions.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: And I think part of joining a news organization is the need, I think, to present a fair and balanced view and not have that sacrificed in some way, where people can perceive bias.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Now, that's the goal, and I think, you know, there's a lot of gray areas that fit in that I can't prejudge. But that's really what you want, I think, to protect, which is about the integrity of the news organization, so that we are presenting information to the American people and they can make up their own minds about which way they want to go on an issue.</s>KELLY: What do you think about the judgments that were made prior to you coming onto NPR?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, yeah. I can't really comment on those because I wasn't here and I don't really know the facts completely. And, frankly, it's time, I think, for NPR to turn the page and move forward, and we'll take them as they come, as they will come. And we'll hopefully make the right calls.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks for the call, Kelly.</s>KELLY: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from John. I'm a longtime NPR listener and donor. Are you open or opposed to the NPR network and affiliates becoming a for-profit enterprise? I like the idea. Frankly, I see underwriters as corporate advertisers. ESPN, CBS, ABS all have - I think he means ABC - all have for-profit radio affiliate relationships that distribute their products - or service, if you prefer - very well.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, you know, I've spent a lifetime at building an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization, and, you know, I have a lot of extensive experience in social entrepreneurship, as they call it, which is a of building ancillary revenue bases for nonprofit organizations, at "Sesame Street" and other places. And I think in NPR, for instance, I think there are ways that we can achieve things like the BBC has done in the UK, where you're not sacrificing the integrity of the nonprofit service, but you're driving, you know, a deeper engagement for listeners or through other programs, such as Lonely Planet being bought by the BBC to promote a travel engagement, things like that.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: So I think, at NPR, we can look at opportunities like that in licensing and many ways in which universities have done the same thing to promote their brands. NPR has got a very loyal set of listeners and followers who would support, I think, ways of funding NPR that are nontraditional, and we will be unlocking that and taking a look at whether that's an area of growth for us.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Vlad(ph), another caller from San Francisco. Vlad, are you there?</s>VLAD: Yes. I am.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You're on the air. Go ahead.</s>VLAD: Well, I just think NPR could make some money by offering some of its kind of more subtle things that it does like the musical transitions between the segues, between shows. I love that music. I actually know a lot of the artists, and if I knew that buying those songs, just like I would in iTunes, went to NPR, I would totally do that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If Bob - if I didn't know Bob Boilen was in the building, I'd suspect you were - he was putting on your voice, Vlad. But go ahead, Gary Knell.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, first off, Neal, without getting in trouble here, the theme song on this show is - how fabulous is that? What a great theme song. But, secondly, I was just on MORNING EDITION, sitting in this morning, and I commented on how brilliant the music transitions were. This is a real art form, of trying to connect the music transitions to the serious news content. And these guys do a great job of it. I think it's a fantastic idea, Vlad, and we'll follow up on it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much.</s>VLAD: Make it available in the app, please.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: OK.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK. Well, speaking of new technology, NPR's major news programs, I think, including this one, are not available as podcasts, or at least not in full. How come?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, I think the answer is we want to make sure that people are connecting with their local public radio station and finding TALK OF THE NATION or MORNING EDITION through their local public radio station, and this is a balance that we've got to do in the digital transformation as well. And that's part of, I think, the formula that's made public radio so successful over the years. That's what we'll be working on, Neal, and we want to make TALK OF THE NATION available to as many people as possible to hear your show.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here, here. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Gary Knell is our guest. He's the president and CEO of NPR starting today. Here's an email along the same lines from E.R. Cox(ph) in Florida. I just contributed to 91.3 WLRN, but Mom and I are no longer contributing to our classical station, 89.7 Miami, because they refuse to run a brief spot informing the majority Spanish-speaking community of their opportunity to contribute. I've often tried to alert them to the fact that if they're eliminating a large part of their potential support by not giving them the respect of a brief plea for support in Spanish.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Which raises the question, the audience now is what it is, how do you see the audience in the future? What parts of the populace do you want to reach out to and expand into?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Yeah. That's a really good question, Neal, and I appreciate the listener's question as well. I think we've got to expand our demographics, and I think, you know, we shouldn't rule out second-language programming - Spanish among them, Mandarin and other programming. I think this is really a way of reaching people who are living in America and who also need to benefit, I think, from the news and information and cultural content that we have. It's a good idea. I think it's something we can explore.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: The other way of stretching the demography is through age, and it's very important that we have a very robust digital play because most young people are accessing audio content like ours, Neal, in digital platforms and on demand. And we have to be able to figure out the right balancing act with local stations who are building their own robust digital platforms with the help of NPR, many of them. And having that moving forward as one NPR and one public radio system is really important. And accessing people where they are, when they want it on their time, that's going to be really important to the future of public radio.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you're betraying my own age and lack of need to go download TALK OF THE NATION. Apparently, it is available as a podcast. So I apologize for the error. Let's go next to Leon(ph). Leon calling from Oakland.</s>LEON: Hi. I think my priority would be to retain corporate sponsorship but get rid of the little basically mini commercials that the corporations play - that NPR plays for the corporations on the radio. So I think it's OK to say brought to you by and the company name, but I don't like the prerecorded spots that makes it feel like there's undue influence on the content based on who the sponsors are.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, there's no prerecorded spots. The announcer who says made possible by a grant from XYZ Corporation, makers of the...</s>LEON: I mean one that says like...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...product.</s>LEON: ...brought to you by Archer Daniels Midland, and then there's a long recording where they...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: No, I don't think it's longer than 15 seconds. But, anyway, Gary Knell, go ahead.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Yeah. I think I certainly take the point, and I think the key here is not having a perception of bias, and this is really about having a diversity of funders. Having been in this world for several decades, what I've concluded is that the more funders you have, you don't want to be totally beholden to corporate underwriters nor totally beholden to government funding nor totally beholden to major gifts nor totally beholden to foundations. I think what you want to have is a, you know, a group, as many as possible, which gives you to the public an appearance that - and a perception which is more based in reality that you're really not beholden to any one special interest, but you're really part of that public trust of different members of the American public contributing to this common cause of public radio.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Leon, thanks very much. We just have a few seconds left with you, Gary Knell, but you've got some major decisions to make about important positions that are open. Given recent events, how quickly you going to move to fill those jobs?</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Well, I certainly have this at the top of my list, and we have a great executive team here at NPR and a fantastic news organization. And I want to take a little bit of time to assess that and how we're organized and be able to put forth a plan for our board of directors and implement that very soon in 2012.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Gary Knell, I know all the listeners and everybody in immediate view wishes you the best of luck because we're all in this together.</s>GARY KNELL, BYLINE: Great. Thank you, Neal. Thanks so much.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Gary Knell is the new president and CEO of NPR.

Herman Cain quit the presidential primary over the weekend and an Atlanta TV station reports that he may endorse his former rival, Newt Gingrich. NPR's Ken Rudin talks about Cain's decision to quit, and how it will change the primary field.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Over the weekend, Herman Cain's unlikely bid for the Republican presidential nomination succumbed to stumbles and scandal. He continues to deny all sexual allegations. The businessman's clear economic message and strong debate performances lifted him briefly to the top of some opinion polls. He's expected to endorse one of his former rivals, perhaps as early as today. Political junkie Ken Rudin joins us here in Studio 3A even though it's Monday. Hey, Ken.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Hi, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, well, Herman Cain, quite a story, but in the end, an unconventional campaign ended in an unsurprising fashion.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Unsurprising, absolutely. And I think the reason everybody says how could - if you have all this baggage in your past, how can you run for president in this day and age and expect that the media will not uncover it? And I think - I suspected from the beginning is, one, Herman Cain never thought he would take off like this. I think perhaps maybe he wanted to sell some books, make some speeches and use the national debate stage as - for his views. But when you ask him specifics about certain things, about Uzbekybekybekystan and President Obama's views on Libya and things like that, he really seemed very unprepared.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And though the campaign caught fire in the opinion polls, it never developed the kind of organizational muscle that you'd expect that a political candidate needs in places like, well, the upcoming caucuses in Iowa.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: That's true. And ironically, I mean, they say - he says that he - in middle of November, he said in a six-weeks period, he raised $9 million, which really puts him up there with Romney and the leader of the polls, but he did not spend much of that time in Iowa. It's interesting that the leaders in the polls until recently were Romney - Mitt Romney and Herman Cain in the Iowa caucuses, and neither spent that much time there. And Herman Cain was out selling his book and promoting this or that, but he did touch a nerve. Whether 9-9-9 made economic sense or not, it got a lot of people talking about economic policies, certainly alternatives to President Obama, and other Republicans followed suit with their own plans.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with political junkie Ken Rudin. He'll, of course, be with us again on Wednesday. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And, Ken, as he withdraws from the race, he's expected - at least according to some reports - to endorse Newt Gingrich when he gets around to making an endorsement. But how does his departure change the dynamic of the Republican presidential primary?</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, it's hard to make the case that it makes a big difference. You know, if you look at the Iowa polls, just in late October, he was leading or at least tied at the top with Mitt Romney, 23 percent. Back then, Newt Gingrich, who was an afterthought then was 8 percent. Now, those roles have reversed, and Herman Cain has been in a freefall in - regarding all those sexual allegations. And when Ginger White came up and said that she had a 13-year affair with him, and he really didn't have an answer to that. He kept denying, denying, denying.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: And, you know, I've got a lot of emails over the last couple of days saying that, well, why did Bill Clinton get off the hook? I mean, he had Gennifer Flowers professing a 13-year affair, 12-year affair in 1992 and - but the thing is, I think, there's a big difference between a consensual affair and sexual harassment. And the fact that the National Restaurant Association paid a lot of money to pay off these women or at least to settle these cases with these women, obviously there's more to than just lies by the liberal media, and that had been Herman Cain's answer for the longest time.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as we look ahead, though, the new Iowa poll is out, and it does show Newt Gingrich apparently picking up a lot of that Cain support.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Yes. And it looks like right now, I mean, we've seen so many alternatives to Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is the only person whose numbers have not really moved that much. He is still the establishment choice, but first, it was Michele Bachmann and then it was Rick Perry, then it was Herman Cain. And now, it's Newt Gingrich as the alternative. Now, I don't know - the thought of - given the fact that the media will love to focus on the foibles of Newt Gingrich and the fact that he's married three times and he had an affair when he was married and blah-blah-blah...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And tried to impeach Bill Clinton.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: While he was having an affair. And the thought of Herman Cain endorsing Newt Gingrich is not the kind of endorsement you want, and obviously the linkage would have to be there. But having said that, there are fervent supporters of Herman Cain who love the fact that he was anti-politician, that he was not politics as usual, and he represented something that they found - they were not finding in the other candidates.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Newt Gingrich at the top of that most recent Iowa poll. Ron Paul in second. Mitt Romney dropping down into third place. And before we let you him go, though, Herman Cain brought new energy to the Republican presidential contest. He campaigned in places that nobody else campaigned. Again, maybe it was a book tour, maybe it wasn't, but places like Alabama and Kentucky...</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Tennessee.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...and Tennessee and Wisconsin to his eventual detriment, those places played parts in the early part of the presidential primary that nobody ever expected.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, everything that Herman Cain - first of all, they're not - I've looked back - I don't remember any black Republican ever elected president - I mean, I've gone back, you know, decades, and I've never seen one. Look, he's an unusual candidate. He was not the polished Mitt Romney, and we've seen, as we've said, you know, from months now, voters clearly look for somebody who's not the polished ways of Washington that we've seen so far, which is so funny about Newt Gingrich's rise in the polls because in many ways he is a creature of Washington, getting the million-plus from Freddie Mac and doing all this kind of things, and yet, he seems to be the new flavor. So, look, it's a very improbable year. And if anybody was most improbable, it was the candidacy of Herman Cain.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A candidacy that ended on Saturday, with Herman Cain's suspension of his campaign. Many campaigns have been suspended, Ken. I don't think any have been revived, but in any case, we'll put the final nail in it on Wednesday on the Political Junkie. We'll see you then.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: See you then. Thanks, Neal.

Occupy Wall Street protests around the country have raised questions about the role of the police. Norm Stamper, Seattle's former police chief, Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey and Brooklyn College sociologist Alex Vitale talk about the evolution of crowd control tactics.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Occupy protests in dozens of cities across the country pose new challenges for police. In some places, what some describe as paramilitary tactics have been criticized as excessive and counterproductive. In other places, police get complaints for being ineffectual.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In most places, things have gone pretty well, but the iconic images of the past few months include tear gas in the streets of Oakland, riot shields and batons in Zuccotti Park, and a can of pepper spray discharged into the faces of peaceful protestors on the campus at U.C. Davis.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Police tactics for crowd control have undergone several waves of change in recent decades, from the era of huge civil rights and anti-war protests to the Battle in Seattle. Now some wonder if it's time for training and tactics to change once again.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We'd like to hear from police officers about changes in crowd control. Our phone number: 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, the U.S. relationship with Pakistan after a NATO attack over the weekend killed two dozen Pakistani troops. But first, police and protestors. The city of Philadelphia imposed a deadline for the Occupy Philly protestors to leave an encampment in Dilworth Plaza. Two days later, dozens of protestors remain.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey joins us from his office in Philadelphia. Nice to have you back on the program.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: It's good to be back, thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And why are they still there?</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Well, about two-thirds of the protestors have left voluntarily. There was a small group that said that they were not going to leave. And at some point in time we'll have to remove them. In our situation, we do have construction that is scheduled to begin shortly on what we call Dilworth Plaza, which is just outside of our City Hall. And that's the reason for the relocation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there's a new spot that's been set up nearby.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: There is a spot across the street. However, we will not allow them to pitch tents and actually stay on-premise, but the mayor has given them opportunities to have this new location in order to be able to engage in their free speech activities.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And they - some at least will see that as an attempt to quash the protest, occupy being the operative word here.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Well, I mean, people have a right to express themselves and so forth. I don't know if that extends to being able to sleep overnight outside. We had a lot of issues with sanitation. People were urinating, defecating, all kinds of issues that we had when they were allowed to pitch tents and stay for an extended period of time.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: And there were also a couple of assaults that took place as well. So it's a difficult thing to take care.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, are you negotiating with the protestors?</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: There have been a lot of conversations between the city and the protestors, and again, the majority of protestors have been very, very good to work with, and they understand the issue, and they have agreed to voluntarily leave. It's just a very small group that is insistent upon trying to stay at Dilworth, even though they're actually standing in the way of about 800 construction jobs that will take place as soon as the work begins.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Have - you mentioned some of the sanitation problems. In other places, people have complained about disruptions, noise, that sort of thing. Has that been a problem in Philadelphia?</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Yeah, the other night they were beating drums and so forth throughout the night. We do have residences that are not too far away. You know, prior to the eviction notice, you know, we had some issues but not a whole lot. Recently that has picked up, yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I wonder: Did this come as a surprise to you?</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Not really. I mean, you know, the longer these things go on, a lot of times different groups will at various times become part of the movement. Again, most people are very reasonable and they demonstrate very peacefully. But on occasion you will get some people who have a slightly different agenda and will do things contrary to what's being asked.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And in the end, if they insist on being arrested, you will oblige them?</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Well, we will, but again, we want to avoid that, and we've made 62 arrests thus far. It's been very peaceful. We've not had any problems at all. We don't anticipate having any in the future. We'd rather not arrest people, but you know, part of a protest movement in the minds of some people, it comes down to making a statement, and that includes being arrested.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: And again, we want to make sure that we do everything we can to avoid it, but if we do make an arrest, to make sure that we do so without having to resort to any force and just get the job done.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is not over yet, but have you drawn any lessons to be learned from this experience?</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Well, I think the lesson is that there needs to be continual training of our police officers. We start each roll call with a reading of the First Amendment so that officers are constantly being reminded that people have a right to protest, they have a right to assemble, and we're not here to interfere with that.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: But we do have to maintain the peace and order. This project in Philadelphia's been on the drawing board for about three years. When we gave them the first permit to use Dilworth Plaza, they were told at that time it was only until construction beings, and construction will be beginning soon. And most people have abided by that agreement.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: When you say training for the officers, in what way has it changed?</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Well, you know, when I first started my police career, the Vietnam War was still going on and the protests associated with the Vietnam War. Certainly a lot has changed over those years. Police officers got civil disturbance training occasionally. For the last 20 years or so, we haven't had very much of that. So some of that really had not been taking place as regularly as it had been at one point in time.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: But starting with Seattle in 1999, when we started to see different protests develop, and of course I was chief in D.C. for quite a while with the IMF World Bank, we had to start training once again different, you know, crowd control formations and techniques and things of that nature.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: But certainly being mindful of that balancing act between actually helping to safeguard people's constitutional right to protest, but at the same time allowing businesses as usual to go on as close to normal as possible.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Equipment has changed a lot too. It's gotten a lot better.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Well, equipment's gotten better. It's changed like everything else, technology. But again, it just comes down to trying to have open lines of communication and getting people to, you know, agree to certain conditions, if you will. They have a right to protest, but other people have a right to go about their daily lives. You can't just sit in the middle of a street and block traffic for long periods of time, things of that nature.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: And just trying to be able to negotiate and work with the different groups, and I think we've done a pretty good job of that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Chief Ramsey, thanks very much for your time today, good luck.</s>CHARLES RAMSEY: Thank you. Charles Ramsey is commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department and joined us from his office there. Alex Vitale joins us now from our bureau in New York. He's an associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College. He's been tracking shifts in police tactics over the years, and nice to have you back on the program.</s>ALEX VITALE: Thank you, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Chief Ramsey was talking about Seattle 12 years ago as a turning point in police tactics. Would you agree with him?</s>ALEX VITALE: Yes, absolutely. Seattle is a turning point both for the tactics of the protestors and for the tactics of the police. For the first time in many years, police were really confronted with a large number of well-organized people engaging in direct-action tactics. And by that I mean, you know, a defiance of the law intended to actually disrupt the meetings, which they were successful in doing.</s>ALEX VITALE: And the police hadn't really faced that kind of challenge in quite a long while, and at times in Seattle they were at a loss, and the message to other departments around the country was we better have a plan to deal with this kind of protest in the future.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, the former chief of police in Seattle will join us in a few minutes. But the reaction in many departments was to - well, some call it the paramilitary approach.</s>ALEX VITALE: Absolutely. I think that some departments reacted with real fear to what had happened and fell back on, you know, their basic orientation, which is, you know, we need tools for control, and I think moved away from what some of Chief Ramsey talked about, which was the need to open up lines of communication, which is something that I think has been lacking at times in the last couple of months.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Were you surprised to hear him say that they begin each shift with a reading of the First Amendment?</s>ALEX VITALE: I was surprised about that, but you know, I think while, you know, training is a good thing, I don't think what we're seeing here is a real problem of training because these decisions about whether or not to evict these encampments and the kinds of tactics to use in evicting them are not being made by individual officers who are at roll calls.</s>ALEX VITALE: These are decisions being made by local mayors and police chiefs, and you know, what we've seen in New York is some of the acts of violence that have specifically been committed by very high-ranking supervisors.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So you're talking about the pepper spray incident?</s>ALEX VITALE: Well, there was the pepper spray incident. There was another supervisor who punched a young man in the face. There was another incident of a supervisor sort of wildly swinging his baton, injured some reporters and others. So it's more than one incident, but all the incidents of serious accusations of violence here in New York have been committed by high-ranking supervisors.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And the tactics include a massive show of force, serried ranks of officers in blue with riot shields and visors and batons and all kinds of - and protective padding too, and all kinds of non-lethal uses - equipment like, well, rubber bullets and gas and beanbags, that sort of thing.</s>ALEX VITALE: Well, we don't actually use the word non-lethal. We use the word less lethal, because in fact deaths do occur in the use of these materials from time to time. And it's true that I think departments have become much more reliant on this technology in part because of resources coming from the federal government and kind of a diversion of some resources that were associated with the war on terror and the buildup of these SWAT teams, which have become so omnipresent even in small-town police departments.</s>ALEX VITALE: And so this weaponry was intended often for purposes very different than what they're being used for.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Horses also very prominent in New York, too. They're very effective at crowd control.</s>ALEX VITALE: Well, in fact, in New York there's not much use of this less lethal weaponry. They tend to rely on their very large numbers of officers and supplemented by some motor scooters and some mounted officers. But in some ways their ability to marshal such large numbers of officers has reduced the need for these less-lethal weaponry that has been a source of a lot of this conflict.</s>ALEX VITALE: You know, if you can put enough officers out on the street to take out an encampment or something like that, you may actually reduce the chances of confrontation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm glad you reminded me on less lethal. I think there's somebody still in intensive care in Oakland after getting hit by a police projectile. We want to hear from police officers about changes in crowd control, 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. We're talking about police and protestors and changing tactics of crowd control, from the largely peaceful crowds of the civil rights movement in the '60s and '70s to smaller, more confrontational groups, now the challenges presented by the Occupy protests in cities around the country.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The Battle in Seattle in 1999 proved to be one of the major turning points in police crowd control tactics. Tens of thousands of demonstrators converged on a downtown intersection in Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization conference. City police turned to more forceful tactics. The chief of police at the time will join us in just a moment.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We'd like to hear from other police officers about changes in crowd control. Our phone number is 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Our guest is Alex Vitale. He's studied many shifts in police tactics over the recent decades as an associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College. He also wrote the book "City of Disorder." We have Tom on the line. Tom's calling us from Philadelphia.</s>TOM: Yeah, yeah, there was an issue in - well, early on, what we went to, like, with the Bicentennial, is we would just organize, you know, like violent attacks - well not really violent attacks, but we were told that (unintelligible)...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm sorry, Tom, are you okay?</s>TOM: Yeah, yeah, that the issues - well, we were told by the FBI that the protestors were going to come with guns, and we were really concerned about that and prepared for quite some time. It turned out that in '76, it ended up being a peaceful demonstration. So we didn't really have to do anything.</s>TOM: But then in - you know, it was just a matter of standing around, and the protests just drifted off, fortunately. But, you know, we were really concerned about armed conflict at the time. And then in the '90s, we turned to a different tactic.</s>TOM: We started to get a lot more informants and infiltrators into the organizations, and then we knew what really was going on. And that's been really, really successful as a tactic, to infiltrate. And you can see how successful that was in places like, you know, the Republican National Conventions in both New York City and Minneapolis, where we even got people to - you know, we were able to encourage people to do things like, you know, do acts of violence, which then would make it possible for us to come in and sweep the streets and bring in large amounts of SWAT team tactical police. It was really effective.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Alex Vitale, it's not just in Philadelphia, and he mentioned those conventions, some - essentially preemptive actions.</s>ALEX VITALE: Well, preemption has become the name of the game, having intelligence and preemption. I mean, I think we - there are obviously some significant questions that have to be asked about some of these preemptive tactics, the use of informants and agents, provocateurs, which has been documented fairly well in some instances.</s>ALEX VITALE: But I think part of the bigger problem on police intelligence is that is often inaccurate, that sometimes the police think that they're going to be dealing with violent demonstrators when they're really going to be dealing with disruptive demonstrators.</s>ALEX VITALE: And that's I think been one of the key dilemmas during this whole Occupation movement, is that there's been a kind of confusion of defiance with a real threat to public safety. And the fact that people don't want permits and are really trying to push the limits of the First Amendment does not make them a kind of violent threat, and yet many of the police tactics really could only be justified in the presence of significant violence.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Norm Stamper was chief of the Seattle Police Department during the Battle in Seattle in 1999. He later wrote a book titled "Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing," and joins us now from his home in the San Juan Islands in Washington State. Nice to have you with us today.</s>NORM STAMPER: It's good to be with you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And in a recent piece in The Nation, you wrote about the decision to use tear gas in 1999. You wrote: The cop in me supported the decision to clear the intersection. The chief in me should have forbidden the indiscriminate use of tear gas to accomplish it, no matter how many warnings we barked through the bullhorn. What was the rationale for the cop in you?</s>NORM STAMPER: Well, the rationale was we needed that intersection. It was a key, very strategic location, very close to the major venue of the World Trade Organization conference. But they had literally blocked off an entire intersection, through which police cars or aid cars or fire engines would - could not go.</s>NORM STAMPER: And so the cop in me is thinking if somebody needs us, we've got to be able to get there as quickly as possible. And the chief in me once again should have taken the position that this was bound to escalate tensions and, in fact, usher in levels of violence and property destruction much greater than I think otherwise would have been the case.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So you feel that your tactics, in fact, made a difficult situation worse?</s>NORM STAMPER: Worst decision of my 34-year career, and I'm absolutely convinced that it made the situation much, much worse for everyone, including my own cops.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there were, though, people who went there to disrupt the meeting.</s>NORM STAMPER: Indeed. And every time there's any kind of mass movement, political movement, there will be certain numbers of people who are there expressly for the purposes of disruption, if not destruction.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You also talked a lot in your article about police culture and how police can see the protests, protestors as the enemy.</s>NORM STAMPER: Well, and I think that's often the case. We dress as if the protestors are the enemy. We are equipped with tools and weaponry that suggest that the protestors are an enemy and that our mission is a military one. And it's very important, obviously, that your police officers be made as safe as they can in terms of their training, their equipment and so forth.</s>NORM STAMPER: But it's also vitally important to remember that they are dealing with fellow Americans and, particularly in the case of the Occupy movement, you know, I don't know any police officer who's part of the one percent. These are issues that are vital to the entire country, and certainly to the middle class and those who have been marginalized, especially by poverty or by discrimination.</s>NORM STAMPER: And I think police officers, on one level, really get that. But they find themselves lined up as the enemy.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: How do you account for the very different kinds of situations we've seen? Obviously, there's history in Oakland. This goes back. But other places, people have gotten along quite well.</s>NORM STAMPER: Well, it's like when you need trust, it's too late to build it. If there is a tense relationship already existing between the community and the police department, that's simply going to make life that much more difficult for all stakeholders.</s>NORM STAMPER: But it's also true that some agencies seem to have learned from our unfortunate experience in Seattle, and others have not. The use of the pepper spray at U.C. Davis was probably the most egregious I've seen. And I've seen a lot of police misconduct over the course of my 34 years.</s>NORM STAMPER: But in that particular case, that's somebody who didn't read the playbook. That's somebody who did not realize what the effect of his actions would be.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That, though, was a lieutenant, not, you know, a lower-ranking officer.</s>NORM STAMPER: Well, I think Professor Vitale has said just that, that it was a so-called white shirt in New York who used pepper spray. It was a lieutenant at the UC Davis campus. And when you have people in leadership positions who are not exercising self-discipline and restraint, it's reasonable to expect their followers to do likewise.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what do you make of the tactics that we were discussing earlier: infiltration, intelligence, well, even some cases, evidence that prompting incidents that are arrestable so that groups can be broken up in advance?</s>NORM STAMPER: Well, I know you don't check IDs when people call. But here's what I was hearing as that gentleman was speaking: He is himself an agent provocateur. He is asserting something that may or may not be true. If it is true, then shame on my institution.</s>NORM STAMPER: We put to rest through very rigorous intelligence ordinances back in the '60s, to a small degree, and certainly in the '70s, the tactic of infiltrating activists, political activists, civil rights, anti-war, those involving campus unrest, in favor of a more open and more direct approach, negotiating with demonstration leaders to the extent that such leaders are identifiable and generally working to collaborate on both the tactics and the policing of those tactics, to the extent that that's possible.</s>NORM STAMPER: And, of course, what can completely ruin that strategy is sending an undercover cop into a, you know, a nucleus of protestors and then, in some cases, engaging themselves in very provocative behavior.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Alex Vitale, that may - our caller may or may not have been who he said he was, but nevertheless, I think some incidents of that are pretty clearly documented. And indeed, it is standard tactic some places for undercover cops to identify individuals who they think might be problems and snatch squads to go in and get them.</s>ALEX VITALE: Well, that's absolutely true. And I - and also, since 9/11, there has been some rolling back of these intelligence guidelines. The New York City police, in particular, went to court to ask to be let out of their past agreements limiting their surveillance and infiltration of groups. Now, they claim this was primarily to go after terrorism suspects, but we now know that this has included enhanced surveillance of some political operations. So I don't think that's, you know, the core issue of what's going on here, but I do think it is a cause for concern.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We've got a number of calls about the Marine veteran injured in the standoff between police and Occupy protesters in Oakland last month. Scott Olsen suffered a fractured skull. He's now out of the hospital, spoke with USA Today. He told that paper he considers himself lucky, though he's frustrated he still has trouble speaking. So thanks for the update on that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Our guests are Norm Stamper, former chief of police of the Seattle Police Department for six years, author of "Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing," also wrote a piece recently for The Nation, "Paramilitary Policing from Seattle to Occupy Wall Street." It's in this month's issue. Alex Vitale is also with us, an associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College, author of "City of Disorder." And you're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, which is coming to you from NPR News. Let's go next to David. David's on the line with us from Cincinnati.</s>DAVID: Yeah. Hi. How are you guys doing?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Very well. Thanks.</s>DAVID: Good. I'm a photo journalist here in Cincinnati. I've been covering Occupy here since, you know, they have their first march and did their occupation, which has indeed been cleared out of the park in which it was originally in. So they are sort of operating from that park, but they're not really - there's no tents there anymore. Since then, police department has never once used any excessive force during this. They've never once put on riot gear, no pepper spray, no baton-wielding and peacefully have managed to make arrests, clear the park.</s>DAVID: I don't know what the issue is in these other places. I think they need to sort of, perhaps, look to our city or perhaps other cities who are doing similar things and realize that it's a lot about communication. There's good communication between the movement and the police department here. Obviously, protesters want to be arrested, because it's part of their political statement. It gets court cases, which create precedents. This is part of what they're doing, and the police seem to understand it's part of what they're doing. So there's - they've been working with each other in order not to create any kind of situations, because once police force gets pushed on these protesters, it only gets a push back, and that creates bad situations. So...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I understand that. And, Alex Vitale, are we exaggerating the - because of these very visible incidents and, you know, tear gas in the streets makes for great TV footage. Obviously, violence is something you need to cover. But are there more situations like Cincinnati, as David's describing, or more UC Davises?</s>ALEX VITALE: Well, there is definitely a mix of both. You've got to keep in mind, this occupation movement is happening in literally hundreds of cities, to various degrees, across the country, including, you know, little small towns in Michigan and places like that. And a lot of these towns and cities have managed to work out some kind of accommodation, you know. Recently, in Albany, the local authorities refuse to carry out an eviction because they said, look, this is going to destroy our relationship with the demonstrators. We're just going to have four times as many people out here the next day, and they're going to be angry. And we will have undermined any kind of positive working relationship. So there are examples out there of some pretty forward-thinking policing going on, but, of course, that's not going to make headlines.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Norm Stamper, I wanted to ask you: As - you know, are patience and communication, are these lessons being communicated, do you think, or those other more paramilitary lessons, the forceful lessons?</s>NORM STAMPER: Well, I think the more paramilitary message is the one that seems to be prevailing today. As Alex has pointed out, there are those departments - Cincinnati is clearly one - and cities in which the tensions have not been allowed to escalate through what I would just call maturity, self-control, personal discipline and very, very good communication. I think there is a tendency - and I've seen in evolving over the course of the drug war, for example, and think about that language. You don't fight a war without propaganda. The people on the receiving end of that law enforcement campaign against illicit drug use, for example, and sales has helped to create a mentality that is very unhealthy for the country, very unhealthy for the community-police relationship.</s>NORM STAMPER: And actually, it helps to compromise public health and safety. Add to the mix the intensification of Homeland Security efforts that, as Alex has accurately pointed out, has led to the creation of SWAT units - used principally for drug raids these days - all the way across the country, including some of the very smallest departments.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We just have a few seconds left, but what do you think the lessons drawn from the Occupy protest is going to be? Is it going to change tactics again?</s>NORM STAMPER: I hope it does. I hope that there is a conscious policy decision made that chemical agents will not be used - whether it's tear gas or pepper spray - against nonviolent, nonthreatening demonstrators. That is precisely what we did in Seattle, and it was a huge mistake.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Norm Stamper, thanks very much for your time.</s>NORM STAMPER: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Norm Stamper was chief of the Seattle Police Department during the battle in Seattle in 1999. His book is called "Breaking Rank." You could find a link to his piece "Paramilitary Policing from Seattle to Occupy Wall Street" on our website. Go to npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. And, Alex Vitale, thanks very much for your time today, too.</s>ALEX VITALE: You're welcome, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Alex Vitale, an associate professor of sociology at Brooklyn College, author of "City of Disorder," and he joined us from our bureau in New York. Up next: the fallout for relations between United States and Pakistan after the deadliest friendly-fire incident with that country since the war in Afghanistan began. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

A NATO airstrike killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers. Afghan officials claim NATO and Afghan forces were responding to gunfire when NATO helicopters and fighter jets fired on Pakistani Army bases. Pakistani military officials say they are rethinking their relationship with the U.S. Stephen Tankel, assistant professor, American University

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Exactly what happened this past weekend on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains unclear, but at least 24 Pakistani soldiers died after NATO helicopters and fighter jets fired on two army bases. A top Pakistani general called the incident a deliberate act of aggression. In retaliation, Pakistan cut off routes used to supply troops in Afghanistan, ordered the U.S. to abandon a drone base and announced today it will not attend an upcoming meeting on the future of Afghanistan. President Obama expressed condolences. An investigation is under way, but already rocky relations have reached a new low.</s>If you have questions about the options and the way ahead with Pakistan, give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. And you can join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>If you have questions about the options and the way ahead with Pakistan, give us a call: Stephen Tankel joins us here in Studio 3A. He's an assistant professor at American University in Washington and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment in the South Asia program. Nice to have you with us.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Thank you very much for having me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Pakistan says this was an unprovoked attack. Afghan and U.S. troops say they were taking fire from these two locations and called in air support. Do we know a lot more than that?</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Right now, we're still trying to sort out all of the details, and it will probably be some time before we're able to. What we do know historically is that there have been firings from the Pakistani side of the border into Afghanistan. Pakistanis claim vice versa. There's been sort of a cold border war going on for some time. So it's not out of the realm of possibility at all that there was firing from the Pakistani side into Afghanistan.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: And I think it's also important to remember that when we're talking about the Durand Line, the border that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan, there are points along that border where it's very difficult to know which country you're in, which further complicates all of these measures.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Nevertheless, an investigation underway. It's hard to believe that any investigation that finds, well, it was just a terrible case of misunderstanding, we're so sorry, that it's going to cut much ice with the Pakistanis.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: No. I mean - and you're absolutely right. At this point, you know, especially with some of the rhetoric that has been, you know, on display in Pakistan - understandable to a degree - but some of that rhetoric has been quite cutting, saying that this is an unprovoked attack, in particular. It's going to be very difficult to walk back off of that, whatever the proof may show.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: And what I think is particularly important to note is that that creates a ratcheting effect on both sides. This creates space for further anti-Americanism, for hardliners. In Pakistan, you get pressure on the civilian government, and that's how you end up with, you know, the closing of Shamsi airbase, as you mentioned, pulling out of the Bonn conference on Afghanistan, closing of supply lines. That, in turn, opens up space for people in the U.S. who are already rethinking the relationship to push further in that direction, and it makes it all the more difficult to walk it back.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Pakistan, I think, can already be described an ally, yeah, but a very difficult ally.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Yeah. You know, Pakistan is an ally in some regards, and in others is not. And I think it's no secret, you know, that Pakistan and the U.S. have different strategic objectives, particularly when it comes to Afghanistan. The relationship was already under serious strain. When you get an incident like this, if you have a strong relationship, it's much easier to bounce back, you know.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: At this point, things had deteriorated to the degree that it makes it much more difficult to walk things back, you know. And this does come at a time, I think, that it's important to note, military-to-military relations between U.S. and Pakistan just beginning to stabilize, you know, after the Raymond Davis affair and then the Osama bin Laden raid, you know, to kill Osama bin Laden in May. Intelligence-to-intelligence relationship also just beginning to stabilize, and then this happens. So, a very serious setback.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The Raymond Davis - people will remember the raid to get Osama bin Laden...</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...but the Raymond Davis affair was a CIA contractor who...</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...opened fire on two people he said were about to assault him on the street, killed them and then, well, finally, was bought back...</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...by some blood money in - a terrible incident avoided there. But this – as Senator Durbin said on TV over the weekend, imagine if 24 Americans had been killed by Pakistani soldiers. What would the reaction be here?</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: I mean, and there's no question that there - that this is a tragedy and that many Pakistani - the Pakistanis are right to be angry over this. To put things in context, many people in the U.S. are angry about the fact that what they see as militant groups supported by Pakistan are killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. And that's part of what makes things so difficult is that both sides are predisposed to blame one another. And I should add, I was in Pakistan over this summer for about a month doing research on some of the militant groups that are attacking the Pakistani state.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: And what I heard again and again from interlocutors inside and outside the security establishment is that some of these groups, they believe, are acting as proxies for either India or the U.S. So there's a predisposition to see some of the attacks in Pakistan as already stemming from, you know, groups backed by the U.S. These are conspiracy theories, of course, but many people believe them. And so then when you get a direct incident, such as this one, where NATO forces kill Pakistani soldiers, it just - it endorses that narrative of war between the two countries.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we could get some callers in on the conversation. 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. Paul is with us from Hailey, Idaho.</s>PAUL: Hi, guys. I'm just wondering. The communications is a snafu. There's - you've got so many agent provocateurs and so many insiders and so many groups. How does anyone to make any sense of this at all?</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: I - well, I mean, and that's one of the big challenges that people have had with Pakistan for sometime is that we're talking about wheels within wheels. Added to this now is the fog of war that we get, you know, within conflict. So, A, it's trying to separate out what Pakistani officials are saying publicly from what they might be saying privately to their U.S. counterparts and vice versa. And then, you know, as you pointed out, trying to unpack what has actually happened along the Durand Line.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: You know, when were communications issued? Was firing taking place? How long was there between when U.S. military forces notified Pakistani counterparts to when they returned fire? These are questions that are going to be unpacked over time. Unfortunately, you know, Neal, to your point earlier, by the time we actually have an answer, you know, much of the damage to the relationship has already been done.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: One of the questions the Pakistanis said is if you were taking fire from these bases, where are the casualties? Do we know if anybody was injured?</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: We don't know of anybody who's injured, but that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, casualties doesn't necessarily mean, you know, that there was or was not firing. It was possible that you could have had firing but without casualties. And certainly, you know, from the reports that I've gotten and people I've spoken to in Pakistan, it seems that the Pakistanis have said, yes, they did.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: You know, what they say is they returned fire from those bases in terms of, you know, launching anti-aircraft munitions against the helicopters once the bases were receiving fire. And this, as you can imagine, very quickly escalates into a situation in which one side thinks the other side is attacking it.</s>PAUL: And to your knowledge, how important is the communication between NATO and the U.S. at this point when so much is already so fractured?</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Well, I mean, the communication between NATO and U.S. and Pakistan is incredibly important, and, you know, they've been working on improving those communications over time. This isn't the first time, unfortunately, that there has been a cross-border raid that has resulted in Pakistani casualties. This is only, you know, the most significant, you know, number of dead.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. There were two Pakistanis killed, what, a couple of years ago.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Yeah. And at that point, in September of 2010, again, there was an investigation. There was finally a formal apology issued. And it was at that point that the cross - that the supply lines were reopened.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Paul, thanks very much for the call.</s>PAUL: Thank you so much.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Thanks, Paul.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to - this is Chad. Chad, with us from Huntington in West Virginia.</s>CHAD: Yes. My question is as far as keeping Pakistan in line with being our ally and also to check this kind of rockiness that the U.S. has had with them, why hasn't the U.S. proceeded any kind of formal negotiations with India, to become allies with India to kind of check Pakistan similar to what President Obama did with China with increasing troops in Australia?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In fact, there was a recent agreement signed with India and Pakistan in Kabul.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Yes. And to - Chad, to your question about U.S.-India relations, I mean, U.S. and India are pursuing, you know, bilateral relations along a host of issues, including trade as well as, you know, discussions about counterterrorism. Of course, any policies that the U.S. pursues with India inevitably has impact in Pakistan and creates, you know, fears of encirclement or that the U.S. and India are ganging up on Pakistan and can have negative impacts in terms of making Pakistan all the more recalcitrant.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: You know, I would also add that I speak with a number of my Indian colleagues about this and, you know, they are not always so keen about the idea of forming a, quote, "alliance" with the U.S. against Pakistan, I mean, you know, to the degree that India wants that, I think, is very much in question, you know? So it's - unfortunately, while that may be an appealing solution, you know, the truth is that, ultimately, the U.S. and Pakistan are going to need to continue to find some way to work together bilaterally as well.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Chad, thank you.</s>CHAD: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Email from Al in Tennessee: I was deployed near the border to stop trucks of personnel coming across the border into Afghanistan. We were, at times, pinned down by sniper fire from the Pakistan border, including several dead. We were not allowed to return fire. And I think those are the rules of engagement.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Yes. First, thank you very much for your service. And this is something that I've heard from colleagues of mine who served in the armed forces over in Afghanistan, and it's something that I think a lot of us are familiar with when we follow these issues is that, you know, quite often, U.S., NATO, Afghan forces on the Afghan side of the border are engaged and can't return fire. There's also question of hot pursuit. The raid in 2010 was an issue of pursuit where NATO helicopters were pursuing militants from Afghanistan. They crossed back into Pakistan, and that's when you got those several Pakistani soldiers who were killed.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: But that's been, you know, that is the exception to the rule, and that's quite frustrating, obviously, for our servicemen and women, you know, who sometimes are not able to engage across the border. And, you know, that is one of the most frustrating aspects of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is the fact that safe havens do still exist on the Pakistan side of the border.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Stephen Tankel, an assistant professor at American University, non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment in the South Asia program, author of "Storming the World Stage: The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba." You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let me ask you about one other factor, which gets a lot of attention in Pakistan, not a lot here: Memogate. This is the memo supposedly from the ambassador here in Washington, D.C., the Pakistani ambassador, asking for American help because the military in Pakistan is about to stage a coup.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Yeah. This came on the heels of the - or allegedly came on the heels of the raid to kill Osama bin Laden in May. The story goes that the civilian government was so concerned that the military would step in to stage a coup, to take over following that raid, not least because the raid was very embarrassing for the Pakistan military that the civilian government or elements within it looked to the U.S. to step in and in exchange promised to cut ties with the Haqqani Network, which is the most feared insurgent force in Afghanistan and is believed to enjoy passive, if not active, support from elements of Pakistani army and ISI.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Certainly what Admiral Mullen said.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Right. Certainly what Admiral Mullen said as well as other militant groups and the Afghan Taliban. And, you know, the U.S. didn't, it appears, I think, you know, smartly so pay much attention to this, you know, in that it didn't act on it, but it was enough to lead to Ambassador Husain Haqqani's resignation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: No relation Haqqani.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: No relation to the Haqqani Network. You know, which that, in and of itself, you know, speaks to, I think, also the troubled relationship between the civilian government and the military in Pakistan, you know, which is another historic issue with Pakistan is that the military has primarily taken charge when it comes to foreign policy and national security. They were able to force Haqqani's ouster before an investigation had even taken place. He is seen as somebody who was critical of the military for a long time.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Stephen Tankel, thank you very much for your time today.</s>STEPHEN TANKEL: Thank you, sir.

Former Michigan Rep. John Dingell died Thursday at 92. Among his many amazing achievements, the late congressman had a rapier wit on Twitter.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: When Michigan Congressman John Dingell came to Congress, Dwight Eisenhower was president.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: When he left, Barack Obama, America's first African-American president, was in his second term.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: The Michigan congressman who died yesterday served a remarkable 59 years, making him the longest-serving congressman in history.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Not quite as monumental but arguably more enduring was Dingell's embrace and mastery of Twitter. The social media platform kept Dingell relevant and showed off his rapier wit to all generations.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: For example, replying to Aaron M. Sanchez's tweet asking people to, quote, "name one thing from your childhood someone younger wouldn't understand," Dingell replied with three words - the Great Depression.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: When People magazine tweeted that David Beckham was 2015's Sexiest Man Alive, Dingell shot back, snubbed for the 89th straight year; I'm feeling good about 90, though.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: At a 2015 fundraiser, Dingell, who was known as the House dean, was given a silk sash that read dean of Twitter and asked to read some of his greatest hits.</s>JOHN DINGELL: Wife is working late tonight, might eat ice cream for dinner - YOLO.</s>JOHN DINGELL: For those who need it - you only live once.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: You only live once.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: In 140 characters, Dingell could be cutting and direct with his words in a way that is unique for politicians of any age. Following a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, Dingell wrote this.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: I signed up to fight Nazis 73 years ago, and I'll do it again if I have to. That tweet has more than 700,000 likes.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: But it was President Trump who Dingell effectively and repeatedly skewered on the president's own favorite means of communication. There was this tweet from December 2017...</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: I fully support @realDonaldTrump's interest in space travel to Mars, and I wish him the absolute best in his travels.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ...Or this bit of Twitter jujitsu when the president tweeted, I rarely use a cellphone, and when I do, it's government-authorized; I like hard lines. Well, Dingell shot back.</s>JOHN DINGELL: You tweet this from your landline?</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: As news of his death became known, Twitter expressed its collective dismay, re-shared favorite posts from John Dingell and said goodbye.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: GOP commentator Rick Wilson posted RIP John Dingell, a man who proved you're never too old to kick ass on the Twitter machine.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Like and retweet.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., who enthusiastically shouted "Yes!" when President Trump raised the prospect of national paid leave in his State of the Union address.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: If you were listening closely to the State of the Union last night, you might have leaned in at an unexpected whoop when the president arrived at this line.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I am also proud to be the first president to include in my budget a plan for nationwide paid family leave so that every new parent has the chance to bond with their newborn child.</s>ANN WAGNER: (Screaming) Yes.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: That hollered, yes, came from Congresswoman Ann Wagner, Missouri Republican. She and Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio have been pushing for a paid leave law.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: We are following up on lots of threads from the State of the Union throughout this hour, but we thought we'd start here, with one of the few issues that maybe has a bipartisan future.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Congresswoman Wagner, welcome. And if I may start by asking, what came over you there?</s>ANN WAGNER: I have been a proponent of paid family leave for years. I think I gave the same kind of shout when President Obama was also giving his State of the Union.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So that was a bipartisan whoop we heard last night.</s>ANN WAGNER: It most certainly was. And I'm certainly working on a paid family leave bill in a bipartisan fashion. I'm a mom - a mother of three.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: I was going to ask if there's a personal story behind your push for this.</s>ANN WAGNER: Sure. And - mother, a grandmother and someone who has employed new moms and dads. And having a baby is both a time of, obviously, great joy and, oftentimes, anxiety, too. So babies change their parents' lives for the better, but they also introduce some serious new challenges and costs. And along with rent and groceries and medical bills, diapers, countless baby supplies, sleepless nights - you could go on and on and on.</s>ANN WAGNER: And the last thing a new mom should ever have to worry about is whether she is going to lose her job or miss a paycheck because she's chosen to have a child and start a family.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So let's get into the details. Your plan, in a nutshell, would allow people to postpone Social Security benefits, retire a few months later down the road, in order to use that money to take parental leave now. Is that right?</s>ANN WAGNER: That's correct. We have a plan here that would allow young moms and dads to take kind of an advance on their Social Security benefits to help them during this difficult transition. At their retirement - again, it's totally voluntary if you want to do it this way - the worker who chose to take this option for a paid family leave will repay any parental benefits received through either, one, a temporary benefit reduction upon retirement, or a delay in their retirement to offset the costs.</s>ANN WAGNER: Because what's so important, Mary Louise, is that we do not affect the future solvency of the Social Security trust fund. And we're making sure that we do not affect any senior who's currently benefiting...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: OK.</s>ANN WAGNER: ...From Social Security.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Nonetheless, a lot of Democrats say this is the wrong way to go. I'll put to you a point that Senator Tammy Duckworth made to me when I was interviewing her last year. And she said, why should I have to rob from my retirement in order to take care of my children now?</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: I mean, to her point, and to the point you've made, other countries manage both to provide paid leave and leave retirement intact. Why is that not possible here?</s>ANN WAGNER: Well, we are running such a high deficit at this point, and our national debt is over $21 trillion. It's my feeling, from a conservative standpoint, that we really can't fix this problem or address it through new taxes or mandates.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Do you have Democratic co-sponsors for your plan?</s>ANN WAGNER: We do have Democrat support for our plan.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Officially co-sponsoring, or saying they would vote for it?</s>ANN WAGNER: Well, we haven't dropped the piece of legislation yet, but we have a number of folks that are working on it. And Ivanka Trump and others at the White House are very, very interested in how we pulled this together. Senator Joni Ernst, Senator Lee - there are a number of Republicans and Democrats. I think we can find real common ground, I hope, on this.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Missouri Republican Ann Wagner. Congresswoman, thanks so much for your time.</s>ANN WAGNER: Thank you, Mary Louise, very much for shining a light on, I think, this very important issue that I hope will bring us all together.

TLC's new reality show, All-American Muslim follows five Muslim-American families. It aims to dispel misconceptions and stereotypes about the religion. In a recent piece in The Guardian, Wajahat Ali writes that TLC's portrayal is a "welcome relief from the usual tawdry caricatures of Muslims." Read Wajahat Ali's piece, "The Reality of the 'All-American Muslim' Reality TV Show"

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ten years after 9/11, a new reality TV show, called "All-American Muslim," tackles stereotypes by following five families in Dearborn, Michigan. They focus on a cop, an expectant mother, a bride, an entrepreneur and a football coach.</s>FOUAD ZABAN: The most important things in my life, after Islam, are my family - and coaching football at Fordson High School.</s>FOUAD ZABAN: UNIDENTIFIED TEEN #1: Our school, we're 95 percent Muslim.</s>FOUAD ZABAN: UNIDENTIFIED TEEN #2: When we play teams away from Dearborn, they start calling us names.</s>FOUAD ZABAN: UNIDENTIFIED TEEN #3: You f-in(ph) Arabs, terrorists.</s>FOUAD ZABAN: UNIDENTIFIED TEEN #4: You're the A-rabs, camel jockeys.</s>FOUAD ZABAN: UNIDENTIFIED TEEN #3: And that just makes us believe 100 percent harder.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Fouad Zaban is the head coach of the Fordson High School football team in Dearborn. The families on the show share the same religion and national origin, but lead different lives. We'd like to hear from Muslim Americans. If you've seen the show, does "All-American Muslim" reflect your experience? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org; click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Wajahat Ali joins us now from a studio in Berkeley, California. He's a playwright, a lawyer and a commentator who wrote a piece on the show earlier this month, for The Guardian. And it's nice to have you back.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: How's it going? Thanks for having me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good. What did you make of the program?</s>WAJAHAT ALI: I think it's refreshingly bland. It's honest, it's real, it's human. And it's nice to see a show where Muslims aren't terrorists, taxi cab drivers or potential terrorists, you know? They're just people.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Refreshingly bland - it's not exactly "Jersey Shore," is it?</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Thankfully no, but I do believe, you know, the fact that Muslims have their own reality TV show means, you know, the Muslim agenda is successful. We're taking over America, right? Last year, we put a tiara on the head of Miss USA, Rima Fakih. Yesterday, a Pakistani man bought the Jacksonville Jaguars, and now our own reality TV show.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: So, next year, maybe peanut butter and jelly will be replaced by falafel and hummus. But for now, we have our own Shadia, the tattooed, redneck, Arab-American country music aficionado, who's married to an Irish dude. Maybe she'll emerge as the Muslim-American Snooki, and we've officially made it in pop culture America.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yet, clearly, some of the subjects discussed are sex, premarital and post. There are all kinds of discussions about conservative dress - the hijab or not; all kinds of questions about whether it's appropriate for, as you mentioned, the Irish dude to convert to Islam, and what it means to do so.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Yeah. I mean, it's - you know, it's basically life. It's life of Americans who happen to be Muslims, who happen to be Arab; you know, navigating both their day-to-day life, their relationships and also, how they live and coincide with their religion - which is, you know, not so sensational or unique, if you think about it. If you just step aside for a moment and look at that - look at this, you know, it's oh, it's just a bunch of Americans who are living their lives.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: And I think why it's so fascinating for so many people is because number one, 62 percent of Americans say they don't know a Muslim, according to last year's Time magazine poll. And secondly, what we've learned is, most Americans say they have a negative perception of Islam and Muslims based on what they see on the media.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: So what you do see is, you know, a terrorist stereotype. What you don't see is, you know, an educated, intelligent American-born Muslim woman who voluntarily chooses to wear the hijab. And even though she wears the hijab, she's opinionated, she works, she practices her Islam and, you know, she talks back to her husband.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: And to all Muslim- American families, this is very normal. But to most American viewers, who have been force-fed an image of Osama bin Laden as the representative of 1.5 billion people, this is very eye-opening. And I think for that reason alone, you know, to give a fresh, unique perspective into the lives of five families who are American Muslim and Arab, this is very insightful and unique.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The first episode of the season is called "How to Marry a Muslim." Shadia, a member of the Amen - Amen family, wants to marry the non-Muslim man named Jeff, a Roman Catholic. This is something her father and her brother struggle with.</s>BILAL AMEN: So you're feeling that if he doesn't convert - or what?</s>BILAL AMEN: My daughter is born Muslim. If he wants marriage with my blessing, to marry a Muslim you have to convert.</s>BILAL AMEN: His family is Irish Catholic. What if they have a problem with it? You're not going to like it.</s>BILAL AMEN: I've been - I'm not his family. That's something he has to deal with.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And this relationship and its evolution is a theme through, I guess, the first three episodes that we've seen.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Yeah. It's a very engaging storyline. And I think - you know, I went to an all-boys Catholic high school. And I can tell you that, you know, if this was to happen, you know, in my own - my - Catholic family, my friends who are Catholic, you know, if their daughter - if their - someone wants to marry a Muslim, this would be a topic of discussion. This would be a serious discussion. And I think this is - the show tackles it in a very honest way. These are just people living their lives.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: And the five families that are in the show are, you know, it's a nice, diverse - if you will - cross-section of people in America. And I think the show kind of tackles the sensitive issue without sensationalism. And I give credit to TLC for not taking the "Jersey Shore" route. And, you know, what we see here are just human people, you know, human beings with their human emotions - very real, very honest - you know, tackling the sensitive issue of, you know, here their daughter is Arab-American and Muslim, and she's marrying a man who's Irish Catholic.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: And the brother is saying listen, is he converting for the right reasons? And for him, the right reason is, you know, for the faith. For Shadia, the daughter, she's like, well, I love him, and this is important to me. And he says he's converting for me, and that's enough. And this is a discussion that takes place throughout the show.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And neither of them, by the way, tremendously observant on either side.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Yeah. No. She - neither of them - well, she calls herself the rebel of the family, not too observant. But it's a strong part of her identity. And her husband, the Irish-American man, you know, he's a really likable character, and you kind of give him credit for trying to fast during Ramadan. There's - I think in the second episode, the guy tries to fast and it just wipes him out. And he's like, listen, I can't do this. And I thought that was very honest.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's get a caller in on the conversation. We're talking with Wajahat Ali, a playwright, attorney and commentator who wrote "The Reality of the 'All-American Muslim' Reality TV Show," which appeared this month in The Guardian, the British newspaper. And we'll start with Susan(ph). Susan, with us from Manchester in Michigan.</s>SUSAN: Hi. My comment on the show is, as an American Muslim, this is a show about Lebanese Muslims in Dearborn. I'm an American convert to Islam. And when I go to the masjid or the mosque in my area in Ann Arbor, I don't see this as a cross-section of Muslims. I see this as a very small proportion of Muslims. Arab-American Muslims are only 10 percent - or Arabs as Muslims are 10 percent. There are no African-American Muslims in this show, or Muslims from other countries. And I don't see their stories as very relevant to what I see as Muslim Americans in other areas.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Wajahat Ali, that's one of the things you raised in your piece.</s>SUSAN: And I think it's also...</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Right. I mean, the criticism with the community is basically that, you know, when you're a marginalized group such as Muslim Americans, you don't have your voice out there. You want to use your one, rare opportunity in the mainstream media to tell all the stories, right, to show all the representations. But it's never going to happen that way. These are just five families. Yes, they happen to be Lebanese Shia and from Dearborn Michigan...</s>SUSAN: I know. But to say that they're all-American Muslims and have - for many people to say this is a representation of Islam - I think it's misleading. A lot of people ask me in public, is this how you guys are? I say, well, not really. This is mostly just Lebanese Muslims in Dearborn. And a lot of people think this is what all Muslims are like, or this is representation of American Muslims when truly, we're so diverse. You know, to see a family that's African-American or Indian or Pakistani or like us, white Americans in a small town, would be much more ...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Susan, can you appreciate the difficulties of the producers who were trying to get in one, small area and focus on five families, pretty much who know each other and are grouped around a single - you can do a Muslim representation; it's hard to do the Muslim representation.</s>SUSAN: I know. I just think it's so narrow. And honestly, the very small proportion of Muslims and taking all of them in that group that it was almost like - I don't know, in a way, I think it might have been exploitive of what they wanted to show - showing things that I would never see in my community, like situations with people running nightclubs and stuff.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Right.</s>SUSAN: Yeah.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, one of the women in the - I forget her name - but wants to open a nightclub, and dresses provocatively for an American Muslim. And that becomes another issue in the show. Just - explaining it, Wajahat Ali.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Basically look, it's just - it's five families, it's five stories, right? And soon, more avenues will open up to tell other stories reflecting a tremendous diversity of the, you know, the human experience, the human Muslim-American experience. But shows like this help make that reality possible. They give it, you know, a small window. And what happens with our community, specifically, when it comes to - when - most, you know, ethnic communities or immigrant communities or marginalized communities, you know, we want avatars of perfection.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: So we're like, how can they show that lady open up a nightclub? You know, that's not what a (foreign language spoken) Muslim woman does. Well, Muslims do all sorts of stuff. You know, she opens up a nightclub, and you won't. So when it's time to tell your story, you know...</s>SUSAN: I'm not saying that diverse Muslim opinions are important. I just think it's not very representative of - in general, of the modern-day Muslim society in America...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK.</s>SUSAN: ...meaning the All-American Muslim thing. I would definitely look at it as the Lebanese-Arab Muslim show.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right, the title being a problem. Thanks, Susan, very much for the phone call. Let's see if we could go next, and this is Abdul Hakim(ph), calling us from Ann Arbor.</s>ABDUL HAKIM: Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. And I have to agree with Susan in her analysis of that show. What is - the brother from California is forgetting that Islam is not a religion that you could divide and pick and choose. Islam is a way of life. So if you are a Muslim, you're not going to open a nightclub. You cannot call yourself a Muslim, and still sell alcohol and dress provoc - not in a Muslim dress.</s>ABDUL HAKIM: Islam is a way of life, and if we need to represent Islam in America, it has to be the (technical difficulty) is the 75 percent of the Islam what Islam is all about. It's not about the Lebanese Muslim who chooses the way they dress or chooses to drink alcohol (technical difficulty) chooses to dress any way they want. Islam has a dress code. Islam has - this is what all Muslims agree on. The fundamental of Islam is (technical difficulty) very specific.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Abdul Hakim, your phone line is betraying you, but I think we get your point. And we'll get a response from Wajahat Ali.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: What's so funny is that within the show itself, there's comments reflecting his position, right? There are several members of this lady's family and community that say, you know, how can you, as a Muslim-American woman, open up a nightclub? And you know, it's reflective of life, right? And what I was saying is look, when it comes to Muslim-American representation, a lot of people from our communities want all of our representations to be avatars of perfection, right? And number two, they say never air our dirty laundry. That's the immigrant code. Every ethnic community in America knows that, right?</s>WAJAHAT ALI: So anytime you get a shot at mainstream TV or mainstream movies, always show the best representation of us. So - and that's a representation, by the way, Neal, that I can say that has never existed nor ever will exist. There's no such thing as the quote- unquote, perfect Muslim. You know, human beings are flawed. And what the show does, I think, is it shows a cross-section of personalities who claim to be Muslim.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: So you have this lady who, you know, is opening up a nightclub. There is dissention within the community, which is showed - which is reflected on the show, and then you also have, you know, very, quote-unquote, traditional practicing Muslim women who voluntarily choose to wear the hijab, who take issue with her decision to open up the nightclub. So you get a nice gamut, a good representation of personalities within the community - as we can clearly see even in this engaging, lively, back and forth with the callers.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: With the callers, yes. Wajahat Ali is with us. We're talking about TLC's reality show "All-American Muslim." You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. And let's go next to Maggie(ph), a caller from Dearborn.</s>MAGGIE: Hi, Neal. Thank you so much for taking my call. I teach political science at Henry Ford Community College, in the heart of Dearborn, and the majority of the students in my classes are of Muslim background. And what I've been hearing from them is they are concerned about - again - the lack of diversity shown. They feel that the show has sort of chosen very westernized Muslims, as opposed to more conservative ones that they feel are reflective of the community.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: American Muslims.</s>MAGGIE: Yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yes. Well, again, Wajahat Ali, the depiction is what it is.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Yeah, it's - that's why I keep saying that it's almost a thankless role for anyone to depict Muslims in the mainstream right now. You can't please people within the communities themselves who, I think, want an unrealistic portrayal of - what I call the avatar of perfection. Or, they need to see their representation, right? So they say like, listen, if that Muslim-American character does not represent me, it ceases being authentic and valid. And I think the - what we have to do instead is say, listen, that is just one story, or some stories, of people who claim to be American Muslim, and I have to respect that space and let them be.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: And, you know, these types of shows, they will allow, hopefully, more avenues for more stories reflecting the diversity of experience to be exposed to the mainstream. And I think, you know, people are just getting a little bit fed up - which makes sense, because there's such a lack of representation. But it's a process, and I think we should kind of respect the fact that TLC took a gamble on this, especially in the fact that they have had such increasing wave of antagonism by what I call the Islamophobia Network.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: And allegedly, Neal - I don't know if you know this - but some advertisers have pulled ads and caved in to, you know, bigotry. I have heard that Home Depot, Sweet'N Low and Wal-Mart have pulled ads based on the negative feedback they've gotten from professional hatemongers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: According to a company spokesperson, Home Depot bought commercial time on the TLC network, but not for any specific program. A Home Depot commercial did air during an episode of "All-American Muslim," but Home Depot was not a sponsor and did not have any advertising scheduled for future episodes. The other companies Ali mentioned did not respond to NPR's requests for comment.]</s>WAJAHAT ALI: So, I mean, there's tremendous backlash, and we're living in a very volatile time. But I think the show does do something very positive here by at least giving five narratives of five families who claim to be American Muslim and Arab. And it isn't perfect, and isn't representative of the tremendous diversity - both ethnic, religious, cultural and socioeconomic diversity - of Muslim Americans, but it is a positive start.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We don't - Maggie, thanks very much for the phone call. We don't know about the - whether that's accurate about those places pulling their ads, but we'll check on it and get back to you in our next Letters column to see if that's, indeed, what's happened. If so - well, we'll find out what happened. And are you - this is a one-shot series. Are you looking forward to another one?</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Yeah, definitely. I mean, maybe in season two, what they can do, if this is the format they've chosen - right, being so specific - instead of just targeting Lebanese Shia family, you know, it'd be really nice to see, for season two, you know, to focus on the Afghan-American community in Fremont, California. Or season three, go on - the African-American community in the East Coast, right? Just do different cross-sections like that. And mainly, you know, keep it honest. Keep it real, keep it human. Make the characters engaging and honest, and don't traffic in stereotypes and sensationalism. And I think in this day and age, it's a positive start.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Wajahat Ali, thanks very much for your time.</s>WAJAHAT ALI: Thanks so much for inviting me. I appreciate it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Wajahat Ali, a playwright, lawyer and commentator, lead writer of the report "Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America." That's produced with the Center for American Progress.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You can find a link to his Guardian piece, "The Reality of the 'All-American Muslim' Reality TV Show," at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. The show itself airs Sundays on TLC at 10 p.m., 9 Central. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on previous show topics including the teachers we have always wanted to thank, and the people listeners missed at their Thanksgiving dinner tables in 2011.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's Tuesday and time to read from your comments. On Thanksgiving, we talked to Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps, about the National Day of Listening, which focused this year on teachers. Kavon Hasari(ph) wrote, I came to the United States at age 12 from Puerto Rico. The rigor and criticism of several English teachers and the French teacher in Miami made me want to become a better writer. Now I make a living writing in English and French.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's a TALK OF THE NATION tradition to remember the family and friends not able to join us on Thanksgiving Day. This year, we received an email from Ron Barber in Tucson, who wrote, I was one of the people shot on January 8 as I stood beside the congresswoman, Gabby Giffords. I want to remember the six good people who were killed that day. And even as my family gives thanks for my life, today, we will pray for the families who lost loved ones. We're also very thankful for our community that came together in compassion, love and prayer to support us.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Sandra Emerson emailed, my grandmother used to always make the dressing. Every year, she would take a bite of it and say this is the worst dressing I ever tasted, and we would all say how good it was. The first Thanksgiving after she died, we were at a loss because her yearly notation of the dressing was missing.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Finally, in our discussion yesterday with time.com contributor Adam Cohen, I said that Black Friday was so named because it was the day retailers made enough profit to get into the black. We received a tweet from Richard Miller in Portland who said, no, it's called Black Friday because Philly cops hated it. We've done some research and found out he was a lot righter than I was. The moniker originated in reference to the congestion on the day after Thanksgiving in city centers, especially in Philadelphia. Thanks for the correction.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: As always, if you have corrections, comments, or questions for us, the best way to reach us is by email. The address is talk@npr.org. Please let us know where you're writing from, and give us some help on how to pronounce your name. If you're on Twitter, you could follow us there, @totn, or you could follow me, @nealconan - all one word.

At age 37, Julie Yip-Williams was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. She died in March 2018 and documented the final months of her extraordinary life for the new podcast, Julie.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: We're going to start this next story with a letter. It's from a woman named Julie Yip-Williams written to her two young daughters. It's a letter to prepare them all for her death.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: Dear Mia and Isabelle, I have solved all the logistical problems resulting from my death that I can think of. I have left a list of instructions about who your dentist is and the identity of the piano tuner. But I realized that these things are the low-hanging fruit. You will forever be the kids whose mother died of cancer. As your mother, I wish I could protect you from that pain. But also as your mother, I want you to feel the pain, embrace it and then learn from it.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Yip-Williams wrote and recorded that letter after being diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at age 37. She had already lived an extraordinary life. Yip-Williams was born blind in a small village in Vietnam. Her family immigrated to California, where she received surgery that partially restored her sight. She graduated from Harvard Law School, traveled to all seven continents, got married and started a family. Then came the cancer. When she got the diagnosis, Yip-Williams began writing. Her blog captured her feelings of hope, hopelessness and ultimately acceptance. Yip-Williams died last year. Her memoir, "The Unwinding Of The Miracle," is out this week. And as a companion to the memoir, Julie Yip-Williams invited producer Eleanor Kagan to help her record the final months of her life.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: Do you love our apartment, Mia?</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: Yeah.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: What do you love most about our apartment?</s>MIA: My bedroom (laughter).</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: Your bedroom.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: That's Julie. She's in her early 40s. Her hair is in a cool pixie cut. She's got thick glasses on, comfortable sweat clothes, no shoes. She's giving me a tour of her Brooklyn apartment.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: What is it about your bedroom that you love the most?</s>MIA: It's creative.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: Her daughter Mia is 8 years old.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: She chose the wallpaper, purple and blue butterflies. I think it's a bit garish and ugly, but she loves it (laughter).</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: They show me the bathroom, the kitchen and then Julie's bedroom.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: This this room I designed - planning to die here.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: The wallpaper which is on one wall only - it's an accent wall - it's gold. It was expensive, but I splurged 'cause I said, you know what? If people were going to come visit me as I'm dying, I want to have a nice background (laughter).</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: And six weeks after that apartment tour, Julie Yip-Williams did die of colon cancer. She was 42. But this story isn't about the fact that Julie died. It's about how she prepared for that moment. Towards the end of her life, Julie wanted to document everything - the emotional experience, trips to the hospital for treatment and conversations like this.</s>MARK WARREN: So OK...</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: I was at radiation this morning.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: A few months before she died, Julie was talking to Mark Warren, her friend and book editor.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: My thoughts are going. It's getting stranger, I think. (Laughter) Like, I couldn't watch myself be born, but I can watch myself die. When we're born, you know, we come into this life, and we don't have the consciousness to be aware of the miracle that's occurred. And I feel like I'm watching my body die. And now I feel like I've come to accept the decline. I'm sort of watching it happen as an observer. Like, oh, (laughter) I'm very interested to see how it unfolds. There's this intellectual curiosity about it, but there's also this appreciation and reverence for kind of the unwinding of the miracle. And I'm, like, trying to really embrace that experience and, like, understand it - like, what physically is happening to me. It's kind of nuts.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: Part of that reverence for that unwinding of the miracle was an intense focus on the process of dying, on what was happening to her body as her death got closer. Even here, two weeks before she died, she was still finding new things to be fascinated by.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: Do you know that when you die, when you can't breathe anymore, there's something called air hunger where your lung is starving for air. It's, like, this beautiful term, and that's what my oncologist called it. And I was like, what's it going to feel like? Don't be afraid, but just feel. Feel it. Walk through the experience, and just love it because it's part of your life.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: Sometimes witnessing that unwinding of her life just meant being as present as she could, like at home with her kids.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: The only person who knows how to tune in this house, which is sad.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: What do you want to play?</s>MIA: Well, I...</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: That's 8-year-old Mia on the violin.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: Nobody else should tell your child that you're dying except you. I know my kids better than anybody else. Like, I know how they're going to react to stuff, so I want to be in control.</s>ISABELLE YIP WILLIAMS: Mommy, I'm going to stick a note on you.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: OK.</s>ISABELLE YIP WILLIAMS: And...</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: And maybe that's, like, me being a control freak, you know? But whatever - I'm a control freak.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: The entire time that I'm sitting here asking Julie all these questions about her death, Mia and Isabelle are just, like, in the background, playing, totally unfazed by what we're talking about.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: They don't recall a time when I wasn't sick because when I was diagnosed, Mia was 3, and Belle was not even 2. When I was upset about scans and stuff one time, you know, when she was 4 and I was, like, crying and - you know, on the couch and stuff...</s>ISABELLE YIP WILLIAMS: Mia has a question for you.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: Hold on a second. And Belle said, what's wrong? And I said, mommy's getting sicker and sicker. And then she, like, paused for a second, and then she's like, but you're not gone yet, mommy.</s>MIA: OK, that's it.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: Good.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: This apartment is the largest physical gift I could give them. When I built everything, you know, I thought about the adjustable nature of the shelves, you know, like, as they grow. Like, I lie in their beds at night, you know? And I'll think about all the nights that they'll sleep in this bed, and I'll think about, you know, how I won't be here. But I try to, like, leave my presence. Like, mommy's here, you know? All these choices I made for them - what to hang. It was for them so that they knew that their mother was looking out for them and providing a beautiful place for them to grow up in. So that was my greatest gift - tangible gift.</s>ELEANOR KAGAN, BYLINE: And then there are the gifts that are harder to pin down. Julie wanted to face her death honestly, to not live in denial of it. And with her book, her blog and these recordings, she was showing all of us how to die well and giving us permission to do the same.</s>JULIE YIP-WILLIAMS: (Reading) I have often dreamed that when I die, I will finally know what it would be like to see the world without visual impairment. I long for death to make me whole, to give me what was denied me in this life. When your time comes, I will be there waiting for you so that you, too, will be given what was lost to you. But in the meantime, live, my darling babies. Live a life worth living. I love you both forever and ever - Mommy.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: That was Julie Yip-Williams reading a letter to her daughters. She died last year. And you can hear more of her story on the podcast Julie.

Baseball trailblazer Frank Robinson died Thursday at 83. He was the MLB's first African-American manager. Richard Justice of MLB.com remembers Robinson's remarkable career.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Baseball great Frank Robinson died today at the age of 83. Robinson as a player was amazing. He was the first to win MVP in both leagues.</s>UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: Looks to check Powell (ph) at first - delivers. Fly ball well hit deep left field. It is going to be the 500th home run of the brilliant Major League career. Frank Robinson has done it.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And he wasn't done there. Robinson retired with 586 home runs. In 1982, he was voted into the Hall of Fame. As a manager and baseball executive, Robinson was also a pioneer. In 1975, he was the first African-American manager in Major League history. He won American League Manager of the Year in 1989, and he managed in more than 2,000 games. Joining me to talk about the career and legacy of Frank Robinson is Richard Justice, columnist for mlb.com. Richard, welcome back.</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: Hey, Mary Louise. Thank you for having me.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Hey. Glad to have you with us. I just ticked through some of the highlights of Robinson's long resume. What was he like as a person?</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: Well, first of all, there's no discussion of baseball's greatest players without Frank. There's no discussion of its most important figures without Frank. He could be one of the hardest-nosed people you'll ever meet. When he was a player in Baltimore, six years in Baltimore, four American League pennants. He shaped a lot of what people think of as the smartest, most efficient franchise. One of his teammates, Elrod Hendricks, told me, when you made a mistake on the field, you were afraid to come back to the dugout because you had to face Frank. And that was his legacy.</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: Historically, 1975 - first African-American manager. That happened three years after Jackie Robinson died. And in the same way that Jackie Robinson cleared the way for a generation of players, Frank cleared the way for other minority managers. I have seen him - as a player, he would leave bloody spike marks on a second baseman's back because the pitcher had thrown inside. I have seen him in cancer wards with kids break down and cry and have to leave. That's who Frank was.</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: He had - when he walked into a room, he had these big forearms, big hands. He had a presence about him. He's one of those people - you've met them - that when they walk into a room, they own the room. That was Frank.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: You wrote about him for decades as a baseball writer. What's your favorite Frank Robinson story?</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: (Laughter) Well, my favorite story is the Orioles are 0-18. He had gotten the job - managerial job when they were 0-6. Well, on an off night in Minneapolis, he takes a group of us out to dinner. And it was getting World Series-like coverage that - at that stretch. We said to him, Frank, anything happened since we saw you at the ballpark? And he said, well, President Reagan called. We said, Frank, don't joke about that. He said - well, what did he say? He said, Frank, I understand what you're going through. And Frank said to him, Mr. President, with all due respect, you have no bleeping idea.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And it sounds like he was the kind of guy who could get away with talking like that to a president.</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: Absolutely.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: It is extraordinary your mentioning him just in the moments we have left, both, you know, as a player who left such a mark on the field and then leaving an extraordinary legacy as a manager. Not many athletes get the chance to do both.</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: No. And he understood the importance of it. He understood that day in 1975 when he stood - when he took the lineup card out to home plate in Cleveland that he had changed the world. He was cognizant of that just the way he admired Jackie Robinson for what he did. He understood his place in the game.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Richard Justice, columnist for mlb.com, thank you.</s>RICHARD JUSTICE: Thank you, Mary Louise.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: We've been talking about baseball great Frank Robinson, who died this morning at the age of 83.

There is concern among some that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood could rise to power and push Egypt away from secularism. In an op-ed for The Boston Globe, Emile Nakhleh, former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the CIA, argues those fears are misplaced.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: And now, The Opinion Page. Today, Egyptians began the long process of electing a new parliament. Millions turned out to vote in the first meaningful election in that country's history. There are close to 50 political parties competing, among them several Islamist parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood, which many regard as the best organized and likely to emerge as one of the big winners. Some regard Islamism as incompatible with democracy.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In an op-ed that ran yesterday in The Boston Globe, former CIA intelligence officer Emile Nakhleh disagrees. As we await results in Egypt, can Islamism and democracy coexist? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Emile Nakhleh served as director of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program. He's now a consultant and joins us from his home in Albuquerque. Nice to have you with us today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: DR. EMILE NAKHLEH: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There are many Islamist parties in this election. How do they differ?</s>NAKHLEH: They differ basically in their approach to sharing power with other parties. For the most part, they are not all that much different. There are personality differences. But for the most part, the mainstream parties are similar. The different parties are those Salafis, radical extremists who do not believe in joining forces with other parties. But the mainstream parties are for the most part pretty similar.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So pretty similar along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood?</s>NAKHLEH: Yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And they, of course, were in parliament before but not under that name.</s>NAKHLEH: That's right because in the last two elections, they were not allowed to run as a religious party, so they ran as independent. Before the last two elections, they formed alliances with existing parties, but everybody knew in Egyptian elections - in the last two elections, that those independents really represented the Muslim Brotherhood.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as you look ahead, you think it's conceivable that Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, could form a majority on their own?</s>NAKHLEH: Not on their own. They would have to form a coalition government because the assumption is like Ennahda in Tunisia and the Justice and Development Party in Morocco, which just got a hefty plurality, about 37 percent of the vote, they know that to form a government, they would have to coalesce with other parties, secular parties and mainstream parties. So they cannot form a party on their own, unless, of course, they receive a majority of the vote.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it's going to be some time before we know the results in Egypt, but you point to Tunisia as a possible model.</s>NAKHLEH: Yes. And the Ennahda, which was banned in Tunisia for all these years, they ended up receiving about 40, 41 percent of the vote. And then, the head of Ennahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, has already indicated that he would have to form a coalition government with other parties in the country, and basically, the other party is a secular party.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And are there Salafist parties in Tunisia, and if there are, do they regard this agreement to form a coalition as a sellout?</s>NAKHLEH: As a sellout? No. The radicals don't accept, in any case, the so-called manmade democracy. So we are talking about mainstream Islamic parties. So Ennahda then was elected as a mainstream Islamic party and knowing full well that they would have to form a coalition government with a secular party and other parties in Tunisia.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In your op-ed, you point out that Islamist parties have been parts of governments in Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Turkey and elsewhere that have not threatened their countries' security and stability. On the contrary, you wrote they have been credible and legitimate defenders of good government and the rule of law and strong proponents of tolerance and pluralism.</s>NAKHLEH: Yeah.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Can you tell us how more - how this has played out, for example, in Turkey, where the government in power for, well, quite some years now has been an Islamist party?</s>NAKHLEH: Yes. And they have emerged - it's very interesting in Turkey. They have emerged as the guardians of Turkish secularism and as guardians of the Turkish state. Of course, they have some bad record with the Kurds, but that precedes their time in government, the violation of Kurdish human rights. And the AKP party in Turkey is now working in order to put an end to those types of discriminations against the Turks. But in Turkey, in Malaysia, in Indonesia, these Islamic parties have been part of the system and have really worked hard to protect those states. And they also know that they have to provide for their constituencies on bread and butter issues. And if they don't, they are not going to be re-elected or they are not going to get pluralities as they have gotten in previous elections.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: But as you say, the record of the government in Turkey regarding the Kurds raises a lot of questions that people worry about in Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa about minority rights.</s>NAKHLEH: Yes. Well, they would have to be committed to minority rights. That's why AKP in Turkey is kind of working, trying to settle this issue because this issue, unfortunately, against the Kurds way, way preceded them, before even AKP or before the - its predecessor, Refah Party, came to power in Turkey in the early '90s. So this is an issue that is a Turkish issue beyond any one particular party.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And...</s>NAKHLEH: But I argued that, in the long run, these parties, if they want to remain viable political actors in their societies, they've got to be committed to pluralism and human rights, including women's rights and minority rights.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there are some who worry about the application of Shariah law, if that becomes the basis of the legal system in the new Egypt. Yet, of course, their justice, there are many interpretations of Islam. There are many interpretations of Shariah.</s>NAKHLEH: Well, exactly. This is a very good point you just made. That people need to keep in mind the diversity of narratives and ideological interpretations even within in Islam, even within the Muslim Brotherhood when you consider the generational divide between the older leaders and the rising youthful party, which is now contesting the election. And so they would have to be, of course, considerate of other minorities and other groups in those countries.</s>NAKHLEH: The argument I have made is that not one party, whether in Turkey or Malaysia or Indonesia or Morocco, and also in Egypt, has called for the establishment of Shariah as the basis of legislation in those societies.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we'll get to calls in just a moment. But the example - another example that people point to is the example of Algeria...</s>NAKHLEH: Yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...some years ago, where there were concerns by the secular military government there that if there was the election of an Islamic government that there would only be one election, that that would be the last measure of democracy. Of course, they quashed that election, and many bloody years of civil war followed.</s>NAKHLEH: Right. And that was - in my view, that's a separate story and unfortunate event because since the early '90s, since the Algerian case in '91, '92, that we have seen many of these parties has the passed the litmus test of one man, one vote, one time. That these parties have run through several elections, whether in Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, and have lost some and won some. So the - that test of one man, one vote, one time is really - the argument has become passe, really.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's get some callers in on the conversation. Our guest is Emile Nakhleh, who - former founder and former director of the Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program at the Central Intelligence Agency, author of "A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing American's Relations with the Muslim World." We'll begin with Amal(ph), Amal begins us - calls us from Cincinnati.</s>AMAL, CALLER: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I do worry about an Islamic party taking over in Egypt. I am an Egyptian. I am an Egyptian Christian. To be specific, Coptic Egyptian Christian. And the - I do worry that once an Islamic party takes over, there will be no place for the Egyptian Christian Copts in the ruling parties or to - even be nominated to places of power. And also, I worry about women's rights.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Emile Nakhleh, there has, of course, already been some very worrisome violence against the Copts.</s>NAKHLEH: Yes. That is true. And that, in fact, is a worrisome issue. The point that one needs to make, one, is that even if the Muslim Brotherhood, let's say, gets a plurality, 40 percent or 35 percent of the vote, they would have to form a coalition government with other parties, secular parties. And the second point is that if they are not committed to civil rights, human rights, women's rights, minority rights, then they are to be rejected by the new, rising pro-democracy and pro-reform generation in Egypt. That is these Islamic parties can no longer just depend on them being the opposition party to a dictatorial regime. Now, in a multi-party system, they have to be - to uphold those other principles, otherwise they will not be re-elected.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Amal, you were trying to get in there. I'm sorry.</s>CALLER: Yes. I wanted to say that there is a saying in Egypt that says, the religion is for God, but the country is for all. And there is no reason for religion to be within democracy. There is reason for democracy to be open for everyone to express their opinion and to live together, not under laws imposed by one party or another. And the fear is that - the Islamic movement, not only from the Islamic brotherhood, but the Salafeyeen who are extreme Muslims and others. And unless we take religion out of the constitution, Egypt will not be a democracy.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Amal, are you eligible to vote?</s>CALLER: Yes. And this is another important point. I am an expat here and we have had extreme difficulties. I have registered myself and my family to vote, but they would not accept our vote today because they said the votes were closed. We could not mail our votes over the weekend, over Thanksgiving weekend. And now we've banned from voting. And that's another call I want to make, that since the election is already happening, Monday and Tuesday, that they should be accepting our votes today. They've also put stumbling stones, which are that everyone should this national number, whereas many, many - the majority of people outside of Egypt do not have that raqam qawmi or national number. They could have accepted our votes by a passport number, by a birth certificate, Egyptian, anything that proves that. But to have a raqam qawmi you would have to be present, in person at the consulate. And, of course, you know, America is wide, so is the - a lot of the Western world. And you can't always get to a...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm not sure there's a consulate in Cincinnati. Well, thank you very much.</s>CALLER: There is not, there is not a consulate in Cincinnati.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thank you very much for the call. Appreciate it.</s>CALLER: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about democracy and Islamism. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Joshua in South Bend. I believe they can co-exist. I think a lot of Westerners have a distorted view of Islam. In reality, Islam in the Middle East is like Christianity in West. There are more radical portions of Islam rule that may or may not present themselves like Shariah law. But it is just as possible for a new democracy to be build on religious tolerance, even if it largely Islamic. Such a government could allow for free religious beliefs, allow religions of all types to participate in government, keeping the more radical sects of Islam in the balance.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to - this is Brin(ph). Brin with us from Philadelphia.</s>BRIN: Oh, thank you. My wife and I were Peace Corps volunteers in Tunisia in 1980, '81, and we revisited it in 1990. And I was in the agriculture minister - ministry. And a close co-worker of mine spent most of the '80s in jail as an Islamic extremist under Bourguiba, I believe, that continued that kind of jailing under Ben Ali. And I think in many countries, including, unfortunately, in Iran, the Islamic opposition was the only non-corrupt opposition. In Iran, we've seen now an Islamic dictatorship. But in many other countries, as your guest has said, Islamic parties have waxed and waned in popular support and have accepted democratic voting.</s>BRIN: And I would also remind Americans that we have some Christian groups that would like to impose Christian Shariah in our country on all kinds of issues, from the United States' position on abortion, to homosexual equality and other rights. So it's the - we should be very familiar with the play between the conservative religious forces.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Brin, thanks very much for the call. He raised the example of Iran. Of course, Iran is, well, not a Sunni nation, but a Shia nation...</s>NAKHLEH: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...very different political culture.</s>NAKHLEH: Right. Yes, that is true. I mean, the - but one of the important points that the caller made is that under those autocratic regimes, authoritarian regimes, all kinds of oppositionists were in jail. In Tunisia, there were thousands of secular oppositionists were also in jail, plus Islamic oppositionists as well. So the idea is that to - once we get rid of these authoritarian regimes, there will be a period of instability, if you will, as they transition to democracy. But the elections, whether Indonesia or in Egypt or in Morocco or, hopefully in the future, in Iran, would be a good first step. But it doesn't mean that it is the only step or the most perfect step. But it's a step along the way towards normalization and normalcy, if you will, in a post-autocratic regime.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And...</s>NAKHLEH: In Iran, of course, they had the opposition movement in June 2009, after the elections were perceived to have been stolen. But unfortunately, the regime has struck the opposition very severely and...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Emile, not - I'm afraid we're going to have to end it there. But we thank you very much for your time today. First word from the State Department, by the way, election is going well in Egypt with few, if any, irregularities and no violence. Emile Nakhleh served as director of the CIA's Political Islam Strategic Analysis Program. He joined us from his home in Albuquerque.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Tomorrow, after Black Friday at Cyber Monday, a roundup for the holiday retail season. Plus, Alan Rickman will join us. I'm Neal Conan, TALK OF THE NATION, NPR News.

John Hinckley Jr. faces a hearing to determine whether or not he can be released from a mental health facility to care for his ailing mother. The case raises questions about the role of the insanity defense and what happens to the criminally insane after they leave the courtroom. Harry Jaffe, reporter, Washingtonian Magazine Dr. Phillip Resnick, forensic psychiatrist Lynda Frost, lawyer and director of planning and programs, Hogg Foundation for Mental Health

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Two cases 30 years apart raise new questions about the criminally insane. Proceedings continue to determine if Jared Loughner is fit to stand trial for the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson nearly a year ago.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And this week, a judge here in Washington considers arguments in the case of John Hinckley, Jr., who continues to live at St. Elizabeth's Hospital almost three decades after he shot and injured President Ronald Reagan and three others. A jury found Hinckley not guilty by reason of insanity. His doctors say he's no longer a threat.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you've been involved in legal insanity cases as a lawyer, judge, juror or prosecutor, what don't we know about this issue? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, as Egypt begins to elect a new parliament, Islamists and democracy on the Opinion page this week. But first, the criminally insane. We begin with Harry Jaffe, who's been writing about the Hinckley case for Washingtonian magazine and joins us here in Studio 3A. Thanks very much for coming in.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Pleased to be here, thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And John Hinckley, Jr. has been released from St. Elizabeth Hospital before for visits, even extended visits, with his mother. What's different this time?</s>HARRY JAFFE: Well, he actually has been freed with a lot of oversight and supervision about a third of the year. So he's outside of the care and the confinement of St. Elizabeth's for weeks at a time. What's happening now is that his lawyers are advocating that he be essentially released completely.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Completely means that he no longer lives, no longer resides at St. Elizabeth's mental institution, which is overlooking Washington, D.C.'s downtown. But he can most likely live with his mother, who is now at a gated community in Williamsburg, Virginia.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's a wealthy family, and they have resources, but it's been some years since, in fact, his doctors said, as far as we can tell, his delusions are in remission, he's off his antipsychotic medication, he's not a threat to himself or anybody else.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Right, and that is, in fact, the judicial benchmark. You know, Judge Barrington Parker, after a seven-week trial, instructed the jury that if he is deemed to be no longer a danger to himself or to others, he gets to be essentially released.</s>HARRY JAFFE: And, you know, by the United States system of jurisprudence, if you are determined to be not guilty by reason of insanity for whatever you do, if you shoot your neighbor or, you know, try to assassinate the president, after a certain period of time, if you are deemed by the medical mental health professionals to be no longer under the spell of whatever disease you may have had, you get to take a walk.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there are those, as you point out in your piece, who say wait a minute, if you try to shoot the president of the United States, you should either face the death penalty or spend the rest of your life behind bars.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Well, that would be Ron Reagan, Jr., his son, and that would be Nancy Reagan, principally. But I mean let's face it: Ronald Reagan was not just, you know, your run-of-the-mill president. Ronald Reagan was, and still is, an icon for the Republicans. He certainly is - was the, you know, when I think of conservatives, I think of Barry Goldwater. When most people think of conservatives, they think about Ronald Reagan.</s>HARRY JAFFE: And so, you know, to think, if you're the average American or the serious Republican, that we would allow a man who tried to shoot Ronald Reagan to go free, it's just anathema, it can't happen.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: On the other hand, the judge faces a situation where he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. If no longer insane, the not guilty part should apply.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Absolutely. That's what the law says, and if we're a country of laws and not a country of men, then there's really no way of looking at this other than John Hinckley should be freed, you know, with some conditions. And I think he'll always have some conditions.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Like, you know, trust me, the United States Secret Service will always keep tabs on John Hinckley, Jr., no matter where he goes. But he was in confinement - this happened in 1981. He tried to assassinate the president in 1981. Within 10 years the medical professionals, the psychiatrists, at St. Elizabeth's said he is no longer delusional. He no longer is under the spell of the delusions which caused him to take the - to attempt to take the life of a president.</s>HARRY JAFFE: He still has many neurotic problems, but some of us walking around these days down the streets of Washington, D.C. are neurotic.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Narcissism not confined to attempted assassins.</s>HARRY JAFFE: I think that most politicians have a certain narcissistic personality.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So in that situation, the - well, is it possible - and one of the things that was interesting, as you said, the judge instructed the jury that if you find him not guilty by reason of insanity, there is a possibility he could walk. You spoke with the - one of the jurors, in fact I think it was the foreman in the jury: We did understand that, and if he is no longer a threat, hasta la vista.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Interestingly enough, the jurors appointed or elected the youngest member of the jury - he was 22 years old, his name was Lawrence Coffey, and I did track him down, and he was very straightforward, as you would expect, you know, kind of an average juror to be. He said: Well, you know, you have to be crazy to try and shoot the president of the United States. Of course he was insane.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Well, I don't necessarily buy that. That's a little bit too simplistic. The difference between John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempt and maybe Sirhan Sirhan's attempt to kill J.F. - you know, Robert Kennedy, was that this fellow, when he was, you know, 25 years old, didn't really know very much about Ronald Reagan, was not a political guy, didn't want to take over the country.</s>HARRY JAFFE: He was trying to kill Ronald Reagan to get the attention of Jodi Foster, who...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The actress.</s>HARRY JAFFE: The actress. And so clearly it was not quite a crime with a lot of forethought about not wanting to have this guy be president any longer. It wasn't a political act. It wasn't a personal act. It was something else entirely.</s>HARRY JAFFE: So Coffey said yes, he was guilty - I'm sorry, yes, he was insane. And then secondly, he said: Well, of course he should go free. This is now talking about John Hinckley, Jr. right now. Lawrence Coffey, the former juror, said he should go free. There are people who have actually committed murders who do their time and are then free to walk the streets. Why not this guy?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Philip Resnick is a physician and professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, also past president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law and joins us now from his office in Cleveland. Dr. Resnick, nice to have you with us today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: DR. PHILLIP RESNICK: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I wonder: Can you appreciate the position of the judge in this case?</s>RESNICK: Yes, I do, and the reality is that the general public perceives people who are found insane as beating the rap, when some studies actually show persons who are found insane spend, on average, a bit longer with loss of freedom than those who are convicted.</s>RESNICK: And Hinckley is an example of someone who has spent 30 years, and of course the more infamous the crime, the greater the political pressure to hold such persons even longer. But of course someone who is simply mentally ill, the average length of stay in a hospital is less than two or three weeks. So it's certainly not surprising that within 10 years delusions would be given up.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Some would say the conditions under which he was held at St. Elizabeth's aren't exactly those at top security max prisons in the federal system. But nevertheless, he certainly lost his freedom, and that's considerable.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In any case, it is credible to say that somebody who committed such a crime can be cured?</s>RESNICK: Yes. For example, someone with a psychotic depression certainly can be fully cured. With schizophrenia, they can be markedly improved. Their symptoms can be in remission. But they might still heal with some residual difficulty. But being cured or improved is a separate issue from being non-dangerous, which is the critical issue in the release decision.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: How sure do you have to be to release such a person?</s>RESNICK: Well, that's ultimately a judicial decision, and all psychiatrists can say is that there's a very low risk that he will re-offend. No one can ever can guarantee that no one will ever re-offend.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about what happens to the criminally insane. If you've been involved in such a case as a judge or prosecutor, perhaps a juror, give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. And Mark(ph) is on the line calling from East Lansing in Michigan.</s>MARK: Yes, good afternoon, thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure.</s>MARK: I am a career prosecuting attorney. I've been a prosecutor for over 35 years. And I've had several cases involving the criminally insane in homicides. And my problem is, from a prosecutorial standpoint, psychiatry and psychology are soft sciences. There is no exact answer, and in my experience they've been frequently not only wrong but deadly wrong.</s>MARK: One in particular I'm familiar with and was involved in to some extent was a serial murderer from Michigan named Gary Addison Taylor, who was found not guilty in the early 1980s by reason of insanity. He was assigned to a mental institution, and the psychiatrist who recommended to the court that he be locked up in a mental institution actually wrote in the report: Anyone who ever seriously considers letting this man go ought to be locked up with him. That was actually written into the report.</s>MARK: A few years later, another psychiatrist deemed him safe to go home on a weekend pass, and he walked away and killed another five women, at least, and is seriously suspected in several other killings after that time. And that's a documented case out of Michigan and Texas and the state of Washington.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We get your point, Mark. Of course, prosecutors use psychologists and psychiatrists in their cases too. But wanted to give Dr. Resnick a chance to respond.</s>RESNICK: Certainly there are exceptional cases, but I think interestingly the public has zero tolerance for recidivism. When we let an armed robber out of prison with three armed robberies, we know there's more than a 33 percent chance he's going to reoffend, we still let him go. But if someone is found not guilty by reason of insanity, we act as if - if there is a one-tenth of one percent recidivism, that's categorically unacceptable.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A difference between armed robbery and murder too. But in any case, Mark, thank you very much for the call. We're going to continue this conversation. We're talking about John Hinckley, Jr. and what happens to the criminally insane after they leave the courtroom.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you've been involved in legal insanity cases, what don't we know about this issue? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. We're talking about the criminally insane. No precise number of defendants who are declared not guilty by reason of insanity, though that number is believed to be small.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The public outrage after John Hinckley, Jr. was declared criminally insane 30 years ago led the Congress and half the states to enact changes in the insanity defense. Several states did away with the insanity claim altogether. Our guests are Harry Jaffe of the Washingtonian magazine. His piece on John Hinckley and this week's hearing to determine whether or not he is a threat ran in the October issue of the magazine.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And also with us, Dr. Philip Resnick, a physician and forensic psychiatrist who works as a professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland. If you've been involved in legal insanity cases as a lawyer, judge, juror or prosecutor, family member, what don't we know about these issues? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email is talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And just before the break, we were talking with a caller, said he was a prosecutor and that - cited several cases where psychiatrists had been wrong. Interesting, Harry Jaffe, in your piece in Washingtonian magazine about Mr. Hinckley, there was a recommendation as far ago as 1986 that he be declared - that his delusion was over.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Exactly. In 1986, the hospital staff basically reported that he was still narcissistic, but his delusions, which allegedly caused him to try to assassinate the president, were gone, and they supported Hinckley's desire to - basically to take off-campus tours, to leave St. Elizabeth's.</s>HARRY JAFFE: And the judge did some investigation on his own, found that in fact John Hinckley had been corresponding with Charles Manson, who is, you know, a mass murderer, and Ted Bundy, who was a mass murderer. They actually did an investigation of his room and found 57 photographs of Jodi Foster. This is in 1986.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The object of his infatuation before the assassination attempt.</s>HARRY JAFFE: And his delusions, apparently. And so clearly at that point the psychiatrists at St. Elizabeth's were - I hesitate to use this word, but they were dead wrong. And he was clearly not in a situation where he could be trusted. And I think there's always been two schools of thought about John Hinckley, Jr., from the day that he entered St. Elizabeth's was, is he - is he ill? Is he delusional, or is he just getting it over on the system?</s>HARRY JAFFE: Clearly a smart man, and is he gaming the system, or is he impaired? And that still can be debated.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And if he was gaming the system, Dr. Resnick, he gamed it into 30 years' incarceration, but nevertheless, psychiatrists are not suckers, for the most part, nor fools. They're used to dealing with such people.</s>RESNICK: Yes, actually, again, the public is very concerned about malingering, and of course malingering is faking, where someone pretends to be insane when they're not. Then, of course, once they're in the hospital as an insanity acquittee, then the concern is: Are they faking good? That is, someone who remains genuinely ill is not revealing it in order to get out.</s>RESNICK: So if someone really beat the system and faked to be found insane, then they would not be mentally ill and theoretically should be released, but of course judges are not likely to let them out in that circumstance.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lynda Frost is a lawyer and director of planning and programming at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas, Austin. She's written several books and articles about mental health in American law and joins us now from member station KUT in Austin. And nice to have you with us today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: DR. LYNDA FROST: Nice to be here, thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I wonder: Have you thought about the Hinckley case and how these arguments are likely to hold up?</s>FROST: You know, I think in a case like the Hinckley case, where the offense is so shocking to us, we treat it very differently than most cases. We know the black letter of the law, but we just react differently when somebody tries to shoot the president.</s>FROST: So I wouldn't really guess as to how this specific case will turn out. But I think your speakers have raised some very important points about what actually happens in most cases with the insanity defense. It is very rare. It's something that we don't see every day. In fact, the American Psychiatric Association work group called it empirically unimportant. Defense attorneys consider it a defense of last resort.</s>FROST: So in roughly one percent of all felony cases is it even raised, probably in part because with most forensic evaluations, when experts are asked to do an evaluation on whether somebody is insane, they say no. They say that they're doing fine.</s>FROST: When the defense is raised, it's usually not successful. Three out of four times it is not successful. So nationwide less than one-half of one percent of all felony cases result in somebody being found not guilty by reason of insanity, and usually those happen through a plea bargain, where everybody agrees that that's the proper outcome.</s>FROST: So these cases really are very unusual. I think the conditional release question that we're looking at with the Hinckley case is an important mechanism for returning people to society. I know some people say if somebody tries to shoot the president, they should be locked up forever, we don't want to run the risk of that person being out in the community.</s>FROST: But we really don't live in a society where zero risk is possible, and there are constitutional and practical problems with keeping people locked up forever. Most forensic experts would agree that the safest way to return somebody to society from a maximum-security psychiatric hospital is with increments of decreasing structure and increasing freedom, and that's what the conditional release program attempts to do.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Becky(ph) in Florence, Arizona: My youngest sister was murdered by her boyfriend back in 1990. He was ruled criminally insane. Her death was the second murder he'd committed. He is now about to get out. My sister's youngest daughter has been attending court hearings trying to plead that he remain incarcerated for everyone's safety.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I have heard that he has a new girlfriend now. I cannot believe the law is considering allowing him to be free. But Lynda Frost, again, if you're found not guilty by reason of insanity, once you're determined not to be insane, it's the not guilty part that applies, no?</s>FROST: That's true, and Becky, my sympathies for your loss. That's horrible. But it is true. The insanity defense has been around for centuries, essentially because we've made a moral determination that if at the time of the act the defendant doesn't know what they're doing or can't help what they're doing that punishment is appropriate.</s>FROST: And so at that point, once somebody has been found not guilty by reason of insanity, we're keeping somebody locked up for treatment purposes and for safety purposes. And if those reasons no longer apply, then as a constitutional requirement, somebody should be released.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's get Bill(ph) on the line, Bill's with us from Stockton in California.</s>BILL: Hi, Conan. I'd just like to say that when it comes to sanity and insanity, there are different kinds, and people see them all differently. In the case of our family, my son has just returned from three months. He spent one in Berkeley, and then he spent another two in Reno in a psychiatric hospital, and as he's grown older, we've come to realize that he's never going to be completely normal.</s>BILL: A lot of psychiatric issues are temporary, transient, or can be resolved simply with basic medication. In his case, it just hasn't happened. And it got to the point that after six years on one medication, he was taking such a high level it became toxic, which resulted in one hospitalization after another. Psychiatric is not a simple issue.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I understand that. Are you worried that he is a threat to either himself or others?</s>BILL: In the long term, absolutely. You know, we recognize that he could be a very productive member of society, but at the same time, you know, the realization is, how long is his stability going to last, because medications don't always perform as desired for as long as desired.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Nor do people consistently take them. But Dr. Resnick, I think it's important to point out: Insanity is not a medical term, I don't think.</s>RESNICK: That's correct. It used to, historically, but in the last 50 years it's a legal term only, not a medical term.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Lynda Frost, the definition of insanity, as I understand it, also varies state-to-state, and of course the federal government has its own.</s>FROST: That's right. Each state determines what would the insanity standard be, and states have changed their insanity standards. In fact, as you noted, after the Hinckley cases, people did not like the outcome, and so state legislatures in 34 states changed their insanity defense statutes.</s>FROST: There are some interesting studies, though, that have found that the changes in the wording of the insanity defense seems to only make a moderate difference in terms of whether people are found not guilty by reason of insanity or not.</s>HARRY JAFFE: I would just add to that that the wording makes very little difference to juries. I think it makes more difference to forensic psychiatrists and psychologists, but juries tend to use their own primitive sense of when someone's so ill they're not responsible, separate from the nuance of the wording.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Dr. Resnick, I wonder, in your judgment, are juries righter or wronger?</s>RESNICK: Well, that's interesting. I've been asked the question: If a jury didn't agree with me, was I wrong? And the answer to that is not in my opinion. It doesn't mean that juries always get it right, but ultimately, juries make the final social, legal judgment about who is insane. So there is no absolute standard. It is a judgment, and I think it belongs with a jury.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Bill, thank you very much for the call. We wish you and your son the best of luck.</s>BILL: We thank you guys for hearing us. Have a good day.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there is a moment, Lynda Frost, we have to point out and going back to the Jared Loughner situation where it is not necessarily a jury who at least initially decides whether he's insane or not but, well, medical advice to a judge who says whether he's able to participate meaningfully in his own defense.</s>FROST: That's right. Insanity looks at mental state at the time of the offense. But before someone can go to trial, they have to be competent to stand trial, and that looks at somebody's mental state at the time of the trial. So they're two different legal proceedings with two different standards. In almost all cases, if somebody is found not competent to stand trial, they can be restored to competency through a period of treatment and education. So it will delay a trial, but in most cases, they ultimately will be restored to competency and then the trial will move forward. And at that trial, the defendant can choose to raise an insanity defense. But they're two different legal doctrines.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And indeed, as in the case there's dispute in the Jared Loughner case, can be forced to take medication in order to render him able to stand trial.</s>FROST: That's right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. Let's see if we get...</s>FROST: There...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Go ahead.</s>FROST: There, of course, are - state procedures will differ in exactly how the restoration process will work and what the standards are, but competency to stand trial is a constitutional requirement under the 14th Amendment. So there are also a lot of commonalities across states.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lynda Frost is a lawyer and director of planning and programs at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health at the University of Texas at Austin. Also with us is Dr. Phillip Resnick, a physician and forensic psychiatrist, professor at Case Western Reserve's School of Medicine in Cleveland, and Henry - Harry Jaffe - excuse me - is also with us here in Studio 3A, reporter and columnist for Washingtonian Magazine. His piece "Free John Hinckley" appeared in the October 2011 issue of Washingtonian. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Let's go to Gary(ph). Gary with us from Central Illinois.</s>GARY: Hello.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hi, Harry. Go ahead, please. Gary - excuse me.</s>GARY: Hey - I was just - I want to comment. I'm a probation officer for the federal system, and I guess what I want to lay in on was that when people get out of the federal system, as I assume Mr. Hinckley will, that there's a very detailed release plan that person is essentially going to be on probation supervision for the rest of her life or until the judge decides that even after they've been in the community for a certain number of years that they are safe to not have some oversight in the community, which gives some oversight to them taking their medications and following up with treatment and those sorts of things.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Harry Jaffe, medication is not an issue, as I understand it, in the Hinckley case, and there was an interesting statement by his lawyer in your story saying, look, if the Secret Service wants to keep him on their list forever and do whatever kind of monitoring they want, if they want to shadow him, that's fine with us.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Barry Levine, who's John Hinckley lawyer, essentially said, you know, bring it on. We're not afraid of having as much supervision as you want, but he does want his client to have much more freedom. But I think that Judge Paul Friedman, who's the federal district judge who's been working on this case, handling this case, overseeing it since 2003, has gradually and very assiduously, determinately allowed him in phased releases but very, very closely watched, you know, 10, 15 separate, you know, steps that he has to follow on a daily basis.</s>HARRY JAFFE: And I think the caller is exactly right that there's no here, you know, have a nice life for John Hinckley Jr. There will always be a certain amount of supervision, no question about it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In fact, you raised an interesting point in your piece. There's not much of a life for John Hinckley to emerge to.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Well, let's say that there's a certain stigma to having attempted to kill Ronald Reagan. And, you know, if you are certainly over the age of 40 or 50, John Hinckley Jr. will always be in your head. And very specifically, he has tried to just get volunteer jobs while he was at his mother's home in Williamsburg, and a lot of people who work for libraries, who work for Salvation Army, who work for nonprofits, say no thanks. You know, John Hinckley is not welcome because we think that he is, you know, not, you know, should not be allowed out.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Not an asset to the corporation.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Exactly.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Gary, thank you very much for the call.</s>GARY: The fact that – I don't have a problem necessarily John Hinckley shouldn't be allowed out as much as given John Hinckley's history, as I think these places are more in the mode of they don't want to be on the newspaper if something goes wrong.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure. I understand that, too. That's why he's not an asset, Gary.</s>GARY: Right, yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks. Email question from Sam(ph) in Wichita. Is it everyone who commits a murder insane? Phillip Resnick?</s>RESNICK: Absolutely not. And again, that's not an uncommon idea. But absolutely not, people have quite rational motives for killing. People kill for money. People kill for revenge. People kill for jealousy. And as Lynda Frost pointed out, it's a very small percent who are found insane, and that is usually when there is agreement between the experts for the prosecution and defense. And in most contested cases, it is a severe uphill battle for the defense.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And more so after the John Hinckley case. Harry Jaffe, the hearing is Wednesday?</s>HARRY JAFFE: Wednesday at 9:30, federal district court here in Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much. And, Lynda Frost, the next step in the Jared Loughner situation, there are any number of hearings to determine his ability to stand trial?</s>FROST: Yes. The clinicians will report back on whether they feel that he has gained the skills that he needs to go to court and the court will determine if he's regained competency. If he hasn't, he presumably would be sent back for a further period of restoration. So it can be an iterative process between the clinicians and the court until the court either decides that he will never be restored to competency, which is unusual, or the court decides that he is competent, and the trial will then move forward.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lynda Frost joined us from member station KUT in Austin, Texas. Thanks very much for your time today.</s>FROST: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dr. Resnick, appreciate it.</s>RESNICK: Sure.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Phillip Resnick at Case Western Reserve's School of Medicine in Cleveland. And our thanks as well to Harry Jaffe, who wrote for the Washingtonian Magazine "Free John Hinckley." He joined us here in Studio 3A. Thanks very much for your time.</s>HARRY JAFFE: Pleasure to be here.

Lawmakers in Virginia are waiting for the other shoe to drop, as several state leaders have found themselves embroiled in scandal.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: In Richmond, the capital of Virginia, the only three statewide elected officials are all caught in scandals. Governor Ralph Northam has admitted to wearing blackface. So, too, has Attorney General Mark Herring. And Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax is denying allegations of sexual assault. All three are Democrats. The next in line is a Republican.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: In a moment, we will hear from Virginians trying to make sense of all this. First let's bring in Virginia Public Radio's Michael Pope, who is in Richmond. Hey, Michael.</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: Hey there.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So tonight we got a statement from the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. A lot of people have been waiting for this, and this statement details what the caucus thinks should happen to these three politicians. What do they say?</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: Well, for Northam, they want him gone. For a Herring and Fairfax, they're taking a wait-and-see approach. For Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, they say they expect justice to be meted out, and they will continue to monitor the situation. They also say they want a - an investigation by the appropriate agencies. For Attorney General Mark Herring, they want to take a wait-and-see approach. They say they appreciate his candor, but they are awaiting further action on his part to reassure everybody of his fitness for leadership.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Did they say why they're making a distinction between Northam and Herring given that both of these men have admitted to wearing blackface?</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: Well, for Northam, they said they already had the facts before them, and they acted swiftly because they knew what the score was. For Herring, they sort of left it open whether or not they would eventually call for his resignation. Although it is worth noting that if he were to resign, the Republican-led General Assembly would get to appoint someone, and it would likely be a Republican.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So maybe exercising a little bit of caution there as Democrats. What are other lawmakers saying at this point?</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: At this point, we're still awaiting, actually, word from other lawmakers who were waiting for the Legislative Black Caucus to make the initial statement. So now that's going to open up the floodgates for all the other elected officials in every organization to weigh in.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And meanwhile, yet another twist that unfolded today - which is, another leader at the State House has come forward today in connection with blackface photos from yet another old yearbook.</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: Yes, that would be the first Republican caught up in this scandal, the Republican majority leader of the Senate, Tommy Norment. He was the managing editor of the yearbook at the Virginia Military Institute back in 1968, a book that includes photographs of students in blackface. It has several racial slurs, some of the most severe racial slurs. Norment responded to this by saying blackface is abhorrent. He emphatically condemned blackface. He says he was one of seven people working on that yearbook and that he cannot endorse or associate himself with every word and photo that appears in it.</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: Now, it's worth noting that Norment is not in blackface in the book. Now, Republican Speaker of the House Kirk Cox weighed in on the Norman news to say it was unfair to compare assisting in the production of a yearbook with all these other revelations.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And Kirk Cox, we should this remind, is - looking further down the line of potential succession - would be third in line to be governor.</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: Yeah. If the lieutenant governor and the attorney general were to resign, we would be left with Republican Governor Kirk Cox.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: That's Michael Pope of Virginia Public Radio. It sounds like you're going to have another busy day tomorrow. Thanks so much for keeping us up to date.</s>MICHAEL POPE, BYLINE: Thank you.

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney, who is also the Foreign Affairs and Trade minister, about Brexit and trade and security issues.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: British Prime Minister Theresa May was back in Brussels today. Once again, she is trying to negotiate a deal that both the EU and the British Parliament will accept. Of all the contentious issues in the debate over Brexit, the most divisive may be a single line. That line is the border dividing the Republic of Ireland from Northern Ireland.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Brexit threatens to close that open border. It would be an economic hit, and a hard border could also threaten the fragile peace agreement that has kept Northern Ireland stable after decades of violence between Catholics and Protestants. This morning, I sat down with Simon Coveney. He's Ireland's deputy prime minister and foreign minister. And he told me that while the economic damage of a hard border would be real, it is not his top concern.</s>SIMON COVENEY: Look, there are some things in our view that are more important than trade and - relationships, neighbors being able to live together, respecting each other in peace without fears of the kind of tension of the past which, at times, was very violent. And the absence of physical border infrastructure on our island represents, really, the product of that peace, but also reinforces it every day.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: If a hard border were to go up between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, what would that mean for your country's economy?</s>SIMON COVENEY: Well, first of all, we're not going to let that happen. You know, we have made it very clear that this border issue goes beyond economic interest. I mean, if Ireland and if Irish leadership was to focus purely on the economics of Brexit, our primary focus would be on the East-West trade between Britain and Ireland. You know, that is a 75-billion euro trade relationship. We have 40,000 Irish companies that trade with Britain virtually every week. It's a hugely valuable and very, very strong relationship. And that is, of course, a big priority for us to protect that trade relationship. But the peace process is a bit different. It's something more fundamental to Irish people and, indeed, to British people living in Northern Ireland. And a physical border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland would, in my view, have a very corrosive effect on that normality which has been hard-won.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: I'd like to ask you about this trip to the United States that you are on right now. It's a brief visit. You're here in Washington. And prominent members of the Trump administration have been very supportive of Brexit, whether that's national security adviser John Bolton or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. What's your message to them on this trip?</s>SIMON COVENEY: Well, I met Secretary Pompeo yesterday. I had a very good meeting with him. But I also met a - you know, other congressman last night - you know, Richie Neal, Pete King. And we're not asking anybody to take sides here - you know, the Irish or EU side or the British side. But we are asking the U.S. to watch closely to ensure that a peace process in Ireland that the U.S. have been hugely supportive of - that that doesn't get undermined.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: So your message is that this peace is fragile.</s>SIMON COVENEY: This peace is fragile, and that is why we need to be clear and firm, as well as respectful, of the U.K. to make sure that the commitments that the prime minister has made to Ireland - that they're fully followed through on. And I think we've got some very strong statements last night that if the U.K. want a trade deal with the U.S. in the future, which undoubtedly they do, then this border issue and the protection of the peace process will be very much factored into U.S. thinking.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: In the debate leading up to the Brexit referendum, there was a lot of talk about refugees and immigrants. There was a lot of talk about regulations from Brussels.</s>SIMON COVENEY: Yeah.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: How much attention do you think was paid to your country - to the Republic of Ireland?</s>SIMON COVENEY: Virtually none. Don't forget that there's a strong majority of people in Northern Ireland who voted to stay in the EU. They didn't support Brexit at all, which is now, of course, why it's so ironic that Northern Ireland and the border between North and South has become this pivotal issue. But look, that's where we are.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: (Laughter).</s>SIMON COVENEY: Ireland doesn't want to be in this place. Brexit is not an Irish policy. We think it's a mistaken policy, but we have to accept that it's happening.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: So just for a moment, to take a step back and set aside the policy debates and the speculation about the future, what is it like to be at the center of this international tug of war where another country's decision has such a tremendous impact...</s>SIMON COVENEY: Yeah.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: ...On your people and your country?</s>SIMON COVENEY: Well, as I say, this is not the place we want to be. You know, the relationship between Ireland and Britain is a very close one. In some ways, I'm a product of the Anglo-Irish relationship myself in terms of my own family story. I've been to university in England. I've worked in Scotland, but I'm a very proud Irishman. So we don't want this tension in terms of politics and policy between Ireland and the U.K. We certainly don't want unnecessary tension undermining political relationships in Northern Ireland that are already fragile. My job and the job of the British government is to work together to try to create reassurance in Northern Ireland that actually Brexit can happen, but we can protect a peace process; Brexit can happen, but we can protect the status quo on the island of Ireland.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Simon Coveney, deputy prime minister and also foreign minister for the Republic of Ireland. Thank you for coming into the studio today.</s>SIMON COVENEY: Thank you. Anytime.

The Great Lakes are one of the world's largest sources of fresh water. But an investigation from American Public Media and Great Lakes Today finds the cost of that water has doubled or tripled.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: The Great Lakes are one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world. They run more than 750 miles across eight states from Minnesota to New York. With so much fresh water, you would think that drinking water would be affordable there, but a new investigation from Great Lakes Today and American Public Media shows that for many Americans, there's a water crisis. They can't afford water, a basic need. Reporter Elizabeth Miller explains.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: I'm walking around a park in downtown Cleveland where the city hits Lake Erie. From here, I look out across the lake, and all I see for miles is water - miles and miles of fresh water. And if I look out a little farther into the lake, I see an orange dot. It's the pump building that brings in the raw water. From Lake Erie, the water travels through miles of pipes and pumps into the city's treatment plants, and it provides the drinking water that goes to every home and business in Cleveland.</s>DAVE CATLIN: They want every dollar of that, and it's just crazy.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: But just a short drive from this lake, I met Melissa Thevenin and Dave Catlin at their home. They can't afford to pay their water bill, and they're not alone. American Public Media and Great Lakes Today analyzed the rising cost of water in six cities around the Great Lakes - Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Duluth. In these cities, we found in the last 10 years water rates have doubled, even tripled. We found those steady increases can have devastating consequences for people struggling to get by like Thevenin and Catlin. Their water's been cut off.</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: They want the whole amount.</s>DAVE CATLIN: Twenty-five-hundred dollars.</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: Twenty-five-hundred dollars before they will turn it back on.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: Thevenin and Catlin live in a small, two-story house in the working-class Slavic Village neighborhood. When I visited them in September, the couple said most of their $2,500 water and sewer bill comes from the unpaid balance of family members and tenants who lived here before them. And right now, times are rough. Melissa's hours at work have been cut back, and Dave is a roofer.</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: Sometimes he can work one day a week, or he can work five days a week. So - and our money situation is just completely...</s>DAVE CATLIN: And we have no assistance.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: Our investigation found hundreds of thousands of shutoffs to homes and businesses around the Great Lakes, including over 40,000 in Cleveland alone between 2010 and 2017. Without water, the things people take for granted like flushing the toilet, cleaning or cooking become near impossible.</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: Most times we're feeding five kids, you know...</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: And ages...</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: ...A night.</s>DAVE CATLIN: From - the youngest...</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: From...</s>DAVE CATLIN: ...Is 10, and...</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: To 18 (laughter).</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: They've got five kids plus Melissa's disabled elderly mother. They're buying a lot of bottled water. They send the kids to the other grandmother's house to shower and to wash clothes. And now they get water from their next-door neighbors. It wasn't long ago that Dave and Melissa helped those neighbors when their water was cut off...</s>MELISSA THEVENIN: We actually, when they didn't have no water over, you know, the past year, you know, let them use ours, too, and all that. So, you know, that didn't help. That was just more people, you know, on it.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: ...Even if lending others water meant their own bill went up. For some, getting water cut off is the first step in a downward spiral. Sometimes people lose their homes to foreclosure. Some are even threatened by Child Protective Service workers with losing their children. And it's expensive to have water turned off.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: In Detroit, the city charges $40 to disconnect your water and then $40 to turn it back on. We obtained 10 years of water shutoff data, and our analysis shows the highest concentrations of shutoffs in mostly poor black and Latino neighborhoods.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: In Detroit, there are several local groups that bring free water to residents that have been shut off, including We the People of Detroit. Founding member Cecily McClellan delivers water every other week to residents that have called the People's water hotline. They call for a delivery but also for advice. They need help to navigate the complicated bureaucracy of Detroit's water system which can be overwhelming.</s>CECILY MCCLELLAN: And I think we talked to you about that, didn't we?</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: On this day, she's delivered water to Reginald Newberry. She stacks five cases of bottled water on his porch.</s>CECILY MCCLELLAN: OK, well, there's emergency 21 day that they'll cut your water on, but you have...</s>REGINALD NEWBERRY: I didn't know about that.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: Newberry lives on the east side of Detroit in his childhood home. He's 62 with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD. Newberry uses the water for everything from drinking to washing up.</s>REGINALD NEWBERRY: Well, I wash up with the water. Then I get big containers of water from my neighbors.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: Detroit Water says Newberry hasn't paid his water bill since 2016, and they turned off the water at his request last February because he was worried about a leak. Still, even with no water, his bill keeps going up.</s>REGINALD NEWBERRY: And then they was charging me for sewage and all that, and the water wasn't even on.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: On a recent bill, there's an 850 charge for sewer fees. Every household gets charged for sewage. And on another line - $22.50 in charges, a water assistance donation. That's to raise money for a fund meant to help customers pay their water bills. Newberry's total has built up over years of unpaid bills. Still, it's a fund that should be helping him. Instead, he's being charged for it.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: Our investigation found the cost of water has been rising across the Great Lakes. In Cleveland, water and sewer rates have more than doubled in the last eight years. Now they average about $1,300 per year for a family of four. Detroit Water and sewer rates have almost doubled. In Chicago, they've nearly tripled. One reason the water rates are going up - there are fewer people to pay for it. These cities have lost population.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: But the biggest reason is the country's aging water infrastructure. Built years ago, the pipes and systems that carry water from the Great Lakes to the tap are old and expensive to repair.</s>ALEX MARGEVICIUS: We are at the Garrett Morgan Water Treatment Plant.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: On a recent tour, Cleveland Water Commissioner Alex Margevicius explains we're walking over the city's oldest water infrastructure. There are two underground tunnels that carry water from the lake to the plant. One is 7 feet wide, the other 5 feet wide.</s>ALEX MARGEVICIUS: Well, 7-foot would have been, I think, from 1960. And the 5-foot a little bit further down is, like, from 1870 - so still in service today.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: Repairing old infrastructure is expensive. Margevicius says Cleveland is spending $25 million a year on replacing old systems, and customers are paying the bill.</s>RADHIKA FOX: When many of our water systems were built, you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago, many of them were constructed with federal support.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: That's Radhika Fox, the CEO of US Water Alliance, a national group with members from utilities, local government and grassroots environmental organizations. She says the federal money that long ago built those systems is not there anymore, so local utilities now pay 98 percent of the cost of a typical water project. In Cleveland, almost half of what customers pay for water goes to these infrastructure improvements. From Congress and the White House, there's a lot of talk about paying for crumbling infrastructure.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This important bill authorizes water infrastructure projects that benefit almost every state in the country.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: Late last year, President Donald Trump signed America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018. It puts money into a system that provides loans and grants for cities to upgrade their water systems but only $250 million for replacing and repairing old pipes. Radhika Fox says it's not even close to what needs to be done.</s>RADHIKA FOX: The federal government, frankly, has been just an absent partner when it comes to funding. And I think it's time for a renewal of the local federal partnership on these issues 'cause that was really what made for the success of building these water systems in the first place.</s>ELIZABETH MILLER, BYLINE: A report by the American Water Works Association, a nonprofit with members representing utilities and environmental groups, estimates restoring water systems nationwide will cost at least $1 trillion over the next 25 years. And without significant help from the federal government, older cities have no choice but to keep charging people more and more for water. For NPR News, I'm Elizabeth Miller in Cleveland.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: To read more about this investigation, go to apmreports.org.

Richmond, the capital of Virginia, is in turmoil, as a crisis engulfing the governor drags on for a fourth day, and an allegation of sexual assault surfaces against his lieutenant.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: The turmoil in the Virginia State Capitol is stretching into a fourth day. To catch you up, on Friday, pictures surfaced from Governor Ralph Northam's medical school yearbook showing one man in a KKK robe and another in blackface. The governor, a Democrat, first apologized for the photos, then he reversed course and denied he was in them. All the while, he has refused to step down from office despite growing calls for him to do so from both sides of the aisle.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben joins us now from Richmond. Hi, Danielle.</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Has the governor spoken publicly today?</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: No, he has not. What we do know is that he met with staff last night. And he met with his Cabinet today. But we don't know what happened in those meetings. He - but despite all of these calls for him to resign, he really hasn't made any public motions that he is willing to do so. So we're just waiting to see.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Lots of other people have been talking today. Tell us what other lawmakers there in Richmond have been saying about the governor.</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Right. So the Virginia Democrats have already called for him to resign. Now, today outside of his office, the Republican speaker of the House, Kirk Cox, spoke to reporters. And he was asked if he would go so far as to try to impeach Governor Northam. Now, he made it clear that he really hopes it doesn't come to that and that the bar for that would be very, very high anyway. Here's Kirk.</s>KIRK COX: And obviously on impeachment, that's a very high standard. So I think that's why we've called for the resignation. We hope that's what the governor does. I think that would obviously be less pain for everyone.</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: In addition to that, when he was asked, he said that Democrats haven't talked to him about impeachment anyway. So the focus right now is still very, very much on wanting Northam to resign.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: What about other people in Richmond who are not lawmakers? How are folks reacting to this?</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: A lot of them are very angry. I mean, especially today, there were around a hundred, maybe more, protesters just outside the governor's mansion and state Capitol once again calling for him to resign, yelling for him to resign. And a lot of these people are people who really supported Northam. They told me, you know, I canvassed for him. I phone banked for him. I really wanted him to win, so I feel, really, like my trust is betrayed. So you have a lot of very angry Democrats here.</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Now, aside from that, when you get past the protesters, I did speak to one woman in downtown Richmond today who said she also had supported Northam but that, you know, she's not sure how to feel about him right now. But she also told me that those people who do want him to resign, she said, she sees that. She understands that. And if that is a widespread sentiment, that doesn't bode well for Northam - if even the people who are ambivalent are willing to err on the side of the people who want him to resign.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Now, if he did step down, the lieutenant governor would become governor, and that's a man named Justin Fairfax, who is facing controversy himself today. Fill us in with what's happening there.</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Right. So Justin Fairfax, the lieutenant governor, very early this morning tweeted a denial of some sexual assault allegations that just came out. Now, those allegation are of an incident that allegedly took place in 2004, and they were published by a website called Big League Politics. Now, listeners may remember that that's the same conservative website that first published that photo of Northam's yearbook page from medical school. Now, we should add here that we haven't heard anything from the accuser herself, and we have not been able to verify her accusations. So there's a lot that's still left to shake out here, and this additional storyline is making an already tense situation even more tense.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: That's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben following this story from Richmond, Va. And we will have updates as it unfolds. Thank you so much, Danielle.</s>DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Thank you, Ari.

President Trump delivers his second State of the Union address Tuesday night, with a showdown over border wall funding ongoing and the 2020 presidential campaign approaching.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: When President Trump delivers his State of the Union address to Congress tonight, it will be his first time doing so under a divided government that was ushered in by the Democrats' takeover of the House. White House aides say the president will present a message of unity and bipartisanship. That kind of message is sharply at odds with our recent political experience, namely a bitter partisan fight over Trump's insistence on a border wall. That position led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us now from the White House to talk about what to expect tonight. Hi, Mara.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: The White House says tonight is supposed to be about unity, but it does not seem like we've been living in a time of unity. What do you think the president can actually accomplish in this speech?</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: I think the president can accomplish a lot in the speech. I think after tonight, we'll have a sense of whether he wants a big debate with the Democrats about his top priorities, like immigration and a border wall, or whether he wants to really get things done, which would mean compromising with Democrats.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: He has an example of that. The big bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that passed last year. That was something Congress had been working on on a bipartisan basis for years. The same is true - could be true for infrastructure or lowering the cost of prescription drugs.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: But you're right. This is not a time of unity. Just look at the pre-speech back-and-forth between the president and the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer. Schumer went on the floor of the Senate, said the president can't really call for unity because he's been undermining unity with his divisive tweets and attacks. And then, as if perfectly on cue, President Trump replied with a tweet...</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: (Laughter).</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: ...Saying that Schumer was just upset he didn't win the Senate majority in 2018.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: All right. As we mentioned, this is going to be the president's first time delivering this speech before a House that is controlled by Democrats. So Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be behind him. And, as you mentioned, we are expecting bipartisan proposals like infrastructure. But this is not the first time he's proposed that. This is from last year's State of the Union address.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Tonight, I'm calling on Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment that our country so desperately needs.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: And here we are a year later, Mara. No infrastructure package has been passed. Is getting anything bipartisan through Congress really realistic?</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Well, the safe bet and answer to that question is no, but in the past, divided government has produced results. Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich got welfare reform. And the Democrats have an infrastructure plan on the shelf.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: They also have a prescription drug pricing plan ready, which, among other things, would allow Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices, a position Donald Trump actually supported when he was a candidate. Now, Republicans in Congress don't like that idea. So on drug prices, if Trump wants to accomplish something, he'd have to triangulate and cut a deal with Democrats instead of his own party.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: I think the big question is, has polarization gone so far that for the president and the Democrats even sharing victory with the other side is not in their political interests? I think we're going to get the first clue to that question next week when we find out whether the conference committee that's negotiating border funding, whether it's able to come up with a compromise or not.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Presidents have used the State of the Union to make big announcements, and Trump has teased a possible announcement on North Korea, maybe the specifics of a second summit with Kim Jong Un. There's been talk of him maybe declaring a national emergency to build a border wall. Do those things seem likely tonight?</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: I think I'd be surprised to hear him declare a national emergency tonight, even though he's already undermined the congressional negotiators by saying their negotiations are a waste of time. But they do have a deadline of February 15, and I'd be surprised if he didn't at least let them try until then. Also the national emergency is still the subject of a big internal debate inside the Republican Party and the White House.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: That's NPR's Mara Liasson speaking with us from the White House. Thanks, Mara.</s>MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Thank you.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with former Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken about whether the Trump administration would be able to prevent or respond to a national security crisis.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: When President Trump stepped up to the podium last night, he touted what he views as his administration's accomplishments, both here at home and abroad.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: When I took office, ISIS controlled more than 20,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria...</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Accelerated our negotiations to reach a political settlement in Afghanistan...</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: President Trump at the State of the Union talking there about ISIS, about Afghanistan, about North Korea. For some perspective on the challenges the president faces on the world stage these next two years and how prepared he and his team are to confront them, we turn to Tony Blinken. He was deputy national security adviser, then deputy secretary of state under President Obama. Tony Blinken, thanks for joining us.</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: Great to be here. Thank you.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Did you hear anything from the foreign policy section of last night's speech that - I don't know - delighted you, dismayed you, surprised you?</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: There were - there was the good. There was the bad. And there was the something in between. The good is, look; the president is right that we have made dramatic progress against the Islamic State, ISIS. And the president was actually following through on a game plan designed by his predecessor, President Obama. But he did a good job in further ensuring that the caliphate that ISIS is trying to build has actually been destroyed. But he's undercut the success of his own policy and the policy of President Obama by this impulsive withdrawal of the 2,000 special forces that we had in Syria precisely to keep a foot on ISIS' throat and to enable about 60,000 local forces to do the same thing. So...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And notable that there was not a big section on Syria in this speech. He didn't dwell on it at great length in the State of the Union.</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: Which is interesting - and similarly Afghanistan. I think the president reflects a desire across the board in the United States to pull back from what some people call forever wars. And that instinct is probably a good one. But again, here, he, a few weeks ago, impulsively and unilaterally declared that we were pulling out half of the remaining troops at the very moment we're negotiating with the Taliban, basically taking the leverage away from our chief negotiator, giving something away for nothing.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: You wrote a piece for The New York Times the other day in which you argue that the Trump administration has not yet faced a real foreign policy crisis and wouldn't be prepared to handle one when and if it should come along. So let me push you on this specifically and just setting aside what you like or don't like about the president's policy, why do you think they're not ready?</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: Three things - people, process, policy; the right people in senior levels of government to be able to give a president good ideas and tell him when he was pursuing bad ones, a process that actually brings all of the key people from all of the different departments and agencies around the same table to develop options, to debate them, to stress test them and then to give them to the president and, finally, all of this in service of developing actual policy so that we have a starting point so that the entire administration knows where we're going and so does the rest of the world. In each of these three areas, this administration is the least prepared in modern memory.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Let me challenge you to apply your thinking to maybe the newsiest thing that President Trump talked about last night - North Korea. He's announced another summit is now set in Vietnam end of this month, February 27 and 28. We, of course, don't know outside the government exactly what's going on, but it does appear from what we can glimpse that there is more groundwork being laid certainly than we saw in the run-up to the first Kim Jong Un summit in Singapore.</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: Well, that's the key question, and you make the key point. The first summit, there was virtually no preparation. The process that I talked about as being so important didn't happen. And so the president went into that summit and essentially gave a lot of things away and got very little, if nothing, in return. The art of the deal turned into the art of the steal for Kim Jong Un. So the question now is are they...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And do you think they've learned a lesson from that?</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: I hope so.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: What do you see as the greatest potential risk that we may be facing in the next couple of years?</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: Look; unfortunately, there are a whole series of them, and that's why I said what concerns me is that we have not yet been tested in a profound way, either as a country or as an administration - a massive terrorist attack of some kind, a cyberattack that disables the economy or industry. Those would be significant.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Although, in fairness, would any of the past administrations you served have been completely and utterly prepared to deal with...</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: No one is completely and utterly prepared.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ...A terror attack or cyberattack? Yeah.</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: No one's completely or utterly prepared. But consider this - the George H.W. Bush administration, which in many ways was a model for having the right people, the right process, the right policy, handled the end of the Cold War brilliantly. And suffice to say, there was nothing preordained about that going smoothly because they had those three things - people, process, policy - they did a terrific job. I like to think the Obama administration in the way it handled Osama bin Laden, or, for that matter, the Ebola outbreak, demonstrates those same principles.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Tony Blinken - veteran of the National Security Council and the State Department under the Obama administration. He is now at the Penn Biden Center. Tony Blinken, thanks.</s>ANTONY BLINKEN: Thank you.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with freshman lawmaker Rep. Abby Finkenauer, D-Iowa, about the what she and her constituents need to hear from President Trump during his State of the Union address.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Now let's bring in someone who will be in the room for the State of the Union and who is now in Statuary Hall, freshman Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer. She is the second-youngest woman ever elected to Congress. She just turned 30. She's a Democrat who beat a Tea Party Republican in November to represent an Iowa district that went for Trump two years before.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Congresswoman Finkenauer, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: Well, thanks for having me - really happy to be here with you today.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: What's your expectation for your first State of the Union as a member of Congress? Do you see value in this ritual?</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: I do. You know, I'm ready tonight to be open and hope to hear from the president putting fear and division aside and talking about issues that the American people care about. You know, the folks that I represent in Iowa's 1st District - one of the No. 1 things I heard is they were tired of the chaos and the division of Washington, D.C. So tonight I hope the president puts that aside and talks about issues that show up in a big way for my district and for Americans across the country.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: I mean, as you probably already know after just a few weeks on Capitol Hill, the devil is always in the details. And the president's supporters say Democrats, your party - that y'all hate Trump even more than you want to get stuff done, that you - that Democrats will try to block him no matter what. So can you get specific with me and point to one issue where you think your party should commit to working with the president?</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: Absolutely, and that's infrastructure. It's something that he talked a lot about while he was campaigning. But we never saw movement on it. You know, the joke was his first two years that every week was supposed to be infrastructure week. Well...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And it was a big theme of his...</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: (Laughter).</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ...State of the Union last year. And there's...</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: It sure was.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ...Still no comprehensive bill on the table.</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: No movement, yes. And so...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So what changes now with a divided Congress that makes it more likely?</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: Well, you know, I'm happy that I'm actually sitting on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, you know? I know I have Senator Grassley and Senator Ernst representing my state as well. And they hear it as well as I do from our constituents that this is - needs to be a priority. And I am hopeful we can actually work together on these issues and get something done. That is why I was sent here.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: One other issue to ask you about - the president is certain to bring up his desire for a border wall. Speaker Pelosi - Nancy Pelosi has been careful to say that Democrats could back money for fencing, could back money for barriers but not a wall. What's your red line?</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: Well, I don't know if it's so much a red line as much as it's about taking it seriously. I don't think Democrats or Republicans have gotten immigration correct.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Are you prepared to say that both parties, your - the Democratic Party and Republicans should compromise, particularly in an effort to not have another government shutdown starting 10 days from now?</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: Well, in regards to a government shutdown, I mean, never should American workers be used as bargaining chips for policy decisions. One of the hardest phone calls I suppose I've ever had in my five years as a public official was a few weeks ago from a farm service agency worker who's my guest here tonight, calling me, telling me he was getting called back to work without pay and was worried about the folks that he worked with who were trying to figure out how they're going to afford child care without getting a paycheck.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So this is your guest. We should mention each member of Congress can bring a guest to the State of the Union. And he's coming in from Iowa.</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: He is. He is. He's excited to be here. And, you know, it was important for me to bring him because I wanted to make sure that he was in the room tonight. And I do hope the president catches his eyes. And I hope that it gets back to them that there are folks sitting in that gallery, ones who were working and care about their communities and were worried about their families, worried about their co-workers because of the fact that they were used as negotiating tools for policy decisions. And again, that should never be done. And I wanted to make sure, again, that Jesse was in this room and heard and seen.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: That's Abby Finkenauer, freshman Democratic congresswoman from Iowa. Congresswoman Finkenauer, thanks so much for your time.</s>ABBY FINKENAUER: Thank you - really happy to be here. And thanks for all you do.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And we will meet freshman Republican Chip Roy elsewhere in the program tonight.

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Sister Carol Zinn, executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, about the abuse of nuns and how the Catholic Church has dealt with the issue.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Pope Francis has talked a lot about young people who have been sexually abused by priests. Now for the first time, he is addressing a related problem. During a press conference on an airplane, a reporter asked about priests who have abused nuns. The pope acknowledged that it has happened.</s>POPE FRANCIS: (Speaking Italian).</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: "It's not everyone that does this, but there have been priests and bishops who have," he said. "And I think that it's continuing because it's not like once you realize it, that it stops."</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: We're joined now by Sister Carol Zinn. She runs the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization of leaders of orders of Catholic sisters here in the U.S. Welcome to the program.</s>CAROL ZINN: Thank you.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: How did you first come to know about this problem?</s>CAROL ZINN: I personally first came to know about it almost 20 years ago now at the assemblies that happen at the international level. And we had our sisters from the continent of Africa and Asia sharing these kinds of stories, and so it's been a very long time.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Can you tell us about some of those stories you heard from women who've suffered through this?</s>CAROL ZINN: Well, I would say that it follows the typical pattern that we are hearing in the stories of the abuse of power. Those same dynamics are part of the experience that Women Religious have, everything from the - you know, the secrecy to the shame to, no one will believe me, to, what will happen to me if I do say, you know, something either to my superiors. So it's the same pattern of abuse of power, really.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Now that the pope has spoken publicly about it, what do you think of his response?</s>CAROL ZINN: Well, I think that if you have the Holy Father, the leader of the global Catholic Church, saying that this is true, that this has been happening for a long time and just because you say something about it doesn't mean that it stops, I think we already have movement that we have never seen before. The day of these situations happening in the dark and people not being able to speak about them are over at least theoretically in the same way that the #MeToo movement has unleashed a whole avenue for exposing this kind of reality that people are no longer afraid. They're actually encouraged to come forward and share their story.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Is there a particular step you would like to see the church take next?</s>CAROL ZINN: The first thing that I know that I and we would like to see is an absolute priority on the need for compassion and empathy, deep listening so that people have a safe space and a respectful space to tell their story without any sense of judgment. The second thing is that there would be immediate assistance offered, whatever that might be - counseling, support, accompaniment.</s>CAROL ZINN: I think the third thing that we would like to see would be - that the way the institutional hierarchical church - Catholic Church - is organized, which ties all of the power and the decision-making to our brothers who are ordained and really does leave the lay members of the church out of any of those structures where these kinds of conversations, you know, could happen.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: What role do you think there is for law enforcement to play here?</s>CAROL ZINN: Part of the reason why we have this situation that we have is because the institutional Church, as other institutions, kind of police themselves and leave out, if you will, any law enforcement vehicles that are available. So I think the - one of the pieces of learning that I think goes across the board is that any utterance of an allegation goes first and foremost to law enforcement.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Your organization, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, helped to facilitate a survey of nuns in the mid-'90s that showed that 40 percent of American nuns had suffered some form of sexual trauma. Do you think your own organization should have done more to address this a long time ago?</s>CAROL ZINN: Twenty-twenty hindsight is always, you know, much more clear, as you know. Could there have been something different done - yes, which is why we are really delighted to be involved in any way we can right now - cooperating and participating with any kind of processes that really does allow this terrible tragedy and horrific abuse of human beings to actually come to the forefront for the purpose of being healed, reconciled and corrected.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Sister Carol Zinn, thank you so much for speaking with us.</s>CAROL ZINN: Thank you very much for having us.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: She is executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with former NAACP president and longtime Virginia resident Cornell Brooks about Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's blackface scandal.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: I want to bring in another voice here, Cornell William Brooks. He's a longtime Virginia resident, and he's a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is immediate past president of the NAACP, and he is here in our studios. Welcome.</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: It's great to be here.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: I said you're a longtime Virginia resident. How long you live there?</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: For over 20 years now.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: OK. And you voted for Ralph Northam...</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: I did.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ...For governor. What went through your mind as this story broke on Friday?</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: I was more disappointed than shocked, and I was profoundly shocked.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: You're saying shocked, and I think that was the reaction of a lot of us as we watched this play out. Are you shocked that someone would think it was OK to go to a party in blackface in the mid-'80s in Virginia?</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: Well, first of all, though that was many years ago, in the mid-'80s in Virginia, the fact of the matter is the term hate crime came into being in the '80s. The Klan was still vocal and viable in the '80s. In the '80s, there were hate crimes perpetuated against African-Americans. And let us take note. In the '80s, we as a commonwealth were yet wrestling with a legacy of massive resistance to the abolition of Jim Crow and the integration of the public schools. Appearing at a party in blackface is as bad now as it was then.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Give me a sense of how the conversation is playing out where you live in your community. And is there a story you'd tell me about a conversation you had over the weekend - I don't know - at the gym, at church, in your grocery line?</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: I mean it's a story that's really struck a deep chord in the sense that this is Virginia. People want to think of it as a mid-Atlantic state where some people have a Southern accent. But it is in fact a state in the South. And there are those that I've heard from who say that people 35 years ago who went to VMI, who grew up where the governor grew up, had those kinds of attitudes. But that being said, those same folks say, we can't excuse that.</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: Like, at what point do we say to ourselves as a state, people have to be accountable for their own racism? And so, you know, I've heard lots of folks talk about wrestling with being forgiving and holding people accountable. And I think there's a real tension. In the churches, you hear people wrestling with, how do we forgive? How do we hold people accountable, and how do we avoid being taken for granted?</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Do you see any path forward to healing as long as Ralph Northam is governor?</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: No. The reason being is in order to heal, one must acknowledge the depth, the severity, the danger of the wound. And when you lie, when you appear to look for the best way to render the diagnosis and the prognosis, healing is difficult to impossible. To move forward, we have to acknowledge what happened. To move forward, we have to acknowledge the pain that was caused. And to move forward, it means that the governor must be more concerned about the people he hurt than his political career.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Professor Brooks, thank you.</s>CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: No, thank you.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: That's Harvard professor and Virginia resident Cornell William Brooks.

New documents published by Buzzfeed on Tuesday give more detail on President Trump's business interests in Moscow. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Buzzfeed reporter Anthony Cormier about the documents.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: One part of the Mueller investigation has centered on President Trump's business interests in Moscow. A pile of new documents that BuzzFeed just published gives us more detail on how those interests took shape during the 2016 presidential campaign.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I have nothing to do with Russia. I don't have any jobs in Russia. I'm all over the world, but we're not involved in Russia.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: That was President Trump speaking with a local Miami CBS affiliate in July of 2016, one of many times he denied business connections to Russia. Over time, we have learned that those statements were false. President Trump's closest advisers were talking about building a Trump Tower Moscow at least until just weeks before he made that blanket denial we just heard.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Trump's former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the project. Here's how President Trump responded to that development on the White House lawn in December.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: He's a weak person, and what he's trying to do is get a reduced sentence. So he's lying about a project that everybody knew about. I mean, we were very open with it. We were thinking about building a building. I guess we had - in a form, it was an option. I don't know what you'd call it. We decided - I decided ultimately not to do it. That would have been nothing wrong if I did do it.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: That form, the option, is among nearly 300 pages of internal documents that BuzzFeed News has posted online today just days before Michael Cohen is scheduled to testify to Congress again. Anthony Cormier is one of the reporters on this story. Welcome.</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: Thanks for having me.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: First give us the big picture of what you have here. These documents include architectural renderings, text messages, emails, legal agreements. When you take the 10,000-foot view, what do these documents show?</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: We see that the Trump Organization was deeply involved in these negotiations. They went much further than they have publicly acknowledged. In fact, we have a Trump attorney striking lines, working on this letter of intent so that, well - Mr. Trump and those around him have said that there really was no deal, that there were no filings. We, in fact, know that his organization was deeply, deeply involved in getting this thing off the ground.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: I know that you're not naming your source, but what can you tell us about where these documents come from and how you know that they are authentic?</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: We've managed to authenticate them with law enforcement officials, people on the Hill. It's our understanding that they have been turned over to investigators. They are part and parcel of this aspect, the Trump Tower Moscow aspect, of the special counsel's inquiry.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: We already knew that President Trump's team was working on a possible Trump Tower Moscow for months after he said he had no business in Russia, but these documents do add a lot more texture to the timeline. And they let us see behind the scenes. Tell us about a few of the specific details that stand out to you when you go through them.</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: I think it's remarkable that when you put them on a timeline, when you plot them out, you can begin to see how publicly the candidate, Mr. Trump, was praising Vladimir Putin. And privately, his associates were using those sort of announcements as ways to further the deal. On November 3, 2015, I think it's a press conference at his tower in New York, and he tells the public, I believe we'll have a very good relationship with Russia.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: A very good relationship with Russia. I believe that I will have a very good relationship with Putin.</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: And less than an hour later, one of his associates emails Mr. Cohen and says that he's about to go to the Bahamas to meet with a developer who wants to build the tower. And he writes that Putin will get onstage with Donald for ribbon-cutting for Trump Moscow. And Donald owns the Republican nomination and possibly beats Hillary, and our boy is in. It's a crystallization of what publicly the president is doing to praise Putin and what - privately how his associates are using those proclamations.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: These documents show that they got as far as discussing potential travel dates for Donald Trump to visit Russia, discussing whether it should be before or after he officially secured the Republican nomination for president at the RNC convention.</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: Right. That is true. They - Mr. Cohen was planning to go to meet with developers, look at sites before the National - the Republican National Convention and that he hoped to get Mr. Trump over there possibly to even see Mr. Putin afterward.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: There are among these nearly 300 pages more than 50 pages of text message exchanges about everything from visas to Russia, potential meetings with Putin and more. Will you read us a section of the text messages that stands out to you?</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: Quite often they are laced with profanity. But I will find one from late in December 2015. Mr. Cohen and his associate, Felix Sater, are sort of bickering back and forth about how long it's taking to get this deal in place. And frustrated, Mr. Cohen tells Sater, (reading) not you or anyone you know will embarrass me in front of Mr. T when he asks me what is happening. That's a signal, I think, that Mr. Trump may have been more involved in these negotiations than he was publicly letting on at the time.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: I'd like to end with that argument that we heard at the beginning of our conversation from President Trump about the Trump Tower Moscow project.</s>PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We decided - I decided ultimately not to do it. There would have been nothing wrong if I did do it.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Is he right?</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: Good question, I think one that's going to be picked over for many, many years, right? It's not clear that he decided or when he decided not to do it. And there are questions about whether or not anyone in the organization was offering any inducements to Russian officials, right? In the past, we reported that as part of this deal, Mr. Cohen offered a $50 million penthouse to Mr. Putin as a way to sort of grease the skids and get this thing done. And so I think that there are quite a bit of threads left to be pulled on, and there are avenues that - yet to have been lighted.</s>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Anthony Cormier of BuzzFeed News, thanks a lot.</s>ANTHONY CORMIER: Thanks for having me.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Emily Rauhala of The Washington Post about the China operations of Frontier Services Group, a security training company co-founded by Erik Prince.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Erik Prince the controversial founder of the security firm Blackwater is generating more controversy, this time in China. Another company he founded, Frontier Services Group, recently announced on its website that it had signed a deal to build a training center in Xinjiang province. That's in the far west of the country. It is where the Chinese government has detained as many as a million Uighur Muslims. Later, the statement was taken down.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So to figure out what might be going on, we turn to Emily Rauhala of The Washington Post. She wrote about the company's plans to build in Xinjiang last year.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Hey, there.</s>EMILY RAUHALA: Hi.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Start with what we know Erik Prince and his company, Frontier Services Group - what they're already doing in China. They operate a training center outside Beijing, and you've actually been there. Tell us what it looks like, what's going on.</s>EMILY RAUHALA: That's right. His company invested in a school just outside Beijing. It's built like a compound with high black walls, a castlelike gate. And inside, there's a variety of training facilities - a mock village for drills about hostage negotiations, gym facilities and courses in self-defense, that type of thing. And we toured the school, and they gave us a sense of the type of training they give, both for Chinese military and Chinese police. And they said they'd trained about a couple thousand personnel already and had plans for expansion.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: OK. Stay with the plans for expansion because you were reporting on this. And those plans for expansion include opening this training center in Xinjiang. What is the vision for that as you've been able to discern?</s>EMILY RAUHALA: So what we found when we went to speak to them in May was that they had plans to build what they were calling a forward-operating base in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China's far northwest. This is an area that's really tightly controlled by the Chinese government - by Chinese security personnel, both military, intelligence and regular police. So we were immediately like - wow, the Chinese government's going to let you go out there and build a school? And they said, yep, there is a really - a strong need for expertise in anti-terror operations, in how to protect logistics and supply chains. And we have plans to open a school. It's under construction.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Now, a spokesman for Frontier Services Group says that this whole statement announcing that Xinjiang was going ahead was posted by mistake and says Erik Prince was not involved. Do we know? I mean, does that seem plausible to you given your reporting?</s>EMILY RAUHALA: Well, I'm unable to know, you know, what he does or doesn't know.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Sure.</s>EMILY RAUHALA: But what I can tell you is we visited this school, interviewed the founder and also interviewed a ton of sort of former executives from this company last spring for our - ahead of publication. We took those findings to Frontier Services Group. Erik Prince's personal spokesman got back to us and said, sure, we'll answer questions if you send an email. We sent an email. And then a spokesperson for Frontier Services Group, the company, got back to us saying they would not, in fact, answer the questions.</s>EMILY RAUHALA: So as early as May, we know that his personal spokesman knew about this. You know, then of course, there was the announcement posted on the company's own website last week and then taken down.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Erik Prince, as we noted, is a controversial figure. There's the history with Blackwater. He is under scrutiny for a meeting he took in the Seychelles with associates of Vladimir Putin. And he is highly connected with the current administration, just to note. Are his connections with the Trump administration - his sister is President Trump's education secretary - are those a factor at all here? Are they in play?</s>EMILY RAUHALA: I think they're certainly a factor in terms of why people are so interested in this guy. The fact that someone like this could be going into business with Chinese companies that are closely tied to the Chinese Communist Party raises a lot of questions. U.S. law stipulates that you cannot, in fact, you know, sell U.S. defense information or secrets - make money off them - to a foreign government. And so I think there was a lot of concern among his associates and others that this project could potentially violate those rules, though, just to be clear, there's been no sort of concrete allegation or evidence of that to this point.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And to be clear, the mere training of security personnel in China would not be a violation of U.S. law. It would be if national security information were compromised in some way.</s>EMILY RAUHALA: Right. You can't sort of sell U.S. know-how overseas. So people were concerned that because he had such close ties to the U.S. defense sector that doing business and making money with Chinese companies could potentially run him afoul of these rules.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Emily Rauhala, she was Beijing correspondent for The Washington Post. Now she covers foreign affairs from here in Washington.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Thanks so much.</s>EMILY RAUHALA: Thank you.

The U.S. says it's sending tons of humanitarian and medical aid to Venezuela's borders. The big question: will it make it to the people in need or will criminal groups and Venezuela's military get it?

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: The U.S., Canada and other countries in the region are vowing to send humanitarian aid to the Venezuelan people. The question is, how will they get supplies into the country? They're trying to help national assembly President Juan Guaido, who's locked in a power struggle with leader Nicolas Maduro. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.</s>MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mark Green, has been tweeting pictures of food aid meant, he says, for malnourished children in Venezuela. And he's been meeting with Juan Guaido's representatives in Washington to figure out how to bring in what the U.S. is promising will be $20 million in assistance. In Canada today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chaired a meeting of the group of regional countries backing Guaido.</s>PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Canada is stepping up and announcing $53 million to address the most pressing needs of Venezuelans on the ground, including the almost 3 million refugees.</s>MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: There's been a lot of talk about moving aid into Venezuela from Colombia. That's where Christian Visnes is based for the Norwegian Refugee Council.</s>CHRISTIAN VISNES: We haven't seen any buildup of aid on the border these last few days. Of course, we have noticed the talk. And there's quite a bit of concern of the impact of that.</s>MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The concern is that a big new aid operation could look too political in a country where there's now essentially two competing presidents, Nicolas Maduro and the one the U.S. is backing, Juan Guaido. Visnes, speaking via Skype, says aid groups need to stay neutral.</s>CHRISTIAN VISNES: There is a very tense political situation in the region. We, as humanitarian organizations, we are impartial. We are neutral. And it's important for us that humanitarian aid, assisting people in need, are clearly separated from any political process that is ongoing.</s>MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: That concern is echoed by Patricia McIlreavy of InterAction, an umbrella organization of U.S. aid groups. She says it's not clear how the U.S. plans to get aid into Venezuela, and U.S. officials aren't giving details.</s>PATRICIA MCILREAVY: Well, our call is for us not to politicize the humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian needs from the populations are what we should be keeping at the forefront of our minds and not how we could be using humanitarian assistance to further the interests of one side or another.</s>MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: McIlreavy says it's risky for aid workers to be seen as supporting one side, and they need to prepare for the long term.</s>PATRICIA MCILREAVY: You know, this isn't going to be over in a few months. Even if the crisis - the political crisis - is resolved, the needs of the population will likely be protracted.</s>MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The oil-rich nation is suffering hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine, all problems the U.S. blames on Maduro. Guaido is calling for an aid conference in Washington next week. Michele Kelemen NPR News, the State Department.

Conventional wisdom advises against talking about politics at family gatherings, but that's often unrealistic. With the turbulent race for president and the roiling Occupy protests — not to mention the usual politics of food, football and in-laws — some discussion guidelines can be helpful. Andrew Wilson, writer and contributor, The American Prospect and The Weekly Standard Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight, Discern Analytics Amy Dickinson, syndicated columnist, Chicago Tribune

NEAL CONAN, HOST: There is longstanding wisdom that politics and religion have no place at the dinner table, but millions of us head over the river and through the woods with last night's debate or Afghanistan or Climategate on our minds, and this year's turkey may come with a garnish of pepper spray.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that leaves the politics of food and football for dessert. A lively exchange of ideas at your house, or the prelude to heartburn? How do politics come up at your family table? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, we want your nominations for once-common sounds that your kids may never hear. When was the last time you heard a record skip? Give us a call: 800-989-8255, when the time comes, or you can send us an email now. The address is talk@npr.org.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: But first, politics at Thanksgiving. And this is a subject that often comes up as, well, some decide it's a teachable moment, good for all generations to engage in a lively debate. Others wonder whether, in fact, the stuffing is going to end up in everybody's hair before it is all done. 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. And let's see if we can begin with a caller. Let's go to Miguel, Miguel with us from Tulsa.</s>MIGUEL: Yes, hello.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And how does politics come up at your Thanksgiving table?</s>MIGUEL: Well, my father-in-law is notorious for just always diving into different topics. He's the only conservative, while me, my wife and my brother-in-law are, you know, more on the left and, you know, are just - you know, we don't go that far right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So he starts in, and everybody's eyes start rolling?</s>MIGUEL: Yeah, exactly. And, of course, you know, it's - he's over for dinner, or we're out, and he just cannot help himself. He just starts to go off about, you know, the president this, or, you know, one thing or another. And usually, my brother-in-law will just, you know, take aim at him, and then they start to get into it, and then we're just like oh, boy. Here we go, you know.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So are you headed over there for Thanksgiving again this year?</s>MIGUEL: Well, he's going to come. You know, we're going to celebrate, actually, on Friday. But yeah, we're all going to get together. And we're just going to, you know, politely say in the beginning, you know, let's just not even go there.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, good luck. Thanks very much for the call, Miguel. Happy Thanksgiving.</s>MIGUEL: Thank you. Bye-bye.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Despite the risks, some say we need an even bigger helping of politics with turkey dinner. Technology analyst Paul Saffo argued it's time to dump the taboo on talking politics at dinner in a piece that ran earlier this year in the San Francisco Chronicle. He's with us now from member station KQED in San Francisco. Nice to have you with us today, and Happy Thanksgiving.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Happy Thanksgiving, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you say that refusal to talk politics at the dinner table is killing our democracy.</s>PAUL SAFFO: We need to talk about politics more. I'm not sure if we should do it over Thanksgiving, and it's certainly not a good idea to do it without advance notice. But having dinners where you get people together specifically to talk about a political issue or a policy issue I think is a very good idea because, you know, everybody in Washington is talking about it all the time. The rest of aren't. That's a bad mix.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So make agreements ahead, so with the appetizer, deficits. Later, as you get to the main course, it can be Occupy Wall Street?</s>PAUL SAFFO: I think deficits go great with dessert.</s>PAUL SAFFO: But I think that picking a topic, the way I think about it is you invite some friends over, and you tell them in advance: Why don't we talk about this particular subject? And ask people to take a quick look on the Web. And, you know, thanks to things like Wikipedia, everybody can become an instant policy expert. And have a conversation about the issues, not just wade randomly in.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So - well, in other words, know a little bit of what they're talking about.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Well, that's the whole point. You know, the problem with most of our conversations these days is they're bumper-sticker conversations: Sling a slogan, not listen to the other person and then have sullen silence. I realize that's a Thanksgiving tradition for many families. I'd hate to see us lose it.</s>PAUL SAFFO: But it can be hugely entertaining to watch. But the point is to learn something new.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hugely entertaining to watch - not so much fun to participate in.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Yes, true. But I think we've all been guilty. I mean, we all have that uncle or that cousin, and you know there are two people, if you just light the spark, you just sit back and watch as they go at it. And it makes for great conversations over dessert.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And let's see if we can get another caller in on this. Tom's with us from Circleville in Ohio.</s>TOM: Hi, thanks for having me on. Wonderful show.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Do you talk politics at Thanksgiving?</s>TOM: Not anymore.</s>TOM: That is now - I come from a very large family, very diverse family. And one day the weather came up during Thanksgiving. It was really - we had a lot of snow, unusual snow. And I have one brother who is very rightwing, and he got up, basically threw his food down on the table and stomped out, said we're all leftists and everything.</s>TOM: And, you know, there were other people that are Republican at the table, too. But what it was about, it was about the wild fluctuations of weather.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I see. So it was a climate change dispute?</s>TOM: Yes, it was. And so we all got together, and whenever the whole family's together, there is no politics. We can talk about anything else, but no politics. No politicians are allowed.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And so is everybody getting back together and agreeing to talk about nothing more controversial than the mashed potatoes?</s>TOM: That's it. You got it. We all get together. We talk about everything but politics, and get along fine.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Tom, thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it. But as I understand it, Paul Saffo, had they made an agreement to talk about the politics of climate change, and people discussed their opinions, as opposed to it erupting unplanned - we could plan the menu, but not the discussion.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Yeah, no, and I think that's exactly the way to approach it, is you pick a topic. And, you know, maybe if you really have a big divergence, you start with something non-controversial. But what I find in my life is whenever I travel overseas, all the dinner conversations are about politics and policy and world affairs. And when I come home, none of the conversations are.</s>PAUL SAFFO: If the rest of the world can do this, surely Americans can learn to talk in a civil manner about issues that matter to us.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, joining us now is Andrew Wilson, a regular contributor to The American Spectator who wrote a piece on Thanksgiving and dinner-table politics for the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. He's with us from St. Louis. Andrew Wilson, nice to have you with us today.</s>ANDREW WILSON: Well, thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, having read your piece, you have a large and politically diverse family. And I understand it, until fairly recently, it was no-holds-barred.</s>ANDREW WILSON: Yes, it was. It was no-holds-barred when I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s. And my father was very much the patriarch, and he was a World War II naval skipper. And he encouraged vigorous competition between the children, and he tried to model the family on Joseph Kennedy's family.</s>ANDREW WILSON: And so we were very much encouraged to debate each other at dinner, and there were seven of us children. And it was a fun scene, and we did discuss issues. And for outsiders who were seeing us for the first time, it was sometimes kind of shocking and appalling for them, because we would all try to shout each other down. But things have changed a lot since then.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: What happened?</s>ANDREW WILSON: Well, the political differences back then were, I think, minor compared to what we have now. You know, one of my earliest political memories was watching the Nixon-Kennedy debates. And Nixon and Kennedy really had to fish around for issues that they disagreed on.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Kimoi and Matsu, I think, were pretty much it. Yeah.</s>ANDREW WILSON: Right. And then Kennedy came up with the missile gap. And so people were not as divided then as they are now. And I think that politics is far more personal now than it was then. It's personal in the sense that people are worried about their own futures. They're worried about the futures of their children and grandchildren.</s>ANDREW WILSON: And they blame all of this on the political mess in Washington, D.C., but they have very difficult - different views on what constitutes that mess.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, joining us now is "Ask Amy's" Amy Dickinson, who writes the syndicated columnist "Ask Amy" for the Chicago Tribune. She joins us from time to time, and joins us now from the studios at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. And Amy, nice to have you, and Happy Thanksgiving.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Thanks, same to you. Boy, what a great topic.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Do you discuss politics at your Thanksgiving table?</s>AMY DICKINSON: Well, I have to say, I married into a huge family. My husband is one of 13 children, very - all of them very opinionated, very, very diverse. And they're - a normal dinnertime gets crazy. Thanksgiving out - it just rocks, you know.</s>AMY DICKINSON: And so I actually - the family's starting to gather. So I went over last night, and I said okay, so I'm going to be on TALK OF THE NATION. How do you feel about talking politics? And then, of course, they all picked a fight with me, you know, because that's what they do.</s>AMY DICKINSON: So here's the - here's my sort of nuanced view: I don't believe it's a good idea to ban subjects. You know, that doesn't feel right - to me, anyway. And Thanksgiving is a holiday of, you know, when you think about the original Thanksgiving, it's diverse groups coming together peacefully, right.</s>AMY DICKINSON: So I like the idea of sort of trying to control the topic a little bit by suggesting that it happen at a certain time, maybe later in the meal. I actually believe in sitting down together and starting the meal with I call them prompts or toasts, where each person - for instance, one little game we can play is you write down on a little piece of paper what you're grateful for, and then you pass your piece of paper to the right, just one person to the right.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Each person then reads what someone else is grateful for. And so little Sally might say: Uncle Buddy is grateful for the conceal-and-carry permit he got this year.</s>AMY DICKINSON: And then somebody else says, like, you know, Cousin Susan seems to be grateful for the Occupy Wall Street movement. So it gets going, but this way, you have other people sort of being - introducing topics and ideas. And then you basically - what my husband's family said was: Look, it's really important to discuss these things, but to do so in a way - even when it gets heated, it has to end with a hug.</s>AMY DICKINSON: And I have to say, I feel they're fairly successful at doing that. But I like a little more inclusion, a little more control, especially when there are so many generations at the table. One thing about politics is that it tends to dominate - you know, three or four people will dominate, and everyone else is just an audience.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And if you keep it towards the end of the meal, at least people can retreat and have a tea party in the living room and occupy the kitchen.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Exactly, occupy the kitchen.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about political conversations at the Thanksgiving table: a lively exchange of ideas or the prelude to heartburn? How does politics come up at your Thanksgiving table? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. It can be a volatile mix around the dinner table at Thanksgiving: grandparents, aunts, uncles, in-laws, the kids back from college. Toss in the usual long-simmering tensions, maybe a glass or two of wine, and this year, especially, an overheated political season. It all adds up to a potential meltdown or maybe a lively exchange of ideas.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There's the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, the super committee and 2012, not to mention the politics of football, food and family rivalry. So tell us: How does politics come up at your dinner table? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also get into the conversation on our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Our guests are Amy Dickinson, who writes the syndicated Ask Amy column for the Chicago Tribune; Paul Saffo, a freelance writer who wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal about political conversations, how they play out in his family; and also with us is Andrew Wilson, a writer and regular contributor to The American Prospect.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And let's see if we can get Suzie(ph) on the line. Suzie's calling us from St. Louis.</s>SUZIE: Yes.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And how does politics come up at your Thanksgiving table?</s>SUZIE: Well, for years we had a severe problem because my own father, being influenced by mailers from Congress Tom DeLay, believed that Clinton was guilty of murdering some 60-some people. And my mother-in-law, my husband's mom, believed that Clinton was such a dear young man that everybody was taking advantage of, and he had never done anything wrong.</s>SUZIE: So we had to keep them apart, or we really had a ruination of a dinner.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And kept them apart how?</s>SUZIE: We just had dinner at separate times for each of them.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I see. So there was the...</s>SUZIE: Isn't that awful?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That is terrible.</s>SUZIE: I think that with the change in generations, things had changed because both of them passed on in 2004. But now my eldest son has become a member of WikiLeaks, and even though my husband and I have moved to the left in subsequent years, it's a pretty strained conversation because my sister-in-law, who has moved to Boise, has - because she's moved to Boise, has become a gun-toting Westerner who believes seriously in individual rights. And so it's very hard to talk to her.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It kind of makes the debate over Fort Marcy and Hope, Arkansas, just a little bit - sound nostalgic, doesn't it?</s>SUZIE: Yes.</s>AMY DICKINSON: But you know what? Suzie brings up a great point because, you know, some of what we're going to be dealing with tomorrow is not just banning conversations but more sort of how to cope when they do happen. And that's when you have to come up with responses that aren't quite comebacks, but that are fairly satisfying.</s>MIGUEL: Like do you remember the Johnny Carson, you might have a point. Of course, you might not have a point, but...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That was the H.L. Mencken boilerplate response: Dir Sir or Madam, you may be right.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Right, you may be right. So, I mean, I think there are fairly benign ways to respond to people so that you don't excite them. Even if they're trying to excite you, you know, you can sort of derail a little bit. And if that fails, I really believe in using children as a human shield.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Basically you hold up the baby, you go look at the baby, you know.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Suzie, have a happy Thanksgiving, I hope.</s>SUZIE: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Paul Saffo, I wonder, when you get into situations like that, how does your idea of agreeing on a topic work out?</s>PAUL SAFFO: Well, it usually - what I found is the dinner finds its own level with the topic. And so the people I have these conversations with, are already talking about them. But the conversation in advance of the meal, saying let's pick this topic, I think is a great way to get things started.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Above all, what it does is it sets people up to be prepared to have their mind changed and to admit when they don't know something. So it becomes cooperative conversation of mutually discovering what could be going on.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Do you ever discover that the dialogue at the grownup table is lower than that at the kids' table, and so are not?</s>PAUL SAFFO: Absolutely, and by the way, I'm completely with Amy. I think throwing children into the breach is always a good idea. And thinking of, you know, little deflection points. Have firebreaks ready so when things do get too heated, you say, so how about those Dodgers? And what do you think about the ownership?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Andrew Wilson, might any of those ploys work in your house?</s>ANDREW WILSON: I don't think so. You know, I think that my brothers and sisters are more combative than that, and our tradition is one much more of chaos and conflict. And I am something of a contrarian myself, and I do miss the old battles that we used to have.</s>ANDREW WILSON: You know, these days we do exercise some self-censorship, and we don't want to lose the sense that we love each other, and we're great friends and so forth. And so that's why we've backed off a bit. But I think we've lost something in the process.</s>ANDREW WILSON: You know, it's not quite as much fun. It's not as boisterous. It's not as rollicking as it used to be, and I don't think that picking a topic or separating people is what we want to do in my extended family. You know, but I would like to see more discussion than what we've had.</s>ANDREW WILSON: But as I say, it's difficult, because people think that the stakes are very high in the political argument of our time.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Veronica(ph) in Washington, D.C.: Politics are always discussed. I've never known a family dinner without a lively conversation filled with politics and/or religion. We live in D.C., so I think it's a part of daily life. Nobody ever gets upset. It's awfully fun and enlightening. Let's see if we can go to Jeff(ph), and Jeff's with us from Menomonie in Wisconsin.</s>JEFF: Yeah, I'd just like to add that my family has a family dinner once a month, and we have 20 or 30 people get together. And so we get together all the times of the year, and politics is always part of the conversation. And we really learn a lot from each other, and it's all we really talk about.</s>JEFF: I'm the only liberal. There's tons of Republicans, tons of conservatives with the family. And they're all talking about the end of the world and how they're scared of the economic collapse. So we have gardens starting. We have rice in the attic. It's crazy. But...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, I see, emergency supplies of rice in the attic.</s>JEFF: Yeah.</s>JEFF: No, but it's - we all have a civil conversation each month, and Thanksgiving included, and we all learn something from each other. And I think that's something that we're losing at the dinner table these days is we're not - we're all afraid of talking about the challenging choices and about politics. And I think we just need to let it out and get everyone included, you know, the youngest generations to the oldest.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jeff, good luck tomorrow.</s>JEFF: Thank you, it'll be fun.</s>AMY DICKINSON: You know what?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Go ahead, Amy.</s>AMY DICKINSON: I have a theory about that. I love what Jeff's family does, and it makes me wonder if they are doing what we used to do when I was growing up in the '70s: We had dinner together every single night. And there was the year that my dad voted for Wallace, and my mother voted for McGovern.</s>AMY DICKINSON: But we sort of - we were practiced. I mean, his family gets together, and they are basically practicing. So many of us, we don't see one another but at this huge feast meal, and we don't know how to do it. You know, maybe we just don't know how to have these conversations.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's interesting, Paul Saffo, we sometimes - you mentioned other countries. The style of debate, in particularly, Britain is - well, the level of conversation, it seems to be considerably elevated than what we have here because we don't do it a lot. It's been interesting to watch these last debates. The one last night, these guys are catching on. Maybe we need more practice talking politics.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Well, I think we all need to learn how to get our conversational muscles back in shape. I love Andrew's father's instincts on this, and I sometimes think maybe what we need to do is invoke the memory of dead, you know, patriarchs of different political parties, whether it's Kennedy on that side or a conservative on the other, where there was the tradition of this talking.</s>PAUL SAFFO: I was in - at a dinner in Paris, earlier this - or late last year, and, you know, boy, talk about knock-down, drag-out. You had both extremes, very vigorous debate at the table. I almost imagined that perhaps a knife would be tossed. And then at the end of the evening, everybody air-kissed each other and said we've got to do this again on the weekend.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that was before Dominique Strauss-Kahn.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Indeed.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So all right, let's get another caller in. Let's go to Benita(ph), Benita with us from Naples in Florida.</s>BENITA: Hi there, love your program.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thank you.</s>BENITA: I'm taking notes because the tradition in my family was that I as an atheist was called upon to say grace, and of course I'm reluctant to. And it would just sort of deteriorate from there.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Amy, maybe this is a moment for some advice. It seems to me that you can say a very gracious grace without necessarily appealing to a higher power.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Right, and honestly, if your family is insisting that you do this, knowing that you are an atheist, it's kind of a hostile way to start. But, you know, you can never fail by being very gracious, very gentle, and, you know, even when things get heated, you say, you know, what I like about you is your passion. You know, you just remember - you think of something positive, and you reflect that back to the person.</s>AMY DICKINSON: It can throw people off.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And maybe just accidentally spill some gravy on that person next to you.</s>BENITA: Thank you for your advice. I will use it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good luck.</s>AMY DICKINSON: And, you know, there's another way to conduct heated conversations. This comes from sort of marriage counseling, where you give somebody an object, say the salt shaker. Whoever is holding the salt shaker gets to speak. No one who isn't holding the salt shaker can speak. This basically slows things down a little bit. In order to speak, you have to basically ask permission for the salt shaker. And it can become kind of a game, but it does - I think it tends to slow things down a little bit. It tamps things down and sometimes it injects a tiny bit of humor and fun into it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's not unlike arranging for topics or unlike some sort of structure. So planning the conversation a little bit might be as wise as, as we suggested earlier, planning the menu, don't you think, Paul?</s>PAUL SAFFO: Absolutely. And when you plan the conversation, you can also have nice counterfactuals. I was at one of those dinners recently where politics came up here in California and indeed with friends who had moved to the country because of the imminent collapse of the world. And I remember the - me, I looked at their life and said, I'll stick with the city and take the collapse. But the subject of prisons in California came up, and the wonderful counterfactual - I happened to be faculty member at Stanford - and I said, well, you know, I think being tough on crime is fine except in California. It costs us $55,000 a year to house a prisoner, which is $5,000 more than a year it takes to put a student through Stanford and that we could just solve all the problems. Take the prisoners out of prison, put them in Stanford, problem solved.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There you go.</s>PAUL SAFFO: But it really knocks people off balance when you say, you know, by the way, here's the cost of the policy that you endorse. Are you really sure you want that?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at Discern Analytics in San Francisco. Amy Dickinson is with us as well, writes the "Ask Amy" syndicated column for the Chicago Tribune. And Andrew Wilson, a writer and regular contributor to the American Prospect and the Weekly Standard...</s>ANDREW WILSON: American Spectator.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ..excuse me, American Spectator. Forgive me for that. And we're having a very civil conversation because none of us can see each other. So we're out of range of that ball of mashed potatoes that would otherwise be winging at somebody's head. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's see if we can go next to Ron(ph). Ron with us from Walnut Creek.</s>RON: Hey, Neal. Wonderful show. Thanks for having me on.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks.</s>RON: So I grew up in a large Italian family. And in the early days, as I was growing up, we used to be able to talk about politics, and I've noticed in the last five years that things have gotten very contentious. But we've all agreed to just talk about the things that unify us, sports teams and the weather, and that's about it. So it's very benign conversations. It feels like we're doing what the government is doing or the politicians are doing, which is nothing.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, kicking the can down the road.</s>RON: That's right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. Sports, though, clearly you don't have relatives from New York and Boston.</s>RON: No, that's right. We're all in one state, so everything is kind of - we tend to coalesce around one specific team, and that's the 49ers. So...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And so how about - they're doing extremely well this year too, so it's going to be - it should be a good day tomorrow.</s>RON: Good - great day for football tomorrow. And the 49ers are playing, so we're going to have a very happy Thanksgiving.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I wonder, Amy, how has the insertion of football on Thanksgiving Day changed all of this, do you think?</s>AMY DICKINSON: You know, I'm not loving this, actually, because frankly for some of us, sports is as exclusionary as some other topics. So I would like to remind everyone that there aren't just topics of conversation. There's actual talking and listening. There's - what's happening with you? What's going on with you these days? How's your job, you know? How's your house? How was your - what's your life like? I mean, there's that. Don't you think that's kind of a thing to do at Thanksgiving too?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, there's other opportunities too. There's before and after, so it's not just the dinner table, but that might be an opportunity to, well, exchange ideas - what you're thinking about too.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Exactly. Right. Asking open-ended questions, I think, is always a good idea.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go to Tom(ph), Tom with us from Hudson in North Carolina.</s>TOM: Thank you for taking my call. I love this show.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thank you.</s>TOM: I run a competitive model United Nations club for middle school. And one of the debates we had recently was over the Syrian crackdown. And the kids are going home and basically teaching their parents about the seriousness of it and also things they're learning, such as kids being tortured to expose their parents as dissenters. And I've been getting a lot of really good feedback. The kid - the parents will call me or email me and just talk about how their kids are just going on and on about what they're learning. And they got to see footage of the crackdowns and...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Mm-hmm. I applaud your idea, Tom. As a general principle, though, do you think Thanksgiving should be a teach-in?</s>TOM: No, I'm just - we were on the conversation of politics at the dinner table. We - just the whole fact of their bringing up things like, is this a moral issue or is this a state sovereignty issue or what should we do. And I'm getting a lot of good feedback from the parents about just what their kids are learning and how much they know.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Assign topic, Paul Saffo, do you think?</s>PAUL SAFFO: Well, again, I'm not a fan of assigning topics on Thanksgiving. But on other occasions, this is a great idea. You know, at the end of the day, I think the goal here is Americans need to remember that politics isn't just about opinion. It's also about facts and civics. And we've slid into a culture that's gone far from the age of Andrew's father, where people seem to believe that they're entitled to an opinion even when they don't have the facts. And we - by having conversations with people of different views, we can certainly get back to that. But, yeah, I agree. Not on Thanksgiving.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Paul Saffo, have a great day tomorrow. Appreciate your time.</s>PAUL SAFFO: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Andrew Wilson, happy Thanksgiving.</s>ANDREW WILSON: OK, and happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Amy, before we let you go, we have one other suggestion from Anne Hart, who wrote in the San Francisco Examiner: How about easing tensions at the Thanksgiving meal with a little classical music?</s>AMY DICKINSON: I love it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Amy Dickinson, we'll get you some Beethoven for your dinner tomorrow.</s>AMY DICKINSON: Thank you, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Amy Dickinson writes the syndicated "Ask Amy" column for the Chicago Tribune and joined us today from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Up next: sounds your kids may never hear.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: An old-fashioned cash register, a flashbulb. What sound from your life has vanished? 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

This year's 21st First Annual IgNobel Prize Ceremony featured the science of sighs, inquiries into the yawning habits of the red-footed tortoise, and songs about the chemistry of coffee. Ira Flatow and Ig master of ceremonies Marc Abrahams present some of the highlights from this year's festivities.

IRA FLATOW, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. It's the day after Thanksgiving. The plates have been washed, the relatives have been packed off to wherever they came from, and you've got your eye on that leftover slice of pie.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So take a moment and join us for our own SCIENCE FRIDAY holiday tradition. That's highlights from the Ig Nobel Awards. It's an annual tribute to research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: This year's 21st Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony took place at Harvard's Sanders Theater in late September. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and spur people's interest in science, medicine and technology.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: This year's awards included research into airborne wasabi, mm, the importance of sighing and some tasty songs about the chemistry of coffee. We won't be taking your calls this hour. So give your dialing finger a rest. And now on to the Igs.</s>UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium and boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium and strontium and silicon and silver and samarium and bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium.</s>UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium and phosphorous and francium and fluorine and terbium and manganese and mercury, molybdinum, magnesium, dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium, lead, praseodymium, and platinum, plutonium, palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium, tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium, and cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.</s>UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium and also mendelevium, einsteinium and nobelium and argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium and chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.</s>UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard - but I'm from Sheffield University, and we know there are at least another dozen that have been discovered.</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, literati, glitterati, pseudo-intellectuals, quasi-pseudo-intellectuals and stereo isomers, may I introduce our master of ceremonies, the editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, chief airhead Marc Abrahams.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Good evening. We are gathered here tonight to honor some remarkable individuals and groups. Every winner has done something that makes people laugh and then think. The Ig Nobel ceremony is produced by the science humor magazine the Annals of Improbable Research and co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students and by the Harvard Computer Society.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Tonight, 10 prizes will be given. The achievements speak for themselves all too eloquently.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The editors of the Annals of Improbable Research have chosen a theme for this year's ceremony, and that theme is chemistry.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Let me introduce a few of the several hundred people who are here on our stage, first the Nobel laureates: 1986 Nobel laureate in chemistry Dudley Herschbach.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: A 1993 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, Rich Roberts.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: A 2007 Nobel laureate in economics, Eric Maskin.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: A 2010 Nobel laureate in economics, Peter Diamond.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: A 1998 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, Lou Ignarro.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: A 2005 Nobel laureate in physics, a man who for more than a decade has humbly swept paper airplanes from the stage at this ceremony, Roy Glauber.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: 1990 Nobel laureate in physics from MIT, Jerome Friedman.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: As usual was prevented from joining us. He appears now via the magic of videotape.</s>JEROME FRIEDMAN: Congratulations. I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: As you know, we used to have a problem at this ceremony. Many of the speakers would exceed their allotted time. Here's how we now solve that problem. Please welcome the charming, delightful, ever-so-cute Miss Sweety Poo. Miss Sweety Poo, will you please demonstrate what you will do when someone has exceeded their allotted time?</s>MISS SWEETY POO: Please stop, I'm bored. Please stop, I'm bored.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Thank you, Miss Sweety Poo.</s>MISS SWEETY POO: Please stop, I'm bored. Please stop, I'm bored.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Thank you, Miss Sweety Poo. Thank you, Miss Sweety Poo. And now Professor Jean Berko Gleason will deliver the traditional Ig Nobel welcome-welcome speech.</s>JEAN BERKO GLEASON: Welcome.</s>JEAN BERKO GLEASON: Welcome.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: We're honored to have with us tonight some Ig Nobel Prize winners from previous years. You may have noticed a while back that Dudley Herschbach is wearing an unusual business suit. Dudley, could you stand up? And I am wearing an unusual business suit.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: If you're near the stage, you may have noticed that suits smell quite wonderful, and it's not just Dudley, it's not just me, it's the suits. The 1999 Ig Nobel Prize in Environmental Protection was awarded to the inventor of the self-perfuming business suit. Please welcome, from the Colin(ph) company in Korea, Hyuk Ho Kwon.</s>HYUK HO KWON: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I'm (unintelligible) to come back to this ceremony again. When I received Ig Nobel Prize with self-perfuming business suit back in 1999, I said (unintelligible) my lifetime to be fragrant. I hope every one of you may have a fragrance in your eye, but in 12 years, I find that only my suit still has good smell.</s>HYUK HO KWON: This is my new product, which is designed to save lives from the dangerous of nature such as (unintelligible). So I hope this jacket could save your life and put fragrance in your life to save your soul. Thank you.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded...</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: For testing whether Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, please welcome the scientist who did it, Dr. Deborah Anderson.</s>DEBORAH ANDERSON: Classic Coke kills sperm within one second. Diet Coke is equally effective. The New Coke and Cherry Coke are not effective. Be careful when you use Coca-Cola as a contraceptive.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The 1996 Ig Nobel Prize in Art was awarded to the creator of the plastic pink flamingo. Please welcome back Don Featherstone and his wife Nancy Featherstone.</s>DON FEATHERSTONE: Did you ever think what this world would be like without chemistry? You wouldn't have some of the beautiful things we have today like the pink plastic lawn flamingo.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Each year, the ceremony features what they call a mini-opera. This year's was a musical tribute to the chemistry of coffee. Here's a sample.</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Singing) (unintelligible).</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: We'll be right back with more of the 21st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. So stay with us. I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, from NPR.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Welcome back to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. Now back to Harvard's Sanders Theater for more of the Ig Nobel Awards.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And now let's get it over with. Ladies and gentlemen, the awarding of the 2011 Ig Nobel Prizes. We are giving out 10 prizes. The winners come from many nations. This year's winners have truly earned their prizes. Karen(ph), would you tell them what they've won?</s>KAREN: Each year's winner will receive an Ig Nobel Prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And what else?</s>KAREN: A piece of paper saying they've won an Ig Nobel Prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Are there any distinguishing marks?</s>KAREN: It's signed by several Nobel laureates, and it's - it's made of chemicals.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Genuine chemicals.</s>KAREN: Oh yeah.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: This, this is the coveted Ig Nobel Prize. It's a periodic table table.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: This was invented by Theo Gray, and Theo Gray received the Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry for inventing the periodic table table. And now our winners. First, the Physiology Prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Ig Nobel Prize in Physiology is presented to Anna Wilkinson of the U.K. and Natalie Sebanz of the Netherlands, Hungary, and Austria, Isabella Mandl of Austria, and Ludwig Huber of Austria for their study "No Evidence of Contagious Yawning in the Red-Footed Tortoise."</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And here is Ludwig Huber.</s>LUDWIG HUBER: So many, many thanks to you for your patience and for your laughing. It is really a funny story, and this is Anna Wilkinsin, all the credit go to her. She's the mastermind behind the Cold-blooded Cognition Lab in Vienna. So we are testing reptiles like tortoise, whether they engage in social learning and any kind of social behavior.</s>LUDWIG HUBER: So for instance, we found that they learn socially, although they are completely solitary species. And also they follow the gaze of each other. But they do not yawn contagiously. That means they do not behave the way we behave if we empathize, if we share interests and do other things.</s>LUDWIG HUBER: So this is really a short about the evolution of cognition. I thank Anna. I thank Isabella. I thank Natalie Sebanz and also Wilhelmina and all the tortoise. Thank you.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Chemistry Prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Ig Nobel Chemistry Prize is awarded this year to Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of Japan for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi, pungent horseradish...</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: ...to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm. Here is everyone.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: We have been thinking about how to wake up people with (unintelligible) in case of emergency. The answer is wasabi spray.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: The optimal concentration of airy wasabi is from five to 20 ppm. By the way, this prize is a gift from the subjects who slept in the examination room and had been choked with the pungent smell, with the (unintelligible). I do appreciate their courage and cooperation.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Our next mission is to maximize the potential wasabi spray - for example(ph), to reduce uncomfortable smell of shoes.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: But do not spray onto sushi and Japanese noodles. Thank you.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: The Medicine Prize. The Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine is awarded this year to Mirjam Tuk of the Netherlands and the U.K., Debra Trampe of the Netherlands, and Luk Warlop of Belgium, and jointly to Matthew Lewis, Peter Snyder and Robert Feldman of the U.S.A., and to Robert Pietrzak, David Darby, and Paul Maruff of Australia, for demonstrating that people make better decisions about some kinds of things but worse decisions about other kinds of things when they have a strong urge to urinate.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Please welcome Mirjam Tuk, Luk Warlop and Peter Snyder, Robert Feldman and David Darby. Each group will give its own speech.</s>MIRJAM TUK: Thank you. In our research, we examined that psychological form of control, bladder control, can also facilitate behavioral control. We had several participants who had to drink either a lot or just a little bit of water, and approximately one-half hour later they engaged in several tasks.</s>MIRJAM TUK: It turns out that those who had to control their bladder to a larger extent were better able at controlling their automatic impulses, and they were more patient with money. So they could wait for a later but larger reward instead of wanting a more immediate reward.</s>MIRJAM TUK: This suggests that neurological control signals are task-unspecific, which has important implications for impulse control. Thank you.</s>MIRJAM TUK: UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Well, thank you on behalf of all scientists who work tirelessly each and every day to understand the complex relationship between man's brain and his urologic system. We - our results are a little bit different from what you just heard because we caused some serious pain in our study.</s>MIRJAM TUK: The brain's control of bladder is complex. We can delay voiding as long as we choose, to a point. As we know, the longer we wait, the more pain that we feel. Using sensitive cognitive tests that we designed ourselves, we found that increasing cognitive impairment in attention working memory with delayed voiding - these impairments were the same, actually, as staying awake for 24 hour or if you reached the legal limit for driving at a bar.</s>MIRJAM TUK: UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Also, these deficits magically go away as soon as you run to the bathroom. Why this relationship between thinking and peeing?</s>MISS SWEETY POO: Please stop, I'm bored.</s>MISS SWEETY POO: UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: When you've got to go, you've got to go.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And now it's time for the Win A Date with a Nobel Laureate Contest.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And here is Karen Hopkin(ph) to tell us about our laureate.</s>KAREN HOPKIN: Thank you, my silver-filled whoopee pie. Tonight we have a real treat for you. Our Win a Date Prize is a charmer called Lou. Louis Ignarro won the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His stimulating studies on nitric oxide and its effects on erectile function in rabbits...</s>KAREN HOPKIN: ...almost single-handedly gave rise to the development of Viagra. A native of Brooklyn, this cuddly little bundle of pluck knows how to handle a stick-ball bat. Lou enjoys fun in the sun and other places. He's a master of N-O, but if you take Lou home tonight, ha-ha-ha, please give a warm win-a-date welcome to Lou Ignarro.</s>LOUIS IGNARRO: Hi.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Let's see who will win a date with this Nobel laureate. When you entered the hall tonight, you were handed an attractive printed program. Please pick it up, open it and look through it. If your program contains a picture of Professor Lipscomb making a cup of tea, then you've won a date with this Nobel laureate. Come on down and collect your prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Good luck, kids.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Now, a very special musical event. You're familiar with Tom Lehrer's classic song "The Elements." He also made an alternate version. It has been performed only once in public, and that was long ago, in a place where there were very few people to see it. Here now is the modern premiere of "The Elements by Aristotle," translated by Tom Lehrer. It will be performed by mezzo-soprano Roberta Gilbert and pianist Branden Grimmett.</s>ROBERTA GILBERT: (Singing) There's earth and air and fire and water.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Past winners of the Igs have been honored for things as diverse as studying the physics of hula-hooping, or research into why woodpeckers don't get headaches. Ever think about that? Ten genuine Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded each year. Winners travel to the Ig ceremony at their own expense, if they dare.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The psychology prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Ig Nobel Prize in Psychology is awarded to Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo, Norway, for trying to understand why, in daily life, people sigh.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Please welcome Karl Halvor Teigen.</s>KARL HALVOR TEIGEN: Well, this study is the result of a research project with psychology students. I wanted to show that there are still topics in psychology that have been overlooked by research. Sighs is one such topic. We found no empirical studies on sighs, so we had to invent our own sigh-chology.</s>KARL HALVOR TEIGEN: We asked people what it meant when other people sigh, and their thoughts, their (unintelligible). But when they sigh themselves, it simply meant resignation - I give up. So we gave people puzzles they could not solve, and they gave up, and they sighed.</s>KARL HALVOR TEIGEN: Others have claimed different results. Physiologically, sighing serves to normalize irregular breathing during stress, but we also think...</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop. I'm bored. Please stop. I'm bored.</s>KARL HALVOR TEIGEN: When you are bored...</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop. I'm bored.</s>KARL HALVOR TEIGEN: ...you should sigh.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The literature prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Ig Nobel Prize in Literature this year is awarded to John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his theory of structured procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that's even more important.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Professor Perry was unable to be here tonight, but he sent a colleague to accept on his behalf. Please welcome Deborah Wilkes.</s>DEBORAH WILKES: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and academics. I'm John Perry's editor, and I have - one of my duties, right - to show up, because he is a procrastinator.</s>DEBORAH WILKES: So he has sent me this message. He's in Germany this evening, and wanted me to relay these words: Beam at audience.</s>DEBORAH WILKES: I'm honored to receive this prize for my work on structured procrastination, and sorry I can't be here to celebrate with all these esteemed winners. Frankly, as a devout practitioner of structured procrastination, it was all I could do to compose this little speech.</s>DEBORAH WILKES: My thanks go mainly to my editor, Deborah Wilkes...</s>DEBORAH WILKES: ...who despite my procrastination, has published some of my finest works over many years. I have, in my opinion, made enormous contributions to philosophy in the course of my career, changing the way that occupants of the most widely...</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop. I'm bored.</s>DEBORAH WILKES: ...(unintelligible)...</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop. I'm bored.</s>DEBORAH WILKES: ...(unintelligible) and certainly, I get tons of email. And thank you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop. I'm bored.</s>DEBORAH WILKES: And blow a kiss to the audience.</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The physics prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Ig Nobel Physics Prize is awarded this year to Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne and Bruno Ragaru of France, and Herman Kingma of The Netherlands for determining why discus throwers become dizzy and why hammer throwers don't.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The winners could not journey to the ceremony. Instead, here is their acceptance speech, delivered by video.</s>PHILIPPE PERRIN: On behalf of all of us, we are very happy to accept the Ig Nobel prize. As we understand, it is something that deals with research that, at first glance, sounds very funny. And we accept it, especially because we want to show that our research is not funny at all. We are very serious researchers trying to figure out how the balance system works. We do that in sports situation, in natural situation and especially also in patients. So one of the things that we developed was a (unintelligible) to help our patients. And, for example, there's (unintelligible) implants, understanding more about diseases. And this is that we want to bring to your attention. Thank you. Complementary to this (unintelligible), it's also a (unintelligible) to understand motion sickness.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: The Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded for achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The awards are given out by the science humor magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research. You can find out more about them at improbable.com. We'll be back in a moment with more from Sanders Theatre, so stay with us.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, from NPR.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Welcome back to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. They revered the pink plastic flamingo, gave an award to a translator for dog barks, presented the inventor of karaoke with a peace prize and believe a longwinded speech is best dealt with by a sweet little girl saying: Please stop. I'm bored. This hour, yup, it's highlights from the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, presented each year by the editors of the science humor magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research. You can find out more about them at improbable.com. So let's go back to Harvard Sanders Theater, where something unusual is probably going to happen.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The biology prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Ig Nobel Prize in Biology this year goes to Darryl Gwynne of Canada and Australia and the USA, and David Rentz of Australia and the USA, for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Please welcome Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: DR. DARRYL GWYNNE: This is a study of sex and the brewing industry in Australia, and it was some 23 years ago we did this study. And David and I have been waiting by the telephone for the phone call...</s>GWYNNE: ...for decades, and it finally came. It's a study of Australian beetles that are fooled into mating with beer bottles. And I'll let my colleague, David Rentz, take up the theme.</s>GWYNNE: DR. DAVID RENTZ: Well, we were out on the Australian desert one morning, and we discovered a large beetle called the buprestid that was attempting to mate with beer bottles that have been cast along the side of the road by truck drivers and the like. And we did a number of experiments that isolated the causes of this, and it had to do with color and with the tubercles that seem to be on the bottom of the beer bottle held as grips. No, keep talking...</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop. I'm bored.</s>GWYNNE: It has deep ecological significance...</s>GWYNNE: ...for the conservation of beetles, and also for sexual differences theories.</s>GWYNNE: Only males make mating mistakes, not females.</s>UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Please stop. I'm bored.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Chief AIRhead Marc Abrahams says of the prize that some people covet it. Others flee from it. Some see it as a hallmark of civilization, others as a scuff mark. Some laugh with it. Others laugh at it. Many praise it. A few condemn it. Others are just mystified.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The mathematics prize.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: The Ig Nobel Prize in Mathematics is awarded to Dorothy Martin of the USA, who predicted the world would end in 1954, Pat Robertson of the USA, who predicted the world would end in 1982, Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA, who predicted the world would end in 1990, Lee Jang Rim of Korea, who predicted the world would end in 1992, Credonia Mwerinde of Uganda, who predicted the world would end in 1999, and Harold Camping of the USA, who predicted the world would end on September 6th, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21st, 2011. They're being awarded this prize for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The winners could not, would not be with us tonight. The 24/7 lectures are about to begin.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The first 24/7 lecture - I should explain what they are, shouldn't I? 24/7 lectures, they are the world's top thinkers. They're invited here to tell us very briefly what they're thinking about. Each 24/7 lecturer will explain his or her subject twice. First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds, and then, after a brief pause, a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. The 24-second time limit will be enforced by our referee, Mr. John Barrett. Mr. Barrett...</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Mr. Barrett, do you have any advice for our 24/7 lecturers?</s>JOHN BARRETT: Gentlemen, keep it clean.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And now, the first 24/7 lecture will be delivered by a pioneer in the study of protein folding, a professor of biology at MIT, a member of the Whitehead Institute, Susan Lindquist.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Her topic: stress responses. First, a complete technical description of the subject in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go.</s>SUSAN LINDQUIST: Three sub-lethal exposures to diverse proteotoxic stresses. This is a highly orchestrated cellular response that counteracts this apoptotic and necrotic cell death pathways through the deployment of molecular osmolytes, protein-folding reagents, remodeling factors and deubiquitinating and ubiquitinating ligases.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go.</s>SUSAN LINDQUIST: What doesn't kill you makes you strong.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The next 24/7 lecture will be delivered by a professor of chemistry at Oklahoma University, a visiting professor at MIT, a science adviser to the television program "Breaking Bad," Donna Nelson. Her topic: single-walled carbon nanotubes. First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: DR. DONNA NELSON: We analyze functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes by using NMR. Initially, we found that the analyses were not reproducible. They seem to depend upon how long the samples set before analysis. We thought the nanotubes might be re-bundling, so we tried sonicating the samples just before taking the NMR. That produced consistent results.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And now a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go.</s>NELSON: Nanotube analyses should be shaken, not stored.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The next 24/7 lecture will be delivered by a professor of chemistry at Harvard, 1986 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Dudley Herschbach. His topic: chemistry. First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds. On your mark...</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: DR. DUDLEY HERSCHBACH: Preamble, preamble. Look at page three of your program. You'll find oh, no. That's what my talk is about - a reaction that produces oh, no.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: First, a complete technical description in 24 seconds. On your mark, get set, go.</s>HERSCHBACH: Laser-induced fluorescence spectra have been obtained for OH radicals produced when hydrogen atoms and NO2 react in thermal energy collisions in the region where the two beams intersect, the reagents intersect. Spectra of the (0,0), (1,2), (0,1), (1,2), (0,2) and (1,3) bands of the A doublet sigma, the X doublet pi system have been observed. Distributions of OH over the whole energetically accessible range of rovibrational levels have been determined...</s>HERSCHBACH: ...using surprisal analysis.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And now...</s>HERSCHBACH: Oh, no.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: ...a clear summary that anyone can understand in seven words. On your mark, get set, go.</s>HERSCHBACH: Molecules are seldom vicious, although often capricious.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Public Safety Prize.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Ig Nobel Prize in Public Safety is awarded to John Senders of the University of Toronto, Canada, for conducting a series of safety experiments in which a person drives an automobile on a major highway while a visor repeatedly flaps down over his face, blinding him.</s>JOHN SENDERS: Thanks. In 1963, I was asked to investigate normal driving. Everyone was looking at accidents and things like that. And Don Gordon at the Bureau of Public Roads said if I knew anything about normal driving, he'd love to hear about it. So on the highways 'round, old Cambridge goes the car of old John Senders. Daring scientist, old John Senders, drives with eyes closed half the time.</s>JOHN SENDERS: Then he built a driving helmet. On command his sight occluded. Others thought he was deluded. Drives with eyes closed half the time. In accord with expectations, found robust correlations: wider roads, slower speeds, far, far, fewer looks he needs. Then came cell phones. Then came texting. Then came deaths and lawsuits vexing. Now to quantify distraction, my technique gives satisfaction. Forty years after the publication, my occlusion method became an international standard. Thank you.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: The Peace Prize, the Ig Nobel Peace Prize this year is awarded to Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Please welcome, Mayor Zuokas.</s>MAYOR ARTURAS ZUOKAS: Thank you. It seems that they have discovered that what unites people around the globe. And it's universally understood that idiot blocking a bike lane is the same idiot, no matter where he lives and what language he speaks.</s>MAYOR ARTURAS ZUOKAS: If we finally solve the problems of illegal parking, the world for sure will be a better place with peace and harmony. And I'm glad to help to do my part in it. Mark Twain said, the human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter. Thank you very much for this award.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Now, before we finish up the evening, it's time for the triumphal handshaking with Nobel Laureate, Roy Glauber. All the new Nobel Prize winners will now emerge one by one through the sacred curtain. There to receive a token handshake from Nobel Laureate Roy Glauber. Let the emerging and the shaking begin.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Half winners, half tackle tough questions like, does the five-second rule apply when you drop food on the floor? And why do shower curtains below inwards? Hmm. The awards are given out by the science humor magazine, The Annals of Improbable Research. You can find out more about them at improbable.com.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Prof. Jean Berko Gleason will deliver the traditional Ig Nobel "Goodbye, Goodbye" speech.</s>JEAN BERKO GLEASON: Goodbye, goodbye.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Ig Nobel winners and the Nobel Laureates, please gather here at center stage. Stay here if you are here. Gather here at center stage for a pointless photo opportunity. Ladies and gentlemen, please whack your hands together and shower them with self-esteem.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: And behalf of the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students and on behalf of the Harvard Computer Society, especially from all of us with the Annals of Improbable Research, please remember this final thought.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: If you didn't win an Ig Nobel Prize tonight, and especially if you did, better luck next year. Thank you.</s>MARC ABRAHAMS: Thanks a lot for (unintelligible).</s>UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium and nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium and iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium, europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium and lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium and gold and protactinium and indium and gallium and iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium, and iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium, and iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium and iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium. There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium and boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium, strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, and bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium and barium, and strontium and silicon and silver and samarium, and bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: That's it for another year. Thanks to audio engineers, Miles Smith and Frank Cunningham for their help in recording the show. And to Ig Nobel impresario, Marc Abrahams.

The son or daughter who can't get away. A nephew who is serving in Afghanistan. Perhaps, the favorite aunt who passed away. Guest host John Donvan talks with listeners about the people missing from their Thanksgiving table, and how they remember absent family and friends.

JOHN DONVAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm John Donvan. For most of us, Thanksgiving is about spending time with our families and our friends, maybe watching some football or playing a game or two of touch football outside, carving up the turkey, eating the turkey, eating the turkey a second time. Well, it's become a tradition on this holiday here at NPR for us to ask for your stories about who is not at your table this year. We're asking about absent friends, or maybe someone serving in Afghanistan or Iraq or someone you've lost since this time last year, maybe somebody who has to work today or who is simply stuck at the airport. Our phone number is 800-989-8255, or you can email us at talk@npr.org. Or you can also join the conversation at our Website. That's npr.org, and just click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Well, when we asked this very same question last year, Alita Cornelius(ph) emailed us then with a reply. She wrote then: Today, Thanksgiving, my daughter is not at my table, and I miss her horribly. But the way society is today, children must move to cities far away for their careers. Hilary(ph), I know you're at the Macy's Day Parade in New York, and I just want you to know that I love you and miss you horribly. But I know you are doing well and are happy.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: That was last year. Right now, Alita Cornelius joins us online from her home in Louisville, Kentucky. Alita, Happy Thanksgiving to you.</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: And Happy Thanksgiving to you, also.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: And thanks very much for talking to us. And what we all want to know, is Hilary with you this year?</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: No, she's still in New York.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Does she know that you wrote last year to us?</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: No, she didn't. She didn't know about it till I told her today to maybe listen in.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You think there's a good chance she's listening right now?</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: I hope so. If you are, Hilary, hi. I miss you.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Well, it's - with her not there, how do you celebrate Thanksgiving in your house every year?</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: Well, because my daughter's job is in New York and I'm retired and on fixed income, we get together during the year whenever we can and take that time to celebrate each other's company. But this Thanksgiving, I'll be going to my sister's house who lives here, still in Louisville. The whole the rest of my family has all moved from the place we were raised and grew up and are scattered all over the place. So at least I'm lucky enough to have my sister still here.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: When you were a child, or even her age, Alita, were you all together, or were you also a young woman who went away from home and maybe your mom and dad missed you?</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: When I was growing up, we had huge Thanksgivings. And I did go away for a while and wasn't home for Thanksgiving. But most of the time, we just have, you know, huge family gatherings. I grew up with huge extended family get-togethers. And it's just sad that, you know, it just seems like people have to move everywhere and - after they get out to college, go to the city or - it's just a more mobile society, I think.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Well, I want to thank you for sharing your feelings about that and to wish you a good Thanksgiving at your sisters. And it sounds as though - I was going to say, why don't you raise a glass to Hilary? But in a way, you've already done, it before the nation.</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: Mm-hmm.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Thanks very much for joining us.</s>ALITA CORNELIUS: And thank you.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Oh, yeah. It's a pleasure to have you on. So, again, we're asking all of you to call and tell us who's not at your table. Our number is 1-800-989-8255. You can email us, also. Our email address is talk@npr.org. We received this email today from Donna Speaks(ph). She's in Christiansburg, Virginia. She says: My 25-year-old son called from Afghanistan this morning. He was deployed from Knoxville, Tennessee in June. This is the longest I've ever gone without laying eyes on him. I'm so proud of his understanding of the world and for the man he will be when he gets back, even if most Americans are clueless about the war.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: And this one from Kasey Davenport(ph) - Kate in Portland, Oregon. She writes: Sadly, I'm the one who is not there today - not because I can't go, but because I have a chest cold and chose not to give it to my family for the holidays. So I'm making a small pumpkin tart, a turkey breast and boxed stuffing, plus lots of tissue and cold medicine.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Kate, Happy Thanksgiving, and get well soon. A number of you have lined up to call, and we are going to begin with Ellen in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ellen, welcome to TALK OF THE NATION.</s>ELLEN: Hi.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Hi.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: How are you guys today?</s>ELLEN: We're good. We're not home, but we've got some place to go. How about you?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Oh, I'm sorry. Happy Thanksgiving to you guys.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Thank you.</s>ELLEN: Anyway, I would just like to let you know, my father is the one that's not amongst us this year. He passed away on Good Friday of this year.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: I'm sorry.</s>ELLEN: And - but, you know, at least he is up in heaven, which - where he belongs. And so, you know, we're OK.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You feeling him in there today?</s>ELLEN: Yeah.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Yeah. I have a feeling that - we're going to hear from a lot of people, that maybe the seat's empty, but the seat's fall too. Ellen, thank you much for sharing with us. I want to go now to Carey(ph) in Sheridan, Wyoming. Carey, you're on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>CAREY: Hi.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Hi.</s>CAREY: How are you?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: I'm good. Thank you.</s>CAREY: My sister, Emily, is serving in the Peace Corps in Kenya right now. And she's not with her family in Wyoming right now, you know, so we miss her a lot, but we're really proud of what she's doing.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: And have you had any communication with her today or around the holiday in any way?</s>CAREY: Not today, but my husband and I actually were able to travel to Kenya in August and spent a month with her, and the people that she is serving. And, you know, were able to see her village, which is pretty poor, but, you know, her generosity being there is just really moving. So...</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: It sounds as though you're more proud of her being there than you're sad that she's not with you.</s>CAREY: Yeah, definitely. I definitely am. You know, she and I are three years apart, and we have two other siblings, a brother and a sister. And when we were little, Thanksgiving at my parent's house was just idyllic, amazing, beautiful. And so, you know, we know she'll come back safe and happy and changed and a better person, and we'll all be better for her service as well. So we miss her but she'll be back soon.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Carey, thank you. Happy Thanksgiving.</s>CAREY: Yeah. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Bye-bye. Sherry(ph) in Imperial, Missouri. You are on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>SHERRY: Hello.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Hi.</s>SHERRY: How are you?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: I'm good. Thank you.</s>SHERRY: Happy Thanksgiving.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Thank you. Too you too.</s>SHERRY: The person that's not with us today is my son, Anthony, and that's because he is on a walk across America.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Wow.</s>SHERRY: And right now he's in Texas.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Starting from where?</s>SHERRY: He started in Charleston, South Carolina.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Mm-hmm.</s>SHERRY: And he's walked over 1,400 miles.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Wow. Why is he doing the walk?</s>SHERRY: Personal achievement and to meet the people that make this country great, which he has done.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: So he set out how long ago in Charleston?</s>SHERRY: We took him to airport on August 7, and he officially started his walk on August 8.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: So he must have had to tell you back in the summer, I'm not going to be around for the holidays.</s>SHERRY: We actually didn't talk about it. And then I was interviewed by a young man in Georgia, I believe it was, and he brought it up. And at that time I was kind of speechless because I was like...</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: It hadn't occurred to you?</s>SHERRY: ...hadn't thought about it. I didn't think that far ahead. So (unintelligible) I'm sorry?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You know, what I'm thinking is it if, if he would run as fast as he could, then he might have made it.</s>SHERRY: No. His motto is life at three miles per hour.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Wow.</s>SHERRY: But fortunately the good people in Texas, a family took him and that made my week. I was brought to tears when I found out that he wouldn't be alone.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: That's terrific. Sherry, thank you very much. Happy Thanksgiving.</s>SHERRY: And can I give his website?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Sure, go ahead.</s>SHERRY: It's anthonywalkamerica.com, and he's also on Facebook under the same name.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: That's easy to remember. Sherry, thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you and to him wherever he is. I want to go back to some of the emails that you're sending in. This is labeled from the Limousines and says: We are a band called the Limousines. We just finished a North American tour. We listen to NPR on all of our very long drives. And today we're finishing our drive from the last show in Vancouver to the Bay Area. We miss our families, and we're trying hard to make it home before the mash potatoes get old(ph) . That's from up – there is a name, Eric Victorino(ph) . Eric, Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you. Drive safely.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: From Tim Kagan(ph): My grandmother passed away last August at age 94. She was always the center of Thanksgiving dinner. I will miss those Thanksgiving dinners always as much as I will miss her. Sent from his iPhone.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Susan Lund(ph) writes: I'm missing from my - I am missing. I'm the one missing from my family's table just outside Boston. I'm back in Washington, D.C., to start a new chapter in my life. It's the first year without our beloved dad, who died in April. So my dad and I are both missing. My mother understands my absence. She misses me. I'm the only the girl with three older brothers, but we made up for it by talking for an hour and a half this morning. Hour and a half.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Let's got to Portland. And John, welcome you on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>JOHN: Hello?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Hi, John. You're on the program.</s>JOHN: Hi. This year my Thanksgiving plans, as well as last year, have kind of taken on a little bit new - a new form. My family over the last six or seven years or so have both stratified and most of them actually have passed away - most recently my father, last spring, of complications to chronic emphysema. Aunts and uncles have also passed away, cousins have passed away. All of my grandparents, my great grandparents passed away, both on my mom's side and my dad's side. So this year it's kind of dwindled down to just a couple of siblings who are out at various points in their lives across the United States and myself. And so there is actually no official family get-together this year.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: So John, what are you doing yourself today?</s>JOHN: This year I'm actually caught in traffic outside of Portland on my way to the Corrales, to go to a friend's parents' house for Thanksgiving.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: So you're going to be temporarily part of somebody else's family tonight?</s>JOHN: Absolutely, yeah. This friend, I've know her since we were in high school. It's been 12, 13 years. So I've always been pretty close to her family, and this is actually the - one of the second holidays that I've spent with them out there.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You know, John, it occurs to me that what you're talking about is difficult. As painful as it is, it's part of the cycle. We can't expect it to go on forever. And I guess the tricky thing is figuring out how to become the starting point. You know, we look at our grandparents, at the people who started these families and these traditions, but they were children once too. And I guess the challenge is how do you become the starting point for Thanksgivings to come for some larger group. Do you give thought to that?</s>JOHN: Yeah. And slowly but surely the siblings that I do have, and myself, some of them have started to have children. And eventually I will start having children, and eventually I think that the family will kind of start populating again. And I look forward to a time when, eventually, the, you know, we have a large enough base close enough together to where some of the Mathis(ph) family gatherings that we had around the holidays will kind of come back, maybe in a different form, without some people, of course. But eventually, you know, that will be an experience that we'll all get to have again.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Excellent. That sounds fantastic. And thanks to that family that's taking you on this temporary period. John in Portland, thanks for your call.</s>JOHN: Sure.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Thank you. I'd like to go to - I believe your name is Macy(ph) in Sacramento. Are you still there?</s>MACY: That's right. Yes, I am.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Hi. Hi. You're on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>MACY: Thank you. I'm not sure I can't get through this because it's so painful. But I've been estranged from my daughter for five years and I don't know why. The last time I saw her was on her birthday five years ago, and it was a perfect birthday. The gifts were wonderful. The evening was fine. There was no problem, nothing happened bad. As far as I know, nothing has happened bad, but she's just cut me off, won't return my phone calls. Her husband has talked to her a number of times, my son-in-law. I wouldn't see my grandson either, except occasionally my son-in-law brings him up and I'm really grateful for that. But we're just a tiny little family. I had two children and my husband is dead. And my son is working this weekend, so I can't be with him. But I do have a friend and we're going to go - I hope we're going to go out someplace for dinner.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You do have memories, it sounds, of much better Thanksgivings than this one.</s>MACY: Well, it used to be a bigger little family when our parents were alive, and we were lucky both of our parents lived a long time. It's just that everyone has died now, and I'm getting pretty old. And I don't sound like it normally, but I'm sounding bad right now. But I don't know why this happened and I've searched my mind, and I just miss her so much. We were so close. I was her best friend, she was mine, and I don't know what happened. I'm hoping that something will change, but I don't know what to do. I've done everything I can. I've sent gifts. I've sent cards. I've sent letters. I've called and I've done everything I can do.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Macy, I wish I had the answer and I wish the words Happy Thanksgiving could turn this, but it's all I have. It's all I have to say, is Happy Thanksgiving and make the best of it.</s>MACY: I appreciate that. I'm hoping she'll hear the call and maybe decide to explain things to me and tell me what happened.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: She knows your voice. Macy, thank you very much.</s>MACY: Thank you.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. We're asking for your stories of people who are not at your dinner table this Thanksgiving or dinner tables that you cannot get to.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: And we're receiving quite a few emails from you. This one from Cindy Craybell(ph). She writes: I am not with my two daughters, Kaitlin(ph) and Kristin(ph) today because I am divorced. I am sure that you have many listeners out there who are divorced for whatever reasons, but have to deal with the consequence of sharing kids on holidays. It never gets any easier.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: From Patricia Jacobs: Our 35-year-old son is in psychiatric lockup in New York. He's homeless mainly because we can no longer bear the chaos, financial burden and fear of what he'll do next, when(ph) he did living with us. We'd like your audience to know that the major thief in mental illness is the inability, not the willfulness of its victims, to understand that they are incapable of rational thought and that they are, in fact, mentally ill. It has devastated our family. And it's interesting how this one meal can reveal so much, both for good and for evil, what's going on in people's lives. It's more than just a holiday, it sounds.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: We're going to finish up with an email from a Jack, whose subject matter is furnace is out. And he writes this: My wife is three hours away at another house. I have most of the fixings here and I was ready to drive up early this morning, but I noticed it was 56 degrees inside the house when I got up. The new furnace has blown a circuit. They will replace it Friday morning, and we will enjoy a postponed meal later in the day. It's OK.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: In the meanwhile, got a recipe anybody for one can of Spam that I can use? I don't have a lot of food here, and I don't want to dip into the Thanksgiving goodies. Happy Thanksgivings. That is John near La Crosse. John, you got us off on an uplifting note. We like your pluck and your spirit.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Thanks to all of you who have been sharing these stories of Thanksgiving alone and Thanksgiving without the person you want to be there. They are painful. They are truthful. They say a lot about why this holiday means so much to all of us.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: I'm John Donvan. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. Happy Thanksgiving.

The top Republican presidential candidates wrapped up another debate Tuesday night and now turn to the nation's first two primary states: Iowa and New Hampshire. With the Iowa caucus just six weeks away, guests explain how each candidate is courting voters, and how the campaign is playing out. Ken Rudin, political junkie columnist, NPR Kathie Obradovich, political columnist, The Des Moines Register Josh Rogers, political reporter, New Hampshire Public Radio

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Iowa conservatives meet to pick the anti-Mitt. The president hits the road in New Hampshire. And the GOP candidates debate Iran, immigration and the uncertain alliance with Pakistan. It's Wednesday and time for a...</s>REPRESENTATIVE MICHELE BACHMANN: Too nuclear to fail...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...edition of the Political Junkie.</s>PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: There you go again.</s>VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE: When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: Where's the beef?</s>SENATOR BARRY GOLDWATER: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.</s>SENATOR LLOYD BENTSEN: Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.</s>PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore.</s>SARAH PALIN: Lipstick.</s>GOVERNOR RICK PERRY: Oops.</s>GOVERNOR RICK PERRY: PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: But I'm the decider.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Every Wednesday, Political Junkie Ken Rudin joins us to recap the week in politics. Mitt misconstrues candidate Obama in a new TV ad. A court reseats the chair of Arizona's redistricting commission. Newt brushes off Freddie Mac but then invites heat on immigration. And conservatives in Iowa whittle their choices down to four and meet again Monday to decide which to back against Mitt Romney.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In a few minutes, we'll get the latest from Iowa - worth repeating, six weeks away now - and in New Hampshire. Later in the program, excerpts from a speech on Iran from national security advisor Tom Donilon. But first Political Junkie Ken Rudin joins us, as usual, here in Studio 3A. And as usual, we begin with a trivia question.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Hi Neal. Happy Thanksgiving in advance.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Happy Thanksgiving.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: And let's see if we can pardon this turkey coming up. OK, ready?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm afraid.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: You're afraid of this. We all are. Okay, some big - some baseball news this week. Justin Verlander, a pitcher...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A starting pitcher.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: A pitcher for the Detroit Tigers was selected as the American League most valuable player. He led the league in wins, strikeouts and earned run average, right. So we're looking for a threesome here - well, I'm always looking for a threesome.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Moving on to politics and thus this week's question. Name the only - name the only current senator who also served as governor and House member, and also name the only current governor who also served as senator and House member. So two answers, two winners.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Two winners, two fabulous no-prize T-shirts. If you think you know the answer to this week's trivia question, the only current governor to serve as a senator and a member of the House of Representatives and the only current senator to also serve as a governor and House member, give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. And the winner gets, of course, that fabulous previously mentioned Political Junkie no-prize T-shirt.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Ken, at the GOP debate last night, Newt Gingrich hit, well, what has been the sort of third rail of Republican presidential politics, and that's the case for immigration. Rick Perry tripped up before, this a slightly different phrasing of a different policy.</s>NEWT GINGRICH: I don't see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter-century, and I'm prepared to take the heat for saying let's be humane in enforcing the law.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And immediately the heat arrived. Amnesty, his opponents cried.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Right, Michele Bachmann was leading the charge, as was Mitt Romney. And you know something? It doesn't look like - I don't know how much this is going to hurt Newt Gingrich. I think one of the reasons - one of the reasons it hurt Rick Perry as much, and he was, of course, he was talking about in-state tuition for children of illegal immigrants as governor of Texas, that's what he would do.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: But I think the thing that Perry has had a series of just disastrous debates, where he just couldn't remember the third, you know, program he would cut, the department he would cut. And that was the - the Department of Energy, right. Oops.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: And so - but the thing is, but Gingrich has been giving very effective debate performances, you know, whether you think he's obnoxious or not, whether he's condescending or not, but he's still very in control of the facts. And again, I thought he gave a very good debate performance last night. And so maybe it may not hurt him as much.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: One thing I also thought of is that when he talked about, you know, kind of a middle-ground position on immigration, it almost sounded like for the first time he was thinking of a general-election campaign rather than just trying to get the Republican nomination.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as opposed to Governor Perry, who said if you can't support the DREAM Act you don't have a heart, Speaker Gingrich said these are American values, family values.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: And I think a lot of people have already made up their mind about Newt Gingrich. He's been in the public eye since at least the late 1980s. And so perhaps, you know, the fact that he fell so dramatically in June, when his whole campaign staff seemed to fall apart, and now he's back on top of the field, at least among the top leaders in the field, you just wonder if nothing - Freddie Mac, Tiffany's, which I thought was ridiculous - but all these things, the flip-flop on Libya, maybe nothing hurts him, and maybe he is the alternative to Mitt Romney that conservatives have been talking about for the past six or seven months.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we'll have more on that in a bit, but more on the debate. And this was, at least on the substance, this was the most, well, disagreeable - it was fun to watch - but disagreeable. For example, here is presidential contender Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich with an exchange on the Patriot Act.</s>REPRESENTATIVE RON PAUL: You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.</s>WOLF BLITZER: I want to bring others in, but do you want to respond, Mr. Speaker?</s>NEWT GINGRICH: Yeah, Timothy McVeigh succeeded. I don't want a law that says after we lose a major American city, we're sure going to come and find you. I want a law that says you try to take out an American city, we're going to stop you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And of course Wolf Blitzer, or we just call him Blitz on this program, but that's his voice there in the middle. And another interesting exchange, disagreement on the subject of Afghanistan. This is former U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman talking about, well, a drawdown and Mitt Romney coming back at him.</s>MITT ROMNEY: Are you suggesting, Governor, that we just take all our troops out next week? Or what's your proposal?</s>JON HUNTSMAN: Did you hear what I just said? I said we should draw down from 100,000. We don't need 100,000 troops.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And when there's virtual unanimity on most of the domestic issues, this was fun to hear.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, first of all, the stuff about Ron Paul is not unusual. Of course, you know, four years ago he was the only Republican voice opposing the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and certainly the Patriot Act. But, you know, I think - but his position is more popular in the party than it was four years ago, and of course he will always be the outlier.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: The thing about Jon Huntsman, Jon Huntsman is desperately looking for traction if not in Iowa certainly in New Hampshire the following week. And by taking on Mitt Romney, the putative frontrunner in New Hampshire, Huntsman got in a few jabs, as he was hoping to do.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In the meantime, we have some people on the line who think they know the answer to this week's trivia question, that is the only current serving governor to have also served as a U.S. senator and a member of the House of Representatives and the only U.S. senator to have served as governor and a member of the House. So triple plays is what we're looking for here. And we'll begin, this is Sherry(ph), Sherry with us on the line from Portsmouth, Virginia.</s>SHERRY: Yeah, I'm hoping, actually, that I'm right, but I don't think I am: Senator Mark Warner was governor and was he in the House?</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, he was senator - he is senator, he was governor, but he was not in the House, no.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: No, he sleeps out in a tent in the yard.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: You got two out of the three.</s>SHERRY: I really wanted that T-shirt.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, you've got to earn it, Sherry. We'll give you another shot next week. Let's see if we can go next to - this is David. David with us from Phoenix.</s>DAVID: Yes, the current governor who also served as a U.S. senator and a member of the House is Governor Jon Corzine of New Jersey.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, he's not a current governor.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, that's the problem. First of all, Jon Corzine was governor, and he was senator, but he's never served in the House.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right, nice try, David. He could be a current fugitive, but that's another...</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: That would be David Janzen(ph).</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go Patrick(ph), Patrick with us from Wilmington in Delaware.</s>PATRICK: I'm going to guess Tom Carper, our senator.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Tom Carper is a correct answer.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ding, ding, ding.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: One of the two correct answers. He's of course current senator, former governor and former House member.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, stay on the line, Patrick, we'll collect your particulars and send you a Political Junkie no-prize T-shirt in exchange for your promise to take a digital picture of yourself wearing it so we can post it on our Wall of Shame. Congratulations.</s>PATRICK: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And let's see if we can go next to - this is Andrew(ph), Andrew with us from Minneapolis.</s>ANDREW: Yes, the governor - our current governor, Mark Dayton.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, Mark Dayton, of course, was a former senator but never served in the House.</s>ANDREW: I wasn't sure about that one. Thanks.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much, and we'll go next to – this is Mark(ph) and Mark calling us from Kansas City.</s>MARK: Sam Brownback from Kansas.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: And that is the correct answer, too.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ding, ding, ding. Congratulations, Mark.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Current governor, former senator and former House member.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So we'll put you on hold, and again you'll be the delighted recipient of a Political Junkie no-prize T-shirt.</s>MARK: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Have a happy Thanksgiving, Mark. So in the meantime, getting back to politics, let's see if we can get to another controversy that erupted this week. Governor Romney has opened up a television campaign, his first paid ad on TV. Again, you talked about Newt Gingrich going for the general election, well, Mitt Romney's ad addresses President Obama and uses this quote from candidate Obama.</s>PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose – lose - lose.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, well, President Obama said that, but...</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, he did say that, and of course the Democrats are going ballistic. They think it's misleading, and it is misleading because basically what - not basically. What president – what Barack Obama, candidate Obama said four years ago, or three years ago, whenever it was, was he was basically talking about the John McCain campaign. He quoted a John McCain campaign official saying if we going to...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Advisor, I think.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Advisor, right. If we're going to talk about the economy, if we run on the economy, we're going to lose. And the Democrats are really saying that this is misleading, one more sign of Mitt Romney being dishonest. And of course it's interesting: The Republicans don't know who their nominee is going to be, but it seems like the DNC does because all they do is go ballistic on Mitt Romney.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: It was misleading. He probably will pay some price for it. But Romney's...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: He got a lot of attention for it, too.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: He certainly got a lot of attention, and it's only playing on one New Hampshire TV station, and he paid $134,000. He's got millions of dollars of, you know...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Free publicity.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: For this ad, exactly.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: On this program alone.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Right, that's another $1.50 from that. But anyway, so - but he says that look, the argument was if President Obama is going to castigate the Republicans four years ago for running on the economy and failing, then Obama should be held by the same standards in 2012.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There's an interesting court case in Arizona. After the governor chucked out the head of the bipartisan redistricting committee, saying the lines she was working on were clearly partisan, well, a court said Governor, you overreached.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Yeah, she did, exactly right. And the court has reinstated the chairwoman of the nonpartisan, independent redistricting commission.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we often don't address the issue of appearances on late-night TV programs, unless somebody's actually funny. But here's something that turned out to be not very funny.</s>JIMMY FALLON: Please welcome to the show Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what's not funny is that is the instrumental to a song called "Lyin' Ass Bitch."</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Yes, you know something, it's a song by Fishbone. This was The Roots, which is the house band for Jimmy Kimmel, and, you know, to me it was...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jimmy Fallon.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Jimmy Fallon - no, no - you're right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But it was way over the top, and I mean, it was way, way, way over the top. If it was Hillary Clinton, for example, they said that everybody would be up in arms. But now, there's a lot of stuff on the Internet that is talking about how amusing this is. This is just beyond...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is not snark.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: No, this is just awful, and it's uncalled for.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jimmy Fallon sent a tweet to apologize and hoped that Michele Bachmann would return to the program at another time. We're talking with Ken Rudin, our Political Junkie. And up next the top GOP presidential hopefuls, and indeed the president of the United States, all turn their attention to New Hampshire this week. We'll too. We'll also talk about how the race is shaping up in Iowa with the caucus now just six weeks away. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. It's Wednesday, Political Junkie day. Ken Rudin is with us, as always. And Ken, this morning at the White House, President Obama gave the traditional Thanksgiving pardon to the national turkey. No mention, though, of a pardon for Ken Rudin for all those ScuttleButton puzzles.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Yes, I know.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. Did we have a winner last week?</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: We did. The actual - the winner was Bill Landau(ph) of Potomac, Maryland. I kind of cheated on the rules. I used a ball-point pen that said McGovern for president on it, and that was part of we are Penn State.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ooh, I see, your pen, that was the Penn part. Okay, double-whammy there. Anyway, if you want to take a look at this week's ScuttleButton puzzle or Ken's column...</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Or both.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Or if you must, go to npr.org/junkie. Now just six weeks and counting until the caucuses in Iowa, and the first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire follows a week after that. If you live in the Granite or Hawkeye State, have you met a candidate yet? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Mitt Romney stopped in Des Moines for an event today, and Kathie Obradovich is a political - Obradovich, I think she takes the Irish pronunciation - is a political columnist for The Des Moines Register and joins us now from the studios at Iowa Public Radio. Thanks very much for being here.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Thanks for having me, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And an interesting endorsement. Mitt Romney said, hey, here with me is Tom Brady of the New England Patriots.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Yeah. You know, John Thune is probably less recognizable in Iowa than Tom Brady is.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it was, in fact, John Thune. And as you noted in your piece that you posted on the Des Moines Register's website, probably it points out the fact that nobody in Des Moines might recognize John Thune.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Yeah. I mean, he was obviously a short-list contender in the sort of pre-presidential sweepstakes as a candidate really likely to run. And he got a lot of Beltway mentions for that. He never set foot in Iowa during that whole time that he was actually mulling running for president.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: And when the Des Moines Register polled back in June of 2010, his name ID was real low, like 30 percent. I doubt it's very much higher today. He would have really had better, I think, recognition if he had done that news conference in Sioux City in northwest Iowa, close to the Sioux Falls TV market, where people really do know who he is.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Ken?</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Kathie, as you said, a lot of people may not recognize John Thune in Iowa. I'm wondering if a lot of people might recognize Mitt Romney in Iowa, too, because he hasn't been there that much. Now, there seems to be an indication, though, that he is - you know, there was a lot of talk about whether he will go for broke, whether he would really want to run and win it. Now it looks like he's going all out to win it.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Mitt Romney has played a very cagey game in Iowa. He recognized going in that because he campaigned here heavily four years ago, that he would be the prohibitive favorite, probably, going into the Iowa caucuses. And the last thing you want to be going into the Iowa caucuses is the prohibitive favorite, because it makes it very easy for someone to take it away from you or to require you to spend a whole bunch of money in the state without getting any sort of credit because everyone expects you to win.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: So he has very carefully meted out his appearances in Iowa, while, at the same time, he has built a real campaign organization here. So I do expect him to be in Iowa a lot more in the last few weeks. He gave an overt sort of pitch to employees at Nationwide Insurance today in Des Moines to please caucus. And he had a lot of supporters in that crowd.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: So I do think that he is going to make a serious effort to try and make a run for the caucuses in just a few weeks from now.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, despite the paucity of his previous appearances in Iowa, he's been among the leaders in the polls in Iowa, with the conservative vote split among his rivals. And that seemed to be the subject of a meeting of Iowa conservatives, I think, on Monday. And they were deciding maybe if we just pick one of these other conservatives, they might be able to beat Mitt Romney.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Some of the conservatives in Iowa have - one thing that they agree on, they don't like Mitt Romney. But they can't decide who exactly they are going to choose to be their representative instead. And, in fact, this - you know, one group of conservatives is not going to make up the minds of everybody else. I think Iowa caucus-goers are fairly independent-minded in that way.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: But the fact that there has not been one consensus conservative alternative to Romney actually gives him a lot better chance than I would have given him a month ago to actually win the caucuses.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: As I understand it, at least one group has named the four candidates who they say they've whittled their choice down to.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: And I think that had to do in part with the fact that Mitt Romney did not attend this group, The Family Leader, did not attend their Thanksgiving dinner forum that they had last Saturday. The fact that he did not show up, I think they took that as a snub and said that basically they didn't think Mitt Romney was serious about wanting their support.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: And actually, the CEO of that group said that he didn't think that that showed Mitt Romney was smart enough to be president.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's interesting. Apparently, nobody's met a candidate, by the way, in either Iowa or New Hampshire. We've got nobody calling in. If you did, 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. But retail politics, that's supposed to be the name of the game in Iowa, but it's been ads and debates.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Well, I think that retail politics is - the impact of that is still to come, because you can get to the top of the polls in Iowa, perhaps, by doing well in debates, by being a leader in the national polls, by getting a lot of TV and radio attention. But you still have to get your supporters to turn out on January 3rd, on caucus night.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: And this is still a heavy lift for campaigns. A candidate who is really flying high in the polls could seriously underperform in Iowa if they don't take seriously the goal of organization and actually getting their supporters out on caucus night.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that is what gives the supporters of candidates Ron Paul hope. They are very good at getting their supporters in straw polls, historically, and in caucuses. It is also, well, something that Mr. Romney might take heart in. But at the same time, Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain - they're the other two among the top four in the polls in Iowa - they don't have that same kind of ground organization.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Ron Paul, first of all, I'll just say: Do not count out Ron Paul at all. He came in fifth in the Iowa caucuses four years ago without having nearly the kind of organization that he has today. He has campaigned heavily in Iowa. He has a very strong organization here.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: So if he - and he's, also in Iowa polls, within a point or two of the top of the ticket. So if he does actually really continue to push hard and get his supporters out, as we know that they do, he could very well come in ahead of everybody else on caucus night.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Herman Cain, I would say he is really working hard to get a volunteer network going across the state. They publicized that they had now 18 - or 800 precinct leaders, and that's not a bad number. And Newt Gingrich is actually reconstituting his Iowa campaign. He rehired some of the staffers who left him back when he was having his original troubles at the beginning of the campaign. So he is also taking seriously the idea that he's going to have to organize in Iowa.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And is this going to be Waterloo - you should forgive the expression - for Michele Bachmann if she does not do first, second or third in Iowa?</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: I think that she really has to do well in Iowa, and probably even has to win it. She has really put all of her cards in Iowa. She is campaigning here almost 24/7. She'll be back again this weekend. And, you know, the problem I think that she has is that even if she does win Iowa, you know, the question becomes, then, what other states is she really going to resonate in? And can she actually spin it forward and move heavily into some other key states?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Rick Santorum isn't polling particularly well anywhere. Again, if he doesn't not do well in Iowa, is it curtains?</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: And I think so, because again, Rick Santorum has put a heavy emphasis on Iowa. He - I don't think he has the money to go anywhere beyond Iowa if he doesn't have a good showing here. Conservatives in Iowa still like Rick Santorum, and they talk him up, and they - some of them still give him a chance, because nobody - he has not had a rise up to the top of the heap yet.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: People still give him a chance to break out, but he has really - he's performed pretty well in the debates and really has not seen his numbers move at all in Iowa.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can a caller in on the conversation. Have you met a candidate yet? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Ben's on the line calling from Carroll in Iowa.</s>BEN: Hi. How are you today?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good, thanks.</s>BEN: Good. I met Ron Paul as he came through Ames earlier this fall.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what kind of an event was it?</s>BEN: He was just doing a speaking engagement at a hotel there, a pretty informal gathering. He was laying out his platform for anyone interested.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And so did you get a chance to shake his hand and say hi, or just listen to his speech?</s>BEN: I did. It was a very exciting point for me as a long-time supporter of his. And he was very at ease in the group of people there, and he spoke very well and was quite friendly with everyone afterwards.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Ben, are you going to go to the caucus? Are you going to vote for him?</s>BEN: Well, I'm going to try to attend the caucus, depending on travel. But I plan to vote for Ron Paul in the Iowa caucus.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Ben, thanks very much for the call. Let's see if we can go next to another caller from Iowa. And let's go next to - this is Hui(ph) - am I pronouncing that correct - in Des Moines?</s>HUI: Yes, that is correct.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Okay. Go ahead, please.</s>HUI: Yeah, I'm just commenting on how I actually met a presidential candidate. I'm a student at Drake University, and Michele Bachmann recently visited to speak about economic policy. And there are a lot of articles out there about it, and I just think that the students really schooled her on her policy views.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Students, Kathie Obradovich, that's a huge resource we remember candidate Obama tapping into four years ago.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Well, I think that students are an important resource. And Ron Paul, in particular, has spent a lot of time talking to campus crowds. However, the caucuses being so early in January 3rd is a little bit of a problem because a lot of the college students who may actually have been able to vote in the Iowa caucuses actually might have gone home to other states. So, you know, the campus organizations, you have to be able to work around the fact that dorms are closed, et cetera and people - four years ago, they actually had colleges open some dorms so that college students would have a place to stay.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hui, thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it.</s>HUI: Thanks.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Kathie Obradovich, thank you very much for your time today.</s>KATHIE OBRADOVICH: Thanks for having me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Kathie Obradovich joined us from Iowa Public Radio in Des Moines. She's the political columnist for The Des Moines Register. A week after Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire holds its Republican primary on January 10th. Josh Rogers joins us now from New Hampshire Public Radio in Concord, where he's the political reporter. And nice to have you back.</s>JOSH ROGERS: Good afternoon, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And are campaign buses all of a sudden rolling through town?</s>JOSH ROGERS: Roll - there have been a bunch of people here. The last week was pretty busy. You know, Jon Huntsman has been here pretty much permanently. Mitt Romney swung through. Newt Gingrich is getting more active. And, you know, the president was here also. So it's been quite busy.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, we had mentioned several candidates there in Iowa where it might be really important from them to do well. Jon Huntsman, we did not mention because he's put all his cards in New Hampshire, correct?</s>JOSH ROGERS: He has. And the super PAC supporting him has put a lot of money down, you know, roughly 10 times the amount of money that's, you know, Mitt Romney spent on his controversial ad, the Our Destiny PAC, which is, you know, run by people affiliated with the Huntsman Corporation - have so far spent $1.25 million putting ads up, trying to up his name recognition, which has remained low, despite campaigning here a great deal. He's had over 100 events. And, you know, Huntsman would tell you that he's just, you know, he's peaking at the right time, and I guess, that remains to be seen.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We have to see. In the meantime, there was, as you mentioned, a visit yesterday from the president of the United States. He told an audience there in New Hampshire they - what they need to do to stop congressional Republicans from ruining the holiday season.</s>PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If your members of Congress aren't delivering, you've got to send them a message. Make sure they're listening. Tell them: Don't be a Grinch.</s>PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Don't vote to raise taxes on working Americans during the holidays. Put the country before party.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Josh Rogers, other than insertion of the word Grinch, that's pretty much boilerplate, except for where the president was speaking. What's he doing in New Hampshire?</s>JOSH ROGERS: Well, in New Hampshire, he's up there. I mean, part, you know, New Hampshire is a swing state, and there are four electoral votes here. The president hasn't been back since the inauguration. And he's, you know, he's certainly taking a lot of flak. And I mean, I think some of it is to buoy the spirit of Democrats, get a counter message out. You know, all day long, most days on the campaign trail, it's a, you know, the Republicans have been pretty unified in going after him.</s>JOSH ROGERS: There has been much, you know, intramural back and forth between them. It's all been, you know, we must make President Obama a one-term president, and that may be the most singularly popular line on the Republican campaign trail these days.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Josh Rogers, political reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio. Political junkie Ken Rudin is with us. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's see if we can get Ryan on the line. Ryan with us from Manchester, New Hampshire.</s>RYAN: Yeah. Hi, Neal. Thanks for having me on.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Met any candidates?</s>RYAN: Yeah. I met a few, actually. I've had the opportunity to meet Jon Huntsman, Herman Cain, Buddy Roemer, Gary Johnson and Ron Paul.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, two of those...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...we have barely mentioned - Buddy Roemer and - well, I can't remember the other one.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Gary Johnson.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Gary Johnson, yeah. They hardly show up at all.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Well, they're not in the debates, and that's a big problem, too.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Any impressions that come strongly across to you, Ryan?</s>RYAN: Well, obviously, you know, Buddy Roemer and Gary Johnson being the smaller names, lesser known, so they're usually more prone to being more candid and easy going. And, you know, they don't mince words as much as some of the bigger names on the national stage. I find that Jon Huntsman seems like the most reasonable, definitely the more intelligent when it comes to foreign policy. Herman Cain, you know, as much as he's got his economic, you know, creds...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, the 9-9-9 plan, yeah.</s>RYAN: The 9-9-9 plan. And, you know, his background in the private sector, that does appeal to a lot of people.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Have you made a choice yet on who you're going to vote for?</s>RYAN: I think I am - I'm a moderate, independent, but I think I'm still leaning towards Obama.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Obama, OK. Well, thanks very much for the call, Ryan. Appreciate it. And, Ken, it's important to point out New Hampshire independents are allowed to vote in that primary.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Yes. But, of course, there is no challenge to President Obama's re-nomination. So, of course, the independents who were crucial to - for John McCain in both 2000 and 2008 will be probably relegated to a Republican primary. And the question is, you know, is it a Huntsman kind of guy? Is it a Romney kind of guy? Because those independents - we're talking about New Hampshire - they almost don't exist in Iowa. And once upon a time, Iowa used to be an anti-war state. Ronald Reagan did very poor - relatively poorly in Iowa because of strong anti-war...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Anti-war...</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: ...sentiment, yes. So Iowa has certainly changed on that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Josh Rogers, before we go, Mitt Romney has been said to have had a prohibitive lead in New Hampshire all along. Any indication that's changed?</s>JOSH ROGERS: No indication that's changing quickly. I mean, most polls show him up, you know, double digits, if not up over 20 points. You know, there's been a lot of - he's to battle expectations, of course, and, you know, you catch him on the campaign trail. One line he's been using a lot lately, you know, speaking about the country, but, you know, it's also emblematic of his campaign. He says nothing is so vulnerable as entrenched success. And, you know, some of what he's trying to do is, you know, stoke enthusiasm.</s>JOSH ROGERS: And for most of his supporters, it's simply about beating Obama. The typical Romney supporter is not, you know, some sort of fire-breathing, passionate supporter, but, you know, he looks strong. He certainly racked up all the large endorsements - former Senator Judd Gregg, former Governor John Sununu, Senator Kelly Ayotte, Congressman Charlie Bass, you know, 50-odd members of our legislature. People are waiting to see if the non-Romney voters - and there a lot of people who don't like Romney, certainly a lot of conservatives - if they coalesce around one candidate or if they splinter.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that's, again, the situation we have in Iowa, too. And if Romney should win there and then in New Hampshire, well, it could be difficult to stop a Romney roll. In any case, Josh Rogers, thanks very much for your time.</s>JOSH ROGERS: You're welcome, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Josh Rogers, political reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Ken Rudin, we're going to miss you next week.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: Yes, I will be working on a state impact project, a visit to Indianapolis, but I'll be back the following week.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. There still will be a political junkie but without the political junkie.</s>KEN RUDIN, BYLINE: I know how you feel.

Up to 15 million children and adults are thought to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Many of them take Adderall to treat it. In recent weeks, some patients have complained they can't find the drug in pharmacies and fear it's the latest prescription medication to face a shortage. Caroline Smith, has an Adderall prescription Richard Knox, health correspondent, NPR Dr. James McGough, professor of psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Nearly 15 million Americans live with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and many of them are prescribed an amphetamine called Adderall. In some parts of the country, though, Adderall can be hard to find. It's among the prescription drugs to experience a shortage, and patients can either search high and low for the drug or try to find an alternative.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The Drug Enforcement Administration thinks the problem is in distribution, rather than a real shortage. Manufacturers say regulations aren't keeping up with demand. And while prescription users may have trouble finding Adderall at the local pharmacy, the drug is widely available illegally, especially in high schools and in colleges.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you take Adderall, what's been your experience? Our phone number: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, an argument for cash instead of cranberry sauce at the annual food drive, but first Adderall, and we begin with Caroline Smith. She's been prescribed Adderall since she was a child and joins us now on the phone from Chicago. Nice to have you with us today. Caroline, are you there?</s>CAROLINE SMITH: I am.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hi, nice to have you with us.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I wonder: Is Adderall generally in stock there at your local pharmacy?</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Generally yes, but lately it's been impossible to find. I actually used to be prescribed it but no longer am because of this shortage and because of the price of Adderall.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The price of Adderall.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Yes, it's about $340 without insurance, and most insurance plans for students don't cover a pre-existing medical condition. So they have to pay for the entire prescription out-of-pocket, which was my case.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I see.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: So I had to switch to a cheaper brand, Vyvanse.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Okay, and so you're taking that now?</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Yes, I am. I have been for months.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what's the difference?</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Well, there are a lot more difficult side effects than Adderall. I had been taking Adderall for over a decade and found it a very consistent way of - my doctor had been regulating that for me, and I found a good balance that had been working for me for years.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: But taking Vyvanse, it's painful on your stomach. It gives me really bad headaches. The time release isn't - is different than Adderall is. So it affects my sleep a lot differently. It's very difficult for me to get sleep on Vyvanse. And it's not nearly as effective. I would say it's about 40 percent as effective as Adderall.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So if you could find it, and if you could afford it, you'd happily go back.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: No questions asked. It's one of the most valuable things that I can get right now because it's so in demand. It's hard to get, and it's so expensive.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: What was your - can you describe what it was like to go into the pharmacy and find it wasn't there?</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Well, I have siblings that have been dealing with the same problem. Now that I'm prescribed the different drug, Vyvanse, because of this, but my siblings, who have been dealing with this shortage currently, I've literally had to help one of them drive all over the city. We went to eight different pharmacies just a few days ago without able to find the prescription that they needed.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ADHD...</s>CAROLINE SMITH: So it's incredibly frustrating, and right now is right before finals. My brother is in college, and he just knows that he's out of luck. And that's one of the most frustrating feelings that there is, knowing that there's something that's there that helps you perform at the level that you need in order to function regularly, and you can't get access to that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we should note that ADHD can run in families. So it's not that unusual that you and your siblings would suffer from the same thing.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Absolutely. Yes, it does run in my family.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So as you look ahead, this is something that does not go away. This is something you're going to have to be dealing with for your whole life.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Yes, it is. I've had to learn how to compensate for it, and I have. My case is odd because I've - well, we went through a lot of testing when we first were prescribed, and then the problem is that I wasn't hyperactive when I was younger. There are different ways that either you can have hyper - you're either hyperactive, or you're not.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: My problem was primarily with focus and with reading because I'm also dyslexic. So the inability to get Adderall never showed up in my grades because I would just spend hours and hours and hours studying, which I started doing when I was in grade school. But not able to have access to it as a grad student is terrifying. It's terrifying. I know it's going to affect my ability to do well in school.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You mentioned some of the side effects of the drug you're taking now. Was it difficult in other ways to switch?</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Gosh, no, there really isn't an alternative. There are other - there are older versions of Adderall, like Ritalin and Concerta, but those are not nearly as effective, and those - the level of amphetamine is different. It has more of a side effect that makes you feel like your metabolism is up, that you're all over the place.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: But Adderall is much more controlled than either of those two drugs, and it's able to last an eight-hour period as opposed to a four-hour period or a six-hour period. So it makes more sense that it lasts throughout your day, and you're able to have more of a consistent prescription.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: But it's the one that has worked the best for me and that - where I have the least amount of side effects. And there - I don't know of doctors that prescribe a generic version of Adderall or one that's less expensive. But still, anytime just to find a doctor to go through another round of testing or have to find another doctor to get that prescription for you costs you at least another $100 or so.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Caroline Smith, we wish you and your siblings the best of luck.</s>CAROLINE SMITH: Thank you. Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Appreciate it. NPR health correspondent Richard Knox reported on Adderall drug shortages recently for NPR's MORNING EDITION and joins us now from his office in Boston. Richard, nice to have you back.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: Hi, thanks, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Caroline's story, how common is it?</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: Well, you hear an awful lot of these kinds of stories. I didn't have any trouble finding people who reported that kind of wild goose chase that people have been going on - going through trying to get their prescriptions filled for this disorder.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: I think we should point out that it's not just Adderall. Adderall is the sort of - it's the leader in the drugs for this, for ADD and ADHD. ADD being attention deficit disorder without hyperactivity, which is what Caroline seems to have. The other drug that's in shortage is methylphenidate, which is Ritalin. It's a different type of drug. It's not an amphetamine, and it was declared last week by the FDA to be in shortage, too.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: It's been going on since last spring but in a kind of spotty basis. It seems to be getting worse this fall, as far as we can tell. But it's all pretty anecdotal information.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, I was interested in your piece to hear the DEA say there is no shortage.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: Yes, I was - I was surprised, too, because the FDA says there is. And, you know, they have a website on the FDA that lists all the drugs in shortage, and there are a lot of them these days. And I've - one thing that caused me to do the story is I found that methylphenidate, the Ritalin-type drugs, popped up on that list a week or two ago.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: And then I was sort of poking around and found that the Adderall thing was more long-standing. The DEA gets involved. It's an arm of the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration. Its job is to make sure, to the extent you can, that drugs don't get diverted into illicit use, drugs of abuse or potential abuse like amphetamines, the way these are.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: And so it, every year, sets a ceiling on how much on the raw material, the active ingredient for a whole bunch of drugs, including these, can be made. So it's an overall aggregate amount of raw material that the DEA regulates. And they say that there should be plenty out there.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: They don't monitor, you know, how much is actually used, although they look at the number of prescriptions being written, and they adjust it once a year, once again if need be, and then they allocate the quotas to individual companies, and companies come forward regularly and say we need more, and then the DEA will grant it or not.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right, let's see if we can get another caller in on the conversation. Joe's(ph) with us from Norman, Oklahoma.</s>JOE: Hi.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hi, Joe.</s>JOE: How are you?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good, thanks.</s>JOE: I wanted to make a comment. I'm a student here at the university and have been - was prescribed Adderall by my psychiatrist over a year and a half ago and have been taking it and have experienced the numerous side effects from it, in addition to those benefits that the drug creates, produces.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And lately have you found it difficult to find?</s>JOE: I have, actually, for the last about three months it's been almost impossible to get my prescription filled. And I have to - my - I see a doctor that's in between the town that I'm in and a major city north. So the prescription that I have still sits with the pharmacy because it's impossible to find, and I find myself having to go to other people that I know that have it and having to purchase it from them in order to use the medication.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And when you say other people, do you mean other patients who get a prescription, or dealers?</s>JOE: Well, I would say patients, people that I know who are also - also take the drug. It's widely prescribed. One comment that I would say about the drug is that I would venture to say it's probably over-prescribed, used to treat many symptoms of multiple conditions, whether that be ADHD, ADD, inability to focus, whatever a patient brings to a psychiatrist or anybody in charge of prescribing these prescription amphetamine medications, using them to treat a multitude of things, often resulting in side effects such as weight loss or inability to sleep, creating the ability to work extremely long hours and bringing on a multitude of other side effects that, if not really controlled, could really be detrimental to your health.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Richard Knox, we do hear of Adderall being sometimes used for weight control, off-label, but that's what some people do.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: Oh, no question about it and not just - you know, weight control is one of them, but probably I would guess - again anecdotally - the most common off-label use or illicit use, misuse some people call it, would be for, you know, kids who are trying to stay up, you know, pull all-nighters and take exams and sharpen their performance.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: And, you know, it works. These are stimulants, and so they do rev you up and make you more wakeful. There's no question about it. They have a different kind of effect in people who have ADD or ADHD. It's more of a focusing effect.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Joe, thanks very much for the call, we wish you good luck and understand how difficult it is. We're talking about the shortages of Adderall, one of the common treatments for ADHD and ADD. If you take Adderall, what's been your experience? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. We talked last month with Richard Knox about the growing problem of prescription drug shortages. More than 200 medications - cancer drugs, antibiotics, anesthetics and others - are in low supply, or have run out entirely.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Recently, though, Richard reported on shortages of Adderall, a popular drug to treat ADHD in adults and children. One advocate warned there's more than a poor grade at school at stake: Teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, drug abuse are all possible with reduced impulse control. And young adults with ADHD have three times more car accidents.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: NPR health correspondent Richard Knox is back with us. If you take Adderall, what's been your experience? Our phone number is 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Joining us now, Dr. James McGough. He's professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine and directs the UCLA clinical programs in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and joins us now from his home in Los Angeles. Good of you to be with us today.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Good afternoon.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as we said, some argue there's no really a shortage. Many say they can't find their medication. To what do you attribute that?</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Well, I think there's two things. Richard was exactly right. And again, there are shortages across the board right now that many people are struggling with. But the DEA does set quotas every year in terms of the stimulants. This happened a couple years ago, as well, towards the end of the year.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: There's an issue, though, that hasn't been mentioned, that actually, what's curious here is it's the generic drugs where we're having difficulties. Vyvanse is actually an on-label brand-name drug made by the same manufacturer of Adderall, but Adderall is now supposedly generic.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Its prices haven't dropped, but I've actually heard from some companies that there isn't enough profit in the generics because the cost is supposed to be lower for them to actually be invested in making it. So that's an aspect of this problem that isn't being discussed too much, but it is definitely part of it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Help us understand this debate from the medical standpoint. Do you think the drug manufacturers and the DEA have valid points?</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: I think the DEA works hard to do its job. I think they can be a little hard-nosed and black-and-white about this. I think they are more suspicious of these drugs and the potential for abuse than is probably warranted. But, you know, as you pointed out earlier, the DEA says there's sufficient supply. The FDA says, clearly, there isn't.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: So I think they do tend to be a little bit rigid in their approach to this. But again, I think they are trying to do their job.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It can be misused or abused. Kids do get hooked on it.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: The - most of what you hear about is what we term misuse, which is defined, really, as using it for something or by someone other than whom - for whom it is prescribed.</s>Most of that is for what Richard alluded to in terms of performance enhancement: Somebody wants to stay up to study for a test or write a paper, something like that. Much less of this is actually used to - getting high. One study actually suggested about 35 percent - 15 to 35 percent of college students, at least once, were involved in misusing one of these medications.</s>Most of that is for what Richard alluded to in terms of performance enhancement: But there are actually lots of other ways people stay up all night, as well, energy drinks, et cetera. So I think the big picture is this, to my view, is not really a huge public health concern. One really needs to weigh the very real problems that ADHD brings and the suffering that those individuals have with, you know, these potential downsides of the medicine.</s>Most of that is for what Richard alluded to in terms of performance enhancement: And also, most of the medicine, such as the longer-acting ones - which I think Cynthia was using earlier. And these certainly aren't good medicines to abuse to get high. But they are useful to, you know, if you need to focus better to study.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can get another caller in on the conversation. We'll go to Miguel, Miguel with us in St. Louis.</s>MIGUEL: Hi. I first want to thank you for bringing attention to this, just, important issue. I have been taking Adderall for a number of years now. I'm a Ph.D. candidate at Washington University. And one of the things that I think that a lot of people don't understand about attention deficit disorder is that in many cases, certainly in mine, the condition can be quite, well, frankly, disabling at times.</s>MIGUEL: And so when I encounter these shortages and find myself, you know, wondering if I'm going to be able to get my medicine or not, it - frankly, it can be frightening, because I know how I am, frankly, unable to function without it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And when you're finding it difficult to find - and, of course, that increases anxiety levels, which doesn't help - is it impossible to find?</s>MIGUEL: There have been times where I've, you know, gone to every pharmacy within, you know, a seven-mile radius and have been unable to find it and have actually run out, which, of course - and I'm on a very high dosage, and when I run out, of course, that has severe effects on mood, as well.</s>MIGUEL: And so, I mean - and in terms of a public health concern, certainly the - just the shortage of Adderall in particular is - it's a huge concern. I would imagine - I mean, it's the only medication that works for me, and I've been through all of them, unfortunately.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Miguel, we wish you good luck, and do you have exams coming up? Well, Ph.D. candidate, I'm not sure exams is quite what you're involved in, writing...</s>MIGUEL: Trying to teach classes without being able to focus, that's always fun.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I bet. Trying to take them the same way is no fun, either, but a little bit less stressful. Good luck to you.</s>MIGUEL: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dr. McGough, are you hearing complaints like Miguel's?</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Oh, absolutely. I've heard just last week, you know, probably half-a-dozen people are having problems. People can still find it here in Los Angeles, but it's a lot of work. I'm hopeful as the new year rolls around that, you know, supplies will open up again. But it is definitely an issue.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Richard Knox, I wanted to ask you about the point that Dr. McGough made about the, well, supposedly generic version. That's supposed to be more widely available and cheaper.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: Yes, I think there's some strange things going on here that I can't claim to understand, but sort of behind the scenes and in a bit of a black box, to mix metaphors. But the DEA, when you talk to them about it, and they insist that there really isn't a shortage, that there should be plenty of the raw material out there for manufacturers to turn into pills and capsules, they also say that there are business decisions, as they put it, that are involved in creating these, you know, apparent or perceived shortages at the consumer level.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: And what that apparently means - although they don't spell it out - is that there are - there's a lot of jockeying for market share that goes on among the companies that serve this lucrative market. And there's some lawsuits. A couple of the generic companies that sell Adderall extended release - which is a very popular form because it, you know, you only - don't have to take it as often, and it lasts longer - a couple of these companies are suing the large company that supplies all of the Adderall material, Adderall extended release material.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: And they allege that the supplier is sort of holding back on supplies, maybe to the disadvantage of its competitors, and some allege that the holdback is partly to drive patients and doctors to their brand-name Adderall extended release and to the other drug, which Caroline mentioned, Vyvanse, which is a more expensive - despite what she says, it is intrinsically more expensive, newer alternative for this disease.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: And I can't - you know, I can't really assess those charges, but there's a lot of finger-pointing going on that may not be easy to find out about.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And since we can't really find out about it, Dr. McGough, it's just going to drive people crazy.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Well, yeah, maybe we weren't ready to step into that. But I think it is - you know, Adderall is a great drug. Vyvanse is a great drug, too. We were looking forward to the Adderall going generic and becoming cheaper because some people who don't have insurance, you know, can't afford the more expensive medicines.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: But that certainly hasn't happened. The price certainly has not dropped, but nonetheless, we're still having shortages.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And please don't misunderstand: I was using crazy in the intense frustration meaning of the word, not in the misstatement of the word. Anyway, let's get Kevin on the line, Kevin with us from Dearborn in Michigan.</s>KEVIN: Hi. Can you hear me?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.</s>KEVIN: Okay, yeah. I've been taking Adderall since I was 12 years old - or, excuse me, since I was 15 years old. I'm 27 now. I take the - I don't have any insurance. I have a teaching certificate, but I can only find work as a substitute right now. So I don't have any insurance. I usually get my prescriptions fulfilled at a hospital pharmacy. And up until a little while ago, it was only, you know, 30 bucks.</s>KEVIN: And then a few weeks - or like two months ago, all of a sudden, it shot up to 65 bucks. And then the next month, last month, I couldn't even get the actual dose that I needed. So I had to go back to my doctor, and I had to - first I had to call into the pharmacy to see, well, what kind of - do you have the 10 milligram tablets or the 20 milligram tablets? What tablets do you have?</s>KEVIN: And I finally found a place that, you know, after calling 10 or 11 pharmacies, I finally found one place that had the 10 milligrams - where I normally take 20 - that had them. And so I had to call my doctor and run over there and hope that I could get there, to the doctor, and they could write me the prescription, because they can't call Adderall in because it's a controlled substance. And I could get the prescription back to them.</s>KEVIN: And even then, when I did get - even when I did get it filled, it was 150 bucks. So I was paying five times what I was originally paying. And this month, the only other option probably is going to be just the extended release. And when I - to get my prescription for the extended release filled instead of the generic, it's going to - it would cost $300. And that's like a third of what I make in a month.</s>KEVIN: And so it's either - and, you know, if it - it comes down to being able to eat, to being able to add Adderall, I don't know that I wouldn't use the Adderall because it's like impossible to function. I mean, I would, you know, just, you know, cut my food down to, you know, ramen and maybe peanut butter sandwiches every day. But, you know, it's just that much that I need it to function. And I've been on it, you know, half my life almost. And it's just, you know, and I can't - I feel like I can't wake up in the morning when I don't have it. And I feel like, you know, like - it's like I'm not even the same person. It's just really, it's really difficult, and I don't know.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let me if I can just - let me see if I could just follow up with Dr. McGough. There are a lot of anxious people out there, worried that this drug that they've relied on for so long is suddenly becoming less and less available for different reasons. Again, maybe in the new year it will come back, but is this going to be systemic, do you think?</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Well, I think, you know, there are real concerns. And honestly, I think it goes beyond the DEA. I think it ties in a lot to our whole health care debate as it is. You know, companies that makes drugs are, you know, in business to make profits. The profit for Adderall (unintelligible) is going to go away. And it's actually a great drug. It works great. It should be coming cheaper, but instead, it's just disappearing.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Richard Knox, disappearing yet it does seem to be available to those students who want to take some for crash for an all-nighter.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: Yeah. I think that - it's not clear to me to what degree, I mean, what exactly is out there. The instant - not instant, but the immediate relief Adderall may be in greater supply than the extended release Adderall, I'm not sure about that. And so we'd have to know more about just what is available on the black market or, you know, from friends or whatever, before we could sort out just, you know, what the nature of the shortage is.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Lee: My college-age daughter may be addicted to Adderall. She's now prescribed Xanax to take the edge off. She's been on these for over a year. Her personality is different now, and I'm worried. Are doctors paying attention to potential addiction? Or do they just keep prescribing if the patient wants it? Dr. McGough?</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: So first - one must acknowledge there's a risk for addiction and substance abuse among people with ADHD, treated or not. People do not generally get addicted to Adderall. It sounds to me like that person has a particular issue, and I think that really ought to be discussed with her own physician. And if they're not satisfied, they should find a different physician. That's not a typical story at all.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And do you find, as one caller suggested earlier, that Adderall is over-prescribed?</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: I think - what I sense in his discussion was he's frustrated he can't get it. He has ADHD, but other people maybe don't have that diagnosis are getting it and using up the supply. You know, people should keep aware. Physicians can prescribe an approved medicine for a range of things that go beyond what it's officially intended for. So he's right, to the extent that I think physicians may give it to someone who doesn't quite meet the criteria for ADHD, but that's actually OK. If you look generally across the country, though, the numbers of individuals who get the prescriptions remain less than the numbers of individuals who we know have ADHD. So I think the argument that it's overprescribed really doesn't hold up.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And do you find that it's used, very much, for people - weight control, that sort of thing?</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Actually, Adderall is really designed to be a weight control drug. It didn't work very well. It stops having that effect after a couple of months. And the patent was going to go dead, and then the company picked it up and decided to market it for ADHD. If it really worked well for weight control, it would still be marketed for that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dr. James McGough, professor of psychiatry at UCLA's School of Medicine. Also with us, NPR health correspondent Richard Knox. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's see if we can go next to - this is Steve, Steve with us from South Bend.</s>STEVE: I am.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Go ahead, please. You're on the air.</s>STEVE: OK. Well, I found that when I was diagnosed with this later in life, I - at age 45. I'm 55 now. There was extensive testing - and I - it was very expensive psychiatrist - that going through the process. In fact, it was two different medical labs that were corresponding with each other. And I went through a variety of medications before they ended up prescribing Adderall for me. And Adderall at the time - they initially took was covered by my insurance. I would never been able to afford the doctors that actually prescribed it for me. And I found that I didn't really need it as often, but I did need it every work day. And as a result, when it became generic, I quickly got on the generic and found that I had no problem with it.</s>STEVE: I mean, I've never been able to not sleep with it, and it's never been a weight issue. I have never lost weight from it, that's for sure. I'm way, way too overweight and probably pre-diabetic right now. But the fact is, that as - since March of last year, and this is when I lost my job, I hadn't been able to get Adderall. And - or my - I was getting amphetamine sulfate. And it was simply unavailable. Well, initially, it didn't bother me and everything, and I waited with my family's pharmacy for three months before they got it. But in the meantime, I did lose my job because of poor job performance. And, you know, and, you know, they weren't interested in these kind of situations, you know, at my work, you know, in was simply, you know, I wasn't doing it. So...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I don't mean to cut you off. I just wanted - we're just running out of time, and I wanted to give Dr. McGough a chance to respond. These are some of the real consequences: losing jobs, getting bad grades, as we mentioned, also driving problems.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Even among college educated folks with ADHD, they make about $40,000 less a year than similarly educated folks without ADHD. This is a very real condition based in the brain, and it has real consequences.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dr. McGough, thanks very much for your time today. We appreciate it.</s>JAMES MCGOUGH: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: James McGough, a psychiatrist and professor at UCLA School of Medicine. He also directs the UCLA clinical programs in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He joined us by phone from his office in Los Angeles. Richard Knox with us from his office in Boston. Richard, always good to have you with us.</s>RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: Yeah. Thank you, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Richard Knox is NPR's health correspondent. Coming up next, we're going to be talking about an argument that it's time to can the holiday food drive. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

The Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, known as the "Darkhorse" Battalion, have suffered the worst casualty rate of any Marine unit in the Afghan war. During a seven-month tour, they lost 25 men; nearly 200 were wounded. Still, the Marines in the unit agree it was worth it. Lance Cpl. Jake Romo, 'Darkhorse' Battalion Tom Bowman, Pentagon correspondent, NPR

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Just over a year ago, the Marine's Darkhorse Battalion left Camp Pendleton for a tour in Afghanistan's Sangin District; seven months when they lost 25 men killed and over 200 injured, the highest casualty rate of any Marine unit in Afghanistan.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Still, they say it was worth it. The experience of this famous unit is just one example of the enormous sacrifices of the U.S. military, sacrifices many civilians struggle to grasp. A recent Pew study found that more than 80 percent of recent veterans say the American public has little or no understanding of the problems they face in the military, and most of the public agrees.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you or a family member served in Iraq or Afghanistan, what don't the rest of us understand? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. Go to npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, NPR's Dina Temple-Raston on the charges against an alleged pipe bomber in New York, and disagreement between the New York City police and the FBI on the role of an informant.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: But first, Lance Corporal Jake Romo served with Darkhorse, the 3rd Battalion of the 5th Marines. He was on his first deployment when he lost his legs in an explosion in February. He joins us today from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, where he does physical therapy. Nice to have you with us today.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Hey, how are you doing?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good - well, that's my question to you: How are you doing?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: I'm great.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And maybe - is one of the things we don't understand, somebody able to say, after losing two of their legs, I'm doing great?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Yes, it's hard for people to wrap their heads around, for sure.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: How is it that you explain it to them, or do you?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Well, I guess it depends on the person asking because, you know, I mean, the question by itself, you know, is presented a lot. But it depends, you know, how they're - it really depends how they're asking it. And so a lot of people are sympathetic. A lot of people, you know, have a lot of pity. It's - you know, it just depends. You know, to me, it doesn't seem nearly as big a deal as people make it out to be, I guess.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And pity - I suspect pity is not one of those things that's all that welcome.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: No, no. You know, not that - I should say first that me and my family are very, very grateful at all the well-wishes that people have. But pity is just not - I would say it's almost insulting for those who have sacrificed, I mean, just to see that coming back at them. It's just not - I don't know how you - any other way to say it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I wonder: This must have happened to you both before and after the IED explosion that cost you your legs. People come up to you and say, thanks for your service.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Oh sure, all the time.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And how does that make you feel?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Well, yeah, I mean, I'm very appreciative. I mean, it's - it's definitely well-received, but there's a lot of - there's a lot that you can tell people don't understand about it. You know, like I said, you can tell a lot of what people feel is pity. You know, people seem to think that we're taking it harder than we actually are.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: You know, we all went into Afghanistan knowing that we - I should say, we already made the sacrifice before we even went. We knew what we were getting ourselves into, and we made that sacrifice willingly. Of course, there's exceptions. You know, people weren't expecting - you know, it's one thing to play it out in your mind, another to actually live it.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: But I can say for the vast majority of people who have lost - and I can speak with confidence for those who didn't come back, knowing them - that they would do it again.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That Pew survey I mentioned shows that the majority of the American public, 52 percent, doesn't think the war in Afghanistan was worth it. And they might think that, in part, because of the losses that people like you suffered. But I wonder: How do you and your colleagues in the 3rd of the 5th, how do you feel?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Well, it's - I don't think it's anybody's right who didn't fight to say that it wasn't worth going over there and fighting. If nothing else, that spits in the face of everyone who willingly, and continues to willingly, sacrifice. I can say from a personal experience that if nothing else, when I got there, the area that we were in, people were living in complete fear and oppression. And by the time we left, they were walking around freely able to enjoy what they wanted to.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: And even if that goes to crap, even if they - you know, they completely fall back in the same rut they did before, if nothing else, they got to live that for a short period of time. So I think that that was worth it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can get some callers in on the conversation. We want to speak to those of you who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and find out about what the rest of us don't understand. And we'll begin with Andre(ph), Andre with us from Goose Creek in South Carolina.</s>ANDRE: Hey, how are you doing?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Very well, thanks.</s>ANDRE: Hey, I want to thank you so much for your service. I'm currently active-duty military as well. And I just want to commend you on like, your wife for being so supportive. And like, I'm married, too, as well. And the toll that it takes on your family is way more than anyone can believe. I have more military spouses telling my wife, thank you for your service, than I ever get out in public, you know?</s>ANDRE: And the public doesn't realize that it's not - the public as a whole doesn't recognize it. Military families recognize the sacrifice that military members are (unintelligible).</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Andre, it sounds like you may have heard Jake Romo in one of Tom Bowman's pieces on the radio.</s>ANDRE: I haven't. I haven't heard.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah, yeah. Jake, well, you are married. You do have a wife. And she, well, shocked to get the news, but I'm told she's pretty supportive, too.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Oh certainly. Once she knew that, you know, I was OK mentally, then she was fine. When she knew that I was fine, she was fine.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Andre, are you scheduled to go deploy in Afghanistan?</s>ANDRE: I'm actually in a training status right now. I'm in a Navy nuclear power program. And I'm in the last leg of the power program and hopefully, I'll be stationed somewhere - hopefully, Hawaii, or somewhere where I can actually do something that's worthwhile, you know?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Navy nuclear power sub program, for submarines?</s>ANDRE: Yeah, submarine service.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK, good luck with that.</s>ANDRE: Thank you so much.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we hope you get to go to Hawaii, too. It sounds like a good service.</s>ANDRE: I know. Have a good one.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much. I mentioned Tom Bowman, who's done a series of stories about the 3rd of the 5th Marines. He joins us here in Studio 3A. And Tom, I think what Jake Romo's been telling us, that seemed to be what you heard from a lot of veterans who came back from Afghanistan.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: That's right, not only 3-5 Marines, Neal, but also with a lot of the other Marines and soldiers spoken with, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. They decided to join the service. They think they've made a difference. And it grates on them when they come home and people kind of pity them, you know, just like Jake was talking about; that again, it was their choice. They can see a clear difference, and they would - many of them would do it all over again.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there was - some of the stories involved the families of men who didn't come back and yet they, too, seemed to think this was worth it.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: That's right, and as Jake said, it's a safer place in Sangin. Kids are going back to school. More markets are opening. The district governor now can move around his district fairly easily; he couldn't before. So we talked to a couple of families who lost Marines over in Sangin, and they all point to those improvements and say, my son - or my husband - did make a difference, and I'm proud of him.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can get another caller in on the conversation. This is Chris(ph), and Chris on the line with us from Columbus in Wisconsin.</s>CHRIS: Yes, I find that a lot of people don't understand the desire to serve. By the way, semper fi from 1-6 Marine. And, you know, when I say that I'm getting deployed, I get a lot of aw, that's too bad. And it's like no, I want to go. You don't understand. I was disappointed when we got delayed in a deployment. You know, I want to go.</s>CHRIS: And culturally, I think that we needed Iraq and Afghanistan to learn the lessons of Vietnam, where we respect the soldier and the soldier's family, irregardless of the political conditions involved.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It was interesting, Chris, in one of Tom Bowman's - piece, there was a soldier - a Marine, excuse me, who said: You know, you train to be on the first team your whole life; yeah, you want to get in the game.</s>CHRIS: That's right. I'm - you know, I don't want to sit on the sidelines. I want to do what I'm trained to do. And that means get out there and not only be involved at the tip of the spear but also the blocks in the wall, and holding up the infrastructure and the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Chris, you set to go back?</s>CHRIS: Oh, absolutely. We were supposed to go back here in a couple months, but we got delayed until fiscal year 2013, and I'm so ready to go.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Chris, thanks very much for the call. We appreciate it.</s>CHRIS: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jake Romo, would you agree with that? I mean, you - one of the things you loved most in life was running. That's something you're never going to be able to do again.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Well, I wouldn't say never. But...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK, go ahead. Go ahead, Jake.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Oh, I wouldn't say never, but it certainly wouldn't be the same. I loved running for - not necessarily for the physical aspect or anything like that. It was more of a sense of freedom. You know, imagine, you know, you're halfway across - you're 20 miles across town and your car breaks down and, you know, you have that thing in the back of your mind; like, that's OK. I'll just grab a bottle of water and run home.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: You know, and that's a little extreme, but that's the sense of freedom that - I enjoyed running so much because I could tell you, honestly, I ran more than I drove, and it was at least seven or eight miles to work.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what do you do now to replace that?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Oh, anything, really. Anything can replace it. It's an act of - for me, it's just an act of mental conditioning. You know, I - there's other things - the idea behind the philosophy of it is to attack the insecurities in your mind, at least that was for me. Now that I'm more or less confined to a wheelchair, I've taken up - because I grew up in the martial arts community. I've gone back, and I've started training again.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Moreover, I've begun to teach, and we're - I've been working with a local studio. I'm working with developing a serious self-defense program for guys in wheelchairs. So that would very much replace that, and that sense of freedom of not being limited to what you think, or what other people think you're capable of doing.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: I mean, it's a number of things. My right hand, for example, is damaged, and I have limited or, you know, relatively limited dexterity. So teaching my hand to do fine motor skills; for example, I'm big into firearms for, you know, obvious reasons. So...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hang on to that thought, Jake. We've got to take a short break. We're talking about the military, war and sacrifice. If you or a family member served in Iraq or Afghanistan, what don't the rest of us understand? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. Less than 1 percent of Americans have served on active duty in the military in the past decade. For the rest of us, it's often difficult to understand the challenges, and the sacrifices, of those who serve and their families, and to know how to recognize that service.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A recent piece in the Washington Post quoted an Army battalion commander at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Lieutenant Colonel Michael Jason(ph) wrote on his Facebook page on Memorial Day: Don't thank me for my service. Don't give me 5 percent off my Starbuck's. Don't worry about yellow ribbons. Do me this one favor: Tell your children there's another calling out there. Talk to your kids about serving their country and their fellow citizens.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you or a family member served in Iraq or Afghanistan, what don't the rest of us understand - 800-989-8255 is the phone number. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman is with us. He did a series of reports on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED about the sacrifices of the 3rd Battalion of the 5th Marines, Darkhorse Battalion. You can listen to those pieces through a link at our website. Again, go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Also with us is Jake Romo, who's with the 3rd of the 5th, a lance corporal, and lost his legs in an IED explosion there. Let's see if we can go next to Greg(ph), Greg on the line with us from Pittsburgh.</s>GREG: Hey, how are you guys doing today?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good, thanks.</s>GREG: Great. Well, I guess the comment I wanted to have was, I think what most people don't get is being thanked puts us in a little bit of an uncomfortable position because we never know really how to respond other than, I appreciate that, you know; saying, I appreciate that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there's another expression that some people use when people come home from Iraq or Afghanistan: You're all heroes. I wonder, Greg, have you heard that?</s>GREG: I've heard that, but I don't think that applies to everybody because less than - what, 2 percent of the forces that deploy actually ever see combat. And so, you know, those of us that do deploy have a lot of respect for the folks that are out there on the front lines, and most respect for those that are injured. You know, those are the real heroes. The rest of us, we're doing our part and supporting them, but those are the real heroes to me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jake Romo, I wanted to ask you about that. Obviously, you did see combat.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Yeah, yeah.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: I did.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. And how do you respond when people say you're a hero?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Well, it's kind of - I'm going to try to put this in a perspective that you can - like, anyone can grasp. I mean, I don't know, almost as if, you know, you're pulling into the supermarket, and you pull into a parking space, and someone comes up and compliments you on, like, man, that was an awesome parking job. You know what I'm saying? It's the - what we did, we chose to do. We trained really hard to do. You know, for us, it was a lot, you know, a lot of misery, not - you know, I shouldn't say it was all bad, by any means, but it was very hard. And it wasn't something we did for thanks or, you know, expecting one day to stand on some kind of pedestal.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: But it's just really hard to take. It's almost awkward, having someone sitting there and trying to thank you for that. It's - I don't know.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm not going to leave you feeling awkward.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Tom, Tom Bowman, there was an officer you quoted in, I think, your piece who said there was an - a lot of sadness when the 30 Americans, most of them Navy SEALS, were killed in a helicopter crash - or actually, shot down in a helicopter in Afghanistan. You said the thing that people don't understand is those men were there doing their job. They got it.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: That's right. They were doing exactly what they wanted to, and that's what - Darkhorse comes in here and the same kind of thing, too, that they all signed up for this. It's an all-volunteer force. They knew what they were getting into. I think particularly if you're with a Marine infantry unit, in this day and age, you know you're going to see combat. So 3-5 is the same as 1-6, the guy that called earlier.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: They're in Helmand province. It's still a very dangerous place now, just as Anbar province was in Iraq. They will see combat if they're in those kinds of units.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to John(ph), John with us from Laramie, Wyoming.</s>JOHN: Thank you for taking my call. First, I would like to thank Lance Corporal Romo for his service and his sacrifice. My nephew was one of the 3-5 Marines that was killed. And one of the - a couple of the things that I think America really doesn't understand is that we're losing some of the best young men of that generation.</s>JOHN: These are young men who volunteered and are training for this mission, and they know what they're getting themselves into, and they're some of the best young men of their generation. And I think there should be more recognition from the American public.</s>JOHN: America also doesn't realize that the 3-5 is a very elite unit, and you don't just get drawn out of a hat to go in that unit; you're selected because you are an exceptional Marine.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: John, can you tell us your nephew's name so we can have a moment to remember him?</s>JOHN: Lance Corporal Alec Catherwood. Romo, do you remember him?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Yeah, I was about 50 feet away when he died.</s>JOHN: God bless you, Romo.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: It's hard to hear that name.</s>JOHN: Well, we would like to include you in some of our family things if you could hang on and get my number later.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We'll get the number, John. We'll put you on hold and get your number, and forward it to Jake Romo.</s>JOHN: Thank you. I just want to say that America needs to understand what these boys are going through, and this was some of the hardest fighting in this entire war, and they knew what they were getting into.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: John, thanks very much, and we're sorry for your loss.</s>JOHN: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We put John on hold, and we'll get him that information. He did mention, Jake Romo, the 3rd of the 5th, an elite unit. People who saw the miniseries on HBO, "The Pacific," that was the 3rd of the 5th. This is one of the most famous units in a famous outfit, the Marines Corps.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: That's right, and they saw service in World War I, at Belleau Wood, and some of the other tough fights in Vietnam, as well And the caller raised a really interesting point. Now remember, these guys, many of them are in their early to mid-20s. And they have a certain sense of responsibility, and they've seen things that most of us double their age have never seen. And I think that's what's really remarkable here, a maturity level.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: And some of these guys not only are fighting for their country, but they're doing things like running villages or towns in Afghanistan and Iraq. There's a gunnery sergeant that's in charge of education programs in this huge district of Afghanistan. So the responsibility not only, you know, facing enemy fire but just what they're doing day-in and day-out over there, for their age, is really quite remarkable.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email that we have from Dave(ph): The man who would have been my brother-in-law, Corporal Stephen McGowan(ph), drove over an IED and was killed on March 4, 2005. Despite the horror of what his comrades experienced recovering his body, many have re-enlisted and prolonged their careers.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: These men have so much faith in their mission and their country, it puts the rest of us to shame. We complain about traffic and day-to-day problems while these men spend multiday missions living out of their backpacks, sleeping in the sand.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Angela(ph), Angela with us from Suffolk in Virginia.</s>ANGELA: Hi, yes. I just wanted to say - well, actually this is a great show for me because my husband got home from Afghanistan a year ago today. And he spent most of last year - he's a Navy medical type with the Marines Corps in Helmand province.</s>ANGELA: And, you know, what most people don't understand is, you know, the lack of communication for the family members. I mean, I never felt sorry for myself, but I never spoke to him for five months, either. And, you know, we have three kids. And it's very hard to - you sort of put your life on hold.</s>ANGELA: It's not like, you know, they go away for a business trip, and they come back, or you could call them if things come up. There was a period of time I couldn't even email him. So that's what people - they just, you know, he - I would have to send him food. You know, the food was - you know, they had no mess hall. I mean, it was just different, and people don't understand that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Angela, we're glad your husband made it. And Tom, there's that dichotomy. A lot of the time, the troops in the Marines are able to speak with their families by Skype or email almost instantly, or Facebook. Yet, as Angela says, a lot of the time they're completely out of touch.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: That's right. If you were in some sort of combat outpost, a small combat outpost, you have very little communication back home. The larger bases, like Bagram and Kandahar - I mean, it's almost like being at Andrews Air Force Base when you go to some of these places. There are plenty of computers and telephones and everything else, so you can communicate back home.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Way out in the field, though, where we spent some time with the troops back in June and basically look like vacant lots, or they would take over a house or something, there's no way to get a message out from there. So sometimes it can be very difficult.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jake Romo, I was wondering if you could speak for a moment about the Navy corpsmen. They're the medics who work with the Marines. Do they still call them squids?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: No, no, no. Squids is more or less a more derogatory term for, you know, Navy personnel who don't really – don't want anything to do with combat. So we - you know, the Marine Corps and the Navy have a little bit of a rivalry; we always have. No, no. The corpsmen we very affectionately refer to as doc, unless they just don't deserve it - but they usually do. They're right up there at the front with us. And we - they command a huge respect because most of the time when we're all shooting back, you know, what the - any reasonable person would do when fired upon, they are ignoring fire and looking for casualties and, you know, exposing themselves to take care of, take care of our wounded. So they command a huge respect. There's - I can't think of any, you know - they're definitely way up there at the top with anyone I would serve with.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Angela, is here - what's your husband up to now?</s>ANGELA: Well, he's still in the Navy, 20 years, and he's at a hospital in Portsmouth, the naval hospital in Portsmouth. So - but he enjoyed it. And you know, we - like I say, we - he went voluntarily. He chose to go. And, you know, Navy is a way - it's a way of life for us, you know? So it's a - but it was an interesting experience, and I would do it all over again. I really would.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Angela, thanks very much for the call.</s>ANGELA: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from William. We're becoming more and more remote from our military. I'm a veteran. My son is now a veteran. The general public have no idea what it's like to be in the military. The draft is a distant memory. My son's friends from high school and college have a video-game image of military service. Our day-to-day exposure to the military has also decreased due to the bases being closed and consolidated. And Tom Bowman, that's an interesting point, and one - if that's accurate, we're going to be seeing more of that.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: That's right. A lot of the bases have closed in the North, and still open in the South. And if you look at where the recruits come from, the large part come from kind of the Midwest, small-town Midwest, and the South. And a lot of the ROTC programs to get officers, over the decades, have closed in the North, and there are more of them in the South now. So you're starting to see almost a military caste system come in, where certain segments of the country are being recruited and volunteer. And various parts of the country, particularly among the elites on the East and West Coasts, have pretty much walked away from the military.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I wonder, Jake Romo, that writer said his dad was a veteran and so was he. You have a young son now. Would you encourage him to join the Marines?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Well, I wasn't particularly encouraged to join the Marines. Neither was my father. It was just something that I saw, and I saw honorable attributes in my father, and that's what I pursued. So if I (unintelligible) myself as such for my son and he sees those things and he saw, you know, that the Marine Corps had a positive influence on me, and he wanted to do that for the right reasons, I would be all for it. Now, I wouldn't particularly encourage it. I think that's like pushing anything else unnecessarily. I wouldn't push my agenda on anybody, especially my son.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jake Romo, a lance corporal in the Darkhorse Battalion, the 3rd of the 5th Marines. Also with us, Tom Bowman, NPR Pentagon correspondent whose series on Darkhorse Battalion and the Afghan War you can listen to; go to npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. And this is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And this is Beth from Hillsborough, North Carolina. I think it's a misconception the public doesn't understand what members of the military go through.While we may not walk in your shoes, World War II and Vietnam aren't that long ago. Many people still alive - our siblings, our parents - fought in these wars. Everyone else knew the impact. Military members are trained to see what they do as their work. We have enormous respect for you. It's not you or your service we question; it's the war itself, the killing and suffering. We commend you but don't want the government to send you to war for the wrong reasons. And I wonder, Jake Romo, have you heard other people express that opinion?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: I'm sorry?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Have you heard others express that opinion?</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: More or less. How you - it's just the norm. It's what you get used to. It's not necessarily that you're trained to do a particular thing. It's just - that's just how you see it, and that's what you're around all the time, especially if you're not married. You live on – you know, you live on base, and that's almost 24/7. So you don't really have - it becomes more normal than what people consider a civilian lifestyle.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK. Let's go next to Matthew, Matthew calling from Philadelphia.</s>MATTHEW: Yeah. Hi. I actually did two tours in Iraq. I worked in an operations center - and just the millions and millions of people that we were able to help out. But the first one, we had an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, and my second deployment was roughly the size of the state of Oregon. And we helped build new schools; we implemented a new government. We turned back a lot of ops over - back to the Iraqis, and everything else. And it's all completely worth it. That country was in such torment and just absolute tyranny. We gave it liberty and justice that people take for granted. The war is completely worth it, as well as the sacrifice.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I wonder: Earlier, Jake Romo said - talking about the accomplishments of his battalion in Helmand Province - said, you know, if it all goes to crap later, well, even so, it was worth it. Do you feel the same way about your service in Iraq?</s>MATTHEW: Oh, of course. The way I look at it, sir, is the island of Iwo Jima, over four days of fighting, we lost over 4,000 Marines - was that, 50-some Marines an hour. And in Iraq and Afghanistan today, we've lost roughly about 6,200, which translates to right around one every 12 hours. And Iraq and Afghanistan are a lot bigger places, a lot more people, with a lot more (unintelligible) Iwo Jima ever was. The sacrifice was completely worth it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Matt...</s>MATTHEW: I would go back in a heartbeat.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it.</s>MATTHEW: No problem.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Tom Bowman, as we enter a new era of military cuts, as we wind down the wars - in Iraq, all U.S. combat troops are supposed to be out by the end of this year, and Afghanistan by 2014 - as we evaluate these conflicts, there's going to be this very difficult rash of emotions that people are going to feel differently all over the place. How do you think - what do you think the military is going to take away from these conflicts?</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, I think the military clearly - well, first of all, we have to say we don't know how the - both are going to turn out. I asked one senior Marine officer - we were talking about what Darkhorse went through and I said, do you think it was worth it? And he said, well, that depends how Afghanistan turns out. And that's still an open question. In Iraq, there are still troubles there as well. All troops will be out, as you say, by the end of the year. There are still divisions between Sunni and Shiite over there.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: The Kurdish area is a problem. So you know, it's an open question to how Iraq will turn out as well. So I think, clearly, the military will look at Iraq and say, we achieved what we wanted to. We got rid of Saddam Hussein. We created something over there. Now, it's for them to move forward. But Afghanistan, definitely an open question.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Tom Bowman, thanks very much, as always, for your time.</s>TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: You're welcome.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jake Romo, good luck to you.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Thank you, sir.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Happy Thanksgiving.</s>LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Same to you.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel about Tuesday's State of the Union address, and what she believes the Republican base wants and needs to hear from the president.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: The controversy over Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has managed the near impossible in politics these days. It has united Democrats and Republicans. Across the political spectrum, there is almost universal condemnation of a racist yearbook picture and revelations that Governor Northam used shoe polish to darken his face for a party back in 1984.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Meanwhile, here in Washington, Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for one of the key rituals of the political calendar, the State of the Union. We're going to put questions about both these topics to our next guest, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel. Ronna McDaniel, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Thanks for having me - great to be here.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Great to have you with us. I saw your tweet today. You said it's time for Northam to face reality and step down. You don't see any path forward for him.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: I don't. I think even with leaders of his own party calling for his resignation, it's just going to be hard for him to heal his state. And he's had a past. This isn't just one isolated incident. We saw him remove Fairfax from his literature when he was running for governor. We've seen other instances from Northam. And I think it's time for him to go.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: I want to allow you to respond to something that DNC Chair - Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez told me when I interviewed him today. Here he is.</s>TOM PEREZ: One thing we have done as Democrats is we have not hesitated to hold accountable people who violate our values, whether they're Republicans or Democrats.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: He's suggesting, Ronna McDaniel, that there's a double standard, that Republicans have been a lot quicker to call for a Democrat to resign than they have for any of their own.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Well, I would disagree with that completely. When we had a candidate in Illinois who was running, he got on the ticket, clearly did not exemplify Republican views. We found a third-party candidate to run against him. Steve King was stripped of his committeeships (ph) with his egregious comments. We've...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: But continues to sit as a member of Congress.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: But we have acted immediately. And you see with the Democrats with...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: But not called for him to resign.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: ...Rashida Tlaib...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Sorry. I'm just trying to parse...</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: ...With Rashida Tlaib and...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ...What the difference is.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Well, with Rashida Tlaib and others in the Democratic Party, with Keith Ellison, for example, the DNC co-chair, as they have engaged with Louis Farrakhan, who is a known anti-Semite, who has called the Jewish people termites. They have continued to sit in their offices...</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: This is Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: ...And not - yeah, and not be removed. In fact, you have many Democrats who have engaged with Louis Farrakhan. He sat on the stage next to Bill Clinton recently at a funeral. I mean, this is somebody who should be absolutely reviled by the Democrat Party. He is a known anti-Semite. He has said horrific things about the Jewish people. And yet the Democrat Party continues to have their leaders engage with this gentleman.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: But just to press you on this - and then I do want to move on to the State of the Union - I'm asking you a question about whether Republicans would be as quick to ask a Republican to step down. And you're giving me examples of Democrats who you say should resign.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: I'm saying Republicans have been quick to remove people from committees. We've been quick to denounce candidates running for office who don't exemplify our values. We're quick to denounce candidates who say bad things. That's what we've done.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: I'm going to jump in because we could go back and forth on this for our full time, and I do want to get to the State of the Union with you...</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Sure.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: ...The State of Union which of course follows the longest government shutdown in history and a shutdown that exposed deep fractures within your party. What are you hoping to hear from the president tomorrow that might go - get us to the starting point of starting to heal those fractures?</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Well, our party agrees with the president that we need border security. We see the increase of drugs coming across our border. We know that 90 percent of the heroin, for example, comes across our southern border. We have 300 deaths from heroin a week. We know human trafficking's an issue. We know asylum claims are up 1,700 percent in eight years. So our party agrees on this.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Democrats used to agree on this, too. Many of them voted for commonsense immigration reform under President Obama. I think it's time for us to come together and really solve problems that get kicked down the road far too often. And the president's going to strike a bipartisan tone and extend his hand to Democrats to come work with him on these issues.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: So just in the moments that we have left - we've got about 30 seconds - are you expecting to hear a message from the president that will reach beyond his base?</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: I do. I think the president has worked in a bipartisan manner. Even with the shutdown, he said to Nancy Pelosi, let's put DACA on the table. Let's find a fix there. This is something that we can compromise on.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: He's refused to budge on his key demand for a wall - given no ground.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Well, he - first of all, I think some of that's been misrepresented. He has set a barrier.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Right.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: And he's taking his lead from the ICE agents and the CBP.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: OK.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: I think most of us would listen to the experts on the front line.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: That's RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. Thanks so much.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL: Thanks for having me.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: And you can hear my interview with Tom Perez, chair of the DNC, elsewhere on today's program.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the border wall an immorality. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Dr. Robert Jeffress, American Southern Baptist pastor, who takes the opposite view.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: We are going to go back to a question that consumed the U.S. government, in fact, led to a partial shutdown of the government last month, the question of additional physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. There already are some barriers, as you probably know, but the argument is over whether additional ones would actually make a difference or are worth the cost. As you probably also know, President Trump has made this a high priority. But we've been asking a different question. Is it moral? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among other Democrats and some activists, have laid down a very specific marker on the wall, calling it an immorality.</s>MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Last week, we heard from Shaun Casey, a theologian and former State Department official who's written widely about the intersection of faith and politics. He's currently at Georgetown University. This week, we are hearing another prominent thinker from a different perspective, the Reverend Robert Jeffress. He's pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. He's one of President Trump's closest evangelical advisors. For example, he offered prayers at the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. And he is with us now on the line from his church in Dallas. Pastor Jeffress, thank you so much for talking with us once again.</s>ROBERT JEFFRESS: Great to be back with you, Michel.</s>MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: So Speaker Pelosi might be the most high-profile person to make the argument that the wall is immoral, but she's not the only one. I take it you disagree.</s>ROBERT JEFFRESS: Well, I do. And, look, I mean, to say that a wall is immoral or, as the pope said earlier this year, unchristian, I think is beyond reason. Walls are not moral or immoral in and of themselves. It depends on the purpose for which they're being used. And for government to use a barrier to protect its security and its sovereignty I believe is in keeping with what the Bible says, is the God-given purpose of government, you know? I preach the sermon on Inauguration Day for President Trump and his family. And I told the Old Testament story of Nehemiah, whom God ordered to build a wall around Jerusalem to protect the citizens. And, as an aside, I said Mr. President, God is not against walls.</s>MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: There are other texts, though, in the Bible that bring down walls that are also quite well-known. I mean, and the holy texts of the Judeo-Christian ethic are also very clear about the need to offer welcome to the stranger, to protect the vulnerable. Is there a biblical warrant for a wall in your view?</s>ROBERT JEFFRESS: Absolutely. And when God told the Israelites to be kind to, take care of the aliens and the foreigners in your land - but he goes on to say the reason for that. He said to Israel because you were once aliens and foreigners in Egypt. And that's the key, Michel, to understanding what the Bible is saying. Israel came to Egypt as welcomed guests, not as illegal immigrants. They were invited to come. Pharaoh invited Jacob and his family to come and settle there. And I believe America is the kindest most compassionate nation in the world to those who come into our country, legally. But there is no biblical basis for illegal immigration.</s>MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: For those who take a different view, I don't know that it's so much a question of the wall itself is that what is the duty to people who are fleeing oppression and suffering. And that I think they consider to be the higher duty than maintaining this physical barrier to keep people out. So how do you understand that?</s>ROBERT JEFFRESS: Well, again, I think we need to be sympathetic toward those who are fleeing oppression. I think, as a practical basis, there is probably a limit to how many people America can take. But I think government has to balance that call for compassion with the call for protection. And so I think government has to do a balancing act here. And, you know, I know somewhat of the heart of this president. I don't believe he's a mean-spirited man. I believe him to be very compassionate. I've sat in the Oval Office with him and heard him agonize over the DACA situation, wanting to help the DREAMers, in fact, wanting to do much more than the Republican establishment wanted to do.</s>MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: And before we let you go, let's just go back again to something you referenced early, which is what do you think your role in this is. I know that you're a very strong supporter of the present. You just tweeted just a few - just a little while ago, thank God for this president. Your specific concern that you were referencing was abortion policy in this country. So I know that you're a strong supporter of him. But what do you think your role in this debate is?</s>ROBERT JEFFRESS: I believe my job as a preacher of God's word is to speak to what God's word says about every issue, including immigration. And I think people need to understand that God has created the church for one purpose. He created the family for another. But the third institution he created was government, and government's distinct responsibility is to maintain order and protect its citizens. And I think it's wrong to vilify President Trump or any government official who's trying to fulfill that God-given and unique responsibility of government.</s>MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Well, but you disagree with other political leaders. I mean, there are other political leaders who you don't think are doing their job to protect the public. And, I mean, if supporting government in all of its decisions was biblical, then there wouldn't have been an American revolution, would there?</s>ROBERT JEFFRESS: Oh, I don't support government and all of its decisions. I think, for example, New York state, Virginia - their late-term abortion bills are barbaric and ought to be opposed at every level. I think Roe v. Wade is barbaric and ought to be opposed. I don't have any trouble calling out government when they're wrong.</s>MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: That is Dr. Robert Jeffress. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, and we reached him at his office there. Pastor Jeffress, thanks so much for talking to us.</s>ROBERT JEFFRESS: Always good to be with you, Michel. Thank you.

In his book An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine, medical historian Howard Markel tells the story of how Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, and Halsted, the acclaimed surgeon, fell under the addictive spell of cocaine.

IRA FLATOW, HOST: You might think of cocaine as a party drug from the '70s and '80s, but 100 years before that, in the 1880s, a guy by the name of Sigmund Freud, yeah, the father of psychoanalysis, was suiting up in white tie and gloves, attending soirees in Paris and snorting a little cocaine to, quote, "untie his tongue." Around the same time, Pope Leo XIII gave a special Vatican gold medal to the maker of Vin Mariani, a concoction of Bordeaux wine and cocaine. Pope Leo was said to carry around a flask of the stuff himself. And across the channel, a young surgeon named William Halsted, who pioneered many techniques still used in surgery today - for example, he invented the surgical glove - was investigating the white powder and its anesthetic properties, a potential wonder drug for the surgical profession. And many times his experiments involved injecting it into himself, cocaine right through the vein, to the point where he became totally hooked, leaving screaming patients in the operating room behind and descending into a month-long cocaine binge.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: These are just a few of the stories in the new book "An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine," a fascinating read about two scientists who abused cocaine and why they were so intrigued by it in the first place. And it was written by our monthly science fiction contributor Howard Markel, professor of history of medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, also director of the Center for the History of Medicine there. Welcome back, Howard.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: DR. HOWARD MARKEL: It's great to be here. Good afternoon, Ira.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: We won't be taking calls this hour, so don't try to call in. But if you want more information about what we're talking about, go to our website at sciencefriday.com, where you'll find links to our topic. This is really a fascinating book. What made you decide to take this project on?</s>MARKEL: Well, I became very interested in seeing addicted patients in my own clinic, and I tend to understand the world as completely as I can as both a historian and a physician. And I wanted to learn a little bit more about the origins of addiction. And as I studied more and more and read more and more, I came across both Sigmund Freud and William Halsted and I, well, I became addicted to their life stories. They were so fascinating. They were so compelling, and I thought using their lives and their struggles I could really put a human face on this terrible disease.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Tell us about what there was at that turn of the century over 100 years ago, that period of time where cocaine seemed to be popping up everywhere. Sigmund Freud, you had it in these doctors, and you had it in Arthur Conan Doyle talking about Sherlock Holmes. The world seem to - and we hear stories that Coca-Cola was invented around that time.</s>MARKEL: Absolutely. In the 1880s, even though coca leaves had been chewed by the aboriginals in South America for millennia, around the early 1800s, as European explorers started traveling to South America, they brought some coca leaves back. And they were very impressed by the endurance and the stimulation that came from chewing coca leaves. But over the next several decades, in the 1800s, chemists and scientists began to search for that active ingredient. What was it that made chewing coca leaves so buzzy and exciting? And indeed, they did find out how to crystallize an alkaloid salt called cocaine hydrochloride.</s>MARKEL: And the drug companies, the pharmaceutical houses of the era, loved it. It was their blockbuster drug. And they sold it as a cure for upset stomach, for flatulence, for consumption, for depression, for morphine addiction. Well, perhaps they oversold it a bit, but it was truly the miracle drug of its era.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Mm-hmm. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Howard Markel, who's author of an incredible book, new book, "An Anatomy of Addiction." And how did Freud discover it and get hooked on it?</s>MARKEL: Well, Freud - and it was really fun to get to learn about Freud as a young, nervous man who was eager to make his career. We always think of Freud as this icon with that beard and that grim countenance. But he was a nervous fellow and wanted to make good. And he was looking for something that would make his name. And he practiced medicine in Vienna, which was the - probably the most competitive medical marketplace in the world at that time. The Vienna General Hospital was the place to train. And he knew if he was going to get a professorship, he would have to discover something great.</s>MARKEL: So he read various little case reports in the journals about how great cocaine was for fighting off depression or fatigue. And he found an interesting little report that it could help you if you had morphine addiction. And morphine and opium were terrifically overprescribed back then. And what the medical profession did was create a lot of addicts. And one of Sigmund's best friends, a man named Fleischl Marxow, was a great physiologist who injured his hand. He had to have his thumb amputated, and he had terrible chronic pain. And he became a hopeless morphine addict.</s>MARKEL: So Sigmund wanted to help his friend. He also knew that if he could write this up, he could really become famous. And so he studied this. He began studying it in 1884, read the whole world's literature on the topic, and wrote a very prominent monograph called "Uber Coca," or "On Coca," that really, you know, excited the entire medical world about all of its medical and therapeutic uses, except for one. He missed the major use of cocaine as a medical agent. It is a terrific local anesthetic.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And a few months after Freud got his first shipment of cocaine in 1884, he wrote a letter to his fiancé describing how it feels. Can you read a little bit of that for us?</s>MARKEL: I thought you'd never ask.</s>MARKEL: It's June 2, 1884 - it's about a month or two after he started dabbling with cocaine - he writes to Martha Bernays, his fiancé: Woe to you, my princess. When I come, I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward, you should see who is the stronger - a gentle little girl who doesn't eat enough, or a big, wild man who has cocaine in his body. In my last severe depression, I took coca again, and a small dose lifted me to the heights in a wonderful fashion. I am just now busy collecting the literature for a song of praise to this magical substance.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Pretty racy stuff for that time.</s>MARKEL: Pretty racy indeed. And the great thing about Freud is that he's an inveterate letter writer, and you can really track his entire life through his letters to his fiance, to his friends, to another friend named Wilhelm Fleiss. And he does get rather specific about how magical and exciting cocaine is for him.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: We have to take a break. After that, lots more with Howard Markel and his book "An Anatomy of Addiction" Stay with us.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: We're talking with author Howard Markel about "An Anatomy of Addiction." Before we move on to another protagonist in the in the book, the other - Halsted, the other major figure - let me ask you one question I'm sure that comes up all the time, and you address, is what did cocaine have to do with Freud and his theories? Did it have any influence, anything like that?</s>MARKEL: Well, it's a complicated answer. It's yes and no. I mean, there are points in Freud's early cocaine abuse where he was amazed at how loquacious it made him, how it freed up ideas that he thought were locked within his mind. Sound familiar?</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah.</s>MARKEL: And of course, that's what - a safer version of that is free association, where you're simply talking about things and going from topic to topic, to try to delve what's in your unconscious or subconscious mind. But I think he quickly learned - both with his friend Fleischl Marxow, who became not only a morphine addict but also a cocaine addict, and also with another patient he nearly killed while treating her with cocaine, that this was a rather toxic substance.</s>MARKEL: Nevertheless, his most important dream, the dream that became the model for "The Interpretation of Dreams," was indeed a dream about cocaine use and the problems that resulted from treating this patient, Emma Eckstein, with cocaine.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Hmm, interesting. Go ahead.</s>MARKEL: What he dreamed - go ahead, yeah.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: No, go ahead. Finish up.</s>MARKEL: Well, he dreamed that he was at a party, and the Emma character came to him - a crowded party - and there were syringes and cocaine and scabs all around. And she accused him in front of this gathering - you nearly killed me, this was terrible. And Freud wondered about this and said, well, I had this dream because I'm such a concerned physician that if any of my patients have a bumpy course, I feel it as well.</s>MARKEL: Well, in reality, Freud had this dream because he was rather upset and nervous that he nearly killed her while treating her, both himself under the influence and while she was taking cocaine, with a surgical mistake. A colleague of his operated on Emma's nose and left a surgical sponge in the site, and she nearly died. So talk about dreams as wish fulfillment. Here's a perfect example of that. So cocaine did have some impact on his thinking and on his life.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yes. And it certainly had an impact - and the other major protagonist in your book, the renowned surgeon William Halsted, who was a contemporary of Freud's, tell us about what happened with him.</s>MARKEL: Well, Halsted, of course, they - Freud and Halsted probably never met, although they were both working at the Vienna General Hospital at the same time.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: I found that hard to believe. As I'm reading your book and these parallel lives, knowing that, I'm saying they never, you know, bumped into the cafeteria or something like that?</s>MARKEL: Well, you know, I've had fantasies many a night while writing this that they somehow passed each other and - but my historians...</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Sniffing at each other down the hall.</s>MARKEL: Yeah, rubbing each other's noses. But I could not find any documentation. But they must have seen each other. It's not that big of a place. But Halsted, of course, read not only Freud's very famous paper on cocaine, but a subsequent paper that came out about a month later by a man named Karl Koller that demonstrated that if you did a cataract operation and you took a dropper full of water and cocaine, you could anesthetize the eyeball.</s>MARKEL: And so Halsted was fascinated that here is a safe local anesthetic that I could use on my operations, because back then they had ether and chloroform, but those were very toxic and obnoxious drugs. They made you throw up a lot. They really caused a lot of sleepiness and sedation. So he started experimenting with that. And he used, as many doctors did, his own arm. He was his own guinea pig, and he was injecting it and very rapidly went down the tubes as a cocaine addict.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: To the detriment of his patients, you point out.</s>MARKEL: Yeah. Most, you know, he stopped going to the hospital. He stopped going to meetings. He stopped writing. And most infamously, he was called down to see a patient at the Bellevue Hospital. It was a serious fracture, a leg fracture in a laborer who fell off the roof of a building. And Halsted was quite the expert at repairing these types of injuries.</s>MARKEL: And you also have to remember that a broken leg of that magnitude, where the bone was literally sticking out of the skin, was almost always a fatal case if somebody did not intervene immediately. And Halsted was so bombed out of his mind on cocaine that he actually withdrew from the operating table and said, I cannot operate, and then went home and skittered away the next several months high on cocaine.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow. And he eventually(ph) had that addiction his whole life.</s>MARKEL: Well, he did. Around that period, a good friend of his, William Henry Welch, who became one of the founders of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, promised he would bring Halsted with him and - in this great medical experiment, but only if he got clean. And first, he tried to take Halsted on an ocean voyage. That didn't work very well. Halsted brought along his own supply of cocaine, and then he broke into the first-aid kit when he ran out. And finally, Welch said, you got to take care of this. This is a huge problem.</s>MARKEL: And Halsted admitted himself to an insane asylum, the Butler Hospital for the Insane in Rhode Island, and stayed there for many months to try and rid himself of this problem. Unfortunately, he gained another problem, because while they were trying to get him off cocaine, they gave him morphine. So he emerged as both a cocaine and a morphine addict for the rest of his life.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So when does cocaine - sort of the dangers of it get to be recognized, and now it's no longer available to anybody who wants to get it?</s>MARKEL: Well, that happened rather quickly after this big push that it was the miracle drug of all time. And that's one of the exciting things about writing about cocaine is that, you know, you don't have a long period of safe use with that drug. You go downhill pretty quickly if you're abusing it. And within several, you know, a few years, there was a whole cohort of people - and William Halstead was one of them - who were just wrecked men. Many of them were doctors, by the way, but they were wrecked human beings. They were paranoid. They were thin. They were jittery. They couldn't sit still. And they were true cocaine addicts.</s>MARKEL: And the medical literature beginning in the late 1880s, and certainly by the 1890s, said, hey, this is not something we should prescribe willy-nilly. And, in fact, by the early 20th century, the United States Congress passed a law controlling things, not just cocaine, but also narcotics such as morphine and opium and even marijuana, that you could not simply sell the stuff over the counter, that you had to have a doctor's prescription in order to obtain it.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: After he finally went clean, did Halsted make any more contributions to the surgical field? Was he finished at that point?</s>MARKEL: No. That's the wonderfully fascinating part of his story, is that Welch really helped him, brought him down to Baltimore. He was his minder. They lived together. They had dinner together, and he took him under his wing. He did not have a surgical position, initially, at Johns Hopkins. He was in the lab. He was operating on dogs. And he was working on some of his greatest procedures: how you operate on the abdomen, how you operate safely and delicately so that the wounds heal safely, inventing the rubber glove, interesting procedures on breast cancer and thyroid disease.</s>MARKEL: And his most active periods coincided with the times he could lay off the drug. And his most fallow periods, in fact - where he couldn't operate at all, where he'd walked out of the operating room or he'd go AWOL from the hospital entirely and no one knew where he was - was, you know, coincident with the time where he was abusing at the most point. Now, he probably went on binges of cocaine off and on every summer or so. But he used morphine, a dose of morphine, probably every night for the rest of his life.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow. Cocaine, you know, I remember reading about it in Sherlock Holmes' adventures. Was it quick, Watson, the needle, that sort of thing?</s>MARKEL: Quick Watson, the needle, yes. And then Watson always said, why are you taking that drug? It's so dangerous.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah. Did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle know these people, or was it just the times he was living in?</s>MARKEL: Well, Arthur Conan Doyle was not only a very astute physician, he was also a great medical journalist before he became the novelist that we recall today. And he really kept abreast of the medical literature, the latest scientific and medical discoveries. And so he undoubtedly read Sigmund Freud's "Uber Coca." By the way, later on in life, Sigmund Freud was a great Sherlock Holmes fan.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Oh, no kidding?</s>MARKEL: No kidding at all. And so he read "Uber Coca," and he likely read - because he was interested in eye surgery, he definitely read Karl Koller's paper about cocaine anesthesia and probably played with it a little bit himself. And, of course, he gave his character Sherlock Holmes, who was based on a doctor - Sherlock Holmes had the diagnostic, deductive capability of a doctor. And he gave him, as one of his characteristics, a love of 7 percent solution, a 7 percent cocaine solution that he injected in his mottled arm.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah. Howard, we usually have you on as our guest for Science Diction. You do the origin of scientific words. And, of course, the theme in your book is, where does the word addiction come from? You want to give us that...</s>MARKEL: Yes. And while - yes, of course. And while, you know, Freud and Halsted in the 1880s, with cocaine and even morphine, that's the birth of the modern addict, as we understand it, as a - this excessive use to the point of loss of control of a substance, it really - it wasn't that term that - it didn't mean that at all until the late 19th century. In fact, the word comes from a Latin word, addictio.</s>MARKEL: And in antiquity, it was an edict of Roman law, so that if I owed you a great deal of money, Ira, and I couldn't pay you back, you would take me before a judge. And he would make me your addict, your slave, until - I'd have to work for you until I could pay you off.</s>MARKEL: And that was the nature of the term addiction or addict well into the 1500s. Later on, it became a term for describing someone's bad habits: if you ate too much, if you were too stubborn, if you smoked too much. But we don't see its use as, you know, the loss of control due to an exogenous substance that you take until the late 1880s or early 1890s.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow. And it would make sense because the original definition, as you say, is you're basically enslaved to someone.</s>MARKEL: Yeah.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And so you're enslaved to this drug, I would imagine.</s>MARKEL: To this drug, yeah. And now, as we're learning more and more about the science of addiction and what these substances and perhaps even behavior - such as hypersexuality or gambling, or what have you - these stimulate the pleasure center of the brain, the limbic center of the brain in such a way that it really changes the architecture - the wiring, to put it crudely - of the brain so that you lose the ability to say no. And you know it's harming you, but you still do it.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah. And the problem is undoing the wiring, yeah.</s>MARKEL: Exactly. Yeah.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So - because as you say, addiction is something that's physically changed in your brain.</s>MARKEL: Yeah, so that the first dose or two or 100 may be voluntary. But, you know, once you change a cucumber into a pickle, you can't change that pickle back into a cucumber. So you have to come up with other means, very clever means of medical and psychological treatment to try to help people get off their drugs of choice.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Well, Howard, I'm not clever enough to top that analogy. So I'll...</s>MARKEL: Oh, I think you are. I think you are.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: That's the beauty. And I think, Howard, that's a great place to end the segment and segue into this month's episode of science diction. What have you got for us this month, Howard?</s>MARKEL: Well, the word is stethoscope.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Stethoscope.</s>MARKEL: Yes.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Huh.</s>MARKEL: And, you know, doctors have been listening to patient's breath sounds since at least 1,500 B.C. But it really wasn't until the early 19th century that a French physician Rene Laennec systematically investigated the sounds that we make when we breathe, and also of our heartbeat.</s>MARKEL: And, you know, the time-honored way of doing that was literally to place your ear on a patient's chest. And Laennec didn't like that. For one, if he had an obese patient, it was very hard to hear through all that fat. And also, you know, he was treating the great unwashed, literally. And they had poor hygiene, and sometimes they were lice-ridden, and that sort of disgusted him. So he came up with this invention, the stethoscope, which - he was also a Greek scholar, and he took that name from two Greek roots: stethos, which means chest, and skopen, which means to look at or to observe.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow, talking with Howard Markel, author of "An Anatomy of Addiction." The early stethoscope didn't look much like the one we have today, did it?</s>MARKEL: Not at all. It was a hollow tube made out of cedar or ebony. And, you know, there's really charming story of how that came to be. It was in 1816. He was late to see a patient, a woman with heart disease, and he was taking a short cut through the courtyard of the Louvre. And he saw some boys playing on a pile of timber, and two boys were playing with a long plank or a log. And one was taking a pin or a nail and scratching it on one end, and the other boy could hear it all the way on the other end, you know, as sound will travel through a solid body. And he said, wow, that's a great idea. And then he went to see his patient, and he asked for some paper. He rolled it up into a cylinder, and he put it against this woman's chest. And he was absolutely amazed at how he could hear the heart in a way that he had never been able to hear before.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow. But even if they could hear, you know, something rattling around in the chest, does - in those days, was there anything he could really knew about it?</s>MARKEL: Ah, well, back then, diagnosis was more important than treatment.</s>MARKEL: They didn't have a lot of treatment. But what was really remarkable about Laennec is that he figured out so many things about diseases of the chest, you know, things like tuberculosis or emphysema, and also of heart disease, whether they were heart murmurs or other problems of the heart, so that doctors could accurately diagnose these. And he experimented with a series of tubes, the hollow tubes. It's about a foot, to a foot-and-a-half long. And he wrote a textbook called "On the Practice of Auscultation." Now, auscultation comes from the Latin, auscultare, which means to listen. So it's on the practice of listening. It was published in 1819. It was a bargain at 13 francs, because you also got a stethoscope with it.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow.</s>MARKEL: But it did - took awhile for it to catch on. The book had to be translated in different languages. And finally, it became the iconic symbol. And by about 1851, the binaural stethoscope - what's very familiar to people today, with the two ear prongs and the tubes - began to develop. And that became the stethoscope as we know it.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Is the stethoscope as we know it becoming obsolete? You know, we have all these imaging technology.</s>MARKEL: Sadly, yes. I still know how to use my stethoscope. And I remember avidly listening to tapes of heart sounds and breathe sounds so that I could learn them on real patients. And it is sad. With all our wonderful, you know, non-evasive imaging techniques, you know, we can learn more and more about a patient without ever being in the room. And that's kind of sad, because as that distance has grown, we've lost something. And I think maybe we ought to hang onto our stethoscopes a little bit longer to remind - one of the principal aspects of being a doctor is listening to our patient.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right, Howard. Thank you very much.</s>MARKEL: Well, thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: You, too. Howard Markel is a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and director of the Center for the History of Medicine there.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: That's about all the time we have for this hour. We would like you to stay with us, but we don't have any more time.

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on previous show topics, including an example of how meaning gets lost in translation, the challenges of raising a terminally ill child, and advice on how to travel with kids this Thanksgiving.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's Tuesday, and time to read from your comments. Our discussion with Princeton University Professor David Bellos about his latest book "Is That a Fish in Your Ear?" generated this story about being lost in translation. Malik Emir El(ph) wrote from Chicago: In Moorish culture, we don't use the word black to describe a person's color. We use the word olive hue. For example, we would say: He or she is a dark, olive hue. It's offensive to call a Moor a black, Negro or colored person. Olives come in all hues. Also, you may hear a Moor say so-called black people, depending on the environment he or she may be in.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Many of you also responded to our conversation last week with author and English Professor Emily Rapp, who discussed her experience as the parent of a terminally-ill child. Laurel Brooks(ph) emailed: The two things that got me through parenting my gravely-ill child was accepting her condition and being present with her - in other words, staying in the moment and not projecting into the future. I will never like that she's gone, but I do accept that her short Earth life was her path, and I am not suffering.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: When we spoke with New York Times columnist Michelle Higgins about her recent column, "Are We There Yet? When Families Fly," many of you wrote to share your advice for traveling with kids. Whitney Schwartz(ph) wrote: My most recent travel experience was flying solo with my two-year-old and my infant. During takeoff, my two-year-old panicked and wriggled out from her seatbelt and took off screaming down the aisle. Again, during takeoff, I had to turn to the stranger next to me and asked him to hold my small baby while I chased down my terrified toddler. My advice: Don't afraid to ask for help.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Lori Gordon Auffhammer(ph) offered this advice: Pull out the baby wipes for the X-ray machine. We traveled from San Francisco to Germany, and they suspected the wipes were a bomb. We were forced to go through the X-ray scanner twice and almost missed our flight.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you have a correction, comment or questions for us, the best way to reach us is by email. The address is talk@npr.org. Please let us know where you're writing from and give us some help on how to pronounce your name. If you're on Twitter, you can follow us there @totn, or you can follow me @nealconan, all one word.

Israel has been allowing Qatar to supply money to the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip. The practice caused controversy among Israelis and Palestinians and is now being changed.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: In recent months, Israel has let cash flow through its borders to one of its biggest enemies, Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip. The money - millions of dollars - is from the country of Qatar. It was used to help Hamas pay the salaries of workers in their government.</s>MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Both Israelis and Palestinians have criticized the practice, and now it's being changed. NPR's Daniel Estrin reports from Gaza City.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: The main post office in Gaza City isn't very exciting. It's just a mid-rise tan building. But in the last few months, witnesses say something unusual happened here. Several cars pulled up to the back courtyard with a lot of security guards, and they took out suitcases stuffed with $15 million in $100 bills. This happened even though Israel has been trying to isolate Hamas since it took control here 12 years ago.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Economist Omar Shaban was as surprised as anyone.</s>OMAR SHABAN: Israel transfer cash, money, dollar to Hamas. If you had said this two years ago, said, what are you - are you crazy? It's unbelievable.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Now, the money isn't from Israel. It's actually from Qatar, which had an envoy literally drive the cash across the Israeli border into Gaza. The idea was that Qatar would give Hamas $15 million a month for six months, and Hamas would reduce tensions along the fence between Gaza and Israel. That's where there have been months of protests with Israeli troops confronting Palestinian protesters. Officials say more than 180 Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Praying in foreign language).</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Hamas used some of the money to pay its government workers, like this man, who leads the call to prayer at a local mosque. He would only give his name as Mohammed. Hamas hasn't paid its civil servants full salaries in years, and Gaza's economy is in shambles. Mohammed says he really needed the cash, but he still criticized the deal.</s>MOHAMMED: (Foreign language spoken).</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: He said it was hush money, so Hamas quiets down the border protests.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Israelis didn't like it either. Many accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of rewarding Hamas and buying quiet as he seeks re-election. The deal unraveled. There was violence. Israel blocked the cash. And then, when Israel finally allowed the cash again, Hamas refused to take it.</s>HAZEM QASEM: (Foreign language spoken).</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Hamas spokesman Hazem Qasem says Hamas had been quelling the protests but also expected Israel to relax restrictions on Gaza. With the whole deal stalled, Qatar announced a new plan. The cash would be used for humanitarian projects and to aid the poor.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Now the money's flowing. At the Gaza City post office, $100 bills flutter through cash-counting machines, and men from needy families line up to get $100 each.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Foreign language spoken).</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Some tell me their hundred dollars will be gone at the end of the day, after they pay off part of their tab at the supermarket and buy new groceries. In Gaza, unemployment is estimated at around 50 percent, and imports and exports are tightly restricted by Israel and Egypt.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Omar Shaban, the economist, says Gaza needs much more.</s>OMAR SHABAN: Gaza is in need for $100 million a month to revive its economy. The situation in Gaza for the last 12 years was under emergency. Everything was tried except the right medicine. Make election, get rid of Hamas in a very peaceful way and bring a new leadership, and then you can have development in Gaza.</s>DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: It's unclear how long Qatar will keep the money coming, and Hamas' efforts to quiet down the protests may run out at some point, too. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Gaza City.

Jose Pimentel was arrested for allegedly plotting to build and detonate bombs in New York City. The NYPD built their case through an informant, but reports indicate that the FBI chose not to pursue a case against Pimentel due to concern about the role played by the informer and his handlers. Dina Temple-Raston, counter-terrorism correspondent, NPR

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This past weekend, New York City officials charged a man they called a lone wolf a would-be terrorist arrested in the act of manufacturing three pipe bombs. But today we read reports that the FBI declined to pursue a case against Jose Pimentel because it had questions about the role of a confidential informer. More from NPR's counterterrorism correspondent Dina Temple-Raston in just a moment. But we also want to hear from those of you who work in law enforcement.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you've worked with a confidential informant, where's the line between informing and entrapment? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Dina Temple-Raston joins us from our bureau in New York. Nice to have you back.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Thank you very much.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And what do we know about the FBI's doubts about the informant in this case?</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Now, officially I should say that the FBI isn't commenting on this case. So what we know is unofficially and on background from sources within the FBI that I've talked to. And we're hearing that the FBI passed on this case twice because not just because an informant - they were worried about the informant - but also because they thought that Jose Pimentel, the suspect in this case, wasn't dangerous. Their sense of it was that he had large enough mental issues and his mental issues were severe enough that he was incapable of doing anything on his own.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: And they were also worried that the informant who was working with the NYPD had kind of overstepped and that what would happen is Pimentel would be able to make an entrapment case that this wasn't something he was going to do on his own, but he was sort of enticed to do so.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: One quote said that the - Pimentel didn't have the money even to buy the basic equipment at a Home Depot that he needed to make the bombs.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: And apparently he had very bad drill skills, that he had trouble drilling the holes in this pipe that he needed to drill so that he could put the bomb together.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, we'll find out more about the entrapment defense if that comes to court, but this is not the first time there's been tension between the New York City Police and the FBI.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: No. There hasn't. In fact, what's interesting is, you know, they've only brought state charges against him. They haven't brought federal charges, even though he allegedly wanted to target U.S. post offices and U.S. servicemen, which is clearly the purview of the FBI and federal authorities. And I think what's really going to be interesting about this is to see whether or not the FBI can roll back all these allegations that they've made about what a weak case this is because we're basically - what we're hearing is a case for the defense.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Indeed, you'd think Mr. Pimentel's lawyer, the first thing he'd do is subpoena the FBI agent and say tell me what you know.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: And why did you feel uncomfortable about this case, and why did you think that it was too weak for you to get involved? I mean, a lot of what's being said - as a general matter there are these terrorism cases. Entrapment is the first thing that is sort of the defense of - for most people who are wrapped up in these cases. And for the FBI to not take a case is a really big deal. It happened earlier this year, again with the New York Police Department, and it was two men from Queens who allegedly wanted to blow up synagogues.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: And when it went before a grand jury, a lot of the charges were dismissed because the case was too weak. So there's a little bit of precedence here, and I think that it's going to be interesting to see whether or not this is as airtight a case as what's presented on Sunday night during this press conference.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Is the entrapment defense often successful?</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, that's the irony of all of this, is everyone talks about entrapment and what a terrible thing it is, but at the same time the number of terrorism cases since 2001 that have won on an entrapment defense? Exactly zero.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Zero?</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Zero.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And these include cases where, for example, I remember one where the informant handed the suspect a phone and said, here, set off the bomb.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, here's what interesting about that. In that case, there was one case that was down in Dallas, and it was someone that they had found in a chat room who said he wanted to attack the U.S. His name was Smadi. And basically what happened is the FBI posed as someone who was like-minded, helped him get these so-called explosives, and then handed him the phone so that he would actually dial phone and ignite the explosives in this Dallas skyscraper. And, in fact, when he dialed the number, the FBI office in Dallas picked up the line. It was their number.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: And the way you pose the question, it sounded like this was problem, if you hand them the phone. But, in fact, what they found is if you have juries who think that you provided the explosives, you provided all this, you pushed it along. The guy actually dialed the phone, which meant he was - at least in the moment - thinking that he wanted to blow something up, and that's why he was dialing the phone. So that aspect of these cases is considered to be positive for the prosecution, as opposed to some sort of proof of entrapment.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And confidential informants seem to be crucial to these kinds of cases.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Indeed. They seem to have been. You know, the sort of really big case that we've had since 9/11 was the Najibullah Zazi case, which was that Denver area shuttle bus driver who actually went to train to learn how to make bombs, brought chemicals to New York and had intended to blow up backpack bombs on the subway. And in that case, there was no confidential informant. In fact, this - when you talk about the tension between the New York Police Department and the FBI, that case was almost blown when the New York Police Department went to the neighborhood with a picture of Najibullah Zazi and asked if anybody had seen him around. And somebody had actually tipped him off that law enforcement was looking for him.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And New York City, after 9/11, obviously had good reason to do counterterrorism on their own. But aren't there turf fights all the time?</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, not all the time. I mean, the idea behind this is that there's supposed to be a healthy competition between the New York Police Department and the FBI. And much of the time, there is. And much of the time, they do work well together. But there are certain cases - and this would be an example of one - in which I think the New York Police Department decides to be a little more aggressive than the FBI decides to be. And, you know, to their credit and to their defense, the - they are trying to protect the city. The FBI is trying to protect the country. And so they, a little bit, have different, you know, mandates. And I think that the bar is much lower for the New York Police Department in terms of pressing charges or bringing a case than it may well be for the FBI.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we read in this particular case - and again, just allegations thus far. There's a grand jury indictment. But that the state law provides opportunities for charges that are not available in federal law.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, in federal law - and again, we'll see whether or not he ends up getting charged with conspiracy. But in federal law, you need more than just a confidential informant and the suspect or defendant to get a conspiracy charge. In state law, the informant and the suspect is enough. And this was one of the reasons that they said they decided to only press charges on the state level, versus the federal level. And I think most people who are looking at the case or know how these cases are put together say that's kind of a flimsy excuse to keep it at the state level. And the implication is that the case is not that strong, and that's the reason why they're trying to make it stick on a lower level.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Dina Temple-Raston, NPR counterterrorism correspondent about the role of informants in terrorism cases. 800-989-8255. Dennis is on the line, calling from Jamestown in California.</s>DENNIS: Hey. How are you doing?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good. Thanks.</s>DENNIS: Good. My comment is this, is that once the police became aware of this character, why couldn't they have just identified themselves to him and said: Hey, we're on to you. Now cut it out, or you're going to get busted. That would have ended it. There wouldn't be a fortune spent in wasted money chasing after this guy, having to set him up to create a crime, that if they just said, hey, we're on to you. Wouldn't had stopped everything right there?</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, I think the - yes, in one way, I guess, it would have. And it also depends on his - whether or not he really does have the mental capacity to go ahead with this crime. But also, the reason why they were watching him as long they were was because they wanted to make sure he was, in fact, one of these so-called lone wolves, he - that he wasn't someone who was working with al-Qaida overseas. So one of the reasons they watch these people so long is to make sure that they have isolated everybody involved with the plot.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: He was said to be a followed of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric killed by a drone strike in Yemen. And that seemed to have precipitated this latest decision - if it was a decision - to go ahead and make pipe bombs.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, I think the way that they put it, actually, was that he - that he accelerated his effort to make these pipe bombs and perhaps do something - some sort of terrorist attack after the al-Awlaki killing.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Also, interestingly, the person who was killed with al-Awlaki in that car was a young man named Samir Khan. Samir Khan, we've talked about him before in this show. He basically ran this magazine for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula called Inspire. He was an American who left the U.S. He left North Carolina and traveled to Yemen and sort of joined forces with them. And it was his magazine. There's a recipe in this inaugural issue of Inspire that was how to "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom." And it was that recipe that Pimentel allegedly used to try to put together these pipe bombs.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dennis, thanks very much for the call.</s>DENNIS: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as we look ahead, where did this case go next?</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, I - what I find very interesting about it is the back-and-forth that's going on between the FBI and the New York Police Department. Because with every comment that's made, with every sort of hint of what might be weak - what might be a weakness in the case, you have a defense attorney who's writing this all down to figure out what to do with it. And I think that's why the FBI's trying to be careful about not coming out officially. So the next thing we're going to see is whether or not he - a grand jury brings an indictment. And then, presumably, it will go to trial.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Bernie, Bernie calling us from Texas.</s>BERNIE: Yes, sir. Thank you for taking the call.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure.</s>BERNIE: Just a quick comment, and I'd like to hear your other participant's comment on this. The whole issue of predisposition is very, very carefully vetted by anyone in law enforcement dealing with informants. You have to have them to make any kind of case of this nature, and particularly through - the issue of entrapment on either corruption or a terrorism case. They're very careful to make sure that the subject of the investigation is already predisposed to be committing that kind of offense, at least in (unintelligible) investigations.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And how do you go about that, Bernie?</s>BERNIE: Well, you - obviously, you have an informant ask the kind of questions. You introduce another undercover agent, if possible, as opposed to an informant. And you just continue to make sure that your informant is very, very careful about what he says and how he says it, and mainly listens, as opposed to talks.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Listens as opposed to talks. That's interesting. And Dina Temple-Raston, some suspects will talk more openly than others, though.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, I think what's interesting about this - and I'm glad that the caller mentioned this. Whenever I've talked to law enforcement about informants, they say what worries them about informants is when the tape is running and they hear their informants talking a lot. They said the best informants are the ones that are quiet, because otherwise, it ends up sort of being like leading the witness, right, that they're making all these different suggestions. And by making all these suggestions, it looks like they're leading somebody on and maybe drawing them into a plot, as opposed to them being predisposed to doing something. And we haven't heard yet how much this informant really talked or didn't talk on the tape.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: But I will say that what's interesting about this case - and this is the first time I've heard this in a terrorism case - is that this informant actually got high with Pimentel, the suspect, and that many of the things that Pimentel said that they find - that they're going to be using in the case, he said when he was high. So you have to wonder, A, how well the informant will do on the stand if he's getting stoned with the guy he's supposed to be sort of working, as they say. And secondly, how much will a jury will believe that what you say when you're high is what you're really going to do?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And did the confidential informant provide the drugs?</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Well, that's a good question, too. I think that that hasn't even been brought up yet in the context of this larger thing. But I've just never heard of a confidential informant in a terrorism case getting high with the person he's supposed to be working.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Bernie, thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it. And our thanks as well to Dina Temple-Raston, NPR counterterrorism correspondent, who joined us from our bureau in New York. Dina, thanks very much.</s>DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: It's always a pleasure.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

Phones today beep and buzz. MP3s don't scratch. Noises that were once familiar, such as the clacking of manual typewriter keys or the ding of the gas station driveway bell, have all but vanished. Kara Kovalchik of MentalFloss.com shares these and other sounds your kids have probably never heard.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sounds that once filled our world have vanished just about completely. Case in point:</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In an article for mentalfloss.com, Kara Kovalchik compiled a list of 11 sounds that your kids have probably never heard. We figured you could identify a few more. What's the sound from your life that has vanished? 800-989-8255 is the phone number - is our phone number. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at their website. Go to npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Kara Kovalchik joins us from a studio in Royal Oak, Michigan. She's research editor for mentalfloss.com. Nice to have you with us today.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Thank you so much. Nice to be here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And have the kids in your family ever heard that manual typewriter?</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Well, I don't have kids, so...</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: But I've talked to people. I used to work in an office where we had to bring out an old manual to do a five-part carbon form. And the high school intern that typed it just literally recoiled when she hit a key, said it snapped at me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Those I'm old enough to remember newsrooms filled with those sounds as people struggled to get on air on deadline.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. That used to be the classic sound of a busy office, newsroom. There was a clatter of typewriters and ripping the page from the plate, you know, rip here, you know, stop the presses.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: What gave you the idea to do a list of vanished sound?</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Well, my husband Sandy Wood, who's also a research editor at Mental Floss, and I were watching some reality show. I forget which one. And they had a sound effect. It sounds like a record needle screeching across an album, and it was to indicate, oh, my God, you know, something's weird. Stop everything, stop the action. And he turned to me, you know, I bet you a lot of kids wouldn't even know where that sound originated from. And that just got us talking about other sounds that people probably wouldn't hear anymore.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email we have from Lucia(ph) or Luccia(ph) in Cameron Park, California: The sound from my life that has already vanished: a teletype machine in the newsroom. My husband was in radio. There was always a closet-sized room with a door that had a window where they kept the teletype machine. It was fascinating watching the yellow paper cranking out the news of the day - amazing – yes, at an amazing and astonishing 60 characters a minute.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: You know, what's interesting about that, my very first job back in 1976, I was ahem years old, still a teenager, OK? But it was as a Telex operator for a large Fortune 500 company and it was a teletype machine. And you - yes, it was 64 words per minute was how much - how fast the thing would go at top speed. You punched out your messages on paper tape. You didn't have a shift key for caps. You had to hit numbers or figures if you - I mean, figures or letters. I mean, I know that - and, yes, they did put us in small, airless, closet-sized rooms because the things were so noisy.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we'd get some callers in on the conversation. 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. We'll start with Bill, Bill with us from Russellville in Arkansas.</s>BILL: Hello. I miss the sound of a golf ball hitting persimmon wood instead of the metal that clubs are made out of today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Wow. The...</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: That's very specific.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The sound is quite distinctly different, though.</s>BILL: There's nothing - it's a little click that you get when you hit the ball perfect, whereas when you hit with metal, it's just a clank. Even if you hit it good, it's a clank. It ain't the same. I really miss that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's the same as when you go to a high school baseball game, and it's the ding of horsehide on aluminum.</s>BILL: Yes, sir. Very good, yes, comparison. Absolutely right. Same...</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. Instead of hickory.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. Bill, thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it.</s>BILL: Interesting show. Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thank you. Let's go next to - this is Patty(ph), Patty with us from Anderson in Ohio.</s>PATTY: Hi. I was just going to say my son is going to miss the sound of a rotary dial phone.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, we happen to have that sound right with us.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Apparently somebody calling, well, not 911 because you can tell how many clicks there were. It was an audio cue.</s>PATTY: Absolutely. And then there was always the associated sound of your mother yelling at you not to stretch the cord so far.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. Oh, yes. OK. You must have known my mom.</s>PATTY: Yeah, yeah. I think they went to the same - they pulled them aside in gym school - in gym class at school and...</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Yeah, gave them all the same cliches. But, yeah. Interestingly enough...</s>PATTY: I wanted to add one more that is actually a noise - a sound that's been long distance but - distant and gone but - from my childhood. My dad was a jockey. And when I was little, I went to the race, went to the horse races, there was actually a man with a bugle who began the races. And that song has long since vanished.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Oh, played the "Call to the Post."</s>PATTY: Exactly.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I have somebody on our staff who can actually do that a lot better than I can.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: I'm going to say Neal's going to take Michael Winslow's job.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Patty, thanks very much for the call.</s>PATTY: Thank you for taking my call. Bye-bye.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The sound from my life, writes Joy in Memphis, Tennessee, that has vanished, the burring and clicking of the 8 mm movie projector.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: My father used to broadcast our home movies, she writes. Since the movies had no sound, of course the only audio was the sound from the projector, along with comments from the peanut gallery, of course.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Exactly. And they had to shout over that noise.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. Indeed. Even the sound of the 35 mm projector is vanishing from movie theaters very quickly.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So let's see if we can get another caller in. This is Joseph. Joseph, with us from Charleston in South Carolina.</s>JOSEPH: Hey. Actually, I had two as well, one from back in my childhood. Before the overhead projector, we had the press button Kodak slides. Yeah, (Unintelligible) yeah.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The little carousel that...</s>JOSEPH: The carousel Kodak.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. There was the - as soon as people brought that out, you knew you were going to be seeing a lot of vacation pictures.</s>JOSEPH: Exactly, yeah. And the second one - actually, I'm pretty recent, you know? I'm a pretty young guy, and I even had to think about the sound of dial-up Internet with that (makes noise), you know?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, that - and modem breath.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. Yeah. The shake-hand signal between the two.</s>JOSEPH: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah.</s>JOSEPH: Yup.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Joseph, we think of all of these sounds as, you know, 19th or early 20th century sounds or even midcentury. That wasn't - hasn't vanished all that long ago.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: You wouldn't think it has, but I had a lot of comments from people who said my kids have never heard that modem sound. Yeah, I thought of that as something fairly recent.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Joseph, thanks very much for the call.</s>JOSEPH: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lynn(ph) in Roseville, California emails: The old-fashioned slot machine. The cranks sound much better than hitting a button. I don't spend a lot of time in casinos. I don't know if you do, Kara Kovalchik, but do slot machines sound different today?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Right. And I don't spend a lot of times at casinos, but I've heard those in old movies and TV shows where, you know, the characters go to Las Vegas back in the '70s or something. And there is a definite ripping kind of sound. You can actually hear the gears turning and spinning. And I think you get a little more action for your quarter that way.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Peter. Peter with us from Salt Lake City.</s>PETER CALLER: Yes. I think one thing that kids don't care anymore in the age of digital music is the hiss from a cassette tape, especially when you make a mixed tape.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This would be a good thing.</s>PETER CALLER: I don't know. There are some people that are kind of nostalgic for it. They kind of miss that old, and I guess I'm kind of aging myself here, this old hiss from a cassette tape.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's also possible, Peter, we lose the ability to catch high frequencies as we age. So the hiss may be there. We just can't hear it anymore.</s>PETER CALLER: (Unintelligible) you'll never know.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: If you listen to cassette tapes or made his own, I'm sure once in a while the cassette would get jammed up somehow or start unwinding in your player, and you rewound it. But there is that little patch where the tape was wrinkled, and it had a distinctive sound where - there's some sound drop, et cetera.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Those in the industry...</s>PETER CALLER: I think it's going down the drain.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Those in the industry...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...always worried about wow and flutter. Those are the...</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Yup. Oh, yeah.</s>JOSEPH: Yep.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Peter, thanks very much for the call.</s>PETER CALLER: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is from Elizabeth in Goshen, Indiana: The Gaylord machine is the thing that punched the circulation card when you checked out a book at the library. I can remember for when I was little the satisfying ka-chunk(ph) sound it made when taking that little chunk of cardboard off the edge of a card. I worked in a library when they were still in use. And now, everything has gone all computery, which has tremendous benefits except for the fact that I'll probably never hear the ka-chunk of the Gaylord machine anymore. Boy, I'm getting all nostalgic. Elizabeth ends her email with a sniff.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: But I don't actually consciously remember hearing this sound.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: I do remember, though - you could always hear where the circulation desk was years ago because they had a manual date stamp ka-chunk, you know, because they would flip it to change the date and stamp your due date slip. So there was ka-chunk. It wasn't a Gaylord machine, just a regular, you know, office supply date stamp.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Michelle. Michelle with us from Waterford in Michigan.</s>MICHELLE: Hi. How are you?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm good, Michelle. Happy Thanksgiving.</s>MICHELLE: Well, thank you. It's very kind of you. You know, there's two things I miss, and one is very dear to my heart. The first thing, though, is the sound of coins falling into a pay phone. And you can always tell it's empty because the coins that hit the bottom they had that echo in a payphone.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right.</s>MICHELLE: And the other thing is with the new technology of the cars anymore - when I was a little girl, I could tell my father's tires, the way they - his car rolls in the street. I knew when my dad came home. And all four of us kids will run from the backyard, daddy's home, you know? And you could tell your dad is rolling his car from every other car on the sidewalk, in the street. Now, it's different.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: (Unintelligible)</s>MICHELLE: You have the electric cars. Cars are made differently, and they don't get that rattle like that.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. Even, you know, the household dog could recognize daddy's car coming in.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And again, not having that distinctive rattle could be a good thing.</s>MICHELLE: Yep.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much, Michelle.</s>MICHELLE: Thanks for the - thanks for your show. It brings us such fond memories of things. And I'm only 48, but it's nice to remember.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much, Michelle. She's wishing - brought the sound of the coins going through the payphone. And that was the original phone-hacking device. If you had a tape recorder and could play the sound of a quarter going through the phone, you could fool the phone company into thinking that you now deserved a long distance call across the country, which is all a quarter could buy you in those days.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Not that you ever tried that, Neal, right?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: No. Not once.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: OK.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Because my tape recorder had too much hiss on the tape.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: And wow and flutter, too.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Kara Kovalchik, the research editor at mentalfloss.com. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And here's an email from Jack in Bakersfield, California. I remember back in the late 1940s and early '50s the sound of steam locomotives and their steam whistles late at night on my great aunt's back porch. There was nothing like it. And I guess that's one of those classic American sounds that has all but vanished from the entire landscape.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. I mean, almost sounds like an old, industrial factory or something, you know, from old movies that, oh, the steam, all the noises of a railroad yard were different back in the '30s and '40s.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there is one that's on your list, and this is the sound of a long - well, not actually, well, that long, but now completely discarded technology used to light things up for photography.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The flash cube.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: That's the sound.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that was once almost universal.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Yes, because it was such an amazing progression past the single-use flash bulbs. So when mom or dad brought out the Instamatic at parties or your graduation, they could snap four pictures in a row, instead of having to change, you know, stop after every shot. Of course, that click-grind-click-grind was usually followed by ow, ow, ow, ow, as dad popped the hot flash cube into his hands and then realized this could be so hot.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Jim, and Jim's with us from Spencer, Iowa.</s>JIM: Oh, sure. Well, similarly, I was just reminiscing about the old Polaroid with its click and whirr, very distinctive sound, putting out a picture.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Also a distinctive smell as the chemicals set.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Oh, yeah.</s>JIM: A lot of excitement waiting for the photograph to transpire so.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Were you one of those Polaroid shakers to try to get it to dry quicker?</s>JIM: Well, no, I just kind of lay them, let them lay and just snapped a few more.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK, Jim. Thanks very much for the call. Here's an email from Sally in Holland, Michigan. The old fashion pinball machines with all those dings and twaps and the sound of the rolling ball and the thumps from bumping the machine that had eventually led to the bing, bing, bing and the tilt light. But I'm not sure, Kara Kovalchik, but I think they still make those.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. But a lot of those sounds are actually now added digitally, the recordings of the old mechanical machines, because people like the - there's - that's a very satisfying sound to hear. Much like on digital cameras, they've added the sound of a shutter click. It normally wouldn't make it, but people like to hear that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We often go to cues for presidential news conferences by the sound of not so much the cameras click but the whirr of the motor of the camera as photographers snap pictures of the president or whoever it is emerging to walk up to a lectern.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right, the sound of the film advancing all the time.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. Let's go next to Anya(ph), Anya with us from Santa Cruz.</s>ANYA: Yes. The sound of chalk on a chalkboard. You don't have chalkboard in classrooms anymore, so it's dry erase boards.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Oh, see, I've been out of school for a few years, so I didn't know that, that chalk was getting extinct.</s>ANYA: Yeah, it's been missing for the past years, and it's all dry erase boards now sadly.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: OK. And there was always the one kid that didn't hold the chalk right. It would squeak across the board, and everybody else (unintelligible) a fingernail.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That, again, might not be a bad thing. Ooh, even the memory of that sound makes me cringe. This is email from David in Palo Alto. For anybody who listened to 78 records, the scratchy sound of the needle tracking in the run-off groove at the end of each side will not be heard. This is also true for long-playing records and includes the sounds in the famous run-off groove on one side of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" album. Recently, my piano told me about the day he tried to play a sample of the music to younger students using a portable LP player. They have never seen such a thing and were surprisingly intrigued by it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It must have been his piano teacher. He (unintelligible) a word there. But, yes, that sound, not just of the needle going down on the record and the end groove, but the records skipping. The phrase, you sound like a broken record, people are not going to know what that means.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Exactly. They're thinking probably of, literally, you know, cracking one in half. But what we're referring to is there is a gouge or scratch in the record, and it forces the groove backwards and the same line will repeat over and over. You know, much like he's talking about the run-off groove. It would - at the very end of the record, the needle would literally bump into the label and then pop back in the run-off groove, and you just hear that screech, pop, screech, pop.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's another sound on your list that involves old vinyl records.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Uh-huh.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that was the sound of another 45 dropping down on the turntable, so you could stack them up on your record changer.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Exactly. And, of course, all your audio files, you know, the older kids that had their quadraphonic versions of Pink Floyd records and say, you don't use a changer because that hurts your records and all that. But some of us use it because we didn't want to walk across the room every couple of minutes to change records.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Peter. Peter with us from Kansas City.</s>PETER: Hi, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hi.</s>PETER: Hey, I was just being nostalgic for the sound that you get on TV whenever you tune into a wrong channel, and it has TV fuzz.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Oh, and indeed even after the station - and this is something else that's changed and gone forever - signed off for the night.</s>PETER: Right, right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's, well, it was just that white noise, that (makes noise). But, Kara Kovalchik, gone forever.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: Right. The - in fact, going along with the manual channel selector, turning the channels, usually, when you got to a new station, you would hear that snow, that static sound, and you would have to fine tune it, and you would hear sometimes the whistle and hiss just like on an AM radio as you try to tune it in and get the picture just so.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And this was the sound of the semi-mechanical TV channel selector.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we got a little bit of that - got that white noise in there.</s>KARA KOVALCHIK: And let's face it. Back in the '50s and '60s, that's why parents had kids so they didn't have to get up and change the channel.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Kara Kovalchik, thanks very much. Happy Thanksgiving to you. This is NPR News.

What goes on the dining table has never mattered as much to our lives as what goes on around it, says Adam Gopnik, a staff writer for The New Yorker. Guest host John Donvan talks with Gopnik about his new book, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food.

JOHN DONVAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm John Donvan, in Washington. Neal Conan is away. Some of the things we use meals for: to celebrate; to commemorate, to reinvigorate a fading romance, or to start one off, or to close deals, or to open our hearts as we open the wine for which the meal may only be the excuse.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Oh, and we use meals to eat, which as a species we cannot afford not to do if we want to survive. So many meals, so much meaning, especially when you hear the meaningful food vamping of Adam Gopnik, a staff writer for the New Yorker who in a new book goes in search of how our relationship with food and cooking has not only defined us but has changed over the centuries and changed us over the centuries and what it tells us about who we are and how we live.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: We would like you to be part of this conversation. Tell us about a meal you will never forget because of what it did to you or for you or about you because of the trip to the grocery store or the way it was prepared or what happened at the dinner table or afterwards.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Our number is 1-800-989-8255. Our email address is talk@npr.org, and you can join the conversation at our website. Go to npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION. Later on in the program, we will continue our annual Thanksgiving Day tradition, and we'll remember the family, friends and neighbors who are not able to join you at the dinner table this year. You can send in your emails now to tell us about that – again, talk@npr.org.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: But first, Adam Gopnik joins us from studios at BBC Western House in London. He's a staff writer for The New Yorker. His new book is "The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food." Happy Thanksgiving to you, Adam Gopnik.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Happy Thanksgiving, John.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: And I like the fact that the word France is in the title because so much of this book is about France and its origins as the place where we, as you say, began to think about food the way we do think about food. And you begin with this fascinating back story of the restaurant, which was not always what it is today and was not always at all.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: But the interesting thing starts with the origin of the word restaurant. Tell me about that.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Well, Rebecca Spang(ph), a wonderful young scholar, made it clear about a decade ago that a restaurant was a thing you drank before it was a place you went, that it referred to a restorative, a kind of health-giving bullion, which was seen as a kind of alternative to the sloppy and ill-prepared food that you could get at a kind of tavern, a (unintelligible).</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And so people, men and women, that's a crucial point, John, would go to this new institution, the restaurant, for their health. And as we all know, there's nothing that's such a wonderful cover for sex as health. That's why they call them health clubs. We all can go in, in the semi-dressed state, and nobody can question our virtue.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: As we work up a sweat.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Exactly, as we work up a sweat and display our muscles or rears, we're only doing it for the good of our health. Something similar happened with the early restaurant. It became a place where men and women could meet in a completely supposedly salubrious atmosphere and could be together.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And all of the things that we think of as being essential to the restaurant experience as we know it now - men and women sharing tables, using it as a place of courtship, the menu, the closed kitchen, the kitchen you can't see, the waiter in semi-formal or formal clothes that comes and demands your order, the choice of foods, all of those things were very new in France around 1780, 1790, right around the time of the French Revolution.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And it's really weird if you think about it because obviously exchanging food for money is one of the most fundamental things that people could do, and to find out that the way we mostly do it in the restaurant is a specific invention with a date on it is a little like finding out that, I don't know, having sex in beds was invented in Berlin in 1836, and then word got around...</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Which it probably was not...</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I suspect it was not, though presumably it was invented somewhere.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: So - and the word restaurant, you're saying, actually comes from the name of a particular dish, a restorative dish.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: That's right, a kind of bullion. That's giving full credit to Rebecca Spang for that discovery. And it meant that for the first time you had a kind of institution where it was neither truly popular, in the sense that in earlier kinds of taverns and (unintelligible) everybody shared a common table, and everybody shared a common meal. For the first time you were making choices, and you were making them with a certain kind of privacy.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: But at the same time, it was a public institution. It was a place that anybody could go into if you had enough money in your pocket to buy. And so by being that kind of funny private-public institution, which is so much a signature of modern times, like the health club again.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: So many of the places where we pass our time and make our lives in modernity are private-public places. And as a consequence, they give our lives a particular shape. They mean that we invest ourselves very strongly in places that are really essentially profit-seeking places, but at the same time we find meaning and solace in them. And the restaurant was one of the first of those kinds of institutions we've had.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: And you've alluded to the issue of sex, but I want to put sex in a different context. The female sex could not - a woman could not, for example, drop by a tavern without becoming a wench, but she could go to a restaurant, this new institution of the restaurant, in a respectable way?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I think probably beneath a wench. What's beneath a wench? A winch or something, yes. I think - that's exactly right, yeah, and that was a respectable place for women to go.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You kill off, or you marshal the academic work to kill off a great story about how the restaurant was born in France, that it was an outcome of the beheading of an awful lot of nobles who were employing chefs. Great story, not true?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Apparently not, no. That was a favorite, you know, bit of kind of folk etymology, that once all the aristocrats lost their heads, then rather by necessary logic, the chefs lost mouths to feed. It tends to happen when you cut off heads. And the chefs, the aristocratic chefs, had no place to go except to open their own restaurants.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: That's a nice story; it doesn't seem to be true. The restaurant was already thriving before the reign of terror started. And in truth, the reign of terror in the French Revolution as it developed acted as a kind of break on the development of the restaurant, which is a very democratic institution.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Robespierre, you know, the head, the leader of the terror, said champagne is the poison of the people. He was an extremely abstemious and puritanical kind of guy, not a food lover at all.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Well, we've - Adam, we've asked our listeners to share with us stories of meals that made a difference to them. And I'd like to have them tell the stories and then have you - you're not only a writer about food, you're a reader of food and its meaning. So maybe...</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Can I tell you a story, John, about a meal that just - I will never forget?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Yeah.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: We're here in London for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a very big deal in our family. We normally celebrate it in New York, and we have all kinds of rituals and traditions. And we came over to London to celebrate Thanksgiving with some very dear friends, and then something terribly, terribly sad happened, and they had to cancel Thanksgiving. They had a loss in their family, and it just wasn't the right time to do it.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: So we found ourselves at loose ends tonight, just a couple of hours ago, and I thought: What am I going to do? I can't do a turkey. So I went foraging on Tottenham Court Road in London, and I got organic eggs and some back bacon and some bread, and I made a kind of a coffee shop breakfast for the whole family, just a few minutes ago, and, you know, potatoes O'Brien, straw-fried potatoes. And that was our Thanksgiving dinner this year, was a New York breakfast.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And I think we all enjoyed it. We had a little red wine with it too.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Well, what it is, it's going to be the Thanksgiving dinner you'll never forget.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: That's - it'll be - we'll always refer to this meal as the London Thanksgiving. Who wants London Thanksgiving? Exactly.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Let's go to Kelly(ph) in Denver. Kelly, welcome to the program. You're on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>KELLY: Hello, I would like to share the story of my mom's meatloaf. I was a - my mom was a stay-at-home mom. I never appreciated her cooking until I went away to college, and my first time home from school, she asked me what she could make me for dinner, and I said her meatloaf.</s>KELLY: And it has since become the sign in our family that we're having a reunion. And now we're scattered all across the country, but whenever we can get back together to have a meal, we have her meatloaf, which is just - it would be my last meal. It's just, it's so delicious, and it's just such a sign of our - the strength of our family.</s>KELLY: And we grew up in the Southwest, in Phoenix, and so she puts hot chilis in it, and it's just so, so good.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Adam, go ahead.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I was just about - no, I was just about to ask: Does she have a special ingredient? Because my experience of meatloaf, which isn't limitless, there's always one ingredient that somebody puts in it that separates their meatloaves from everybody else's, anise or something like that, something you wouldn't expect. Hot pepper is a wonderful one, cumin, something that sets your meatloaf apart. And that's a wonderful story.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Kelly, is it so much that it tastes so good, or is it so much that it's your mom's, and you've known it all your life?</s>KELLY: You know, it's both because I've tried to cook it myself. I have her recipe. I've tried to make it probably 100 times, and it's never as good as when she makes it. And, you know, honestly, in our family it's even better the next day cold. We eat meatloaf sandwiches, and they're fantastic. So it's definitely not fancy French food, but it is something that I will always cherish.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Kelly, thanks very much. Thanks for joining the program.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: You know, John, what Kelly just said, there is such a basic principle about taste. It's one of the themes of this book, "The Table Comes First," and that is that taste is a frame of mind. Taste is the totality of our experience. We can't ask Kelly: Is it the meatloaf itself, or is it your mother, or is it the table that you share it at?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Anybody who's a pro cook will tell you taste begins at the door of the restaurant. Anybody who's a home cook will tell you taste is the table. Taste is the totality of what we experience. And any scientist who looks at the conundrum of taste will tell you that it all is shaped by frame and context, by expectations.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You know, you've talked about how wine very much is subject to that and then if you switch the bottle - the labels on a bottle of wine, even the best wine connoisseurs would be fooled or have been fooled, actually.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: They have been fooled. They have different responses. You know, it's sort of spooky, actually. They don't just say, oh, this takes like Chateau de Montagne rather than Chateau Letour. If you do an MRI, they're seen actually to be experiencing different things in their brains. They have a different pattern.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: So it's not that they're lying to you or faking it in any sense. They're having a different experience. Everything we experience in life has that kind of quality, doesn't it? It always takes place in a context, in a frame. You tell somebody this poem is by Shakespeare, they read it with one set of expectations. You tell them it's by Brakespeare, and they read it with another set.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: We can't escape that - the context in which we perceive the world, nor should we try to. So Kelly's is a nice example. You can't separate Kelly's mom from Kelly's mom's meatloaf, and that's exactly true about all the tastes we know.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: What's also interesting is that you say whole societies used to eat things 150 years ago that would be considered absolutely disgusting now, so that it's not necessarily individual by individual that these choices are being made but that societies would - we don't eat, generally speaking, the deep inside parts of animals, but at one point - go ahead.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: At one point we were, and now increasingly people do. I have a profile in this book of a guy named Fergus Henderson here in London who believes in eating the whole beast - that is, that the only ethical kind of carnivorism we can have is if we're committed to eating the animal, including its tail, its hooves, its innards, its spleen, its lungs, its face, its nose, its ears and its tongue. Then we can justify eating animals.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: We can't justify just eating the filet, as he calls it, with an English accent. So that's coming back into fashion.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: When we come back from the break, I want to ask you for the names of a couple of dishes that were very, very hot 100 years ago that we wouldn't want to go near now. We're talking with Adam Gopnik. The book, again, is titled "The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food."</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Tell us about a meal that you will never forget, and tell us why. The number is 1-800-989-8255. Our email address is talk@npr.org. I'm John Donvan, and this is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm John Donvan. Our guest is Adam Gopnik. We're talking about the meaning of food and asking you to share stories of meals that you will never forget and why. And Adam, who writes and thinks and cooks a great deal of food and about food - and you are, in fact, you're the cook in the family, are you not, Adam?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I am the cook in the family. You know, that's one of those things that men do, and it's sort of the most ostentatious of all the domestic chores you can do. So you say, oh, I'm the cook. And people say, oh - to your wife - oh, that must be so nice for you. And she develops a kind of crooked, one-sided smile: Oh, yes. It's so good - knowing that it leaves out all the domestic chores you don't do that she does.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: So I think that the - kind of the cult of the cooking husband probably has its dubious, or anyway, ambiguous side. But yes, I am the daily cook in our home.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: So is there anything, Adam, that people were eating in fancy restaurants 100 years ago that we would just find horrible now?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I don't even think we have to go back 100 years, John. I think you just go back about, you know, 50 years, when it was still the standard to have everything wrapped in puff pastry and served with a cream sauce.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I tell the story in the book about how two of the great gourmands of England in the 1960s, Kenneth Tynan and Bernard Levin, loved to report on the tours they would make of all those great three-star temples in France. And they would report, uncomplaining, about how ill they felt at the end of every meal. And they were basically boasting about feeling that ill because of the amount of butter and cream and puff pastry that they were digesting.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: But that was the appropriate price of the meal for them. Some dishes have fallen out simply because they're so tricky to make. I talk in the book about struggling to make pommes souffle, which is one of the great delicacies of the end of the 19th century, still can find it occasionally in a restaurant.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: It involves twice-frying potatoes, very thinly slices potatoes. You fry them once to get them brown, and then you fry them again in a hotter oil. And if you do it right, they puff up beautifully, like little balloons, and you serve them with steak or anything, and they're the most elegant form that potatoes ever take. But I struggle...</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: But impossible to make, right. Yeah.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: For me, and I am hardly, you know, Alain Ducasse. But very hard to make, and I think too hard for most restaurant kitchens to make these days. And that's why...</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: But you said you found one by accident once about 30 years ago...</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Yes, in a Second Avenue - you know, one of those places in New York City on Second Avenue, where they do, you know, $5.99 filet mignon - or they did in those days - and a lobster. And I ordered some fried potatoes with it, and damned if there wasn't one perfect pommes souffle.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: It must have fallen back into the oil by accident, and if it had been biological, it would have been the beginning of a whole new line of fried potatoes that would have gone on beyond.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: But it didn't know it wasn't supposed to exist.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: It had no consciousness, unfortunately.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Let's bring Sara in from Norman, Oklahoma. Sara, you're on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>SARA: Hello.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Hi.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I am calling to tell you about stone soup that I ate yesterday with the children at the preschool where I work. They have been hearing the folk tale of stone soup every day, and they all brought their own vegetable to school. And they all cut it up, and we cooked it together, and it was the most delicious soup I have ever tasted. It was full of love, as far as the...</s>ADAM GOPNIK: That's wonderful. Does everybody know the fable of stone soup? I wonder, you know, the guy who says - the trickster who says I'll make you the best soup you ever had, and it's just made with one stone. And then he tastes it again - am I getting the story right - and says it'd be better just with a little bit of potato, a little bit of carrot, and he...</s>SARA: It would be better if I had a tomato. And so the villager brings a tomato. And another villager passes by and says: What is stone soup? And he says: Oh, it's pretty good, but it would be better if I had some leeks. And so the villager brings some leeks. And at the end of the story, all of the villagers have brought their food, and they all eat it together, and it's very beautiful.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: If you think about that story, too, you know, it has a nice secondary meaning, that the cook in that story is really - he's a con man, yes, but he's also a kind of maestro. He's conducting the orchestra of the villagers into making a soup all together.</s>SARA: Yes. And at the end he picks up his stone and he brushes it off, and he takes it with him to the next village, where he teaches them all to enjoy a meal together and to share...</s>ADAM GOPNIK: How to make soup with his magic stone. And in some decent sense, the stone is magic. That's the beauty of that story.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Thank you, Sara, very much for your call.</s>SARA: Thank you.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You know, Adam, you write enough about your love of things like hamburgers and pizza and spaghetti so that we know that you're not a food snob, thank goodness. But you certainly have - you have journeyed through the high-end temples of food around the world, and that brings me to a question about the culture that surrounds the higher-end food.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: It kind of makes the rest of us feel bad about ourselves that there's this out-of-reach, expensive-end food that requires - that is so subtle, that it requires us to be a lot smarter than we are, or a lot more cultured and sophisticated than we are to enjoy it. And we don't want to feel bad about that. So what is at play there? Is there a deliberate snobbery that is inherent in - is it - or an emperor-has-no-clothes situation?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Well, you know, I always compare it - I like fancy food when I can get it, but I don't get it very often, and I don't want it very often. That kind of experience for me is a once or twice-a-year thing. You know, I often compare, John, fancy food of that kind to going to grand opera: It may not be - there's an element of snobbery about it, and people who are opera connoisseurs - as we say in our family - can be somewhat snobbish people that, you know, this "Traviata" was better than that "Traviata," and all of that.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: But there's an element of overcharge about it, right. And if you have ever gotten the taste for opera, you know that you can't dismiss that overcharge. It's so much. It's so much emotion, so much music, so much scenery. It's a great experience to have.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And I think a great fancy food, three-star restaurant - whether of the old-fashioned French kind or the new-fangled molecular Spanish kind - gives you something like that experience. You can't compare it with the food you and I make every night. We don't want to compare it with that.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: You compare it to any other kind of experience where you pay a lot of money, and you give five hours of your life over, maybe just once a year. And you see that this thing that you deal with every day - just the way that we all sing, but only a tenor can sing like a tenor - that you can see that this thing that we deal with every day can be taken to unexpected dimensions of creativity and imagination.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And I think that fundamentally, that's not a snob thing. That's a democratic thing in the sense that it reminds you of the possibilities of your form. It reminds you of the possibilities of the thing you have every day.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: You know, the great (unintelligible), a great philosopher of food, said once: The great thing about food is it takes animal necessities and turns them into humane desires. And at a fancy food place, that's happening at a very high and refined end, but it's happening.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: But we - can we all feel welcome there?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I think we can feel welcome if we have the cash in our pocket. When I have cash in my pocket, I feel welcome. When I don't have cash in my pocket, it's curious how the welcome is considerably less warm.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Chad from Palo Alto, you're on TALK OF THE NATION. Welcome.</s>CHAD: Hi.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Hi.</s>CHAD: So when I was about 12 years old, I traveled to Jordan. My family is Jordanian. And I'd gone usually every summer. So I was 12 years old, and it was for the Muslim holiday, and it's traditional to - before they eat dinner, to slaughter a lamb. And my dad, who I was traveling with, was the - he was given the honor of slaughtering the lamb.</s>CHAD: And although I knew that this tradition existed and I'd eaten lamb previously, knowing that, you know, that was how it came about, I witnessed my dad slaughtering the lamb, and, you know, he was very comfortable doing it and all of the other, you know, men and women, everyone was very comfortable watching it, including my young cousins, you know, children. This was very normal for them.</s>CHAD: But I saw that and just - I guess that just the reality of it, the brutality of it, I would say, just completely threw me off lamb. To this day, I don't eat lamb. I ate lamb before that. To this day, it always just brings that to mind, you know. And I should mention that sort of the traditional way that it's served, so once it's slaughtered and it's prepared, they have this big sterling silver dish tray that they set on the floor, and they put, you know, mountains of rice, vegetables, and they put the fresh meat on top of that. The way they did it is they put the lamb's skull on top of everything.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: But let's let Adam respond a little bit to this scene.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I have a big chapter about the ethics and the emotions - even more important than the ethics in some ways - of meat eating. I think that's a big moment in everybody's life, when they first experience, firsthand, what it is to slaughter an animal for food, because we grow up eating meat in this very disassociated way.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: We buy it wrapped up in plastic in the supermarket, and we mostly forget where it comes from. We - at one point we - I decided that we would all eat just local produce, that is things grown and raised in the Five Boroughs of New York. And one of the things I had to arrange was to have a chicken whacked, to have a chicken killed.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And I wanted my kids to be part of it. It's a very tricky thing to do in New York. I felt like one of the Sopranos. Because I wanted them to have that experience. I wanted them to understand that's where your meat comes from. And I think it's a valuable one.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I - now, were you turned off all meat after that, or it's limited to lamb?</s>CHAD: Yeah, no it's - I mean, I'm sure if I saw a cow being slaughtered, I would probably, you know, not be eating beef. But yeah, because it was a lamb specifically, lamb is what, you know, I can't eat.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Is what's verboten. You know, the question, John, of the ethics of animal eating is one of the most vexed and complicated, I think, in all of the eating arts, in all of the ways we think about eating. And the one thing I would say - the two things I would say is one is: It does seem to be an appetite, so kind of primal, that it's very difficult to rid ourselves of it. You know, I do a lot of cooking with our little dog in the kitchen. And when you see what happens to that little - cute, little Havenese when she smells bacon and it's like she becomes Keith Richards waiting for a fix. You know, she trembles from end to end.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: You have some respect for the animal appetite in all of us for meat. At the same time, the cruelty that we see, especially, I mean, the way your lamb was killed, I'm sure, was infinitely kinder than what goes on in industrial slaughter houses for all the turkeys that we're going to be eating tonight around the world. It's a vexed question, and I try and walk around it as best I can to give a full, 360-degree view of it in the book. But I think it's important, even if you get turned off - and that's a very healthy response, as you did - that we let our kids know, we show our kids the connection between the death of an animal and the meat you eat.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Thank you very much for you call, Chad. We have an email from Matt, who is in San Francisco, turns the story you just told a little bit on its head. A few years ago, I couldn't be with my family over the holidays, so I sent my mom a present from the SPCA. It was a candleholder with dachshunds all around it. As a thank you, the SPCA included a beautiful case of white chocolate treats. My dad, who is the self-proclaimed connoisseur of everything, including chocolate, declared them to be delicious. He ate all but one of them. Then my mom looked at the back of the case. It was 25 percent crude protein, 33 percent crude fat, et cetera, because these were doggie treats.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Oh, no.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: They were not chocolates. If we can be fooled by dog food, then clearly, context is everything with food. He agrees with you completely, Adam.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Yes - no, that's a nice example, and it reads as pate, right, or a confection. I think that story has probably been told in many families over the years. Actually, you know, our oldest son, very virtuously, when we got a dog, said: I want to taste her food. I want to taste what it is she's eating, because I want to know what she's experiencing, which I thought was admirable. I didn't join him, but I thought it was a good thing to do.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You talk about dessert as a relatively new invention. Again, you would have thought that dessert was being eaten 3,000 years ago. But in its form as a third course following everything else, very, very sweet...</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Very, very late developing. Human beings, like all primates, have an enormous appetite for sweets - that just is built in to us - for sugar and honey and anything else we can get our hands on, ripe bananas, ripe fruit of all kinds. There are even some evolutionary theorists who think that's why we left the savannah. We were going in search of ice cream, you know. We wanted to find sweets. But dessert - cooking pastry cuisine as we know it is a very late developing thing, because it depends on having abundant sugar.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: And until the end of the 17th century, sugar was never abundant. It was a relatively rare spice, more like saffron is today. And then, of course, with the development of the terrible sugar plantations, industrialized, slave-driven sugar plantations in the late 17th century, the price of sugar fell and has never really recovered. So for the first time, sugar, so to speak, got drained out of the body of the meal, where it had always been sprinkled in, so savory and sweet flavors were mixed. And you had - especially in France - a separate, concluding dessert cuisine with all of those things, souffles and puff pastry and pate feullette and all of those things, creme anglaise, all of those things that depend on sugar to kind of hold them together and to be the base. And all the sugar moved to the end of the meal, where we all wait desperately for it to happen.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: We are talking Adam Gopnik about the meaning of food. This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm John Donvan.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Adam, you have an interesting take on the recipe book. You more or less say nice historical artifacts, nice try, but it doesn't really, really tell you how to cook. What do you mean by that?</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Well, I love recipe books like anybody who cooks, and I collect them, and I read them in bed, and I'm as obsessed with them as any other home cook. But I think every home cook knows in their heart of hearts that what you get out of a recipe book is often very disappointing, that the space between the description of the thing and the thing actually achieved is typically human. Again, it's, you know, the huge space between the ache you feel inside and the object that you finally turn out. And I think a lot of it has to do with the reality that cooking is as much a knack and a performance as it is a set of rules that you follow.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: You know, I was blessed with a mom who was a terrific cook. And her nerve ends are sort of inside my hands, so when something that she did, even if I haven't done it before, I sort of know the way your wrist has to turn when you beat egg whites. Same thing you see with sons and dads playing catch. You know, it's a highly - it's not something you can break down into its component parts. It's a thing you learn as a whole.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: It's what YouTube is for, I think.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Exactly. Guitar - have you ever gone looking how to play riffs on YouTube? It's, you know, you learn guitar riffs as a whole. And as a consequence, we sort of mislabel or we misidentify the experience, that we think that, oh, if only I can master these steps, I can make this dish. You know, you ask any pro cook, any great chef, real chef about recipes, and they always get this kind of bitter, half-smile and this mordant laugh because they know the recipe is the last thing that matters. They never share recipes. They never spread recipes.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: Being a good cook for them is, once again, it's the totality of who you are. You can't reduce it to a recipe. It's everything you bring from your life to the kitchen, and we mislead ourselves a bit when we're reading those - especially those kinds of pornographic, pro cook cookbooks, you know, bombarded, thrush with steak in pancetta or whatever is. And we say, oh, I could do that. No, we can't. We're not intended to. That's not the way cooking goes on, nor should it, you know. That's the rule of life. In life, you always think that if I only master the rules, then I'll have mastered the object, and you always learn...</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You have an...</s>ADAM GOPNIK: ..that there's disillusion between the two.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: You have an aphoristic way of writing. Every few pages, you state a rule of one kind or another that's very pithy and on point. And on page 106, you say: It's not just that we are what we eat, but we eat what we are. And you have about 30 seconds to explain that.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: To explain that?</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Yeah.</s>ADAM GOPNIK: I mean by that: It isn't the things we ingest that make us the people we are. It's the things we choose express the values that we have.</s>JOHN DONVAN, HOST: Adam Gopnik, I want to thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Your book is a fantastic read. It's called "The Table Comes First: Family, Friends, and the Meaning of Food." And you're also a staff writer for The New Yorker. And I want to thank all of our callers for telling the stories of the meals that made history in their lives. When we come back, a toast to absent friends, the son or daughter in Afghanistan, the aunt or uncle who is stuck at work today, the parents who just can't afford a plane ticket. Call us and tell us about who is not at your table this year. Our number is 1-800-989-8255. The email address is talk@npr.org. I'm John Donvan. It's TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News.

After allegations of child sexual assault at Penn State, many wonder why more people didn't see warning signs. Former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole says many predators spend years grooming victims and parents and gaining their trust. O'Toole and forensic psychiatrist Dr. Harold Bursztajn explain.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. The allegations against popular, respected assistant coaches at Penn State and now at Syracuse remind us that sexual predators may not be who we think they are. The stranger who abducts kids from a playground turns out to be a rarity. Much more often, predators gravitate to professions where they work with kids and work hard to convince parents and colleagues to trust them.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Before we continue, we do need to note that predators represent a tiny fraction of those who work with kids and that many, maybe most predators, are members of the family in one way or another.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Given the latest allegations, though, we focus on those outside the home and the profile of a predator. If you were a victim, how did it start? Tell us your story. Our phone number is 800-989-8255, email us talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Later in the program, police response to Occupy protests on The Opinion Page this week. But first the profile of a predator. We begin with Mary Ellen O'Toole, a former FBI profiler, the author of "Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us," and she joins us here in Studio 3A. Nice to have you with us today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We also need to remember that at Penn State and Syracuse, these are allegations, but in too many cases, we hear people say this is the last person I would have suspected.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: You hear that all the time. People are stunned when the news comes out, and they've identified someone who allegedly has been involved with especially sexually deviant behavior and then even more specifically, sexually deviant behavior with children.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And the one issue that I've seen over and over again as an FBI profiler for more than 15 years is that the general public wants to look at someone and be able to tell physically if there's something wrong, and therefore they can run away and grab their children and run away. But that's not - that's not the real world. Sexual predators often times look just as normal as you and me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And maybe even ultra-normal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: And maybe even ultra-normal, up to and including the status of being an icon in the community.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: An icon in the - well, obviously if you're an icon, that's another layer of protection.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: It really is. Years ago, I started to look at all the features of cases that almost prevented cases from coming forward to law enforcement. And one of the things that I identified was I called it icon intimidation. And by that I meant if someone assumed a status in the community because of their job, because of their title, because of how much money they had or whatever the case may be, it oftentimes made it much more difficult to accuse them of a crime, let alone prosecute them.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it feeds into another of those categories you were talking about: doubts.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: It does. It leads into doubts and questioning of oneself and then fear of going up against someone who's so powerful.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we saw in some of the reactions at Penn State just how - why people might be fearful.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: Yes, that's right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as you again look at these people, and these are cases that have been proven, we're not talking necessarily about the cases at Syracuse or Penn State, but cases that have been proven. These are not just teachers, the most popular teachers; not just coaches, the most popular coaches. People who go out of their way to work with kids.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: They can oftentimes go out of their way not only with their hobbies and in their pastimes but also with their professional pursuit, and in some cases it's a combination of what they do in their off time plus their professional pursuits, which gives them almost an added infrastructure to victimize - select and victimize children.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: There is a behavior that we've heard about called grooming, where an adult will show a lot of interest in a kid, particularly a kid who's vulnerable for one reason or another, and give them time, attention, gifts, trips, something like that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: That's right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The grooming, though, is not just of the kids. It's of their parents. It's of their colleagues. It's of the community.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: That's right. The grooming behavior as an umbrella term can include not only the victim, the child, but also the parent and other people that may otherwise become suspicious of the behavior. So we call it in the FBI's profiling unit the offender takes steps to basically seduce a whole variety of people so that he can achieve his goals.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Joining us now from a studio at Harvard Medical School is Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a forensic psychiatrist, senior clinical faculty member at Harvard Medical School, and good to have you with us.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: Good afternoon, Neal, and good afternoon, Mary Ellen.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: O'TOOLE: Good afternoon.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: It's been a privilege to listen in and be educated by the two of you in the dialogue here.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, you are something - someone we need to listen to and be educated by, as well, particularly including about pedophilia, which is considered a mental health disorder. It's sickness.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: It can be, although, Neal, as I think the dialogue that you and Mary Ellen have been having points out - and again without reference to the Syracuse or the Penn State cases - there was a spectrum of behaviors which involves children being sexually molested.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: In that spectrum, we have pedophilia, but as also have people who are not mad but just simply bad and mean. We also have people who may be psychotic, delusional, in some instances demented, who may engage in sexual molestation of children. And one has to go through a differential diagnosis on a case-by-case basis. Here is one case where the devil is truly in the details.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I get your point, and of course every individual case is different, and details matter. Nevertheless, are there characteristics such as those we were talking about that do join them together, at least as a rule?</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: Well, if we look at the spectrum, on one end of the spectrum we have people who are delusional, who cannot go ahead and control their behavior and who are driven to molest children. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who are mean and vain and who have a choice as to how they can express their fantasies.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: It's not about their fantasies or the intensity of their fantasies, it's simply an unwillingness to go ahead and control their behavior of an investment in humiliating those who are helpless or those who feel hopeless. So again, we have a spectrum here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that grooming behavior, is that typical?</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: In some instances yes. Again, when you have someone - just because someone is delusional doesn't mean that they cannot plan to act out their delusions. The same is true just because someone is mean and vain, it doesn't mean they lack planning capacity. And part of planning capacity can involve identifying likely victims, people who will not talk or who feel helpless, people who themselves may suffer from low self-esteem, who need to be befriended by a mentor or by a father figure or a mother figure in some instances.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Dr. Harold Bursztajn and Mary Ellen O'Toole. We'd like to hear from those of you who were victims. How did it start? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. And we'll begin with Joe. Joe's on the line with us from Bardstown in Kentucky.</s>JOE: Hi.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hi, Joe.</s>JOE: So yeah, I was listening to your show about how these are the people who you trust. It's not the bad guy. And that's - I was abused when I was a child. I'm a father now of several boys and girls, and I just don't let them go anywhere with adults, you know, unless it's a large group, and there's multiple adults.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And how did it start with you?</s>JOE: My mother was a single mom back in the '60s, and I grew up without a dad. And I think she felt like it would be good for me to have some interaction, you know, with a kind of a father figure. And it was kind of a boys, you know, a Big Brother, Big Sister, and it wasn't that organization, but it was kind of like that. It had a religious affiliation.</s>JOE: And he would come by the house, and he really spent a long time working on my mom, you know, not romantically or anything, just to get her to - you know, he could talk about religion and things that he knew would reassure her, and then eventually said he wanted to take me on a trip for some kind of a religious convention or something. And that's when the abuse started, when he got me alone.</s>JOE: I was 12. I was totally unsuspecting.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I'm so sorry, Joe, and I don't know if the person was ever...</s>JOE: You know, no, and that's a big problem for me. This lasted about four years. By the time that I got the courage to do it was oddly enough when my son turned 12. It just kind of came, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I've been trying to ignore it, and that thought came, you know, is he hurting other people.</s>JOE: And, you know, I went to therapy and all that, and there's not much you can do when you're 12, 13 years old. And of course he went through the whole, you know, you did something wrong, you cannot tell anybody you did this, you'll be punished, that kind of thing. But no, nothing was - I called the police in California, and they said that the statute of limitations had run out. There was nothing they could do.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm so sorry, Joe, and I hope that you...</s>JOE: Well, it's important to know - I know you don't have time - the important thing is - that I've learned from this as a parent is don't make judgments about who you should trust with your child because that would be to blame these people that sent Mr. Sandusky, who had these kids. It's not that they misjudged him. It's that in today's day and age, especially maybe always, you can't send your child alone or in a situation where he could be alone with another adult even that you trust.</s>JOE: I've had people ask to take my son to overnight baseball games out of town, people that I would cut my arm off before I thought they'd hurt him, and I said no, not because I'm judging them but because it just shouldn't be done. So...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Joe, thanks very much for the call.</s>JOE: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we wish you and your kids good luck. Mary Ellen O'Toole, as you listen to that, you were, I know, sympathetic. But the question of what can be done after all these years. In a lot of cases, some places there's no statutory limitation on rape, but in other places, depending on what the laws are, and it varies so much.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: Well, it's a stunning story, and it's just really gut-wrenching when you hear about someone that has been victimized, and it's years in the past. But one thing that I've seen - at least in the FBI, in the profiling unit - is that when you see this kind of predatory behavior, even if it's 10 or 15 years ago, there's a very good possibility the behavior is continuing to the current day.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And so if the behavior started in California, but the offender at that time now has moved to Missouri or Illinois, you could still begin to take a look at them to see if there are new victims and if the behavior is in fact continuing. And in a lot of cases, I would expect that it is.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about the profile of a sexual predator, how they groom their victims and the victims' parents and their own colleagues and why our assumptions of what a predator looks like or acts like can prove often to be wrong. If you were a victim, how did it start? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. Stay with us. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. We're talking about the profile of a child sexual predator. In the vast majority of the cases, the victim knows his or her attacker. Often, the abuser is a family member, but there are exceptions.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: One study looked at young victims in three states and found that about half the time, abusers were acquaintances or friends. The facts we're reminded of in the allegations - again still allegations - involving cases at Penn State and Syracuse. If you were a victim, how did it start? 800-989-8255 is the phone number. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Our guests are Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a forensic psychiatrist and senior clinical faculty member at Harvard Medical School and former FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole. Her book is titled "Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us." Let's see if we can get another caller in on this. Patrick), Patrick with us from Sharon in Connecticut.</s>PATRICK: Hello.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Hi, Patrick.</s>PATRICK: Hi, and thanks for taking my call.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure.</s>PATRICK: Yeah, I was just, you know, telling your screener that when I was a young boy, I think nine or 10, you know, I had a bowling league every Saturday and with a lot of other boys. And, you know, the guy that ran the bowling alley, he was kind of, you know, a weird kind of creepy guy, but, you know, he seemed to be an affable fellow.</s>PATRICK: And he had one boy that, you know, we kind of questioned the relationship, as it was. And then one day he took me aside, and he said he wanted to talk to me. And he sat me down, and he was holding my hands across the table and, you know, telling me if I ever needed anything and then asked me if I liked drugs. And he fooled me into looking into his wallet by asking me if I was interested in marijuana.</s>PATRICK: And I said, oh yeah. I was a bit of a wise guy, and I said oh yeah. And so he opened up his wallet, and he showed me a bunch of money. He's like, well, you know, if you ever need anything, I think you're a really special guy and so on and so forth.</s>PATRICK: And I was - luckily, I came from, you know, a good family, and I had all that I needed. I wasn't, you know, vulnerable. And I just said, well, thanks, you know, thanks for the offer, but I have everything I need. You know, I get my bowling shoes, and I get my lunch money and my, you know, my ski trips and whatever else.</s>PATRICK: So I wasn't, you know, vulnerable to his - but I could see where a lot of other children would be. And subsequently, he was arrested years later and spent time in prison and then passed away, I believe from HIV. And so I think two other coaches, you know, also were arrested, and I know that one of them is still in jail now.</s>PATRICK: And so it was happening all around us, and we kind of had inclinations of it. We didn't - you know, but we didn't know how to approach it or to say anything to an adult. It wasn't - it didn't dawn on us that maybe we should say something and get an investigation started here. You know, you're so naive, you're not aware.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I think that's the definition of naive, and Patrick, of course you're not trained for any of that. You're not supposed to be able to do any of that at nine or 10. And I'm glad things did not turn out worse. But thanks very much for the call.</s>PATRICK: You're welcome.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dr. Bursztajn, I wonder, this ability to pick out the vulnerable kid, that seems to be critical.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: Yes, the ability to target victims by identifying those kids who are most helpless or feel most hopeless or feel most alone tends to be part of the predatory nature of this crime, which is what child molestation is.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And the transference of guilt, this is something that you must never tell anybody - it's our secret - that's very effective.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: The ability to go ahead and say to the child, shame on you, if you tell anyone, either they won't believe you, or they will humiliate you just the way I've humiliated you except far worse. There is a conspiracy of silence, which is woven by the threat of humiliation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Mary Ellen O'Toole, I have to add sometimes people are afraid to approach the police, and sometimes they're afraid for good reason. The police don't take their charges seriously.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: That is very true, and people will listen to an allegation maybe by their son or their daughter, and they'll say, well, wait a minute, I can't bring false charges against this person, they could lose their job, they could go to jail. Are you sure...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's huge. It's huge.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: It's huge possible repercussions, and so oftentimes they'll do one of three things: They'll ignore it, they'll rationalize it or they'll explain it away, because the alternative is just too great for them to go to the authorities.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And sometimes...</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: If I can just chime in for a moment.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Go ahead.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: This September I had the privilege of working with the FBI here to teach local law enforcement on how to interview victims, traumatized victims. I was very much struck how the times are changing, that their conference room was overflowing with law enforcement being interested in how do we interview traumatized victims, which itself is a skill which people need to learn. It doesn't come naturally.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And we do remember, and it comes up every time we discuss this subject, the recovered memory cases in North Carolina several years ago where it turned out the allegations were false, and they were terrible things.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: Absolutely. How does one - how can one be empathic without being suggestive is the heart of a good interview. And again, that's not something that you can just well, it comes naturally. There's a fine balance between empathy and suggestibility that one must walk in order to be able to get at the truth.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Mary Ellen O'Toole, did you get that kind of training when you were starting out?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: We get a lot of training in interviewing, but it's a real specialty to learn how to sit down and interview a child, especially when there's a threat of an allegation, because you can be assured that that interview, more than any other interview, will be litigated in court, meaning that the prosecution will address it, and defense will address it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And anywhere along the line where that interviewer made a mistake, it could be a huge problem ultimately in court in the outcome of the case.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: David's on the line, David with us from San Antonio.</s>DAVID: Hello?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You're on the air, David. Go ahead, please.</s>DAVID: Yes, my name is David, and when I was 16 years old, I was - had some behavioral problems, and my parents sent me away, for lack of a better word, to a boarding school with therapy. And there I encountered a gentleman, and everything that you all have been talking about, it just, you know, it sounds like it's textbook.</s>DAVID: He singled me out. You know, he was so kind to me. He always wrote glowing reports to my parents about me. The first incidence, when I knew there was something wrong, was when he came up behind me. I was playing a video game - this was in the 1980s - and pressed up against me and told me about his member.</s>DAVID: And that went on and on, and it finally accumulated into he - him sneaking into my room one night and raping me. Because of where I was, you know, credibility was an issue, and I was absolutely terrified to tell anybody.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it sounds like you were the - talking about textbook - the textbook vulnerable kid, in a position of absolutely no power whatsoever.</s>DAVID: None. I had no power whatsoever at all. And I let it slip to a girlfriend what had happened, and she told a coach, and I happened to have had a pass to go home that weekend. And when I got back, my caseworker was the person who picked me up at the airport, and I knew something was up because my caseworker never picked me up from the airport.</s>DAVID: And probably what bothers me the most about it is I don't think they ever believed me about what happened. How they got rid of him is that whenever you went on and off campus, you had to be basically searched, and he got fired because he searched me without another staff member there.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So, some minor procedural thing.</s>DAVID: Exactly, exactly, and the last I heard, he was working at a similar place.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's scary David. Again, I'm sorry, that this happened to you.</s>DAVID: Well, I just wanted to - you know, I was listening to your program, and I always enjoy it, and it's one of the few times that I've had an experience that I could share with your listeners.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, thank you very much, and we appreciate the phone call.</s>DAVID: You're welcome. You have a great day.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thank you. The - too often, Mary Ellen O'Toole, it seems that someone who faces these allegations is allowed to leave quietly and move on somewhere else because nobody wants the attention to the institution. Nobody wants the perhaps dicey situation of a he-said, she-said kind of a situation. Let's just put it behind us and move on.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: I was thinking exactly that as I listened to this last caller. And what's important to understand about this behavior, it's not snap behavior. So it doesn't start at age 30 or 40. It's behavior that begins to manifest at an early age, and the fact that you fire someone or terminate someone or send them to another part of the United States, that doesn't stop that behavior.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That behavior will continue, and in many cases, it continues until the person is really quite old. So, really, it has to be addressed. If it's real, if it's genuine, it needs to be addressed from a law enforcement perspective and therapeutically. But there are so many cases where this behavior just does not respond to therapy, and that's really important to know, as well.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dr. Bursztajn, is that right?</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: I think what Mary Ellen is saying is fair, which is that - again, a lot depends on what the diagnosis is. If you have someone who is psychotic and sexually molesting children, if you treat the psychosis, that may indeed stop the sexual molestation. On the other hand, if you have someone who's simply mean and vain and molesting children, they can't be treated. They can give the illusion of treatment. Also, thinking again about David's story, institutions themselves need to be able to ask for independent evaluation of such claims. As long as institutional pride is on the line, institutions themselves cannot be objective about the contribution of their staff, of their faculty, to an abuse allegation. You need to have an independent forensic evaluation of what has actually happened.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. Here's an email from a listener in Davis, California: I am a male teacher. I am regularly invited by my students' parents to family dinners, to their soccer games, gymnastic meets, et cetera. Must I now start wearing an FBI clearance saying I'm not a sexual predator? Should I limit my social contact with these other adults from now on and ignore both parents and kids outside the school setting? I enjoy the company of others, but it seems like nowadays, being a male teacher requires one to avoid being part of the community in which one works. We noted earlier that only a very tiny percentage of those who work with kids are predators. But, Mary Ellen O'Toole, you can understand his frustration.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: Well, I certainly understand that. And truthfully, if you wore a T-shirt that said FBI background checked on, it's just a T-shirt, and so it would have absolutely no meaning. And not wanting to get into giving advice to people, but I - what we talk about in terms of looking for behavior for parents and teachers is to look for that person that looks for opportunities, for solo time with the child, that really seduces and grooms the child, that doesn't want the parents around, that wants to spend alone time, have the child come over to their home. So if you're screening your own behavior, you want to ask yourself: Am I giving them the illusion or the impression that I'm more interested in the child than in the family?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Mary Ellen O'Toole, a former FBI profiler, and with Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a forensic psychiatrist and senior clinical faculty member at the Harvard Medical School. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. And here's an email from Clarence in Salt Lake City: When I was about 11, I left home without my parents' permission, went to an arcade downtown in the city where I lived. A man started to chat me up, even offered to give me some quarters. We talked, but I was wary of him. Since I'd moved around a lot, I was experienced enough to realize that not all adults are good or have good intentions. Finally, after he asked if I wanted to see his room, I got really scared and told him I had to go since I was meeting my brother for a movie in a theater downstairs, which was a lie.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: To this day, I have huge trust issues. It is ruining my relationship with the most wonderful person I've ever met. I've tried to talk about it, but the guilt at not turning this man in when I had the chance makes me worry that he just found another victim. So in the end, my comment is that kids are the absolute last stand against being victimized by these people. It's awful to have to do it, but kids need to be educated that all adults are a threat, regardless of whether they are a family friend, business associate, uncle, aunt, grandparent, neighbor, teacher or anyone else in their lives. Dr. Bursztajn, you sympathize with somebody who had that experience, but doesn't that sound a little extreme?</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: Well, Neal, I think that the extremity that you're hearing is there, because very often, blind cynicism begins with blind trust. If you blindly trust human beings, then it's easy enough to become blindly cynical. How do we go ahead and teach our children to be open-minded, to be able to use their best judgment as to who to trust, for what, when, is the job of the parents, and it's a job which we - only we can do.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And parents, Mary Ellen O'Toole, you come back to that, too: The children who are most vulnerable are children who don't necessarily spend a lot of time with their parents.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: Those children can be very vulnerable, not just because they're children and their judgment skills certainly are not where they would be as an adult, but they don't have their parents or caregiver around to help them make right choices and right decisions and right assessments about people. It takes a lot of effort, training and background to do good assessments on people. To put it off on a 10 or 12-year-old child is not even reasonable.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Another email along the lines of one we read earlier. This one from John: I'm a male social work grad student interested in working with children. I now realize I will face suspicion from parents and other workers of the community. What do I need to do to help children and families feel safe with male therapists, considering there's a shortage of male therapists working with children? And, Dr. Bursztajn, I suspect psychiatrists are not immune from such suspicions, too.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: Absolutely. And there has been at least one case I know of a child psychiatrist who was a child sexual molester. I've known a case of a pediatrician who was a child sexual molester. So there's no immunity. But I think to be able to go ahead and talk honestly with families of children about their concerns is a prerequisite for being able to do good treatment with children, and when their concern's a realistic one, has to acknowledge those concerns as being realistic.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we can get one more caller in. This is Jennifer, Jennifer with us from Cincinnati.</s>JENNIFER: Hi. How are you?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm good. Thanks.</s>JENNIFER: I've listened to a lot of your programs before, and they all kind of set a chord with me, but this one is really close - is hitting close to the mark. I had a neighbor that I grew up next to. He was that grandfatherly little man, you know, in the neighborhood. And my mom was single, and it was one of those little communities where we all just kind of - the kids left in the morning and went out and played, and all the neighbors kind of kept an eye on us. And, you know, he was that trusted, older gentleman that nobody, you know, questioned his integrity.</s>JENNIFER: And a couple of years ago, he passed away, and my mom said, oh, isn't it sad that this gentleman died? And, you know, I didn't really say anything. And she said, you know, I heard stories sometimes about him when you were little that he would do bad things, but he never did that around you. And I said, well, yeah, mom, he did, and explained, you know, that there were - it started with, you know, like pats on the behind when I would leave the house. And, you know, it would be, you know, come here and give me some sugar, or it would be, oh, I'm gross from working in the garden. I'm going to take my shirt off. Come and give me some sugar while I have my shirt off.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jennifer, can you hang on with us? Stay with us.</s>JENNIFER: Yeah.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: In just a couple of minutes, we'll get to the Opinion Page. But just before the break, we were talking with a caller named Jennifer from Cincinnati who said that when she was a little girl, the friendly old man who lived next door, eventually she heard from her mom that the man had died and, well, that he had maybe done some bad things, but at least not with her. She was telling her - telling us that, well, yes, in fact, she - he had done some things with her. Jennifer, obviously, we can't get into details, but how did it play out in the end?</s>JENNIFER: Well, it started when I was in kindergarten. And about - this is, like, '75, '76. So by the time I was in third grade, you kind of started hearing towards '78, '79 more stories of kids being abducted or molested. And it was like I heard the stories, and I was like, wait a minute. What he's doing is not right. It's not normal. And so I would just stop going to his house, you know? Mrs. Tobler(ph) would make chocolate chip cookies, and I wouldn't come in to get them. I would, you know, wait out on the porch.</s>JENNIFER: And it just - you know, it was a growing-up process. But my whole thing is that with parents - I have four children, and I'm very careful now, and I'm very leery. And when we do church functions and things like that, you know, I ask them to - you know, I go and I ask other parents about, you know, are they going to be with the reverend for the day? Do you know him? Have you ever heard any stories about him? And they kind of look at me strange like I'm asking for trouble, but I just don't want my kids to grow up with that feeling where your mouth goes dry and you start shaking, and, you know, your belly - you get this lump in your stomach like, oh, my God, it's happening again and...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah.</s>JENNIFER: ...and I just don't want them to feel that hopeless and trapped, ever. And so I'm very protective.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jennifer, thank you - as you should be. Thank you so much for your story. And before we leave, Dr. Bursztajn, I just wanted to ask you: We were talking earlier about whether predators can respond to therapy. What about the damage to their victims? I'm sure some things can never be repaired.</s>HAROLD BURSZTAJN: The damage which child molestation causes is intense. It can be lifelong. The most important part of therapy is to help the victim get over the sense of helplessness and humiliation which accompanies sexual molestation. And in order to be able to do this - not just what happens in the therapist's office, but how the family responds to it - fundamentally, education without humiliation is the essence of therapy for victims of child molestation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Mary Ellen O'Toole, as shocking as the allegations at Penn State, Syracuse - again, allegations, but we're talking about it. Does that help people or hurt people, do you think?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: O'TOOLE: Oh, I think it's very helpful to be able to talk about it and to make it normal to talk about it and allow people the opportunity to say this happened to me. And one of the biggest issues when I was - as an FBI profiler is to make people feel like they weren't the Lone Ranger, that this kind of behavior does happen to other people. So what happened to them doesn't make them an outcast or that there's something wrong. So I think that just talking about it so that they know there are other people that have endured this, incredibly helpful.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Mary Ellen O'Toole, her book is "Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us." She joined us here in Studio 3A. Our thanks as well to Dr. Harold Bursztajn, a forensic psychiatrist, senior clinical faculty member at Harvard Medical School. Most importantly, our thanks to all of you who wrote to us and called. We're sorry we could not get to everybody's story, which is important. But we hope that the stories we did broadcast today were of use. Stay with us.

A neo-Nazi blogger published the addresses and phone numbers of five of the six Jena 6 defendants, encouraging violence. Richard Barrett — general counsel for the Nationalist Movement in Learned, Miss. — explains what he thought of the move. Barrett has a history of going to towns embroiled in racial controversies and protesting on behalf of local whites.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya, and this is NEWS & NOTES.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Black bloggers are getting credit for the turnout at last week's rally in Jena, Louisiana. Thousands flooded the small town last week to protest what they see as injustice in the courts.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Meanwhile, opposition to that rally was loud and clear on so-called white supremacist Web sites. And late last week, a neo-Nazi blogger posted the home addresses and phone numbers of five of the Jena Six.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: In another post, he seemed to call for their lynching. The Web host has now shut down the blogger, William White. But plenty of people are still blogging including Richard Barrett. Barrett is counsel for the Nationalist Movement in Learned, Mississippi. The group has been called white supremacists by some. I asked him what he thought of White's action.</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): I think it's outrageous. And I've been trying for quite a while - in fact, I did have him shut down on various other sites that he tried to put up when he started making these death threats a year or so ago. And he actually filed a complaint with the Mississippi State Bar, because I'm also a lawyer, and he said that I had unethically tried to have him kicked off the Internet.</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): Well, that complaint was dismissed because I'm glad (unintelligible) he deserved to be kicked off the Internet. I mean, now I've got the axe handle here that Lester Maddox waved. And he waved because he said I want private property rights. He had a right to do that. And the young fellow that put a noose on the end of his truck saying, I just want a school that's safe. I'm not going to get mugged in. He had a right to do that as well. But you can't just go out and threaten to kill people. Now, that's crossing the - that's crossing over the line.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Have you ever put people's addresses on your Web properties?</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): No, have not, and don't intend to.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What do you hope to do with your Web site when you write about the Jena case, when you write about going to Jena, who are you hoping to reach? What kind of response do you get?</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): Well, first of all, I'd like to address the ones involved with the Jena Six. I'd like to encourage the unwed mothers, as most of them are, to consider family life and to preach the gospel, if you will, of family. To marry so that a father would be there to train these young people. I'd also like to teach them or train them or encourage them to be serious about this country.</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): I've gone to their Web sites. I went to the one for Robert Bailey and his friend named Theo, and I see all these black power slogans - Black is Proud, thuga(ph) and using the N-word, I think gangster lifestyle, if you will. And I would say just get down on your knees and be thankful you're in the United States of America. That's the message I would say to them. And then to the other people I would say you need to catch up. You need to organize.</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): And that's what we're trying to do. That means write articles, give speeches, form organizations, get discussion groups going, take up petition drives, hold rallies, get on the radio, run for office. And then the doom and gloom prognostication for 50 years from now, it's going to be a much better sunrise in a much better day. I believe that. I love this country. I fought for it. I have two Purple Hearts defending it. And I'm just going to let freedom ring. And I think Jena has helped ring that liberty bell as well.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Richard Barrett has a long history of going to towns embroiled in racial controversies and protesting, he says, for local whites. On the Web site, he runs an excerpt from what he also says is an interview that he did with Jena's mayor, Murphy McMillan. In that interview, Barrett called protesters in towns like Jena, invaders. I asked Barrett about the interview.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I noticed that on your Web site, Nationalist.org, you have a conversation with Mayor Murphy McMillan of Jena. Tell me a little bit about how you - how and when you spoke with him.</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): You know, I called him to tell him that I just want to support him. And I noticed that he said to me - he thanked me for the support and he said, we're going to hold the line. And, you know, that's the real message of Jena that Al Sharpton can huff, Jesse Jackson can puff, but Jena is still there and the American flag - not the flag of the Republic of New Africa - is still going to be flying over that town. I think that's a lesson for America.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Do you have any doubt in your mind, as you had this conversation with the mayor, that he understood that you were a white supremacist for a nationalist organization?</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): Well, first of all, we are a nationalist organization and we're a pro-majority organization. Let's try to keep that - we're democratic organization. Well, the people in Jena, they've got a lot of backbone. And I don't know that they're going to need a whole lot of organization because they did just what the people in Budapest did to the Soviet tanks. They turned their back on them and that's probably the message of Jena.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Did Mr. McMillan, the mayor, know that you were recording him or expect this to go up on the Internet?</s>Mr. RICHARD BARRETT (General Counsel, Nationalist Movement, Learned, Mississippi): Well, I didn't record it but I have a very good memory and I just did it for memory. But he seemed like he knew who I was and he was very accommodating. And, yeah, in fact, but it's not just the mayor. I talked to Harold Stevens(ph), an 88-year-old man and then I talked to Ben Gaines(ph), a 17-year-old teenager, and they all said the same thing: We're not giving in.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So we spoke to Mayor McMillan to see if the conversation, as written, was true. He declined to grant us a radio interview but he did send back two detailed e-mails. The first read in part, we are grateful for your bringing this to our attention. I was contacted by Mr. Barrett Tuesday prior to the rally. We had no idea of who he is or of his affiliation.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: The statements you provided me are inaccurate and that I do not recall - him using the term invaders at any point. In terms of his wanting to use a portion of the town, to quote, "oppose these colored folks," end quote, it was my impression in responding to him that regardless of his philosophy, if you wanted to exercise his rights of free speech, I had to be accommodating rather than oppositional. I did not know I was being interviewed. I do not want my name or my town associated in any way with any white supremacist group or any group that preaches race hate. Now that I know about Mr. Barrett's inaccurate statements contained in your e-mail, I will insist that the conversation be removed from his Web site immediately.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: We've then asked the mayor specifically whether he had thanked Mr. Barrett, the mayor replied with the following e-mail. To supplement my earlier response, I also take strong exception to the part where I am quoted as saying, quote, "your moral support is appreciated," end quote. That statement was not made. For someone to try to twist my words to bring about a conclusion that I or my town would support a white supremacist group is repugnant to me.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Again, that's the statement from the mayor of Jena.

Checking up on the medical crisis in Darfur, Farai Chideya talks with Dr. Jill John-Kall — medical director of the relief agency International Medical Corps — about her passion to help others and the humanitarian work she's doing in Africa.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, from Kenya to Sudan and a check up on the medical conditions in Darfur.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Dr. Jill John-Kall is the medical director for International Medical Corps, a U.S.-based relief agency. She's worked in Africa for several years and she's worked in a lot of areas struck with famine and disease. She's dealt with people exhausted from walking mile with little water or food as they try to reach refugee camps. Dr. Jill, as she's fondly known, has a passion for helping others. And she described her mission to bring aid to Africa through medicine.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): I grew up in a family with doctors and we spent a lot of summers in India where my parents are from. So I did get to, you know, see poverty firsthand. But I also got to see my family kind of giving back to the community. So my dad, who's a medical doctor - my aunts and uncles, you know, they would see patients for free. And I think, subconsciously, I kind of grew up with that. And then when I went to med school, and then during my residency, I kind of felt that I could do something to make a bigger impact on people that needed doctors out there, so.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: There's a great story in a recent article about you that tells about you and a women during Ramadan - the Islamic holiday. She was a breastfeeding mother.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): Yeah.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Tell us about that situation.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): I think that was when I was working with Sudanese refugees from Darfur and I was in Chad. What we started seeing in the clinic during Ramadan was that a lot of women would come in fainting. But that was because they weren't eating anything, but yet they were also breastfeeding. And it was difficult for us to explain to them that because you're breastfeeding, number one, you don't have to fast; and number two, you need to eat because you're breastfeeding. And if you are not properly, you know, nourished, your child can become malnourished. But as a foreigner, it was difficult for them to kind of really believe what I had to say, even if I was a medical doctor.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): So what I did was I went to find one of the religious leaders in the camps. And he did kind of like a teaching session on the rules of Ramadan and he encouraged women to eat when they're breastfeeding, that it wasn't against the laws of Islam. And once he did that, we found that women started eating. You know, I felt really good about that because I was happy that even the community could get involved in their own kind of care.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: When you speak to Darfuris, how do you navigate cultural differences among them and that might have to do with situations like that where you come in with all of your medical knowledge, with all of your broad history and say I'm going to help these people, and sometimes they may have a different understanding of what constitutes good medicine?</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): One thing that has helped me out in the past is that, you know, I've worked in other countries before with other cultures - myself, I'm Indian - so I think when they meet me, they can understand that, you know, I'm not here to say I'm better than you. I'm here actually saying I want to help you.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): As far as International Medical Corps goes, one thing that we do try to do in all our programs is get community involvement. So for example, we'll go out there and we'll say, well, these are the things that we think that we should do for you, but what do you think. You know, and they come back and they tell us things like, okay, so you think blankets are important right now but actually they need mosquito nets because malaria season is coming.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): And it's good to have a community link because we can't be everywhere all the time. You know, so we're depending on these particular people in the community to come back and tell us. And the community, I think, really responds to that because it gives them ownership. It gives them a level of responsibility to have - you know, take a hand in their own care.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Paint us a picture of what you do on the day to day. What is the temperature like? What does it smell like? How many people do you deal with who are administrators? How many people do you treat?</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): On average, I would say some of our clinics see up to 250 people a day and that's just with two or three doctors there. The first thing we do is we triage. So we look at, you know, out of 200 people who are the really sickest people that need to be seen. We also tend to prioritize under five children because they're really kind of prone to crashing quickly if they're sick. So we kind of weed out those people and receive them first. However, depending on the security situation, how late it is, we may have to turn out people because it's also important for us to realize the security of our team.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: When you say security situations, what kind of situations have you bumped up against?</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): Our teams have had actually quite serious security issues. They have had their vehicles taken from them. They've been shot at. They've had guns held to their heads. I mean, it's been really difficult for them out there. And I give, you know - not just IMC - but I do give all the relief workers a lot of credit for being out there because, you know, you can go weeks and feel completely safe. And then it just takes something, you know, the smallest kind of trigger a reaction that might get you into a position where you're not safe at all.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Have you ever had a moment where you said, oh my gosh, I'm going to die or I could die, I can't take this, I've got to get out of here?</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): Absolutely. And I think any relief worker would tell you honestly, yeah. We've all have those kinds of moments. And they're scary and, you know, you try to get passed them as much as possible by focusing on the good that you're doing and the beneficiaries that you're serving and stuff like that. And sometimes, you might have a dream where things come back to you later on. You know, but you kind of look at what you can accomplish and focus on that and move forward.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: This may come from a different angle, but I think about the health care situation in the U.S. In fact, we had Michael Moore on recently about his documentary "Sicko," and there's a lot of debate around what the government should do especially now that the presidential race is heating up, what proposals people have on the table for health care in the U.S.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Are we - and I'm just going to be honest here - spoiled, whiny babies because most people can find, at least, emergency care? How would you compare people's attitudes towards health in the U.S., towards access, and the challenges you face out in the field?</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): I think, for sure and myself included, I think we do tend to take things for granted. Whereas, you know, places like Darfur, people are dying of preventable diseases and not only that's preventable but, you know, they're easily cured. You know, you don't hear of that many people dying of meningitis in this country. You know, you don't really hear about people dying of pneumonias in this country. You just go to the doctor and, you know, he or she listens to you and gives you antibiotics and you're fine. But these are the things that really are killers out there.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): The other issue for us is vaccines. In this country, every kid goes to the pediatrician and gets their shots. It's just a normal way of life where you don't even think about it. Whereas, in places like Darfur, you know, getting vaccines out there and getting children vaccinated is definitely a challenge. But it's so important because something like measles can kill so many kids, you know, but it's preventable. All they need is their shots.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Tell me about the mandate of the International Medical Corps, which is the group, of course, that you work for. What exactly are you trying to do? How broad is your mission?</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): I think the reason I find the International Medical Corps stands out among all the other agencies is because we do two things very well. Number 1 is we do emergency response. And number 2, we also look towards development, because it's very hard to kind of just go in there and say, I'm going to treat you for this and we just do emergency response. But then when we leave, we're going to leave a huge vacuum because the country that we're in may not have the capacity to actually, you know, continue our programs.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): So what we do is we go in there and, you know, we respond to the actual emergency. But in the meantime, we do a lot of capacity building. We tend to rely more on the national staff than the expat staff like myself. And the reason why we do that is because when we leave, we want to make sure that our programs are sustainable.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So if you are someone who's listening to this and you hear about humanitarian efforts like yours, what could you suggest to people who want to help and who may not know that much about what's going on or who's in the field?</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): The first thing that would say is to get educated because it's one thing to hear, like you and I on the radio and just talking, but it's another thing to really kind of get a feel of what you're donating to or what you want to know. If somebody recently asked me why I'm out there and I don't think that, you know, the work that I do everybody else can do it, and nor do I think that's a bad thing. However, I do think that every individual can make a difference. You have a voice. Use it to help those who actually don't have a voice.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Jill, thank you so much.</s>Dr. JILL JOHN-KALL (Medical Director, International Medical Corps): Thank you very much for having me.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Dr. Jill John-Kall is the medical director for International Medical Corps, a U.S.-based relief agency. You can read more about her organization and how you can help at our Web site, nprnewsandnotes.org.

After months of deliberations, the so-called deficit supercommittee is poised to admit failure. The 12-member bipartisan group was charged with cutting more than one trillion dollars from federal spending over ten years. Without an agreement, automatic spending cuts are set to take effect in 2013. Ron Elving, senior Washington editor, NPR

NEAL CONAN, HOST: It's not yet official, but all signs indicate the so-called supercommittee will raise the white flag on Capitol Hill later today. The bipartisan panel was charged to cut more than a trillion dollars from federal spending over the coming decade. Failure to reach an agreement means automatic cuts in 2013, half to the defense budget. Yesterday, Democrats and Republicans traded blame on the Sunday talk shows. Does the supercommittee's failure matter to you, and if so, why?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving joins us here in Studio 3A. And Ron, always nice to have you with us.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I guess despite that super moniker, there was never a lot of faith that there was an agreement even possible.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: No. And many people are going to look back on this and say that the committee was loaded for failure from the beginning, that the commitment of the leaders of the two parties in the two chambers was never really to an agreement so much as it was to political protection. I would go so far as to say that's not the whole truth. I believe that the leaders in both parties in both chambers were interested in some kind of a solution. They just didn't know how to get there. And they had the immediate political problem of putting six individuals from each party, six from each chamber, onto this committee to bear this responsibility, and they went about that in the usual congressional political fashion.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: They were representing the various interests and constituencies that they live with every day. That's why they're the leaders. They're not just people who descended from the sky with these responsibilities. They're raised up to those positions by their own rank and file. They're responsible to that rank and file.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Is there any credit, at least from what we can tell, to the Democrats' argument that the Republicans were never willing to entertain the possibilities of significant new taxes?</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: I think you're going to have to say that Jeb Hensarling, the co-chairman of the committee, the 12, who is a Republican from the House, from the House leadership, summed it up pretty well when he said that the Democrats were not willing to go forth with any plan that would restrain entitlement programs, reform entitlement programs in his terminology, cut the spending in the long run on entitlement programs, like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, unless there were going to be new taxes, increased taxes.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: That's the way Hensarling summed it up, and I think that you can put it that way, or you can put it the opposite way. That is, the Republicans were not willing to consider any new taxes, unless they were offset by larger tax cuts. They put forward a plan of 250, 300 billion dollars in tax reform, as they called it, that they said would actually improve government revenue, but only if the Democrats would agree to make the Bush-era tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent when they expire in 13 months.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: If that were done, the amount of revenue that would be lost over this 10-year period would be more than double the amount that would be gained through the supposed tax reforms.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And as we're now approaching 11 months till Election Day, is there any truth to the cynics' argument that both sides actually were more interested in having their issues than a deal?</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: In the last couple of hours, my inbox for email has been filling up with statements from people saying, you know what, this was probably a good thing, to have this committee go away is a good thing, because the bargains that were being considered were not good from our standpoint. Now, these are coming primarily from ideologically driven or constituency groups that that didn't want to see a deal because they didn't want to see a compromise that gored too many of their own oxen. We're also, of course, hearing from people who are very disappointed that there wasn't a deal from the standpoint of the country's long-term fiscal health.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, well, we're seeing the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 261 points today. There is, I guess, at least a possibility - though these cuts are supposed to be automatic. They're supposed to be all calculated into the budget in 2013. Nevertheless, the inability of Washington to make a deal could convince some of the rating agencies to mark down the U.S. credit rating again.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: It is always risky to try to ascribe to the markets, particularly financial markets, in the same day timeframe too much about what exactly is driving them. A lot of it is internal market psychology and, of course, we have the enormous problems in Europe.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: The problems in Europe are related to debt, and they're related to political dysfunction. They don't know how to deal with their economic problems, which are superable because they're a divided group of countries with different political authorities. We have the same problem in our country, even though we are a united political system because our political system is so divided between its two parties. And because they don't want to work together, their dysfunction is beginning to resemble, not in degree, but you understand that there is some resemblance here even with all the differences, the dysfunctionality we see in Europe. If they're that disunified, that's hurting the markets there. It's hurting the markets here. If we are this unable to deal with our fiscal problems in the United States for our own reasons, that's going to hurt our fiscal markets as well.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving. Is the failure and - I don't think we're going too far out on a limb. The white flag has not been raised yet, but it will be later today. Is the failure of the supercommittee matter to you? If so, why? Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. We'll start with Dana(ph). Dana with us from Plymouth, Massachusetts.</s>DANA: Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. I feel the supercommittee was built on an unsound premises. But since you want to know how it affects my life, I'm 60 years old and I don't think people my age or a future generation should - or elderly should have to suffer cutbacks in Social Security when, you know, then - when the Republicans and some of the Dems aren't willing to raise taxes on the wealthy 1 percent.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Which of the proposals that you heard about, Dana, might have affected you?</s>DANA: Well, Social Security. I mean, I will be collecting it, I guess, in another five or six years, and, you know - I mean, and I just don't - and I don't see why that should be cut back. I'm going to need it. Others are going to need it. And, you know, and as a believer in democracy, I really feel that the supercommittee - I mean, we shouldn't even be going for the deficit. We should be getting people to work first. That's how I feel. I mean, you know, we should tackle the deficit after people are working...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK.</s>DANA: ...to get the economy working.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much for the call, Dana. Ron Elving, as far as I understand, the proposals involving Social Security that have been banded about would be to raise the eligibility age for people younger than Dana - in other words, people who are still a long way from collecting Social Security now - and it might be for those making a fair amount of money to raise the amount that is taxable for Social Security purposes.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Which is a kind of means testing to say that if you're quite affluent, if you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars in income in your retirement years, perhaps you don't need that supplemental amount of money, which is so crucial to the survival of many people when they pass 65, 66, 67. 10, $20,000 can mean the difference between absolute penury and doing OK. Now, the question here is, do you need to pass on that amount of money, to which they are entitled, of course, under the Social Security system, to those who do not actually need to have it? Somebody who is affluent enough that maybe when those little Social Security checks come in, they maybe just leave them in a drawer. I actually know of people who were embarrassed about cashing their Social Security checks because they had so much money of their own, and they didn't want to feel like they're on the dole.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Well, that would be one kind of way, perhaps, of nicking a little bit the cost of Social Security, raising the age for people who are now, say, 50 or younger, so that they couldn't retire and receive Social Security until they were 67 or 68. That's a little bit more marginal change, but it does make a big difference in the long run to bending down the curve of deficit in Social Security.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Nathan(ph). Nathan with us from Denver.</s>NATHAN: Hi there. Thanks for having me on. My question is, if the Fed can print money to bail out the banks, why can't the Fed print money to pay off our debt? Interest rates are lower than even, why don't we get ourselves out of this recession and screw the deficit?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, there's a simple resolution, Ron, and there must be a simple answer.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Well, it was possible to come up with a certain amount of money on a temporary basis through the Toxic Asset Relief Program, TARP, which we all, of course, were unhappy about it, hated. But a certain amount - a defined amount of money, very large amount of money, hundreds of billions of dollars could be used to keep those banks from going insolvent, keep the entire credit system from freezing up, keep the entire economy from grinding to a halt. And that was actually fairly successful. Now it's, of course, engendered enormous resentment throughout the country on the left and the right.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: As we just heard.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: And many, many people feel that this was a terrible injustice, that these banks were saved and that many of their executives are doing better than ever, and that is bothersome. No question about it. But in the long run, by having those banks make a comeback, just like with the auto companies, eventually, they pay that back. And it is not a great long-term increasing liability.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: On the other hand, the federal budget deficit, which keeps getting bigger and which takes more and more money to service every year - in other words, we have to pay the obligation interest on everything we've borrowed up to now - that keeps getting worse and worse and worse. So we're really talking about problems on totally different scales. TARP was temporary and in the long run, it's not a permanent serious cost. Whereas, this budget deficit that keeps going up and up and up and up has to be addressed at some point or the country goes bankrupt.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you're talking about paying back those loans. I think it's accurate to say 40 percent of every dollar we spend is borrowed at this point.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: At this point.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And that's when interest rates for American Treasury notes are, well, 1.3, four...</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Historic lows. Historic lows.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you're talking about getting up to where people don't trust U.S. Treasuries to the level where they don't trust Italian treasuries - 7 percent...</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Well...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: ...it's huge.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Yeah. One laughs only because it is so inducing of nervousness. The idea that we would have to pay three or four times as much for the money that we owe, the way the Italians and some other countries are having to do, that would, of course, be horrific and would put us at the lead of all the debtor nations in the world in terms of our being beholden to other countries, including China, including some people who may not always wish us well. So that is why this deficit problem needs to be restrained before we get into that sort of situation.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about the supercommittee, which will announce its failure later today. The actual deadline is Wednesday, but they would have had to submit it to a Congressional Budget Office to be scored in time to a vote on Wednesday. That ain't going to happen. You don't have to worry about that much. It's all going to be over today. We'll talk about what the budget cuts may mean in 2013. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Brad, Brad with us from Milford in Connecticut.</s>BRAD: Yes. I'm a youngish 59 and not so worried about extending the retirement age because I plan to work into my mid-'70s, but I have three daughters that are six, 10 and 13. And I just want them to be encouraged about Washington and politics and the ability to make a change. And I'm, personally, so discouraged about the Grover Norquist tax pledge and the seeming headlock or nonnegotiable stats he's put all the Republicans in under the threat of not being able to be re-elected because money will pour in to opponents in the primaries. So maybe I'll do what my friends suggest because my daughters are pretty and get a sailboat and just stay offshore in shark-infested waters and not be civically engaged.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Brad, we would urge to take the other direction, to come back to port, but we're glad you're there now. In any case, explain to us, Ron Elving, Grover Norquist is a - well, he's a lobbyist.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Grover Norquist is a lobbyist. He is also the head of an organization called Americans for Tax Reform. That organization has been around now for more than 25 years. And the organization is not really that significant, but Grover Norquist, as a voice in Washington, particularly with this device that he came up a long time called the No-Tax Pledge, and this has been effective in presidential politics, congressional politics. He goes to Republican candidates and says will you sign this pledge that says I will never increase taxes for any purpose at any time for a reason? And people sign it because if they don't sign it they find that they have a hard time explaining why they're in favor of tax increases in the next primary election among Republicans or even in some general elections.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: And because you need to get nominated as a Republican or a Democrat for that matter, before you can get elected in most of our offices - certainly federal offices - this has become an enormous roadblock for a lot of Republicans who might have different views on taxes and many do. Few people in the past couple of weeks have actually stepped up and said I signed Grover Norquist anti-tax pledge many years ago, but I'm going to set that aside given the exigency facing our country. And I'm holding my constitutional pledge to do the best I can for my constituents above my pledge to Grover Norquist.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is an email we have from Judy(ph) in Denver. Yes, it matters, but not financially. It matters to me because I was naively hoping politicians could agree and actually lead the country. Our political system is broken. I support Occupy Wall Street. I believe the time for revolution of the people has come. I'm 50-something but will never be able to retire no matter what happens to the entitlements I've paid into over the past 40 years.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you can hear some anger in that last comment in particular. But does it, in fact, matter? These budget cuts, $1.2 trillion, are written into the law. They don't take effect until 2013, which is after the next election. Can Congress just change the law?</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Congress can. Congress can. It can always come back and change laws that it itself has made. I mean, no Congress can bind and future Congresses. Although, I think, the general assumption is that when anything is going to get done about this, it's going to be done under great pressure at gunpoint as it were. And sequestration works well in that regard. Now...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sequestration of these automatic cuts.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: That's right. The money just never gets to the agency to be spent. And so, from the standpoint of people who believe the whole problem is spending and not revenues, then there's a certain attraction to this 1.2 trillion in forced spending cuts. The problem from the standpoint of many Republicans who, otherwise, would be all for cuts in spending, is that half of these cuts have to come in discretionary defense spending. And that is an issue that is a part of the government spending, that is near to the hearts of many conservatives, many Republicans. And many of them have already begun to say wait a minute. That's unacceptable. We know we've voted for that last August when we were in the debt ceiling crisis. But now we're going to have to revisit that and save our Defense Department budget.</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: The president has already said, this is what you guys came up with. This is what we all agreed to. That's what we're going to go forward with next year. So they might be looking at a veto from the White House if they do try to change sequestration, having failed to come up with any of the alternatives to sequestration that the law provided, such as the supercommittee.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And are we going to have more debt ceiling votes coming up because - and more demands for deep cuts in exchange for an agreement to do that?</s>RON ELVING, BYLINE: Down the road, yes. Down the road, there is no automatic mechanism to increase the debt ceiling every time we have borrowed enough money to need that again. It's happened almost 100 times since 1917. It will happen again.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving with us here in Studio 3A. Ron, thanks as always. More on the failure by the supercommittee later today on NPR News. So we're going to wait official word, and we'll report when the white flag officially flies from the Capitol.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Tomorrow, military service and sacrifice. NPR's Tom Bowman will join us to talk about the Marine's Darkhorse Battalion. Stay with us for that. I'm Neal Conan. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

Every November, food donation boxes in offices, stores and schools fill with shelf-stable food. But as much as half of it may never be used, says Katherina Rosqueta of the University of Pennsylvania's Center For High Impact Philanthropy. She says it's time to can food drives and donate cash instead.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: Over the past few weeks, donation boxes in offices, stores and schools have been filling up with cans of vegetables and boxes of mac and cheese, food that often comes from people's cupboards and is intended to help the poor celebrate Thanksgiving. Katherina Rosqueta of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for High Impact Philanthropy argues that as much as half of that food may never be used and that millions go hungry. In an op-ed for the Albany Times Union, she says it's time to can food drives.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: If you donate, would you be willing to provide a check instead? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Katherina Rosqueta joins us from a studio at the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, where she's executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy. And good of you to be with us today.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Thanks for having me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you say for the same amount of money spent on buying cans for a food drive, donors can feed 20 times more families by providing cash as opposed to cans.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: That's absolutely right. One of the things that we have available to us now in the United States, is actually a surplus of food. That surplus, when it gets donated to food banks, can then be made available to local pantries and soup kitchens around the country. And because these are either donated food or food that is purchased by the network of food banks at wholesale prices, the same $10 that you would spend to, say, get three cans of food, could actually buy retail value 20 times more food. And that can be the difference between just providing enough for lunch for a couple of people to actually feeding a family of four for a week.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And I wonder, you say half the food that is donated in those donation boxes is wasted, is never used?</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: I mean, some studies show that up to half of that winds up not being used. But actually the bigger bang for buck, is not from the food that's not being used that goes into food drives. I mean, there are places where some of that food is quite helpful. The bigger bang for buck comes from taking advantage of all of the food that would be wasted, but that could actually go to feed families across the country when regional food banks are able to purchase it from this national network.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: No, I understand what you're saying about efficiencies and economics of scale. But if somebody gives a can at Thanksgiving and it's not used this Thanksgiving, it's going to be good - perfectly good on Christmas and probably good next Thanksgiving too.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Yeah. I think the question is, given the current economic environment and the growing number of families who are unable to feed themselves, how can donors make sure that as many families as possible don't go hungry this Thanksgiving?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I understand the argument, as well. But there is something about the spirit of Thanksgiving, which is sharing food. It's a different psychology of here's a can of food as opposed to here's a check.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Yeah. And I think that's something that too often people think the difference is between personal engagement and communities really coming together in the spirit of giving, or a very cold efficient writing of a check. And it doesn't have to be that tradeoff. There are some wonderful examples of communities that provided financial contributions to feed more hungry people in their communities, but, at the same time, used some of the traditions that we think of around food drive to really bring that spirit of giving personally and together for families and communities. It doesn't have to be a tradeoff between the two.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, such as? Give us an example, if you would.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: So here's one great story. There was a church where one of their most valued traditions was a time during the offertory where children would come with their donated cans of food and bring it up. And it was quite heartwarming. People would see the youngest people in their community making a difference in addressing hunger.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: What they wound up doing, though, instead, is they took the cans of food that they may have used for dinner the night before. And instead of bringing a full can of food, they actually put a check in each of those cans. So you wind up still having that same heartwarming scene, but even better, you wound up actually feeding 20 times more people. And that's - those are some of the really creative ways that people are still honoring their traditions, coming together as a community, and knowing with confidence that they're providing more people food than they ever have before.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Katherina Rosqueta is executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania. Well, if you donate to the food drive, would you donate as much, if it was a check instead of a box of macaroni and cheese? Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. Dominic's(ph) on the line from Nashville.</s>DOMINIC: Hi. My issue with this is mainly that if I'm giving an item of food, I know that administrators, et cetera aren't going to be opening that and using that themselves. If I give money, the more money that comes in, the greater chance for, you know, administrative fees and then eat and pay, and a lot of that gets watered down. And I know a lot of that is not going to get there anyway. So I feel better about giving food knowing that it's probably only going to be used as food for the intended purpose, for the intended people.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And there have been, sadly, too many examples of, well, a lot of charities that have very high administrative costs and, indeed, corruption.</s>DOMINIC: Exactly.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Yeah. And that's a concern, I think, not just with nonprofits that provide emergency food but it's a concern that a lot of donors have with any nonprofit. The good news is that with emergency food providers, you actually can deposit funds directly into an account that can only be used for purchasing food. Most of the regional food banks have these kinds of food accounts with the national Feeding America Network. Some of them actually have local restricted funds where you give directly into that fund, and it can only be used for purchasing food from the - this national network of food providers that I described.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Dominic, if you were aware of such a system, would you feel more confident.</s>DOMINIC: I suppose. But I don't see how that will be any different from giving food in the first place, although it would make me more comfortable with it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. Dominic, thanks very much for the call.</s>DOMINIC: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's see if we could go next to - this is Jim. Jim, with us from Meridian in Idaho.</s>JIM: That's right. Neal, we, for years, have given turkeys at Thanksgiving and Christmas, a couple of them. And I talked to our food bank here in our little town, and they can use the bucks. I'm going to go down to Albertsons. I'm going to check - pardon me for making a name there but I'm going to go down to the store, check out the price of - the average turkey price and calculate that out to two 20-pound turkeys and go down and write them a check for it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And go down and write them a check. So - well, particularly with turkey, something that can spoil, you want to make sure that it's all efficient, yeah.</s>JIM: Exactly. We've always given canned foods and stuff like that and - but the turkeys, I don't know, just because it was the holidays or something. And we just felt - we were told that the money would go a heck of a lot further.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Katherina Rosqueta, is he right in a foodstuff like turkey?</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Absolutely. And it's not just perishable items. Because the - we're talking about a national source of surplus food for this country even for the perishable, excuse me, the nonperishable item. Food banks can acquire the same amount of food for much less money than you or I could if we just went to our local supermarket.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Jim, thanks very much and happy Thanksgiving.</s>JIM: You bet. Go Broncos.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: OK. Let's see if we could go next to - this is Doug. And Doug's on the line from Grand Rapids in Ohio.</s>DOUG: Yes. Hi, Neal.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Go ahead, please.</s>DOUG: Two points I'll try to make quickly. Number one, I'm a coupon clipper. So oftentimes, I'm able to get things for a very reduced price or sometimes almost nothing. And number two, you know, I have transportation and access to supermarkets where they have, you know, some really good sale sometimes and you can get a lot for your buck. And again, I think some of these people that I'm trying to help out maybe don't have access to supermarkets like I do, so I like to think my donation has a lot of bang for the buck because I'm willing to take the time to clip the coupons and go to where the sales are, you know, when I'm doing my shopping for myself.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Mm-hmm. Well, given those kinds of discounts, Katherina Rosqueta, is he getting bang for his buck?</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: I mean, he's certainly getting more bang for his buck just describing the kinds of practices he's doing. And he is thinking about how can I get the most food for hungry people given the money I'm willing to spend. I mean, the same practice that he's doing on a personal level is what food banks around the county are doing on a national level.</s>DOUG: I appreciate the discussion. And I guess the main thing is people are willing to help, and that's a good thing, especially this time of year.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Absolutely.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: That's a good thing, Doug. Thank you.</s>DOUG: OK. You're welcome.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Some people, no matter what, are going to donate food in a can or boxes anyway. Are there more efficient ways to use those donations?</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Well, the best food banks have pretty strong logistic systems that help them manage both the donated food as well as the food that they purchase through the network of food banks. So if you are going to donate food, you shouldn't feel like that's going to waste. That will help backfill some food that they may not be able to purchase in time but folks still can use.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And if you're going to donate food, should you discriminate and find out what's needed?</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Absolutely. Again, the best organized food drives and emergency food providers know pretty well the kinds of needs that families in their communities have. And they will actually provide a specific list of the types of food that they know will be most valued or might be the tougher items for them to purchase through the network.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Nobody knows better what families need than the families themselves. Do they have choices?</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Some folks do. And that is really - best practice, when you can do it, is two things. One, sourcing from this national network, and the second is providing a choice option so that families choose what they need and know they can use. I mean, that is part of what reduces the waste in the system.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A choice option meaning you set it up on shelves like a store.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Exactly. Exactly. So person comes in, can see the different kinds of food and can choose food that's appropriate to their family. If they have young children, then foods that they know that children can eat. If they already have a couple of things in the cupboards, then they won't bother getting that. And what we found is when you are able to offer that choice option, one, far less food is waste, but, two, you're meeting not just the food needs but also the health needs of families better.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Katherina Rosqueta's op-ed appeared in the Albany Times Union yesterday. It was titled "Let's Can the Food Drives." You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And here's an email that we have from Gary. Food charities, she hasn't said why as much as half the food is wasted. And he says she dodged the question.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Let me answer that then more specifically. It's up to half the food is wasted, and it's wasted for a bunch of reasons. Sometimes it has to do with health issues or it's just inappropriate to the family. If you have very young children, they are able to eat different things than older people. You're talking about often very poor families whose health could be compromised, which prevents them from eating certain foods. You have religious and cultural issues where they frankly don't know how to eat the food that's provided. Those are just some of the reasons why food that is donated to people who are vulnerable poor wind up not getting eaten incompletely.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's a tweet from FitMomsFlag: I understand what the guest is saying, but some of us have no extra cash and can take cans from our own pantry. Isn't that better than nothing?</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Absolutely. I think that's great.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right. Let's see if we get another caller on the line. Let's go to Danielle, Danielle with us from Rochester, New York.</s>DANIELLE: Yes. Hi. Thanks, Neal. I would like to say I work for a not-for-profit, and I coordinate a food drive every year. We actually just got our drop off a local college collected for us yesterday. And this is - I think this is a great topic because I'm one who was always like, you know, please, if you can make a monetary donation, that would be wonderful. As our donation, the food received last - yesterday what - included a box of sauerkraut for Thanksgiving. We don't know what to do with that sauerkraut frankly.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I was going to say I've never had sauerkraut at Thanksgiving.</s>DANIELLE: Yeah. Yeah. Not necessarily your typical Thanksgiving fare. So that's an example where we're not - where we might - not necessarily wasted but that's not what we were looking for, for Thanksgiving. If someone had provided us a check rather than a box of sauerkraut, we could've absolutely purchased another turkey for our families.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I can understand that. It'll come in handy in the Reuben sandwich festival.</s>DANIELLE: That's true, I guess.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: A new tradition.</s>DANIELLE: Maybe we can have Reuben later on. And then hopefully to direct your previous caller's concern about administration fees, and I would just like to let people know that administration fees aren't always going in the pockets of the big wigs like you would normally think. The not-for-profit I work at, part of the administration fee, which usually a not-for-profit has a 10 to 8 percent administration fees, a very small percentage. That pays for the heat for the building that we sort the food in. So we need that administration fee to keep the lights on where we work.</s>DANIELLE: So don't let the administration fee deter you because, oftentimes, that's going to help provide the support for the logistics to enable that organization to give to the community. So that's all I had to say.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Danielle, thanks very much. Happy Thanksgiving, and enjoy the sauerkraut.</s>DANIELLE: Thanks to you, too.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So long. Let's see if we go next to - this is Nancy, Nancy with us from Berkeley.</s>NANCY: Hi. I just wanted to say that we do both. We contribute money and do food. And I think it's very important to do food for two reasons. First, there are families that cannot afford to give a check, but they can always give a couple cans of food, and it makes them feel good and it's a contribution. And also, it's very important for children because they can understand giving food. You know, they can't understand checks. And it, you know, it really is good the children, you know, can begin to see how important it is to give to others. And so I'm definitely in favor of giving food as well as a check.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: As well as a check. Nancy, thanks very much. Here's an email we have from Robin in Elkhart, Indiana. I always give food and good food. The local food bank in my hometown ensures that clients receive well-balanced food and not just boxed white carbs. And I guess it's important, Katherina Rosqueta, to say they do it well in some places.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Yes. Yes. I mean, there is, as I mentioned earlier, just a growing need around the country for people who don't have enough food. When somebody wants to help and all they can provide is food, donated food, that's great. The best providers of emergency food know how to work with both donated food as well as all the food - the 20 times more food that the same amount of money can purchase through their food network, food bank network, and can put that all together into food that really will provide not just a means to end the hunger of the family but, as I said earlier, a way to make sure that it's nutritious as well and meeting the health needs of that family.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We'll end with this email from Barbara in Oakland. So glad this is on. I've shifted to sending a check early on in November. I'm glad to know it will buy more than I could. Our local Boy Scout troop also stopped collecting cans and dry food and has gone on to pledge cash and collect around the neighborhood. So anyway, Katherina Rosqueta, thank you very much for your time today.</s>KATHERINA ROSQUETA: Thanks so much for having me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: She joined us from a studio at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where she's executive director for the High Impact Philanthropy. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

Three of the Little Rock Nine continue their conversation with Farai Chideya, with a look at how their actions shaped the future of desegregation in America.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: This is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: We continue our discussion with members of the Little Rock Nine. Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Nine black students marched to a hostile white crowded integrated school.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I spoke with three of the nine - Melba Beals, chair of the communications department at Dominican University of California; Elizabeth Eckford, a probation officer in Little Rock; and Terrence Roberts, a professor of psychology at Antioch University in Los Angeles.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I asked Professor Roberts what it was like to look back at the group's struggle half a century later.</s>Dr. TERRENCE ROBERTS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Psychology, Antioch University): Our struggle in '57 was certainly worth it. No question about it.</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): No question about it.</s>Dr. TERRENCE ROBERTS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Psychology, Antioch University): We were responding to the needs of the time. And I think young people today have the same responsibility to respond to the needs of the time whether they will do that or not, or how they will do that is up to them</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): Little Rock was different and significant and worth it because it's set a new tone. As I said before, it changed the playing field. It was a notice to all the states across the south. Integrate, follow the law, or there are options we can take. And until that time, there've been no option.</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): And so what we did was speed it up. The contribution was that we set a different tone. We said, okay, move ahead now. It's time to go this way. We are not going to stand outside your school pleading with you until you say welcome one day because it's not going to happen. We're going to possess. We're going to take, we're going to claim our own equality.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What about the whole question of where the civil rights movement or some people call it a human rights movement goes from here? We've talked a little bit about recent Supreme Court decisions about desegregation, talked a little bit about the changing nature of the population of the school system. But if you are a parent, a teacher, a community leader, who looks at the schools and says, we haven't come far enough, how do you push forward an agenda of equality?</s>Ms. ELIZABETH ECKFORD (Member, Little Rock Nine; Probation Officer, Little Rock): Well, across the country, there is a challenge of how do you provide an equitable education for all students regardless of socioeconomic status of the community they live in. And teachers are challenged to intentionally teach all students. But, you know, no - that's one thing the No Child Left Behind does is it challenges. It makes accountable school systems for the end results of all students.</s>Ms. ELIZABETH ECKFORD (Member, Little Rock Nine; Probation Officer, Little Rock): So (unintelligible)…</s>Dr. TERRENCE ROBERTS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Psychology, Antioch University): So you really hope that's the goal. I'm not quite sure it is.</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): No, I would agree with Terry. I think that across the country, every power, it has to look at what their child was getting. And part of what the Supreme Court is saying by taking some of the stiffness in the snow out of Brown is that, okay, we may not need to go that way. But we, as people of consciousness and color, must look and say, that is the way we're going. We're going to educate.</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): It was sort of interesting. When I started to turn around and say, okay, I'm going to be a professor. I'm going to teach was actually Terry, who helped to mentor me to move ahead and do that.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Before we let you go, if you have to put a message in to a time capsule, and I'm sure that you've had this chance in some ways with your own writings and with the speaking that you do. If you have to put something into a time capsule for a class at Central High, say, 100 years from now, telling them how to treat each other fairly with justice, with compassion, what kind of message would you leave? Ms. Eckford, let me start with you.</s>Ms. ELIZABETH ECKFORD (Member, Little Rock Nine; Probation Officer, Little Rock): Well, I would tell them that they, themselves, can be very, very powerful. So they generally don't know that, but they can be very, very powerful. And I point to an example for me when I would go all day long being set apart, being alone, and the people who were hitting me were turning their backs. But in the last class of the day, this shy person felt comfortable in a speech class because of what was happening there for me. There were people who reached out to me daily. And that was the only time that that happened.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Professor Roberts?</s>Dr. TERRENCE ROBERTS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Psychology, Antioch University): Well, I would share some wisdom that came my way when I was in first grade. My first grade teacher told all of us in that class - said we had to take executive responsibility for our own learning. And that learning was important because with learning, you multiply the available options in your life. Without learning, you're forced to use the same options over and over. So lifelong learning would be my message.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: And Professor Beals?</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): Namaste is how I end my book. The god in me sees the god in you. The only way we will ever make it is if we all understand that if one of us is enslaved, if one of - with one Iraqi is enslaved and not recognized and not being seen for himself, we are all enslaved.</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): And so the only answer is to love and respect yourself and to love and respect your colleagues because seeing equal is being equal. And only when you understand the value of everybody around you do we get the equality that we're going for. And certainly, one way perpetuated (unintelligible) with what Dr. Roberts said. You've got to be committed to enhancing your own self, empowering yourself to claim your equality. It isn't given to you, it's acclaimed.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Professor Beals, Miss Eckford, Professor Roberts, thank you so much.</s>Dr. TERRENCE ROBERTS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Psychology, Antioch University): Thank you.</s>Professor MELBA BEALS (Member, Little Rock Nine; Chairwoman, Communications Department, Dominican University of California): Thank you very much.</s>Ms. ELIZABETH ECKFORD (Member, Little Rock Nine; Probation Officer, Little Rock): Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That was Melba Beals, chair of the communications department at Dominican University of California. Also, Elizabeth Eckford, a probation officer in Little Rock; And Terrence Roberts, a professor of psychology at Antioch University in Los Angeles. They were all part of the Little Rock Nine. That group of black students integrated Little Rock Central High School half a century ago this week.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: To see historic pictures of the Little Rock Nine and to discuss their legacy, go to our blog, nprnewsandviews.org.

The U.S., Canada and the U.K. are expected to impose new sanctions aimed at halting Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program. Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby and Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, discuss whether stronger sanctions and diplomacy will work.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. After a U.N. report earlier this month bolstered the case that Iran continues work on nuclear weapons, the U.S., Britain and Canada announced new sanctions today. But there's no indication that these or any other sanctions will change Iran's determination, which leaves a range of bad options.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: A nuclear-armed Iran might be a more aggressive Iran and could well prompt Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Turkey to follow suit and develop nuclear weapons of their own. Military strikes might set Iran back only two or three years and could have far-reaching consequences.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Even so, Israel might decide it has no other choice. There is an Iranian opposition but no sign of an Arab Spring-style movement. Thus far diplomacy has failed. When the issues include ideas like regime change and pre-emptive strikes and nuclear weapons proliferation, we need to hear a range of ideas.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So what's the least bad option on Iran? Our phone number, 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Later in the program, the practical deadline for the congressional supercommittee expires today. What happened, and where do we go from here?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: But first, Iran. Stephen Walt and Trita Parsi join us. Stephen Walt is professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and may be best known as co-author of "The Israel Lobby." He joins us from Harvard University's studio in Cambridge. Nice to have you with us again.</s>STEPHEN WALT: Nice to be here.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, author of the forthcoming book "A Single Role of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran," joins us by phone from Fort Lauderdale. Nice to have you with us again.</s>TRITA PARSI: Thank you for having me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Steven Walt, let's start with you. What's the least bad option on Iran?</s>STEPHEN WALT: Well, the least bad option seems to me is continued efforts to try and persuade Iran not to acquire a nuclear weapons capability, and if that unfortunate event were to transpire to rely upon the same strategy the United States relied upon throughout the Cold War against far more dangerous and far more powerful countries like the Soviet Union, which is a strategy of deterrence and containment.</s>STEPHEN WALT: There is in fact no reason to believe that Iran is actively seeking a nuclear weapon at this time. They're clearly exploring having control of a full nuclear fuel cycle. They're clearly enhancing their enrichment capability, but we have no evidence, not even in the IAEA report, that they have made a decision to actually go ahead and build a nuclear weapon, which is what the non-proliferation treaty forbids.</s>STEPHEN WALT: What we ought to be doing as energetically and persuasively as we can is try to convince them not to cross that particular line, and I think there are various ways we might be able to do that.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You say containment worked with the Soviet Union and the United States. Would it work with Iran and Israel? Two nuclear weapons going off in Israel effectively ends that state.</s>STEPHEN WALT: Well, true - nuclear weapons going off in just about any country in any number would be a horror beyond contemplation. But there's no evidence to suggest that Iran, if it were at some point to get nuclear weapons, is led by people who are suicidal.</s>STEPHEN WALT: It is in fact led by I think what might be characterized as a bunch of grumpy old men without much of an ideological mission to be able to spread anywhere else. And let's just remember that two nuclear weapon states, the Soviet Union and Maoist China, were led by certified mass murderers who had the blood of millions on their hands. No one in Iran, however regrettable their regime might be, is anything like that.</s>STEPHEN WALT: So the idea that Iran is undeterable, it's irrational, that it's busy starting wars or getting ready to start wars, I think is a fiction that's been dreamed up by alarmists here rather than an accurate description of what Iran is really like.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Trita Parsi, nice of you to be with us. What is the least bad option on Iran?</s>TRITA PARSI: Well, I think the least bad option is to actually give diplomacy a real chance. The diplomacy that was pursued by the Obama administration in 2009, I think, was genuine, but it was very limited, and Obama administration did not have the patience and stamina to stick with it, partly because there was so much pressure, both from Saudi Arabia, from Israel and from Congress, to abandon diplomacy before it even had had a chance to show any results.</s>TRITA PARSI: That's the least costly option, and that's also the only option that we have been able to use in other cases successfully, preventing states from pursuing nuclear weapons.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You - I've just had a chance to glance at your book, but I gather you argue that it has a chance to succeed if political will exists on both sides. What leads you to believe political will exists on either side?</s>TRITA PARSI: Well, right now I agree with you. There's very limited political will, certainly right now in Washington, mindful of the elections that are upcoming. There isn't any interest in giving diplomacy a chance. Rather, we see the Obama administration almost trying to position itself to the right of the Republicans on this issue.</s>TRITA PARSI: In Iran we have a similar issue, not necessarily for the same reasons but because of their very factional politics and infighting that currently takes place in Iran; it's very difficult to see them in the short run having the political will to sustain diplomacy.</s>TRITA PARSI: But when the question is which one is the least bad option, then this clearly is the least bad option. In fact, I would say it's a pretty decent option.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Some people say Iran has used diplomacy pretty much over the past 15 or 20 years to delay, spin things out, delay and continue work on their nuclear weapons program.</s>TRITA PARSI: Well, first of all, I think it's very important to note that if there's anything that has delayed and made sure that the Iranians actually progress with their program, it's the sanctions policy. We're talking now again about additional sanctions, and we see that the IAEA report says that the Iranian program actually is continuing.</s>TRITA PARSI: After more than 15, 20 years of sanctions, we have absolutely no indications that the sanctions are affecting their nuclear program in such a way that it would change its trajectory or in such a way that the regime would change its calculation. Yet that's the option that we will be going forward with in the next 12 months or so because not - not because it has any significant chances of a result but because it's the least costly option from a political standpoint.</s>TRITA PARSI: It takes the least amount of political capital and the least amount of political risk, but when it comes to actually doing anything about the issue at hand, it really doesn't do much at all.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Stephen Walt, are sanctions a viable option?</s>STEPHEN WALT: Well, there's an inherent contradiction, it seems to me, in the approach the United States has been taking for quite some time, which is to say we're trying to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment capability - and by the way, you keep using the phrase nuclear weapons program, and there's no evidence that they have a weapons program, properly defined.</s>STEPHEN WALT: They are clearly pursuing a variety of nuclear research activities, and if I were Iran, I'd be thinking about getting a bomb. But to call it a nuclear weapons program goes further than the publicly available evidence.</s>STEPHEN WALT: In any event, I think there's, as Trita was saying, there is relatively little cost to pursuing the diplomatic option. And for the United States to essentially be trying to persuade a country to abandon any thinking about a nuclear weapon by continuing to threaten it and continuing to ramp(ph) up sanctions is inherently contradictory.</s>STEPHEN WALT: The thing that makes countries want to pursue some kind of nuclear deterrent is precisely the fact that they feel threatened. We've been trying these sort of sanctions and what I would call a sort of occasional not-very-enthusiastic diplomacy for over a decade now and with no apparent success. Maybe this is a time when we ought to be trying an alternative, and by that alternative I don't mean going to war.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Stephen Walt of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and also with Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. What's the least bad option on Iran? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. We'll talk with Sam(ph). Sam's on the line with us from Lincoln in Nebraska.</s>SAM: Yeah, hi, it's Lincoln, Massachusetts. Thank you for taking my call.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Okay.</s>SAM: And I think the best option is to do absolutely nothing. I read the IAEA report. There's absolutely nothing new in it. And I guess my question is, because it seems so reminiscent of the - what was going on right before we invaded Iraq - is why this drumbeat for war now?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And why do you think there's a drumbeat for war now, as you put it?</s>SAM: Well, because there's - nothing has changed in Iraq. I mean, there's nothing new. There's nothing new in the IAEA report. So why are people starting to drum the drumbeat for war now? And it seems very reminiscent of Iraq. You know, you didn't hear anything about Iraq, and then all of a sudden this guy's the worst enemy in the world and we have to mobilize to do something.</s>SAM: And I think the reason why I think there's a drumbeat for war, there was the thing about the ambassador who was going to be assassinated in the restaurant, and that story kind of disappeared. So it just seems like there's lots of rumblings going on, and my question is, why? Why now? Why not a year ago?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Stephen Walt, the IAEA report, as he suggests, has nothing dramatically new. There's a report about work on a containment vessel that could be used to put a nuclear weapon or test a nuclear weapon in. There's also what many have described as a wealth of detail about previous allegations and suspicions. As you said, no smoking gun about an Iranian nuclear weapons program. But do you hear a drumbeat for war and see no evidence whatsoever?</s>STEPHEN WALT: I think the way I would put it is there's been a campaign over the last several years, and it really goes back a long way, to what I would call mainstream the idea of a military action against Iran. It's been clear that the Obama administration was not enthusiastic about that option, I think correctly, because they understood the costs and risks of that, and we may want to get into that eventually.</s>STEPHEN WALT: But for those who want the military option, who think that that's the way to go, what you want to do is keep bringing it up as often as possible, get people talking about it, run stories like The Atlantic did earlier this year, talking about how Israelis are thinking about going. There's a 50-50 chance of war.</s>STEPHEN WALT: The more you talk about it, the more you raise it as an option, the more people begin to sort of scratch their heads and say, well, we may have to do that one of these days, maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but maybe the year after that.</s>STEPHEN WALT: And when finally the stars do line up, as they did in 2001, 2002, for going to war with Iraq, when the political stars do line up, then you've got people thinking, well, you know, we've been talking about this for a long time, maybe we ought to go that route.</s>STEPHEN WALT: So again, I don't think there's necessarily a big campaign for war right now. I think there has been a long-term campaign to try and create the political space where this option looks like the one to go with, even if people sort of do so reluctantly, without a great deal of enthusiasm, because they think they've exhausted all of the alternatives, when as I think Trita was saying earlier, we really haven't exhausted the diplomatic option at all.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, Trita Parsi, we just have a few seconds left before we have to take a break, but where in the present climate do you see an opening for diplomacy?</s>TRITA PARSI: Well, the thing is this: If you want to have an opening for diplomacy, you have to create an opening for diplomacy. Steve just discussed how those who are proponents of war are actively working to create the political space for that decision.</s>TRITA PARSI: If you are interested in diplomacy, if you believe that it lies in the strategic interests of the United States to do so, you can't wait for Santa Claus to come and give you the political space; you have to go and create the political space yourself. And that's, I think, what some say that the Obama administration was very reluctant to do when it was pursuing diplomacy in 2009. It operated in a very limited space without trying to expand it.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking about options on Iran. None may be good at this point to deter their nuclear ambitions. More with Stephen Walt and Trita Parsi in a moment, and your calls. What's the least bad option? 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. And stay with us. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan. Iran faces further isolation and sanctions as the U.S., Britain and other countries hope to pressure Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions, and the stakes are high.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Two weeks ago, we talked with Robert Kagan and former Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller. Both reluctantly came to a similar conclusion: military option may end up as the least bad option.</s>Today we continue that conversation with two people with very different opinions: Stephen Walt, co-author of "The Israel Lobby and professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government; and Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, his latest book, soon to be released, "A Single Role of the Dice: Obama's diplomacy with Iran."</s>Today the same question to you: What's the least bad option on Iran? 800-989-8255. Email is talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION. Let's go next to Greg(ph), and Greg's on the line with us from Oxford in Ohio.</s>GREG: Hi, Neal. Thanks for having your show. Thanks for having me.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure.</s>GREG: I just wanted to point out that, in my opinion, appeasement would be the best option for us at this time. I've grown up, my whole life has been spent watching these wars that pretty much have gone nowhere. And just imagining that happening all over again, kind of, just horrifies me. So I'd like to see that the last option.</s>GREG: And I think sanctions haven't worked at all, they just are satisfying the sense of nationalism. They're kind of giving fuel to the fire of Iran's leaders. So I think allowing them to have a weapon and then that being a first step, it can open up a dialogue, and then from there we can move on. But at this time, I think that's the best option we have.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Trita Parsi, should Iran, should that be their ambition, be allowed to have a weapon?</s>TRITA PARSI: I absolutely don't think that the Iranians should be getting a weapon. The non-proliferation treaty, which they have signed, essentially means that they're foresworn weapons. The problem is that it's not necessarily weaponization that we're focusing on right now.</s>TRITA PARSI: For the last decade or so, the United States' position has been to not permit the Iranians to have enrichment, which is a very preliminary step, but is also a step that is used to produce fuel for peaceful purposes.</s>TRITA PARSI: I think that we should proceed and through diplomacy, make sure that we get maximum amount of inspections and verification and insight to the program to make it next to impossible for the Iranians to diverge anything that they're doing toward a military direction. And by that, also ensure that we limit the amount of enrichment that they're doing.</s>TRITA PARSI: I think that remains a possibility, but if we continue to waste time by just going forward with sanctions, unfortunately, that opportunity may also be lost.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Who's wasting time here? The Iranians have thrown spanners into the diplomatic works at seemingly every opportunity. They have rejected opportunities to buy nuclear materials from Russia, their - probably their closest friend where they might be able to get that safely, without a problem. This has been - this is a two-way street, no?</s>TRITA PARSI: Well, first of all, I think you're quite incorrect in saying that they have refused to buy fuel. They asked to buy fuel, and we came and said that instead they should give up their low-enriched uranium, and we would produce the fuel rods using their own LEU.</s>TRITA PARSI: Just a couple of weeks ago, they again said that they're willing to buy the fuel and stop enrichment at 20 percent if anyone was willing to sell them the fuel, but no one was willing to sell them the fuel. So I don't think that's correct.</s>TRITA PARSI: The Iranians have in no way, in my view, been particularly helpful when it comes to diplomacy, for various reasons, and it is not an uncommon thing. In every negotiation at some point, one of the parties, including the United States, will, for tactical reasons, try to waste some time.</s>TRITA PARSI: That's always the case, and we shouldn't be surprised by that. But the thing is if we want to succeed with this, we have to go in with the level of political will necessary to sustain diplomacy for the amount of time that it usually takes. And in a negotiation like this, it usually takes more than four years to actually get to a final settlement.</s>TRITA PARSI: That's the case when the United States negotiated with Libya, for instance. But if we are in a situation in which we believe that it is actually politically easier, less costly, to send off young American women and men off to war than it is to send our diplomats to go and negotiate, then I think we're faced with a much, much greater problem than the nuclear issue of Iran, per se.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Stephen Walt, a lot of people would say four years, Libya was not close to acquiring a nuclear weapon. Iran, given what we know about its program, would seem to be much closer than that. Four years may be too long.</s>STEPHEN WALT: Well, remember the first prediction, I think, that Iran was going to get a nuclear weapon was back in the 1980s, where I believe Jane's Defence Weekly predicted they would have one within two years. And ever since then, there have been repeated predictions that Iran was about to get a nuclear weapon, and we've seen those steadily up until the present day.</s>This raises the interesting question: Given that it took the United States only two years to go from not having any nuclear capability at all to having one, during the Manhattan Project in World War II, why hasn't Iran gotten a nuclear weapon yet if they are so hell-bent on acquiring this particular capability?</s>This raises the interesting question: I think one possible argument is that Iran really has no interest in getting a nuclear weapon, that is to say crossing the line to actually manufacture one. I think it is far more likely that Iran would like to have the capability of getting one quickly if the regional security environment ever called for it. And there are two good reasons for that.</s>This raises the interesting question: One, right now, with Iran not having a nuclear weapon, if some nuclear terrorist used a bomb somewhere in the world, Iran would not be suspected of having anything to do with it, and that's good. Secondly, if Iran were to get a nuclear weapon, there is some danger that its neighbors would acquire them: Saudi Arabia, possibly Turkey, even Iraq. And that, of course, negates the fact that Iran is a much potentially stronger conventional power than most of its neighbors.</s>This raises the interesting question: And if it ever had a decent government, it would be in a dominate position in the region. Iran's strategic interests are probably advanced, in fact, by being close to having a nuclear weapon but not actually crossing the line, and that, by the way, is what American diplomacy should be trying to achieve, an Iran that is not crossing the nuclear line because we haven't pushed it to go ahead and weaponize.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Let's go next to Brian(ph), Brian with us from Charlotte.</s>BRIAN: Hi, thanks for the opportunity that you've given me to be on...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah, you need to turn down your radio, Brian.</s>BRIAN: OK, it's off, the radio is off. What I want to tell you is the only thing that U.S. can do after all the commotion that it's creating here now, it's helping the opposition to get rid of what's there right now. What I think is they know they might have some weapons from - nuclear weapons from Soviet Union when it was dissolved, to get it, get help and get rid of all this commotion it's creating for Iranian people and U.S. people, actually Middle East, the whole Middle East.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, let me extend Brian's point, and Trita Parsi, let me ask you. Some people say we should wait and hope, support the Iranian opposition and hope that they would be able to either starkly reform the government that's in power now or replace it.</s>TRITA PARSI: Well, I think there's certain things that the United States can do that would be helpful for the opposition. For instance, in the next round of negotiations, if they take place, I think it would be better not to just talk about the nuclear issue but also add the abysmal human rights situation in Iran on the agenda.</s>TRITA PARSI: I think the Obama administration has missed opportunities in making sure that he actually really made the human rights issue in Iran much a more important factor here.</s>TRITA PARSI: Other things that we could do and, in my view, should do is to, for instance, lift some of the sanctions that make it so difficult for people inside of Iran to be able to get access to technology that they need to circumvent all of the different filters and obstacles that the Iranian government puts on communication inside the country, as well, as with the outside.</s>TRITA PARSI: That's one of the key things that the opposition has been asking for, making sure that they have access to the communications tools that enable them to be effective inside the country. And unfortunately, because of our sanctions policy, that's become very, very tricky to do because these are technologies that for various reasons we have put on the list of things that they cannot get access to.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So these are - don't sanctions, though, in general make it more expensive for the Iranian government and therefore make the Iranian government less popular?</s>TRITA PARSI: Oh, the Iranian government is extremely unpopular as it is. I mean, we all saw what happened in 2009, when they stole an election, and there was massive human rights abuses taking places in front - the entire world could see what the regime was up to.</s>TRITA PARSI: But the problem with the current sanctions is that they're putting a lot of pressure on the economy as a whole, and the government itself usually has far better tools to be able to circumvent the sanctions and shift the cost of these sanctions and this pressure onto the population, and that has now taken place extensively, particularly when it comes to these financial sanctions that the Obama administration and the Bush administration also pursued.</s>TRITA PARSI: It's not really differentiating between an activity undertaken by the revolutionary guard or an activity taking place by an ordinary citizen. So everyone is being hit by it. And it's not led to the type of situation in which people will say oh, we have to rise up against the regime because these sanctions are so difficult. On the contrary, the effect that you're starting to see is that people are saying you all know, the entire world know that we're not happy with this government, so why are you putting pressure on the people? You should be putting pressure on the regime. Instead, the people are being punished, and now you're starting to increasingly see that they're starting to vent some of their frustrations towards the United States and not just towards the regime.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Adam: Iran might seek nuclear weapons to balance other powers in the Middle East. Why not denuclearize the region by first focusing on Israel's nuclear weapons to deter Iran's ambitions? Stephen Walt?</s>STEPHEN WALT: Well, a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East would be a wonderful thing. I think it's unlikely that we're going to be able to get it, because I think for a variety of reasons Israel would be reluctant to give up its own nuclear arsenal; plus the fact for the Iranians, they have to at least think about the fact that there's a nuclear-armed Pakistan next door, a nuclear-armed India and a nuclear-armed Russia. So even if there was some larger movement in the Middle East to maintain a nuclear-free zone, you can imagine Iran being a little bit concerned about its other neighbors.</s>STEPHEN WALT: I think that also tells us that regime change alone is not enough here. The idea of having a nuclear-enrichment capability and having control of the nuclear fuel cycle is something that even the Iranian opposition supports. The leader of the so-called Green Movement, Mousavi, was in favor, in fact was one of the leaders of the nuclear program. So we could get an end to the clerical regime and you would still have an Iran that was interested not necessarily in a nuclear weapon but having a full nuclear capability that gave them the potential to go nuclear if at some point they felt that was necessary.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I wanted to explore the idea you raised earlier. Some of the consequences that might flow from a military strike, and again, whether it was by Israel or by the United States, likely the United States would be drawn in one way or another. And those - even those who say this may be the only option we have left, don't believe these would go unanswered, but nor do they think they could set the Iranians back if that's their determination for more than a couple or(ph) three years.</s>STEPHEN WALT: Right. And I think that's one of the compelling arguments against the sort of preventive war here. It doesn't prevent them. In fact, it just gives Iran more incentive to want to get a capability so that it would be immune from being attacked in the future. They certainly have observed the difference between the fact that no one is attacking North Korea, and the West was willing to do regime change in Libya. And if we have then demonstrated that we're willing to attack them as well, that's just all the more reason they have to disperse the program, harden it and go back at it again.</s>STEPHEN WALT: This would, I think, unify support for the regime, which is weakening over time, tarnish the American image. We would be seen, however inappropriately, as beating up on yet another Muslim country. There would be some retaliation. We don't know how significant it would be, but it could be significant, and it would undoubtedly cause a spike in oil prices at a moment where the world and American economy don't need it. Last point I'd make here is it's not, I think, it's not surprising that the loudest voices in the United States who are calling for the military option were also among the loudest voices calling us - for us to invade Iraq in 2003 on a similar set of suppositions, that this was a very bad regime that wanted to get some kind of weapon of mass destruction and couldn't be trusted to have them.</s>STEPHEN WALT: I think, again, I have no love for the clerical regime, but to go to war with all the potential negative consequences on the basis of these kinds of future fears strikes me as a very bad bet indeed. It was Bismarck who said, you know, preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death, and that would be a little bit like what the United States or Israel would be doing if they decided the military option was the way to go right now.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Also with us, Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And John's on the line. John calling us from Flagstaff.</s>JOHN: Hello. Thank you, Neal, for taking my call.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sure.</s>JOHN: Once again, a very good show. I would like to suggest that we could do basically two things, that the least bad one is establish a more effective sanctions program and get as many of our allies to cooperate with that as possible. And secondly, I think - and this is as important, if not more so, get our ally, the Israeli government, to open up 100 percent Dimona for an IAEA inspection. If we could get Israel to abandon its nuclear warheads, we're in a much better position morally to get Iran to stop what they're doing. Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Thanks very much for the call, John. Israel, of course, not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and unlikely, Stephen Walt, to open its reactor to anybody.</s>STEPHEN WALT: I think that's right. They've been pretty secretive about their nuclear program since day one. It seems to me if we're in a period where the United States is not able to get Israel to agree to even a settlement freeze, we're not in a period where we're going to be able to get them to agree to open up Dimona or uncover their nuclear program. And even if they were to do that, that doesn't help the problem. It would be only an Israeli decision to give up their nuclear weapons program, and I don't believe Israel will do that.</s>STEPHEN WALT: And frankly, if I were Israeli, I would want to think long and hard before I did that, particularly if there were other political concessions I thought I might have to make down the road.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Trita Parsi, as you look ahead, one caller mentioned the plot that the last time the president spoke about relations with Iran, he was talking about a plot where - alleged plot where an Iranian agent was attempting to set a bomb off in a restaurant half a block - half a mile from the White House that would kill the Saudi ambassador. As you look ahead towards any potential diplomatic openings, doesn't that sort of thing get in the way?</s>TRITA PARSI: Oh, absolutely. If it turns out that this plot is true, it is a tremendous problem, and it's also at the same time an indication of how our failure to resolve this problem and pursue more serious solutions for it is causing the situation to deteriorate. Now, we don't know the end conclusion of that plot. But just imagine this. Imagine if that plot had been unveiled in the midst of an actual diplomatic effort. The most likely thing that would have happened is that we would have cancelled talks with Iranians as a result of the plot.</s>TRITA PARSI: Now the plot is taking place in the midst of a sanctions frenzy, and our response to that is not to cancel the strategy but to actually double down on sanctions.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, because they don't seem to be dissuading Iran from, again, if this is accurate, adventurism at the very least.</s>TRITA PARSI: Well, there's very little data that would show that this actually can be successful. I mean, the Iranian sanctions regime is essentially second to none to the success that we've had with the Cuba sanctions regime. We have sanctions on them for 50 years, and we've not seen the type of changes that we want to see. And again, it comes down to political will. If we really believe that this is a serious problem, then we need to muster the political will to come up with the solutions and pursue them patiently rather than going for the easy options.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Trita Parsi...</s>TRITA PARSI: The easy options...</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Trita Parsi, I'm afraid we're going to have to leave it there. His new book is "Single Role of the Dice." And Stephen Walt, thank you for your time as well. Stay with us. This NPR News.

News & Notes producer Geoffrey Bennett talks with Farai Chideya about the stories that are making the rounds on the show's blog, "News & Views," including online coverage of the Jena 6 case.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: This is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: We've got our weekly Bloggers' Roundtable coming up. But first, we take a look at what's happening on our blog NEWS & VIEWS.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: With me is NEWS & NOTES Web producer Geoffrey Bennett. Hey, Geoff.</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: Hey, Farai.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So a lot of people in our blog are focusing on Jena 6. What's going on?</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: They have. That's been the story of the moment ever since Mychal Bell, one of the six black teens being prosecuted in this case, had his conviction overturned on Friday. It's been the main story on our new headlines. And response from our listeners has been pretty lockstep in condemning what they call a miscarriage of justice.</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: Now, one comment reads, we have to remember that although this issue was brought to light in Jena, it is not simply a Jena problem or a Southern problem. It's a major problem in this country. And there are few other comments from people who live in Jena and in the South who caution those who are quick to pass judgment on the town. So that's been a big story in our blog and on other's as well.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, how has the blogosphere, in general, affecting this story?</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: Well, that's sort of the luxury of the Internet to be able to cover the stories that you like in the way that you like. And you know what's interesting is the fight at Jena High School happened in December of 2006. It wasn't a national news story until June of this year when Bell was convicted by an all-white jury. And even then, blogs and black blogs, in particular, were ahead of mainstream commercial media in covering this story.</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: And you know, that's also been a story - a big issue on our blog as well that, you know, stories about Michael Vick and O.J. Simpson have outpaced coverage of the Jena Six. So the blogs and black blogs are upset and they're really taken up this cause.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So on our blog, I had a lot of fun putting up some really scary outfits…</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: Yeah.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: …from Nona Hendryx, whom we just spoke to. I mean, you know, we were all - you're old enough wearing a lot of Lycra. What else are people talking about on NEWS & VIEWS?</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: Well, there's that, the spandex and the fringe from the '80s, definitely. They're also talking about a more serious topic, which is that heinous torture case in West Virginia. And also last week's Bloggers' Roundtable, which was pretty provocative, as I'm sure you'll remember. One of our guest bloggers, you know, sought to defend herself on our blog against a listener who's criticizing her position on some of the issues. And so there was a huge exchange that sort of played out for a couple of days.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: A flame work.</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: Yeah, exactly. And, you know, we don't encourage personal attacks on our blogs. We always invite the dialogues. So I say, how about it?</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: All right. Well, Geoff, thanks again.</s>GEOFFREY BENNETT: Thank you.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Geoff Bennett is the Web producer for NEWS & NOTES.

Hate groups were early to recognize the Internet's potential for organizing. Mark Potok runs the Intelligence Project at the Center for Poverty Law in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks and investigates hate groups. He and Farai Chideya discuss how such groups are using the media in the wake of the Jena 6 rally.

Farai Chideya, host: You first heard Richard Barrett, general counsel for the Nationalist Movement and editor of its Web site. Then, we read parts of the written response from mayor Murphy McMillan in Jena, Louisiana. Now, we turn to the big picture.</s>Farai Chideya, host: Mark Potok keeps track of threats and attacks through the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama. It investigates and monitors hate groups.</s>Farai Chideya, host: Welcome, Mark.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): Well, thank you so much for having me.</s>CHIDEYA: So you heard this exchange that we just got between the mayor of Jena and us about this, what is now this incredibly popular - it's the first thing that comes up, basically, when you put the mayor's name and Jena into surf sites. Is it common for white supremacist groups or nationalist groups to try to cozy up to people in power when there are tensions in a town like this?</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): Well, I haven't seen anything quite like this, trying to essentially snooker the mayor into saying, yeah, we, you know, we whites are being oppressed and we're with you.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): But it is very common for these kinds of individuals and groups to essentially try and exploit a situation like this. I mean, these guys really study the newspapers. They follow the news very closely around the country and look for opportunities to interject themselves. You know, if there is, say, some terrible black-on-white crime, for instance, as there has been recently Knoxville, Tennessee, in particular, you know, the groups will swarm around, you know, and use the event to denounce - basically to denounce black people but under the guise of saying, you know, they're fighting crime and so on.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): So I mean, this is really classic stuff. And, you know, Barrett, of course, was extremely disingenuous both with the Barker family and with the mayor. You know, he was asked even by his own account several times by Justin Barker's father, David Barker, you know, was he a white supremacist? And he simply evaded the question again and again. You know, this is a guy who, not so long ago, held a weekend for racist skinheads at his home in Mississippi, you know, using a picture of Martin Luther King as the target, you know, and it goes on and on from there.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): The book that he, in fact, gave Justin Barker, his so-called autobiography, you know, advocates the resettlement of blacks, Jews, Latinos and so on to the countries they, quote, unquote "came from."</s>CHIDEYA: We should point out that Justin Barker is the white youth who was attacked in Jena and there was this interaction between Barrett, who we spoke with, and with Barker's family.</s>CHIDEYA: Let's pull back to this other inciting incident, though, of the names and addresses of five of the Jena Six posted online. There recently had been cases where journalist names and addresses were posted online if what they said seemed to be disturbing to someone who came from a racist background, a self-avowed racist background. What's specifically about that kind of targeting, that kind of exposure is pernicious?</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): Well, I mean, it's pernicious because it's terrifying to its targets, you know? This posting we're talking about was put up by a guy named Bill White in Roanoke, Virginia. He is the leader of the so-called American National Socialist Workers Party, in other words, an explicitly Nazi group. And, you know, his headline was, lynched the Jena Six, and then in the secondary posting, he listed the five of the six addresses and home phone numbers he was able to get and suggested that should the Jena Six be set free by the courts, that perhaps individual white people might want to go to Jena and deliver justice themselves. You know, I think it's obvious what effect that might have on the person who's a target of such thing.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): This is very common. Whites did the same thing to Leonard Pitts, a well-known columnist at the Miami Herald for Knight Ridders, actually a friend of mine. You know, he's done it to me many times because I'm often quoted criticizing him. You know, the point of all of this is that these groups are very adept to kind of getting in your face.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): I mean, Bill White posts that, you know, lynched the Jena Six, and he understands perfectly that somebody like me is going to notice that immediately and that it helps to propel his name and his group's name essentially into the headlines and, you know, he doesn't give a hoot that, you know, virtually all the press he gets is going to be bad, it's going to somehow describe him as a white supremacist or a neo-Nazi. You know, his point is that he's trying to get his name out there because presumably, he will get a few new members out of it and, of course, that means dues for him.</s>CHIDEYA: When you think about something like that and your name also being exposed, is that in and of itself a crime? He was taken down by his Web host but if his Web host had chosen to keep his Web site up, would that have just been fine and dandy?</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): Probably yes is the answer. Those were almost certainly protected statements under the First Amendment. And, I mean, it's shocking in a way, in another way - here's the bottom line. I mean, under the First Amendment, you - one can make all kinds of general advocacy statements. For instance, you know, you could say I think all police officers should be killed. I think all the Jews should be killed or even somewhat more forward statements. White statements were essentially conditional, you know? These people should be killed if they are, or justice should be delivered to them if they are acquitted.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): In another, you know, clever little posting from Bill White, he said a certain lawyer, a man I know, a human rights lawyer in Canada, of him, he said, it would be patriotic to kill this person, and then gave his home address and phone number. You know, these things are actually do not rise to criminal incitements or probably to what's known in case law as a true threats and that's simply because, as I say, they're essentially conditional in the way they are phrased.</s>CHIDEYA: Mark, before we let you go, what should people do to figure out what's true and false among all of these Internet postings and how they should react?</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): Well, I think, you know, there are few things to learn from this. One, there - this country has some people in it who are really quite awful. I think that regardless of what the details of what's happened in Jena are, you know, lynch the Jena Six is not the answer.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): The other thing is, I think, that people should be aware as a general matter that these groups and individuals routinely distort reality in order to make their propaganda points.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): I mentioned earlier a crime in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was a white couple murdered by three black men and a black woman. And you know, what was said about that crime by white supremacist groups was that it was a hate crime, it was done on the basis of race and that…</s>CHIDEYA: Mark…</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): …they were both be mutilated. These are the couple (unintelligible) false things.</s>CHIDEYA: Well, Mark, I want to thank you. Mark runs the Intelligence Project of the Center for Poverty Law in Montgomery, Alabama.</s>Mr. MARK POTOK (Director of Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center): Thank you so much.

A video showing an officer methodically spraying pepper spray in the faces of seated protesters has created an uproar. While some say the incident represents a wider problem with the way police confront protesters, Santa Clara University professor Marc Bousquet argues that misses the point.

NEAL CONAN, HOST: And now the Opinion Page. There's been a round of argument about police tactics and the limits of legitimate protest since the Occupy movement started two months ago. On Friday, a video showed a police officer in California discharging pepper spray into the faces of students seated with their arms locked. Today, the president of the University of California system said he was appalled.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Two officers, including the lieutenant who sprayed the students, have been placed on administrative leave. Some argue he was just doing his job. In a piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Santa Clara University professor Marc Bousquet criticizes that argument. The lieutenant, he argues, should have chosen the brave, difficult path of refusal. So the question is where is the line between doing your job and complicity? Have you ever had to make that decision? 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Marc Bousquet teaches English at Santa Clara University, and we've posted a link to his opinion piece on our website. He joins us from a studio at Stanford. Good to have you with us today.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: Hello. Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: You wrote that the lesson of Lt. Pike is not that he's the victim of a lousy policy. The lesson is that even within a flawed system, he could have and should have chosen better. Presumably, somebody told him to do this. He was trained to do it.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: Absolutely. I think the issues that are raised here are much larger than the individual person. And the piece I was responding to was a piece in The Atlantic that argued that it's not enough to vilify Lt. John Pike as an individual bad actor, but that we had to look at the larger policy issues being raised. The biggest question for me is whether we should be looking only at the narrow question of policy regarding university policing or whether there are larger questions to look at.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The question raised by the piece in The Atlantic, and this is by Alexis Madrigal, was really about the evolution of police tactics in various kinds of demonstration situations, how it went from relatively passive and non-confrontational tactics to, after the infamous battle in Seattle, much more confrontational and paramilitary approaches. And indeed, these are the kinds of things that may have been going on on the campus there at Davis.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: That's right. And I think the piece in the Atlantic was extraordinarily useful in detailing the evolution in policing tactics. I think the issue is, though, twofold. How do we deal on an ethical level with the individual who is, as Madrigal pointed out, at the endpoint of a bad policy? Do we excuse that individual? Or do we zero in on that person's ethical and existential choice? And then once we do start looking beyond the individual, what are the range of policy questions involved? And I think, at minimum, we need to be looking at how campuses deal broadly with questions of dissent among students and among faculty today.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Getting back to the Alexis Madrigal piece, this is the conclusion: While it's his finger pulling the trigger, the police system is what put him in the position to be standing in front of those students. I'm sure he is a man like me, that he didn't become a cop to shoot history majors with pepper spray. But the current policing paradigm requires that students get shot in the eyes with a chemical weapon if they resist, however peaceably. Someone has to do it. And while the kids may cough up blood and writhe in pain, what happens to the man who does it is in some ways much, much worse.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: Right. And that's a very provocative frame to what is, at heart, a good point. The good point is that we have to look beyond the individual to the policy. The frame, the provocative frame he borrows from James Baldwin, who originally wrote those words in a piece for The New York Times many, many years ago about Alabama troopers who used cattle prods on civil rights marchers, including women and children. And he said, you know, what happens to that trooper? The moral ugliness of that trooper is, in some ways, much, much worse than a physical assault.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: And so that provocation, I think, was well meant. But I think, as it plays out in the Madrigal piece, ends up saying, you know, well, Lt. Pike is a decent person to have a beer with. Should we, on the basis of him being a decent fellow at the end point of a bad policy, excuse him? And I think the piece, ultimately, does tend toward excusing him.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: The - some might say that the comparison to Bull Connor and cattle prods took it to another level. You, though, go even further. You cite Adolf Eichmann, the Nazis, by reference to Hannah Arendt in her famous essay on the banality of evil. But when we're going from, OK, an outrage, somebody spraying students in the eyes from three feet away to the Nazis?</s>MARC BOUSQUET: Well, that's, you know, I'm so glad you raised that point because most people get Hannah Arendt exactly backwards. I mean, the point of Hannah Arendt's characterization of Eichmann, which not everyone agrees with, but what is most persuasive and what is most enduring about Arendt's portrait of Eichmann in Jerusalem is not that Eichmann is a master villain but quite the opposite, that Eichmann is an ordinary person, that Eichmann is very much more like Baldwin's Alabama trooper or very much more like Davis's own Lt. John Pike, that he's an ordinary person, that not particularly bright, not a master villain, not horrendously ideological, although certainly ideological but not horrendously so, and someone who, in other circumstances, might actually have simply been an Alabama State trooper and not the architect of the Final Solution.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: So when you title your piece "Sympathy for Eichmann," it's not the - what some might have said the reflexive, oh, the fascist pig.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: Right. Right. No. I mean, the question - if Hannah Arendt is right, that Eichmann is in all of us, that Eichmann is - all Eichmanns are little Eichmanns, right, that Eichmann is not the bogeyman. But that Eichmann is not a Snape or a villain out of "Harry Potter" wearing a black cape, but that's - that Eichmann is behind, you know, the blue eyes of every state trooper, then we have to look within. That is, ultimately, Hannah Arendt's point, that we need to look at the Eichmann in ourselves and hold ourselves responsible for our own every day decisions.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Marc Bousquet on the opinion page this week, an English professor at Santa Clara University. His piece, "Sympathy for Eichmann," was featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education. You can go see that at our website. Go to npr.org. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And let's get Bruce on the line, Bruce with us from Fort Walton Beach in Florida.</s>BRUCE: Hi. How are you?</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good. Thanks.</s>BRUCE: OK. I think the police are being vilified. The proverbial line that they crossed - there's two lines. There's one that law enforcement sees and one that the public sees, and they don't always run together. The police - the alternative to the action of the pepper spray was to use physical force in order to accomplish the goal, I mean, and that could lead to, you know, folks on both sides being injured, and the result of the pepper spray was a short-term injury that could be corrected with a little bit of water and some time. And to say that they should've done something else where there aren't too many alternatives in law enforcement's disposal to deal with somebody that's being uncooperative and that was one of the least injurious tactics that they could've done in order to accomplish the goal of dispersion of protesters.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: I'm not sure that it accomplished the goal. But, Marc Bousquet, the alternative - I guess he's right - was to physically pick these kids up who were sitting locked arms and asking, I guess, to be arrested and arrest them.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: That's right. And I have been in that position myself - it'll date me - but in the late '80s in New York City, I was arrested with a number of clergymen protesting the New York City home port. And that's precisely what happened to us that when we locked arms and were photographed and appeared in The New York Times doing so, the police officers simply picked us up and put us in a paddy wagon. And that is the standard procedure in these circumstances and is far preferable than what happened to those students or any use of chemical weapon on non-violent protesters.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Chemical weapon? Is that an exaggeration? It's a pepper spray.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, it's a - in this case, it's a military-grade pepper spray, used in excess of the tolerances specified for the particular - and in ways that it's not meant to be used as a disciplinary punishment as a way of forcing people to do what you want. You don't use a chemical weapon to force people to do what you want.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Bruce, thanks very much for the call. Let's see if we go next to - this is Keith. Keith, another caller from Florida. This time from Gainesville.</s>KEITH: From Gainesville, which gave rise to the term, don't Tase me, bro. Don't like to be remembered for that. But I'm a former law enforcement officer, working in a university town or university community. I didn't work for the university police. I worked for the sheriff a number of years ago. The - first, I do want to comment on the chemical weapon charge. As part of my training, I have been Tased. I have been sprayed with a number of agents, and some of the agents that law enforcement uses, the chemical agents, I would rather be Tased. They are very, very bad, some of them. Straight pepper spray isn't so bad compared to some of the other stuff that is in use.</s>KEITH: Making the choice, do you - when you know that you're being asked or ordered to do something that's clearly unconstitutional and you are placed in the position of having to choose do I do this because I'm ordered to or do I refuse and face these consequences? I, you know, anybody who's been on this job for a while may face that. I've had to do that. And it's a very awkward position. And in the case of when you do a use of force analysis, how do you look at this particular situation - I've heard some reports that the officers were encircled. That's disturbing.</s>KEITH: Obviously, with my background, I'm going to tend to want to side with the officers, but I was - somebody came up to me who knows my background last night and said it's not about whether they can legally use the force because law enforcement policies make it so they can legally do what they did, but was it a humane thing to do? And having been sprayed with this stuff, it's inhumane. And having been placed in the position of making that difficult choice, do I conduct a search - my particular case was a search - or do I refuse and take the consequences? That, in certain circumstances as a law enforcement officer, you may have to choose to place your job at risk in order to do what's right. That's not fair, but it's what you signed up for.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Interesting point, Keith. Thank you very much for that. Appreciate it.</s>KEITH: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: And it's not what the demonstrators signed up for, for sure. It is interesting - we just have a few seconds left. Obviously, video can isolate a circumstance of an officer doing something stupid or even potentially criminal or a protester, for that matter, doing it. We need to hold the officer of the law to a higher standard, don't you think?</s>MARC BOUSQUET: Personally, I think that the issues here are ultimately much larger than those of the officer. I think we have to hold the University of California system responsible, and I think we have to hold administrations across the country responsible for the larger clampdown on the Santa Cross(ph) campuses, both for faculty and students.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Marc Bousquet, thanks very much for your time today.</s>MARC BOUSQUET: Thank you.</s>NEAL CONAN, HOST: Marc Bousquet wrote the opinion piece "Sympathy for Eichmann." We've posted a link to it on our website at npr.org. You can also find a link there of other op-eds we considered for today's show at facebook.com/nprtalk. On Thursday in this hour, a Thanksgiving Day tradition on this show: Who's not at your table this year? Send us an email: talk@npr.org. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.

For years, a theory has held that Earth's large moon played a critical role in stabilizing the planet's tilt, damping down differences between the seasons. Now, astronomer Jason Barnes says that life on our planet would endure even without a moon, a finding that might increase the number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy.

IRA FLATOW, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I am Ira Flatow. You probably know that the moon has an effect on the earth - right - in the form of the tides. But there's another effect you probably haven't thought about. And I'm talking about the presence of our moon helping to stabilize the tilt of the planet and that, in turn, helps to moderate the seasons. Seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth. You did know that.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So what would happen if our moon wasn't there? And does that mean that planets elsewhere in the universe need a moon if they want to have a good chance of supporting life?</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: One person who has thought about that is Jason Barnes. He's an assistant professor of physics at the University of Idaho in Moscow and he joins us from the studios of Northwest Public Radio.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.</s>JASON BARNES: Thanks for having me.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: What makes you think about the moon? What got into you?</s>JASON BARNES: Well, our moon is particularly unusual, in that our moon, relative to the size of the earth, is the biggest moon in the solar system. So whether or not that really plays into whether or not life developed here on earth or where life goes was of interest.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And besides the waves, I talked about, the tides. I tried to explain a little bit about the moon and the tilt of the earth. Could you get into that a little bit?</s>JASON BARNES: Sure. Well, the tilt of the earth is what causes the seasons. It's the difference between whether, you know, the equator is pointed right at the sun or whether it's tilted away. So our earth is tilted about 23 and a half degrees with respect to the sun and it's that tilt that causes the seasons.</s>JASON BARNES: And so, even with our moon, that tilt varies by a little bit. It varies by about a degree over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. So when that tilt is a little bit higher, when earth is tilted more, then the seasons are more extreme, so like the summers are hotter and the winters are colder and, when the tilt is less, then the seasons are moderated to the degree that, then, the summers are cooler and the winters are warmer.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And the moon helps stabilize that tilt?</s>JASON BARNES: Right. So it's with the moon - the variations are about one degree. Part of our work was calculating what that difference would be without the moon and so, without the moon, it turns out the earth's axis tilt would vary by 10 degrees back and forth instead of just one degree.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: That's pretty extreme, is it not?</s>JASON BARNES: It seems like a lot. I mean, considering this one degree tilt, you think, oh, gosh, what could one degree do? It turns out, that one degree tilt, over hundreds of thousands of years, is what causes the ice ages. That small tilt, when the seasons are more extreme - so when the summers are hotter and the winters are colder, that melts off the glaciers that used to cover North America and Northern Siberia 15,000 years ago.</s>JASON BARNES: And when the seasons are less extreme - so when the summers are cooler and the winters are warmer, there's more snow and there's less melted off and that's what causes the glaciers to form. So even that one degree tilt causes these huge shifts in the earth's climate into glaciated and non-glaciated states. And without the moon, we'd be wandering back and forth 10 times that amount.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And would life then be possible or would it be the same as we know it without the moon?</s>JASON BARNES: Well, it certainly would be different in that we'd be going through these variations every 10,000 years, but the fact that earth, right now is, you know, wandering back and forth between these glaciated and non-glaciated states is actually very unusual in earth's history.</s>JASON BARNES: So that one degree tilt makes a big difference these days because earth's present day climate is sort of on a seesaw. We're exactly at the tipping point of a seesaw, such that that little one degree tilt can flip us back and forth into glaciated and non-glaciated states.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Now...</s>JASON BARNES: But the vast major - I'm sorry.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Go ahead. I'm sorry.</s>JASON BARNES: For the vast majority of earth's history, that's not been the case. In fact, there hasn't even been ice at earth's poles for 85 percent of earth's history, so the fact that there's any glaciers at all on earth is unusual. And so, our thought is that, you know, for a typical condition, the 10 degree variation in the tilt of the earth would actually not make as big a difference as you might think. I think life would certainly be affected, but it would go on. It wouldn't kill everything.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: So if you're looking for exoplanets, planets outside of our solar system, then it really wouldn't make a difference if there was a moon attached to one of them or not?</s>JASON BARNES: Well, it makes some difference, but not as much as we previously thought. So, I don't know if you've heard of Fermi's question, which was - in the 1940s, during the Manhattan bomb project, Enrico Fermi, a famous particle physicist, was sitting around with a bunch of the other Manhattan Project scientists and he asked - they were talking about aliens and the probability that there would be extraterrestrial life out there. And suddenly, Enrico Fermi sits down and thinks about it for a while and he says, where is everybody? As if - if you calculate how many alien civilizations there should be out there, then you'd come up - usually, if you kind of plug in the typical numbers, you come up with huge numbers of civilizations in the galaxy, but we haven't found any. Why not? So that's the essence of Fermi's question.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And that has to do with looking for them and how many more might be possible if you didn't have to have a moon around?</s>JASON BARNES: Right, right. So there's a hypothesis called the Rare Earth Hypothesis by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee at the University of Washington and, you know, people have been trying to solve Fermi's questions for a long time. Their suggestion was perhaps the obvious solution. Maybe the reason we haven't found any extraterrestrial life is because there isn't any, or there isn't any that's able to contact us.</s>JASON BARNES: And so, if that's true, then somewhere along the line are calculations for how many earthlike habitable worlds that should be out there must be wrong. So they looked through at the various different parts, various different places along the line where the chain might have broken down. For instance, maybe earth-size planets don't form very often or perhaps they get hit by meteorites or asteroids too often that wipes out their life like an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.</s>JASON BARNES: And one of their options was, maybe it's this moon stabilizing the earth's climate that allows life to survive here and that, if you didn't have a moon, then you might have many fewer habitable worlds in the galaxy.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: And your research is saying, well, it might be a little bit different, but not enough to wipe out life on a planet that didn't have a moon?</s>JASON BARNES: Exactly. So calculations for how many planets out there might have earth-size moons - there was a recent paper that suggested there might be maybe one in 12. So maybe 8 percent of planets would have a moon as big as the earth's moon.</s>JASON BARNES: But, you know, our calculations show that without the moon, in our present condition, the earth would certainly go through these 10 degree shifts back and forth. A typical planet, if you just gave it a random spin, probably wouldn't have nearly as large a variation. In fact, if you had just a random orientation for the earth's rotation, its typical variation in the axis tilt would be a lot lower than 10 degrees and, sometimes, lower than even we have with the moon.</s>JASON BARNES: So what we found is that you really don't need a moon to stabilize the earth or to stabilize a typical exosolar planet, I should say, and that probably 80 percent or so of exosolar planets will have this climate stability that we need instead of 8 percent. So that gives you 10 times more habitable planets in the galaxy than we previously thought.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Now, we know that the moon was closer to the earth millions and millions of years ago and it is gradually still moving away from the earth. Would that have an effect on the tilt, again?</s>JASON BARNES: That's a great point, Ira. So, the fact that the moon is slowly moving away means that its effect is slowly shifting over time. So, in the past, when the moon was closer, it was causing earth to earth's axis to precess faster, so the earth has a tilt, but which direction that tilt points changes over time and the earth's axis precesses every 26,000 years.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Like a spinning top does when it's on the table, it sort of rotates.</s>JASON BARNES: Exactly.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah.</s>JASON BARNES: That's a great analogy. And so it's this precession that actually causes what we call the precession of the equinoxes. So the date of the equinox and the solstice keeps shifting around the calendar, so it's about one day later every century. And so that precession rate is what ends up governing whether or not earth's axis tilt remains stable or kind of goes haywire.</s>JASON BARNES: And so, as the moon moves further away, calculations have shown that, in fact, the moon will, as its influence decreases, earth - sometime in the future, probably about a billion and a half years from now - will enter an unstable phase where the moon is no longer able to stabilize earth's axis tilt and we'll probably enter into one of these situations where our axis tilt and the intensity of the seasons changes quite intensely over hundreds of thousands of years.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: That's very interesting. And what got you interested in studying the moon?</s>JASON BARNES: Well, in general, I'm interested in this from the very point that you're talking about, of extraterrestrial habitability. So I'm a collaborator on the NASA mission called Kepler. And this mission is one mere telescope that we launched into space to look for earth-sized planets around other stars for the first time.</s>JASON BARNES: And what's interesting is that we think - we hope - and I think there's every reason to think this will be true - that, in a couple of years, we will have discovered the first earth-sized planet at an earthlike distance from its star, such that we think it should have liquid water on its surface.</s>JASON BARNES: Then the next question is, gosh, should that planet then harbor life? Should that be a habitable planet? And so that's where I came into this. I wondered, gee, if you just took a random planet and set it up with or without a moon, what are its axis tilt variations and would that control whether or not it's habitable, i.e., when we look at a planet out there and Kepler finds a planet in a couple of years, do we have to know whether it has a moon in order to say whether or not it's habitable?</s>JASON BARNES: And so what's interesting about our work is that, although a moon definitely affects the climatic habitability, I don't think you have to necessarily find a moon around a planet in order to know that it might have a stable enough climate to be habitable.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right. Why do you say in a couple of years? It takes that long to sift through all that stuff out there?</s>JASON BARNES: Ah, a great question. So the technique that Kepler is using to find planets is called the transit technique. So it's actually very difficult to just go out with a telescope and take a picture of a planet around another star and the reason for that is that stars are really bright and they're very far away from us, so the planets that are near them are really close to them in the sky. So if you try to take a picture of them, they're sort of washed out by the glare of the star. This has been thought to be like looking for a firefly next to a searchlight from 10 miles away.</s>JASON BARNES: So our technique - we're using a smarter way to find planets and that's where we wait. As the planets orbit around their star, we wait until the planet passes between the star and earth. So essentially then, if you were looking at the star, you'd see the shadow of the planet, so we don't actually see that shadow. We measure how bright the star looks and, when the planet goes in front of the star, the effective brightness or the measured brightness of the star goes down a bit. It's about one percent for a Jupiter-sized planet and .01 percent for an earth-sized planet.</s>JASON BARNES: And so to find these planets - to find an earthlike planet, then it's probably going to be in about a one year orbit. So we want to see at least three transits of the planet so we can be sure that we're really seeing a planet and not some sort of transient activity on a star, star spots, that sort of thing.</s>JASON BARNES: So it's going to take at least, you know, three or four years for us to see these three solid transits and so we launched in March of 2009, so it'll be a couple more years yet before we've gotten enough observing baseline to be able to have seen the three transits of an earth-sized planet and then look through the data and find them and verify that that truly is a planet. So that's why it's going to take a couple years yet before we get an answer.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Well, Professor Barnes, you'll come back and talk about it, won't you, when you do that?</s>JASON BARNES: I sure will, if you'd like.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right. Good. We'll put you on the calendar. Jason Barnes, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Idaho in Moscow. Thank you for your time. Have a good weekend.</s>JASON BARNES: Yeah, it's been fun. Thanks.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: Have a happy holiday. After the break - we're going to take one - we'll talk about the war dividing the solar industry, the result of - you know, all those cheap Chinese solar panels flooding the market? Well, if you have all those panels, that drives down the cost of solar power. On the other hand, it takes away the manufacturing jobs because they're overseas.</s>IRA FLATOW, HOST: We'll talk about the whole debate. You can help talk about it. 1-800-989-8255 is our number. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.

As the master of free jazz, Ornette Coleman's career spans more than five decades. Over that time, he has created a musical world of his own. He talks to Farai Chideya about his unique perspective on the beauty of sound.

FARAI CHIDEYA, host: In 1957, Ornette Coleman seemed to burst on the New York jazz scene. He arrived from the West Coast with a plastic saxophone and a style that caused a firestorm of debate.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: This song, "Lonely Woman," is now considered a Coleman masterpiece, but in the late '50s, it frightened some and angered others. A lot of jazz fans wondered how Coleman maintained his cohesion, creativity and soul while breaking the basic laws of jazz. What's clear today is that Ornette Coleman has his own thing. He's the father of a musical language that he calls harmolodics.</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): It's the scientific form of sound based upon the human emotion of expression that's basically what it is and what it does.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: When you talk to Ornette, you quickly realize that he's in his own space but it's worked for him. He's won the prestigious Macarthur Genius Grant and this year, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Here's my conversation with Ornette Coleman.</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): I'm very grateful to have this honor to speak to you about something that we all carry about which has to do with sound.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: You know, you have just had such an amazing year. What did you think when you first heard about both of those awards?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): I was thinking about how I do I make better music.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So you're not sprung on the titles?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): No. No. I think the music is the only idea that it represents the quality of what it does.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Give me a sense of what one of your days is like when you talk about doing better music, creating better music, what do you do after you wake up in the morning?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Well, usually, I'm trying to make peace with my neighbors.</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Just being human. I'm not doing anything anyone else doesn't do, but I happen to be a composer of music and I'm very dedicated to perfecting that. And for a few years now, I've been getting closer to actually perfecting it, and today is a good opportunity to speak about it.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So you feel as if you are hitting your stride?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Well, I don't know if I'm hitting it, but I know I'm not missing it.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Let's talk a little bit about where you came from. So 50 years ago, you arrived in New York, you've turned the jazz world on its head with songs like "Lonely Woman" and "Congeniality," and people started paying attention to what you were doing, but it wasn't always positive. What kind of reactions did you have to people who praised you but also to those who criticized you?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Well, being human, I think, everybody is entitled to whatever mood they're in at the moment. It doesn't have to stay what way. Even myself sometime, I play notes and I say, well, I like these notes and I pick up my horn and play some (unintelligible) I like these notes better. So being human, I think we are equal in relationship to how to make things better once you have the experience and knowing the (unintelligible) of how they're affecting economic. The quality of being human is tested (unintelligible) what one had experienced growing up and I'm still having that experience.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Give me an example of what you heard growing up. Did you tune into the sounds of everyday life? Did you tune into music? What did you get excited about?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Well, I happen to be (unintelligible) and it has all kinds of qualities I deal with human emotion like hillbilly music, blues, country and western, classical, oh, I grew up in all those kinds of environments. So when I was old enough to ask my mother to - if I could buy (unintelligible), and she said, I could if I make the money. So I went and started shining shoes, better yet, smelling feet and I only had to take my money home and give it to her and one day, she told me to look under the bed and there was the horn and I picked it up and played it.</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): And to thing about it, I don't if I'm good, but I played it almost as good as I'm playing now.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: How do you start a song? Walk me through your creative process.</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Well, I think, the first thing is just acknowledging the human genome. Like imagine all the people at - on earth and I call human. Get up and express something that they are feeling good about or something that they're thinking about, and it's usually done in the form of sound, which ends up being what we call music.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: You use the word human a lot, what does it mean to you specifically?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Well, for one thing is my mama. She was human. And she was really something else. I mean, when I play with my mother, she used to tell me, Junior, I know who you are, so I didn't have to worry about my mother (unintelligible).</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Did you have to take a leap of faith and say, it doesn't matter that no one's doing what I'm doing, I'm going to have to do it myself?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Oh, I never really thought about neither one. I just thought everybody else would like or dislike something and it wouldn't be a matter of what race, what song, what notes. Every skill is not based upon intelligence. And music is not so - something that you have to prove that you know. But you have to prove two things: Are you familiar with sound, and can you make sound with not running everybody out of the room? The blues, they'll use the same sound that the guys dressed in a tuxedo and you could be naked. It's still the same sound. The sound doesn't require the intelligence of art. It requires the resolution of emotion.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Do you think or hope that your audiences have the same emotions that they do when they're listening as you do when you're playing?</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): I'm glad you're asking me that question because usually, they do it while I'm playing and then after I'm finish.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Mr. Coleman, thank you so much for spending some time with us.</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Farai, thank you very much.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Bye.</s>Mr. ORNETTE COLEMAN (Jazz Saxophonist; Composer): Mm-hmm. Bye.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: The one and only Ornette Coleman. He'll be doing a rare performance this week at Royce Hall at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That's our show for today. And thank you for sharing your time with us. To listen to this show or subscribe to our podcast, visit our Web site nprnewsandnotes.org. No spaces, just nprnewsandnotes.org. To join the conversation or sign up for our newsletter, visit our blog at nprnewsandviews.org.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: NEWS & NOTES was created by NPR News and the African American Public Radio Consortium.</s>FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya. This is NEWS & NOTES.