STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Some lawmakers are hoping that this is the year they can resurrect immigration changes. Plenty of other matters squeezed immigration to the side in 2009 - from health care to climate change, to a proposed financial overhaul to the economy itself. Still, immigration has not been forgotten and could make an appearance this year. NPR's Audie Cornish reports from Capitol Hill.
AUDIE CORNISH: The last time President Obama even broached the topic of illegal immigrants before Congress was during his speech on health care, and frankly, things didn't go so well.
BARACK OBAMA: The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
JOE WILSON: You lie.
CORNISH: That was the night South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson made headlines for yelling you lie at the president. Since then, there hasn't been much about the topic out of either the Senate or the House - until now.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHANTING)
CORNISH: Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, vowing to put the issue front and center, have come up with their own proposal for what they call comprehensive immigration reform.
LUIS GUTIERREZ: We turned the other cheek. Just because we've been patient doesn't mean we could wait forever.
CORNISH: But after a conservative backlash sent the last immigration overhaul effort down in flames in 2007, Gutierrez says, he knows what he's up against.
GUTIERREZ: Opponents of immigration reform will use it as a wedge issue and will blame everything, from unemployment to rising health care costs, on immigrants. Of course, why stop at jobs and health care? Global warming? Rough stock market? Bad traffic? Lousy weather? Too many immigrants.
CORNISH: But what Gutierrez calls the blame game, opponents are calling the new economic reality. Republican Steve King of Iowa is already digging in his heels.
STEVE KING: I think the change in the dynamics in this immigration debate is that now instead of a 4.6 percent unemployment rate, we have a 10.1 percent unemployment. So, more than twice as much unemployment. It's clear there are at least eight million jobs in America, today, that are held by people that are here illegally. Those are jobs that Americans can and will do.
CORNISH: But Democrats say they have reasons to be optimistic, because the atmosphere has changed since 2007. First, high unemployment has slowed the flow of illegal immigrants, and Homeland Security officials say security is better than it was back then, with the addition of thousands more border patrol officers and hundreds of miles of new border fencing. Still, the administration isn't planning to make a move until Congress is ready. And Democrats may be more concerned about the midterm elections.
CHARLIE COOK: You may see some Democratic House members just, you know, looking at bridges thinking about jumping off.
CORNISH: That's analyst Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report. He says in the House alone, there are upwards of 60 Democrats in competitive districts. They have already had to take politically tough votes on climate change, health care and the economic stimulus package. Although, he adds, that the partisan battling has left both parties damaged.
COOK: Republicans have to be careful because they come across as anti- Hispanic and immigrant bashing, and Democrats are looking bad because it looks like they're trying to shove too much down the throats of people who are only interested right now in job creation and getting the economy turned around.
CORNISH: Audie Cornish, NPR News, the Capitol.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And now we have a story about what happens when a hobby becomes a mission. Kevin Coombe is a D.J. and a record trader in Washington, D.C. He was preserving the glory of a bygone music scene. NPR's Leah Scarpelli spent a day with him.
LEAH SCARPELLI: Kevin Coombe's record collection numbers in the thousands, filling floor-to-ceiling shelves and small cases around his apartment.
KEVIN COOMBE: There's so many aspects of why people buy records. Some people are just trophy buyers. Some people are straight collectors. Me, I look for all kinds of independent funk and soul stuff that's good for dancing, like, good for parties.
SCARPELLI: He's searches have lead to some really rare stuff, singles from local funk and soul bands mostly recorded in the '60s and '70s.
COOMBE: Often, guys would press up 200, 500 copies of something that they had recorded in someone's studio basement and just, you know, scrap together enough money to put that one 45 out. Then they would drive around with it in their trunk, you know, at shows - give it to people. So it would often never even leave the area.
SCARPELLI: Kevin unearths some of this lost vinyl on eBay, in flea markets and in tiny shops like Som Records in Washington, D.C.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
COOMBE: Yo.
SCARPELLI: The walls are bright orange, plastered with old LPs and 45s. Kevin's a regular to shop owner Neil Becton.
NEIL BECTON: I've got a record for you, actually.
COOMBE: Right, here you go.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BECTON: I think it's - I don't know if it's that rare or expensive, but (unintelligible).
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SCARPELLI: These recordings are from the pre-Google age. If he wanted to find out more about them, Kevin had to do some detective work.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
COOMBE: One of the things that I found was really strange was a group called the Sounds of Shea. And I looked at the record, and there were some names on the record. In this case, one of the names, it was actually pretty accessible, the person. And I went out there and I actually met with the guy, made an appointment and met with him.
SCARPELLI: Another artist Kevin has rediscovered is George Smallwood.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOORS CLOSING)
COOMBE: How you doing George?
GEORGE SMALLWOOD: Hey, okay, come on, come on in, man.
SCARPELLI: George is a blind keyboardist. He's a one-man music machine, and a human encyclopedia of songs.
SMALLWOOD: Name a song off, any song.
SCARPELLI: Name a tune, and he'll play it for you his way.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SMALLWOOD: (Singing) Midnight, something creeping, crawling in the dark. Under the moonlight, something just might reach and steal your heart.
SCARPELLI: Since he met Kevin, George has returned to the music scene.
SMALLWOOD: I say if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be as happy, right?
SCARPELLI: Leah Scarpelli, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LEON GIFFORD: Hi, everybody. My name is Leon Gifford from Washington, D.C. I've got a new dance I want to show you. It's called the Leon...
INSKEEP: You can see photos of the funk bands you just heard at npr.org.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Novelist Margaret Atwood is known for her literary science fiction. And she thinks that in the future we could see a religion that combines religion and science. To understand the prospects for that idea you could begin with a scholar who's looked at the past. Rick Kleffel reports from member station KUSP.
RICK KLEFFEL: Karen Armstrong is a religious scholar who has studied the history of belief. In her latest book, "The Case for God," she looks at the relationship between science and religion. The current conflict between the two, with Darwin's theory of evolution as a flash point, is not in keeping with historical interpretations of scripture.
KAREN ARMSTRONG: Darwin came along and found a natural explanation for life itself. Now, this wouldn't have been a big deal. In the past, Saint Augustine had laid down an important principle that said if a scriptural text contradicts science, you must give it an allegorical interpretation.
KLEFFEL: Atwood believes that science fiction became necessary when the contradictions between objective reality and religious orthodoxy became too difficult to ignore.
MARGARET ATWOOD: Those things that we used to just believe in all the time went to Planet X where they are alive and well. Angels with flaming swords, the burning bush that speaks, you know, all of those really quite science fiction things in the Bible.
KLEFFEL: Karen Armstrong says her research into the history of religion demonstrates that science and religion are two very different kinds of knowledge.
ARMSTRONG: Religion is not answering our scientific questions about how did the world come into being. That's a question for science. Religion is asking us to consider these problems that always occur to human beings: Why is life so filled with pain? What is the nature of happiness? What is the meaning of our mortality?
KLEFFEL: Armstrong sees the role of religion as a guiding force for ethical behavior. Margaret Atwood brings that notion to life in her newest novel, "The Year of the Flood." It's set in a dystopian near future where genetic engineering has ravaged much of the planet. The survivors have created a new religion.
ATWOOD: This group, which is called God's Gardeners, has taken it possibly to an extreme that not everybody will be able to do. They live on rooftops in slums on which they have vegetable gardens. And they keep bees. And they are strictly vegetarian, unless you get really, really hungry, in which case you have to start at the bottom of the food chain and work up. And they make everything out of recycled castoffs and junk. So they're quite strict.
KLEFFEL: Atwood points out that the beginnings of her religion of the future have already appeared in the present.
ATWOOD: Indeed, we now have the Green Bible among us, which I did not know when I was writing this book, which has tasteful linen covers, ecologically correct paper, the green parts in green. Introduction by Archbishop Tutu. And a list at the end of useful things you can do to be a more worthy green person.
KLEFFEL: (Soundbite of song, "Today We Praise Our St. Dian")
ORVILLE STOEBER: (Singing) Today we praise our Saint Dian, whose blood for bounteous life was spilled. Although she interposed her faith, one species more was killed.
KLEFFEL: Atwood's environmentally based religion gets to the core of Armstrong's understanding of faith.
ARMSTRONG: The creation story was therapeutic. It was telling us how to be creative ourselves and, indeed, to keep the cosmos in balance. Men and women and gods had to work together to keep this fragile ecostructure together.
KLEFFEL: Karen Armstrong's philosophical ecosystem is reflected in Atwood's futuristic religion. But even though God's Gardeners feels like a real religion, Margaret Atwood is not ready to step up to the pulpit.
ATWOOD: Well, not quite in the same way that L. Ron Hubbard did. I don't have any adherents yet. But, who knows?
KLEFFEL: For NPR News, I'm Rick Kleffel.
INSKEEP: And you can read Karen Armstrong and Margaret Atwood at Npr.org.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Antonio Douglas works as a manager at the Cactus Car Wash in Atlanta. He spoke at StoryCorps with his employer and friend Frank Lynch.
FRANK LYNCH: When I first met Antonio, he was 270 pounds.
ANTONIO DOUGLAS: Yeah. I always have been kind of bad eater. If it didn't move, I ate it; and if it moved too slow, I ate it.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: Antonio, who's 45 years old, lost some of that weight with the help of surgery and with the help of some teasing from his 70-year-old friend Frank.
LYNCH: One day, I says, look, Antonio, I'd be really embarrassed if an old guy like me could run faster than you can. He was so anxious to get back at me he challenged me to this race. I says, okay, I'll take you up on that. But I tell you what, this race isn't going to be on this car wash lot. What we need to do is we need to go out and rent a small stadium.
DOUGLAS: I had on a tank top that represented NAACP and he had one representing his people - the AARP.
LYNCH: Unfortunately for him, in the first race he was beaten.
DOUGLAS: I had never ran 100 meters in my life. Wasn't no way I was going to beat him.
LYNCH: There was only one person in the stadium that was happier than Antonio, and that was me.
DOUGLAS: Over the years, I think I've learned more from him that any one individual I have met. I don't know where I'd be without him. I just thank God for him.
LYNCH: I think that Antonio Douglas has been one of the important things in my life. Somebody I've been really proud to be associated with and I love him.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: That's Frank Lynch with his friend and employee Antonio Douglas at StoryCorps in Atlanta. Their conversation will be archived with all StoryCorps interviews at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. And you can get the Podcast at NPR.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Mike Shuster reports.
MIKE SHUSTER: President Obama made it clear early in his presidency that containing the spread of nuclear weapons was one of his most important goals. In April in Prague, he outlined a vision of a world without nuclear weapons and committed his administration to pursuing that goal. But at that very moment, North Korea tested a long-range missile and was threatening another underground nuclear test, prompting the president to strike a tough tone about nations that violate the nonproliferation norm.
BARACK OBAMA: Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.
SHUSTER: Only a few weeks later, North Korea did conduct its second underground nuclear explosion. The challenge has also come from Iran. Last fall, Mr. Obama revealed that Iran was building a secret uranium-enrichment facility, sharpening suspicions that Tehran is indeed seeking a covert nuclear weapon's capability. 2009 has been a dismal year for the international regime of nuclear arms control. Or has it, asks Joshua Pollack, who writes for the Web site ArmsControlWonk.com.
JOSHUA POLLACK: One way to look at it a little differently is not that the regime is cracking or that the regime is failing, but that the regime has succeeded in retarding the pace of proliferation and continues to do so, but isn't going to catch everything.
SHUSTER: Since the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945, the past decade has seen the fewest nuclear tests than any comparable period, notes Michael Krepon, president emeritus of the Stimson Center in Washington.
MICHAEL KREPON: Never before have there been so few nuclear tests as in this past decade. This is a norm. It can still be broken. But the country that breaks the norm does not gain points. It loses standing.
SHUSTER: The concerns of the Obama administration are wider than Iran and North Korea. The president also wants to see a dramatic reduction in the number of nuclear warheads deployed by the U.S. and Russia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made that clear in a speech she gave in Washington a few months ago.
HILLARY CLINTON: Clinging to nuclear weapons in excess of our security needs does not make the United States safer. And the nuclear status quo is neither desirable nor sustainable. It gives other countries the motivation - or the excuse - to pursue their own nuclear options.
SHUSTER: The administration concluded the way to pursue those goals is through new arms control negotiations with Moscow, a mechanism largely ignored by the George W. Bush administration.
START: Nonetheless, there is much to be optimistic about, says Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund.
JOE CIRINCIONE: The overall climate is so much improved, and the overall effort to just dramatically reduce nuclear weapons and increase the transparency gives us lots of assurances.
SHUSTER: The U.S. and Russia are still negotiating, but there are some significant problems. For the Russians, the big issue is American missile defenses. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made it clear this week that he sees U.S. missile defenses as a threat to Russia's nuclear deterrent.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Through Translator) Our American partners are building missile defense systems, as is known, and we are not. If we do not develop ABM systems, then a threat appears, because having created such an umbrella, our partners may feel completely protected and will do what they want. Aggressiveness will surge.
SHUSTER: For some arms control advocates and for other nations, that number is still too high and the process far too slow. Michael Krepon says reductions in nuclear warheads must come carefully and incrementally.
KREPON: You don't get to deep cuts in nuclear forces and you don't get to zero, without having a strong, credible nuclear deterrent. If the deterrent is not safe and secure and credible along this long journey, there will be great disruption.
SHUSTER: Mike Shuster, NPR News.
INSKEEP: We made it through a precarious decade. We'll be watching to see what happens in the next. It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
: Tito Puente, Chet Atkins, George Harrison, Nina Simone, Artie Shaw, Michael Jackson, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles. We could go on with names but it's so much better to hear some of the music they left behind.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "OYE COMO VA")
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR")
WILSON PICKETT: (Singing) I'm going to wait till the midnight hour. That's when my love comes tumbling down.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEVER")
PEGGY LEE: (Singing) Never know how much I love you; never know how much I care. When you put your arms around me I get a fever that's so hard to bear. You give me fever.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOUR WOMEN")
NINA SIMONE: (Singing) My skin is black. My arms are long. My hair is wooly. My back is strong.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I FEEL GOOD")
JAMES BROWN: (Singing) Whoa, I feel good. I knew that I would now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA DONNA E MOBILE")
LUCIANO PAVAROTTI: (Singing in foreign language)
JOHNNY CASH: Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FOLSOM PRISON BLUES")
CASH: (Singing) I hear the train a comin'. It's rolling round the bend. And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when. I'm stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps draggin' on.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HIT THE ROAD JACK")
RAY CHARLES: (Singing) Whoa, woman, oh woman, don't treat me so mean. You're the meanest old woman that I've ever seen. I guess if you said so, I'd have to pack my things and go. That's right. Hit the road Jack.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEAT IT")
MICHAEL JACKSON: (Singing) They told him don't you ever come around here. Don't wanna see your face, you better disappear. The fire's in their eyes and their words are really clear so beat it, just beat it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERE COMES THE SUN")
GEORGE HARRISON: (Singing) Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here. Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun, and I say it's alright.
: It's a morning of transition, a morning of change. And you can find a more complete timeline of the musical losses of the past decade by going to NPR Music.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF "HERE COMES THE SUN")
HARRISON: (Singing) Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces. Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here. Here comes the sun...
: This is NPR News.
NPR: Uganda was once ranked as the world's number one consumer of alcoholic beverages. Some Ugandans dispute that distinction, which came from the World Health Organization, but all concede that alcohol is a problem. NPR's Gwen Thompkins traveled to the capital Kampala and reports on the many varieties of potent home brews.
GWEN THOMPKINS: Sheila Ndyanabangi is a medical officer in the nation's Ministry of Health. She says there've been at least 50 deaths this year.
SHEILA NDYANABANGI: People brew in their home. People brew in their garden. People brew in some garage somewhere. And they have no means for testing how much alcohol is in the product they have produced. And then they go on to sell it directly to the people to consume.
THOMPKINS: Ndyanabangi is working on a new alcohol policy to better regulate the entire industry. Beer manufacturers here say that consumption of the local brews is four times what they sell. And local brewers often boost their drinks with beer or marijuana, or the same stuff that goes into race cars at the Indianapolis 500.
NDYANABANGI: Methanol, the alcohol, or alcohol, methanol. And some of them who don't die are blind, and they remained blind.
THOMPKINS: How would you be blind?
NDYANABANGI: Blind in the eyes, the methanol - they pump very high levels of methanol now, so it will kind of kill the optic nerve
THOMPKINS: They came here looking for jobs. And they've ended up in the chaos of this open latrine, doing exactly what they were doing up north. Florence Adong makes her brews in big oil drums.
FLORENCE ADONG: (Through Translator) That it doesn't take me long, because I'm used to it. In a day, I can make two drums, in the morning and in the evening.
THOMPKINS: Moses Musisi says many locals are masterful at making delicious brews, and he should know. As Uganda's first brewmaster, Musisi has a keen palette. He works for a multinational brewing company here.
MOSES MUSISI: You'll also find that there are families who have been brewing for over generations, as well. The knowledge is being passed on from person to person, from one person to another, to the children, like that.
THOMPKINS: Unidentified Man: Take on those lives which seem especially significant to you and leave the rest behind. What is said here, stays here. Please respect the privacy of each person and what they have to say.
THOMPKINS: For NPR News, I'm Gwen Thompkins.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Don Gonyea has details.
DON GONYEA: Don Gonyea, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Unidentified Group: ...two, one.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AULD LANG SYNE")
INSKEEP: The sound of the Bad Plus, playing at the moment of New Year's in New York City.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
The consensus among leading economists, for what it's worth, is 2.7 percent growth this year - not so great, not horrible. That's the forecast. NPR's Planet Money team has been studying just how the business of economic forecasting works and how much it can actually tell you about the future. Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg report.
ADAM DAVIDSON: The closest thing to a modern day financial oracle is probably a computer program that lives in St. Louis, Missouri. That's where the offices of Macroeconomic Advisors are located, one of the leading economic forecasters in America. Joel Prakken, the man who created the computer program, showed us on a computer screen how it works.
JOEL PRAKKEN: Okay. So you should see on the screen various components of consumer spending on services. Are you seeing that?
DAVIDSON: The basic idea here is pretty simple. Take economic data from the past and use it to predict what will happen in the future. That's where Prakken comes in. For the past 28 years, he's been figuring out the exact relationships between different kinds of economic activity.
ALEX BLUMBERG: If average salaries go up by, say, four percent, how many more cars will people buy with their new, bigger salaries? What will all that spending do to the inflation rate, and what will the inflation rate do to home sales? And how will home sales, in turn, affect salaries? It's all connected, and Joel has written down exactly how it's all connected in a series of equations.
PRAKKEN: If we scroll down a little bit further to look at some of the equations of ours...
BLUMBERG: Oh, boy.
PRAKKEN: Yeah, okay. So here is an equation - yeah...
BLUMBERG: Oh, my God. Whoa, it gets worse every day.
PRAKKEN: It does get worse.
BLUMBERG: Now, I just want to point out, also, so this one page here, there are - what? I'm looking at the 400...
PRAKKEN: You're on page 49 of 447.
DAVIDSON: Four-hundred-and-forty-seven pages of really dense math equations. That's how you forecast the economy. Well, that's how you try to forecast the economy. Prakken says there are lots of difficulties, and getting the math right is only one of them. Consider what goes into his computer model: the data.
BLUMBERG: Most of Prakken's data comes from the government, the BEA, the Bureau of Economic Analysis. He's only now getting data for third quarter 2009. That means he's getting now data for what happened three months ago. And even now, the BEA still calls it an estimate.
PRAKKEN: What's called the final estimate for third quarter GDP.
BLUMBERG: Wait. They have to estimate what happened three months ago?
PRAKKEN: Well...
BLUMBERG: They can't even get a firm number of what happened in the past?
PRAKKEN: Well, they make three - well, they make - they make many estimates of what happened in the previous quarter.
DAVIDSON: So many estimates. Let's take the quarter that just ended: fourth quarter 2009. We'll get the first estimate of what happened in a few weeks. The second estimate will come a month later, and then a third estimate a month after that. Then in July, they'll do another estimate, and a year after that another estimate and the year after that, another estimate.
BLUMBERG: I just want to point out, we're calling you to ask what 2010 is going to be like, and what I'm hearing is if we're lucky, by summertime you can tell us what 2007 was like.
PRAKKEN: Well, if we're lucky, by July of this year, we'll have our first true annual estimate of what 2009 was like. We'll have our second true annual estimate of what 2008 was like, and we'll have our third true annual estimate of what 2007 was like.
BLUMBERG: And you're not even telling us, when we actually know?
PRAKKEN: You know, you never know for sure I think is the answer, here.
BLUMBERG: They just give up guessing.
DAVIDSON: So the data's an estimate. The model is an approximation. The end result: economic forecasters, even the best, have a mixed record forecasting the economy.
BLUMBERG: On average, the leading forecasters, like Prakken's Macroeconomic Advisors, have around a one percentage point margin of error, which might sound pretty good. But let's say you forecast a two percent growth rate for the year. That means you're saying the actual rate will be somewhere between one percent and three percent.
DAVIDSON: Now those are two totally different economies. One percent, that doesn't even keep up with population growth. That's a bad year. Unemployment will go up. It'll feel bad in the U.S. Three percent is the opposite, a pretty good year.
BLUMBERG: So the forecasters, at best, can say the economy will be somewhere between bad and good. And at worst, well, they missed something huge. Economic forecasters failed to predict the 1982 recession or the 1984 recovery or the late 1990 stock bubble or the 2001 recession.
DAVIDSON: Just last year, in January 2008, we now know we were already in the worst recession in decades, but economic forecasters were predicting a good, healthy economy for the rest of the year. They missed the present and were disastrous at predicting the future.
SIMON JOHNSON: You know, economic forecasting is inherently an impossible task.
BLUMBERG: Economist Simon Johnson is with MIT and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He used to run the economic forecasts at the International Monetary Funds.
JOHNSON: Between now and the end of next year, the world will be hit by three major shocks, probably.
DAVIDSON: You mean that's just on average over the last century or whatever, there's...
JOHNSON: Yes, exactly. Stuff happens. Okay? You know, the thing you're studying is subject to so much chaos in a mathematical sense, so much randomness, and so making any forecast is going - inherently got this problem.
BLUMBERG: Economic forecasting is big business. Any large company you can think of spends millions a year trying to get a handle on what's coming. So why are all these serious business people spending so much money on forecasts that they surely know are not all that reliable? Again, Simon Johnson.
JOHNSON: I would call it a necessary evil. There's so much imprecision. There's so much, you know, lagging in terms of our updating, that in some sense, we'd be better off without forecasts. We'd better off, you know, making up our minds afresh every day. But the problem is the businesses, the institutions, all involve thinking about the future and planning for the future. And you can't do that without taking a view of the future.
DAVIDSON: Someone at Ford Motor Company has to decide: How much steel do we buy this year? Pension funds have to figure out: Where will we invest our money?
BLUMBERG: Schools have to decide how much tuition to charge. And governments have to out how much they'll spend on road repairs.
DAVIDSON: In everyone of these decisions, someone has to take a view about what is going to happen, even if they know that view is probably not quite right
BLUMBERG: I'm Alex Blumberg.
DAVIDSON: And I'm Adam Davidson, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Oh, my goodness. Years ago, college football's bowl season used to end on New Year's Day. Not even close anymore. Beginning today, 14 bowl games will be played over the next week, ending next Thursday with the national championship game. Commentator John Feinstein joins us now to discuss all the bowls, the major and the not-so major. Hi, John.
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Good morning, Steve. Happy New Year.
INSKEEP: Thank you. Happy New Year to you. Five so-called major bowls, the ones that make up the Bowl Championship Series, but a bunch of others still to go as well.
FEINSTEIN: Yeah, exactly. Only two of the BCS bowls will be played today among the five bowls. The Rose Bowl, which, thank goodness, is still played on New Year's Day. They don't move that one around because it is the granddaddy of them all. And then the Sugar Bowl will be played tonight. But the other three BCS bowls are stretched out across the week, as you said, ending with the Alabama-Texas national championship game.
INSKEEP: And along the way we also get to see the PapaJohns.com Bowl and lots of other very important bowls.
FEINSTEIN: The list is endless. I mean, imagine going to the International Bowl in Toronto as a reward for a good season, which will happen with South Florida and Northern Illinois tomorrow.
INSKEEP: Now, with that said, I mean, we can mock this. It's excessive. It goes on forever. But there are some dramatic storylines in some of these bowl games.
FEINSTEIN: You also have Bobby Bowden coaching in his final game at the age of 80 in the Gator Bowl. That's certainly a story people are going to be watching. And the Rose Bowl is a Rose Bowl. If there's one bowl game I will watch, Steve, if it was Columbia versus Dartmouth, it would be the Rose Bowl.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
FEINSTEIN: And that's no putdown of Columbia or Dartmouth. I just want to say that for the record.
INSKEEP: Ok. Fine. Fine. Just because it is the real thing, it's got such tradition and it's a beautiful setting usually.
FEINSTEIN: It doesn't have a corporate name stuck on the beginning of it. Thank God for that. It's the Rose Bowl. And you're right. The setting is extraordinary.
INSKEEP: Now, the Fiesta Bowl comes up on Monday, and that's gotten a lot of attention because of the teams in a game.
FEINSTEIN: Yes. It's being referred to by a lot of football people as the ghetto bowl, because TCU, out of the Mountain West Conference and non-BCS conference, and Boise State, out of the WAC, another non-BCS conference...
INSKEEP: Can I just say that's the Western Athletic Conference, you're not saying they're whack. But go on, go on.
FEINSTEIN: They say go play one another. Leave us alone. Take your money and we hope you never go undefeated again.
INSKEEP: And very briefly, John Feinstein, what about the national championship game?
FEINSTEIN: Well, Alabama dominated Florida in the SEC Championship game. Texas was lucky to beat Nebraska. I think most of us expect Alabama to win this game. I don't actually see any reason why that would change. Although, Texas pulled a huge upset the last time it played for the national championship, beating USC five years ago.
INSKEEP: John, thanks very much.
FEINSTEIN: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: Comments from John Feinstein. And if you can't get enough of him here, go to his blog Feinsteinonthebrink.com.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's business news starts with a cable television truce.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: You don't want to get between football fans and their television.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Unidentified Man: There comes a time when you know you got to make a change.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADVERTISEMENT)
DUSTIN DWYER: Unidentified Woman #1: Oh, this one's bad: Worst excuse for pizza I've ever had.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADVERTISEMENT)
DWYER: Unidentified Woman #3: Totally void of flavor.
DWYER: If you happened to like the old Domino's, too bad. The new recipe took over nationwide earlier this week. Pizza lover Adam Kuban says it is an improvement. Kuban is founder of the pizza blog SliceNY.com. He says even though he enjoys the tangier sauce and seasoned crust, he's not sure the average customer will care.
ADAM KUBAN: I don't necessarily know if people are going to reevaluate it and think it's that significant of a difference.
DWYER: For NPR News, I'm Dustin Dwyer in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Gloria Hillard reports.
GLORIA HILLARD: On the edge of this industrial warehouse neighborhood of Los Angeles, is a block-long street lined with small houses. In the middle of the block, a graying wood plank sign advertises Bait & Tackle. Another hand painted sign welcomes newcomers to Worm City, population 90 million. It's an old sign. The town has grown.
FRED RHYME: I keep 120 million worms on hand all the time to ship about 25,000 square feet of worms.
HILLARD: In a baseball hat, Hawaiian shirt and tennis shoes, Worm City's unofficial mayor, Fred Rhyme, is giving me a tour of his makeshift town. He's pointing out the tan cottages that are home to his worms, and I'm thinking, at least they're quiet neighbors.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
RHYME: I do raise crickets too.
HILLARD: And the Madagascar hissing cockroaches, more on those popular reptile treats later because for Fred Rhyme, it all began with worms.
RHYME: I grew up in Minnesota and I used to go behind a farmer when he (unintelligible) fields, behind the plow and pick up the worms. And I'd take them and sell them to a fishing tackle store.
HILLARD: Fred shows me a huge plastic tray with thousands of the wiggly caramel-colored mealworms, his super worms, as he likes to call them. They're raised on whole wheat and cactus. Fred scoops up two handfuls.
RHYME: I like to play with them. I always have ever since a little kid I like worms.
HILLARD: Moving outside and down the block, I hear a familiar chirping.
RHYME: All these buildings here are in crickets. I'll show you one of them.
HILLARD: In large troughs, tens of thousands of crickets crawl through what looks like a colony of egg carton. Next door is home to thousands of hissing Madagascar cockroaches who seem to be pretty quiet right now. At adult stage, they're about two inches long with black legs and amber-colored bodies. To get them to hiss you have to rub their stomachs. They kind of sound like aerosol spray cans.
(SOUNDBITE OF COCKROACH HISSING)
HILLARD: Fred runs the business with his wife, Betty, who prefers sitting in the main office behind the desk.
BETTY RHYME: I love them but I don't go near them.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
HILLARD: Fred's here six days a week. It keeps him young he says. And I asked him how he came up with the name Rainbow Mealworms for his business...
RHYME: Well, when I was a little kid, my mother always told me there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so I used to get on my bicycle with a shovel and go try and get to the end of the rainbow and I'd dig and never no gold.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
HILLARD: But he did find worms.
RHYME: You're right. I never thought of it that way.
HILLARD: For NPR News, I'm Gloria Hillard.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
As of today, restaurants in California may no longer use partially hydrogenated or vegetable oil, also known as trans fats. Many cities across the country have banned this oil, but California is the first entire state to do so. Trans fats have been found in studies to be unhealthy and bad for your heart. Most restaurants and fast food chains have already switched to Canola or other oils. So if you have a New Year's bunch today in California, you can almost feel healthy when you order french fries or donuts - almost healthy.
INSKEEP: And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
We're learning more about this week's suicide bombing in Eastern Afghanistan. According to the Associated Press and other news sources, the bomber was being courted as a potential informant. He was invited to the American base, showed up wearing an Afghan army uniform and then blew himself up, a bombing that killed seven CIA agents and came at a time when the Americans are beefing up both their military and civilian presence in the country. To talk about the effects of this attack, we turn to John Dempsey. He is head of the office of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Kabul. We've reached him on this New Year's Day in London. Welcome to the program, Sir.
JOHN DEMPSEY: Thanks for having me on.
INSKEEP: What effects do you think this bombing is likely to have?
DEMPSEY: Well, I mean, certainly it's troubling news, to have this occur right now, but I don't think it's going to have major repercussions for the U.S. effort in Afghanistan, given the increased attention in the civilian surge that we've all been hearing about for sometime, that's going to go forward. There is no question. But certainly, having something like this happen, is going to be problematic.
INSKEEP: Well, I suppose there are short-term effects to an attack like this which is simply the tragedy of the loss of life and also the loss of experience in intelligence of some key CIA officers, but there is also the somewhat longer term effects of how it is perceived by people, how it changes people's perceptions? What can an attack like this do in making people think about the situation in Afghanistan?
DEMPSEY: Well, I mean, I think you raise a good point. And there have been problems trying to attract people to come to Afghanistan, to work in an environment that's unstable, potentially unsafe. And having something like this happen is going to probably make some people rethink whether the risk is worth actually coming out to do this type of work.
INSKEEP: Now, one reason we wanted to call you is because, although this base was used by the CIA, CIA officers were targeted - it was also used by civilians who are part of the so-called provincial reconstruction team, who were in one of the roughest parts of the country, trying to do some work. What do those teams do?
DEMPSEY: Well, there are provincial reconstruction teams throughout Afghanistan, not only in some of the more unsafe areas, and essentially what they do is go out and provide development assistance to Afghans in the respective areas of the country. And they are attached to military bases, which has raised a number of questions, since the whole PRT concept started about five or six years ago, with people asking, is it worth having the military being involved in these types of endeavors? And some Afghans, I think, are questioning whether or not the whole PRT concept is actually worthwhile. And some look at them with skepticism, saying having the military involved in development work is blurring the line between fighting a war and trying to reconstruct a country.
INSKEEP: You're saying that people in Afghanistan find it confusing to have Americans coming off the same fortified base and some of them bring guns and are killing people and others bring money and are trying to fix things.
DEMPSEY: Well, exactly. That's the tension that's existed since the PRT concept started. It's something we've been grappling with, and what happened this week in Khost province is certainly not going to help relieve that tension by any means.
INSKEEP: Mr. Dempsey, I want to broaden beyond Khost and look at the whole country over the next several months, as more and more U.S. troops are coming into the country as hoped, at least, that more civilians will come as well. What are one or two things that those civilians could do that would quickly make a difference in Afghanistan?
DEMPSEY: Well, it really depends which part of the country we're talking about. But I think there are a couple of universal principles that can guide how the U.S. civilian increase is going to make a positive impact. And those things include getting out and talking to communities. If the civilian increase leads to people coming into PRTs or other types of Western bases where they are not allowed interact with the Afghan communities in which they are working for security reasons, the incident that happened in Khost is not going to do anything to increase people's ability to get out and about - and interact with communities in which they are working.
INSKEEP: John Dempsey heads the office of the U.S. Institute of Peace in Kabul. Thanks very much.
DEMPSEY: Thanks for having me.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Right now we hear from Minneapolis, Minnesota. That's where trumpeter Irvin Mayfield brought his New Orleans-inspired jazz to a crowd at a club called The Dakota.
IRVIN MAYFIELD: From one end of the Mississippi River to the other, my name is Irvin Mayfield.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
MAYFIELD: We're going to bring this New Year in right. Let's make some noise and show them what a real New Year is. Make some noise.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
INSKEEP: And if it was cold in Minneapolis, Mr. Mayfield was not going to let the radio audience know.
MAYFIELD: A butt-naked crowd in Minneapolis right now.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: Let's go next to the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, where we are told that people were fully clothed and ringing in the New Year with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, a group whose big band sound inspired some audience members to get out of their seats.
AUDIENCE: Three, two, one...
SCOTTY MORRIS: Happy New Year.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AULD LANG SYNE")
INSKEEP: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in Los Angeles, one of the acts heard across the U.S. on Toast of the Nation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AULD LANG SYNE")
INSKEEP: We're starting another year of MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Sports fans in Boston do not need to spend this New Year's Day watching football, because they have an alternative at Boston's Fenway Park. The old baseball stadium will be hosting an outdoor hockey game. Gemma Hooley spent some time watching preparations for the Winter Classic.
GEMMA HOOLEY: Dan Craig is the National Hockey League's ice man. For the last couple of weeks, he and his crew have been turning the green grass of Fenway Park into a perfect sheet of ice.
DAN CRAIG: Ask (unintelligible) where there might be a squeegee and grab one of the guys and put some pretty good water down here. See this air pocket here. Well, all that will happen is that will turn white. That will just turn into frost if we don't get the water right through it.
HOOLEY: Staging this match up between the Bruins and the Flyers took 20,000 gallons of water, 3,000 gallons of coolant and 350 gallons of white paint. And if patience came in gallons, there'd be thousands of those, too. Craig's son Mike is on a nine man crew spraying water to build ice.
MIKE CRAIG: Basically, you want to build layers and build it thin so each layer has a chance to bond to the layer below it. And you build a solid, thick dense sheet that way. It takes a very long time. I have to be very patient.
HOOLEY: The pipes run through the stadium and out onto the street where they're connected to a refrigeration truck.
RICHARD BEER: You're basically standing in a refrigeration engine room.
HOOLEY: Engineer Richard Beer and his team constantly adjust the ice temperature.
BEER: Step over here I'll show you something. The NHL has asked for a 25 degree set point, ok? Now, right now we're 17 degrees. That's in part to do with the wind chill, ok? So we're way below temperature. This machine will not start until we get about 25 degrees. About a half a degree above set point and this machine comes online.
HOOLEY: While the ice crew freezes water on the rink, Don Renzulli is trying to figure out how to unfreeze water in Fenway Park's plumbing system.
DON RENZULLI: These buildings are not winterized. It's like a summerhouse on the lake. You close it up and go away.
HOOLEY: Renzulli heads up events for the hockey league. He has to get this near century old summer stadium ready for 37,000 fans in the middle of winter. So aside from juggling TV crews, pyrotechnics, video boards and plane flyovers, he also has a long list of seasonal worries.
RENZULLI: How do we pour soda and water and beer? How can we move product around come game day? People just show up and they think it's going to be a cold beer, bathrooms are going to have water.
HOOLEY: Meanwhile, Dan Craig is checking the weather forecast more often than a sailor on the high seas. He can outwit Mother Nature's thermostat with refrigeration techniques, but he can't control what comes from the sky.
CRAIG: We've got the wind, the air temperature, Doppler radar. We know what's coming up. We know where everything's going. And we have a system in the ice surface so I can read below the surface, on top of the surface, air temperature, humidity. And it updates every 15 minutes.
HOOLEY: For NPR News, I'm Gemma Hooley.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Ofeibea, Happy New Year.
OFEIBEA QUIST: And to you, too. Greetings from sunny Abuja.
INSKEEP: Indeed. Thank you. Thank you. What are Nigerians saying about this arrest?
QUIST: This story is all over the papers, all over the media and it's the talk of the town. Why should this happen now? Why should Nigeria, which is trying to rebrand itself and improve its global image, have to deal with this crisis right now?
INSKEEP: What have you been able to learn about the young man's family?
QUIST: And his father reported their misgivings - the family's misgivings that the young man seemed to be changing, that his behavior was out of character. Reported it to security agencies, not only here in Nigeria, but we're told, to the U.S. embassy here and to security agencies in two continents - the U.S. and in Saudi Arabia. So many questions are being asked how come this happened - allegedly happened.
INSKEEP: Do you have a better sense of the young man's links to terror groups as his behavior seemed to be changing there?
QUIST: But many Nigerians are now questioning, do we have terror cells operating here? This is a country that has a strong Muslim tradition and half the population is Muslim. Are our young people being radicalized and are they being radicalized here?
INSKEEP: Just so we understand the context though, because you've been in Nigeria many times and you mention it's half Muslim, half Christian, how well are Muslims integrated into the country in Nigeria?
QUIST: You know, Christians and Muslims and animists have lived side by side, coexisted mainly well together, have lived together and got along together and lived in the same communities. But there has been sporadic violence between the two communities that has led to hundreds of deaths over the past ten or more years. So there have been problems. But nobody has really thought of it of having been imposed from elsewhere, either Islamic or Christian. It's been amongst Nigerians.
INSKEEP: Ofeibea, thanks very much.
QUIST: Always a pleasure.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
If you've had trouble coming up with a list of New Year's Resolutions this year, you might find some inspiration at the Louvre. The Paris museum has an exhibit devoted entirely to the theme of lists and why they're so important. Eleanor Beardsley sent us this report.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Italian writer Umberto Eco calls the list the origin of culture. He says humans attempt to grasp the incomprehensible through things like catalogs, dictionaries and museum collections. We like lists because we don't want to die, says Eco, who has devoted his latest book, "The Infinity of Lists," to the theme. Under Eco's tutelage, the Louvre Museum has put together a program of concerts, conferences and an exhibit devoted to role of the list in art, literature and culture. Marie-Laure Bernadac is the chief curator of the art exhibit.
MARIE: There's this kind of obsession in the list, because a list is never exhaustive. Sometimes they actually think that the method and the regularity of the list will help to control the chaos of emotion, of what is special of life.
BEARDSLEY: Bernadac says the Louvre has found lists and hieroglyphics on ancient pieces of Egyptian art. The list, she says, appears from the very beginning of humanity as soon as man was able to write.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "BOLERO")
BEARDSLEY: James Joyce and Homer used lists, and composer Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" is an example of a list in music, says Eco, who describes it as going on forever. Speaking at the Louvre in December, Eco drew a distinction between practical lists and poetic lists.
UMBERTO ECO: (Foreign language spoken)
BEARDSLEY: As he read from Renaissance writer Rabelais' list of fouls, fishes, serpents and wild beasts, Eco said the poetic list doesn't really have to exist, but should be tasted for its own sensations and read like a mantra.
ECO: (Through Translator) The practical list, like the phone book, can also be read like a poetic list. It all depends on your intentions. If you ask me what book I'd bring on a desert island, it would be the phone book, because with all those millions of names, I could invent stories and characters in unlimited quantities and combinations.
BEARDSLEY: Such ideas are a bit esoteric for some of the Louvre's New Year's Eve visitors. Frenchman Philip Von Temps(ph) says lists may help you remember things, but they stifle creativity.
PHILIP VON TEMPS: (Through Translator) The human being should not need a list because he should try to create his day as it comes. Lists impose codes on us and keep us from dreaming.
BEARDSLEY: Duwan Ramos(ph) a visiting art student from Puerto Rico, says memory is his list. Ramos says he carries around in his mind the places he's gone and the people he's known.
DUWAN RAMOS: It's kind of a circle. It never ends. Your list just refreshes itself and you take some things out and you put some things in. But it's always the same thing. It never ends.
BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
If it's true that all politics is local, the United States has to consider the local politics of Iran. Americans want to persuade or pressure Iran to give up nuclear enrichment. And they're doing that in a moment when Iran has been consumed by confrontations between Iran's rulers and street protesters. Iran analyst Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations has been considering the opportunities and the risks for the United States.
RAY TAKEYH: The opportunities: They may be more pragmatic on the nuclear issue in order to mitigate international pressures in order to deal with their domestic political situation. That's potentially an opportunity, although a difficult one.
INSKEEP: So those are the risks and opportunities for the Obama administration, and in the midst of these increasingly violent protests and responses, the president made a statement this week. Let's listen.
BARACK OBAMA: For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights. Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality even on solemn occasions and holy days. And each time that has happened, the world has watched with deep admiration for the courage and the conviction of the Iranian people.
INSKEEP: What effect, if any, does that statement appear to have had inside Iran?
TAKEYH: Well, it is a statement that I think for the first time the president even used the word tyranny to describe the Islamic Republic. It demonstrates the fact that the United States still has its human rights commitments, and to some extent, it allies the United States with the forces that seek democratic change.
INSKEEP: Although, let's think about this. You have these opposition forces who say they are patriotic Iranians who want to reclaim their country or even reclaim the Islamic Revolution, and they're being denounced by the government, who will call them periodically agents of imperialists, agents of the Americans. Does it actually damage the demonstrators in some way to have the president's vocal support?
TAKEYH: I don't think so. I think we're past the time and place where the theocratic regime can defame its opponents as members of the fifth column, as members of those who are being manipulated by the outside. That kind of a rhetoric may have an impact on those who already support the regime, whatever percentage of the population that is. But for vast majority of Iranian people, that sort of rhetoric is rather ineffective.
INSKEEP: Can the United States do more than issue statements in a situation like this?
TAKEYH: I think issuing statements and declaring publicly the unacceptable nature of the Iranian regime's conduct is sufficient in of itself, if it's done systematically. I don't know if you can do the things that were done, for instance, with the Polish solidarity group, where the United States, through Catholic Church and the labor unions, did much to embolden and empower and - the activities of solidarity...
INSKEEP: Oh, solidarity in Poland when they were...
TAKEYH: Yeah.
INSKEEP: ...battling Soviet domination. They had Lech Walesa. They had a charismatic leader.
TAKEYH: Yes, that's right. That sort of a thing is not obvious in Iran at this particular point, but mere rhetorical support, if it's done persistently, I think is a - in of itself - an important gesture.
INSKEEP: Ray Takeyh is at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of the book, "Hidden Iran." Thanks very much.
TAKEYH: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
You need not start the new year with a dated vocabulary. Luckily, Lake Superior State University announced its annual List of Words to be Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. That list includes the phrase shovel-ready, which dug its own grave during the stimulus debate. The list also bans czar, tweet and app. Now all we need is a language czar to tweet the death of these shovel-ready words. You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
While just about everybody is focused on Tiger Woods, there are legions of other golfers out there dusting off their clubs for a round or two before the end of the holidays. And if you happen to be playing on a course that's surrounded by houses, NPR's Rob Sachs has this advice.
ROB SACHS: Just the other day I heard this unfortunate golfing story from my cousin Todd Sachs.
Mr. TODD SACHS: I think I was 12 at the time, clearly not a good golfer but trying to improve my game so I was having a round by myself. I'm at the T, I hit a shot.
SACHS: And then things got costly.
Mr. SACHS: I hit it 30 yards straight and then it turns a sharp left and goes about a 100 yards to the left. Just a wicked golf shot, and then all of a sudden I hear this enormous crash.
(Soundbite of glass breaking)
SACHS: Unlucky for Todd, and yet even more unfortunate for the homeowner who had just lost a sliding glass door. The whole affair brought up an interesting question though, was Todd's horrible shot just a fluke or is this a real hazard for those who chose to live with a fairway view? I decided to call someone with a little bit of golf know-how. Sixty-two-time PGA Tour champion, accomplished course designer and fabled lemonade and iced tea drinker, Arnold Palmer.
Mr. ARNOLD PALMER (PGA Tour Champion): It is something that is an occasion, but rarely really happens to the point of causing any real serious problems.
SACHS: Well, that's what Arnie might say, but Jack Guida who lives by the ninth hole of the Emerald Isle Golf Course in Oceanside, California has a different story.
Mr. JACK GUIDA: I would say we get hit at least once a day.
SACHS: Guida says he takes every precaution available to protect his house from errant projectiles.
Mr. GUIDA: I'm concerned about my grandson who plays, sometimes he comes over and he wants to play in the backyard and I often make him wear a bike helmet.
SACHS: So, clearly, it's a hazard to live by a golf course but should it be a financial burden as well? I asked Emerald Isle's golf pro Jeff Sampson.
Mr. JEFF SAMPSON (Professional Golfer, Emerald Isle Golf Course): The golfer's ultimately responsible.
SACHS: Aha.
Mr. SAMPSON: If you can catch him.
SACHS: Oh. While Jack Guida's exterior armament has been successful in keeping his own house safe, he once had to chase down an 18-year-old guy who smashed his neighbor's window. In both cases, Todd and the 18-year-old kid paid up. Well, in Todd's case, his parents forked over the few hundred dollars in repair costs. Many times, it's the golf course's residents who are stuck with the bill. Jack Guida says homeowners need to be realistic.
Mr. GUIDA: You don't want balls to hit your house, don't live on a golf course.
SACHS: As for not hitting that horrible T shot in the first place, I wonder what would Arnold Palmer do.
Mr. PALMER: The advice I would give them is go see the local pro, so they can hit it straight.
For NPR News, I'm Rob Sachs.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: This is NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
For the last two decades, a slouching tripping beats has defined certain stylish neighborhoods in Miami, Paris and Berlin.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: Today, this is an international sound that's widely imitated. But you can trace the origin of trip hop music back to Bristol, England, and the band, Massive Attack.
(Soundbite of song, �Unfinished Sympathy�)
MASSIVE ATTACK (Group): (Singer) I know that I've been mad in love before and how it could be with you�
SHAPIRO: This was a single from the band's recording debut in 1991. Now Massive Attack is about to release its first album in seven years, called �Heligoland.� As in previous recordings, "Heligoland" is full of guest vocalists and instrumentalists, but the band itself has shrunk from a trio to a duo. Robert Del Naja, who goes by D, and Grant Marshall, or G, spoke with me from their studios in Bristol. Del Naja told me the band's approach to music today is very different from the early years, when they co-opted everything they heard around them.
Mr. ROBERT DEL NAJA (Frontman, Massive Attack): We were, you know, the kings of thieves in our neighborhood. We took some of the best, sort of like, bits of other people's music and build them, or rebuild them into new songs. And that was the fun part of it that kind of - the anarchy of taking and sort of remodeling, remaking, you know, dismantling and rebuilding. And we work in a very different way now.
SHAPIRO: Is there any sampling at all in this album?
Mr. NAJA: We sampled ourselves. In the sense, you know, you would get a drummer to play something, you might instruct him to play in certain way and then he takes loops of that. So you edit in same way by using small loops of a part, as opposed to sampling, say something, from an obscure 70's funk tune, for instance.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. NAJA: I think all the tracks, even the very acoustic drum tracks on the record are being very loops. If you listen to �Pray for Rain,� the toms on that have a very loop - looping feel. Obviously, that was a session we did in the studio.
(Soundbite of song, �Pray for Rain�)
MASSIVE ATTACK: (Singing) A system failure you left behind, and their necks crane. As they turn to pray for rain, and their necks crane.
SHAPIRO: Do you often start with the drums or where does a song begin to take shape?
Mr. GRANT MARSHALL (Member, Massive Attack): Some can start from, you know, a multitude of places, you know, with the words, with the vocal, with the - sort of a simple riff on guitar, for instance, drums and base are very essential theme, or a very essential theme, you know, music. Historically, Bristol is a very bass-heavy city, you know, very influenced by the reggae music of its past.
SHAPIRO: You say, Bristol is a very base heavy city. So much of your music is tied to a scene in Bristol that you've largely helped to create. For American radio listeners, describe what the music scene is like in Bristol and how that informs the music you make?
Mr. MARSHALL: Yeah. We - you know, Bristol is the setting for us, it's the -where our history lies, but we've traveled everywhere. I think our music has always been about collision of cultural ideas, we've never, sort of, trolled through the same space to find music.
SHAPIRO: Why have you stayed in Bristol? You know, a lot of people in your fields take route in Berlin, Paris, London?
Mr. MARSHALL: Bristol is a lovely place, you know. And to be honest, it's never case of us, you know, wanting to, you know, leave our friends and family to go in search of something that we already had in Bristol. So, as far as we're concerned, you know, Bristol was the center of the world.
SHAPIRO: Tell me about the fourth track on this album, �Girl I Love You.� It sounds like they're almost a Middle-Eastern influences in that number there.
Mr. NAJA: I think we've always been very intrigued with Middle-Eastern influence. I mean, it's clear, for music comes from the region and it's very immersive.
(Soundbite of song, �Girl I Love You�)
MASSIVE ATTACK: (Singing) It's hard to tell that your love exists but I know this one is for real.
SHAPIRO: Not being a musician, I'm sure I misidentifying this, but it almost sound like Indian ragas, like there are horns. What exactly is going on in this song?
Mr. MARSHALL: It's like they're all in the same family.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. NAJA: It's a song of cultural confusion and disorientation, which is always great if you capture that. That's for we've always been about, you know, a collision of our days and cultures.
(Soundbite of music)
SIMON: You, on all of your albums, have collaborated with a wide range of musicians, why not just find one vocalist you love and stick with them, as many bands have done over the years?
Mr. MARSHALL: Why? Why do that? You know, we've been, historically, I mean, backed from the Beatles, as kids, listening to them, and to the Clash, and bands like the Clash who worked with different vocalists. We've never felt the need to stick with one set of voices.
SIMON: What different things, aside from the voice itself, did the collaborators bring to the album? Do they help you craft a particular track or do you sort of give them the line and just ask them to do it?
Mr. MARSHALL: It depends. Tracks - historically, from track to track, sometimes it's as simple as sending another artist a complete a piece of music, almost, and they also have come back with a song, which has been crafted over that piece of music, obviously with this melodic patterns and chord changes. Other times it's something which is built up from scratch, you know, it could be something which might - that was just with the rhythm which you then build together.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: In �Paradise Circus,� there are these handclaps which, you know, I've always associated handclaps in music with sort of effusive joy and here you've got these hand claps over this very moody, mellow instrumental. How did the song come together?
Mr. MARSHALL: It's a song of many stages. G had initially sent Hope a backing track of a beautiful and simple track which she�
SHAPIRO: Hope as the vocalists on the track.
Mr. MARSHALL: Exactly, Hope Sandoval. And she set back a very lovely song which we then took it apart and rebuilt it. We've added various rhythmic elements to it. The hand claps give a very nice conspiratal(ph) sense of being in the room with the person and the song is very evocative and it conjures up spirits.
(Soundbite of song, �Paradise Circus�)
MASSIVE ATTACK: (Singing) Love is like a sin my love. For the one that feels it the most. Look at her with a smile like a flame. She will love you like I will never love you again�
SHAPIRO: I intend this is a compliment and I hope to take it that way. I think of your music have sort of quintessential winter listening music, kind of ghostly and intimate and evocative�
Mr. MARSHAL: Oh, I don't like the sound of that. Don't like the sound of that at all.
SHAPIRO: You don't like the sound of that? Why not?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. MARSHALL: No. I can - the property belongs to you now, the listener. So if that's what you - evokes in yourself then that's great, that's nice.
SHAPIRO: And�
Mr. NAJA: Funny though, 'cause we - you know, I think people have always found a festival sound in Massive Attack. You know, we do a lot of festivals every year, in - all over Europe, particularly. In a festival setting it completely changes, you know. It's sort of as the sun goes down, it comes something else, that kind of - that crowded, warm, heat, that sticky summer night, you know, I think it works for that as well, in my head.
SHAPIRO: In the last few years, you've worked on some film soundtracks, and I wonder how that experience is different from creating a Massive Attack album.
Mr. NAJA: Absolutely. When you, you know - I think film soundtracks are fun at the beginning, but after a while they starts to become pretty predictable. That seems to be a very unhealthy fear of silence in film, where every scene has to be filled with musical tone and some sound. In our music, we try to look for space so you can hear everything. Everything's very present in the room, very graphic. And very much the opposite working in a film, really, where everything has to be led and textual. You know, as much I enjoyed working in film. I feel, so far, the crowning glory in all my film work was probably "Gomorrah" which is the one with no music in it at all. G, what are you thinking, mate?
Mr. MARSHALL: I was going to say something, that is the whole - no, that was a whole ethos of what we were trying to do, was to create space on this album, you know. And, yeah, that's it.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: Thanks so much for talking with me guys.
Mr. MARSHALL: Thanks a lot.
Mr. NAJA: Thank you.
Mr. MARSHALL: Thanks for having us.
Mr. NAJA: See you later, man.
Mr. MARSHALL: Bye, bye.
SHAPIRO: That's Grant Marshall and Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack. Their new album called, �Heligoland,� comes out next month.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
At this time last year, the world was in the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Economic confidence had plummeted and governments around the world face the prospect of social instability and unrest.
Back in February, the top U.S. intelligence official said global economic problems were a threat to U.S. national security. Since then, the financial crisis has eased, but its repercussions are still being felt.
NPR's Tom Gjelten joins us now to discuss the way the economy is affecting security issues at the beginning of this New Year. Good morning, Tom.
TOM GJELTEN: Good morning, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Do intelligence agencies still believe that the global economic situation is the top threat to American security?
GJELTEN: It's certainly a lot harder to argue that today with all these new concerns we now have about terrorism, about al-Qaida, but it's fair to say that the events of the past year and a half have reshaped the global economy, given us new things to worry about and changed the world political lineup in some significant ways. And this is partly what intelligence officials were talking about last February when they said the global financial crisis had become a security issue.
SHAPIRO: What do you mean when you say this has changed the global political lineup, in what ways?
GJELTEN: What I mean is that there have been winners and losers as a result of this process, as a result of this crisis. The big story of this year has to be China. In some ways, the Chinese actually used this crisis to strengthen their position in the global economy. They put in a big stimulus program early on and have now returned to very robust economic growth. It's possible China has replaced Japan as the second leading national economy behind the United States or soon will. What's not clear is what this is going to mean for the rest of us.
Now, the hope would be that China becomes a more responsible player in the world, more cooperative, a real global leader. But I think one of the things we've seen is that the Chinese still have a tendency to go on alone, to look inward. We saw this at the Copenhagen Conference on climate change, a reluctance to take a real leadership role there. It seems the Chinese are still very determined to defend their own economic and political interests, so China's rise could lead to some new conflicts.
SHAPIRO: Well, how do you see this storyline with China unfolding as 2010 progresses?
GJELTEN: We're likely, Ari, to see problems around trade. We just saw this week the enactment of new duties on imports of subsidized steel from China. Before that, there were new trade duties on tires. Another issue is the exchange rate. There's a feeling the Chinese are keeping the value of their currency low in order to keep their exports cheap, so their economy grows. That just makes it harder for the rest of us to compete with them.
It seems like a rather selfish position on China's part. It does not win China any friends in the U.S. Congress and it means there could be pressure in Congress to take a harder line in policy towards China. This year there could be more economic tensions. And, by the way, Ari, Brazil is in a similar position. Another rapidly growing economy and there also we're seeing a more nationalistic element with respect, in that case, to Brazil's protection of its energy resources.
So, as this crisis shakes out, the world's geopolitical landscape is changing. We're seeing countries more ready to challenge the United States and other western countries.
SHAPIRO: Well, apart from the China and Brazil challenges that you've described, what other kinds of new problems do you see the U.S. facing on the security front as a result of this economic crisis?
GJELTEN: The big issues out there right now, Ari, is what's called sovereign debt. This is debt held by governments. Last year, you know, we were worried about risky loans that had been made to private companies or institutions and how many of those loans would go bad. This year, the worry is that government debt could go bad. We've seen warning signs from Dubai, from Greece, other countries on the fringe of Europe, Portugal, Spain, Italy, even Britain have ran up big deficits.
In fact, if there have been losers in this crisis, these would be the countries on the fringe of Europe. The concern is whether these countries will be able to continue to borrow what they need. Will banks have to put aside more reserves to offset the riskiness of those government bonds or loans? That could dry up credit for private lending that would be a problem.
SHAPIRO: Well, Tom, can you give us any good news?
GJELTEN: The good news, Ari, is that the Great Recession of 2008 did not become another Great Depression, as you say. Governments more or less got it together this year, did the right thing to keep the situation from getting worse, coordinated stimulus programs, got credit flowing again and, for the most part, avoided protectionism. Those were the lessons of the Great Depression and generally we seem to have learned them.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Tom Gjelten with a snapshot of economics and security in the New Year. Thanks a lot.
GJELTEN: Thank you, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro, filling in for Scott Simon.
A volleyball tournament in northwest Pakistan was the scene of a bloody explosion. The apparent suicide bombing took place in a village that has tried to resist the Taliban. Richard Oppel of the New York Times joins us on the line from Islamabad to discuss the latest. Good morning.
Mr. RICHARD OPPEL (New York Times): Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Will you describe for us, the struggle that's been taking place with the Taliban in this part of the country?
Mr. OPPEL: Well, what you've had is the military right next to where this volleyball tournament was - South Waziristan - the military's had an offensive there for three months and has driven out a lot of militants into areas near there. And in some of those places you had citizen militias fighting the militants, and that's what you had here in this area, in Shah Hassan Khel.
SHAPIRO: And so is this seen as a revenge attack to punish the villagers?
Mr. OPPEL: That's right. They were forming what they called a peace committee, which is another name for a citizen militia, or Lashkar, that, one of the same sort that has sprung up around northwest Pakistan in the last year, year-and-a-half. And they actually were in the process of putting one of these militias together.
And they had gotten phone calls from militants in North Waziristan warning them not to go forward with the peace committee, and they still had gone forward. And they had a series of attempted bomb attacks against other people in the area in the last two weeks. And then you had what happened yesterday, which left in the vicinity of 100 people dead.
SHAPIRO: Give us some context for the scope and size of this bombing.
Mr. OPPEL: Well, it was a massive bomb - hundreds of pounds of explosives were in a large pickup truck that the bomber drove onto a playground where this volleyball tournament was ongoing. He was surrounded by families and children who were watching volleyball, which his a very popular sport in this part of Pakistan.
And it just incinerated everything in a wide radius and collapsed houses near the playground. Some of the victims were buried under rubble. That's part of the reason why the death toll has been so fluid since the attack, is because some of the dead were buried under rubble and they didn't have large machines to get the rubble off - they had to do everything by hand. So, it just wiped out this entire part of the village.
SHAPIRO: That's Richard Oppel of the New York Times, speaking with us from Islamabad, Pakistan. Thank you very much.
Mr. OPPEL: Thank you, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
2010 promises to be a very busy year in politics. The health care overhaul is entering its final chapters and midterm elections in the fall could serve as a referendum on the Obama presidency. To help us look ahead at the year in politics, we're joined by two political writers. Michelle Cottle is the senior editor of the New Republic, and she blogs for the magazines Web site. She joins us here in our studios. Welcome to the program, Michelle.
Ms. MICHELLE COTTLE (Senior Editor, New Republic): Oh, thanks so much.
SHAPIRO: And Erick Erickson is the editor-in-chief of the political Web site RedState.com. He joins us from Carrollton, Georgia. Welcome, Erick.
Mr. ERICK ERICKSON (Editor-in-Chief, RedState.com): Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Okay. So, if health care was the biggest political story of 2009, what do you each expect to be the biggest political story of 2010? Michelle?
Ms. COTTLE: Well, I think the midterms are going to be what everybody...it's the prism that everything's going to be looked at through. So, everything from health care to whether there's financial regulation to foreign policy, it's all going to be looked at through the prism of how it's going to affect the midterms.
SHAPIRO: What do you think, Erick? Is this the midterm's year that defines everything else?
Mr. ERICKSON: Well, I still think we're going to be talking about health care for a while, but definitely everything is going to be viewed through the prospective of the midterms. And we're going to hear a lot of stories about where the Independents are falling. They seem to not be fans of the growing deficits but then do they really trust the Republicans, who started the deficits growing, to go to them in November?
SHAPIRO: You know, as we look ahead to these midterms, it seems as though many people are predicting that the Democrats will lose seats in Congress. And I know not long ago, people were crediting Karl Rove and Tom DeLay with creating a permanent Republican majority and then President Obama was elected and Democrats won Congress and people were talking about a permanent Democratic majority.
Now that it looks like the Democrats may lose seats, Erick, have we heard the end of talk about a permanent majority in either party?
Mr. ERICKSON: God, I would hope so, but I very much doubt it. I think that we probably are at a point where if Democrats recognize, and Republicans are not yet at the point of recognizing, that there are such things as permanent policy victories but there is no such thing as a permanent political victory.
And when both sides start realizing that they can have permanent policy victories but not hang onto power, I think the game changes significantly.
SHAPIRO: Michelle, do you think this is a premature assumption, that Democrats are going to lose seats in the 2010 elections? Do they have a chance of hanging on to the significant majorities they have now?
Ms. COTTLE: Well, look, historically you have the party that's in power. They almost always have a problem with the midterms. And there has been a lot of controversy over the health care, there's been a lot of back and forth, and there's a lot of competitive seats that are going to come open here.
But the idea, again, that this is going to be a permanent anything - you know, journalists in particular like watershed moments and we are willing to latch onto that whole storyline of nothing's ever going to be the same again and run with it. But that's never the case; politics are cyclical.
I mean, you have the state of Virginia, which almost always votes for whoever's not in power. That's just what they do. I mean, they have that kind of generally discontented streak - and there's a lot of that. It's always kind of like, well, what's the other guy going to do for me? So, that's what we're going to see.
And the Democrats, you know, we'll just have to kind of try and hold damage to a minimal on some level.
SHAPIRO: I'm speaking with Michelle Cottle of the New Republic and Erick Erickson of RedState.com about the year ahead in politics.
And I want to ask you both about the tone in Washington, which a year ago, President Obama promised to change the tone and bring an era of bipartisanship. Things have been incredibly partisan in the last year. Republicans blame the Democrats for that; Democrats blame the Republicans for that.
Setting aside who's to blame, Michelle, do you have any expectation that things will get any better in the near future?
Ms. COTTLE: No. And I'm not sure why anybody who voted for Obama thought that this was going to be the big thing. I know that we talked about the Independents during the campaign were, like, so ready for a new era of bipartisanship. Politics in the U.S. is a blood sport on some level. And that's just, you know, especially with the way we have things districted, where you don't have a lot of moderates in Congress. So, appealing to your base is a huge part of how you win. Appealing to your base during a presidential election to get through the primaries is also very important. So, it's not going to get -we're not going to sing Kumbaya at any point in time.
SHAPIRO: But, Erick, is there something wrong with the system in which the minority party always has an incentive to fight legislative accomplishments, because those legislative accomplishments are what will keep the minority party in the minority?
Mr. ERICKSON: No, it's called politics. It seems like we have this conversation as much as we have the conversation about the permanent political majorities. At least we no longer have Aaron Burr gunning down Alexander Hamilton. Now we just go and stand in front of cameras and talk bad about the other side. We're much more civil than we used to be.
But it's a game. I hate to say that. It turns Independents off and makes me sound more cynical than perhaps I am. Well, no, I really am that cynical. Politics has become a game. It is a strategy and science and knowing what buttons to push and Frank Lutz polling to watch what line goes up and which line goes down on the polling. And this is never going to change.
SHAPIRO: Well, let's look briefly at international politics. We have so many different playing pieces active in the game, from Afghanistan to Iran, to the drawdown in Iraq. What do you see as the top international story of 2010?
Mr. ERICKSON: The destabilization of Pakistan is, I think, going to be the most important story in 2010.
Ms. COTTLE: I totally agree. I think Pakistan is a looming problem, it's been a problem for a while and it's been overshadowed by, you know, domestically people were paying more attention to what we were doing in Iraq or, you know, toward the latter half of the year, in Afghanistan. But I think in terms of threats, Pakistan is going to be something that is going to be kind of on the front burner this coming year.
SHAPIRO: Michelle Cottle is senior editor of the New Republic and Erick Erickson is the editor-in-chief of RedState.com. Thanks so much to you both and Happy New Year.
Ms. COTTLE: Happy New Year, Ari.
Mr. ERICKSON: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro sitting in for Scott Simon.
Throughout our show today we're checking in with some folks from different walks of life and asking them to look ahead to the next decade.
(Soundbite of music)
Clay Shirky is a new media professor and he writes about the Internet and social media.
Professor CLAY SHIRKY: We will some time in the next year cross two billion people connected to the Internet, and over three billion if you're starting to count mobile phones. What I think is coming are a lot of people working on civic value. They're actually trying to change the culture they're part of.
There's a group of kids in Lahore in Pakistan, who started this group called The Responsible Citizens. And they just go out in Sundays - they organize themselves through Facebook - and they clean up garbage on market streets. And they're not doing it because they think that market street should be less garbage-strewn; they're doing it to exhibit some kind of attitude towards positive cultural participation.
So, one of the things I'd love to see happen is for us to just take this stuff for granted. To just take it for granted that you have ridiculously easy group forming. It isn't until you take it for granted that you start to figure out I know how I'm going to use these tools to make life better. I know how I'm going to use these tools to improve life in my neighborhood, in my school. I know how I'm going to use these tools to make life better for the whole world.
SHAPIRO: That's new media guru, Clay Shirky, offering his thoughts on the decade ahead.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Fifty years ago, a scrappy new travel publication aimed at budget-conscious students offer this guarantee: a trip from Europe to Asia for only four cents. That was the cost of the ferry ride across the Bosporus Strait in Turkey. The travel guide was called "Let's Go: The Student Guide to Europe." It was founded by 18-year-old Harvard undergraduate Oliver Koppell.
Since then, millions of backpackers have toted the guides around the globe, and today Oliver Koppell is a councilmember for New York City's 11th District in the Bronx. He joins us from our New York bureau. Welcome.
Mr. OLIVER KOPPELL (Councilmember, 11th District, New York City): Thank you, and thank you for your interest in "Let's Go." Of course, I'm very proud of it.
SHAPIRO: And the "Let's Go" guides have been written and researched all these years by Harvard undergraduates. So, also joining us now from New York is one of the current managing editors of the guide, Charlotte Alter. Hi, Charlotte.
Ms. CHARLOTTE ALTER (Managing Editor, "Let's Go"): Hi. Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: So, Mr. Koppell, when you started these guides 50 years ago, what was your goal?
Mr. KOPPELL: Well, our initial goal was to provide students and other young people with the tools that they needed to have a successful and particularly, an inexpensive visit to Europe. This was in the early '60s, and Europe was still sort of unchartered territory for many people. The real travel boom only started maybe 10 years before "Let's Go." And so things that are much more familiar to people today and more comfortable were at that point kind of challenging.
You know, we had a student who went over to Europe, who visited hotels, who visited clubs, who visited attractions and put together, you know, a basic series of recommendations for people to use. And of course now it's so much expanded and it covers so many countries. It's a, you know, a huge oak tree. We had the acorn.
SHAPIRO: And, Charlotte, I understand you spent the summer after your freshman year researching the travel guide to Greece. You're now a sophomore. Tell me about one of the most surprising adventures you had in your work in Greece.
Ms. ALTER: Well, actually, I think my most unexpected adventure was I found myself crashing a Greek wedding in the mountains of Niceros, which is an island near Turkey. Through some travel planning mishaps - I, like, missed some buses and missed some connections and ended up driving across the island with a fellow traveler. And he was going to this wedding in this village and I kind of crashed with him and ended up having a lot of food spilled on my head, because they carry all the feast for the wedding on these big tabletops that they kind of hoist over their heads as they're serving people. And, of course, they tripped and, of course, the one person that they spilled all over was the person who was not invited to the wedding.
SHAPIRO: Is it essentially a vacation working on these guides? What's the experience like?
Ms. ALTER: No. It's definitely not a vacation. Because while you are in these, like, beautiful, exotic surroundings, you're not relaxed because you have work to do there. You need to be constantly on. There's a lot of footwork, there's a lot of talking to people. You can't just kind of relax in your hotel and do nothing.
SHAPIRO: You have to visit five hotels a day, have six lunches, visit 12 museums.
Ms. ALTER: Exactly, exactly. And so that's not really the typical vacation experience. On the other hand, what's great about "Let's Go" is you get paid for doing something that's real, that matters. And, you know, if you mess up and if you miss an island or you miss three or four hotels, that matters because it means that those listings aren't going to get into the guide and that travelers are going to have a less fulfilling experience.
SHAPIRO: Mr. Koppell, you're no longer a student, but when you travel abroad do you still take the "Let's Go" guides with you?
Mr. KOPPELL: Actually I do. I always buy "Let's Go." And the fact is that it's useful not only for students, it's useful, I think, for everybody. They have listings in the "Let's Go"s that I've used that are kind of the high end listings for students and sort of the low end listings for middle-class people like me.
So that when we went to Ireland a few years ago, we liked staying in bed and breakfasts, and I got all my bed and breakfasts from "Let's Go."
SHAPIRO: What's it like to hear about this thing that you created as an 18-year-old at Harvard now creating dozens of guides, employing more than 100 Harvard students each year? It's really become an empire.
Mr. KOPPELL: Yeah, it has. In fact, it's not only an opportunity for young people to get to travel and to write about their travel experiences, but it's an employment opportunity. And over the years, thousands of students have earned significant income. And that was one of our ideas actually, because the guide is put out...
SHAPIRO: Better than washing dishes in the dining hall.
Mr. KOPPELL: Absolutely. When I started...
Ms. ALTER: Definitely.
Mr. KOPPELL: ...at Harvard, I was on the dorm crew, which meant I cleaned the bathrooms. And when I...
SHAPIRO: So, you decided to go to Europe instead.
Mr. KOPPELL: ...when I transitioned to the travel area, that was a very welcome change.
SHAPIRO: I'm sure. Charlotte, when you were admitted to Harvard, did you know that you wanted to get involved with the "Let's Go" guides?
Ms. ALTER: Yeah, I did, actually. I was lucky enough to take a year off actually before going to Harvard. And I did a lot of traveling over that year and I actually used "Let's Go" guides. And so that was really exciting to then come to school and be able to work for them. Also, my mother, 30 years ago, also worked for "Let's Go."
SHAPIRO: Wow. Which guide did she write?
Ms. ALTER: She worked for the "Road Tripping America" guide and she covered the American South. So, that's something that she remembers fondly. That was back in the day when you could bring your boyfriend with you.
Mr. KOPPELL: One of my greatest regrets is that my son, who went to Harvard, wasn't interested in working on "Let's Go."
SHAPIRO: You're kidding me.
Mr. KOPPELL: That's right. I couldn't get him to do it.
SHAPIRO: No way.
Ms. ALTER: You know what though?
Mr. KOPPELL: He was more interested in the Kennedy Institute of Politics.
SHAPIRO: Well, congratulations to you both on the 50th anniversary of "Let's Go."
Mr. KOPPELL: Thank you so much.
Ms. ALTER: Thanks a lot.
Mr. KOPPELL: Thanks for your interest.
SHAPIRO: Oliver Koppell is the founder of the "Let's Go" travel guides, and Charlotte Alter is a writer, researcher and managing editor. They both joined us from our New York bureau. And Happy New Year to you both.
Mr. KOPPELL: Thank you, and to you.
Ms. ALTER: Yeah, you too, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
The word legendary is so overused that it hardly seems big enough to describe the journalist known as Johnny Apple. For more than 40 years, the New York Times byline R.W. Apple, Jr. marked the work of the singular journalist of a generation.
Apple lived on four continents and reported from hundreds of countries during his career. His 2006 obituary in the Times described Apple has having a Dickensian byline, Churchillian brio and Falstaffian appetites.
Those appetites are the subject of a new book, "Far Flung and Well Fed: The Food Writing of R.W. Apple, Jr." For a while, Apple covered wars and presidential elections; over the decades, his abiding passion was food. And virtually all of his food columns included the same three words: my wife Betsey.
Betsey Apple was Johnny's partner on these culinary adventures and in life, and she joins us in the studio to talk about this new collection of his work. Welcome.
Ms. BETSEY APPLE: Thank you so much, Ari. I'm delighted to be here.
SHAPIRO: You married Johnny in 1982. Were you an adventurous eater and traveler even then?
Ms. APPLE: Yes, I certainly was.
SHAPIRO: He didn't have to twist your arm at all to get you to these far flung places?
Ms. APPLE: No. There were moments that it was a little wretched excess. Singapore was one, and I wisely didn't go on, I think it as 25 meals in one day.
SHAPIRO: In Singapore?
Ms. APPLE: Um-hum, Singapore. I joined in late at night for a very lively chili crab dish.
SHAPIRO: And yet you managed to retain your figure...
Ms. APPLE: No, I didn't.
SHAPIRO: ...while he.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SHAPIRO: Well, then you've regained your figure because you certainly, you know.
Ms. APPLE: I dropped after, sadly, after Johnny died, I dropped about 25 pounds or so, which was a very good idea because it was getting a little Falstaffian in my department as well.
SHAPIRO: Were there any foods that you and he strenuously disagreed about? Things he loved and you couldn't stand or vice versa?
Ms. APPLE: He was better on some kinds of herring at breakfast time. Now, I wasn't so red hot for herring at breakfast. Shrimp and grits - you had me from the start - but not herring. I had trouble with that at breakfast.
SHAPIRO: Anybody listening to this interview will not be surprised to hear that your family has deep roots in the American South.
Ms. APPLE: Yes, they do.
SHAPIRO: Going back to the 1600s.
Ms. APPLE: Yes.
SHAPIRO: Did your deep family heritage with Southern food and culture inform Johnny's understanding of Southern food, which he writes about quite a lot in this collection.
Ms. APPLE: Very enthusiastically, let's put it that way. I suppose my knowledge, yes. He loved the stories. When we were in Brazil, for instance, he - and I was floored at the similarities between various stews and gumbos, and that kind of a thing that we would have.
SHAPIRO: Yes, he writes in the collection about how the same influences that brought African flavors to the American south...
Ms. APPLE: Exactly.
SHAPIRO: ...brought African flavors to Brazil.
Ms. APPLE: Exactly. And sadly, via something called slavery, I'm quite sure. But my heavens, it just knocks your socks off to be able to see the similarities and taste these wonderful things all these thousands of miles apart.
SHAPIRO: You have brought something that ties directly into one of the essays in the book. Why don't you pull out what you've got here?
Ms. APPLE: I have an enormous grapefruit.
SHAPIRO: It's the size of a baby's head.
Ms. APPLE: Yes, it is.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. APPLE: Here, Ari. Try it. I brought you a couple.
SHAPIRO: This thing - here, I'm going to drop this on the counter just so people can hear how enormous this thing is. Here goes.
(Soundbite of a grapefruit drop)
(Soundbite of laughter)
SHAPIRO: That's the sound of this grapefruit hitting the counter.
Ms. APPLE: I see a crack in the counter right now where you dropped it. These beautiful things are these Ruby Reds from the Rio Grande Valley, and they were given to us one year by our then-next door neighbor, Ken Benson.
SHAPIRO: Why don't you read the beginning of this piece that's in the collection? Go ahead.
Ms. APPLE: (Reading) One despairing winter night, a year ago, when spring seemed an implausible prospect, our neighbor, Ken Benson, rang the doorbell. "Have something for you," he announced in his comic way, handing over a paper bag that felt as if it had cannonballs in it - some cannonballs.
What we found, in fact, was several enormous grapefruits, each fatter than a slow-pitch softball with crimson tinged yellow skins. They were the biggest we had ever seen, and as we discovered when we cut into them at breakfast the next morning, the reddest and the sweetest. Like Blood Oranges, Mara Lemons, and Key Limes - whose acquaintance we had happily made in earlier years in Morocco, California and Florida - they were a spectacularly different breed of citrus.
Forget spring, they brought summer sunshine flooding into our winter-bound kitchen. "Mmm," said my wife Betsey. "Mmm," said I. "Mmm," said Betsey.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. APPLE: So there we go.
SHAPIRO: Did he ever write anything about you that you took umbrage at?
Ms. APPLE: Yes, there was one, 'cause I got teased about it so much. We went to Germany and we were eating in (unintelligible), these fantastic wee little sausages about the size of a baby finger. And he wrote that I had 16 of them.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. APPLE: Well, it was freezing cold and well, I was not terribly excited about that.
SHAPIRO: I recently heard a martini described as Johnny Apple style, 11 parts gin to one part air.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. APPLE: Perfectly described.
SHAPIRO: What's the story there?
Ms. APPLE: There was a wonderful time, we were in London and we were invited to a very grand dinner party. It was in honor of the Queen Mother. And after we had been introduced, a waiter had brought the Queen Mother the tipple she had asked for. She had asked for a martini and he arrived with a glass - no ice -of warm Vermouth. And she looked a...
SHAPIRO: The Martini brand Vermouth. Yeah.
Ms. APPLE: Uh-huh, exactly. And she looked a bit shocked and she said to Johnny, who was standing right next to her, "Young man, I believe that you're American from your accent. Do you know how to make a martini cocktail?" And he said, "Yes, ma'am. I certainly do." And she said, "Please, will you go to the pantry with the butler and instruct him how to do so?"
SHAPIRO: And so Johnny Apple made the Queen Mother a martini.
Ms. APPLE: Well, he instructed the butler. And he said to her, "How is this, 11 to one?" She said, "It sounds lovely." And in fact, she drank them all through dinner.
SHAPIRO: That's Betsey Apple. Her late husband, R.W. Apple Jr., or Johnny Apple, wrote the articles in the new collection "Far Flung and Well Fed: The Food Writing of R.W. Apple Jr."
Thank you so much.
Ms. APPLE: Oh, Ari. Thank you. What fun.
SHAPIRO: You're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
(Soundbite of music, "Auld Lang Syne")
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
At the end of the decade that brought us blogs, streaming video and Twitter, world leaders used all three technologies to usher in 2010.
President BARACK OBAMA: It is always a hopeful time, as we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another.
SHAPIRO: President Obama delivered this message on the White House blog.
President OBAMA: While 2009 was difficult for so many Americans, we must also look back on this year with the knowledge that brighter days are ahead of us.
SHAPIRO: British Prime Gordon Brown shared a similar message in 140 characters. The tweet from Number 10 Downing Street said: "Hope you have a very happy and healthy and prosperous New Year. Two thousand nine was a tough year but Britain has a lot to look forward to in 2010."
Then there was a link to a New Year's Podcast from the British prime minister.
Prime Minister GORDON BROWN (Great Britain): The last 18 months have been difficult, and too many people were hit by a crisis that originated in the U.S. housing market and then came rolling across the Atlantic towards us.
SHAPIRO: In Rome, the online Vatican TV channel updated viewers on Pope Benedict's New Years message, through a translator, of course. The theme: If you want to cultivate peace, preserve creation.
POPE BENEDICT XVI: (Through translator) The Holy Father reiterates this in his message for the World Day of Peace on January 1st, 2010. Benedict XVI noted that it is necessary to revive the models of development because the current rate of exploitation puts natural resources in jeopardy.
SHAPIRO: The Chinese New Year doesn't begin until January 26th. Still, President Hu Jintao went on China's Central Television to delivery his New Years wishes. On the CCTV English language Web site, a news anchor gave the headline of the president's speech.
Unidentified Woman: Well, this year's offering is titled: "Make Joint Effort to Build a Bright Future of World Peace and Development."
SHAPIRO: The Kremlin's Twitter feed posted three links to a New Years message from President Dmitry Medvedev. Two of the links were broken. The third led to the New Years address from the Russian president. It said in part, "The outgoing year was not the easiest in our country's life. Above all, I want to thank you for bearing up together. Together we have got through the difficulties and we can therefore start moving forward, to build a strong and modern country with a stable smart economy."
SHAPIRO: Coming up, predictions on the decade ahead from home and garden guru Martha Stewart, and a conversation with the man who wrote the book on conversation. Daniel Menaker is the author of "A Good Talk."
(Soundbite of music, "Auld Lang Syne")
SHAPIRO: This is NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro filling in for Scott Simon.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: It's a new decade and today, we're checking in with a variety of people who are looking ahead at the next decade. Here are some hopes for the future from publisher and style maven Martha Stewart.
Ms. MARTHA STEWART (Business Magnate, Television Host, Author, Magazine Publisher): Well, I'm certainly hoping that our economy rights itself and that people feel more comfortable in their homes, that people are not threatened with the loss of their homes, with education being unavailable or too expensive, and certainly with a health care system that will enable people to stay healthy, be healthy and feel comfortable that they are going to be taken care of.
I'm very concerned about the environment and I hope that people will read books like "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer, which is a wonderful book about how our meat is produced. And if you read that you'll feel like I do, that we must, must, must think organic and humane. And not only with meat, but also with vegetables, with the way we treat our animals and treat our food, all of that is extremely important. So I'm an optimist and I think in the next 10 years, I think more and more of us will be concerned with the same things and all kind of band together and get things straightened out.
SHAPIRO: That's Martha Stewart with her hopes for the decade ahead.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
The New Year means we have, at last, reached the end of cocktail party season. That means the end, too, of long conversations with almost-strangers. Some people may breathe a sigh of relief at that, but not Daniel Menaker. He's a conversation connoisseur and author of a new book called "A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation." He joins us from our New York bureau.
Welcome to the show.
Mr. DANIEL MENAKER (Author, "A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation"): Thank you. Great to be here.
SHAPIRO: Okay. Well, it's evident from the book that you derive great pleasure from talking with people you barely know. What do you love about it?
Mr. MENAKER: Well, I have an insatiable curiosity, I have had since I was a kid, and like to find out the uniqueness that is like fingerprints that each person has. I think the second thing is that we find out more about ourselves in talking to other people, it's a kind of discovery, mutual discovery, and I think it knits a social fabric that is in some danger of being rent.
SHAPIRO: Rent.
Mr. MENAKER: Torn.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SHAPIRO: I want to get back to this. But first you say we learn more about ourselves from talking to others. Explain that.
Mr. MENAKER: Robert Burns says," Oh, what a gift, the gift to give us, to see ourselves as others see us."
SHAPIRO: Huh.
Mr. MENAKER: And it seems to me that in conversation, if we're attentive, we can find out what sort of impression and what sort of impact we're having on others and learn about ourselves. And if we find ourselves out of bounds or having insulted someone then perhaps we can change that.
SHAPIRO: You know, you also talk about how a good conversation includes some of elements of sort of risky confessional, of revealing things intentionally about yourself. How so?
Mr. MENAKER: Well, I have the sort of amateur sociological theories about the structures of conversations, especially with people we don't know well or don't know at all. We sit down and talk for the first time and there seem to be various stages, and one of them is indeed something I called risk.
Usually, it happens when you've made a connection with someone on non-risky matters and you feel confident and comfortable with them. Then you may take a risk of admitting a weakness or discussing a hope, or a wish, or an ambition to tell something about yourself and you're sort of testing the waters. It doesn't have to be sensational or tabloid. It doesn't have to be a confession of a crime.
SHAPIRO: You talk in the book about how your love for country music is something that you hesitate to admit to people. But when you do it sometimes opens doors in a way that you wouldn't expect.
Mr. MENAKER: That's true. And country music is a particularly interesting and sometimes sensitive subject for sort of Northeasterners who aren't supposed to know or like it. We have no country music station in New York City.
SHAPIRO: I was about to interrupt you there, to ask - you write about interruptions. What role do they serve in a conversation?
Mr. MENAKER: Well, I'm scared to answer for fear that you'll...
SHAPIRO: That I'll interrupt you?
Mr. MENAKER: Well, that you'll test me to see how I handle them.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. MENAKER: I think they are for the most part, you know, you're told as a child not to interrupt other people. I think that interruptions out of enthusiasm and out of intense listening to the other person...
SHAPIRO: I know exactly what you mean.
Mr. MENAKER: There, you see, that might've been scripted.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. MENAKER: You might even have planned that. But...
SHAPIRO: I didn't. I swear. It just came out.
Mr. MENAKER: But it does demonstrate - I mean there - you know, children interrupt and kids get enthusiastic, and one of the ways they show their enthusiasm is to interrupt. And I think, in the book, I say how many times have you said or heard a younger or any person say, wait a minute, wait a minute. I just got to say this one thing.
SHAPIRO: Mm-hmm.
Mr. MENAKER: And I think it's sort of an adrenaline. I mean, I think it actually is a kind of enhancement of the conversation as long as the other person isn't saying something of gravity that needs to be completed.
SHAPIRO: You write that good conversation actually gives us a biological high. Explain what's going on there?
Mr. MENAKER: Well, as I was writing this book, it - and doing actual genuine research about it, I began to find a body of literature about the physiological effects of social interactions and particularly conversation. And it turns out that when you feel, sort of, high after having a good talk with somebody, there's a hormonal reason for it. It releases oxytocin, which is a neurotransmitter and which is also released during nursing, orgasm and other pleasant human physical experiences. So, it's odd that this is not a physical experience, but still has the same physiological affect.
SHAPIRO: Well, if there is a physiological pay off to good conversation that suggests that there is some evolutionary reason for it, right?
Mr. MENAKER: Sure.
SHAPIRO: What's that reason?
Mr. MENAKER: Our conversation, especially gossip, is an outgrowth of primate grooming behavior.
SHAPIRO: So we are talking instead of removing flees from each other, that what you're saying?
Mr. MENAKER: More or less, more or less. And the reason for - and you know, you've seen champs groom each other, then they sort of inquisitively parting the fur and making believe they are finding something. The fact is they are having a kind of conversation. They are making a clan or group connection in which certain hierarchies are established, a certain kind of trust is established. And when it doesn't have a particular agenda, human conversation is indeed a kind of ritualized activity and therefore it has an evolutionary and physiological affect. And that - this is a way of performing the same tasks, making a social connection with others and creating a group.
SHAPIRO: We've sort of talked around, but I would like to kind of hit head on. How do you define conversation?
Mr. MENAKER: For my purposes, a conversation is a verbal exchange between two people in which a connection is made that has nothing to do with an agenda, a goal or a purpose, but it's simply a social confirmation of our humanity, of a certain degree of insecurity. A good conversation consists of a mutual acknowledgement of uncertainty.
SHAPIRO: Daniel Menaker is the author of �A Good Talk: The Story and Skill of Conversation.� Thanks so much.
Mr. MENAKER: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
Terrorist attacks have dominated the news this week. In his weekly address today, President Obama said a branch of al-Qaida in Yemen was behind the unsuccessful attempt to take down an airplane with explosives on Christmas Day.
And yesterday, a suicide bombing at a Pakistani volleyball tournament killed around 100 people. The U.S. government has issued a warning for American citizens on travel to India because of instability in that region. But the man who usually occupies this host's seat is already in India. WEEKEND EDITION'S Scott Simon is visiting the country with this family.
And with Dan Schorr off this week, we've asked Scott to join us from New Delhi for the weekend review. So, Scott thanks for joining us and thanks for letting me take the reins for your show for the week.
SCOTT SIMON: And, Ari, I think you're doing a great show, by the way. It's been a pleasure to hear you from here.
SHAPIRO: Oh, thank you. Now, I understand there was an incident on your overseas flight that may say something about the times we're in. Describe what happened.
SIMON: Yeah. And certainly terrorism wasn't involved in any way, but a man on our flight was belligerent. He tried to pick a flight with another passenger. When he did, an air marshal stepped in. Soon, there were six air marshals all around the plane telling us to stay seated, don't reach for a cell phone, stay back. They handcuffed the guy, sat on him until we landed in London. Then he was removed by authorities. The man kept banging his head against the wall and shouting, I'm not a bloody terrorist and shouting a fair amount of epithets.
By the way, there was a Scottish heavyweight boxer sitting in front of us. And he kind of left over two people to lend the police a hand, but they sent him back. The point of this is if you're an air marshal or, for that matter, a passenger, you don't assume that it's just a drunken lout. You have to assume that a man misbehaving like that might be staging a rouse to distract attention from what could really be a sinister effort to take over the aircraft or damage it. So, it would have been negligent for the air marshals not to get involved. But I do think these were our times. Incidents will set off suspicions of terrorism until they're proven otherwise. And passengers will no longer sit back and pray for help to lend a hand.
SHAPIRO: Well, we've been talking on the show today about this bombing in Pakistan that killed roughly 100 people. How is that incident being covered in India where you are?
SIMON: As a common a tragedy. But, you know, there's always another concern in India too. India and Pakistan completed almost routinely this week their 19th mutual exchange of information about their nuclear weapons program.
SHAPIRO: Mm-hmm.
SIMON: Now there can be skepticism about how much real information gets revealed. But at the lofty official level right now there's a kind of detente between the two nations.
But every terrorist strike of any kind stokes a concern in India. What if some of those border areas of Pakistan - wouldn't have to be central government -would have fall under effective Taliban or al-Qaida control? What if those areas became staging grounds for strikes inside India? Would calls go up in India? For India, not to trust what it sees as a highly compromised and corrupt Pakistani Army to carry the fight against the Taliban, but should India get involved on its own for its own national security?
Now it's that kind of thinking. It's why year after year the relationship between India and Pakistan is considered to be perhaps the world's foremost potential flashpoint.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. Well, here in the U.S., the debate over health care is continuing and people often compare and contrast the American health care system with European health care system. Have you seen anything in India that might be instructive to this debate?
SIMON: You know, I have, because with almost a billion people the kind of health care systems that they have in Western Europe much less the United States are just impossible to contemplate. Now when people in the U.S. talk about bringing down the cost of health care, they usually mean the old trio of waste, fraud and abuse. India is a nation that thrives on bureaucracy and, for that matter, kind of likes waste, fraud and fraud.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: It's arguably a full employment program. It also has some of the best doctors in the world...
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
SIMON: ...many of whom obviously wind up going overseas. There's a fascinating man here named Devi Shetty. He has a heart hospital in Bangalore. They perform more than 3,000 open heart surgeries a year there. That's double the number than at the Cleveland Clinic, for example. He has 42 heart surgeons. They use what he unapologetically calls assembly line techniques to operate on a mass scale. They bring down the cost of open heart surgery to about $2,000.
SHAPIRO: Hmm.
SIMON: A literal fraction of what it is in United States. So, Dr. Shetty is making one of the most expensive life-saving operations in medicine affordable for millions of Indians. By the way, his success rate is better than 98 percent, which is even a little better...
SHAPIRO: Wow.
SIMON: ...from what is in the U.S. Now, Dr. Shetty famously was Mother Teresa's heart surgeon. But he hasn't taken a vow of poverty. His hospitals are very successful. Over the next couple of years, he's going to open a facility in the Cayman Islands. Now, who's going to come there for $2,000 open heart surgeries? Probably, Americans who don't have adequate health care coverage or Canadians...
SHAPIRO: Right.
SIMON: ...who don't want to be on waiting list in their system. The Wall Street Journal says that some American medical groups are already looking at Dr. Shetty with fascination and maybe some clues for really bringing down costs.
SHAPIRO: Well, just briefly, Scott, I know you love to collect political scandal stories. Have you run across any good ones on your trip to India this time?
SIMON: You know, I - by the way, open the paper any morning, you'll find one.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: But there is a particularly compelling one. A man named Narayan Dutt Tiwari. He is the Congress party governor of Andhra Pradesh. A YouTube video of the governor has become quite popular. He is shown frolicking with three young women. He has also been accused in a paternity suit. Now, Governor Tiwari says that the videos are fraud, but he didn't say he'd been away hiking in the Himalayan trail.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: He resigned for what he called health reasons.
SHAPIRO: Uh-huh.
SIMON: Now, Ari, here's the punch line. Mr. Tiwari is 86 years old, so a lot of Indians think that his health sounds just fine. Thank you very much.
SHAPIRO: That's a good one. NPR's Scott Simon speaking with us from New Delhi. Thanks so much, Scott.
SIMON: My pleasure, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro in for Scott Simon. Happy New Year.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: As the new decade begins, we're asking experts in different fields to gaze into a crystal ball. Here's Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. FRANCIS COLLINS (Director, National Institutes of Health): In the next decade, I think we will see the implementation of personalized medicine. The opportunity for each of us to have much more detailed information about our own risks of future illness and what we can do about it, by changing lifestyle, diet, exercise and so on.
A lot of that will come from knowledge of our own DNA because within the next decade, many of us will have our complete genome decoded for less than a $1,000 and that information will be part of our medical record, guiding our own decision making about prevention and guiding our doctors when we need help for some illness as that has hit us to get the right drug at the right dose at the right time.
For someone who develops a cancer at the end of the next decade, I think it's likely that tumor will be very much analyzed in detail to see exactly what are the glitches that have caused those good cells to go bad. And that will enable a very precise and rational choice of what therapeutics will need to be used for that person which might be different than somebody else who has a cancer that otherwise looks very similar.
This ability to match precise information about molecular biology of a cancer with the available therapeutics, so that you get the best outcome is coming along in research now, but in the next decade this will become part of the standard of care. And hurray for that because this is going to give us a much better chance to cure people of this disease than we have right now.
(Soundbite of music)
I am upbeat. As the director of the National Institutes of Health I've the chance to oversee this amazing organization that's supporting biomedical research in our country and I can see the scientific opportunities are almost limitless. This is going to be a great decade for medical research and for its consequences for public health.
SHAPIRO: That's Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health. He has a new book coming up this week called �The language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine.�
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Every year, the Justice Department awards billions of dollars in grants to organizations that deal with law enforcement, everything from local police departments to afterschool programs that teach conflict resolution.
During the Bush administration, people accused Justice Department officials of funneling cash to political allies and personal friends. A House committee and the Justice Department Inspector General both conducted investigations.
So, almost one year into the Obama administration, I decided to look into how the process works today.
Mr. JAKE WIENS (Investigator, Project on Government Oversight): My name is Jake Wiens. I'm an investigator at the Project on Government Oversight.
SHAPIRO: When the Project on Government Oversight started digging into Justice Department grants in 2007, Jake Wiens tried to figure out where the money was going.
Mr. WIENS: We went onto their Web site and tried to look for a list of awardees and it wasn't available at all.
SHAPIRO: You couldn't see who got the grant money from the Justice Department?
Mr. WIENS: You just couldn't see anything. You couldn't really see - and I think 2004 was the latest information available. There is no transparency at all.
SHAPIRO: His organization used the Freedom of Information Act to get records about who received the money. And they found out that many organizations won government dollars automatically. The recipients didn't have to compete with other organizations for the cash. And some grant recipients seems to have ties to the people at Justice who made decisions about where the money should go.
Mr. WIENS: There's this appearance from the outside that favoritism was at play in awarding these grant programs and when you couple that with a lack of transparency, you have the situation where people begin to lose trust in government. They begin to think that, you know, it's in our best interest not to create some good program, which actually has long-term benefit but to cozy up with people that are actually administering these grants.
SHAPIRO: Fast forward to 2010. Today, the Justice Department's Web site lists each specific grant, page by page, updated weekly. I can see, for example, that Fox Valley Technical College in Wisconsin received $11 million for child protection training programs in the last fiscal year.
Brad Russ if Fox Valley's director for federal programs. He says people receiving government money have also seen changes in the last year.
Mr. BRAD RUSS (Director of Federal Program, Fox Valley Technical College): There has been certainly increased levels of accountability, more reporting, much more of an emphasis upon performance.
SHAPIRO: Also, many grants that used to be automatic are now subject to a peer-review process, where experts in the field evaluate who has the best grant proposal. With the stimulus money, the Justice Department distributed more than $5 billion in grants last year. In a typical year, the total was closer to $3 billion.
Tracy Henke helped award grants during the Bush administration, and she says being able to track the flow of dollars also provides a guide to an administration's priorities.
Ms. TRACY HENKE: You can see that not just the administration but also Congress has increased funding for the COPS Program, which is for salary that is something that the prior administration did not make a priority.
SHAPIRO: Under the COPS Program, the federal government covers the cost of hiring more local police officers. With these new policies, organizations that were used to criticizing the Justice Department have changed their position.
Meredith Fuchs is general counsel of the National Security Archive, a government openness organization.
Mr. MEREDITH FUCHS (General Counsel, National Security Archive): I have to say that the Justice Department does seem to be out there talking about transparency and trying to encourage all of the agencies to do a better job.
SHAPIRO: But these changes are not all attributable to new leadership. Jake Wiens of the Project on Government Oversight says things started to change late in the Bush administration when reporters and lawmakers began to focus on Justice grants.
Mr. WIENS: They did started then post-list. I think the congressional spotlight certainly played a role on this as well.
SHAPIRO: The Obama administration's point person for Justice Department grants is Laurie Robinson. Her title is assistant to attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs. Robinson ran the office in the Clinton administration and she did not plan to come back. But she told Attorney General Eric Holder twisted her arm. I recently sat down with Robinson in her office and I asked if you really wanted to funnel money to your favorite group, do you have the ability to just kind of make that happen?
Ms. LAURIE ROBINSON (Assistant to the Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs): Do I've the ability by law? Yes, I do. Would I do that? No, I would not.
SHAPIRO: If you chose to do it, would there be a way for somebody like me to see that you had done that.
Ms. ROBINSON: Yes, because we'd have it posted on our Web site.
SHAPIRO: So, what's your favorite charity? And now they apply for a Justice Department grant.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. ROBINSON: Well, I guess, we could go check that out, couldn't we?
SHAPIRO: That raises another question which is I can see where the money has gone. Can I see, for example, whether those organizations were highly rated within peer-review process?
Ms. ROBINSON: Oh, we don't make the peer review ratings public. And one of the reasons is - I used to teach - it would be like posting all of the grades of all of the students. You know, these were all professionals in their field. Then it might be - in fact, it would be, as somebody who used to write grants, pretty embarrassing for people. Oh gosh, you know, hey, Joe you have got a pretty lousy grant application.
SHAPIRO: That makes sense. But at the same time, if somebody undeserving then is getting government money through favoritism or some other avenue, the transparency seems to stop short of somebody on the outside being able to see that this person receiving the grant money actually was not highly rated within the peer-review process.
Ms. ROBINSON: We've gone back and forth on that, but I think there are limits to how open one can be about this without having some pretty unfavorable results for individuals.
SHAPIRO: I've heard it said that you can tell the priorities of an administration by looking at where the money goes. So, if I were to look at where the grant money is going, what priorities what I see reflected in those grant awards?
Ms. ROBINSON: There are some things we definitely emphasizing in this administration. I'll give you a couple of examples. One is prisoner reentry. Now, it's not that the Bush administration was uninterested in that, but in the 2010 budget that was just signed by the president, we're going to be seeing a $100 million in grants through this agency going to try to further the reintegration of prisoners.
SHAPIRO: And that's a jump.
Ms. ROBINSON: It's a jump from $28 million this past year, $10 million of that will be going for research, which is another priority. We're really putting a big emphasis on science in this administration. You've heard the president talk about that and signs and looking at evaluation of programs is a big focus here.
SHAPIRO: What have you told to people who are below you in the hierarchy to ensure that your ethos of just because I can award a million dollars to my charity doesn't mean that it's ethical for me to do so, to be sure that, that ethos pervades all the way down to the ranks? What have you told people?
Ms. ROBINSON: I've really laid down the law about the importance of competing grants so that we ensure that people who are interested in applying for grants from the Department of Justice all have an equal chance.
SHAPIRO: Are there people who have been used to getting a grant automatically for years and years who are upset to hear this?
Ms. ROBINSON: I've had some people come in who are very unhappy they're not getting kind of grants as usual, yes.
SHAPIRO: And what do you say to them?
Ms. ROBINSON: It's a new era.
SHAPIRO: I wish people could see that look you just gave on the radio.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. ROBINSON: I'll try to convey it.
SHAPIRO: That's Laurie Robinson, assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs. She oversees billions of dollars in grant award at the Department of Justice.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
On the eastern half of Long Island in the town of Riverhead, Sister Margaret Smyth is serving members of the immigrant community as always. Recently that has meant a new task: helping undocumented workers return to their home countries.
Sarah Reynolds has this report.
SARAH REYNOLDS: Sister Margaret Smyth invites a young man from the waiting room into her office in Riverhead, New York and asks how she can help.
Sister MARGARET SMYTH (North Fork Hispanic Apostolate): (Foreign language spoken)
REYNOLDS: She leans towards him past the piles of paper on her desk and the ringing phone.
(Soundbite of phone ringing)
REYNOLDS: Sister Margaret has been working with immigrants on Long Island for 12 years. When she first came to work with the North Fork Hispanic Apostolate, it was only open one day a week. And now she's there almost every day.
Sister SMYTH: We provide immigration services particularly in helping recover lost wages. English is the second language, educate them with the law.
REYNOLDS: Recently, she's added something else to the list, plane tickets. Since October, the number of undocumented immigrants asking for help to get home has skyrocketed. She has a current waiting list of 53. The young man sitting in her office is here for this very reason and he's not the first person today.
Mr. JESUS(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
REYNOLDS: Jesus is looking for a plane ticket home to Guatemala.
Sister SMYTH: (Foreign language spoken)
REYNOLDS: Sister Margaret asks if he has the money.
JESUS: (Foreign language spoken)? No.
REYNOLDS: Jesus and the other immigrants I spoke with asked me not to use their full names because they're in the country illegally. Jesus' roommates have had better luck with work and loan him money for food and rent these days. But now, he's in debt here and it doesn't seem worse than anymore. He's been living in the United States for two years and he hasn't had work since July.
JESUS: (Foreign language spoken)
REYNOLDS: Life is expensive. If you work, you eat. If you don't work, you don't eat. My plan is to return to Guatemala and advise people not to come. It's a lost cause. They should carry on with their life as they can in poverty but at least they are with their family.
JESUS: (Foreign language spoken)
REYNOLDS: Many people are taking Jesus' advice. The undocumented population is a difficult group to track. But according to the Pew Hispanic Center, the unauthorized immigration flow from Mexico to the U.S. has decreased over the past three years. But there is no significant evidence that more undocumented immigrants are leaving the U.S. because of the recession.
Still, since October, Sister Margaret has raised money to send about 100 immigrants home, mostly to Guatemala and Honduras. This is something she used to do very rarely.
Before the economy tanked, she says, most people could make it. But now, they can't keep up with the rent. Most of the immigrants who want to go home come to her as a last resort, usually after months of unemployment.
Sister SMYTH: Going home is a very huge decision. First of all, it's a loss of hope. Most of the people who come in looking for tickets are depressed. Some of them have been here three, four, five, up to eight years. They're making major choices because they can't live on the hope that the economy is going to change and change sufficiently that they're going to pick up jobs.
REYNOLDS: In front of Sister Margaret's office, Marcos(ph) is waiting for a friend. He hasn't made any decisions yet, but he too has thought about going home to Guatemala where his wife and three daughters live off his remittances. He's a landscaper but hasn't had work for a few months. And he can barely pay the $200 monthly rent.
MARCOS: (Foreign language spoken)
REYNOLDS: If I get a few days of work, he says, I can still earn enough money to go home. But you need a lot. Marcos and Jesus say they both have friends who've already left the U.S. because they couldn't find work. For now, Jesus will join Sister Margaret's waiting list. And as the recession shift, unemployed immigrants may continue to consider an early ride home.
For NPR News, I'm Sarah Reynolds in New York.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: You're listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
And it's time now for sports.
(Soundbite of music)
This week brought the start of the New Year and the end of the NFL's regular season. That means the end of one Heisman winner's spectacular college career. Joining us now is Howard Bryant, senior writer for espn.com and ESPN The Magazine. Howard, Happy New Year.
Mr. HOWARD BRYANT (Senior Writer, Espn.com, ESPN The Magazine): Happy New Year, Ari. How you doing?
SHAPIRO: I'm great. So, this Heisman winner we're talking about is Tim Tebow, quarterback for the Florida Gators. He went out with a bang last night, huh?
Mr. BRYANT: Went out with a bang last night threw from 533 yards, I mean, an amazing, amazing player. He may very well be considered the greatest college football player of all time. He shattered every record. He can run. He can throw. He can win. And so, it's not as though he just put out big numbers and his team didn't win. The Gator's went 13 to 1. They won national championships. He's pretty much done everything a college football player could do.
And now the interesting thing about it is because his college career is now over, all of that seems to go away a little bit and now comes all the questions about whether or not he is the right type of player to play in the NFL. And so far the consensus is that he's not an NFL player at the quarterback position. So, it's going to be very interesting to see how he goes from being the greatest college football player ever to a guy who's probably going to be fighting for a job because the NFL scouts focus a lot on what a player can't do instead of what he can.
SHAPIRO: Well, speaking of the NFL, NFL playoffs start next week. And who do you see is the teams to beat?
Mr. BRYANT: Well, I still think the Colts and the Chargers and the AFC are the teams to beat. It was a storybook season in the NFC for the Saints and for the Vikings. The Saints have gone undefeated and then suddenly they've lost two in a row. And the Vikings had found their fountain of youth with Brett Favre suddenly playing as though he was 21 years old.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRYANT: And now, they have kind of fallen off the table and so neither one of those top two teams in the NFC are as strong as they were, say, a month ago. And the Philadelphia Eagles are - Philadelphia Eagles very well may be the best team in the NFC. And you don't want to overlook the Patriots. They are a checkered team who are kind of going up and down this season. But once the playoffs seem to begin, they are always - they are tough out as they like to say in baseball.
I think one other thing that's very interesting to pay attention to in football this year is the two defending champions of their respective conferences; the Pittsburgh Steelers need to win this weekend. And then need help to even make the playoff. And then you have the Arizona Cardinals who gave it a great show in the Super Bowl last year and probably a lot of people thought should have won that game. And they're in the play offs but no one is really talking about them. So, maybe they have got one more run in them.
SHAPIRO: Well, very briefly, Howard, describe for me this debate about the integrity of the games going into the playoffs.
Mr. BRYANT: Well, one of the interesting things about the games today is that you have some teams like the Jets who need to win who are playing the Bangles, who don't. And The Texans need to get into the playoff. And they're playing the Patriots who are already in. So, one of the big questions this weekend is going to be just how much effort those teams that don't have to make the playoffs are going to give because I'm sure that their number one concern is not get their players hurt.
SHAPIRO: That's Howard Bryant, senior writer for espn.com and ESPN The Magazine. Thanks, Howard.
Mr. BRYANT: My pleasure.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
At the beginning of this new decade, we've been asking people to offer their predictions for 2010 and beyond. Here's Simon Doonan, the creative director for the clothing store Barney's New York.
Mr. SIMON DOONAN (Creative Director, Barney's New York): Fashion is very much a pendulum. And the last 10 years has been fairly extreme. And so, as we think about the extremes of the last 10 years then, you know, you can use those to predict the swings which would take place in the next 10 years.
So, in the last 10 years we've seen women in particular moving to a very sort of masochistic periods, where shoes became ridiculously high and very painful to wear. And women's sense of their own bodies became very masochistic, like legs never long enough, boobs never big enough, faces never Botox enough. It's been a sort of very self-critical period for women in the last 10 years.
And so, you know, as a guy, I look at that in a more objective way and think, you know, hopefully in the next year, next few years there'll be a sort of relaxing of this sort of unachievable ideal that women have been striving for. Those are my hopes. It would be nice to see women moving to a looser, more bohemian way of viewing themselves.
SHAPIRO: That's Simon Doonan, creative director for Barney's New York offering his fashion predictions on the coming decade.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan may be only 10 minutes from Broadway, but it's a different world. For the last 29 years, the neighborhood has been home to the 52nd Street Project. It's a unique theater program for kids. Jeff Lunden has the story.
JEFF LUNDEN: It's a half hour before show time and 10 new playwrights have gathered in the green room at the Five Angels Theater to chill. They range in age from 10 to 12 and they're all pretty excited to see their work come to life with real professional actors.
Adnan Ahmed(ph), who's 10, wrote "The Brothers." He explains the plot.
Mr. ADNAN AHMED (Writer, "The Brothers"): It's this boy named Rick. He wanted to be in a singing contest, and if he wins, that's his job. But then he asks for his brother's help, but his brother says no.
LUNDEN: Do you have a brother?
Mr. AHMED: Yeah.
LUNDEN: Does your brother help you?
Mr. AHMED: No.
(Soundbite of laughter)
(Soundbite of play, "The Brothers")
Unidentified Man #1: Hello, Rick. I'll help you out.
Unidentified Man #2: (As Rick) Oh, thank you. What made you change your mind?
Unidentified Man #1: I was thinking, you need to get a job. Also, I could get more famous in New York.
(Soundbite of laughter)
LUNDEN: Executive Director Carol Ochs says the idea of teaming up kids with some of the city's finest actors and directors started with Willie Reale in 1981.
Ms. CAROL OCHS (Executive Director, 52nd Street Project): He was an actor at Ensemble Studio Theater, and he got invited by the Police Athletic League, which was across the street, to teach acting class, which he started to teach. And he said, this is terrible; I'm just going to write you a play. And then they performed it at EST. The show ended and a kid came up to him and said with, you know, deep brown eyes, when's the next play? And that really was the beginning of it.
LUNDEN: Back in the 1980s, Hell's Kitchen was pretty rough, and the kids came from the projects and shelters. While the neighborhood has changed, the 52nd Street Project still serves 10- to 18-year-old kids from low-income families. They work as writers and actors with a pool of 400 volunteer theater artists. The shows are presented to the community for free.
Actress Frances McDormand started working with the group long before she won an Academy Award.
Ms. FRANCES MCDORMAND (Actress): The work that I've seen the adult actors and directors do in the 52nd Street Projects is not only some of their best work, it often is their best work that they've ever done in their careers. Because sometimes you're a slice of pizza, sometimes you're a yellow cab, sometimes you're a stick, sometimes you have to negotiate a play that is clearly about a child being abused in their home, but it's in a very metaphorical, allegorical setting.
LUNDEN: Artistic Director Gus Rogerson began as a volunteer too.
Mr. GUS ROGERSON (Artistic Director, 52nd Street Project): I find this stuff that they write endlessly fascinating and rich and incredibly gratifying to work on. And I think a lot of it is because they don't know what a play is. They don't really know what we're doing. And they find out over the course of it, it being unknown to them, they do things with it that are extraordinary.
LUNDEN: Ten-year-old Asia Holer Rosado(ph) is part of the first-year playmaking class. She wrote a show called "Jackie and Lilly," which features a fantastical dream sequence.
Ms. ASIA HOLER ROSADO: My play is about two best friends and then one of them is moving to Europe, and then the other friend is really sad and stuff. And then she has a nightmare that her friend who's moving to Europe is, like, going to smack her. Because the friend who's having a nightmare is an ant and then she gets scared.
(Soundbite of play, "Jackie and Lilly")
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Woman #1: (Singing) (Unintelligible) an ant is (unintelligible).
Unidentified Woman #2: (Singing) I want to go with you.
Unidentified Woman #1: (Singing) You're an ant, not a person. Why would I take an ant with me to Europe?
LUNDEN: But, Asia adds, there's a happy ending.
It's a pretty happy time for the 52nd Street Project too. They've just moved from a cramped rental space down the block, which featured a clubhouse where kids could hang out after school, do homework and eat a meal. Now, there's not only a bigger clubhouse and library, there are rehearsal spaces, shops to build sets and props, offices and a beautiful 150-seat theater.
But the move means more than that, says Executive Director Carol Ochs.
Ms. OCHS: The neighborhood's gentrifying so much, it was really great to have a piece of it belong to the kids so that they - because these apartment buildings that this is attached to are fancy and, you know, there's new restaurants all of the sudden. And it's like they're already feeling a little pressed in the neighborhood. So, now they really own a piece of it, and that's really exciting.
LUNDEN: The 52nd Street Project will be welcoming its next bath of 10-year-old playwrights with the new semester.
For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Oscar Micheaux was this country's first major black filmmaker. He began as a homesteader, then worked as a Pullman porter and a novelist. Micheaux went on to write, produce and direct all black films - first silent then talkies -early in the last century. Some of his movies were direct responses to the racial stereotypes portrayed in the movies of D.W. Griffith. Others took on controversial themes, like lynching, and in the film "God's Stepchildren," passing for white.
(Soundbite of movie, "God's Stepchildren")
Unidentified Woman: If you see me, you don't know me. Even if you pass me on the street, I am a stranger; you are a stranger. Oh, I know it's hard but for me it's the only way. One other is suicide, and I still want to live, mother. I want to live.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: Oscar Micheaux's life and work have now been set to music. The new album by Stace England and the Salt Kings is called "The Amazing Oscar Micheaux."
(Soundbite of song)
Mr. STACE ENGLAND (Lead Singer, Stace England and the Salt Kings): (Singing) Well, I've gone (unintelligible), to a place unknown. No love was left, (unintelligible) come in stone...
SHAPIRO: Stace England joins us now from member station WSIU in Carbondale, Illinois. Welcome.
Mr. ENGLAND: Thank you for having me.
SHAPIRO: I think many Americans have never heard of Oscar Micheaux. So, tell me more about the arc of his life. How did he get from being the first black homesteader in South Dakota to creating 44 films between 1919 and 1948?
Mr. ENGLAND: He was a man of iron will and determination, and is really looking for a way to make a name for himself in a way that African-Americans could at the time, and decides to become a farmer and ends up homesteading in South Dakota. But in his isolation on the South Dakota prairie, he decides to start writing books, and writes a book and publishes it in 1913 called "The Conquest" about his homesteading experience.
Writes two more books and writes another in 1917 called "The Homesteader." And about that time, a very small black film company started negotiating with Micheaux about making the book into a film. Negotiations ensue and Micheaux says, I can make a better film myself. I'm going to do it on my own, and he does.
When that film was released in 1919, "The Homesteader," it was an absolute sensation because for the first time African-Americans could see themselves in roles that were heroic and not the stereotypical things that were being produced around Hollywood and the rest of the country.
SHAPIRO: And "The Homesteader" is the title of the first track of this album. Let's listen to a little bit of it.
(Soundbite of song, "The Homesteader")
Mr. ENGLAND: (Singing) Well, you know his name is the homesteader, scratching the liver from a (unintelligible). You know his story, you know it well. You lived it too, but you can't tell. Claims things in a (unintelligible). Make it to a (unintelligible). Calling back, all (unintelligible) do, and God in his best(ph) will make it through...
SHAPIRO: Many of his films took on intensely controversial racial issues -somewhere a direct response to D.W. Griffith. "Birth of a Nation," for example, was a Griffith film that was deemed by some to be racist. Micheaux responded by creating a story of an African-American who poses as white and rides with the KKK. That's quite a concept there.
Mr. ENGLAND: It's quite out there. I think you're referring to the film, "Symbol of the Unconquered," which he did exactly what you described, including some camera angles that sort of mock Griffith. More interesting, perhaps, is the film right before that. His first pushback to "The Birth of a Nation" was "Within Our Gates." And what's so dramatic about the film in 1920 - it was Micheaux's second film - people were expecting, after "The Homesteader," his first film, an uplifting story and all the rest of that.
And what they got was stunning. It was this "Birth" pushback, which included scenes of the lynching of an entire innocent family and the attempted rape of the main character, Sylvia Landry, whose attacker turned out to be her birth father. So, audiences were simply stunned by that. Adding to the mystique of both those films was that they were lost for decades - about 60 years - and only rediscovered in Madrid and Brussels in about 1990 and brought back to the States.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. ENGLAND: (Singing) Sylvia, Sylvia Landry, how does your garden grow? With our best intentions, (unintelligible) wish to sow...
SHAPIRO: How big an impact did Micheaux make in his day? Were his audiences black and white? Did he have a big following?
Mr. ENGLAND: He had a big following early on because African-Americans in theaters throughout the country that couldn't get into the regular white theater network were drawn to these films. And Micheaux always believed he could cross that color barrier and have whites want to watch his films. That never happened, and I think that was really heartbreaking to him.
SHAPIRO: Micheaux's last film was by all accounts a disaster. It was more than three hours long, everyone panned it, including the New York Times, which was reviewing one of his films for the first time ever. This film was called "The Betrayal." Let's listen to a bit of your song by the same title.
(Soundbite of song, "The Betrayal")
Mr. ENGLAND: (Singing) When everyone loves you and the world is your oyster, and you've forgotten where you came from. What we do if you weren't abandoned and all is forsaken and brands, you have none.
Micheaux really got out of the movie business about 1940 and basically said, look, I'm tired of the money chase; I'm not doing this anymore, and began to write books again. And then got the itch again about '47, and said I'm going to make one last long blockbuster to cement my legacy and did "The Betrayal." And this was yet another retelling of his homesteader experience. Studio...
SHAPIRO: Revisiting the same thing that his first novel had been about, that his first film had been about, just coming back to it again and again.
Mr. ENGLAND: That's correct. So, Micheaux's mistake was coming back because he lost most of his money in making the film. And even the black press deserted him at this movie. The Chicago Defender called it a tasteless bore. But Micheaux was always pushing forward. He passed away on another promotional trip in 1951. And the other interesting thing about this film, it's a lost movie. The material was lost. The rumors...
SHAPIRO: I was going to say, like so many of his other films. So now we can't judge for ourselves whether it was any good or not.
Mr. ENGLAND: That's right. And the rumors are - maybe not founded - that his wife, Alice Russell, was so distraught over his treatment over this movie that she destroyed all the copies. That may be or may not be true, but there's always hope that in somebody's attic, under somebody's quilt, some of these films are going to be rediscovered, and maybe "The Betrayal" would be one of those.
SHAPIRO: Stace England, thanks for speaking with us.
Mr. ENGLAND: My pleasure.
SHAPIRO: Stace England and the Salt Kings' latest CD is called "The Amazing Oscar Micheaux."
(Soundbite of song)
SHAPIRO: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro. Happy New Year.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Over the holidays, two civil rights leaders died. They lived halfway around the world from each other - one in the United States; the other in South Africa.
Percy Sutton was a civil rights attorney who represented Malcolm X. He was a political and media figure in New York over the decades. When he started his political life in the '50s, the South was still segregated. In the 1960s, Sutton was arrested as a freedom rider in Mississippi and Alabama.
Dennis Brutus was also arrested in the '60s. He shared a prison with Nelson Mandela. Brutus spent his life fighting apartheid, as a poet and an activist.
Looking back on their lives from our vantage point in 2010, it's easy to see their victories as predestined. Of course, desegregation and the fall of apartheid were fait accompli. How could society have taken any other course? But in the middle of the last century, these debates were real, intense and heartfelt.
When I was born in the late '70s, civil rights battles were already chapters in textbooks. And even though apartheid still existed when I was a kid, for most of my life, there has been consensus about who was on the wrong side of that history - not just the losing side, but the morally wrong side.
There are issues such as abortion that are as contentious today as ever. But civil rights and apartheid seem different, because in retrospect, the right answer is just so obvious.
As fiery as the debates in Congress were in the 1960s, many lawmakers who voted against civil rights back then have changed their mind and apologized for those votes. It's true that just a few months ago, a Louisiana justice of the peace refused to perform interracial marriages because he thought it was bad for the children. Tell that to President Obama, son of a white mother and a black father.
So, there may not be complete consensus but it's close.
And now as we move into a new decade, I look at the fierce, passionate and heartfelt debates of today, and I wonder which issues that we're debating now will seem morally obvious in just a few decades.
Let me say something explicitly: it is easy to interpret this as a veiled argument for some particular policy - whatever your personal favorite might be. And I want to state, point blank, I am not trying to make a thinly disguised case for immigration, health care, gay marriage, climate change, Afghanistan or anything else that the country is debating today.
I'm asking a sincere question and I don't know the answer; I don't think anyone can know the answer today. Which controversies of the present day will continue to be debated forever, and which, like civil rights and apartheid, will seem morally obvious by the time we're all just a few decades older?
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: You're listening to NPR News.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
The century's first decade was a tough one for workers. In 2000, the tech stock bubble burst, leading to job losses for legions of technology and telecom workers. Then, the country slammed into the 2001 recession. After a jobless recovery, the decade ended with a brutal recession that has erased another 7 million jobs. So will the new decade be any better for workers? All this week, NPR will explore that question on MORNING EDITION. Here to discuss the series "New Jobs for a New Decade" is senior business editor Marilyn Geewax. Happy New Year, Marilyn.
MARILYN GEEWAX: Hi, Liane. Happy New Year to you, too.
HANSEN: Before we consider the next decade, where did the jobs go during the past one?
GEEWAX: You know, we never seem to know what to call this first decade of the century. It's technically the aughts, but for workers it's been more like the uh-ohs. In this past decade, we've seen the number of private-sector jobs fall. They actually went away. We went from roughly 109 million jobs to 108 million private-sector jobs. And that is literally the first time since the Labor Department started tracking payroll employment about 70 years ago that we've had a decade with a net job loss in the private sector.
To a large extent, that loss reflects the big increases we've seen in productivity. Companies are just a lot more productive because they've figured out all kinds of ways to eliminate labor by using more efficient machines.
You know, when I was a kid growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, the steel mills there employed huge numbers of laborers. But those jobs are gone. If you go to visit a steel mill today, you will hardly see a soul there. Those jobs are just being done now by computers and all kinds of advanced equipment. And that's good for profits, But it's not so great for the workers. And of course, we have also seen a lot of manufacturing and tech work moved overseas.
HANSEN: Bad news for the past year; got any good news for the New Year?
GEEWAX: Well, we are trying to figure that out in this new series. Economists and certain political leaders will all say the same thing, that we really need to create new jobs and do it fast, or this economy is just not going to perform well. People can't afford their homes if they don't have jobs, so that makes the foreclosure crisis worse. They can't buy cars if they don't have jobs, and that makes the auto industry worse. People won't have money to invest in retirement.
You really - to get back to a genuinely solid economy, you have got to have job growth. And the problem is that right now, the labor market is so weak that we're going to have to have years, literally years of just slow, steady building even to get back to where we were before this recession began in '07. And what we're finding is that most of the economists, when we talk to them, say it's going to be 2013, maybe 2015 before we get back to a healthy market.
HANSEN: That's pretty grim news. But there must be growth in some areas. Is there any hope for new jobs?
GEEWAX: Well, in this new series that'll be airing on MORNING EDITION, we do take a closer look at several industries that hold promise for new jobs. For example, one of our reporters, Chris Arnold, who's up in Massachusetts, he went to visit this old Polaroid film factory. And you know, that's a plant that should be closed up. But instead, it's humming with business. And right now that's, because the new company is using the old machinery and even some of the old Polaroid workers to make this film-like solar panel that can be built into windows. So they took an old factory, and they're figuring out ways to move it into the new decade with new jobs.
And we have other business desk reporters who are going to take a look at jobs in health care, technology, financial services. And then at the end of the week, we're getting an important, new report. On Friday, the Labor Department releases its December numbers, so we'll see just exactly how tough or not of a year this was for workers. And we have a lot of interesting data about jobs at NPR.org.
HANSEN: Marilyn Geewax is NPR's senior business editor. Thanks a lot, Marilyn.
GEEWAX: Oh, you're welcome, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The nation's economic woes have been particularly hard on the dairy industry. Milk prices are at historic lows and many dairy farmers are going bankrupt. Still, some farmers have found a way to survive: They've gone organic.
NPR's Kathleen Masterson visited an organic family farm in northern Vermont.
(Soundbite of machinery)
KATHLEEN MASTERSON: At this hour, well before dawn, the only light around is coming from the barn. Tim Maikshilo and his teenage son, Max, are milking the herd; hooking each cow up to a pump, which sends the milk to a central stainless steel tank. The barn smells like cow breath and hay. Tim's wife, Kristen Dellert, is bottle-feeding the nine baby calves, including the one born in the pasture a few hours ago.
Mr. TIM MAIKSHILO (Dairy Farmer): We're milking about 42 right now. Takes me about an hour and a half to milk.
MASTERSON: For three years now, Tim and Kristen have been running an organic farm. That means the cows have to get feed grown without pesticides. They can't have antibiotics or growth hormones either. And for at least three months a year, the cows have to be out on pasture.
Mr. MAIKSHILOL: I drive out there and I'll sit and have my coffee...
(Soundbite of a cow)
Mr. MAIKSHILOL: ...and call them. I'll call them and they'll totally get up. I'll have to get out and roust a few up and then they slowly make their way to the barn.
Hello, Jackie. Hello, Sassy.
(Soundbite of house)
Mr. MAIKSHILOL: The ginger, red cylinder out on the back.
MASTERSON: A family home is tucked amid the low, green hills of Coventry, Vermont. From the breakfast table they can see the cows grazing out back. This farm is making it now, but it wasn't always. A few years ago, Tim and Kristen tried running a conventional dairy.
Ms. KRISTEN DELLERT (Dairy Farmer): Well, actually we moved up her from Connecticut because Tim wanted to be a dairy farmer, and as a speech pathologist I could work just about anywhere.
MASTERSON: That was in 2000. Right away, Kristen says, they realized it was going to be a lot of work � hands-on work.
Ms. DELLERT: The first time I went into barn and Tim says to me, that cow's in labor over there, you need to check her. No. Put a glove on and make sure the nose and feet are coming out. And I'm, like, I have a master's degree.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MASTERSON: Kristen learned how to birth a baby cow and many other dairy chores. Through it all, she kept her full-time day job. But, still, they weren't making enough to live on.
Ms. DELLERT: Tim said, you know, we're working 18 hours a day, seven days a week and we don't get to set the price for our product. He said, this is crazy. So we sold the cows. And Tim did his own construction business for a while, excavating business. I kept working.
MASTERSON: But after a couple of years with an empty barn, they decided to try again. This time they would go organic. One reason was the money. These days, conventional farmers are actually getting paid less for their milk than it cost them to produce it.
Ms. DELLERT: They're losing their shirts, basically, just to stay in the business.
MASTERSON: Meanwhile, organic farmers are selling their milk for a slim profit. They're getting about a dollar more per gallon than conventional. So, you might think all conventional farms would be going organic right now. But Kristen and Tim say it's not for everybody. For one thing, you have to know your cows pretty well. Their son, Max, can name every cow, even from across the pasture.
Mr. MAX MAIKSHILO: And then we have Bean, who was Coffee's baby. And then Glazed, who was Donut's baby.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. DELLERT: And Lisa Marie, who's Presley's baby.
MASTERSON: If a cow is getting sick, they know right away. That's important because organic farmers can't give their animals antibiotics. It's a lot of work and it's expensive. The organic feed costs more and so do the organic remedies for sick cows. But Kristen says it's worth.
Ms. DELLERT: We actually think they're healthier, because we find they're under less stress because they get to go out. Cows love being out on pasture. They're meant to eat grass. So, anything else that you give them puts them under stress.
MASTERSON: Tim and Kristen have had a lot of help learning how to run an organic farm. They're part of a co-op called Organic Valley. It helps by marketing and distributing the milk. Kristen says being part of a co-op allows each farm to be more than just a milk factory.
Ms. DELLERT: Because it truly does give farmers an alternative in terms of how they're treated and what's being done with our milk.
MASTERSON: Still, in today's economy, even organic farmers are feeling the pinch. Tim and Kristen's dairy is making just enough for both of them to be full-time farmers. But they've had to make some cutbacks.
Ms. DELLERT: We've let our hired help go because we have to reduce our costs. So now it's just the three of us.
MASTERSON: They've had to postpone plans to expand, but, still, Tim and Kristen feel lucky their dairy is in the black. And they trust the organic movement will weather the economic downturn.
Kathleen Masterson, NPR News.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The 1970s saw changes great and small in American society. More women began to move into the workforce and began to define themselves as more than wives, mothers or girlfriends. As this song extolled: They could have it all.
(Soundbite of song, "I Can Bring Home the Bacon")
Unidentified Woman: (Singing) I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan. And never, never, never let you forget you're a man, 'cause I'm a woman.
HANSEN: While men grew their hair and wore flowered shirts, children were listening to Marlo Thomas singing "Free to Be... You and Me."
(Soundbite of song, "Free to Be... You and Me")
Ms. MARLO THOMAS (Actress): (Singing) Mommies are people, people with children...
HANSEN: Gender roles were changing. It was OK for Mom to be a doctor and Dad to be a nurse. It was also increasingly OK to leave behind the confines of marriage. The divorce rate, which had begun to climb in the 1960s, soared in the '70s as states began to adopt no-fault divorce laws. But what did the divorce boom mean for the kids?
Producer Sasha Aslanian spent five years working on a documentary about the children of divorce, and here's some of what she found.
SASHA ASLANIAN: "Kramer vs. Kramer" was the quintessential divorce movie of the 1970s. It won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1979. Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep starred as the estranged couple locked in a custody battle over their young son.
(Soundbite of movie, "Kramer vs. Kramer")
Unidentified Man #1: (As character) Were you a failure at the one most important relationship in your life? Were you? Is that a yes, Mrs. Kramer?
Mr. DUSTIN HOFFMAN (Actor): (As Ted Kramer) Did you have to be so rough on her?
Unidentified Man #1: (As character) Do you want the kid, or don't you?
ASLANIAN: The kid they were fighting over doesn't have much of a voice in the movie. It's more of a drama about his parents. Avery Corman wrote the novel the movie was based on.
Mr. AVERY CORMAN (Novelist): I know when I saw a screening of it in a movie house for the first time, when I got up, there were kids all around, kind of slumped in their seats - that I knew exactly who they were.
ASLANIAN: Corman himself was a child of divorce. And in his neighborhood in the Bronx in the 1940s, that was something deeply shameful.
Mr. CORMAN: It was a kind of family secret, so to say. And as a result, I think I was walking around with a secret. And I think I just became more of a remote kid than I might have normally been.
ASLANIAN: By the time he wrote "Kramer vs. Kramer" in the mid- '70s, divorce was much more commonplace, and the stigma was rapidly disappearing. But Corman still guarded his own secret. After "Kramer" came out, a school girl from the Midwest wrote to him. Were your parents divorced? she asked. It took a child to see right through.
(Soundbite of music)
ASLANIAN: A few years ago, my daughters were playing in their bedroom. They were listening to a tape of "Barney" songs. You know, Barney, the purple dinosaur from public television. The lyrics Barney and his little friends were singing caught my ear.
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Child #1: (Singing) There's a girl I know who lives with her mom. Her dad lives far away. Although she sees her parents just one at a time, they both love her every day.
ASLANIAN: When I was growing up in the '70s, I don't remember any songs like this, about how all families were terrific no matter what they looked like. I'm glad kids have that nowadays.
A few years ago, I was helping my mom clean out her basement. She handed me a box of unlabeled, reel-to-reel tapes. She wasn't sure what was on them. I took them home and discovered one of them contained this...
(Soundbite of home movie)
Unidentified Man #2: I, Paul Aslanian...
Mr. PAUL ASLANIAN: I, Paul Aslanian...
Unidentified Man #2: ...take thee, Solfrid Ladstein...
Mr. ASLANIAN: ... take thee, Solfrid Ladstein...
ASLANIAN: I was 10 when my parents told me they were separating. They stayed on good terms. My mom moved two blocks away, and my little brother and I piled our clothes in laundry baskets and moved back and forth � spending two weeks with mom, and two weeks with dad.
I have two bedrooms, I'd brag to other kids. I didn't want anyone feeling sorry for me. I bristled at the term ''broken home." I was fine. It wasn't until much later � in adulthood � that I let down my guard a little bit. How had the divorce affected me? And not just me � a generation and society?
The courts have figured out divorce is here to stay, so they might as well get better at it. Hennepin County, Minnesota, is one place that's taken aggressive steps for the sake of the kids.
Judge JAMES SWENSON (Hennepin County, Minneapolis District Court): We wanted to get kids out of middle of messy custody fights.
ASLANIAN: Judge James Swenson joined the family court bench in Minneapolis 15 years ago. When he started, the cases that made it to his chambers were already 12 to 18 months old � plenty of time for rancor and bitterness to set in.
So in 2000, Hennepin County tried something different. At the first meeting with the judge right after filing for divorce, there would be no motions. No judicial robes. And the attorneys would sit on the sidelines.
Judge SWENSON: The judge would sit down with the parties, and talk to them about such things as childhood development: what they could do to help their kids; what would send their kids' mental health south real fast; what they could do to preserve some of their assets for their kids' extracurricular activities or college rather than the lawyers' kids' extracurricular activities and college.
ASLANIAN: After the initial meeting, the couple would come back a few weeks later and meet with a male and a female custody evaluator. They'd try to come up with a reasonable plan that everyone could buy into. A separate meeting dealt with the financial part of divorce. An astonishing thing happened: 65 percent of cases settled within 30 days. Swenson jokes it was an absolute boon for judges. Swenson's time in trial dropped by more than a third.
Judge SWENSON: And the number of cases that I had where it was highly vitriolic, with really ugly testimony and warring by the lawyers, dropped off the edge of a cliff.
ASLANIAN: In early 2009, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government cited Hennepin County's program one of the top 50 innovations in government.
Most states now require divorcing couples to complete a parenting program. Sometimes, kids have to take classes, too. I visited one in Hennepin County in 2005, run by a nonprofit called Storefront. Instructor Shawn Neel led these 10-to 12-year-olds through a discussion.
Mr. SHAWN NEEL (Instructor, The Storefront Group): Is it ever really a kid's fault that adults can't solve their problems?
Unidentified Child #2: No.
Mr. NEEL: Does that sound silly?
Ms. LIZZY KALTENHAUSER: That's what my dad say. He said that it's not your fault you're getting � we're getting divorced or - yeah.
AASLANIAN: But these fourth- and fifth-graders had plenty of exposure to adult problems. Stories flowed about alcohol and fights. The kids even used terms like anger-management problems. They practiced role playing, how to avoid divorce traps � like being asked to spy on the other parent, or parents who spew venom about each other.
But the kids seemed to know they were out of their depth dealing with unhappy parents. Here's Lizzy Kaltenhauser's take:
Ms. KALTENHAUSER: It's like when you watch a grown-up movie. You don't want to know about this stuff yet.
Mr. NEEL: That's right.
Ms. KALTENHAUSER: You want to - you'll probably say in your mind, I don't want to learn about this stuff until I'm a grown-up.
Mr. NEEL: Mm-hmm.
ASLANIAN: Three years have passed. I go to visit Lizzy at her dad's house. She's 12 now, and goes by Ellie.
So, your family has changed a lot in three years.
Ms. KALTENHAUSER: Oh, yes. A lot. I have three brothers and a new stepmom. She's amazing and - most of the time, at least. She's really nice when she's not being a neat freak. But yeah, pretty good.
ASLANIAN: Ellie's pretty typical of a divorced kid. Not too many years have passed, but she and her brother, Ben, have gained a stepmom, a stepbrother � also named Ben � and now Daniel, a half-brother who's a year and a half old when I visit.
It's a lively household, with a white, pet rat named Sugar in a cage in the living room, and a big trampoline out back. Two weekends a month and Tuesday evenings, Ellie and her first brother Ben spend time with their mom. Ellie seems chipper about life in both households. I ask her what she remembers from the divorce class.
Ms. KALTENHAUSER: Something that usually I learn in class goes through one ear and out the other, but I remember mostly about drawing pictures and telling the teacher what we think about our parents and how they yell and stuff so, yeah.
ASLANIAN: Ellie says it felt good to meet the other kids and talk about their experiences, even if she never saw them again. The class is a positive, if hazy, memory for Ellie. In that class, Ellie had described divorce as watching a grown-up movie she wasn't old enough to understand. It hasn't gone away.
Ms. KALTENHAUSER: My stepmom and my dad were actually fighting, and I just felt like, is this a rewinding movie? Like, did it rewind? I mean, it felt exactly how my parents fought.
ASLANIAN: Ellie's rewinding movie may be difficult for her to shut off. When I dug into this topic five years ago, I thought the story would be how children of the divorce revolution aren't all messed up. We're not the truants and drug addicts the '70s pop psychologists predicted we'd be. But it also wasn't quite true that if our parents were better off getting out of the marriage, we kids would be, too.
Social scientists have had decades to study the children of divorce. They confirm some of our worst fears: We're about 50 percent more likely to fail in our own marriages.
But it doesn't stop us from trying. After 12 years of dating, I made it to the altar. I even tempted fate and wore my mother's wedding dress. I still believe in love, even for divorced kids.
For NPR News, I'm Sasha Aslanian.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
In Iraq, women have long fought to grab a significant share of seats in the country's parliament. And with elections scheduled for early March, many female lawmakers in Iraq say they are still struggling to be accepted.
Quil Lawrence is NPR's Baghdad bureau chief, and he joins us from Baghdad with more. Hi, Quil.
QUIL LAWRENCE: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: You've been speaking with Iraqi women in government and civil society. How would you characterize the progress of Iraq's women's movement since the last round of parliamentary elections?
LAWRENCE: Well, the consensus was that there was sort of an advance and then a retreat. They have a 25 percent quota in the parliament, which was put in place by the American Occupational Authority. That was led, of course, by Paul Bremer. And there was a campaign by Iraqi women, a grassroots movement, to push him to veto a proposed law that would've changed Iraqi family law and set it back decades. And this was seen as a victory for grassroots women organizing to defend their rights in Iraq.
Unfortunately, when security started to fall apart in 2005, 2006, women's rights and women's security seemed to fall apart with it. Women were sort of the most vulnerable in a society that everyone felt vulnerable in. This was a point that was made by Manal Omar, who's been working with women's NGOs here in Iraq for years. She's currently with the U.S. Institute for Peace, and here's what she had to say.
Ms. MANAL OMAR (U.S. Institute for Peace): Now, 'cause of security in 2005, I would say everything related to women, and a lot of development, particularly women's issues, froze. So it's almost like we're just picking up now. So the last few years - and it was, I mean, you know, by all accounts it was the dark ages of Iraq. So it was very difficult for women to be able to step forward. I mean, their primary objective was to stay alive.
LAWRENCE: So, Ms. Omar actually said that the fragile success of the current security situation means that women's rights are just getting back to zero. But again, that's just as fragile as this current situation we're in, in Iraq.
HANSEN: Well, let me ask you, are the obstacles for Iraqi women the same this time around?
LAWRENCE: They're similar, but they're a bit harder perhaps. The family law is a good example. Women back in 2003 and '04 felt they had a victory in preventing a much more conservative law from being passed. Iraqi law passed in 1958 was some of the most progressive law on women's issues in the region. But in the interim, at the same time the security situation was falling apart, the constitution was passed. And that had an article in it - Article 41 - which might be interpreted to give local judges the authority to interpret family law.
So perhaps in the Kurdish north or some of the urban centers, there might be judges who would interpret that quite liberally - things about divorce, inheritance, child custody. But in more conservative parts of the country, in the Shiite south or parts of the Sunni triangle, the judges could be quite conservative. So women's groups are just starting to organize around this again.
HANSEN: Are the issues of women's rights a priority among the candidates who are running for office in Iraq?
BOWMAN: Well, when I asked this of these four or five leading women's activists we talked to, they more or less agreed, no. Women's issues kind of get discussed in the periphery. And one of the women I spoke with said that they were sort of intimidated to bring up women's rights per se. They said they thought they had a better chance of just discussing general things about security and welfare, trying to improve everyone's lot, and hoping that that tide would lift all votes at least some.
She pointed out that if you say women are the victims of this, then you're sort of pointing the finger at who the oppressor would be, namely men, and people aren't really feeling safe enough, secure enough to start doing that yet.
HANSEN: Who are Iraq's female parliamentarians, and how do they identify politically?
BOWMAN: Well, that's something of a sore point because many of the women who were brought in seemed to have - and they're quite able politicians - but they seem to have other connections. That was a point that was made by Hana Edward, who is one of the women's activists I spoke with back in 2003 and 2004. And she said she thought that most of the women parliamentarians at the moment were beholden to - sort of the traditional power brokers here in Iraq.
Ms. HANA EDWARD (Activist): The majority have been chosen not from women movement; they were chosen because of family relations or tribe relations or very narrow political party relations. And they are not strong women leaders. They are just women. They want to obey what the leader will say, so they will say yes. And this is - unfortunately, we need to develop the leadership of women who they are - when they are occupying such high position.
HANSEN: Quil, what role has the United States played in the forthcoming elections?
LAWRENCE: We asked the embassy about that, but we didn't get any comment from them. Informally, I know there's a lot of concern that U.S. help on this issue has focused on, kind of bricks and mortar projects. So they've been building these new women's centers with computers and all sorts of high-tech facilities. But some women's rights activists are complaining that they were just throwing money at the problem without really looking to see whether these centers will be used.
On the other hand, it can be a hot-button issue, and some of these activists expressed some optimism that U.S. taxpayers can be very sensitive to bad publicity around women's issues here in the Muslim world. And so they thought that that was something that the embassy could still give a push on.
HANSEN: Looking ahead a bit to the March vote, what kind of progress do Iraqis in general hope to make?
LAWRENCE: I think everyone's still waiting to see if this current security situation can hold. We've seen some high-profile bombings since August. There have been three of them that targeted government buildings, and it's really rattled people. Especially by the third one, I think, people I was talking to, who had been optimistic six months ago, are quite scared now.
And they're hoping that Iraq can make a transfer to a new government, that government can hold the security situation together, but they're really not sure how long that'll take or how it'll go down. Many of them seem to be waiting for the next attack.
As for women's leaders, I would say they're hoping for more serious positions. One expressed an interest in getting a woman as defense minister or interior minister, at least in one of the ministries that has the purse strings so that a woman can be in a position of power and really start using her influence in a high-profile way that would be a role model to Iraqi women.
HANSEN: Quil Lawrence is NPR's Baghdad bureau chief. Quil, thanks a lot.
LAWRENCE: Thank you.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
And joining us for the first puzzle of this new year, 20-10, 2010, is puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Hi, Will.
WILL SHORTZ: Hi, Liane. Happy New Year.
HANSEN: Happy New Year to you. Do you say 20-10 or 2010?
SHORTZ: I go back and forth. I don't know. If I want to sound science-fictiony, I say 2010, and if I want to sound, you know, informal it's 20-10. How about you?
HANSEN: I don't know. I'm the same. I go back and forth. I just would have to remember to put that date on my checks now. That's the hard part.
SHORTZ: I've already made that mistake.
HANSEN: Have you really?
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: All right. Well, you gave us a challenge last week, which on the surface was hard, but underneath was easy. Would you repeat it?
SHORTZ: Yes. I said take the phrase pray when P-R-A-Y W-H-E-N, I said, double four of these letters, and using those plus the four singles, rearrange all 12 letters to spell a familiar phrase. What phrase is it?
HANSEN: It's an appropriate phrase, right, Will? What's the answer?
SHORTZ: Yeah. We already said it: Happy New Year.
HANSEN: Happy New Year. Well, we received nearly 2,000 entries this week and from the correct entries, our randomly selected winner is Herb Harris of Boulder, Colorado. Hi, Herb.
Mr. HERB HARRIS: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: How are you doing?
Mr. HARRIS: I'm really doing pretty well. And you?
HANSEN: Very well. How long did it take you to solve the puzzle?
Mr. HARRIS: Well, we like to play Boggle here, so I got out my Boggle cubes and sat down with them and it only took me a few minutes.
HANSEN: Oh, good for you. How long have you been playing our radio puzzle?
Mr. HARRIS: Well, I'd say close to 20 years. I started out sending in postcards. Didn't think it would ever happen.
HANSEN: Yep, and it did. So, are you ready to be the first contestant of the new decade?
Mr. HARRIS: Sure.
HANSEN: All right. Will, meet Herb; Herb, meet Will, and let's play.
Mr. HARRIS: Hi, Will.
SHORTZ: Hi, Herb. Well, this is a good two-person game, and it's my annual year-end-names-in-the-news quiz. And these are - I'm going to give you names of people that you almost certainly never heard of before 2009, but they became suddenly famous during the past 12 months. And this was prepared with the help of two past year-end news quiz contestants - Kathy Baker(ph) and Tim Goodman, as well as my friend Evie Eisenberg(ph).
Here's number one: Chesley Sullenberger.
Mr. HARRIS: Well, he was the pilot of the plane that went into the drink.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SHORTZ: Good. Into the Hudson in particular. Nice job. Number two is Nadya Suleman.
Mr. HARRIS: Liane?
HANSEN: She was the Octomom. She is the Octomom.
SHORTZ: Yeah, she had octuplets this past year. How about Carrie Prejean. And the last name is spelled P-R-E-J-E-A-N.
Mr. HARRIS: Liane, you're going to have to help me.
HANSEN: Not on your radar, Herb?
Mr. HARRIS: No.
HANSEN: Wasn't she the former Miss USA, Miss California?
SHORTZ: That's right. She was first runner-up in Miss USA and she gained fame by her answer to a question about same-sex marriage. All right. How about Falcon Heene? That's H-E-E-N-E, Falcon Heene.
Mr. HARRIS: He was the person in Fort Collins who sent up a balloon as a hoax, publicity.
SHORTZ: Actually, the son. It's the boy who was supposedly in the attic, but not really.
HANSEN: The balloon boy himself.
SHORTZ: The balloon boy himself. How about Euna Lee and Laura Ling. It's a pair - Euna Lee and Laura Ling.
Mr. HARRIS: Are these the people who were in North Korea?
SHORTZ: Good job. Journalists detained in North Korea and they were brought home by former President Bill Clinton. How about Maria Belen Chapur, Maria Belen Chapur. It's a woman in Argentina.
Mr. HARRIS: This must be the woman that boarded with the governor.
SHORTZ: That's right. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, good.
Mr. HARRIS: Right.
SHORTZ: Here's your next one: Joe Wilson. Joe Wilson. And your hint, Herb, is he yelled something this year. He's famous for yelling.
Mr. HARRIS: Oh, he yelled at the president.
SHORTZ: He yelled, you lie, good, during President Obama's speech in Congress. All right, and here's your last one: Bo. Just two letters, B-O, Bo.
Mr. HARRIS: B-O?
SHORTZ: And your hint, B-O, and I'll give you a hint, it's not a human.
Mr. HARRIS: Do you know, Liane?
HANSEN: What did the president get for his daughters?
Mr. HARRIS: Oh, a dog.
HANSEN: Yeah.
SHORTZ: It's the new White House dog, a Portuguese water dog.
HANSEN: The first dog, as it were. Not easy to remember those names, is it, Herb?
Mr. HARRIS: No, I'm afraid not.
HANSEN: No, but I'm glad we were working as a team.
Mr. HARRIS: Yes. I am, too.
HANSEN: All right, well, for playing our puzzle today, you get some great prizes, and a wonderful person to tell you what you'll get. It's musician Bruce Hornsby. And he's actually on this week's show because we went down to visit him at his home studio in Williamsburg. And he's talking to us about his 10th album called "Levitate."
Here's Bruce Hornsby.
Mr. BRUCE HORNSBY (Musician): For playing our puzzle today, you'll get a WEEKEND EDITION lapel pin, the "Scrabble Deluxe Edition" from Parker Brothers, Will Shortz' latest book series "Will Shortz Presents KenKen" Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from St. Martin's Press, one of Will - do you say Shortz'? Shortz' sounds a little dodgy to me. I'd like to pose a question to the NPR audience: Would you say Shortz' or Shortz'?
Will Shortz' latest books series, "Will Shortz Presents KenKen" Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from St. Martin's Press, one of Will Shortz' "Puzzlemaster Decks of Riddles and Challenges" from Chronicle Books and a CD compilation of NPR's Sunday Puzzles.
HANSEN: Herb, what do you think?
Mr. HARRIS: I think that's great.
HANSEN: Oh, yeah. Will, what do you think, Shortz' or Shortz'?
SHORTZ: I go with Shortz', but you can do whatever you want.
HANSEN: Yeah, but it's your name.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Oh, Herb, before we let you go, tell us what member station you listen to.
Mr. HARRIS: KUNC, and I'm a member.
HANSEN: Ah, great word for the new year - member. Herb Harris of Boulder, Colorado. Thanks so much for being our puzzle guest today and Happy New Year.
Mr. HARRIS: Thank you and Happy New Year to you both.
SHORTZ: Excellent.
HANSEN: Okay. Well, we've got many puzzles to go before 2010 comes to a close. What's our challenge for next week, Will?
SHORTZ: Yes. It involves a cool discovery by Ed Pegg Jr., who runs the Web site MathPuzzle.com. Write down the digits from 2 to 7 in order. Add two mathematical symbols to get an expression equaling 2010. Can you do it? So, again, write down the digits from 2 to 7 in order, add two mathematical symbols to get an expression equaling 2010. What symbols are these?
HANSEN: When you have the answer, go to our Web site, NPR.org/puzzle and click on the Submit Your Answer link. Only one entry per person, please. Our deadline this week is Thursday, 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Please include a phone number where we can reach you at about that time, and we'll call you if you're the winner and you'll get to play puzzle on the air with the puzzle editor of The New York Times and WEEKEND EDITION's puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
Thanks a lot, Will.
SHORTZ: Thanks, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The United States has allocated $13 billion for the construction of high-speed rail lines over the next five years. But China plans to spend $300 billion in the next decade to build the world's most extensive and advanced high-speed rail network. The Chinese government sees it as a strategic investment that will help jump-start its economy.
NPR's Anthony Kuhn recently took a ride on what is now the world's fastest train, and he filed this report.
ANTHONY KUHN: Workers are putting the finishing touches on a French-designed, glass-and-steel train station on the fringes of Wuhan, a major metropolis on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
(Soundbite of train station)
Unidentified Woman #1: Passengers, welcome to ...
KUHN: The mostly middle-class passengers line up to board the train. It takes just three hours to cover the more than 600 miles to Guangzhou, China's third-largest city in the heart of the industrialized Pearl River Delta. That's 10 hours less than the conventional train takes.
(Soundbite of train)
KUHN: In the first-class section, where tickets cost upwards of $100, real estate company manager Yang Tao and his wife have swiveled the seats in front of them around, and put their feet up. He says he's willing to pay extra for a comfortable ride.
Mr. YANG TAO (Real Estate Company Manager): (Through translator) My wife is afraid of flying. Taking this train is more convenient than going to the airport, with all the security checks. The flights are often delayed, and the airlines' attitude is arrogant.
(Soundbite of recording)
Unidentified Woman #2: The train's speed is up to 350 kilometers per hour, and the train frequency is up to one every three minutes.
KUHN: Onboard video screens show off the train's advanced features. In the dining car, passengers eat roast duck gizzards and spicy noodles, and watch the terraced fields and factory towns of South China slip past their windows at speeds averaging almost 220 miles an hour.
(Soundbite of train)
KUHN: By 2012, China plans to have almost three dozen high-speed rail lines crisscrossing the country. Legions of workers are now building the Beijing-to-Shanghai line, which at $32 billion will be China's most expensive construction project ever. Graduate student Grace Huang says the new link between Wuhan and Guangzhou is completely different from the lumbering, claustrophobic boxcars Chinese train travelers are accustomed to.
Ms. GRACE HUANG: (Through translator) This train's a big improvement. It's comfortable and spacious, not crowded like regular trains. Of course, there's nothing we can do about that. China just has too many people.
KUHN: Critics argue that the bullet trains are overkill, and what China really needs is affordable transportation for the masses. Xie Weida, a railway expert at Shanghai's Tongji University, disagrees.
Professor XIE WEIDA (Railway Expert, Tongji University): (Through translator) High-speed rail can ease our transportation bottlenecks. Migrant workers may not require high-speed trains, but if some passengers take the high-speed trains, that should relieve pressure on the ordinary ones.
KUHN: China's leaders say their country will not follow the West's path of development � sacrificing the environment in order to industrialize. Chinese investment in high-speed rail is a part of this strategy, says Xie Weida.
Prof. XIE: (Through translator) To solve the problem of public transportation in such a vast country, rail transport is the only way to go. If we rely on airplanes and automobiles like the U.S., neither China nor the world will be able to handle such energy consumption.
(Soundbite of train recording)
Unidentified Woman #3: (Chinese spoken)
KUHN: Passengers exit the train in Guangzhou, and board buses and taxis for the city center. For some Chinese, the high-speed trains have already begun to shorten the distances between cities - in their minds. Some observers predict that the trains will begin to stitch together more closely China's patchwork of regional markets, dialects and cultures.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
If you know Bruce Hornsby's name at all, it's probably from his hit song, "The Way It Is." In 1987, it was the most played song on American radio. But the talented pianist-singer-songwriter is far from a one-hit wonder. He's won three Grammy Awards, been nominated for 13, wrote the end title songs for two Spike Lee movies and played on over 100 records with an A-list of performers.
In 2009, Bruce Hornsby released his 10th studio album and his first for the Verve label. It's called "Levitate." And this is the first cut called "Black Rats of London."
(Soundbite of song, "Black Rats of London")
Mr. BRUCE HORNSBY (Musician): (Singing) Night crawlers cleared the forests of seedlings and nuts and leaves.
HANSEN: Bruce Hornsby, I want to thank you for inviting us into your home studio in Williamsburg.
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah, now that we all smell like dog.
HANSEN: Yeah, your dog Sadie just came in.
Mr. HORNSBY: My dog Sadie came in here and just licked all of us. So, you're right at home now.
HANSEN: Yeah. You're very close to colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown and Yorktown and all these scenes from the Revolutionary War. And the first track on your new CD "Levitate," right?
Mr. HORNSBY: That's right.
HANSEN: "The Black Rats of London."
Mr. HORNSBY: "Black Rats of London" deals with some little known facts in American history swept under the rug. The true heroes have not been recognized.
(Soundbite of song, "The Black Rats of London")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) Parasites decimated the Red Army of Cornwallis and his flock, standing weakly on Yorktown battlefield with measles and smallpox. Horses, hogs, and chickens, and dogs and John Rolfe's prized worms. Divine intervention, bacterial strains from imported English dirt. Hoorah, hooray, the black rats of London. They crossed the sea for you and me. Let's raise a glass so thankfully. Hail, Hail, hooray.
As I get older, I look to not repeat myself and I look to find new and interesting areas to write about and this was certainly one of them. I wrote it out of a National Geographic article about Jamestown - cover story two or three years ago it was written - talking about the rodents and the bacterial strains that came over on the ships and infected the locals and allowed the colonists to prevail against them.
But, in the end, I didn't want anybody to think that I thought this was such a great thing. So, in the end, I thought I'd add this postscript that says, where were the black rats when we needed them the most? There were slave owners to infect. And the Joe Mengeles of the American West, sort of a reference to what some people would refer to as the American holocaust.
HANSEN: Now, "Levitate," you were writing a Broadway - a musical.
Mr. HORNSBY: Fully eight songs on this record come from the musical. Now, they weren't all written exactly for the musical. For instance, "Black Rats of London" is, quote, "one of the songs in the musical." It's only in there the play big shots liked the song so much they wanted to see if they could sort of shoehorn it into the musical, and so they did. And it works great. Our play is called "SCKBSTD," all in capital letters on a Virginia license plate.
HANSEN: Oh.
Mr. HORNSBY: That's the title of our play.
HANSEN: You're going to play one of the songs from the album and it's a song called "Paperboy."
Mr. HORNSBY: Yes. This musical speaks to the different time that we live in, as opposed to when I grew up, doors were unlocked. It's sort of a cliche maybe. It's sort of, you know, the good old days when this wasn't a problem, but it wasn't a problem generally. And now it's completely different. And there's much more paranoia. And this musical speaks a bit to this paranoia. This unknown shows up and starts freaking people out. And so the rumor mill runs rampant. It's called "Paperboy" because it's sung by the local paperboy who's been hearing all these vicious rumors.
HANSEN: Well, let's hear it. Bruce Hornsby with "Paperboy" from his new CD "Levitate" on the Verve label.
(Soundbite of song, "Paperboy")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) Let's all keep our voices low. Here's a story you don't know. Good as anything we can't watch on HBO. Before you say it's all bunk, throw it out as so much junk, listen what this guy's been hiding in his trunk. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. He'll cut off your feet just to take your shoes.
Now, there was that little girl, the pink ribbon and auburn curls, who ended up as cargo and then taken for a whirl. He must've given her a whack, pre-teen surprise attack, ended up between the guy's spare tire and his jack. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. He'll cut off your feet just to take your shoes.
He's looking for me. He's looking for you. Believe you me, every word is true. In his kitchen there's a corpse. Made a meal of his divorce. Eats a different body part for every different course. In his basement there's a crypt. It's so well, well equipped. Seen so many ghoulish things they now seem non-descript. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. Another peep, and we'll be through. He's looking for me. He's looking for you. He'll cut off your feet just to take your shoes.
HANSEN: That was Bruce Hornsby playing "Paperboy," a tune you can find on his new album "Levitate" on the Verve label. Is this a departure for you because it's a little atonal, little dissonant?
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah. I've, for many years had a fondness for 20th century and now, I guess, 21st century classical music. So this is a song that deals in that language - a little more dissonant, a little bit more harmonically complex. But still try to make it a pop song in the sense that the chorus, to me, it's fairly Beatles-esque. So, I guess you could call it Lennon/McCartney meets Schoenberg.
HANSEN: I love the song "Hear My Prayer."
Mr. HORNSBY: "Simple Prayer."
HANSEN: "Simple Prayer."
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah.
HANSEN: You're praying for a bottle of Rogaine?
Mr. HORNSBY: Yeah, exactly, yeah. Praying to win the game. It's just about the inane things that people pray for.
(Soundbite of song, "Simple Prayer")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) I've got a load of payments, pitiful bank statements. I'm sinking in debt, I'm no, I'm no millionaire. Finances are tottery, liquidity is watery, let me hit the lottery, that's my simple prayer.
So, yeah, "Simple Prayer," lyrics written by my old childhood friend, Chip DeMatteo. We pulled a lot of crap in school. We had a company called Zappo Productions, and we would book the worst bands in our town. We wrote a musical called "Schenectady." We wrote a sequel called "Southern Schenectady." We had this play produced as the drama club production for one of the local high schools, which was unbelievable. I don't know how we were able to finagle that occurrence. The headmaster of the school just hated it.
Anyway, in 2004, my last record "Halcyon Days," my last record of songs like "Paperboy" had three songs in the middle that were basically solo piano songs. And they had - I got a letter out of the blue from Playwrights Horizons, a company on 42nd Street that develops plays. And there was a guy at Playwrights Horizons who had been turned on to these three songs on this record of mine by Brian Stokes Mitchell, the great Broadway actor/singer.
HANSEN: Actor.
Mr. HORNSBY: Stokes turned this guy onto this record and they both thought this sounds like Broadway musical, show music, he should be doing this. So, they contacted me and I responded. I said, sure, I'm interested in this as long as it's fun. When it starts to be a grind and a drag, I'm done.
So I contacted my old friend, Chip DeMatteo, and said, hey, let's give this a shot together. It might be fun. Let's see what we can get away with.
(Soundbite of song, "Simple Prayer")
Mr. HORNSBY: (Singing) Can you hear me? Are you out there? This is my simple prayer. Can you hear me? Are you out there? This is my simple, simple, simple prayer. This is my simple prayer. This is my simple prayer.
HANSEN: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Today, the United States and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen for security reasons. American officials are citing threats from an al-Qaida group. This follows the failed Christmas Day attack on an American airplane by a man trained in Yemen.
And in Afghanistan, the beginning of a new decade is being marked by more deadly conflict. This past week, at least five coalition troops were killed, as well as seven CIA officers and contractors. President Obama's planned troop surge has begun in Afghanistan. At least 1,500 Marines are on the ground. Their focus: southern Afghanistan. It's the Taliban stronghold and base of operations. Normally, winter is not fighting season in Afghanistan. But this winter, U.S. forces are expected to take the fight to the enemy.
NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman joins us to talk about what's next in Afghanistan. And Tom, you were in Helmand province, in the south, in 2009. What do you expect to happen there now?
TOM BOWMAN: Well, the important thing now, Liane, is to take back the rest of Helmand province. It's a key area, huge Taliban presence there and also it's a source of the opium crop, which is one of their main sources of funding. So, U.S. commanders feel in order to win this war, they really have to bring security back, particularly to southern Afghanistan, and they have to take back -particularly - this area from the Taliban.
HANSEN: So, is that why you expect aggressive military action this winter?
BOWMAN: That's right. And they feel they need to do this as quickly as possible. Remember, President Obama wants to start removing some troops by July 2011. That's going to be coming pretty quickly. So the important thing is to gain these areas back from the Taliban, provide security. And the time pressure is there.
Within Helmand province is an area called Marja, which is a very important area. Right now, there are no U.S. troops in Marja; no Afghan forces, either. It's a nexus for the Taliban and for drug traffickers. So in the coming weeks, look for that area to be taken back by the Marines. Also, next door in Kandahar province - that's really the homeland of the Taliban, particularly Kandahar City - look for some sort of increased operations around Kandahar City in the coming weeks and months.
HANSEN: So, elaborate a little on what's going on in those two provinces now: Kandahar and Helmand.
BOWMAN: Right. Well, the Marines have made some progress in Helmand province and the Helmand River valley. They've taken back some of these towns and districts from the Taliban and put combat outposts there, Marine combat outposts. We were visiting some of these back in October and November of last year. So they made some progress but they still, they say, need a lot more Marines to take some of these other areas, like Marja.
Here's Marine Brigadier General Larry Nicholson talking to NPR just a couple of weeks ago.
Brigadier General LARRY NICHOLSON (U.S. Marines): We have one area that we know the enemy considers sanctuary and has sort of arrived in significant numbers and has built up his defenses. So I think there is an inevitability of a little bit of a collision, if you will, here - probably sometime in the new year. But I think the initial forces will allow us to actually go in there, into the Marja area.
BOWMAN: Also, with General Nicholson, when he went in this past summer, summer 2009, a very large military operation involving 4,000 Marines, he had only 300 Afghan soldiers with him for that operation. So he has said he's very keen on making sure there are a lot of Afghan soldiers for any future operations he does this winter. He's been assured there'll be a lot of Afghan soldiers, but that's something he's very, very concerned about. And here's what General Nicholson had to say.
Brig. Gen. NICHOLSON: We want a real Afghan presence. It's amazing to go into some of these areas, like (unintelligible), where the Afghan flag hasn't flown in probably a decade.
BOWMAN: So the question for General Nicholson is: Will he get the Afghan forces he needs? And, again, that's also an issue in Kandahar province. We've been told that with U.S. operations there, there'll be a much larger number of Afghan forces than they've ever had in the past.
HANSEN: So these winter military operations will be what you'll be watching for the first months of the new year.
BOWMAN: Exactly. The first couple of months of the new year, and of the role played by Afghan forces. Again, that's the key here because the only way that U.S. forces can leave Afghanistan is if you have large numbers of competent Afghan soldiers and police to take over.
HANSEN: Not unlike Iraq.
BOWMAN: Absolutely.
HANSEN: NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Thank you, Tom.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Every year, human rights groups such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists issue reports on journalists who have lost their lives while covering news across the globe. This past week, a reporter for Canada's Calgary Herald newspaper was killed while on assignment in Afghanistan. Two thousand nine turned out to be particularly deadly because of one bloody November day in the Philippines.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us from our New York bureau to talk about that incident and larger issues affecting freedom of the press. Hi, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: Hey, Liane.
HANSEN: Tell us more about what happened in the Philippines.
FOLKENFLIK: It was a massacre. This happened in the country's southernmost island. It's an impoverished region controlled by a single political dynasty. On November 23rd, there was a convoy of vehicles that included relatives of an opposition candidate and several dozen journalists. They were stopped by guards, effectively, for the ruling clan, the Ampatuan family.
Afterwards, some 60 bodies were found hours later, shot and mutilated - women, many of them, sexually assaulted. And more than 30 of those people were journalists. There was an outcry, and arrests and criminal charges of members of that family despite their ties to the Philippine president, Gloria Arroyo. But the committee that protects journalists and others say there's reason to doubt that justice will be delivered.
There's what's called a culture of impunity there, which means literally, kind of getting away with murder. I talked to Sam Zarifi. He's a senior official with Amnesty International and, as disclosure, also a friend of mine. He went there personally to investigate for some days and says it's the single worst incident of the killing of journalists in modern record.
HANSEN: Let's turn to another country, Iran. With events going on there, the citizens are actually chronicling the protests and the government crackdowns through social media sites like Twitter and Flickr. But there's very little on-the-scene reporting from professional journalists. What's the climate for reporting there?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, for actual reporting there, it's pretty grim. Before the tumult of this past summer, the regime in Iran more or less tolerated the media and took a sort of tentative tolerance, also, toward the blogosphere. You know, the foreign press was invited for a brief stint to cover the elections. It didn't go to plan. There was mass crackdown, foreigners were expelled, many were arrested, journalists were detained, some tortured, newsrooms were threatened and shut down.
And now with these new protests, there's been reports of arrests of at least 11 journalists there in recent days. So when you think about the citizen journalism, the technology affords a degree of knowledge to the outside world, including ourselves, that we might not otherwise have had.
Nonetheless, people, for example, like Joel Simon - he's executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists - argues that you can't really replace professional, on-the-scene reporting with grainy footage from cell phone videos, that we can't have the rich, textured understanding of very complicated dynamics that we need.
HANSEN: It was interesting that, given that there are two theaters of war where America is involved, certainly, the deaths of journalists covering major combat actually went down. Why?
FOLKENFLIK: This is mostly about Iraq. In recent past, as many as three dozen journalists might die in a single year. This year, it appears to be down to four. The involvement of America is about to wind down to some degree, and you've seen a concurrent pullout of news organizations, in fact, beginning before the departure of the troops themselves. But one part of that pullout, too, is that many media outlets simply don't have the money to cover Iraq in the way that they did. They're shifting reporters to Afghanistan or simply sending them home.
We think of combat as Iraq and Afghanistan, and clearly Afghanistan is becoming more dangerous, but we're not hearing as much about the deaths of many American journalists, particularly in other countries that are strife-torn, places where Americans tend to do very little reporting these days - like, say, Somalia. It creates a real vacuum for the information feed there. Scary times, indeed, for reporters.
HANSEN: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. He joined us from our New York bureau. Thank you, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Now, to your letters.
Last week, we heard the story of 4-year-old Maya Chamberlin. She's suffering from a rare blood disease and needs a bone marrow transplant. Finding a perfect match is difficult because Maya is of mixed race. After our broadcast, thousands of people visited the Web site of the National Bone Marrow Donor Program. The organization told us more than 2,500 people have registered since the story aired.
On our Web site, Jean Frederick(ph), a bone marrow donor, shared her experience. Registering was absolutely painless. A cotton swab to the cheek, and when I finally got the call to donate, I was under anesthesia during the procedure - piece of cake. I was a match for someone with a blood disorder. She was of a completely different ethnic background and lives in another country. Without this registry, her doctors would not have found me.
Many of you also commented on our segment about the new ways the Republican Party is reaching out to voters through social media. The GOP has taken to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to get its message out to the public.
Marianne Moore(ph) of Louisiana is skeptical about the party's efforts. She writes on NPR.org: I hope that this move to other social media means that the Republicans might actually listen to other viewpoints. But I am not hopeful. I already receive emails from Senator David Vitter, which do not speak to my concerns or beliefs at all. They're just speeches in email format.
We want to hear from you. Send us an email by going to NPR.org and clicking on the Contact Us link, or join the discussion in the comments section of each story. You can also find us at Facebook.com/NPRWeekend and Twitter.com/NPRWeekend. And if you want to, send a tweet to me. I'm at NPRLiane, spelled L-I-A-N-E.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
For those who travel by car in the U.S., a number of states are cracking down on cell phone use while driving. Colorado is among several states with a new ban on texting behind the wheel. The state has also banned teenage drivers from using cell phones. But as Kirk Siegler of member station KUNC reports, those bans may be hard to enforce.
KIRK SIEGLER: OK, so I'm driving down I-25 through downtown Denver. It's very busy, obviously - there's cars all around me. I've got one hand on the wheel and one on my cell phone - perfectly legal under our law - but what if I start punching in numbers here on my phone? I'm going to dial the security code for my voicemail. This looks like texting, even though I'm not really sending an actual text. But am I breaking the law? A bit of a gray area, right?
Mr. JOE PELLE (Sheriff, Boulder County): Right. Or you may be looking up contact information or an address en route to an appointment.
SIEGLER: That's Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle. He says the texting ban is subjective. Technically, it's still legal to punch in the number or look something up.
Mr. PELLE: The other thing that's difficult to enforce with this particular statute is in driving down the road, you see someone on the cell phone, you know, are they 18 or are they 17? And do you pull them over for that?
SIEGLER: Pelle's department hasn't made a single citation for texting since Colorado's ban went into effect a month ago. But he says the measure has created more public awareness, and that's a good thing.
(Soundbite of traffic)
SIEGLER: In the parking lot of a suburban shopping mall north of Denver, Wesley Lowe(ph) says he's tried to cut down on using his phone altogether since the ban went into effect.
Mr. WESLEY LOWE: I talk when I drive. I don't really text that much. I do every now and then, but not really. I try to catch myself when I do it.
Ms. KELSEY KABASIC(ph): Yeah, kind of the first day even I was, like, all right, got to watch it, kind of.
SIEGLER: That's 17-year-old Kelsey Kabasic.
Ms. KABASIC: 'Cause I always have my phone in my lap, you know?
SIEGLER: She admits she still uses her cell every now and again while driving, even though as a teenager in Colorado, she shouldn't be on her phone at all.
Ms. KABASIC: Well, I'm tempted. I usually don't. Sometimes at a stoplight maybe, but looking for cops, I guess.
SIEGLER: But even that is a good first step, according to State Representative Claire Levy. She pushed Colorado's texting ban through the legislature. Levy is quick to deflect criticism that the state's new law is just a feel-good measure. It's on the books, she says, and that's going to deter some drivers from picking up their phones.
State Representative CLAIRE LEVY (Democrat, Colorado): I mean, look at speed limits. People treat those as just merely a suggestion but - yet there's an awareness of what's a safe speed to travel on a particular highway.
SIEGLER: Levy originally tried to ban drivers from talking on cell phones altogether if they didn't have a headset. She isn't ruling out proposing this again in the future. Six states have gone this route, but it was a tough sell for independent-minded Colorado.
State Rep. LEVY: I think that the public simply doesn't want to own up to the fact that what so many people do all day long in their cars is dangerous. People just don't want to accept that.
SIEGLER: Nationally, states seem to be trending toward banning texting over talking. A recent study out of the University of Utah concluded that drivers are six times as likely to crash while texting. The group AAA references that study as it pushes for texting bans in all 50 states by 2013. Currently, 28 states and the District of Columbia have some sort of texting bans in place.
Meanwhile, a bill proposed in Congress would strip federal highway money from states that don't pass texting bans. All of these crackdowns on cell phones behind the wheel are sitting well with people like Sharon Kabasic(ph). She's the mother of 17-year-old Kelsey, who we heard from earlier.
Ms. SHARON KABASIC: We've just all gotten used to that, to having instant access to communication, and we just have to retrain ourselves to go away from that again 'cause it's not worth it.
SIEGLER: Kabasic has started putting her phone in the backseat while driving so she's not tempted to pick it up.
For NPR News, I'm Kirk Siegler in Denver.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Old-fashioned schedule boards are disappearing from train stations across the country. The click-clack sound of flapper panels is being replaced by the silence of electronic light displays. The board in New Haven, Connecticut, is scheduled to depart in the coming weeks.
From member station WNPR, Diane Orson has more.
(Soundbite of clicking)
DIANE ORSON: Travelers at New Haven's Union Station stop and look up from BlackBerrys, iPods and private screens to a large information board. All eyes watch as panels flip around 'til they settle on words and numbers that let folks know when the next train departs. Some passengers jump up and head quickly to the track, others sigh and sit back to wait some more.
Connecticut transportation officials have announced they'll take down the old schedule board and replace it with two new, LED light screens. Quinnipiac University Professor Rich Hanley says that's a shame because the mechanical sign fits Union Station, which was built during the age of the great American railroad.
Professor RICH HANLEY (Quinnipiac University): This building was initially constructed in 1918, and it's a traditional, early 20th century train station -giant shed with various large, open spaces and a tunnel to the train. And a dominant architectural feature happens to be the information board. It's where all eyes go.
ORSON: And passenger John Ball(ph) says the board gives you more than just visual information. The click-clacking sound becomes part of the whole travel experience.
Mr. JOHN BALL: The train man's story is that a diesel engine is just a train; a steam engine is an event. And just as the steam engine is an event, the rattle that attracts your attention is probably a good thing.
ORSON: For years, flapper information displays, known as Solari boards, were a fixture in railway stations, airports and bus terminals. Now, most are gone. New Haven's board is the last of its kind on the Metro-North line. But officials say it's hard to maintain, and they're replacing it with two electronic panels. The new screens have room for 24 lines of information - the mechanical board has only seven. Emergency messages can be posted quickly and in three different colors.
Still, traveler Judy Watkins-Shapiro says she'll be sorry to see the old board go.
Ms. JUDY WATKINS-SHAPIRO: I love sitting here and watching the sign go back and forth. It's good entertainment while I'm sitting here.
ORSON: In an email, Connecticut transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick says the Solari board may be donated to a museum. But he adds that travelers shouldn't worry about missing the familiar rattle. LED screens feature an audio component, so the old click-clack can be programmed in electronically.
(Soundbite of click-clacking)
ORSON: For NPR News, I'm Diane Orson in New Haven.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
National security issues will dominate the political landscape this week. President Barack Obama is reviewing hundreds of pages of reports he demanded from his security and intelligence agencies about the attempted bombing of an American airplane on Christmas Day. Congress wants answers, too, and many top chairmen are already planning hearings.
NPR's congressional correspondent Andrea Seabrook is here to give us a preview. Good morning, Andrea.
ANDREA SEABROOK: Good morning, Liane.
HANSEN: So, what's likely to happen in the coming days and weeks?
SEABROOK: Well, we know that Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, this is the Independent from Connecticut, is definitely planning hearings. His first hearing is already titled "Layers of Travel Security Evaded by Christmas Day Terrorist." And that is the question there - questions on all levels here from how airport security screenings failed to how the National Counterterrorism Center failed to not get this man on a no-fly list, et cetera. There are just so many.
So, you can expect, also, the House Homeland Security Committee headed by Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, everyone will be weighing in here. And, you know, the phone lines are already burning up across America. Everybody is trying to figure out which piece is theirs in Congress.
HANSEN: So, from what's known at this point, the problems seem to be similar to the ones the government had before the 9/11 attacks. Will these hearings have a different focus now?
SEABROOK: Well, that's the thing is that a lot of these structures that are in place, in fact, the Homeland Security Department itself came about because of the 9/11 attacks. These were responses to the 9/11 attacks. So now these committees will have to look at the new structures that have been in place since 9/11, how they worked. In a way, it's almost a test run of this system. We've got the new Transportation Security Administration, as I said, the Homeland Security Department itself, the National Counterterrorism Center, all of these will be looked at.
But, remember, and this is critical here, Liane, that after 9/11, the bipartisan 9/11 Commission made recommendations to Congress, many of which were not enacted by Congress because of the political challenge at stake in some of those changes, including some of the change were in the structure of Congress itself, its oversight of security issues. And so, while lawmakers ask: Who could've done something different? Which agencies? Which officials? The same questions should and will be asked of the Congress itself.
HANSEN: And what about the politics at play this time?
SEABROOK: Politics, yes. Well, of course, Happy New Year. It's 2010 and it is an election year - everyone in Congress, a third of the Senate. So, you know, you're already seeing the blame game of both sides. Republicans are keen to come back. They've lost majorities in both chambers. And conventional wisdom says national security issues favor the Republican Party, so they'll keep talking about this.
The Democrats are mad. They want to be seen as doing something about this. At the same time, the Obama administration is saying, goodness, it's unseemly to make politics out of this. It's, you know, it's what you'd expect from Congress.
HANSEN: And before we let you go, talk a little bit about the president's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration. Now, where does that stand in the Senate?
SEABROOK: Right. This is the man named Erroll Southers, former FBI agent, security official who ran background checks on his estranged wife's boyfriend two decades ago. Since then had increasing responsibility in security. Lots of people support him, including Joe Lieberman. The question is: Will this be a big snafu that there wasn't a head of the TSA on the day that an attempted bombing happened? That's not, in fact, why he's held up in the Senate. It's political reasons purely, and we'll just see lots of politics play out.
HANSEN: NPR congressional correspondent Andrea Seabrook. Thanks, Andrea.
SEABROOK: My pleasure.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson was the last Democrat to support the health care bill that the Senate passed on Christmas Eve. But his support came with significant concessions, including special benefits for his state.
As Fred Knapp of NET Radio reports, Nelson's actions are getting mixed reviews back home.
FRED KNAPP: Until recently, it's likely many Americans didn't know who Ben Nelson was. As the only statewide-elected Democrat in heavily Republican Nebraska, Nelson has walked a political tightrope. Now in his second term, the Senator voted with his own party just over half the time during the Bush administration, according to Congressional Quarterly.
On health care, he opposed a public option and federal funding for abortion, and before he supported the bill he negotiated a provision that would, in effect, have federal taxpayers pay Nebraska's share of Medicaid expansion, by some estimates, $15 million a year.
Now, you might think Nebraskans would be pleased and some, like Eric Ziegler(ph), are. Speaking in Omaha's red brick Old Market area, the music store manager says he's glad Nelson ultimately sided with his fellow Democrats.
Mr. ERIC ZIEGLER: It sounded like he got a little bit for Nebraska that no other state got. That, you know, was kind of a little sly dealing, I guess, maybe. But, you know, good one for Ben, I guess, you know, and for Nebraska, too, I think.
KNAPP: But that's hardly the typical reaction here. On a cold winter morning outside the main post office in Lincoln, questions about Nelson - who's previously drawn substantial Republican support - produce a blast of political heat.
Mr. JOHN SEDLOCK(ph): Nelson sold out. I mean, you know, he lost most of his honor, as far as I'm concerned. I don't see where the rest of the country should finance our welfare system.
Mr. ROB GRIER(ph): I think he was a total sellout, but it was to be expected.
Ms. COLLEEN MASER(ph): I think he copped out. I mean, basically that's what I think he did, because he was being pushed.
KNAPP: Those views of John Sedlock, Rob Grier, and Colleen Maser are reflected more broadly in a recent Rasmussen poll, which found only 17 percent here approve of the deal Nelson struck with Senate leaders. Even some who admire his negotiating skills don't like the result.
Don Lawyer(ph) lives in Lincoln.
Mr. DON LAWYER: It's nice that he spoke out for us, but we got something that nobody else got, and I don't think it's right.
KNAPP: Senator Nelson insists he was simply trying to avoid an unfunded federal mandate and says other states can seek similar treatment.
But the deal has been criticized by the other members of the state's congressional delegation and Republican Governor Dave Heineman. Nebraska's Republican Party chairman boasts that he thinks it will end Nelson's political career. And the state's largest newspaper ran a cartoon showing a disgruntled corn husker waiting in a department store line to exchange a cardboard cutout of the senator. Still, Ben Nelson says he's not worried.
Senator BEN NELSON (Democrat, Nebraska): I've never focused on my political future in advance. I never have and I don't intend to. I'll let others speculate on that, but neither the chairman of the Republican Party nor any newspaper is going to write my political epitaph.
KNAPP: But it appears he's taking no chances. Although he's not up for reelection for three years, Nelson has already begun running television ads defending his vote.
For NPR News, I'm Fred Knapp in Lincoln, Nebraska.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
If you have money stashed away in a C.D., savings or money market account, then you know the returns have been terrible lately. The Federal Reserve slashed short-term interest rates close to zero, and investors are paying for it.
Roben Farzad is the senior writer for BusinessWeek, and he joins from out New York bureau. Welcome back, Roben.
Mr. ROBEN FARZAD (Senior Writer, BusinessWeek): Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: You know, in some cases, interest rates on savings accounts, I mean, they're like tenths of one percent. What's the Federal Reserve's strategy in keeping rates so low?
Mr. FARZAD: The Fed euphemistically calls this flooding the plains strategy recapitalizing the banking system. So it's taking from savers, these ultra cheap deposits and giving them to banks, and they're putting them into Treasury securities, which yield higher, or when opportunistic, they'll go and actually loan the money out and enjoy very toothsome margins.
HANSEN: But if you consider fees, taxes and rising inflation, I mean, aren't investors actually losing money over time?
Mr. FARZAD: No doubt about it. And I think this is one of the unsung stories of this economic calamity. Those who are on their best behavior, those who resisted, I think, the siren calls of teaser rate mortgages and subprime largely have very little vindication in this. Of course, investors last year were saying that you should prioritize return of money over return on your money. But that seems to be an old kind of rule, considering how much the markets and all manner of assets have gone up this year.
So, in fact, you are the victim of a negative rate on your savings when you consider fees and inflation. And that's the Fed's intention to get you out of cash.
HANSEN: And into what?
Mr. FARZAD: Into investing, into any asset out there that's productive, into hiring, into capital, into equipment, into equities so companies can see their equity capitalizations go up. And Mr. Bernanke has telegraphed it for the foreseeable future, rates are going to remain at emergency lows.
HANSEN: Some analysts are saying the Federal Reserve is trying to drive investors into the stock market instead, as you said, to help buoy the economy. But you say a mass rush of investors into the market has its own risks.
Mr. FARZAD: Yes, Liane, we have seen that this year. You know, market wags call this a melt-up as opposed to a meltdown, where it was so painful to be in miniscule-yielding cash and C.D.s and even short-term Treasuries were yielding near zero at the heart of the crisis, that they went into ABC - Anything But Cash. And we saw that in junk this year. We saw that in emerging markets, small caps, large caps, gold, lead, you name it. It was anything but, you know, getting that 0.005 percentage rate on your checking account.
HANSEN: Yeah, well, all right, there's still not a lot of return on investments so, I mean, what should people do? Should they save? Should they invest?
Mr. FARZAD: You're not in a great position right now and the Fed has a very blunt instrument right now with emergency rate cuts. And it invariably leads to something like gold breaking $1,000. Or we saw money sluice into commodities last year and oil broke $140. And by the way, it tends to hurt the dollar, as well. I mean, when we keep rates this low, we're debasing the currency and that could lead to inflation down the road, which makes these low rates even more painful.
HANSEN: So, get out your crystal ball. Do you have any other financial predictions for the year ahead?
Mr. FARZAD: I hope a return to normalcy, whatever normalcy was. I mean, when you think about it, when was it last normal? If we could pick out a year this decade or anytime in the past 15 years when we didn't have these random economic crises or emerging market debt bombs or terrorism on the radar, I'm very curious and the whole world is waiting with bated breath to see how this crisis ultimately unfolds and, indeed, if we have to pay for this on the other end with inflation by debasing our currency.
HANSEN: Roben Farzad is a senior writer for BusinessWeek. He joined us from our New York bureau. Thanks. Happy New Year, Roben.
Mr. FARZAD: Happy New Year, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
High school students Brenda Tan and Matt Cost recently spent four months testing the DNA of food items. They had help from researchers at Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History.
Mr. MATT COST: I knew that we are going to, you know, be testing everything we could get our hands on, but I had no idea what we would find.
HANSEN: Matt Cost says of the 66 food items they tested, the DNA showed that 11 were mislabeled. Sheep's milk cheese was actually cow's milk. Venison dog treats were beef and the sturgeon caviar was Mississippi paddle fish.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Coming up, a Hollywood executive finds happiness as a Vermont baker. Stay with us.
First, Hollywood's oldest restaurant is celebrating its 90th birthday. Musso and Frank's Grill, known as Musso's, is even older than that iconic Hollywood sign put up on the hill in 1923. And in a town where trendy restaurants seem to sprout and wilt overnight, Musso's has thrived by remaining faithful to its traditions.
Reporter John McChesney recently visited the venerable film world haunt.
JOHN MCCHESNEY: Musso's sits on a somewhat tacky and tawdry block of Hollywood Boulevard, populated by tattoo parlors and head shops and a palm reader. But step into this red leather and mahogany interior, and you step into another world, another era. Sit at the old bar, and you run into passionate regulars like Martin Townsend, who's been coming here since 1953.
Mr. MARTIN TOWNSEND: You walk into this place - and I'm not just talking about me, I've got other regulars here and they say the same thing to me. You walk into Musso's, and it embraces you. Musso's is historical serenity.
MCCHESNEY: One source of Martin's serenity is a world-famous martini concocted by bartender Manny Aguirre.
Mr. MANNY AGUIRRE: It's good to the last drop.
(Soundbite of martini shaker)
MCCHESNEY: But customers here can also bask in a little reflected glory when they learn that many of the 20th century's literary giants sat at this bar: Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dashiell Hammett, Nathaniel West, to name a few. And legend has it that William Faulkner mixed his own mint juleps here.
And diminutive 75-year-old Manny, who's worked the bar here for 20 years, seems to have served most of the movie heavies of the past half century.
Mr. AGUIRRE: Harrison Ford, Frances Coppola, Jack Lemmon, Cesar Romero - my God, you name it. I mean, I can - Jack Webb.
(Soundbite of pouring)
MCCHESNEY: The waiters here stand out in red-jacketed tuxedos, and they're all moving on in years. They're all male, and nearly all of them speak with a Spanish accent. Juan Ramos, 69, has been here 38 years. Just after we sit down, a blonde woman in a white, fur-fringed vest swoops in on him.
Unidentified Woman: Oh, there's that handsome man. He's such a big star.
Mr. JUAN RAMOS: Thank you very much.
Unidentified Woman: You bet.
MCCHESNEY: Juan blushes as she plants a big smacker on his cheek. The blonde sweeps on, unnamed. His famous customers, Juan says, appreciate his professional detachment.
Mr. RAMOS: One reason, I don't get impressed with them. They're celebrities, they're good actors. They're doing their job; I do mine.
Mr. JORDAN JONES (Owner/Manager, Musso and Frank Grill): You know, these guys have been here for longer than I have been alive.
MCCHESNEY: Meet Jordan Jones, who at 29, may be the youngest member of the Musso staff. He's also the fourth-generation owner/manager of the place. To learn the ropes, he started as a busboy. And his peppery staff are still giving him some history lessons.
Mr. JONES: Change is kind of a four-letter word around here. And so I wouldn't say that my family has any plans to change the place, but preserve it.
MCCHESNEY: Musso's menu is especially well-preserved. Jones finds a 1953 version in his great-grandfather's office, which is perched above the old dining room. The confusing format and the food are largely the same. Only the prices have changed dramatically. A dry martini was 55 cents. You can still find retro dishes on today's menu: chicken pot pie, liver and onions, squab, lamb kidneys and jellied consomme.
At night, the old, cast-iron, wood-fired grill is loaded with huge steaks. The copper sconces and wrought-iron chandeliers are glowing, and so are some of the regulars - like L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge.
Mr. TOM LABONGE (City Councilman, Los Angeles): This is the most special spot in Los Angeles. This is a real place. This has been here 90 years. Very few things in Los Angeles are 90 years old.
MCCHESNEY: But Musso's isn't just a nostalgic retreat. The entertainment industry continues its love affair with the place. An episode of the popular TV series "Mad Men" was recently shot here. And director Noah Baumbach spent a day here filming for his new movie, "Greenberg." No extras were hired; Musso's wait staff and regular customers were stars for a day.
For NPR News, I'm John McChesney.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The holiday season would not be complete without some prognostication about trends for 2010. WEEKEND EDITION food essayist Bonny Wolf now gazes into her crystal ball to see the culinary future.
BONNY WOLF: Doughnuts are the new cupcakes and beer is the new wine. Yes, both favorites of Homer Simpson. Remember, the recession. You can still get a cake doughnut, but also green tea, rosemary thyme and, of course, maple-glazed bacon. Bacon is still everywhere, even in cocktails. A doughnut's better with coffee, but beer is the it drink. There's home brewing, barrel-aging, seasonal beers and beer-centric restaurants offering food pairings. As you probably know, Belgian-style wheat beer is perfect with deviled eggs.
Cardamom, a member of the ginger family, will be the spice of the year. Used in chai tea, the aromatic Indian flavor will become even more familiar. The focus on local, sustainable and simple will continue - just more so. Eating local has gone into overdrive. Restaurants have their own gardens or get produce in the neighborhood. There's a rooftop farm in Brooklyn for Pete's sake.
If you can't grow your own, join a CSA. Community supported agriculture has had a growth spurt along with the local (unintelligible) movement. Sign up and you get a box of produce every week from a real farmer.
Consumers also want to know where their meat comes from. This has led to foodom's new rock star: the butcher. Someone has to cut and grind all that grass-fed beef. And by the way, watch for a lot of lamb this year. Domesticated game meat such as bison and venison will be on more plates. On "Top Chef," where many trends are born, Brian's venison dish was a strong contender. Where's the beef? Check your iPhone's food apps. There are trillions of them, and they put sources, recipes and restaurant reviews at your fingertips. They are hot.
In the kitchen, though, it's back to basics. We'll be doing a lot of cozy cooking, friends in front of the fire, Sunday suppers in the kitchens - you get the idea. Celebrity chefs are all over this. Jaime Oliver and Gordon Ramsey have new books with food you can actually make yourself without special equipment. Uber-chef Thomas Keller's new book has recipes for chicken pot pie and beef stroganoff. And old-fashioned layer cake might finish the meal.
Look for pickling and canning both at home and in restaurants. Keller's book has a whole pickle section. On the health front there's lots of talk about nutritionally balanced meals for children. That would probably leave out doughnuts.
HANSEN: WEEKEND EDITION food essayist Bonny Wolf. This is NPR News.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Gesine Bullock-Prado has had a lifelong love affair with sugar, flour and butter. She managed to turn that love affair into her dream career. Gesine is now the owner of Gesine's Confectionary in Montpelier, Vermont. But to get there, she had to endure some miserable times as a Hollywood executive.
She used to work as a producer at her sister's production company. Her sister is movie star Sandra Bullock. Gesine Bullock-Prado has written a new memoir, called "Confections of a Closet Master Baker," and joins us from the studios of Vermont Public Radio. Welcome to the program.
Ms. GESINE BULLOCK-PRADO (Owner, Gesine's Confectionary; Author, "Confections of a Closet Master Baker"): Thank you for having me.
HANSEN: Was there a particular moment when you knew that Hollywood wasn't for you?
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Well, I think I knew the minute I got to Hollywood that it wasn't quite for me. And you're always hoping that you can fit in somehow. And I had my sister and we worked together, so that made it easier, on the one hand - and then, on the other hand, harder to leave.
HANSEN: You were treated, basically, as a gateway to your sister. I mean, you were practically invisible to some of the people there.
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Yeah. And the way people try to get to you in Hollywood, it's not entirely offensive, but it's just so silly. You can see that they're being completely affected, and they give you compliments that you aren't worthy of. I didn't have the stomach for it.
HANSEN: Yeah. Now, did you start baking when you were out there to, kind of, as comfort food for yourself?
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Yes. And I always have. I mean, I was in college and in law school both, whenever exams came around, I would find myself baking instead of studying. And during the weekends in Hollywood, I baked all the time and it got increasingly worse to the point where my husband said, you really have to get this out of the house.
But then my mother got very ill and I realized, in watching her die, that life's too short. You know, I can't stop her cancer, but I could certainly try to make my life happier.
HANSEN: Yeah. She was German.
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Yeah, very.
HANSEN: Very German. And it's interesting because you write about the kinds of pastries that you had when you were living in Germany for a while.But on the other hand, she was a woman that drank wheatgrass and used to make your sandwiches out of fake bologna, tofu, and things like this. So how did she influence you as a baker?
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Well, she herself was an extraordinary baker. She contradicted herself all the time in that she was this macrobiotic health nut. But when she baked for holidays and for any special occasion, like birthdays, she was extraordinary. And I watched her make these delicious torts and tarts, and I wanted to know how to do that.
HANSEN: Yeah. She left recipes behind.
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: She did. When she got sick, when she knew that she was dying, she used to - Gesine, you must learn this, you know, you have to remember what all of these are. And she catalogued her recipes for me. You know, she was funny 'cause she was very, very specific. Like, you must do this. And I'm, like, OK, this shall be my job. And I'm just so happy I have them, especially during the holidays when so many of them are her wonderful Christmas confections.
HANSEN: You write very lovingly about bread and how we've lost the sense of what real bread is. So, can you explain why your favorite food is a grilled cheese sandwich made with commercial white bread and not- found-in-nature-orange processed cheese?
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Oh. Well, probably because it's exactly the thing I never got in my childhood - that awful cheese. That American yellow glob is just, to me, something quite fascinating and tasty. And that bread that is pretty much made of cotton balls and not out of anything found in nature, when you fry it in a ton of butter, there's just something - the alchemy of that is just toxic and wonderful.
HANSEN: I'm speaking with Gesine Bullock-Prado. Her memoir is called "Confections of a Closet Master Baker."
You write in the book that there are some orders that arrive at your bakery shop, or people come in and place an order, that brought you to tears. You tell us about a woman who had throat cancer, and she wanted a chocolate mousse from you. And when she ate it, it was like the first food that she was able to eat. But then this elderly German gentleman comes in and asks for a very specific plum dessert, and this was one of your mother's specialties, right?
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Oh, it's called (German spoken), which is the very Bavarian name for it. And it's a specific plum that only comes in the summer and at the very tail end of summer. It's the Italian plum here, or prune plum. And when it's not quite ripe, it's very green inside. And when you bake it, it bleeds red from the skin. And it smells of my mother simply because she made it all the time. And it has this really sweet, buttery crust.
And we had it every summer, whether we were in Germany or in the States. And she made it when she took me to college, and she was so upset. And she made a sheet pan of this plum cake, and ate the entire thing in her grief of having let me go. And she was both emotionally distraught and then after eating the plum cake, was intestinally distraught.
HANSEN: You made your sister's wedding cake, which actually turned into a bit of an adventure. What happened?
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: What didn't happen? There were paparazzi who knew that this wedding was going to happen, so they were staking out her house. And it turned out that I had to make the cake in her house. And when I got to her house, her oven was broken. By the time it got fixed, I only had less than a day to make this monstrous cake, and then individual cakes, for 200 people.
And then we had to transport it. And then the van broke down on the way, with paparazzi tailing us. And then getting there, I had to assemble the cake in essentially, a cooler van. I was, like, in the back of a pickup truck that had an air conditioner. And I couldn't see because the only lighting I had was pretty much mood lighting. So I couldn't see a thing I was doing.
So by the time I was almost done, there was a knock on the door. And I was the bridesmaid, and I was the only person standing up with her, aside from my father, who walked her down the aisle. So I had to be there or, you know, there's wasn't a wedding. And so I never really got to take a look at the cake until it was out in front of everybody.
And then I ran out right before the wedding and I went, uh-oh, goodness, this is tilting just a wee bit. I asked the person who was decorating the table, I said, does it appear as if it's tilting to you? I guess they were all being very - they're all, like, oh, no, no, it's fine. And my husband looked at me, he's, like, just a little. And so we made sure they turned it around so it didn't look as if it was going to fall on anyone.
HANSEN: Yeah. And you kind of put flowers around the base of it to make it look festive.
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Yes. Any mistake that I had made in the dark, I just said, shove a flower in there.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Make it pretty for me, please.
HANSEN: Gesine Bullock-Prado's memoir is called "Confections of a Closet Master Baker: One Woman's Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker." She joined us from Vermont Public Radio. Thanks so much.
Ms. BULLOCK-PRADO: Thank you so much. This was lovely.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now let's come back across the border now, to the dance halls of Texas. We're not talking about roadside honky tonks, but historic dance halls built by Europeans immigrants in the 19th century. Many were abandoned over the years. Others still exist. And now, there's a movement to get Texans dancing again. NPR's John Burnett reports.
JOHN BURNETT: In the old days, it might've sounded like this. On some chilly Saturday night in a little, German farming town, you'd walk up to a barn-like wooden party house, open the door, and music would gush out like water from an artesian spring.
(Soundbite of music)
It's estimated there were as many as 1,000 traditional Texas dance halls in the 1920s and �30s. Today, there may be 500 left, mostly in rural areas, mostly decaying through lack of use.
Mr. PATRICK SPARKS (President, Texas Dance Hall Preservation Inc.): The best thing we can do is get people to dance. You can save a hall by dancing, you know. That's what will do it.
BURNETT: Patrick Sparks is a structural engineer and president of Texas Dance Hall Preservation Inc.
Mr. SPARKS: My view is that the dance halls are the most Texas thing there is. You get a look back at 19th century Texas, and the European immigrants who came and formed such a strong part of our character.
BURNETT: Sparks is sitting in the courtyard of the newest crown jewel of dance hall restoration, Sengelmann Hall in Schulenburg, between Houston and San Antonio. It features the original longleaf pine dance floor, cast-iron Corinthian columns, a mahogany bar, and 10-foot-tall front doors.
Sengelmann Hall was built by German settlers in 1894, then closed during World War II. And it had not been danced in for more than 60 years when Dana Harper bought it. He's a Houston artist and scion of a Texas oil fortune � which is how he could afford the million-dollar restoration.
Harper says most people in town remember the ornate, red-brick building as a Western Auto store.
Mr. DANA HARPER (Artist): And when I would meet locals down at Frank's Restaurant or different cafes, they would ask me what I was doing and I'd say, well, I'm restoring the old dance hall downtown. And they'd say, what dance hall downtown? I'd say, you know, the old Sengelmann Hall. They said, well, we don't know what you're talking about. And so I'd bring them down here, and they would just be amazed.
BURNETT: Texas dance hall builders were chiefly Czechs and Germans who migrated here from the 1830s through the end of the 19th century, looking for freedom and cheap farmland. Dana Harper's wife, Hana, happens to be from the Czech Republic, and when she came to Texas, she recognized her own dance hall tradition.
Ms. HANA HILLEROVA (Harper's wife): I mean, I grew up in Prague, but always we would go to the country. And there are dance halls both in the cities and in the country that were built by benevolent societies of citizens who wanted to get together and play music, drink beer. And it's still the same here.
(Soundbite of music, "Honky Tonk Blues")
Unidentified Man #1: (Singing) Well, I left my home down on the rural route. I told my pa I'm going stepping out and get the honky tonk blues�
BURNETT: Moravians and Alsatians, Hessians and Wends stepped onto the wharves at Galveston, and spread out across the Blackland Prairie and into the juniper-covered hills to the west. They built tall-steepled churches and brought with them their love of polkas and dancing and beer.
Senior editor John Spong wrote about dance halls for a recent cover story in Texas Monthly magazine.
Mr. JOHN SPONG (Senior Editor, Texas Monthly magazine): You would have, in an area in the Hill Country, a German hall, an Alsatian hall, and then two or three Czech halls. And so that'll be five places in one little community of maybe 750 people.
BURNETT: Today, they're state treasures � the few that are still operating, like Gruene Hall, Anhalt Hall, Luckenbach Dance Hall, and the Quihi Gun Club and Dance Hall.
The reopening of Sengelmann Hall last summer has revitalized downtown Schulenburg, formerly known for its drive-through liquor store and gun shop under one roof.
Leo Kopecky is a former mayor and downtown bar owner.
Mr. LEO KOPECKY: (Former mayor, downtown bar owner) Our heritage here in the small towns, especially the Schulenburg area, is that we grew up in dance halls, you know. There was nothing else to do when we were kids back in the early '50s and '60s. It's a revival, really, of an era past. And I think it's a wonderful thing for Schulenburg.
(Soundbite of music, "Waltz Across Texas")
Unidentified Man #2: (Singing) As the stars in your eyes, I could waltz...
BURNETT: As the preservationist says, the best way to save a dance hall is to dance in it.
John Burnett, NPR News.
(Soundbite of music, "Waltz Across Texas")
Unidentified Man #2: (Singing) Waltz across Texas with you in my arms. Waltz across Texas with you. Like a storybook ending...
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Commentator Ben Mattlin doesn't mind sharing his hopes for the new year.
BEN MATTLIN: For me, this new year is as much about looking back as looking ahead.
I turned 47 in the past year, which in itself is miraculous, actually. I was born with a neurological nuisance called spinal muscular atrophy. It gradually and relentlessly weakens muscles. In my case, this weakening began at 6 months old. About half of the babies with SMA symptoms die before age 2. Their hearts and lungs become too weak to go on. I was one of the lucky ones.
I've used a wheelchair my whole life. I no longer have the strength to hold a pencil. Am I still one of the lucky ones? I believe I am. So, why do so many people feel sorry for me?
They don't know that I grew up in a good family, graduated from Harvard, get my writing published, have a wife and two terrific girls. There are a lot of reasons I consider myself lucky. Still, people have said to me, if I were like you, I'd kill myself.
This is supposed to be a compliment, I think. They mean to commend my perseverance. So how come I want to say back, if I were like you, I'd probably kill myself, too?
Yes, there are people in terrible circumstances with painful illnesses, who do want to die. But there are also many others who live in conditions I wouldn't trade for my own, such as famine, war, abject poverty. Yet they retain a stubborn sense of hope and struggle on.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a modern-day Tiny Tim, trying to cheer everybody up. I reject holding myself up as a example of the triumph of the human spirit. At home, I kvetch and grouse all the time. It runs in the family. Plus, life is rough - like two years ago. I spent most of 2008 in a hospital bed. An infection required emergency surgery. Then, something went wrong under the knife. I nearly died.
But here I am. So yes, I do feel lucky; 2009 wasn't anything special, but it was blessedly drama-free. And that's enough to make it a good year. Sure, I hope for better in the new year. But even if I don't get that, I'd still say I'm lucky. Because sometimes, just normal is good enough.
INSKEEP: Ben Mattlin, a writer in Los Angeles who's working on a memoir. You can comment on his essay on our Opinion Page, at npr.org.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
We go next to Spain, a country that's had a history of official corruption. These days, it's bad even by Spanish standards. Hundreds of mayors and other officials across the country are being investigated for bribery and influence peddling. Jerome Socolovsky reports from a small hill town near Madrid.
(Soundbite of bells ringing)
JEROME SOCOLOVSKY: Today, this town of Boadilla del Monte has achieved notoriety in Spain because of its ex-mayor, Arturo Gonzalez Panero. He was forced to resign after being implicated in an influence-peddling network that extended to Madrid, Valencia and the Costa del Sol. A court in Madrid has frozen millions of dollars of his assets.
Nieves Castillejo used to work for a catering firm that handled parties in the mayor's home.
Ms. NIEVES CASTILLEJO: (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: There was more money there than a mayor should be earning, she says. You could see it in the paintings, the statues and in the catering itself � like caviar and other things.
Castillejo says the corruption was an open secret in the town.
Ms. CASTILLEJO: (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: We knew it smelled like fish, but we didn't realize the scope, she says.
Boadilla del Monte is just one of many Spanish municipalities tainted by scandal. According to the Interior Ministry, nearly a thousand people have been arrested in anti-corruption probes in the last five years. Police have seized assets worth more than $4 billion, including artworks, luxury cars and hundreds of prize fighting bulls.
Many of the scandals revolve around the concession of building permits. During the last decade, Spain was the focus of one of Europe's biggest housing booms. Rezoning a plot of land for construction could multiply its value many times over.
In Valencia, politicians also got money and gifts in exchange for contracts to organize public events. One of those events was none other than the pope's visit to the city in 2006.
(Soundbite of applause)
Pope BENEDICT XVI: (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: The firm that was subcontracted to televise the Mass led by Benedict XVI allegedly diverted more than $2 million in illegal gains, according to the newspaper El Pais.
Unidentified Woman: (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: Images on television news shows of police arresting mayors or other local government officials have become almost a daily ritual of late.
Political science professor Manuel Villoria is a board member of the Spanish chapter of Transparency International, which promotes honest government.
Professor MANUEL VILLORIA (Political Science, Board Member, Transparency International): (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: He says the many years of the Franco dictatorship, which lasted from 1939 to 1975, left Spaniards distrusting the political system. Favoritism persists because many people rely on contacts, or enchufes as they're called in Spanish, to get things done.
Prof. VILLORIA: (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: Even judges call me and ask, hey, why didn't such-and-such student get admitted to your university? Can't you do something about it, he says. Even judges. That's how pervasive it is in our culture, he adds.
But politicians at the national level worry about the bad rap their parties are getting as a result of the scandals. The ruling Socialists and opposition conservatives plan to propose a new local administration law this spring. Experts say that for anything to really change, it would have to rein in the nearly dictatorial powers that many Spanish mayors still enjoy.
For NPR News, I'm Jerome Socolovsky in Boadilla del Monte, Spain.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now that 2009 is over we can tell you this: Fewer people were sentenced to death in the United States last year than at any time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Prosecutors brought fewer capital cases and juries handed down fewer death sentences. The number of actual executions has also gone down in recent years. NPR's Laura Sullivan takes a look at some of the reasons why the number of death sentences dropped last year.
LAURA SULLIVAN: One hundred and six people last year. That may sound like a lot, but 15 years ago, judges and juries sent more than three times as many people to death row.
Richard Dieter is director of the Death Penalty Information Center and says the public's opinion about the death penalty is changing.
Mr. RICHARD DIETER (Director, Death Penalty Information Center): There's a sense that, yes, we support it, philosophically, but practically, this is a government program that isn't working.
SULLIVAN: Dieter says prosecutors have become wary of the price tag. Capital cases can reach into the millions, not including the costs of a drawn-out appeals process that can mean waiting sometimes two decades before an actual execution.
The public, meanwhile, has become increasingly aware of the growing number of exonerations in recent years. Dieter believes this has sent doubts into jury rooms. In the past year, nine people were found innocent of the crimes they had been sentenced to die for.
Mr. DIETER: A rule of thumb used to be at least half of the cases that you took to trial would get the death penalty. In a number of states it seems to be more like a third of cases that get a conviction, go to that death penalty trial, and come out with a death sentence.
SULLIVAN: The trend has been noticeable even in several big cases recently. Brian Nichols murdered four people in his escape from a Georgia courthouse. But a jury, last year, gave him life without parole. Juries did the same for both Juan Luna and James Degorski, convicted of killing seven employees at Brown's Chicken in Illinois.
Nowhere is this more visible, though, than Texas, which used to lead the nation in capital punishment. In the 1990s, Texas averaged 34 death sentences a year. Last year, there were only nine. Just two came from Harris County, the area surrounding Houston, once called the death penalty capital of the country.
Ms. MARIA MCANULTY (Trial bureau chief, Harris County district attorney): We are trying those cases as a non-death capital. We are going to trial in capital murder case. We are not seeking the death penalty.
SULLIVAN: Maria McAnulty is the trial bureau chief for the Harris County district attorney's office. She says she hasn't seen any perceptible difference from jurors. The two capital cases they brought last year resulted in two death sentences. But her office is seeking the death penalty less often than it used to, and that's because since 2005, life without parole is available to them.
Ms. MCANULTY: The option for us, from a prosecutor's perspective, is if you do not seek death, that the result will be life without parole if the jury convicts them of capital murder. And so that very violent person will be confined to a penal institution for the rest of their natural life.
SULLIVAN: That's true now, in every state with the death penalty. Where life in prison once meant 30 years, or even as few as 15 years in some states, life without parole now means incarceration until death.
The only state bucking the trend is California, which sentenced 29 people to death last year � more than a quarter of the nation's total. It pushed the state's death row population to 697, now the largest in the country. One study found, recently, that California's decision to pursue death so frequently is costing the state $137 million a year.
Laura Sullivan, NPR News, Washington.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today in Your Health, we begin a look at the way small changes can make a big difference in your life. And that includes small changes in the lives of two men who are genetically the same, even though their routines are not. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports on the significance of one hour of basketball per week.
ALLISON AUBREY: We'll get to the hoops in a minute. But first, I want to introduce you to identical twins Tim and Paul Daly. They've shared a lot in their 60 years: a childhood bedroom, an identical set of genes - including some that predispose them to diabetes - and, of course, the same birthday.
Mr. PAUL and TIM DALY: February 16th, 1949.
Mr. T. DALY: And God bless my mother. She somehow dealt with us over the years, right?
Mr. P. DALY: Been known as the Daly double ever since.
AUBREY: And yes, there's a story about which one is older.
Mr. T. DALY: Paul came out first. He's the oldest by 30 seconds.
Mr. P. DALY: I won the fight between the twins.
Mr. T. DALY: No, no, no. I pushed him out. I definitely pushed him out. I won the fight.
Mr. P. DALY. He tried to strangle me, Allison. He had the cord around my neck.
AUBREY: Competitive? Yes. But each other's greatest defender, too.
Mr. P. DALY: You get into scuffles as you're growing up.
AUBREY: Paul remembers one courtyard scrap from 50 years ago. A game of stickball turned nasty when a neighborhood bully showed up.
Mr. P. DALY: And this kid's on top of me, basically waling away. And I look over, looking for Tim. Where the heck is he?
Mr. T. DALY: As soon as the person would get on top of my brother, I'd jump in. We took care of each other.
AUBREY: In addition to defending each other, Paul and Tim played basketball together. They joined the Army together, learned to love German beer together. And through all of this, they weighed 147 pounds. Almost everything about them was the same until 1974, when life began to take them in different directions.
Mr. T. DALY: Probably, you know, the - so the separation started when we met the women we were going to marry.
Mr. P. DALY: Right.
Mr. T. DALY: And that's when you start to separate a little bit.
AUBREY: So you settled in two different towns outside Boston.
Mr. T. DALY: That's correct.
AUBREY: Tim's dream was to start a business, which he did. First a video store, now real estate. Paul wanted a little more security. He built a career in IT. Both started families. Paul says his wife is an excellent cook, and they liked the Irish-meat-and-potatoes-style dinner.
Mr. P. DALY: So there's one major difference, because you were eating maybe a little more pasta, and I was eating...
Mr. T. DALY: Right.
Mr. P. DALY: ...a little more potatoes. But in those days, my wife worked nights and I worked days, so I would tend to eat probably not what I was supposed to be eating. And the weight, over years, came up.
AUBREY: Both brothers gained weight in their 30s and 40s. It's just that Paul was putting it on faster. He wasn't getting regular exercise, compared to Tim, who kept up with basketball. He played every Tuesday night with a group of friends. Paul says a photo from 1996 was a wake-up call.
Mr. P. DALY: I looked at the picture and I said, oh, my God. So I went from 185 to 220 pounds, which blew my mind because I didn't think of myself at 220 pounds.
AUBREY: And he certainly didn't think diabetes, a disease that tracks closely with obesity. But during his annual physical that year, at age 47, Paul was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. He hadn't experienced any symptoms other than feeling thirsty, which is typical.
Mr. P. DALY: When you first get diagnosed, it's like a punch in the stomach.
AUBREY: What terrified him was the ugly list of complications that result when diabetes isn't well-managed. Here's physician David Nathan of Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. DAVID NATHAN (Director, Massachusetts General Hospital Diabetes Center): The complications include loss of vision, kidney failure, amputations because of an effect on the nervous system, and then also an increase - a really substantial increase - in heart disease and stroke.
AUBREY: And here's the scary part for Tim Daly. His brother's diagnosis meant he was almost certain to develop diabetes, too.
Dr. NATHAN: Because we know that type 2 diabetes is a genetic disease, and since he has an identical twin, he has a risk of developing diabetes that's about 95 percent.
AUBREY: But 14 years after his brother's diagnosis, Tim still does not have diabetes, and he doesn't take any medicine to keep his blood sugar down. So how does he do it? Is it something of a small miracle? Not exactly, says David Nathan.
Dr. NATHAN: It's not that different than many of our other patients.
AUBREY: The patients Nathan's referring to have all gotten onboard with a big, national study that's documenting exactly what it takes in terms of changing everyday lifestyle habits to prevent type 2 diabetes. It focuses on eating less and exercising more, a strategy that's easy to say but tough to follow.
Mr. T. DALY: Can you imagine telling someone you can never have another potato chip as long as you live, or another french fry? It's like, that's - people will give up right away.
AUBREY: That's Tim Daly again. As you might imagine, he wasn't stoked about giving up the foods he loved or his weekly beer and pizza night with his buddies. But back in 1996, he jumped at the chance to take part in the prevention study, because he knew how high his risk was. And a test showed his blood sugar was already higher than normal. He was pre-diabetic.
Mr. T. DALY: Does that motivate you or what? Because I'm the twin, so if I'm getting close, I've got to get refocused.
AUBREY: To Daly's surprise, the changes he needed to make were not as drastic as he feared. Here's how David Nathan describes it.
Dr. NATHAN: This was not a diet. What we try to do is to change - teach people to change their behaviors.
AUBREY: During his first meeting with nutritionist Linda Delahanty, Daly weighed in at 200 pounds - too much for his 5-foot-10 frame. So she gave him two specific goals.
Ms. LINDA DELAHANTY (Nutritionist): He needed to lose 14 pounds, and he needed to reach a target of exercising for 150 minutes per week.
AUBREY: The Tuesday night basketball accounted for the first 60 minutes. To step it up, Tim added in some walks and jogging - a couple of miles a few times a week. When I caught up with him just before snow hit, he was out golfing, walking the course instead of riding in a cart with his buddies.
Mr. T. DALY: What do you think? What do you think of the yardage, huh?
AUBREY: He says it's good exercise.
Oh!
Mr. T. DALY: That's a heck of a shot.
AUBREY: He says people who don't play golf don't get it.
Mr. T. DALY: You hit a little white ball and chase it around? No. You come out with your buddies, you have fun, talk about just, life in general and enjoy the beautiful scenery. We just saw five deer on the fourth hole.
AUBREY: And by the time the round was over, he had walked several miles. Daly says learning to do more exercise in the course of a week was not half as challenging as learning to eat small portions all the time. But he's learned to make that a habit, too. For instance, he knows the rule of thumb on portions of meat: They should be no bigger than a deck of cards. And what about chips?
Mr. T. DALY: Yeah. I can have some potato chips, but I don't take the bag with me. I pour a bit into a cup. That's what I have.
AUBREY: Over time, all of these small changes led to something more significant than just losing the weight.
Ms. DELAHANTY: Losing that 14 pounds actually caused his blood sugars to revert to the normal range from the pre-diabetes range.
AUBREY: Wow. This must be a big surprise to lots of your patients, that such a subtle difference can be the dividing line between diabetes or not.
Ms. DELAHANTY: Right. I think that's what people don't realize. They think they need to lose 50 pounds or 100 pounds.
AUBREY: But in this case, just 14 pounds made the difference. Here, again, is David Nathan.
Dr. NATHAN: Small steps can result in these really large benefits downstream. Just doing a little bit more will help enormously to reverse this. And that's what the diabetes prevention program actually showed.
AUBREY: Nathan says the Daly twins are not an anomaly. Though Paul is living with diabetes, by stepping up his level of exercise and eating better, he's been able to manage the condition and doesn't need to take insulin. The brothers say nothing has changed since the days when they were defending each other from a playground bully.
Mr. P. DALY: We have that special bond and we are truly, truly blessed. ..TEXT: Mr. T. DALY: That, we are.
AUBREY: So you're fighting the diabetes together.
Mr. T. DALY: Yes.
Mr. P. DALY: Yup. And we're going to win it.
AUBREY: It's the kind of attitude that makes David Nathan hopeful.
Dr. NATHAN: You know, we have 1.6 million new cases of diabetes per year in the U.S. now and, you know, we could conceivably - over a decade, even - decrease that by a third. That would be spectacular.
AUBREY: As Nathan sees it, an epidemic could be reversed if lots and lots of people worked to make small changes.
Allison Aubrey, NPR News, Washington.
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INSKEEP: Allison's series of reports is called "Living Well: The Power of Small Changes." And it's supported in part through a fellowship from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
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INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
David Letterman, Tiger Woods - we've certainly had our share of sex scandals in America last year. But the exploits of those two celebrities pale in comparison to the allegations now leveled against a political leader from India, as NPR's Philip Reeves reports in his latest letter from New Delhi.
PHILIP REEVES: He really doesn't have the look of a lothario. He doesn't strut or swagger. He's not sleek or lean. Age has left its mark on his round and baggy face. Yet accounts of this man's sexual escapades have caused a mixture of outrage and amazement in India. His name is Narayan Dutt Tiwari. He's 86 years old.
Few outside India had heard of Tiwari until 10 days ago. That's when a local TV channel aired a video that apparently shows him in bed with three young women. The video astonished many Indians, partly because of Tiwari's age, but also for another reason: Tiwari happens to be governor of one of India's largest states, Andhra Pradesh, in the south - or rather, he was the governor. Last week, he resigned.
America has a long history of outing public figures who stray from the straight and narrow, be they presidents or golf champions. India does not. It has more than 1 billion people, many of them still very poor, with much else to worry about. They don't generally have high expectations of their politicians. Legislators here are routinely accused of murder, kidnapping and bribe-taking. Sex scandals involving politicians are rarely publicized, no matter how widely known.
That attitude may now be changing, though, thanks to Tiwari's alleged frolics. The Tiwari video instantly made headline news. It was an overnight hit on YouTube. The media embarked on a debate about the meaning of the octogenarian's purported sex romps. The pundits found much to talk about: Should India demand far higher standards from its public figures? The post of state governor is widely seen as a form of political patronage, a job handed out as a reward for loyalty or favors. Has the scandal damaged India's national government? Tiwari's a senior figure in the ruling Congress Party. The party is squirming with embarrassment.
Other questions focus on the media. Should India's gung-ho TV news channels be in the grubby trade of peddling political sex scandals? India has no shortage of hard-line religious extremists and is socially conservative. But paradoxically, it also has a proud tradition of tolerance. Will that change if the private sex lives of India's leaders are seen as fair game by the ratings-hungry media?
As for Tiwari, some reports suggest he's the victim of a sting after failing to keep a promise to hand out a mining lease. He concedes he did entertain women at his government headquarters, but only official delegations. He and his party insist the video is fabricated and that the only reason he's resigned is on health grounds. He's actually won a few new fans.
We should be proud of this man, said one comment posted on the Internet. It added, I hope I'll do the same when I'm 86. Philip Reeves, NPR News, New Delhi.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Today in Dubai, residents will be marveling at the world's tallest building. We've been hearing about financial troubles in Dubai but today, it celebrates the formal opening of the Burj Dubai skyscraper: a swimming pool on the 76th floor, a mosque on the 158th floor, and 169 floors altogether. The chief engineer on this project says he experimented, adding one floor after another to see how high he could go. The building is approximately 2,700 feet tall, which is more than twice the height of the Empire State building, although the exact height is secret, or may be unknown.
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Speaking of jobs, jobs, jobs, economists warned us that job growth was likely to have lagged behind as we came out of the recession. That is small consolation for millions of unemployed people. From the White House to the Congress to the employment office, everyone is looking for jobs.
Unidentified Woman #1: The issue of jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs has been a mantra.
President BARACK OBAMA: Saving money and energy, creating clean energy jobs that can't be outsourced.
Unidentified Woman #2: It's kind of like a full-time job, just trying to find one.
Unidentified Man: Stimulus bill's not working, the American people are asking where are the jobs?
BRAND: This week, in our series "New Jobs For A New Decade," we're going to look at which industries and occupations offer the best hope for creating jobs in the new decade. NPR's John Ydstie begins our coverage with a top ten list for job seekers.
JOHN YDSTIE: The first decade of this century ended in a disaster for employment. Since the recession began two years ago, the U.S. has lost more than 7 million jobs. Just to regain the jobs we've lost will be a huge challenge, says Harvard University labor economist, Lawrence Katz.
Professor LAWRENCE KATZ (Economy, Harvard University): We would need well over 300,000 a month for, sort of four years in a row just to try to make up what we've lost the last couple of years.
YDSTIE: Katz says there are very few periods in U.S. history when job growth has been that strong.
Prof. KATZ: So, we're in a very deep hole. A normal recovery will not get us there for a very long time.
YDSTIE: Katz thinks it could take half a decade or so just to get to the employment levels we had two years ago. Still, he expects during this new decade, the U.S. economy will eventually create 15 million new jobs, with the unemployment rate falling to around 5 percent. The real question, he says, is what kind of jobs they'll be.
Prof. KATZ: The worrisome trend has been something that I've called the polarization of the labor market.
YDSTIE: That is, strong job growth for the high-paying jobs and the low-paying jobs at both ends of the labor market, but less growth in the middle to replace the well-paying manufacturing jobs the U.S. is losing. That's what the U.S. has experienced in the past 15 years or so. And projections for the next decade, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggest that elements of that basic trend will continue.
Ms. DIXIE SOMMERS (Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Labor Statistics): The top 10: Registered nurses would be first, followed by home health aids.
YDSTIE: BLS Assistant Commissioner Dixie Sommers is reciting a list of the 10 occupations the BLS expects will provide the greatest number of new jobs over the next decade.
Number three on the list: customer-service representatives. Then comes...
Ms. SOMMERS: Food preparation and serving workers, personal and home care aides. These, again, are folks who go into the home to help individuals, but they're not doing health care.
YDSTIE: Retail salespersons are number six, followed by office clerks. So, six of the top seven fastest-growing occupations are low-skill, low-wage jobs.
Lawrence Katz says the challenge is to move those jobs up the skills ladder. There's no reason, he says, that home health-care workers couldn't be better educated to provide patients with greater value and, as a result, command higher wages to improve their own living standards.
Prof. KATZ: So professionalizing those types of jobs, we could have a very optimistic vision of an economy.
YDSTIE: How that might square with the goal of spending less on health care isn't clear.
Katz argues it wouldn't necessarily require spending more on education but rather, changing what's taught to focus more on different skills - like problem solving, interpersonal relations and teamwork.
Once again this decade, the BLS is projecting the health-care sector will be a leader in producing new jobs - 4 million of them - including high-skill, high-paying jobs like doctors and nurses. The service sector, which includes health care, is expected to produce a whopping 96 percent of all new jobs, while manufacturing employment continues to shrink.
For job seekers, BLS Assistant Commissioner Sommers says nursing combines a huge number of openings with high pay � a median wage of over $62,000 a year.
Ms. SOMMERS: Accountants is another one that's expected to grow pretty rapidly and pays around $59,000, on an annual average.
YDSTIE: For those who want to spend less time in school than accountants and nurses but still make good money, Sommers suggests firefighting or becoming a sales rep for a manufacturer � especially one making technical and scientific products.
Ms. SOMMERS: That group, the sales representatives, is around $70,000 a year.
YDSTIE: Finally, over the next decade, the best-paying, fast-growing job that requires little training is truck driving. According to the BLS, the folks driving the big tractor-trailer rigs earn, on average, about $37,000 a year.
John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
BRAND: Our series "New Jobs For A New Decade" continues all week.
You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
If you make it out in the cold weather to shop, and you buy a bag of potato chips or a chocolate bar, think for a moment, if you would, about the cost -not just the price you're paying at the moment, but the cost of picking up the garbage after you throw out the wrapper, or the cost of that litter on the environment - or the cost to your health.
Mr. RAJ PATEL (University of California at Berkeley Center for African Studies; Author, "The Value of Nothing"): The way we set up markets in our economy at the moment is a way of avoiding the consequences of our actions.
INSKEEP: Raj Patel would like people to think more about the price we pay, and how we can better value the goods that we buy. He once worked at the World Bank. Now he's an academic at the University of California at Berkeley Center for African Studies, and he has a new book out.
Mr. PATEL: The title of the book, "The Value of Nothing," comes from Oscar Wilde's quote that people today know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The idea that we value things through markets and that there are no other ways of valuing things, well, that's an international problem. And it's one that we're suffering the consequences of right now through the financial crisis and the recession.
INSKEEP: You seem really concerned about the social damage that we do with what appear to be cheap goods in the United States.
Mr. PATEL: I'm concerned that the way that we get reeled in to behaving like consumers involves a sort of a bait-and-switch around the price of goods. I mean, we don't pay the full social costs, for example, for the way we eat today. For example, one in five health-care dollars in this country is spent treating someone who has diabetes. Now a big component of that diabetes is to do with the way that we eat. And we don't pay those costs when we get our cheap food.
INSKEEP: I don't mean to be flip here, but would you rather see a - I don't know - a diabetes tax on a Snickers bar so the cost is right there for us to see?
Mr. PATEL: There's a lot of talk at the moment around things like a soda tax where, you know, you can whack a tax on the amount of sugar in a can of soda. There's no one thing that we can do to equalize the full social cost and the price, but I do think that something like a soda tax is the first step in a comprehensive public health strategy that does align the full social and environmental cost with the price of something like a Snickers bar.
INSKEEP: So just so I understand this, it sounds like you do not trust the free market to set a reasonable value for things, at least the way the market is set up now. Is that right?
Mr. PATEL: Well yes. But, of course, it's not just me. I mean, Alan Greenspan, of all people, admitted that there was a flaw in his philosophy of the way the free market worked in - when he went in front of the House Oversight Committee in October 2008. You know, Adam Smith didn't think that the free market was perfect, either.
I think that what we're seeing is a chorus of people from left and right, from every discipline, recognizing that there are problems with the free market. I think the good news is is that there's an efflorescence of ideas about alternatives to the free market, not simply about sort of patching it up with regulation, but actually going much deeper to figuring out ways in which we can value things, and in which we can corral markets and figure out other ways of valuing resources in common.
INSKEEP: The way that the debate is frequently framed in the United States is either you're for the free market or you're for more government intervention. It doesn't sound like you necessarily trust the government, either.
Mr. PATEL: No. And again, you know, I think that the way that our democracy works is a bit of a sham. I mean, if you go back to the original democracy, I mean, if you look at Greek democracy, with all its problems - with its slavery, with its exclusion of women - there's something very interesting amid the problematics of Greek democracy, which is that Greek democracy and Athenian democracy never had elections.
Instead, citizens were chosen at random at the beginning of every year, and 6,000 citizens would take political responsibility for the city for a year, and after that year, their term would expire and then another 6,000 would be chosen at random.
INSKEEP: Like jury selection.
Mr. PATEL: Well, exactly like jury selection. I mean, that's the vestige that we have of citizens taking responsibility for one another. But I think that we've been rather inured to the possibilities of taking responsibility for ourselves in terms of bigger government. We've been deskilled by our transformation into consumers rather than citizens, and I think that we do need to reclaim the possibilities of actually being responsible not just in what we buy but in how we govern ourselves.
INSKEEP: Is that practical given that this is a country and an economy far vaster than anything that ancient Athens had to deal with?
Mr. PATEL: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think that we, you know - I mean, it's certainly practical at a local level, and I think that that's a great place to start.
INSKEEP: Raj Patel is the author of "The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy." Thanks very much.
Mr. PATEL: Thanks very much, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now, the political battle in Iran has spread beyond its borders. Dissidents have been fleeing the country rather than risk arrest. And the people who flee include journalists who made it to Iran's neighbor, Turkey. From there, they keep trying to report on Iran's anti-government protests. And they say Iranian intelligence agents harass them, even in exile.
NPR's Deborah Amos reports from Istanbul.
DEBORAH AMOS: For Iranian journalist Delbar Tavakoli, news from Tehran is all too familiar: death on the street recorded on cell phones, a mass crackdown following days of unrest. Now, Tavakoli follows the protest from Turkey.
Ms. DELBAR TAVAKOLI (Journalist): I'm sad the government killed the people, but I am happy because maybe they change the regime in Iran. It's good for the Iranian people.
AMOS: In June, Tavakoli covered the demonstrations in Tehran after the disputed elections. But the event that forced her to flee: the 90-second cell phone video of the shooting death of 26-year-old Neda Soltan. She would become an international symbol of the protest.
Soon after the shooting, Tavakoli got a call from a friend.
Ms. TAVAKOLI: (Through Translator) His voice was so upset. He said the girl who's killed and shown on CNN last night was Neda Soltan.
AMOS: The caller was Caspian Makan, Neda Soltan's boyfriend. Tavakoli put him in touch with international media outlets. His interviews added crucial details about Neda's life and her death.
Iranian authorities denied any involvement in the shooting. They quickly arrested Makan, and accused Tavakoli of being part of a foreign plot to kill Neda Soltan. She was sure she'd face a show trial on trumped-up charges.
Ms. TAVAKOLI: (Through Translator) I had a choice to stay there, confess, and accept the charge of murder regarding Neda.
AMOS: Tavakoli decided to join the growing community of Iranian exiles in Turkey. Iranians don't need visas to cross the long border with Iran. There are thousands of Iranians here now, not all of them politically active.
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AMOS: These worshippers are also refugees - Christian converts, evangelicals, practicing for a holiday service. Most of the Iranians at this church are young, from Muslim families, recent Christians who would face serious reprisals for their beliefs back home, says this 30-year-old man who gives his name as Evan.
EVAN: (Through Translator) The person who converts is considered an apostate and could be executed. Praise God that I can practice my belief here.
AMOS: But the latest arrivals are running from a different kind of reprisal. More than 2,000 have come since June, according to the U.N. Refugee office in Turkey. Many are journalists, photographers and bloggers. They resume writing for dissident Web sites as soon as they arrive.
Delbar Tavakoli says she's been reporting on the rape of some protesters while in a Tehran prison, a story Iranian authorities have tried to suppress. She believes this is why Iranian intelligence agents have threatened her in Turkey and tried to frighten her family in Tehran.
Ms. TAVAKOLI: (Through Translator) The Iranian intelligence called my mother and said, do not think we're going to let your daughter leave Turkey.
AMOS: The fear is real for Iranian dissidents. The Turkish government requires them to live away from the capital and the coast in small, rural towns while they wait for approval of their refugee status. But they say these places make them easy targets for Iran's agents.
We reached some of them by cell phone. Hossein Salmanzadeh is a photojournalist.
Mr. HOSSEIN SALMANZADEH (Photojournalist): (Through Translator) There are four intelligence agents who came to this city. We don't feel safe here.
AMOS: Another dissident, Farahmand Ali Pour, covered the campaign of one the failed presidential candidates in the June elections before he left for Turkey. He still writes for the Web site of the opposition movement. He says intelligence agents are tracking many Iranian journalists in exile.
Mr. FARAHMAND ALI POUR (Iranian Journalist): (Through Translator) These events show that the journalists were using the Internet and all those communications. Their work was successful.
AMOS: Work they continue from afar in a movement that uses modern technology against a regime that uses state power to repress their ideas.
Deborah Amos, NPR News, Istanbul.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Facebook has unveiled a new system of privacy settings, along with some recommendations for users. The millions of users now have more options in deciding who can and can't see details of their accounts. But critics say the social networking site is actually trying to push people into sharing even more personal information. NPR's Martin Kaste reports.
MARTIN KASTE: Michael Zimmer is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who specializes in online privacy. He welcomes the new Facebook privacy controls - sort of.
Professor MICHAEL ZIMMER (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Online Privacy Expert): I always appreciate that they're giving more controls. The challenge is that sometimes, it looks like you're sitting in the cockpit of a 747.
KASTE: Zimmer says the sheer complexity of the new options may cause many people to just give up and accept the recommended settings, which Facebook has helpfully preselected. The thing is, those recommended settings usually make an account more public.
Mr. MARC ROTENBERG (Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center): We think this is unfair and deceptive.
KASTE: Marc Rotenberg is head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, a group that's leading a campaign to get the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook's privacy practices.
Mr. ROTENBERG: So we are trying to get the Federal Trade Commission to enter the 21st century, to begin to think about companies that are operating online and what their obligations are in terms of fairness and openness.
KASTE: Last month, EPIC sent a letter of complaint to the FTC. It cited numerous examples of what Rotenberg sees as Facebook maneuvering users into being more public. And Facebook is actually removing the choice of keeping certain kinds of information private, such as a user's fan pages, which could provide clues about someone's likes and dislikes to outside search engines.
Facebook says this is all just a false controversy.
Mr. TIM SPARAPANI (Director of Public Policy, Facebook): It's almost astounding that, you know, people are complaining instead of lauding Facebook.
KASTE: Tim Sparapani used to work for the ACLU. Now, he's Facebook's director of public policy. As a former privacy activist, he says he's impressed by how much his new company has done to enhance users' control over their data.
Mr. SPARAPANI: This is the fulfillment of 40 years of work by privacy advocates.
KASTE: Sparapani says Facebook is the first big company that's ever listened to what privacy groups want and implemented progressive data-management principles.
Mr. SPARAPANI: Notice, choice, access by users, transparency about what's happening with data, and control given to users of their data held by companies. We believe that we have actually managed to make those things operational.
KASTE: And Sparapani says the fact that certain important privacy groups have not signed on to the letter of complaint indicates that they agree with him, that they see Facebook's new privacy controls as a victory.
One of the groups he cites is the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Kevin Bankston is EFF's senior staff attorney and he says, not so fast.
Mr. KEVIN BANKSTON (Senior Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation): I don't think that Mr. Sparapani has been reading our blog posts carefully enough.
KASTE: Bankston says the EFF didn't sign onto the letter simply because it doesn't have expertise with the FTC, and not because it sees the new Facebook privacy options as a victory.
Mr. BANKSTON: Certainly, we give credit to Facebook for forcing its users, for the first time, to grapple with their privacy settings. But as we made clear in our other statements, we're very concerned by the incredibly broad defaults that the so-called transition tool is pushing on users.
KASTE: The FTC is under no obligation to act on this letter of complaint. Still, it has shown more interest recently in matters of online privacy. And at least one of the new commissioners nominated by President Obama is thought to be a strong consumer privacy advocate.
Back at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Mike Zimmer says the company is feeling the heat.
Prof. ZIMMER: People describe this as sort of Facebook's Microsoft moment, where they become the new target.
KASTE: No matter how many privacy options the site offers, Zimmer says, it's hard to escape the fact that information sharing is what makes Facebook users valuable to marketers. And the company has a powerful financial incentive to discourage its users from becoming too private.
Martin Kaste, NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
NPR's business news starts with falling temperatures and rising prices.
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BRAND: From the orchards in Florida to the dairy farms in Indiana, orange growers and cows are shivering this morning. A cold wind is blowing across the northern plains and sending a chill down the spine of the East Coast.
Record lows are helping drive up energy prices. Natural gas and home heating oil prices are rising. Crude oil has started trading above $80 a barrel. All of that likely will translate into higher energy bills. The rising prices also suggest the global economy is recovering, and regaining its appetite for fuel.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Several months ago, our own Renee Montagne brought you this story about possibly the best job in the world.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Australian tourism officials have been searching for someone to be their island caretaker - basically, someone who will swim, scuba dive, and explore the islands around the Great Barrier Reef and then - here's the job - blog about it to promote the area.
BRAND: The blogger would earn more than 100,000 U.S. dollars for six months of this work. No surprise, thousands of people applied, and the winner was Ben Southall. He's a mountaineering, scuba diving, bungee jumping, all-around adventure guy.
Mr. BEN SOUTHALL (Blogger): As for trying new things, how about riding an ostrich? What can I say - animals love me, and I love them, too.
BRAND: That boast proved a bit of a stretch. Last week, Southall was stung by a tiny but potentially deadly jellyfish. Fortunately, he made it to a doctor in time, and survived to blog another day. He advised his readers to wear protective gear when swimming in the waters off the Great Barrier Reef.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: And that's the business news from MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand, sitting in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
President Obama begins the year facing some of the same issues as a year ago. There is the economy, health care and terrorism, among other things.
BRAND: So he faces some of the same issues, but the political atmosphere has changed. One year ago, the president's inauguration was cast as a moment of hope and possibly new politics. Today, the president faces tough battles in Congress and over terrorism.
INSKEEP: Let's get some perspective on all this with NPR's Cokie Roberts, who joins us most Mondays. Cokie, Happy New Year.
COKIE ROBERTS: Same to you Steve. Good to talk to you.
INSKEEP: In another year, another decade, in fact. How much trouble does the administration face over the attempted bombing of an airplane on Christmas Day?
ROBERTS: Well, there is a certain amount piling on going here - mainly, of course, from Republicans - questioning everything from the administration's intelligence sources to the decision to try the alleged terrorist in a civilian court, and in going back to the decision to close down the prison at Guantanamo Bay. So, there is a lot that the administration is dealing with here, and they got off to a shaky start in dealing with it, with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano saying that the system had worked.
So yesterday, the administration put the counterterrorism chief, longtime CIA veteran John Brennan, as the spokesperson on this issue, out front. And Brennan says, look, this is not like the situation before September 11th. People did share intelligence. They just found no smoking gun to stop the alleged terrorist from trying to blow up a plane. Now, that's not terribly reassuring, even to administration supporters. There was action taken yesterday, in closing the embassy in Yemen. But members of both parties are asking now, publicly, whether Yemenis should be released from Guantanamo, as many were in the Bush administration and continued in the Obama administration. But it all gets mushed up, Steve, into not one terribly clear story where the president has to fend off attacks of being soft on terrorism.
INSKEEP: And you mentioned Yemen because this Nigerian suspect had a trip to Yemen in his past. There were other seeming warning signs before he boarded a plane and was stopped - really just by incompetence and by the passengers. Is this mainly a political problem for the president, or could this lead to changes in policy?
ROBERTS: Well, it's always politically difficult for Democrats when they are dealing with an issue like terrorism. It remained the Republican's only winning issue through most of President Bush's second term, and it's a particular problem for a Democrat who hasn't served in the military. But the policy problem is that it takes up a great deal of the administration's time, and will from here on out - particularly when the Senate Intelligence Committee starts hearings in a couple of weeks.
The president's advisers say look, they've already been spending a great deal of time dealing with the issue, that's they haven't taken their eye off the terrorist ball; it's the reason for the build-up in Afghanistan. But they don't want to talk about Afghanistan too much because that's a political problem for the president. And now they have to deal with the political fallout from this terrorist attempt when what they really want to talk about is successes on the home front.
INSKEEP: Well, let's talk, very briefly, about the home front, because the White House has managed to get a health-care bill through the House and Senate - not quite the same bill, though. Are they likely to agree on something in the next few weeks?
ROBERTS: I think they will. You know, a conference committee has an air of inevitability a lot of the time, and the Democrats know the president really needs them now. They have to believe in the long run this health-care bill will work for them. The problem is it's an election year, the voters are sour, this terrorism is likely to make them more sour, making them feel like the country is not headed in the right direction. And they really want to get to the issue that voters really care about, which is jobs, jobs, jobs. The president would love to have the luxury of talking about nothing else but that. But he doesn't have that.
INSKEEP: OK, thanks very much. An analysis this Monday morning from NPR's Cokie Roberts.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
This is a rare day in a Palestinian enclave known as the Gaza Strip. A border crossing opened today, which is rare, because Gaza is surrounded by Israel and Egypt, and both have kept the crossings closed for weeks at a time over the last couple of years.
Today, people and supplies have been allowed to move, and NPR's Peter Kenyon is at the border crossing of Rafah on the Egyptian side. Hi, Peter.
PETER KENYON: Hi, Steve. How are you?
INSKEEP: Okay, thanks. What have you seen?
KENYON: Well, it's a beautiful sunny day here - a little bit windy but a bright blue sky. And I'm at the actual crossing point. The black iron gates are slowly swinging open and closed from time to time, letting Palestinians out into Egypt or sometimes back in - people who need to get home. This is a very limited opening; not any kind of a mass exodus.
INSKEEP: Is this an opportunity to move supplies as well as people?
KENYON: It is. In fact, there is an aid convoy that had endured quite a few setbacks that has now finally arrived at the port of El Arish. That's about 25 miles away. And that is expected to come through as early as today, possibly tonight. There's some last minute logistical difficulties.
It's a British convoy, lead by the outspoken member of parliament, George Galloway. And they have finally arrived and they do hope to get in.
INSKEEP: And when you say an aid convoy, it reminds us that if you've got an area that's crowded, that's populous and that is also cut off from the world -that can't have very much economic activity - there's a certain amount of deprivation in there.
KENYON: We've been talking to people coming out and the conditions are extremely bad in Gaza. The reconstruction material is not being allowed in. Only the most basic food stuffs and things that can possibly be smuggled in, of course. But still, the conditions are very difficult. As you said, this is Gaza's only border with a country other than Israel, and the fact that it's been closed for such long periods of time is a source of great frustration.
I just spoke - for one example - to a 64-year-old woman named Zayna Attilla(ph) from Helwan. She got up at three in the morning to come here today. She's got three children, 11 grandchildren. They all live in Gaza, and she hasn't seen them for seven years. And she got to the gate here and was told she couldn't get through. So, these are the kind of stories you hear here.
INSKEEP: Of course, the border crossings have been very limited in Gaza ever since Hamas took control of Gaza more than two years ago, two-and-a-half years ago. And it's easy to explain why Israel would close its border crossings with Hamas-controlled Gaza. But, Peter, why would Egypt, most of the time, have its border crossings closed?
KENYON: This is a question that's asked very sharply and with quite a bit of frustration and anger around the Arab world and inside Egypt as well. Now, officially, Egypt says it has to respect its treaty agreements, and there are treaties that control who is supposed to be there to monitor everyone making these crossings in and out of Gaza.
Some of those people are, of course, are no longer there, since Hamas took over, and so that, technically, is the answer. But off the record, some officials also say they're very concerned about the Islamist Hamas movement themselves, and they are eager to make sure that things are kept under tight control there, so that's also part of the problem.
That has also lead to the very lucrative smuggling business with the myriad of tunnels that snake underneath right where I'm standing.
INSKEEP: Is Egypt cracking down on the smuggling?
KENYON: Egypt is making an effort. There has been a lot of construction. Egypt is being a bit coy about what exactly it is; others say it is an underground barrier. But there is a lot of talk among people here in Rafah and in Arish that the smuggling business may get a bit more difficult in the months or years to come.
INSKEEP: An underground barrier because some of this smuggling has gone by tunnel?
KENYON: A lot of the smuggling is done by tunnel, although there's quite a bit of smuggling going across the border into Israel outside of here.
INSKEEP: NPR's Peter Kenyon is watching a rare opening of a border crossing into Gaza. He's on the Egyptian side. Peter, thanks very much.
KENYON: You're welcome, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand.
Last week, an assistant school principal from Southern California was in Mexico, where he was visiting family and friends. Augustin Roberto Salcedo was abducted and killed in the state of Durango. This case attracted attention because the victim was an American and was apparently just a visitor. NPR's Jason Beaubien joins us from Mexico City to talk about this case and the ongoing violence in Mexico.
And Jason, what do you know about Salcedo's murder? And really, how common is it for an American to be killed in Mexico?
JASON BEAUBIEN: It's really not that common for Americans to get caught up in this violence that's been sweeping Mexico. But what is sort of interesting is that the people who are getting caught up are people like Salcedo. He was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, son of Mexican immigrants, all- American success story, by all accounts.
And he was back, yes, as you said, visiting relatives. He was in a restaurant. Gunmen burst in, abducted him and five other men. The next day, they were all found shot to death. It's not that common for people visiting Mexico to get targeted.
But he was in Durango, which has become one of the hot spots in this drug war. And it's places like that, that people are getting caught up in this violence that's just been sweeping the nation.
BRAND: Well, you mentioned the drug war. The Mexican news media, they've been reporting that there were almost 8,000 violent homicides, that they're calling drug-related killings, last year in Mexico. That's amazing: 8,000.
BEAUBIEN: It's really a staggering number. And it's a number that just keeps going up. Mexican President Felipe Calderon launched his offensive against the drug cartels here when he came to power, which was in December of 2006. So his drug war really got going in 2007. And in that year, you had roughly 2,700 casualties that were considered drug-related killings - soldiers, police, cartel members, local politicians, people like that.
And then in 2008, it jumped up, almost doubled, to 5,600. And there was a lot of talk that the drug war was peaking. Well, then in 2009, we're hitting almost 8,000 killings. In some places in particular, Ciudad Juarez being the leader, the murder capital of Mexico, you went from having 320 drug-related killings in 2007, when this drug war got going, to 2,600 in 2009.
BRAND: So, as you say, if someone like Roberto Salcedo, who is down there for the holidays, or just someone visiting family in Mexico - if that person's not a typical victim in this drug war, who is?
BEAUBIEN: For the most part, this has been fighting within the cartels, fighting for control of these organizations as they have been getting attacked by the state. So you've had police, you've had soldiers, you've had gunmen within the cartels. But you've also had prosecutors. You've had journalists.
And then as this increasing pressure has been brought down on the drug cartels, they've been sort of expanding into kidnapping and extortion. And this is causing other people, just local businessmen, to also get killed.
BRAND: The Mexican government has deployed about 50,000 troops, and tens of thousands of federal police, to fight these drug cartels. Any success there?
BEAUBIEN: Just this weekend, they captured Carlos Beltran Leyva, which is -this is a huge victory for them, in part because the Mexican navy managed to kill the leader of the Beltran Leyva cartel two weeks ago. So now this cartel, which is really one of the largest in Mexico, is sort of leaderless at the moment.
But at the same time, the Mexican cartels, over the last decade, have gone from controlling about 50 percent of the cocaine that is getting smuggled into the United States, to now controlling 90 percent of the cocaine.
So you've got these organizations that are vying for control of smuggling routes that are worth of billions of dollars - tens of billions of dollars a year. So it seems like even if the Mexican government takes out one drug lord or one drug cartel, another one pops up to take its place.
BRAND: NPR's Jason Beaubien, in Mexico City. Thank you, Jason.
BEAUBIEN: You're welcome.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Want to know the secret to happiness? A lot of us do. We Americans spend billions of dollars on self-help books that promise to let us in on the mystery. Well, for free, you can find out by tuning into a TV series, beginning tonight on PBS, called "This Emotional Life." No relation to a certain public radio show, I don't think. "This Emotional Life" is hosted by Daniel Gilbert. He's a professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of the book "Stumbling on Happiness."
Throughout the series, you have celebrities giving what they think contributes to happiness, one of whom is Larry David, who is a co-creator of "Seinfeld." Here's a piece of tape when he's asked what the secret is to happiness.
Mr. LARRY DAVID (Co-Creator of "Seinfeld"): I don't think it's that much of a mystery. If you don't have a job that you like and you're not having sex, you're just not going to be happy.
BRAND: So is it that simple, really?
Mr. DANIEL GILBERT (Host, "This Emotional Life"): It's certainly that simple for him. If you're not doing something with your time that's reasonably satisfying, your happiness is going to be lower. Well, duh, yes. He's exactly right. We all know that, and science certainly attests the truth of what he's saying.
Now, when he says if you're not having sex, I think he's probably injecting some of his own personal values there. But if we could read that liberally as, if you're not involved in a relationship, then indeed, we see that people who aren't in romantic relationships are less happy than those who are.
So with a little modification, the great philosopher Larry David is not far off.
BRAND: However, you do say that satisfaction ebbs considerably, the longer you're married.
Mr. GILBERT: Well, I don't say that because if my wife hears it on the radio, I'm in trouble. But scientists do say that, other scientists who don't value their marriages like I do.
BRAND: You're on tape now, yeah.
Mr. GILBERT: It really is true that if you look at the happiness of people's marital satisfaction over time, you'll see that the day people get married, they're extremely satisfied with the relationship, and it kind of goes downhill from there. Relationships usually are the gateway to hard work: the hard work of raising children, establishing a household, et cetera. The good news is it begins to go up again once children have grown, and according to most studies, it reaches its initial level, or at least very close to it, when the children leave home.
BRAND: So I can blame my kids for my unhappy marriage. Is that what you're saying?
Mr. GILBERT: Well, they're blaming you for everything.
BRAND: I'm not saying I personally. I'm just saying - Joe, if you're listening to this...
Mr. GILBERT: I might substitute something kinder for the word blame, but it probably is true that without children, your marriage might be happier in the sense that you would report more daily satisfaction. People are surprised to find this, because they value and love their children above all things. How can my children not be a source of great happiness?
Well, one reason is that although children are a source of happiness, they tend to crowd out other sources of happiness. So people who have a first child, often find in the first year or two that they're not doing many of the other things that used to make them happy. They don't go to the movies or the theater. They don't go out with their friends. They don't make love with their spouse. All the things that used to be sources of happiness are no longer there.
So yes, the child is a source of happiness. On the same hand, it may be that average happiness goes down.
BRAND: You end this series with a surprising finding - at least for me - and that is that older people - and a lot older people, elderly people - are happier, in general, than younger people, even though they may have illnesses, even though they may have lost their looks and aren't as prized by society, they seem, on the whole, happier. And research bears this out.
Mr. GILBERT: It certainly does, and it's a finding that every year older I get, the more I appreciate. The fact is that when you measure happiness, if you hold constant physical health, people only get happier over time. This is very important. When we think of old people being unhappy, we're almost always thinking of old people whose health is failing.
But it turns out, when your health fails at any age, you're unhappy. Older people tend to be unhappier than younger people only because they're in poorer health. As long as they aren't in bad health, they're actually happier.
BRAND: You also delve into the multibillion-dollar self-help industry, and you interview a woman who is the - I guess the dean of it. Her name is Louise Hay, and this is what she says is the secret to happiness.
Ms. LOUISE HAY (Self-help movement founder): Happiness is choosing thoughts that make you feel good. It's really very simple.
BRAND: What is your response to that?
Mr. GILBERT: Well, I agree with her that happiness has something to do with choosing thoughts that make you feel good. I don't agree it's very simple. Long before Louise Hay, this is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, the most widely practiced kind of psychotherapy, that if we can change our thoughts, change our cognition, then we can also change the way we feel about the world.
I had to part company with Louise Hay, though, because she has more extreme beliefs than I do. She believes, for example, that we can cure illnesses like cancer, AIDS, leprosy, simply by changing the thoughts we think. And I don't see any evidence whatsoever for that. When I asked her about how she felt about the scientific evidence, she said she didn't think that much of science. So we have to part ways there, too.
BRAND: Um-hum. You have written a book on happiness. You study this professionally. You are a psychologist. Is this an obsession that is largely a Western obsession, or an obsession with people who have a lot of material goods?
Mr. GILBERT: I don't believe so. I mean, if you look at happiness with a small h, the world over, the desire for feeling better appears to be universal. Americans are much more willing to talk about it. Remember that although we are guaranteed life and liberty, we're only guaranteed the pursuit of happiness. We're not actually guaranteed we're going to get it. We're just guaranteed the right to go chase it. And as Americans, that's exactly what we do.
And so we have a reputation for being obsessed with happiness because we chat about it all the time. There's many places where, if you talk about happiness -France, Russia, for example - you seem to be an idiot. Well, I don't believe for a minute that the people who live in Russia or France would prefer pain to pleasure, that they'd rather be alone than with others. Every culture cares about essentially the same basic human need, and that's to feel happy.
BRAND: Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, he's the host of the new PBS series, "This Emotional Life." Thank you very much.
Mr. GILBERT: Thanks for having me.
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STEVE INSKEEP, host:
I'm feeling happier already Madeleine. Thank you very much.
BRAND: You should. You'll be even happier when you tune in tonight to see "This Emotional Life." It runs tonight through Wednesday on PBS, and it examines the social and biological science behind human emotions.
I am happily listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
INSKEEP: And I'm Steve Inskeep.
(Soundbite of music)
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Renee Montagne is on vacation this week. Sitting in this week in our studios is Madeleine Brand, late of NPR's DAY TO DAY. Madeleine, welcome back.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Hey, it's nice to be back.
And President Obama also arrives back in Washington today after 11 days in Hawaii, on what became a working vacation. The president delayed his departure for the Senate's vote on health insurance legislation, and then he had his holiday interrupted by the attempted bombing of a plane landing in Detroit on Christmas Day. Since then, the president has addressed the nation several times, including these comments over the weekend about the alleged attacker.
President BARACK OBAMA: It appears that he joined an affiliate of al-Qaida, and that this group, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, trained him, equipped him with those explosives, and directed him to attack that plane headed for America.
BRAND: Yesterday, the administration announced it was temporarily closing the U.S. Embassy in Yemen due to al-Qaida threats. Great Britain is doing the same.
And joining us now to discuss the latest events is NPR White House correspondent Don Gonyea. Hi, Don.
DON GONYEA: Good morning.
BRAND: And, let's talk a minute first about those embassy closings. What does that actually mean? And it was temporary, but how long do you think it'll last?
GONYEA: Well, first, we just don't know how long it'll last at this point. Certainly, it was a move driven by caution. It is rooted in concern, worry about threats that are being picked up by intelligence sources. Again, these are not necessarily threats specific to the embassy or against the embassy but against U.S. targets, more generally, in Yemen. But it's also a symbolic step. It sends a signal that the threat is out there, that the administration takes it as very serious. The president, this week, described Yemen as an unstable nation with an active and expanding extremist population. The U.S. has been picking up intel on the group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, that's based there. So, the embassy closing is just one of the more visible steps the U.S. is taking to address it.
BRAND: And the news has been dominated for 10 days by this bombing attempt, in part because this would-be bomber's trail leads back to Yemen. It's a small country on the Arabian Peninsula. It's suddenly emerging as a major front in the war on al-Qaida.
GONYEA: Right. But the president's counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, was on the Sunday talk shows yesterday, and he said it is not a new front in the war. But he did say the U.S. is coordinating with the government in Yemen to deal with extremists there, and that it is an ongoing effort that was under way well before the Christmas bomb attempt was linked backed to extremists in Yemen. This is Brennan speaking about Yemen yesterday, on NBC's "Meet The Press."
Mr. JOHN BRENNAN (Counterterrorism Adviser to President Obama): I think the American people should expect that its government is going to do everything, in fact, to hold those individuals accountable whether they're in Yemen, whether they're in other places. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula poses a serious threat. They have attacked our embassy before. They've carried out attacks in Saudi Arabia against Saudi targets. And now, it's very clear that they're trying to bring these attacks to the homeland. We're not going to let them do that.
GONYEA: And recall, too, that Yemen has been in the mix, going back to the bombing of the USS Cole. That was back in the fall of 2000, a full year before 9/11. Still, you have to say that it does, in many senses - in a sense, at least, represent a new front for a lot of Americans, who may be just, you know, going back to the map and relocating Yemen for the first time since the USS Cole.
BRAND: Mm-hmm. And, let's talk about the political fallout about this. John Brennan, we haven't heard a lot from him, and many Americans may not know -even know who he is. Is he the new face, though, for the administration on this, someone besides Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano?
GONYEA: Well, Brennan is the president's in-house counterterrorism adviser. He works out of the West Wing. We will be seeing more of him. Napolitano is the Department of Homeland Security secretary. She, recall, was criticized for initially saying the system worked, just two days after that attempt on Flight 253. She later clarified it to say she was talking about what happened once the incident took place. But again, she's been taking a lot of heat for it. But everyone in the administration is expressing confidence in Napolitano, including the president, including John Brennan. But with him coming out on the Sunday talk shows yesterday, there was clearly a sense that he was there to really, send a tough message.
BRAND: OK. NPR White House correspondent Don Gonyea, thank you very much.
GONYEA: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
If you needed desperate measures to survive the holidays with your family, you may sympathize with an Italian man. The man on the island of Sicily went to a police station on New Year's Eve, said he would rather be in jail than spend the holiday with his relatives. The police turned him away, since he had committed no crime. So he committed one, stealing candy and chewing gum from a nearby store. Police then made certain that he got his New Year's wish. You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Good morning. I'm Madeleine Brand.
There will be fewer Christmas trees waiting for a trip to the landfill this year in Washington state. Residents of Arlington decided to recycle dozens of their trees. And by doing so, they provided a meal for a few dozen local creatures. Used Christmas trees were donated to the New Moon Farm Goat Rescue and Sanctuary, and the goats took care of the rest by turning the trees into a post-holiday feast.
You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
We can at least take you on this next journey with no risk at all. You can stay at home as we go to one of the oldest cities in the world: Aleppo in northern Syria. It has prided itself on its food for a thousand years or more. And now it's a destination for adventurous food tourists, as well as for NPR's Deborah Amos.
DEBORAH AMOS: The romance begins at the outdoor food market � radishes as big as apples, fresh white cheese bobbing in milky water; shiny olives, hundreds of pickles, and thick pomegranate molasses. Then there's the spice markets, with yellow turmeric, pink rose petals, and red sun-dried pepper pastes.
This city, surrounded by olive, nut and fruit orchards, is famous for a love of eating, the cuisine, a product of fertile land and location. Along the Silk Road, an ancient trading route.
Mr. PIERRE ANTAKI (Syrian Academy of Gastronomy): Thanks to this melting pot of caravans which took place in Aleppo especially, all kinds of produce, fresh and preserved, used to pass by Aleppo.
AMOS: That's Pierre Antaki, head of the Syrian Academy of Gastronomy. The International Academy in France awarded Aleppo its culinary prize a few years ago. Thanks, but Aleppo was a food capital long before Paris. Aleppo's diverse communities � Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Circassians, a sizable Christian population � all contributed food traditions since Aleppo was part of the Ottoman Empire, says Antaki.
Mr. ANTAKI: The Sultan of Istanbul would send his chef to Aleppo to spy, to see what the caravans are bringing, what's new that he doesn't know.
AMOS: The Turks are here again, this time as tourists. Turkey and Syria lifted visa restrictions in September, there has been a flood of cross-border trade. Restaurant owners now speak some Turkish and English for Western tourists who come on gourmet tours. But the test of any city's food culture is in the small, traditional shops.
Unidentified Man #1: (Foreign language spoken)
AMOS: This was known as Abu Abdo, specializes in ful, a typical breakfast meal: fava bean soup with a splash of olive oil, lemon juice, and Aleppo's red peppers. A family business owned for more than 70 years, the owner ladles the ful into plastic bags for the to-go crowd � workers as well as businessmen � because it's the best in town.
Mr. SAMIR AKKAD: Abu Abdo, Abu Abdo, the name now it becomes a kind of trademark for the ful in Aleppo.
AMOS: Samir Akkad, a native of the city, says the food culture is easy to explain.
Mr. AKKAD: In Aleppo, we like our stomach, we like good food � rich of fat and - you know kibbe.
AMOS: Kibbe? Anybody who has ever eaten in the Middle East knows kibbe, a deep-fried oval of cracked wheat with ground meat inside, often greasy and tasteless. In the hands of Aleppo's chefs, kibbe is an art form � and the artists are finally being rewarded. Syria is opening up its economy after decades of state control, which has revived restaurants and created stars in the kitchens, says Pierre Antaki.
Mr. ANTAKI: The demand was high, the promotion was fast. A chef today gets ten, fifteen-folds what a chef would get 10 years ago.
(Soundbite of singing)
AMOS: On most nights serious eaters gather here in a dining hall above a hotel. This is a private food club with 600 local members. Their prosperity is on display on the coat rack � mostly mink. This club is known for bridge games, birthday celebrations and a long menu.
Ms. LUCIENNE SALOOM (Club Member): Here our food is very, very good, and always it's the best in town.
AMOS: Lucienne Saloom says she misses the food whenever she's away from home.
Ms. SALOOM: It's made of very different ingredients. We are using everything that we can find. Yes, very complex.
AMOS: This treasured cuisine is opening Syria to more extensive tourism, says Antaki.
Mr. ANTAKI: Slowly, slowly, we have had groups of people coming just to taste the food � and see some stones � but their main purpose was to enjoy some good meals.
AMOS: And when it comes to opening the economy � and the country � it turns out that food is a better draw than ancient history.
I'm making a story about Aleppo food, I'm going to eat this tonight.
Unidentified Man #2: Aleppo food is great.
AMOS: Deborah Amos, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It was just after a blizzard here in Washington that NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg came across a surprising art exhibit: paintings of Iraq on the walls of a local gallery. Instead of images of rubble, blood or militias, she found pictures of a serene place.
Unidentified Man: (unintelligible)
SUSAN STAMBERG: Framed on the walls of the Foundry Gallery, watercolors by Ahmad AlKarkhi show bright sunshine, sparkling waters, tropical foliage.
Mr. AHMAD ALKARKHI (Artist): (Through translator) Palm trees are everywhere in Iraq, so you grow up seeing them everywhere in the city, out on the outskirts.
STAMBERG: We hear so many terrible stories, that it's very hard to imagine that there are beautiful, tranquil places like this there, as well.
Mr. ALKARKHI: (Through translator) That doesn't mean that we forget about the beauty that exists. There's always that beautiful side that we must keep alive.
STAMBERG: Forty years old, Ahmad fled Baghdad for Syria in 2006. In Damascus, in less than three years, he made and sold some 240 paintings at the city's best galleries. But he was always on edge, wondering how long he could stay there.
Last summer, a prominent Damascus art collector named Roson Ramadan(ph) stepped in. He got in touch with an art-loving American friend, retired diplomat Marjorie Ransom, who'd served in Syria for years. Roson told Marjorie that Ahmad was coming to the U.S. and needed arts connections.
Ms. MARJORIE RANSOM (Former Diplomat): I got this phone call from Roson in Damascus, and I was pleased to hear from Roson. He was truly a very good friend, but especially before having knee surgery, I didn't need this kind of intrusion in my life. But I love art. I have always loved introducing Americans to the beauty of the Middle East. You hear so much about the woes of the Middle East. It's always been kind of a goal of mine to show Americans the beauty of that part of the world.
STAMBERG: So Marjorie Ransom said yes. Soon, another phone call: Ahmad, in the U.S., and sounding plaintive.
Ms. RANSOM: Speaking no English and looking for help.
STAMBERG: Since that August phone call, Marjorie Ransom has come to know Ahmad.
Ms. RANSOM: He absolutely hates to ask for help. I have to guess what he needs and anticipate, because he will not ask. He's extremely proud.
STAMBERG: She's been doing what she can, trying to find arts organizations. She says she's no expert: looking for a sponsor, helping him get a brief show at the small D.C. gallery. She knows Ahmad needs help after the horrors of Baghdad, the civil strife.
Mr. ALKARKHI: (Through translator) Life has ceased to continue. Everything's stopped. Only militias were on the street. We heard through news reports on the radio that there were just targeting of artists, including actors and actresses, because those extremists think that what we're doing is prohibited by Islam.
STAMBERG So many artist friends have been killed. Others, still in Baghdad, are desperate.
Mr. ALKARKHI: (Through translator) I get emails from a lot of them, and they all wish that they could leave. There is nothing there to live for. There is nothing left.
STAMBERG: In the States since August - U.N., French and American officials helped him over - Ahmad has painted steadily: oils, acrylics, watercolors. He's painting his dreams and memories of Iraq in vivid oranges, fuchsias, greens.
Ms. RANSOM: One minute, I say I like his portraits...
STAMBERG: Again, retired former service officer Marjorie Ransom.
Ms. RANSOM: ...because I see a variety of emotions in the faces. They're very real. They reach out and touch you. And I think it's the portraits I like best. And then I look at his landscapes. I've never been to Iraq, but I just - I can taste Iraq that way.
STAMBERG: Ahmad has given Marjorie a small watercolor portrait of a woman, her white hair rimming the edge of a red scarf. She has seen a lot, this woman, and much of it has been difficult, a viewer feels. Yet there is hope in her eyes, something eternal.
Mr. ALKARKHI: (Through translator) This is a mother to all of us who left Iraq. So when you look at it, you look into your mother's eye. And the eyes of this woman reflect the eyes of the mothers of everybody who left home.
STAMBERG: After much difficulty, Ahmad AlKarkhi, his wife and small child are settling into a new homeland. He can have a peaceful life here, he says.
He can realize his dreams.
Mr. ALKARKHI: (Through translator) As artists, we look for two things: one, to be recognized and for our art to be known, and second, to actually sustain a living for ourselves and for our family.
STAMBERG" That's a dream of any artist, anywhere.
Mr. ALKARKHI: (Through translator) So I took this dream with me to the United States.
STAMBERG: I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.
INSKEEP: And I'm looking here at our Web site of portraits of his dream: Iraqi palm trees, an Iraqi street, a busy street, a portrait of an old woman lost in shadow whom he describes as a mother to all of us who left Iraq. You can see them at npr.org.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Let's go now to the desert in this country. Sun City, just outside Phoenix, Arizona was the nation's first community built especially for active senior citizens. It turns 50 this week, and it's still active itself. It has changed, though, along with our ideas about retirement and aging. NPR's Ted Robbins reports.
(Soundbite of banging sound)
Unidentified Woman: Welcome to Sun City.
TED ROBBINS: I'm inside the first model home in Sun City, Arizona.
Ms. ROSEMARY SCULLY (Guide, Del Webb Sun Cities Museum): And as you can see, they ate in their kitchen.
ROBBINS: Rosemary Scully is a docent at what is now the Del Webb Sun Cities Museum. She's giving me a tour of the white-brick bungalow with its original pink-and-gray tile counters. It doesn't take very long.
Ms. SCULLY: This is really a very small home.
ROBBINS: What is the square footage of this house?
Ms. SCULLY: I think it was 840, or something.
ROBBINS: The sales price back then: $8,500 - $600 extra for air conditioning. The homes were on one level with wide, accessible doorways, long before it became the law. The real attractions, though, were outside the house: 11 golf courses, eight rec centers, dozens of arts, crafts and activity clubs. The typical residents were a married couple, no longer working.
Mr. JERRY AXTON(ph): So this is the front door. You're welcome to come in.
ROBBINS: Now, people like Jerry Axton are more the norm. Axton lives in Sun City Festival, the newest Del Webb community in the area. His house is twice the size of the original Sun City home.
Mr. AXTON: And here, we've got a little center circular entryway. You can go right or left.
ROBBINS: You may be able to hear in the background the 62-year-old with his white hair in a ponytail is not alone. He lives here with his wife. Two daughters and a nephew are visiting for the holidays, and he's not retired. He runs a furniture manufacturing business from here.
Mr. AXTON: In fact, in my entire neighborhood here, everyone is active, either employed, working, doing some kind of community service or working in a job.
ROBBINS: A lot want to work or have to work because pensions have pretty much disappeared, along with savings and the recession. Older Americans live longer now than they did in 1960. So the former golden years, maybe a decade or so, now last up to 30 years.
Marc Freedman, who wrote a history of the Sun City phenomenon, says no one even knows what to call people over 60. They are, he says, in uncharted territory.
Mr. MARC FREEDMAN (Author): It's - in which they're neither young nor old, in which they're neither in midlife nor in traditional retirement. As a result, it's forcing retirement communities to provide an array of products for people over the age of 60.
ROBBINS: Sun City communities now have Internet cafes, continuing education classes, and lots of singles. Residents don't necessarily think of themselves as old. The communities are still largely white, and many of the original activities like golf remain.
(Soundbite of club hitting a golf ball)
ROBBINS: The driver for marketing to older Americans in coming years will be 70 million baby boomers, an unprecedented aging population. But that doesn't mean places like Sun City will explode in number or size.
Gary Engelhardt is an economics professor at Syracuse University who specializes in housing and aging. He says it's still not what the majority of people want.
Professor GARY ENGELHARDT (Economics, Syracuse University): There's a very strong demand by older individuals to age in place. They want to live in the house they've lived in for the last 20 or 30 years. And they want to stay there and they want to make it work there.
ROBBINS: Not that Engelhardt is down on the Sun City concept. He says it's made a huge contribution to society.
Prof. ENGELHARDT: There are a lot of choices now, many more choices than 50 years ago. And it's not known, but my guess is that there'll be even more choices when the baby boomers go through. And that's probably a good thing.
ROBBINS: Life after 60, like Sun City at 50, is no longer the endpoint, but rather the beginning of a new phase of life.
Ted Robbins, NPR News, Tucson.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
In Senegal, that's a statue that's taller than the Statue of Liberty. President Abdoulaye Wade spent millions of dollars on it, angering some Senegalese. They accuse him not only of indulging himself with this statue but also of nepotism and mismanagement. He's been in office for a decade, and he's a close U.S. ally.
From Senegal's capital, Dakar, NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton takes up the story.
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON: You can't miss Senegal's new 160-foot African renaissance monument. Perched high on a hill, the mighty Soviet-style bronze statue of a man, woman and child overlooks the Atlantic Ocean and dominates Dakar's horizon.
A year or so in the building, the $27 million project of President Abdoulaye Wade is very nearly complete. Wade says the statue symbolizes the triumph of African liberation from centuries of ignorance, intolerance and racism. But his opponents argue that the colossal creation � built by North Koreans and taller than the Statue of Liberty � says more about poor governance than African renaissance.
Mr. ABDOULAYE BATHILY (Opposition Leader): This is an example of a folly, and people are so frustrated by this.
QUIST-ARCTON: Opposition leader Abdoulaye Bathily says the statue is the product of a power-drunk president.
Mr. BATHILY: The economy has collapsed. The education system is in a crisis. The health system is in crisis. And yet Abdoulaye Wade is squandering public money. So, all these things, people are seeing it, and it is creating so much frustration in this country.
(Soundbite of protest)
QUIST-ARCTON: Bathily and other prominent opposition politicians and hundreds of supporters held an anti-Wade protest rally.
Hundreds, in fact thousands of Senegalese have gathered on the street. They say they're marching against corruption, marching against poor governance, marching also against the poor delivery of services. And it's not often that you see demonstrations in Senegal but many, many people have turned out now, after Friday prayers, to show their opposition to the government, to protect against President Abdoulaye Wade.
I have one of the demonstrators with me. Madame, your name please.
Ms. MARY PETER(ph): My name is Mary Peter. I am very tired, so tired, very, very tired. The Senegalese is tired. Woman is tired. Children is tired. Very tired for President Abdoulaye Wade. (Foreign language spoken)
QUIST-ARCTON: Switching to French, this woman, Mary Peter, said Senegalese were at their wits' end, because they were going hungry and didn't have jobs and houses. She said President Wade just doesn't get it � but were telling him to go.
In recent years, Senegal has gained a reputation for hemorrhaging thousands of migrants. Mainly young men risk their lives on the high seas, crossing in rickety boats, heading to Europe and beyond in search of a better life.
For decades, this poor, peanut- and fish-exporting former French colony was hailed as a bastion of democracy in West Africa, with close links to Washington. In September, Senegal was awarded a $540 million grant from the United States as a reward for � and to encourage � good governance.
Wade's supporters dismiss the president's critics. Local government minister Aliou Sow said Wade had done much for Senegal.
Mr. ALIOU SOW (Government Minister): President Wade is a democrat. Ten years in power � how many hundreds of kilometer roads are built? How many thousands, I say, of classrooms are built? How many high schools are built? How many new universities are built? Et cetera, et cetera. President Wade gave them. You see what I'm talking about? People must be fair.
(Soundbite of chanting)
QUIST-ARCTON: But it's the renaissance monument that has come to symbolize opposition to President Wade in this predominantly Muslim country. In Friday sermons, imams criticized it as idolatrous.
Some said the statue � featuring a muscular, bare-chested father figure sweeping a scantily clad woman behind him and holding aloft a nude child � contravened Islamic teachings.
16-year-old Aisha Ndow(ph) said she considers the statue un-Islamic, unbecoming, and aesthetically un-African. We met at the base of the colossus.
Ms. AISHA NDOW: (Through translator) Look at the woman � half her body is uncovered. You can see her breasts and her bare thighs. That's not good for a Muslim. Really, this is not a good example for Africa � especially the way they're dressed. The father, you can see his body. The child is completely naked. There's too much nudity. The woman should be wearing something more proper to show how Africans really dress.
QUIST-ARCTON: President Wade's claim that he's entitled to 35 percent of any revenues generated from tourism from the monument has sparked further outrage. Opposition Leader Abdoulaye Bathily.
Mr. BATHILY: He was the hope of Senegal, but he dashed all this hope what people placed on him. And over the last nine years, step by step, he has established a personal rule in Senegal today.
QUIST-ARCTON: The next presidential election in Senegal is still two years away, but Abdoulaye Wade, a veteran political survivor, has already announced his intention to run. Analysts predict that winning, as he first did in 2000, could be a monumental challenge.
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Dakar.
BRAND: And we have this postscript to our story. The architect of the renaissance monument has now offered to cover the bare legs of the female in the statue. The designer says it's up to the Senegalese president to decide.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. Some people are taking a fresher approach to a big business: tourism in Egypt. Well over 10 million people visited last year, many on tour buses and cruise ships. There's also, though, an emerging movement toward eco-travel. Small groups slip away into the desert and try to get a feel for the country away from the big tourist sights.
The movement is making connections to Egypt's Bedouins and other tribespeople. Here's the first of two reports from NPR's Cairo correspondent Peter Kenyon.
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Woman: Once upon a time, there was a land where the sun was sacred.
PETER KENYON: If you've ever been part of the herded hordes ringing the Great Pyramids of Giza or wilted under the desert sun waiting for the previous tour group to vacate the underground tombs in Luxor's Valley of the Kings, you know that Egypt does tourism on a massive scale.
The financial stakes are enormous. Revenues of nearly $7 billion in 2005 soared to more than $10.5 billion in 2008. And if official figures are to be believed, the money will rise again this year, despite the economic downturn. Along the way, to make the visitors' experience more pleasant, shantytowns have been razed and poor villagers swept aside.
In late October, a few activists and businesspeople gathered with members of various Egyptian tribes in the remote southeastern desert to celebrate their heritage and traditions, and to explore ways of responsibly bringing people to the Egypt that package tour visitors never see.
(Soundbite of music)
KENYON: It was the second annual Characters of Egypt festival, featuring Sinai Bedouins from the eastern hills, Nubian tribes from the south, and the far-flung tribes of the western desert, all the way to the Siwa Oasis near the Libyan border. It was a rare opportunity for the tribes to swap songs, stories, food and art, and to debate whether this new eco-travel movement could provide desperately needed jobs without forever changing their lives.
The head of Egypt's national parks, Mustafa Foudy, said that last concern is part of his job, to see that eco-tourism doesn't turn into a smaller version of mass tourism.
Mr. MUSTAFA FOUDY (Head of Egypt's National Parks): When you talk about eco-tourism, we are talking about responsible tourism, people that they come and gain experience by sitting with these local people. We train them to work as guides, to take these tourists to safari, for example, to act as bird-watchers, to help the tourists, whatever.
KENYON: So far, eco-tourism is a term that can have many definitions in Egypt, from expensive luxury eco-lodges, to primitive Bedouin-led desert treks. One of the founders of the tribal festival is Lynn Freiji, director of the Wadi Environmental Science Center.
In Freiji's opinion, too much well-intentioned effort these days is stuck on what she calls the handicrafts plateau: creating and marketing jewelry and carpets to tourists. She says the next step should be a sustainable travel sector that values the environment and relies on the knowledge and skills of those who live there.
Ms. LYNN FREIJI (Director, Wadi Environmental Science Center): The tribes are those that have protected the territories. Somehow, we tend to forget about them. These people need to be banked on. These men need to get to work. These fishermen need to be better integrated. These tribes who have the knowledge of the desert should be working hand-in-hand with tour operators.
KENYON: Freiji says there are a number of obstacles to get past, not least the deep mistrust between the government and the tribespeople, some of whom thrive on smuggling. Clashes, especially in the northern Sinai, are a regular occurrence. Each year, when she tries to organize the tribal festival, Freiji says she must bring a list of all those attending to the security forces five months in advance, and inevitably a number of names are struck from the list.
(Soundbite of music)
KENYON: At the festival, Sinai Bedouin Mohammed Darwish Hamdan said without tourism, living conditions in the Sinai would be even worse than their current dismal state. But he said the heavy-handed tactics of the security forces make development impossible. He said the common procedure of rounding up relatives of a wanted man to force him to come forward is not only wrong, but disrespectful - a major sin in tribal culture.
Mr. MOHAMMED DARWISH HAMDAN (Sinai Bedouin): (Through translator) They have to respect the dignity of the Bedouin when they deal with us. And they have to offer us a chance to make a living. If someone does something wrong, okay, arrest that person. But don't seize innocent people for someone else's deed.
KENYON: In part two of this series, we'll look at what eco-tourism could mean for the remote western desert oasis of Dakhleh, near the southern end of Egypt's gorgeous and forbidding Great Sand Sea.
Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Cairo.
INSKEEP: Journalist Aya Batrawi provided material for this report.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Our next guest wants to tackle what he considers a huge challenge in health care, the effort to get really smart people to remember essential things.
MADELINE BRAND, host:
Atul Gawande is a surgeon and he's a health care writer. His articles sometimes get passed around the White House. He's focusing on the complexity of medical treatment. Gwande says American doctors might save money and lives if they used a checklist.
INSKEEP: It's just a rundown of best practices for treating anything from back pain to cancer. Atul Gwande's book �The Checklist Manifesto� includes the story of a man who came to an emergency room with a stab wound.
Dr. ATUL GAWANDE (Author, �The Checklist Manifesto�): He had perfect blood pressure. It was a single wound about an inch in size in his belly.
INSKEEP: Probably didn't looked that bad?
Dr. GAWANDE: Didn't look that bad. About 10 minutes later, he crashed, lost his blood pressure. And when they got him open they found that the wound had gone � this is a pretty big guy � and had gone straight through more than a foot into him, all the way into his back and sliced open his aorta. And so afterwards they asked a few more questions of the family. How did this happen? Well, it was a Halloween party. Well, what exactly went on? And then they learned that the guy who stabbed him was dressed as a soldier carrying a bayonet. And if they had understood it was a bayonet, they would have thought about it quite differently.
INSKEEP: And so it seemed in retrospect very simple stuff. What was this man stabbed with? It's a stab that was not followed. Somebody made one too many assumptions about this.
Dr. GAWANDE: Yes, and this is why the case was interesting to me. Our great struggle in medicine these days is not just with ignorance and uncertainty. It's also with complexity - how much you have to make sure you have in your head and think about. There are a thousand ways that something can go wrong. We miss stuff. We are inconsistent and unreliable because of the complexity of care. And when I looked at other fields and how they handled complexity, again and again they come back to the simple idea of just using a checklist.
INSKEEP: Well, let's make a comparison here. How does the way the average doctor work compare with the way the average airline pilot works?
Dr. GAWANDE: It was very interesting. I got a chance to visit Boeing and see how they make things work, and over and over again they fall back on checklists, as people know. The pilot's checklist is a crucial component, not just for how you handle takeoff and landing in normal circumstances, but even how you handle a crisis emergency when you only have a couple of minutes to make a critical decision.
In surgery the way we handle this is we say, You need eight, nine, 10 years of training, you get experience under your belt, and then you go with the instinct and expertise that you've developed over time. You go with your knowledge. What we found is that when you have the music checklist, when you have them turn to that reminder, that bedside aid, we get better results, massively better result.
We brought a two minute checklist into operating rooms in eight hospitals. I worked with a team of folks that included Boeing to show us how they do it, and we just made sure that the checklist had some basic things, make sure that blood is available, antibiotics are there, and we caught basic mistakes and some of that stupid stuff. But then the second part of it was we also found that good teamwork required certain things that we missed very frequently. So on the checklist is make sure everybody knows each other's name in the room, and the average reduction in complications and deaths was over 35 percent.
INSKEEP: Just from missing basic things. And another thing about teamwork, knowing the other people's names, just being sure that the doctors are communicating with the nurses who may be in the room at that moment.
Dr. GAWANDE: Making sure everybody knew each other's name produced what they called an activation phenomena. The person having gotten the chance to voice their name, let speak in the room, were much more likely to speak up later.
INSKEEP: If they saw a problem?
Dr. GAWANDE: If they saw a problem.
INSKEEP: Well, being questioned on a mistake is another thing. How do surgeons that you know respond to this notion of being questioned by their colleagues and having to refer to some simple or elaborate checklist to make sure they got everything right?
Dr. GAWANDE: When we first brought in the idea of a checklist into operating rooms, you can imagine the response. The predominant one was, we already do this stuff, we don't need it and this is a pain in my butt. We asked them to give it a try, and when we surveyed people afterwards, there was about 80 percent who were - thought this was something they wanted to continue to use. But 20 percent remained strongly against it. They said this is a waste of my time, I don't think it makes any difference. And then we asked them, if you were to have an operation, would you want the checklist?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. GAWANDE: Ninety-four percent wanted the checklist.
INSKEEP: What, if anything, in society at large makes people resistant to this notion of relying basically on memory aids or reminders when they're doing a complex task?
Dr. GAWANDE: Partly I think we have a hard time admitting weakness, and one of the things that we have to grapple with is that we have to assume we are fallible, even as experts.
INSKEEP: Although that's not the image we see in TVs and movies, is it? I mean you see the heroic pilot flying by the seat of his pants. You see House hobbling through the hospital and coming up with another brilliant diagnosis out of the back of his head somewhere.
Dr. GAWANDE: In my last chapter I grapple with - one of the things that struck me about the miracle on the Hudson when Sully Sullenberger brought the plane down that saved 155 people after it was hit by geese over Manhattan and landed it in the river, over and over again we wanted to say, look at this hero who piloted this plane down, and the striking thing was how much over and over again he said there was nothing that hard about the physical navigation of this plane. Instead he kept saying it was teamwork and adherence to protocol. And when you walk your through - and I did it, I walked through all the things that the team did, what Jeff Skiles did in the jump seat to try to restart the engines and make sure that the flaps were in the proper position for the landing and so on, you realize how much of a team effort it is.
I come out of my operations and then I go out and talk to the family and they say, Doctor, thank you for saving my husband, and you feel a little bit like a fraud, because you know how much you were dependent on everybody getting this right. And when we acknowledge it, that's when we come back to ideas like checklists.
INSKEEP: Have you made yourself a better surgeon?
Dr. GAWANDE: I didn't expect it. It's massively improved the kinds of results I'm getting. When we implemented this checklist in eight other hospitals, I started using it in my operating room because I didn't want to be a hypocrite. But hey, I'm at Harvard, did I need a checklist? No. I didn't - I didn't think...
INSKEEP: You were in that 20 percent...
Dr. GAWANDE: I was in that 20 percent, said no. I have not gotten through a week of surgery where the checklist has not caught a problem.
INSKEEP: Atul Gawande is the author of "The Checklist Manifesto.� Thanks very much.
Dr. GAWANDE: Thank you.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
In this country, President Obama is promoting green jobs. They are supposed to help both the environment and the economy, but it turns out that new green jobs may simply replace older jobs.
NPR's Chris Arnold has the latest report in our series New Jobs For A New Decade.
CHRIS ARNOLD: Many old factories around the country now sit dark and empty. But at a once-defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the lights are on again, and a new industry is rising up inside the ruins of an old one.
(Soundbite of machineries)
Mr. RICK HESS (CEO, Konarka): We make what's called plastic solar cells, we call it power plastic.
ARNOLD: Rick Hess is the CEO of Konarka, it's a company that makes solar panels but not like any you have probably seen before. These are thin, flexible plastic sheets, they are lightweight and some are transparent, so they can be built into windows to let homes or office buildings generate their own solar power. Or, the material can be sewn onto a bag or briefcase and even something that small will generate electricity.
Ms. HESS: It's not to charge cell phones or iPods or things like that.
ARNOLD: Oh really, you could charge a cell phone?
Mr. HESS: Oh, you could clearly charge your cell phone. I have a bag that I used today that I use to charge my cell phone.
ARNOLD: The equipment at this factory used to make big sheets of Polaroid film. Konarka converted it so that these same machines are now churning out these film-like solar panels. And the company has hired back about 20 of the former Polaroid workers to run the factory. So, it's given new green jobs to workers who had been laid off. Mike Page is an electrician and machine operator.
Mr. MIKE PAGE (Electrician, Machine Operator): You know, I invested my whole career at Polaroid, and I thought it was over. And now I feel renewed and I feel like I have a whole new future.
ARNOLD: Green jobs are a very big deal in Washington. President Obama had said that he wants to create five million new green jobs over 10 years.
President BARACK OBAMA: The nation that leads in clean energy will be the nation that leads the world. I want America to be that nation.
ARNOLD: And it's definitely an attractive idea. So, if you want the country to go green, when at the same time it needs a lot more jobs, green jobs seem like the perfect solution. But...
Mr. MICHAEL LEVI (Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations): Even if we hit numbers, like five million jobs that people talk about - and that's quite plausible - that can only be a very limited piece of the puzzle in a country with several hundred million people.
ARNOLD: Michael Levi is a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. He says that proponents often only talk about the jobs that will be created � not the jobs that'll be lost. And the economy is a big interconnected system. So, here's an example: The country only needs so much electricity, but if more of that comes from wind power or solar power, less is going to come from coal. So, some coal miners would lose their jobs.
Levi says any time the government pushes the economy in a given direction, you'll gain jobs in some areas and lose them in others.
Mr. LEVI: Let's say I add five million jobs and I lose four million jobs elsewhere, and it's over 10 years. Within the grander scheme of things, it's other elements of economic policy that are going to change people's lives.
ARNOLD: There's also the question of what gets counted as a, quote, "green job." The numbers get very mushy here. What about electricians who already have a job, but who start installing more efficient furnaces � should those be counted as new green jobs? Levi thinks that many green jobs will really just be existing jobs that are shifted into this category.
Still, other experts see green jobs as a lot more important.
Mr. BRACKEN HENDRICKS (Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress); This is at the center of the future of American competitiveness.
ARNOLD: Bracken Hendricks is a senior fellow at the liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress. He says, take the global auto industry. If companies here in the U.S. can come up with the best electric car technologies...
Mr. HENDRICKS: We're talking about who is going to own the growth of the auto industry, globally. In China, they're about to go from 65 million cars on the road to 300 million cars on the road.
ARNOLD: Basically, people's views on green jobs depend on their vision of the future. Congressman Ed Markey authored clean energy and green jobs legislation that was recently passed by the House.
Representative ED MARKEY (Democrat, Massachusetts): We have to think of this as the next great job-creating sector in the same way that we put the correct telecommunications policies on the books in the 1990s that led to an explosion of made in America brands - Google, eBay, Amazon.
ARNOLD: In the shorter term, the Obama administration is interested in giving Americans incentives to insulate their homes. The idea is to put thousands of contractors to work with insulation and caulk guns - so it's being called Cash for Caulkers.
Chris Arnold, NPR News, Boston.
BRAND: Our series New Jobs for a New Decade continues tomorrow with a look at health care workers.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand. You may remember that two weeks ago an American Airlines jet skidded off a runway in Jamaica. The fuselage cracked, dozens of passengers were injured. But that wasn't the only landing problem American had last month.
Two other planes � one in North Carolina, another in Texas � also had landing problems. And now the Federal Aviation Administration says it's increasing its oversight of American Airlines to figure out if there's a pattern. NPR's Adam Hochberg reports.
ADAM HOCHBERG: The two other rough landings, on December 13 in Charlotte and December 24 in Austin, were far less serious than the Jamaican accident. Both of the U.S. incidents involved MD-80 series jets, and in both cases the tips of the planes wings touched the runway as the aircraft landed. Nobody was injured on either flight, but it's unusual for a major airline to have three bad landings in the course of just a couple weeks.
And the FAA says it will increase its oversight of American to try to figure out why it happened. Aviation safety consultant Todd Curtis, who runs the Web site Airsafe.com, says regulators likely will look into whether the mishaps are symptoms of some larger problem in American's operation.
Mr. TODD CURTIS (Aviation Safety Consultant): Every airline develops its own procedures, both for maintenance and for flying. So one kind of scrutiny could be gone through to make sure that those procedures were actually done. The second thing that could be done is that they could have FAA flight examiners basically looking over the shoulders of some pilots to see whether or not they are operating in accordance with FAA regulation.
HOCHBERG: American says it's cooperating with the FAA on the matter. Airline officials declined to be interviewed, but issued a written statement saying the company is conducting an internal review of the wingtip incidents and is working with authorities investigating the crash landing in Kingston, Jamaica.
The company says it's discovered no connection among the three events, and Bill Waldock, an aerospace safety professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, sees no obvious link either.
Professor BILL WALDOCK (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University): Two of the three airplanes were MD-80 aircraft that has a wing that's relatively low to the ground and a different set of landing characteristics than the 737 that actually crashed in Kingston. Right now we're not sure if they're related.
HOCHBERG: Waldock says these kinds of FAA actions are uncommon but not unheard of in the aviation industry. In 2008, for instance, the agency ordered a wide review of maintenance records after fuselage cracks were found in several Southwest Airlines jets.
Still, Waldock says he's seen nothing about the investigation that causes him concern about the safety of flying. And other aviation experts doubt that the three landing mishaps will affect consumers' faith in air travel, especially now, when a seemingly more pressing issue � terrorism � is dominating the news.
David Field is a veteran aviation journalist and a former editor at Airline Business magazine.
Mr. DAVID FIELD (Aviation journalist): Most people believe that air travel is safe, and even when you believe that air travel has a significant risk factor, it's the other guy it happens to, not you.
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HOCHBERG: At Reagan National Airport in Washington yesterday, few passengers expressed concern about their safety, taking in stride both the recent headlines about terrorism and about problems like landing mishaps. Renee Lyons, flying home to South Carolina after visiting her family, said she's aware of the recent turbulence in the airline industry, but she says she won't stop flying because of it.
Ms. RENEE LYONS: You can't really live in fear forever. If you got to go visit your family, you got to go. I mean, you're in danger driving on the road of a car accident. So I just look at it like when it's my time to go, I'll go. I'm not going to stop living my life out of fear for what's going to happen.
HOCHBERG: There been no evidence that anything that's happened in the past month has discouraged people from flying. Though the number of passengers was already down because of the economy, there's been no sign of a further drop because of safety or security worries.
But David Field, the aviation journalist, says people might start to shy away from air travel if the failed bombing leads to an increase in the amount of time it takes to get through security checkpoints. He says people are more deterred by the hassle and inconvenience of security screening than they are by actual concerns about their safety.
Adam Hochberg, NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
When Abdulmutallab boarded that plane for Detroit, he did so with an American visa. He also applied for a visa to Britain, which turned him down. The British may simply have been lucky he was seeking a student visa to a nonexistent school. The fact remains that one nation stopped him, while another did not.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
We're going to work through what this means with Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA case officer and senior fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies here in Washington. He's in our studios. Welcome to the program.
Mr. REUEL MARC GERECHT (Senior Fellow, The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies): Pleasure to be here.
INSKEEP: What, based on the facts that are known, did the British get right that the Americans did not?
Mr. GERECHT: Well, I mean, it's difficult to say right now. One, the British system is actually more difficult than the American system, just as a general rule. It's harder to get a British visa than it is to get an American visa. Two, visa issuance in Great Britain is directly controlled by the Home Office. The MI5 officers, domestic security officers, the domestic intelligence officers are posted all over the world.
INSKEEP: Let me make sure I understand that. You're saying that the British domestic intelligence agency, the MI-5 - not their equivalent of the CIA, their domestic intelligence agency - might have people in Lagos, Nigeria, might have people in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, might have people in Pakistan.
Mr. GERECHT: I'm pretty positive they certainly have one in those places, and many others. It's very common for them to have an overseas role that has domestic ramifications.
INSKEEP: Which makes it easier for different parts of the government to talk to one another.
Mr. GERECHT: Exactly.
INSKEEP: What is the Americans system?
Mr. GERECHT: The American system isn't like that at all. Just saying that the FBI, for example, would have input into the issuance of American visas I think would cause many people to become quite nervous. The American system is much more divided. The consular service in the State Department is more independent - it's less independent than it was before 9/11. It's a separate bureaucracy. It does not cooperate intimately with the Central Intelligence Agency in the issuance of visas. It has more cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security. But even still, it is not nearly as smooth in the way they handle these things from a security perspective as are the British.
INSKEEP: So we've asked why didn't the Americans catch the red flags with this guy when it seems the British did. That leads to another question about cooperation. The U.S. and Britain are the closest of allies, and their intelligence agencies are said to work together very closely. If the British had sufficient concerns about this man to deny him a visa, why didn't the Americans know?
Mr. GERECHT: Well, because the British - I'm guessing here. I suspect the British consular service did not distribute their assessment, their opinion to the Americans. Just because you have a visa denial doesn't mean the Americans are going to know about that visa of denial. You would have to find out why that visa was denied. It's possible that if it was because of what his father said, and maybe his father also said, oh, by the way, I told the Americans, and the Brits didn't feel obligated to let the Americans know.
INSKEEP: I want to play a piece of tape, if I can. This is James Jones, the national security advisor, speaking last month at the White House, and we asked him about the emerging threat from places like Yemen. And he said, greater collaboration between countries and intelligence agencies would have to be the answer to that. Let's listen.
Mr. JAMES JONES (National Security Advisor): I think the 21st century is going to serve as an interesting moment in history where nations of the world, by virtue of this kind of threat, organize and train their forces to react with much greater speed, with much better intelligence, and with a degree of cooperation that nobody would have thought possible 20 years ago simply because in order to be successful against these kinds of groups, you have to get at them quickly.
INSKEEP: Okay, so that's what James Jones says is necessary to succeed. Is that happening? Are we on the way to that?
Mr. GERECHT: Well, I think that's certainly happening with Europeans, that the liaison relationship that the United States has with the Europeans is much more intimate and much more efficient. Whether that is the case throughout the Middle East is more questionable. Yemen is - the government there is obviously several rungs down its organizational abilities, and its ability to command people outside of the capital, it's a relatively primitive society. That's not to say the agency hasn't had considerable cooperation. I don't think you would have seen any missile attacks in Yemen without Yemeni intelligence. I think the cooperating - I think the ability...
INSKEEP: Oh, because the U.S. has fired missiles at targets within Yemen, right?
Mr. GERECHT: Right, right. I don't think the agency - I'm sure the agency has very limited - what we call in the trade - unilateral ability inside of Yemen, that is to gather intelligence by itself through its own assets without the input of the Yemeni government. So we will be dependent in a place like that on - for better or worse - on the government, and I don't think there's much the agency can do about that.
INSKEEP: Reuel Marc Gerecht is a former CIA officer and a senior fellow with the Foundation of Defense of Democracies. Thanks very much.
Mr. GERECHT: My pleasure.
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INSKEEP: It's NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Here in Washington, we've been complaining about how cold it is, but really, it's nothing compared to the weather in China. China and most of northeast Asia are digging out from the worst snowstorm to hit the region in decades. It's broken all sorts of records. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing.
ANTHONY KUHN: The foot of snow that fell on Beijing on Sunday and Monday was enough to shut down schools and highways on the first working day of the year. It did the same for other parts of north China and the Korean peninsula, as well.
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KUHN: Mau Win Jun(ph), a Beijing sanitation supervisor, is leading a work crew, shoveling the now hard and sooty snow on a main city thoroughfare. The city does have snow plows and salt spreaders, but, Mau explains, its traditional response to big snows is to mobilize the masses.
Mr. MAU WIN JUN (Beijing City Sanitation Supervisor): (Through translator) Our reaction to the extreme weather was pretty timely. When the snow started to fall, we activated our emergency plan, which was to call on all employers and residents to come out and clean up the snow.
KUHN: In Inner Mongolia, firemen rescued 1,400 passengers whose train cars were trapped by massive snowdrifts. Seoul, the South Korean capital nearly ground to a halt under the heaviest snowfall since it began metrological surveys in 1937. The weather is a frigid reminder of what Beijing used to be like only a couple of decades ago. Since then, Beijing winters have been relatively mild. Mau Win Jun remembers.
Mr. JUN: (Through translator) I'm 50 now. I remember when I was seven or eight, gosh. The snowfalls were really big, and it was really cold. Back then, we would go out bundled up in thick, padded, cotton coats and pants, and we'd still be freezing.
KUHN: Changing weather patterns have also mean more frequent drought for north China. So at least farmers here can take comfort at the prospect of more melting snows.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Head injuries sidelined two Miami Dolphins quarterbacks in a game this past Sunday. It's the latest in a series of high-profile incidents involving football head injuries. There are worries about the long-term effects of those injuries. The House Judiciary Committee held a special hearing yesterday in Detroit. Michigan Radio's Sarah Cwiek reports.
SARAH CWIEK: Members of the House Judiciary Committee say it's appropriate for Congress to investigate the NFL's concussion policies because those policies set the standard for all of football, from peewee on up.
A growing body of scientific evidence shows that heavy contact sports like football can cause long-term brain damage. And football has been rocked by a series of concussion-related scandals recently. Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen named the latest: the firing of Texas Tech coach Mike Leach after he allegedly disciplined a concussed player by making him stand in a dark shed.
Representative STEVE COHEN (Democrat, Tennessee): You should be sent to the neurosurgeon, not to the shed.
CWIEK: The committee, yesterday, heard from a wide range of stakeholders, including leading researcher Bennet Omalu, co-director of the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University. Omalu studies the brain tissue of ex-football players, and says he diagnosed the first case of what he calls chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in 2002.
Omalu says repeated blows to the head cause proteins to accumulate in brain cells, and can manifest as a unique type of dementia. But Dr. Omalu says it's not just the spectacular blows that cause CTE. It's also the heavy contact that comes with the game.
Dr. BENNET OMALU (Co-director, Brain Injury Research Institute, West Virginia University): Soft concussions or blows to the head which may not manifest with incapacitating symptoms are equally as important as concussions.
CWIEK: But Dr. Omalu's research isn't universally accepted. His testimony was refuted by fellow panelist Ira Casson, a neurologist and former co-chairman of the NFL's Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee. Casson resigned that position in November, after the NFL Player's Association accused him of bias as he continues to deny a conclusive link between football and long-term brain damage. But Dr. Casson says he stands by that research.
Dr. IRA CASSON (Neurologist): Despite current harsh criticism from the media and others, I will continue to follow the evidence. My allegiance is to scientific truth.
CWIEK: Casson says his position on football head injuries has been skewed in the media and by members of Congress for what he calls political reasons. But Congressman Steve Cohen says without congressional action, the NFL wouldn't be taking concussions as seriously.
Rep. COHEN: So isn't politicalization a little bit more important, just like airing on the side of caution and lives in the balance, rather than waiting for the ultimate, perfect scientific data? And how many more football players might have brain damage?
CWIEK: There are other problems for policymakers. Neurologists don't even agree on what exactly constitutes a concussion. And then there's football's rough and tough culture. Reggie McKenzie played college and pro football in the 1960s and '70s and says back then, some players wouldn't remember how a game had ended until they saw the score the next day.
Mr. REGGIE MCKENZIE (Former NFL player): I've been there. That has happened to me. So, yeah, I'm here because, yeah, I'm concerned not only about the young people that's coming after me, but I'm also concerned about Reggie Mackenzie.
CWIEK: McKenzie says possible long-term brain damage is a growing concern among players. The NFL Players Association now wants the league to release the most recent concussion data, something it argues is crucial for further research.
For NPR News, I'm Sarah Cwiek in Detroit.
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BRAND: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
NPR's business news starts with a manufacturing recovery.
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INSKEEP: Or at least the start of one, maybe. Factory owners in the United States, Asia and Europe say there's more demand for their products. That's another indication the recession might be ending.
Today, the Commerce Department released more evidence of the recovery. Factory orders rose by a reasonably healthy 1.1 percent in November, which marked the seventh increase in eight months. Among the sectors reporting the strongest growth were computer and electronic products.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And a lot of those products will be on view this week at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It's where a lot of new products and gadgets are revealed, and it's expected to draw more than 100,000 visitors. Among them, NPR's Laura Sydell.
LAURA SYDELL: 3D TV without those funny glasses, netbooks and eBooks will be among the hottest items at this year's show. Although attendance has not reached prerecession numbers, the Consumer Electronics Association reports attendance is steady with last year, and the good news is that electronics sales are up almost six percent.
Some of the biggest electronics news is expected before and after the show. Google is expected to announce its much-anticipated Nexus One phone today, and Apple is likely to announce it will release a tablet computer later this month.
Laura Sydell, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Solar panels are a hot commodity, and not just for residents and businesses that want to go green. It turns out that thieves also embrace clean technology. Solar panel thefts are on the rise, and the most popular targets include California wineries. What a disappointment. You're a vintner. You're sitting there, the thieves leave the bottles of wine alone and take the panel.
From member station KQED, Andrea Kissack reports.
ANDREA KISSACK: Michael Honig of Honig Winery in Napa Valley has been the victim of solar theft not once, not twice, but three times. The first time was a year ago when someone made off with 39 panels. He noticed something was missing one morning as he rode his bike past the winery's solar array tucked in between rows of cabernet vines.
Mr. MICHAEL HONIG (President, Honig Vineyard and Winery): First of all, I was like, what's wrong with this picture? It's kind of like the "Where's Waldo." It's like something doesn't seem right, and I got off my bike and I stopped and I said, oh, my God. Someone stole our panels.
KISSACK: It had only been about a year since Honig installed the $1.2 million array. A low chain-link fence with a small padlock and two dogs was his only security for 819 solar panels that are mounted about a foot off the ground. Honig thought he was doing something good for the community. It never occurred to him that he would be a victim of solar theft.
Mr. HONIG: We've done so many things, things that we really think are important to be a sustainable property and a sustainable business. It's like we do all these great things, and then some people that probably are selling these for cents on the dollar decide that they need another fix, so they'll steal some panels.
KISSACK: Metal theft in agricultural areas, particularly things like copper wire, has been a problem for years. But now that prices for scrap metal have fallen and tougher laws have been passed here in California to prosecute thieves, it seems criminals have turned their focus elsewhere. In the past year, more than 400 solar panels worth over $1,000 each have been stolen from vineyards throughout Napa County.
Deputy JON THOMPSON (Sheriff's Deputy, Napa Valley, California): Nobody saw this coming, and nobody alarmed their panel.
KISSACK: Napa Valley sheriff's Deputy Jon Thompson says ground-based solar arrays hidden in the valley's endless vineyards have been an easy target.
Dep. THOMPSON: Nobody had the forethought to think that, hey, these panels are going to be an item to be stolen.
KISSACK: Under the cover of darkness, thieves have been crashing through gates and backing up their trucks, taking 20, 30, 70 panels at a time. Each panel, measuring two-by-three feet, weighs more than 30 pounds. Deputy Thompson speculates the thieves may be finding the arrays by using online tools such as Google Earth.
After being hit twice, Michael Honig got wise and installed an alarm system. When thieves returned to his winery for a third time, Deputy Thompson says they got caught in the act.
Dep. THOMPSON: The new system that Honig installed, basically had picked up that - it's an alarm system - that the panels were in jeopardy. The sheriff's department was contacted. At that point in time, the deputy who responded spotted suspects fleeing the area.
KISSACK: In this area right here?
Mr. THOMPSON: In this area, through the vineyards.
KISSACK: Three local men were apprehended, two pled guilty and are serving 16 months in prison. A third is still going through the courts. So far, authorities have not recovered any stolen panels, deepening the mystery. The panels are not likely valuable for their component parts, raising the possibility of a black market for solar panels.
There is a lot of speculation where they're going. Some say marijuana growers in Mendocino County are stealing panels to hide their electricity use. Others believe the panels are going offshore. In some Southern California solar heists, the panels have turned up for sale on Craigslist. In the meantime, the crime wave has spawned a boom in solar security systems.
Mr. TYSON BERG: (Director of Business Development, Gridlock Solar Security): It's very busy. People are calling me nonstop.
KISSACK: Tyson Berg is with Gridlock Solar Security, a Sonoma County startup that manufactures security for solar arrays. He shows me Gridlock's basic device which looks like a fuse box with two lights on the top. A wire runs through each panel, and if it's cut, the system makes up to eight phone calls, including to the property owners and police. It also has a 120-decibel alarm system. So in addition to the calls and the lights, a siren goes off.
Mr. BERG: If you're standing right here, you'd pretty much go deaf.
KISSACK: In addition to security, federal legislation may come to the rescue. Congressman Mike Thompson, who represents the Napa Valley, has included a provision against solar thefts in the Solar Technology Roadmap Act. The bill will create a national registry for solar panel serial numbers to try to short circuit the solar crooks.
For NPR News, I'm Andrea Kissack in Napa.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
A cookie may make you smile, but rarely do cookies smile back at you, which brings us to our last word in business today: happy food causing some angry faces.
The Eat'n Park restaurant chain in Pennsylvania claims it's the only company that can brighten up cookies with a smiley face that's made of icing. It's owned the trademark for more than 20 years.
Now, Eat'n Park is suing a Texas company called Crumb Corps for trademark infringement. It says Crumb Corps has no right to sell grinning baked goods, no matter how ubiquitous a smiley face may be.
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STEVE INSKEEP, host:
I don't think anybody has the right to sell grinning baked goods.
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INSKEEP: Fewer smiley faces, please.
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BRAND: You're smiling.
That's the business news from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
INSKEEP: And I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
I'm Steve Inskeep.
Here's a detail that helps explain how a suicide bomber made it into a U.S. base in Afghanistan. The bomber was apparently a double agent.
BRAND: He was recruited by the intelligence service of Jordan. The Jordanians wanted him to infiltrate al-Qaida, and he was expected to provide information when he stepped on to a U.S. base last week.
INSKEEP: Instead he set off a bomb that killed seven officers and contractors of the CIA. The reporters covering the story include Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal. She's on the line. Welcome to the program.
Ms. SIOBHAN GORMAN (Intelligence Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal): Great to be with you.
INSKEEP: How long that this may have been working with the U.S. and Jordan - or at least pretending to work with the U.S. and Jordan?
Ms. GORMAN: We don't know exactly how long, but it does seem that he had built up a track record of providing valuable intelligence, which is - what it appears to be - the reason why he seemed to have a trusted relationship with the Jordanians and the U.S. officials.
INSKEEP: You have given a little bit of his chronology here. A year ago he was in Jordan. He had been detained by the Jordanians and then he ended up in Afghanistan. So there was, at least, perhaps that year of providing of information to the U.S. and Jordan.
Ms. GORMAN: Perhaps, it seems like it might have been a shorter period of time than that, but it certainly wasn't a relationship that appeared to go back for years.
INSKEEP: Nevertheless, it does raise the question. Is this why he was not searched very thoroughly, apparently, on his way on to this U.S. base.
Ms. GORMAN: It does seem to help explain that, because what we have known now for a few days, in terms of following this story, is that he was able to make it on to this base without being searched thoroughly. And there have been some conflicting reports - it's not sure whether he was on track to be searched a little bit more thoroughly or not, but it does seem that he was, at least, able to make it someway on to the base without being searched thoroughly because they didn't find the bomb there.
INSKEEP: You also write and I suppose it is not surprising. It would not be surprising to U.S. officials since they were trying to get him to pose as a member of al-Qaida. He was actually an al-Qaida recruiter.
Ms. GORMAN: Indeed, we were doing some archival research and found that he had done some postings on a password protected al-Qaida Web site back in May of 2007 where he was talking about the need to, for I think, it was African-Americans as well as native Americans and people of Vietnamese background to join the al-Qaida fight against the U.S. quote, unquote �oppressor.�
INSKEEP: Is it fair to say that, in this case, at least, al-Qaida or someone seems to have outsmarted the United States?
Ms. GORMAN: Well, the intelligence officials I spoke with yesterday were indeed quite surprised that apparently al-Qaida was able to run a double agent. We may learn more later to sort of fill out some of those details but it did seem quite surprising. I was told that prior to 9/11 there had been some attempts for them to penetrate CIA operations, but there hadn't been anything like that that we had seen since 9/11.
INSKEEP: Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal, we mentioned that this man started with the relationship with the Jordanian intelligence agency. How closely does the United States work with Jordan?
Ms. GORMAN: The U.S. works incredibly closely with Jordan, and that's a relationship that preexisted prior to 9/11, but it certainly has been strengthened quite a bit since then. The Jordanians were very helpful during the war in Iraq and they have also been very helpful on the intelligence front. They have interrogated on behalf of the CIA and other things that obviously help provide intelligence to the CIA.
INSKEEP: Is this the kind of thing, very briefly, that reverberates through an intelligence agency or may be two intelligence agencies, the U.S. and Jordan. The Americans have to ask can we trust the Jordanians who sent this man to us, for example.
Ms. GORMAN: Yes, I mean I think there is going to be a lot of review and searching for the reasons why this was allowed to transpire. And I think that this will probably reverberate through both agencies for a while.
INSKEEP: Siobhan, thanks very much.
Ms. GORMAN: Thank you.
INSKEEP: Siobhan Gorman is an intelligence correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, telling us, this morning, about news that the man who infiltrated the U.S. base in Afghanistan, a suicide bomber, was apparently a double agent.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The government is reporting today that the growth and spending on health care slowed in 2008. In fact, health spending grew more slowly than at any time in at least a half century - that's the good news, but it's not the only news.
NPR's Julie Rovner has more.
JULIE ROVNER: The annual health spending statistics published by the Department of Health and Human Services are a classic case of good news and bad news. The good news: Health spending slowed down. Way down, said Anne Martin, one of the authors of the study published in the current issue of the policy journal Health Affairs.
Ms. ANNE MARTIN: National health spending growth slowed in 2008 to 4.4 percent, the slowest rate of growth in the National Health Expenditure Accounts.
ROVNER: In other words, the slowest growth since the government has kept records.
The bad news: Health care still totaled $2.3 trillion in 2008. That's more than $7,600 per man, woman and child. And it still grew faster than the rest of the economy.
There's still more bad news, says Rick Foster, the chief actuary at HHS. A major reason health spending slowed is that with the bad economy, many people simply couldn't afford medical care.
Mr. RICK FOSTER (Chief Actuary, Health and Human Services): In many cases, they lost their employer-sponsored health care benefits at the same time they lost their jobs. So that meant that the cost of care was much, much higher because they had to pay it out of pocket. So, some people, presumably, scaled back on their purchases.
ROVNER: Analysts say that given the depth of the recession, the problems with health spending probably didn't get any better in 2009.
Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand, sitting in for Renee Montagne.
Let's run down some facts about the attempted airline bombing on Christmas Day.
INSKEEP: Four months before Christmas, U.S. intelligence intercepted a message: leaders of a branch of al-Qaida spoke of using a Nigerian bomber.
BRAND: One month before Christmas, a Nigerian man's father appealed for help. He wanted to find his missing son in Yemen.
INSKEEP: Information about the son went to the National Counterterrorism Center, but still, he allegedly carried explosives on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit. Only a faulty detonator and alert passengers saved lives.
BRAND: President Obama may consider those facts when he meets intelligence leaders today. He wants to prevent future attacks.
We start our coverage with NPR's Scott Horsley.
SCOTT HORSLEY: President Obama has blamed a systemic failure for allowing the young man to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 carrying potentially deadly explosives. The CIA had been warned weeks earlier that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab might pose a threat. And Mr. Obama acknowledged there were other bits and pieces of information that should have been put together to prevent Abdulmutallab from getting on that plane. Of course, former CIA officer Bruce Riedel points out connecting the dots is easier after an attack than when it's still in the planning stages.
Mr. BRUCE RIEDEL (Former CIA Officer; Brookings Institution): Think if you have a puzzle with a thousand pieces, but you only have maybe 200 of them and you're trying to figure out what that whole puzzle looks like. I think anyone who looks at it that way understands just how difficult and challenging a task this is.
HORSLEY: What's more, the 200 useful puzzle pieces have to sifted from thousands of worthless tips. Riedel, who's now with the Brookings Institution and consulted for the Obama administration, says the job's made harder than it has to be by an intelligence structure in the U.S. that he calls big, cumbersome and with a lot of moving parts.
Mr. RIEDEL: Even with the best of intentions, it's very hard for all of those different bureaucracies to interact with each other effectively.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama is hoping to change that. He's made it clear that while he understands the difficulty in gathering intelligence, failure by agencies to share what they know will not be tolerated. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair says U.S. agencies have gotten better at collaborating since the 9/11 attacks. But counterterrorism expert Rick Nelson of the Center For Strategic and International Studies says there's still room for improvement.
Mr. RICK NELSON (The Center for Strategic and International Studies): We're going to have to take steps to change the culture of these institutions. The intelligence communities and the law enforcement community are going to have to take more risks. They'll go ahead and put some incomplete information out there and then make the evaluation instead of waiting for perfect information.
HORSLEY: As an example, Missouri Senator Kit Bond points to communications intercepted from Yemen last summer about a terror plot involving an unnamed Nigerian man. Bond, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says that fragmentary information might have been more valuable had it been connected to the warning from Abdulmutallab's Nigerian father that his son had fallen under the influence of Yemeni extremists.
Senator KIT BOND (Republican, Missouri): That should have put a very, very big warning sign on his name, his visa and everything else.
HORSLEY: The Senate Intelligence Committee plans its own review later this month. Meanwhile, the Obama administration ordered tighter airport screening for passengers traveling to the U.S. from 14 suspect countries, including Yemen and Nigeria. A White House spokesman says safety and security measures are moving forward, even as the intelligence review goes on.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. If your friends forward you jokes by email, you've seen that doctored photo of Tiger Woods - the one where he's standing there, smiling but bruised, next to his wife who holds a golf club. Presumably, Woods will look better in a new online game. Electronic Arts says it will go ahead with a game called "Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online." Unlike other corporations that dropped Woods, EA says he is still one of the greatest athletes in history. You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Good morning. I'm Madeleine Brand. The town of Dunchurch, England, was looking a bit like the cartoon town of Springfield. Residents awoke one morning to find a statue of a local hero sporting yellow skin and a bald head. The dignified Lord John Scott was transformed into Homer Simpson overnight. It's not clear who the pranksters are but local residents want to find them and congratulate them on the level of detail in the makeover.
It's MORNING EDITION.
(Soundbite of music)
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
In the years before her career was cut short, the Mexican-American singer Lhasa de Sela sold a million records. Many kinds of people fell in love with her music and especially her voice. Lhasa de Sela died after a two year battle with cancer at the age of 37. Here's NPR's Vince Pearson.
VINCE PEARSON: Singer Lhasa de Sela was a highly emotional singer who performed a wild mix of musical styles. Her music was passionate, fantastical, carnival-esque.
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. LHASA DE SELA (Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
PEARSON: Lhasa, as she's known, was born in upstate New York in 1972. She grew up in a Bohemian family. Her father was Mexican. Her mother was American. They spent much of their time like nomads traveling between the two countries. In a 1998 interview, Lhasa told NPR's Jacki Lyden that the family lived in a series of school buses and trailers filled with music and books.
Ms. DE SELA: My father listened to old Mexican music and old American music too, like oldies. And my mother listened to gypsy music, Arab music, South American and Mexican. And we started performing very early for each other. So by the time I was six years old I would often be doing shows for my whole family that would go on for hours and hours. It was kind of our way of entertaining ourselves.
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. DE SELA: (Singing in foreign language)
PEARSON: In 1997, Lhasa released her first record. La Llorona was a dark, sensual album filled with songs in Spanish about love and loss. Critics said it sounded like Edith Piaf with a Latin twist. Again, Lhasa de Sela.
Ms. DE SELA: When I started singing and I got up on stage, I - a lot of kind of unexpected things started coming out of me. There was a lot of sadness and a lot of rage. And those were the songs that I was attracted to singing. And they were the songs that I felt the most when I was on stage.
PEARSON: Two other records followed. Lhasa sold more than a million copies and she toured the world. On the side she fulfilled another longtime dream, joining her sisters in their traveling French circus. Here she is in another interview with NPR's Jacki Lyden.
Ms. DE SELA: One of my sisters is a contortionist and acrobat. And one of them is a tightrope walker.
JACKI LYDEN: The conversation must never get boring in your family.
Ms. DE SELA: Never. That's not - boredom is not one of the major problems of my family.
PEARSON: Throughout her career, myth and fantasy were major influences. Lhasa grew up reading fairy tales and incorporating them into her songs. Like �Floricanto.�
(Soundbite of song, �Floricanto�)
Ms. DE SELA: (Singing in foreign language)
Ms. DE SELA: I wrote that song with my father. And he had shown me an Aztec poem, and Aztec poetry is all about this conflict that the heart goes through because of loving life and finding life so beautiful and yet knowing that we are - that we are not immortal.
PEARSON: That's Lhasa de Sela speaking in 1998. Last week she died of breast cancer at the age of 37.
Vince Pearson, NPR News.
(Soundbite of song, �Floricanto�)
Ms. DE SELA: (Singing in foreign language)
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The road to success in Hollywood does not normally lead through Harvard Medical School. But there are exceptions, and Valerie Weiss hopes to be one of them. After earning a PhD from Harvard, shes left the lab for a different career. NPRs Joe Palca has her story.
JOE PALCA: When she was in graduate school, Valerie Weiss studied an enzyme called arginine methyltransferase. Never mind what that does. Just understand that its important in cells. Weiss was trying to figure out the enzymes three-dimensional shape.
Dr. VALERIE WEISS: The idea is that how something is shaped has a huge effect on its function, because really molecules are just kind of like LEGOs, sitting together, interacting, and then, you know, chemistry happens and the molecules change.
PALCA: Were sitting at an outdoor cafe a few blocks south of Hollywood. Weiss enjoyed her graduate work because it helped her understand how the cells inside our bodies function.
Dr. WEISS: I think the whole reason I even went into science is because I love to know how things work. And the answer to a why question just would lead to another why question, at least thats what my mom tells me I was like.
PALCA: Okay. So youre understanding the nature of the universe. And you're a why kind of person and you're always asking questions, and then you give it up.
(Soundbite of laughter)
PALCA: Whats up with that?
Dr. WEISS: I know. What is up with that? I ask myself that all the time. My parents certainly ask themselves that all the time.
PALCA: She gave up science because she had a career itch she needed to scratch. Weiss says science tends to be very specialized these days and her interests are more eclectic.
Dr. WEISS: At the same time that I was interested in science, I was really interested in theater. And I think for the same reason - just why do people relate to each other the way they do, why is the world the way it is, I think I like asking that question on every level.
PALCA: Thats not to say shes abandoned science. In fact, the film shes making now is set, in part, in the lab.
Dr. WEISS: The films called "Losing Control," and it's about a female scientist who wants proof that her boyfriend is the one.
PALCA: Okay, its a bit of a stretch. Science is a blunt tool when it comes to matters of the heart. But this is a comedy, and Weiss says the film is definitely sciency.
Dr. WEISS: Science is absolutely interwoven to - in every aspect of the film. Its going to be a funny, funny movie that happens to be about scientists.
PALCA: Weiss has several financial backers for her film, but this is still a low-budget affair.
Unidentified Man #1: All right. Here we go. Ready, ready.
PALCA: Still, visit the set and it looks like a Hollywood movie, albeit on a smaller scale.
Unidentified Man #1: Okay, so well go for a full rehearsal here.
PALCA: Weiss and her crew have taken over a lab at Xencor, a biotech company in Monrovia, California.
Dr. WEISS: Super far off for what?
Unidentified Woman: Kellys going to bring it right over to you, right now? Right, Kelly?
PALCA: Strong lights are everywhere. Electric cables snake across the floor.
Unidentified Man #2: Quiet, please.
PALCA: Weiss and her cameraman, Jamie Ermann(ph), confer about the best angle for the next scene.
Unidentified Man #3: Okay, guys.
PALCA: Weiss is producer, writer and director of Losing Control. Theyre shooting a key scene and thereve been a lot of takes. Now theyre ready to try again.
Unidentified Man #2: Rolling sound. Quiet, please. Speed.
Dr. WEISS: Action - oh, sorry.
PALCA: Weiss jumps the gun a bit. Then it is time.
Dr. WEISS: Action.
PALCA: Weiss asks me not to record while theyre shooting. As I said, this is a key scene. She doesnt want to give anything away. Science doesnt show up in a lot of films - not real science, anyway. Valerie Weiss wants to change that.
Dr. WEISS: Why not science? It is fun. It is sexy. And you know, its a really rich, untapped area that Im excited to explore.
PALCA: And maybe show that scientists are smart people with problems and ideas and dreams just like everyone else. Joe Palca, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now that we've made it through the experience of the last decade, we can wonder how that experience shaped us. Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast, has sent us some readings about what people learn through experience. It's our regular feature: Word of Mouth.
You begin here with a book called "The Great Depression: A Diary." What is it?
Ms. TINA BROWN (Editor-in-chief, The Daily Beast): It is a really fascinating real-time diary by a man called Benjamin Roth, and now edited by his son, Daniel B. Roth. He was a lawyer in Youngstown, Ohio. It's this wonderful blow-by-blow account from the point of view of a professional guy - not a sort of a Dorothea Lange character, you know, from the sort of real underclass or a person like, you know, a Mellon or something, but just a regular, professional guy who, day by day, chronicled his reaction to this terrible depression that settled on the land.
INSKEEP: And it's an especially powerful perspective, I supposed, because this is a guy writing day by day. He doesn't know when this depression is going to end.
Ms. BROWN: No, he doesn't. And what, of course, I've always loved about diaries - I'm a complete addict of diaries. I keep one myself. But every diary is a mystery story to the person who's writing it. And, of course, in this mystery story, we know that this depression is going to last, I think, 11 years, it lasted in the end.
But Benjamin Roth doesn't know that. He keeps looking for green shoots. He keeps on collecting worried, anecdotal evidence from his friends, the dentist who, suddenly(ph), is noting that people aren't getting their teeth checked or that the extraordinarily low price when movie tickets dropped from $.65 to $.35 cents. And like so many of us today, he's always looking for hope, you know, and it's very touching and also speaks to us now when he talks about - always about how, you know, if only I had the money to get to make this deal, it would be a great deal. But I don't have any cash, so I can't do it.
You know, and that I - you hear that all the time at the moment, people thinking, oh, you know, if only I had the money to buy that house next door. I know it's worth four times the amount, but I don't have the cash. And you see this in the diary, too. It's very poignant.
INSKEEP: And when we talk about what people learn from experience, one of his lessons that he learns seems to be that he has no idea why stock prices go up or go down. It seems to be purely emotional.
Ms. BROWN: It's pure emotion, and it's also, of course, he becomes very, very disenchanted with the so-called experts and the pundits. And, of course, now, we're all - you know, we just put Ben Bernanke on the cover of Time magazine, man of the year. Are we going to be like Benjamin Roth, you know, five years from now, and look at that cover and think what were we thinking? The truth is we don't know. We're in the middle of our mystery tour of this depression, and we don't know what's happening.
INSKEEP: The experience of the Great Depression changed Americans' spending habits for a generation, or maybe considerably more. People are wondering now if this recession will change people's spending habits and money habits for a long time to come. How did this diarist change his habits through his experience?
Ms. BROWN: Well, he changed enormously. And actually, the son who is editing the book says that he was first given it to read when he joined his father's firm to understand - his father told him - the psychological condition, in a sense, of many of his clients, because he said unless you understand how shattering the depression was, how undermining of our faith in government and banks and all of these things, you won't understand why these guys are so cautious. It's very interesting.
INSKEEP: Let's talk about the experience of another person, a modern-day person. Sonia Sotomayor, the newest justice on the Supreme Court is the subject of a profile called "Number Nine" in the New Yorker - which is on your reading list here for us, Tina Brown. And it talks a great deal about how Sotomayor was shaped by her life experience.
Ms. BROWN: Very much. This is a terrific profile by the young writer Lauren Collins in this week's New Yorker, and what I love about it is, for a start, it's very three-dimensional. You really understand this woman at the end of the piece. She's a tough, up-from-the-bootstraps woman who loves to bust out a poker game and knock back a scotch. And she's a great godmother to her kids. She's had a life where no one has really handed her anything.
And it's very, very interesting to see how really, in her life, it was the power of education that was the great beacon in that family. But because her mother, the nurse, you know, sat there at the kitchen table encouraging her daughters to study and study and study, this is what shaped Sonia Sotomayor. I mean, she is still that woman today. She's a woman who works 40 times harder than anybody else, who is rigorous about, you know, reading the briefs even before her clerks do, because she knows that study, study, study is the answer.
INSKEEP: And let's set aside whether her judgments are right or wrong for a minute. There's a great sentence in this article where Sotomayor's opinion is paraphrased. Legal opinions, in Sotomayor's view, are like instruction manuals: Everyone should be able to follow them - which is a great view of anything, the idea that people should be able to understand their government, what it's doing and why.
Ms. BROWN: Absolutely. And Lauren Collins really writes about how - you know, this is not a great prose stylist. She's not a fancy flourish merchant. You know, she's not a person who is going to reinvent the philosophical approach to law. But she does believe that the law is to be understood by the common man in the street. And I think there's a lot to be said for that, actually.
INSKEEP: Well, let's talk about one more set of experiences here, and these are the experiences of Gerald Shargel, a well-known lawyer who writes for you in The Daily Beast about the aftermath of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a jetliner heading into Detroit. And Mr. Shargel writes that he thinks he's changed his opinion about the criminal process when it comes to terrorists.
Ms. BROWN: Yes. He says that he was once on a television show with Alan Dershowitz shortly after the 9/11 attacks. And the professor asked him whether he'd be willing to defend Osama bin Laden. At the time, he said absolutely yes. He would regard it as a great act of patriotism to defend someone as heinous as bin Laden because it would really show how America had stuck to its values in a - allowing even bin Laden, you know, due process and a fair trial.
But he really takes issue with the fact that on last week's "Meet the Press" on NBC, John O. Brennan, the president's deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism, argued that trying these terrorists in a civilian court was a terrifically a good idea because you would actually be able to have plea bargains, and you could get and download their information. And Shargel makes the point: How can we honestly say that a plea bargain is going to affect a defendant who is willing to die for the cause? Shaking them down for information is not going to happen. They're not going to just make a plea bargain for the sake of some kind of a reduced sentence.
And also, he says, you know, how can you even then allow them to have the traditional plea bargain as perks? So he's saying, you know, these people are, in fact, soldiers, soldiers in an openly-declared holy war against infidels. Their skill set is similar to the most elite of our forces. It's quite an about-face for Shargel, who is, you know, the ultimate defender of heinous criminals.
INSKEEP: Well, he's forced to admit along the way, though, that quite a few terror suspects have been put through the criminal justice system just in the last few years, and it's been quite successful at putting people away for long, long, long, long, long periods of time.
Ms. BROWN: Yes, he does. But, you know, what is really interesting, I think, about this moment in our society is that this terrorist threat is making everybody sort of rethink their approach to law, you know, civil liberties.
And, of course, the great success that the terrorists are having is that one of their big weapons is to sew mistrust, this sense that you cannot trust the man next to you. And, of course, you know, this is very threatening to our democratic values and our approach to civil liberties.
INSKEEP: I'm not entirely sure what Gerald Shargel is calling for in place of that. At the end of the article, he says, this week, I'm thinking keep Guantanamo open. He doesn't actually say let's go back to torturing them for information, but is that what's on his mind?
Ms. BROWN: I think he's feeling if you bring the terrorists back to the United States and try them as civilians, you are, of course, then opening the Pandora's box about what actually happens when they get defended, and presumably, how they have a chance to also be released. It is a quandary of what to do, and it's not easy. And I don't envy Obama this whole question.
INSKEEP: Tina Brown of The Daily Beast, always good to talk with you.
Ms. BROWN: Thank you.
INSKEEP: Word of Mouth from Tina Brown, who calls our attention to readings we may have missed. You can find links to her recommendations at npr.org.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
We travel to Egypt for our next story. It's packed with tourists this time of year. They're disembarking from cruise ships, eager to see the Great Pyramids and other major attractions.
Far away from those sights, eco-tourism is quietly growing. Tourists can visit remote places, such as the Dakhla Oasis. New lodges there have sparked both hope and apprehension among local villagers.
NPR's Peter Kenyon visited and has this second of two reports on Egyptian eco-tourism.
PETER KENYON: As you turn a corner in the twisting narrow streets of Al Qasr, a village at the northern end of the Dakhla Oasis, a heavy rhythmic sigh seeps through an old mud brick building. Inside, a giant heaving bellows is the centerpiece of what can only be described as a Medieval blacksmith's forge.
Nasser al-Hamoud has been smithing here for a quarter-century. He learned the trade from his father, and his own son is now pulling the chain that works the bellows, flaring the red-hot coals where the business end of a small scythe is taking shape.
(Soundbite of metal hammering)
KENYON: Soon the glowing metal takes its place on the anvil, and the son goes at it hammer and tongs as Hamoud explains that business is uncertain these days.
Mr. NASSER AL-HAMOUD: (Foreign language spoken)
KENYON: He says farm tools are his bread and butter, but lately, cheap imports from China have flooded the market. He scornfully holds up a thin, Chinese-made shovel blade, and then hefts the weightier, more costly hand-forged version.
Recently, however, Hamoud has begun to develop a sideline in selling large, ornamental nails and rustic jewelry to tourists, who have started to visit in larger numbers. He has no idea if this is a blip or a trend.
Located deep in the western desert, Dakhla has been largely insulated from outside contact. To the south is Gilf Kebir, the great barrier, 3,000 square miles of arid sandstone plateau. To the north, the Great Sand Sea � some 400 miles of wind-carved shifting dunes stretching to the Siwa Oasis near Libya.
But signs of Egypt's tiny ecotourism movement can be seen. Overlooking the mud-walled labyrinth of Al Qasr's old city, a new eco-lodge made of the same local mud is starting to attract environmentally aware visitors. The Desert Lodge is the project of businessman and desert lover Ahmed Moussa, who used local materials and craftsmen to construct it, employs villagers from Al Qasr, and powers it using hydro and solar sources.
Not far away is the Al Tarfa Lodge, which bills itself as a luxury eco-lodge. It offers well-heeled visitors such traditional amenities as a swimming pool and air conditioning. But Al Tarfa also used local construction materials and builders, and its staff is almost entirely local.
Owner Wael Abed is a longtime desert explorer who spent years following the routes of the early desert travelers, and then pushing beyond into uncharted areas. He says one lure of the desert is the sense that its mysteries are far from exhausted.
Mr. WAEL ABED (Owner, Al Tarfa Lodge): Just an example, one of our trips just bumped into a rock shelter, and that turned to contain rock art, the richest in Africa. And that was as recent as 2002.
KENYON: Abed says there is still much to be discovered, with 11 archaeological missions working in Dakhla alone. Even though for now, the sheer difficulty of getting here is keeping visitor numbers down, he says now is the time to be planning ahead to protect the oasis from being loved to death.
Mr. ABED: But must we prepare for that? I very much believe in it. And this is why we are trying to get some support to do a master plan and see what is the best possible way to minimize the negative impacts of tourism traffic into this area.
KENYON: As the late afternoon sun sends golden shafts through Al Qasr's old city, one of the village's most distinctive sounds emanates from a deserted building: hundreds of bats stirring themselves from daytime slumber and preparing to take off into the desert night.
(Soundbite of bats)
KENYON: Many villagers here agree that Dakhla needs visitors to supplement the uncertain agriculture-based economy. But they worry that too many people will stress the fragile environment that has sustained life for thousands of years.
With Egypt's industrial-scale tourism industry already eyeing the oasis as the next hot destination, it remains to be seen if places like Dakhla can be opened up without being damaged forever.
Peter Kenyon, NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Laptops, cell phones and Wi-Fi give people the freedom to work just about anywhere. But being out of the office has some drawbacks, and now people are looking for something in between. Reporter Kaomi Goetz has more.
KAOMI GOETZ: Kevin Prentiss started his Internet-based business from his apartment in New York City. For two years, he says it was 14-hour days in solitude - ironic, considering he runs a social networking site.
Mr. KEVIN PRENTISS (Internet Business Owner): I dont know that I was talking to myself. I think that, probably, I was talking to myself. Yeah.
GOETZ: Then one day he heard about New Work City. Its a rented office space in Manhattan where workers like Prentiss can drop in, hook up their laptops and work away with other people similarly mobile, while making face-to-face connections.
GOETZ: Membership at New Work City is kind of like going to a gym. The plans range from $150 a month for two visits per week, on up to getting your own key. Tony Bacigalupo is New Work City's self-styled mayor.
Mr. TONY BACIGALUPO (New Work City): OK. So were at the front door of New Work City. We just walked in. And the first thing you see when you walk in is a calendar of things that are going on at New Work City.
GOETZ: It looks like any other typical start-up office environment: There are two conference rooms, a main room with tables pushed together and a kitchen. Members pitch in for the first aid kit and communal office supplies shelf. There isn't a janitor. Everyone cleans up. There are snacks, soda and beer, too.
Mr. BACIGALUPO: It's real simple. If you take something, then just drop a dollar or two into the jar. And it works pretty well, as you can see.
GOETZ: New Work City is part of a trend that started a handful of years ago on the West Coast. Newly mobile tech workers with laptops liked their freedom, but still missed the human interaction they got from going to an office. So they formed meet-up groups - casual, once-a-week deals at different locations, sometimes even in people's living rooms. Now, Bacigalupo says more and more people are working independently today - either by choice, a layoff or both.
Mr. BACIGALUPO: So, the same way that work shifted in the 20th from blue collar to white collar, I think we'll be seeing in this century that we're going to be moving away from the idea of a centralized nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday drive-to-work workplace, and we're going to be moving much more in this direction of people working where they want, when they want.
GOETZ: California-based Emergent Research says co-working spaces continued to grow during the recession. Public libraries are also getting in on the trend by offering conferencing and other business services.
And co-working is not just happening in major cities. Office furniture giant Steelcase�is subsidizing a�co-working cottage�in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. Members there can tap away on their laptops next to a cozy fireplace for 100 bucks a month. Organizers say its part community resource, part social experiment.
Kevin Prentiss says he likes the support he gets from other members at New Work City. He's even hired a few people that he's met there. And just like an office environment, there are sometimes silly contests, which he likes.
Mr. PRENTISS: What it doesn't have, though, because of the lack of a collective org chart, is any sort of jockeying or power-play politics. So I definitely think it's much of the good and none of the bad. No ones competing here.
GOETZ: New Work City is just breaking even, and that's OK with its founders. They say for-profit spaces tend to operate like impersonal office suites and miss what co-working's about: community.
For NPR News, Im Kaomi Goetz in New York.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: This is NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
New York is on the mind of commentator Frank Deford this week. In the world of sports, a place like New York commands extra bargaining power.
FRANK DEFORD: Given that 10 is a nice, round number, nevertheless let's imagine that Moses only came down from the mountain with, say, eight commandments. Which ones wouldn't make the cut?
Well, certainly since nobody keeps the Sabbath holy anymore especially football teams that one has already gone by the board. And then, I think if something else had to go, it would be that business about coveting. Compared to thou shalt not kill or steal, for instance, coveting seems relatively small potatoes - except, perhaps, in New York, where coveting has run amok.
In New York sports, the conversation is always about what players some other poor, little city has that we want; that, in fact, we deserve to have in New York. The Yankees feed this attitude by simply taking whomsoever they desire, like King David just grabbing Bathsheba for himself from poor Uriah the Hittite.
If the Mets don't go out then and pillage a small franchise of some superstar that fans covet, everybody gets furious at the Mets for not being properly rapacious. But all this baseball coveting is nothing compared to how New York covets LeBron James. He will be a free agent on July 1st, and all Gotham believes that it is written that James must then come play yay, save the woebegone Knickerbockers. James himself feeds this frenzy by playing coy, but the LeBron Le Fever has been stoked even more by, of all things, Tiger Woods.
You see, Mr. Woods - who himself showed us a thing or two about coveting - is no longer the golden boy for Nike. King James has succeeded to that position, and the conspiracy theory goes that now that he's number one, Nike desires him in New York, where he will give more exposure to the swoosh. There was even a hoax on the Internet last week that Nike had already produced a sneaker for LeBron in Knick colors with "I love New York" printed on the sole.
And Big Apple coveting has reached new heights with the wishful theory that because LeBron makes so much money from Nike and other endorsements, he should gladly take next to nothing in salary when he comes to New York. So then, with the money saved, the Knicks could bring in yet another big-time free agent, like Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade. Especially when playing with other people's money, New York coveting knows no bounds.
A-ha, but the issue is complicated. First, there is no longer any consensus that in a cyberspace world, a star athlete needs to perform in a media capital like New York. I mean, LeBron James's Cleveland jerseys are already huge sellers all over the world. Moreover, his whole identity is tied to Cleveland. He was born and raised in nearby Akron and never went off to college. For him to abandon the unfashionable land of his nativity to go to glitzy New York might reek of disloyalty and hurt his pristine reputation. Why, you could even say then that LeBron would be bearing false witness against his old neighbors.
BRAND: Commentator Frank Deford joins us each Wednesday from member station WSHU in Fairfield, Connecticut.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Lets turn to another major item on the presidents agenda: job creation. This week in our series "New Jobs For A New Decade," were looking at the future of the employment market. More than 3 million jobs are expected to be created this decade in a single industry: the health-care industry. They range from highly paid surgeons to low-wage caregivers. Nursing is expected to add 600,000 jobs.
NPRs Tamara Keith reports.
TAMARA KEITH: Mike Jones wasnt happy. He was working long hours in his dads construction business, but something was missing. So after a long talk on the phone with his brother, Jones made an unlikely career choice. He decided to become a nurse.
Mr. MIKE JONES (Nursing Student): I enjoy helping people. Ive never been in the medical field before. This is my first time. It's all new for me.
Unidentified Woman: Has anyone worked on this...
KEITH: Jones and some classmates at Northern Virginia Community College are sitting around a table, cramming for a test. He is 40 years old, never went to college, and before he worked construction, he worked at United Airlines as a baggage handler. He sees nursing as his ticket to a solid income and a solid career.
Mr. JONES: I feel secure. You know, theres job security. So Im not worried like with the airline. I was with United Airlines. You know, I was concerned toward the end there, and that's one of the reasons that I quit. I just knew it was going downhill. So I don't feel that with this.
KEITH: If you're picking a new profession purely based on the numbers, nursing is a pretty sure bet.
Mr. ROGER MONCARZ (Bureau of Labor Statistics): It's a large occupation. It's a growing occupation, and certainly there will be jobs there in the field over the next decade.
KEITH: Roger Moncarz does projections for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can get an entry-level registered nurse job with just three years of college. And Moncarz says the median wage for an RN is $62,000, putting it among the highest wage-earning professions.
Mr. MONCARZ: The fact that the wages are pretty high also sort of separates it from many occupations that would be growing. The median wage for all occupations was about $32,000, so the 62,400 is a decent wage.
KEITH: And the perks don't stop there. Cindy Glover is the chief nursing officer at Reston Hospital Center, part of the large HCA hospital chain.
Ms. CINDY GLOVER (Chief Nursing Officer, Reston Hospital Center): You can work any hours you want, I mean particularly if you're a bedside nurse. Our full-times work three 12s a week, and that's not bad, having four days a week off. Now, it's a hard day, but you know, still, that's not bad.
KEITH: But it's not all roses. There are night shifts and holidays, and then there are the patients.
Ms. GLOVER: It is a difficult job. It's very, very hard. I mean, people can be difficult healthy. You get them sick? And you know...
Ms. CHRISTI ROMNEY (ER Nurse): You're the quietest vomiting patient I've ever had.
KEITH: It's 2 in the afternoon, and ER nurse Christi Romney has a new patient with chest and abdominal pain, and a serious case of alcohol withdrawal.
Unidentified Man: I'm sorry.
Ms. ROMNEY: No, you're fine. Don't apologize. I know you'd rather not be doing this.
Unidentified Man: I know you guys are working on it, but I need some pain medication.
Ms. ROMNEY: Yep. That's what...
KEITH: The patient is in his late 30s and tells her he'd been drinking all night. It's clear this isn't his first time coming to the ER after drinking too much.
Ms. ROMNEY: You really see everything, you know? We get drug seekers. We get, like this gentleman, alcoholics a lot of those. If you can't be compassionate to people of all walks of life, then don't go into nursing.
KEITH: Romney has a master's degree in public health and in her first career, did international aid work. But she says this hands-on work is incredibly rewarding, even if it means cleaning up after a drunk guy in the middle of the day.
Ms. ROMNEY: So you said no allergies to medications, correct?
Unidentified Man: No.
Ms. ROMNEY: I'm going to give you the Fenergan first. That's for nausea.
KEITH: Nursing isn't the kind of job you do for the money. It's physically and emotionally taxing. Tracy Wergley Graebener is a labor and delivery nurse.
Ms. TRACY WERGLEY GRAEBENER (Labor and Delivery Nurse): There's nothing glamorous about my job. Not one thing is glamorous about my job. But nobody goes into nursing thinking it's going to be glamorous. It's not. I mean, it's gory and some people would call it gross, but it's just what it is.
KEITH: Graebener says she tolerates the gross parts because of the rewards.
Ms. GRAEBENER: Yes, you're a good girl. Good girl.
KEITH: She's checking the vital signs on a baby girl born just minutes before. The baby is healthy, and Graebener is glowing. This is her first nursing job. Just two years ago, she was working as a pharmaceutical sales rep, making four times the money. But Graebener doesn't miss it at all not with moments like this.
Tamara Keith, NPR News, Washington.
INSKEEP: And you can hear more about new jobs for a new decade at NPR.org.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Got to say, even LeBron James cannot make as much as the movie Avatar. Around the world, people have spent more than $1 billion to see a human who defends the blue-skinned natives of a moon called Pandora. So thats one of two big hits were about to discuss. The other is the number one single on the Billboard Hot 100 right now: "Tik Tok," by Ke$ha.
NPRs Neda Ulaby and Zoe Chace say these two hits have something in common. They are both totally derivative.
NEDA ULABY: Okay, Zoe, when I saw Avatar, I was overwhelmed by how everything in the story has been in some other movie - every other movie.
(Soundbite of movie, Avatar)
Mr. STEPHEN LANG (Actor): (as Colonel Miles Quaritch) Youre not in Kansas anymore, youre on Pandora, ladies and gentleman.
ZOE CHACE: The Wizard of Oz, The Last of the Mohicans.
ULABY: You know, Pocahontas had the Tree of Life, just like Avatar."
CHACE: Right.
ULABY: And the movie is just the ultimate mash-up of colonialist fantasies that weve all seen, like The Last Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia.
CHACE: Outsider wants to be the natives...
(Soundbite of movie, Avatar)
Ms. ZOE SALDANA (Actor): (As Neytiri) To become (Na'vi spoken) hunter, you must choose your own (Na'vi spoken), and he must choose you.
(Soundbite of roar)
Mr. SAM WORTHINGTON (Actor): (as Jake Sully) When?
Ms. SALDANA: (as Neytiri) When you are ready.
CHASE: Outsider wants to save the natives.
ULABY: Outsider becomes king of the natives. Dances With Wolves...
(Soundbite of movie, Dances With Wolves)
Mr. KEVIN COSTNER (Actor): (as John Dunbar) Id never really known who John Dunbar was. Perhaps the name itself had no meaning. As I heard my Sioux name being called over and over, I knew for the first time who I really was.
ULABY: So Zoe, do you suppose that James Cameron was purposefully trying to reference all of these movies when he made Avatar?
CHACE: One would hope so.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CHACE: Neda, theres this song at the top of the pop charts right now, and it's called Tik Tok, and its also incredibly derivative of basically every major theme thats ever run through pop music - ever.
(Soundbite of song, Tik Tok)
Ke$HA (Singer): (Singing) Dont stop, make it pop, DJ blow my speakers up, tonight...
CHACE: Tonight, I'm-a fight til we see the sunlight. The lyrics mean nothing, and the song is about nothing. And its not actually a very good song, in my opinion, but it sounds enough like a good song so that you cant quite tell the difference.
ULABY: You know, when you listen to that song, you cant help but notice how heavily produced it is.
CHACE: I know. The producers took her voice and just ran it through over and over and over, and the production process is kind of the same with Avatar. You know, its just laid on so thick, you cant help but think about how produced it is.
ULABY: Yeah.
Ke$ha: (Singing) You build me up, you break me down, my heart it pounds, yeah you got me...
ULABY: Whats the singers name again?
CHACE: Its Ke$ha and yes, that is spelled K to the E to the dollar sign, to the H to the A.
ULABY: She spells her name with a dollar sign?
CHACE: Yeah.
ULABY: When you channel and put together so many pop, cultural and hip-hop names but you dont have a real story to tell, you kind of got - nothing. Which is why Avatar is an unbelievably brilliant picture to look at, but the story just doesnt match the visuals in terms of the sophistication. And, you know, if it did, it would be Best Picture.
CHASE: And thats exactly what you hope for in a situation like this with a movie like Avatar that has so much behind it, or in Tik Tok, which everybody is listening to, is that some genius producers created this montage of tropes next to each other like a bunch of movie scripts in a blender to make a larger point. But if you're just employing a bunch of tired old tropes and you dont have a smart point to make about it, then youre just tired.
ULABY: You know, at least theyre provoking us and probably tons and tons of other people to have a conversation.
CHASE: Im Zoe Chace.
ULABY: Im Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
(Soundbite of song, Tik Tok)
Ke$HA (Singer): (Singing) Dont stop, make it pop, DJ blow my speakers up, tonight...
INSKEEP: This is the montage of tropes we like to call MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host
And Im Madeleine Brand.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
In Yemen, government troops appear to be moving against al-Qaida militants who've established a stronghold there. U.S. special operations forces are advising government troops. The U.S. military has been in Yemen for some time, and some people are wondering whether Yemen is joining Iraq and Afghanistan as a theater of war.
NPR's Tom Gjelten reports on the parallels and the differences.
TOM GJELTEN: With U.S. forces engaged in two ground wars already, there's certainly a temptation to point to Yemen as the next place we'll have to fight al-Qaida. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut jumped at the chance to do that during an appearance Sunday on ABC.
Senator JOE LIEBERMAN (Independent, Connecticut): Iraq is yesterday's war, Afghanistan is today's war, and if we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war.
GJELTEN: Lieberman said he was just quoting a line he'd heard from a U.S. official while on a recent trip to Yemen. But he made clear he bought the analysis.
The parallels are indeed compelling, especially between Yemen and Afghanistan: both poor countries with weak governments and long histories of Islamist militancy. The U.S. is now involved in both countries. But where the analogy breaks down is in the role their neighbors play Pakistan in the anti-al-Qaida fight in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
Ian Bremmer is president of the Eurasia Group.
Mr. IAN BREMMER (President, Eurasia Group): The U.S.-Pakistani relationship -extremely strained, particularly on this issue. U.S.-Saudi relationship has been quite strained, but won't be on this issue. The Saudis are absolutely of one mind with the United States on going in and dealing with this threat of al-Qaida in Arabia.
GJELTEN: Pakistan sees its traditional rival, India, as the top threat, and Pakistani intelligence has long had close ties to the Taliban, al-Qaida's ally. So the Pakistanis haven't been helpful in the fight against al-Qaida in Afghanistan. But the Saudis, protecting their oil and the royal family, do worry about al-Qaida and so now does the government of Yemen.
Fawaz Gerges is a Middle East specialist at Oxford University.
Professor FAWAZ GERGES (Oxford University): Saudi Arabia feels very threatened by the rising threat of al-Qaida. Saudi Arabia and Yemen share a very strategic objective in preventing al-Qaida from becoming a potent force either in Yemen or Somalia or the Arabian Peninsula as a whole.
GJELTEN: Saudi military forces have actually moved into Yemen on occasion with the full support of the Yemeni government. Potentially, this means there'd be less need for U.S. troops to join the fight.
But the situation in Yemen is complicated; there are anti-government rebellions right now in both the North and the South. Fawaz Gerges says that makes the fight against al-Qaida there far more challenging.
Prof. GERGES: We're not just talking about 100 or 300 al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. What al-Qaida has been able to do in the last two years is try to submerge itself, embed itself within local conflicts in the South, in the North, and also in the eastern provinces.
GJELTEN: Al-Qaida in Yemen now portrays itself as the vanguard of opposition to the government - a smart move. The Yemeni government is widely seen as corrupt, unjust and ineffective. And Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group wonders how much help the Yemenis can be in the fight against al-Qaida.
Mr. BREMMER: They'll certainly take money and help to the extent that they get it. But how much they're going to be willing to actually do the heavy lifting themselves is another question. They are on the brink of being a failed state.
GJELTEN: If the Saudis are seen as intervening in Yemen in collusion with an unpopular government, it may not be all that helpful. Analysts say a more valuable Saudi role would be to promote Yemen's political and economic development.
That'd be primarily a non-military approach. Maybe the Yemen comparison should be not to Afghanistan but to Iraq, where Sunni extremists in the end were essentially bought off, not beaten on the battlefield. Maybe some of the anti-government forces in Yemen could be turned against al-Qaida with the right political and economic incentives. And in that regard, oil-rich Saudi Arabia could certainly be helpful.
Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Questions now about new airport security rules announced this week by the Transportation Security Administration. Passengers from 14 countries are now subject to extra screening. Do these rules make flying safer, and do they violate civil liberties?
Here's NPR's Brian Naylor.
BRIAN NAYLOR: The TSA calls it enhanced screening, and it awaits anyone flying into the U.S. from or through Cuba, Iran, Sudan or Syria, which the State Department lists as sponsors of terrorism, or from other so-called countries of interest. Those nations are Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. Travelers from them will encounter pat-downs by airport screeners, or use of full-body scanners which see through a traveler's clothing.
Douglas Laird is an airline security consultant. He used to be security director for Northwest Airlines. He supports the use of enhanced screening for all travelers heading for the U.S., but he has doubts that screening travelers just from a 14-nation watch list will do much good. He says terrorists will easily adapt.
Mr. DOUGLAS LAIRD (Airline Security Consultant): What the terrorists will do to defeat the 14-country rule is they will get an identity, a different identity -they'll get a genuine passport in their assumed identity - and they will come from another country. It's as simple as that, so that the 14 countries - to me, it's more of a symbolic statement than it is actually useful.
NAYLOR: With the exception of Cuba, all the nations on the list are Arab or Muslim nations. Nawar Shora, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, calls the new guidelines troubling. He says they'll lead to increased scrutiny of Arabs and Muslims. If searching for a terrorist is like looking for a needle in a haystack, Shora says the new guidelines affecting millions of travelers make the haystack bigger. And he says they're not like to make Americans any safer - in fact, just the opposite.
Mr. NAWAR SHORA (Legal Director, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee): This gives extremist orchestrators more reason to get the sheep, so to speak, to say, look, they are against you. They are discriminating against you. They're fighting your country or your God, or whatever. You know, pick your reason. And this ultimately hurts us. We need to engage with these people, win them over, de-radicalize the radicals.
NAYLOR: It's not just travelers coming from the 14 nations who will be affected by the enhanced screening. Citizens of those 14 nations will also face the more rigorous regime when traveling from countries that are not on the list.
Privacy advocates also have problems with the new requirements. The full-body scanners travelers will increasingly encounter produce an image that, if not anatomically precise, leaves little to the imagination. Chris Calabrese is with the American Civil Liberties Union.
Mr. CHRIS CALABRESE (American Civil Liberties Union): This kind of virtual strip search not only exposes our private body parts, it also reveals intimate details, like a colonistomy bag, someone perhaps wearing an adult diaper, really embarrassing and invasive stuff.
NAYLOR: He says terrorists will likely figure ways around the scanners, perhaps by concealing chemicals and powders in body cavities that the scanners will not detect. Full-body scanners are now in use at 19 U.S. airports, and hundreds more scanners are on order. But terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University says more and better technology isn't the fix to the problem, nor by itself is the answer a better way to gather and analyze intelligence. It's going to take all of that, he says, and some new thinking.
Mr. BRUCE HOFFMAN (Terrorism expert, Georgetown University): In the final analysis, it's very difficult to change unless you're forced to change, and I think that the Northwest Airlines plot on Christmas Day is appropriating forcing changes and forcing a reevaluation that one could argue was long overdue.
NAYLOR: Hoffman says the U.S. security apparatus has been in a response mode. He argues the national security architecture in place on Christmas was appropriate to the threat posed on 9/11. Now it needs to evolve, he says, to counter tomorrow's threats.
Brain Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
Afghanistan held its presidential election last August, but still does not have a new government. There's a president, Hamid Karzai, but not a government beneath him. The Afghan parliament rejected most of President Karzai's Cabinet choices last week. The delay in choosing a Cabinet dismays some international officials. Some Afghan lawmakers say they're pressing for honest government after widespread corruption during Karzai's last term. We asked one lawmaker, Daoud Sultanzoy, about some of the jobs that need to be filled.
Mr. DAOUD SULTANZOY (Member, Afghan National Assembly): We have an array of people, similar to the U.S. Then we have ministry of rural development and travel affairs. And since we had millions of refugees and wounded, we have our ministry for them, martyrs and disabled.
INSKEEP: So of President Karzai's 24 nominees, how many did you oppose?
Mr. SULTANZOY: Out of the 24 ministers, I only voted for four.
INSKEEP: So given a chance to vote for 24 different nominees of President Karzai, you voted yes only four times and voted no 20 times. And your colleagues in the parliament were not far behind you. Seventeen out of the 24 were rejected. Why so many?
Mr. SULTANZOY: It's varied. The general reason, I could summarize it. Most of the ministers who came and who were expected to produce a cohesive program based on a national agenda were not able to produce that because there was no national agenda to speak of that hadn't been introduced by the president in the first place.
INSKEEP: Some of these Cabinet nominees were described as warlords. The most famous, perhaps, is Ismail Khan, a man who, for many years, has been very powerful in the city of Herat.
Mr. SULTANZOY: Right.
INSKEEP: Was that part of the objection among some of your colleagues, that they did not want that kind of person involved in the government anymore?
Mr. SULTANZOY: Definitely. When you look at the list of rejected ministers, there was a combination of warlords or ethnic recommendations which were made by warlords. So it was an overall no to all of that.
INSKEEP: You collectively, in the parliament, have rejected 17 of his 24 Cabinet nominees. Do you have a sense that President Karzai is going to be able to send you nominees that you find more acceptable?
Mr. SULTANZOY: He has sent some indication that he might be sending some of these ministers who failed again for other posts, which will be a mockery. I think he wants to break the parliament's determination and show to the people of the country that this parliament is not the parliament that you think it is. I'm going to send these people for other posts, and I'm going to try to get them approved, and then this parliament will lose credibility if that happens. So he is trying to do that right now.
INSKEEP: As you probably know very well, the head of the United Nations mission in Kabul has described this dispute over the Cabinet members as a distraction. There does seem to be a bit of anxiety among foreigners about how long it's going to take the Afghan government to get moving.
Mr. SULTANZOY: I am so sorry that he does not act as the representative of the United Nations, but he acts of the representative of a palace. I think he should've been evenhanded and he should've applauded the achievement of the people of Afghanistan and a parliament that produced something.
I know that this decision can produce some sort of reverberations, but nation building and democracy is a journey that we have to be prepared for. These kinds of journeys have ups and downs. And we have to have the right shock absorbers to absorb these kinds of things. And if Mr. Kai Eide is not happy, his term will be over in March and I hope we can have a person who can be happy with the vote of the people of Afghanistan.
INSKEEP: Is there any way in which you may have been helpful to President Karzai here by rejecting most of his Cabinet nominees?
Mr. SULTANZOY: You asked the $1 million question. Mr. Karzai should celebrate this the same way that the people of Afghanistan are celebrating. He should tell the warlords and those who imposed their people on him, look, I gave you a chance. I send these people to the parliament. I hired you. Now, it's time to create a team that is acceptable to the people of the country.
We have removed a huge pressure from his shoulders if he is able to understand. But Mr. Karzai, because of his lack of recognitions of opportunities, the Afghan nation has lost historic opportunities in the past eight years.
INSKEEP: Daoud Sultanzoy is a member of Afghanistan's parliament. He's on the line from Kabul.
Thanks very much.
Mr. SULTANZOY: Thank you.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Good retail news begins NPR's business news.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: Retailers enjoyed a fairly jolly holiday season. MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks how much American consumers spend, says that from November through Christmas Eve, retail sales rose 3.6 percent compared to the same period last year. A lot of the spending was done online. Shoppers were looking for jewelry and consumer electronics. At department stores and clothing shops, though, sales were down a bit.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Maybe some people shopped online because it was warmer indoors. Winter weather still affects much of the nation. Record lows have hit from North Dakota to South Carolina, while parts of New England are digging out from almost three feet of snow.
NPR's Adam Hochberg reports on how the freezing conditions are affecting the economy.
ADAM HOCHBERG: Even in South Florida this week, overnight temperatures hovered around the freezing mark, and that means it's a worrisome time for Jack Mendaborough(ph) who works at Southern Gardens, one of the world's largest orange growers.
Mr. JACK MENDABOROUGH (Southern Gardens): It's going to be tough for the next few days. It is very cold here, and it's expected to get colder.
HOCHBERG: Southern Gardens is hoping to preserve its crop on more than two million trees. Yesterday, hundreds of workers tried to pick as many oranges as they could. And overnight, they were ready to spray water on the trees to keep them from freezing.
Mr. MENDABOROUGH: The temperature of the water that's coming from the ground is certainly a lot warmer than the air that surrounds it, and does create an atmosphere that is not as cold.
HOCHBERG: Florida's Citrus Growers Association says so far, the protective measures have worked. There's been no crop damage reported yet and little impact on produce prices. But the weather is affecting other parts of the economy. Heating oil prices are trending higher, and for some merchants, sales are off.
In the college town of Athens, Ohio, where the sidewalks are covered with snow, Debbie Rogers says business is down at her hair salon.
Ms. DEBBIE ROGERS (Hair Salon Owner): We get a lot of cancellations for people who are driving in, and the foot traffic slows down because if you try to get around, you're slip sliding away.
HOCHBERG: Forecasters say the eastern half of the nation will endure even colder temperatures late this week, with snow possible as far south as Louisiana and Mississippi.
Adam Hochberg, NPR News.
BRAND, host:
Here's what most of us believe: the more money you pay someone - a worker, a CEO - the better the performance. In other words, money motivates.
Daniel Pink says no, that's not true. In fact, money can actually cause someone to work less effectively. He's the author of the new book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us."
Welcome to the program.
Mr. DANIEL PINK (Author, "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"): Madeleine, it's great to be here.
BRAND: So that is, indeed, a surprising truth. You call it the Tom Sawyer effect.
Mr. PINK: Right. Right.
BRAND: That's your phrase that you coined, named after Tom Sawyer, the fictional character who, in the early part of the book, has to whitewash some fences. And somehow he gets these kids to do it for him. How does he do that?
Mr. PINK: He convinces them that it's fun. Now there's a little duplicity here, but what the Sawyer effect is is that adding a sense of autonomy and mastery to an otherwise dreary task can turn something that is work into playfulness. By the same token, paying somebody to do something they really love to do can often turn play into work.
BRAND: So it becomes drudgery - something that...
Mr. PINK: In some ways, yeah. There's a lot of research that shows that if you apply a contingent, external rewards on something that's inherently interesting, you can actually extinguish someone's interest in that activity. There's a famous study where a whole group of kids who liked to draw, and if you brought them in and said if you draw I'll give you a shiny certificate, the kids would draw, and then two weeks later they were no loner interested in drawing - that this intrinsic motivation is very fragile, and a lot of times these external motivators can dampen it.
BRAND: And so that can be applied to work.
Mr. PINK: Absolutely. Human beings have a natural urge for autonomy, and there's some really cool, interesting examples of companies giving workers almost a radical dose of autonomy. Let me give you a cool example of this.
There's an Australian company called Atlassian - software company - and they do something once a quarter where they say to their software developers: You can work on anything you want, any way you want, with whomever you want, you just have to show the results to the rest of the company at the end of 24 hours.
They call these things FedEx days, because you have to deliver something overnight. That one day of intense autonomy has produced a whole array of software fixes, a whole array of ideas for new products, a whole array of upgrades for existing products.
BRAND: But are you talking about a small, select group of workers, and this is this sort of knowledge-based sector of the economy, and that, really, the rest of it is service-oriented. It's kind of rote work where people have to get to work at a certain time...
Mr. PINK: Sure.
BRAND: ...do a certain amount of things and then leave at a certain time.
Mr. PINK: Sure. Actually, this applies very broadly throughout the workplace. And some of the most interesting examples are of high performance through intrinsic motivation and through autonomy are in jobs we consider fairly low autonomy or low skill.
Let's take call centers. Call centers are very difficult jobs. Typically, a call comes in, you listen to the call, you tap some keys on your computer and it calls up a script and you read the script - very routine work. Well, there's a company called Zappos that has done call centers in a totally different way. They say to the...
BRAND: Because it's a shoe company.
Mr. PINK: It's a shoe company.
BRAND: Yeah.
Mr. PINK: They say to their workers solve the customer's problem any way you want. They don't time the calls. They don't monitor the calls. The representatives don't have scripts. Now this seems insane in the world of call centers. Low and behold, Zappos is one of the top rated customer service firms. A lot of our businesses presume that but for a carrot, human beings would just sit there inertly and not do anything, and that's wrong.
I mean, we are wired to be active and engaged, not passive and inert. And I think it's, in many ways, our context that makes us passive and inert. But if we change the context, I think all of us can kind of awaken that real sense, that scientifically validated sense of autonomy and purpose and the desire to do things because they're fun and interesting.
BRAND: Daniel Pink is the author of the new book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us."
Thank you.
Mr. PINK: Great to be here.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now if you are motivated to stop social networking, pay attention to our last word in business today: antisocial media. A Netherlands-based computer group has designed a program that helps people to quickly sever all connections to services like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. It's called Web 2.0 Suicide Machine.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Something's so appealing about that. It doesn't just erase your account. It deletes all your friends and messages. Then it changes your username and password so you can't ever log in again. It also changes your profile picture to a noose...
(Soundbite of laughter)
BRAND: (unintelligible) Facebook, though, is fighting back. It says the Dutch group is violating its policy.
INSKEEP: It's policy that encourages more friendliness, I guess.
And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
BRAND: And I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
On a Wednesday morning, its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. Im Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And Im Madeleine Brand, in for Renee Montagne.
Congress is still technically on its holiday break, but leaders are already back in Washington. Theyre working to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the health-care overhaul bill. Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that lawmakers will waste no time settling on a compromise bill to accomplish three main goals.
Representative NANCY PELOSI (Democrat, California; Speaker of the House): Affordability for the middle class, accountability for the insurance companies, and accessibility to many more people in our country to quality, affordable health care.
BRAND: Getting there will not be easy. NPRs Julie Rovner looks back at the year in health policy, and the fights still to come.
JULIE ROVNER: For health policy watchers like Jonathan Oberlander, 2009 was a great year.
Professor JONATHAN OBERLANDER (University of North Carolina): It had everything in it - lots of attention to health care, high drama, very close votes, death panels, fights over abortion. If you were to write a soap opera on health- care reform, you probably couldnt do better than what you had last year.
ROVNER: And despite the fact that the bill is overdue according to the schedule originally laid out by President Obama, Oberlander, a health policy professor at the University of North Carolina, says in the long run, that probably wont make much difference.
Prof. OBERLANDER: If they are able to get legislation passed in the next month that looks like what the House and Senate have already passed, it will be a tremendous political victory. And nobody is going to remember that it was legislated and signed in February rather than in October. Its just not going to matter.
ROVNER: What will matter is whats in the bill, and thats still a big concern to people like Neil Trautwein of the National Retail Federation. His group is particularly concerned about provisions of the House bill that require employers to offer their workers health coverage.
Mr. NEIL TRAUTWEIN (National Retail Federation): Its a huge problem for retailers who have thin profit margins, and theyve ultimately produced a product that we dont care to buy - and judging from the polls, a lot of Americans also dont want to buy.
ROVNER: Whats really frustrating for Trautwein is that 2009 wasnt supposed to turn out this way. He and representatives from interest groups spanning the spectrum met for more than a year with the late Senator Ted Kennedy and his staff, in preparation for the anticipated push for a health overhaul bill.
Mr. TRAUTWEIN: There was great commonality between business, labor, medical, hospitals, pharmaceutical and others, but theres a warping process that goes through the political prism, and that really took health reform into a direction we dont think is ultimately good for America.
ROVNER: Trautwein says that might not have happened had Kennedy, who died last summer, remained part of the debate. Kennedy was legendary for his ability to bring opposing groups together. But Jonathan Oberlander says he thinks Democrats didnt get enough credit for what they did manage to accomplish, particularly after Republicans decided to oppose the entire effort.
Prof. OBERLANDER: If you look historically, Democrats are like cats. Theyre difficult to herd and theres actually an extraordinary amount of coordination from the committee chairs in the House to get, at the end of day, all 60 Democrats in the caucus to vote for this legislation. Its pretty remarkable, and something I think a lot of us would have bet against at the beginning of the year.
ROVNER: But Trautwein and Oberlander agree on one thing: Even if the bill does pass - and both assume a bill will - selling it to a skeptical public will be a big job.
Prof. OBERLANDER: You have an issue that the public is very divided over, that is accompanied by a lot of controversy, a lot of mythology and a lot of misunderstanding. And people arent actually going to experience most of the benefits for at least four years. So thats two election cycles - and thats a big risk.
ROVNER: In other words, as he puts it, even after a bill is signed by the president, the debate will be far from over. Democrats will want to start expanding right away, while Republicans are already talking about repeal efforts.
Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day also cast attention on Nigeria. American authorities imposed new security measures on travelers from 14 nations, including Nigeria. Those travelers now face full body searches, among other things.
Extra security may seem automatic, since the suspect is Nigerian, but Nigerians who had nothing to do with this attack are furious. News headlines in the West African nation suggest they're being treated like lepers.
The minister of information there is Dora Akunyili.
Ms. DORA AKUNYILI (Minister of Information, Nigeria): If extra scrutiny would be given to travelers from all over the world, that's fine. But when some few countries are singled out, and Nigeria is one of those few countries, then it becomes very painful to us, especially when we know that we in this country, we don't have terrorist tendency. And we feel that this is unfair and discriminatory.
The population of over 150 million people, we are being defined by the behavior of one person. And we know that this child was influenced from outside this country. He spent almost all his life outside this country - his secondary school in Togo, his university in London, and he's a post-graduate in Dubai, from where he went to Yemen to study Quran for a few weeks. And there from there, he decided to stay back. He said he was going to spend another seven years. And the father was against it.
The father reported this young man. I mean, it's enough evidence to show that Nigerians are indeed good people. How many fathers will report their children?
I can easily remember in 2001, we had a British shoe bomber. When he was caught, his country was not stigmatized. It was clear to the world that this was one human being acting on his own. So we would have loved to be treated the same way.
INSKEEP: You said that there is no terrorist tendencies inside Nigeria, but there have been conflicts involving Islamist groups. And there is some concern -among experts, anyway - about al-Qaida efforts to recruit inside Nigeria. How would you describe Nigeria's problem with extremism, if any?
Ms. AKUNYILI: If al-Qaida could recruit in Nigeria, why did Mutallab need to go outside the country to get recruited? We don't have al-Qaida in Nigeria. We don't have people that would indulge in terrorists, in any form of suicide bombing. It's not in our culture. It's not in us. It's not part of our system.
Which terrorist group are you referring to? We don't have any terrorist group. Once in a while, not too often, we have religious conflict, which has died down. It has not happened for quite some time now. Yes, where I accept it has happened in the past, but that's not terrorism. That is conflict.
INSKEEP: If I opened a Nigerian newspaper, turned on a Nigerian television, turned on the radio in Nigeria, is this the main thing that people are talking about, this distinction the United States has given you?
Ms. AKUNYILI: Oh, yes. If you go to the streets in Nigeria - you can ask your correspondent to do that - she would tell you that everybody is feeling very, very sad. Because Nigerians travel a lot, and when you are discriminated against in the airport, it can be very humiliating.
INSKEEP: That's Dora Akunyili, Nigeria's information minister.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And Im Madeleine Brand. The news that a purported Jordanian double agent killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan sounded like something out of a movie, maybe a movie like Body of Lies. Body of Lies is about a CIA agent who works with Jordanian intelligence to fight terrorists.
Its based on the book Body of Lies, written by David Ignatius. Hes also an expert on national security. He writes a column for the Washington Post. And he joins me on the line now. Welcome to the program.
Mr. DAVID IGNATIUS (Author, Body of Lies): Thank you, Madeleine.
BRAND: Now, this suicide bomber was apparently so trusted by the CIA operatives that he was let onto this secure base in Afghanistan without being thoroughly searched. Did this surprise you? Is this protocol?
Mr. IGNATIUS: It did surprise me. I'd have to say that this looks like bad tradecraft, as people in the CIA would say. To allow an agent - you always have to suspect the worst - who might be a double agent, or in this case a triple agent, access to one of your bases without giving him a thorough physical search would be unusual.
Ive talked to a number of former CIA officers, and they say good tradecraft wouldve dictated quite different arrangements. Its better to meet people outside bases, just as youd want to meet them outside an embassy; to go to safe houses, as we like to say, not just in spy novels, but as the CIA officers themselves like to say. So it was a little bit unusual, and risky.
BRAND: Was it possible that the Americans relied too much, were too trustworthy of the Jordanians, who had allegedly apparently worked with this suicide bomber?
Mr. IGNATIUS: Theres a very close relationship between these two services that dates back many years. And I have to say the Jordanians, from what I know, have been extremely helpful to the CIA in going after al-Qaida. Here is a source that theyve been running and that they trust, and so you want to - this is a business that runs on trust, in part. So you don't want to offend their agent, and by implication the Jordanians themselves, by demanding too many pat-downs and searches. But thats the kind of sloppiness, while you understand the motive, that ended up getting people killed.
BRAND: Now, in your novel Body of Lies, you describe the inner workings of how the Jordanian intelligence service works. And its quite interesting; theyre planting rumors and lies within terrorist groups so that they start turning on each other. And Im just wondering, how close to reality was what you portrayed in the movie?
Mr. IGNATIUS: Well, I did a lot of research for the book. The book began with a conversation with George Tenet, who was then CIA director. And I asked him in 2002 or 2003, whats the service thats really helping you the most in this post-9/11 fight against al-Qaida? And he immediately said the Jordanians, and recommended the man who was then head of that service; his name was Saad Kheir.
So the next time I was in Jordan, I went and asked the palace for permission to go visit Saad Kheir and the general intelligence department, and spent a lot of time talking with them and getting their stories. So the reporting is real, and the tradecraft that I describe with the Jordanians is as close as I could get to what I think is reality.
And basically that tradecraft stresses - interesting in light of whats just happened - knowing as much as you can about the people that you're working with. Information is the key leverage for the Jordanians, so theyll try to know everything about you, your family, the place youre from, your tribal links, all the little bits of leverage that they can have on you.
Theres one scene in the movie, also in the book, which was taken directly from reality, from an anecdote about Saad Kheir, the former head of the service, in which he handed a cell phone to somebody he was trying to recruit. And on the other end of that cell phone was the mans mother. And the mans mother had thought that her son had been sending her gifts and money and a new couch. All the time it had been sent by the Jordanian intelligence service in secret. And the mothers thanking the son. Oh, thank you. I knew youd amount to something.
And this man hands the phone back to his Jordanian case officer, knowing he has been caught. They have got him, because they know him, they know his mother. Theyve just got the whole web of his life in their hands, and he became their agent. So thats how they operate. Theyve been successful in the past.
What an embarrassing reversal for them to have recruited somebody who turned out to be a triple agent.
BRAND: Thank you very much. Thats David Ignatius; hes a columnist for the Washington Post.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Far-flung wars come home in an emotional way to a small town in Britain. That town is Wootton Bassett. And its become well-known in recent years for its ceremonies honoring troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, its at the center of a dispute. A Muslim group plans to hold demonstrations there protesting civilian deaths in Afghanistan. NPRs Rob Gifford reports.
ROB GIFFORD: The people of Wootton Bassett, in rural Wiltshire, have seen a lot of grief for a small town. Dozens of coffins have been driven through in recent years. And they and increasingly, others from around the country turn out to salute and pay tribute. So the announcement by Anjem Choudary, of the group called Islam4UK, that he would lead a march there in which fake coffins would be carried representing the civilian casualties in Afghanistan has caused some anger. Choudary says its not meant to be an insult but a reminder.
Mr. ANJEM CHOUDARY (Islam4UK): We are obviously having a procession. Its in Wootton Bassett. Thats correct. But its not about the people there. Its not against them personally. Rather, its to highlight the real cost of the war in Afghanistan.
GIFFORD: Choudary was previously head of Al Mahajiroun, a group that was banned by the British government for glorifying terrorism. But many of its members have now appeared again in the organization Islam4UK. Choudary has a history of courting controversy and not always following through with his plans. He admits the planned march in Wootton Bassett would be something of a media stunt.
Mr. CHOUDARY: The sad reality of the situation is that if I were to hold it somewhere else, it would not have the media attention that it has now.
GIFFORD: Many people in Wootton Bassett, like former Mayor Chris Wannell, are appalled at the suggestion of such a march.
Mr. CHRIS WANNELL (Former Wootton Bassett Mayor): I would like to say that we in Wootton Bassett, we dont do what we do for any political reason at all. We do it to respect those people whove given their lives for our freedom, and also to try and help the families in their grieving process. If this man has any decency about him, he will not hold his march through Wootton Bassett.
GIFFORD: Wannell is not alone; 400,000 people have joined a Facebook protest against the planned march. But perhaps more unusually, its also brought to the forefront several Muslim groups, set up very recently, to speak out against Islamist extremism.
(Soundbite of crowd protests)
Unidentified Group: Freedom! Democracy! Freedom! Democracy!
GIFFORD: Perhaps the most striking group to emerge is called British Muslims for Secular Democracy, or BMSD. The groups Web site has clips of a recent protest that gently mocks extremist demonstrators and their slogans.
(Soundbite of crowd protests)
Ms. TEHMINA KAZI (Director, British Muslims for Secular Democracy): I support an ideology that I want to see take over the world: liberal democracy.
Unidentified Man: I have a message for those who insult Islam. Lets agree to disagree.
GIFFORD: The director of BMSD is Tehmina Kazi, who says the establishment of such groups is a major step forward for the Muslim community, which has tended to circle the wagons when attacked in the past. Kazi says if Islam4UK goes ahead with the protest, British Muslims for Secular Democracy will be there, too.
Ms. KAZI: Were actually writing a letter to Islam4UK at the moment, asking them to either cancel their demonstration or at the very least, move it to a different location. And failing that, if they do go ahead with their protest anyway, well be out there counter-protesting with the British flag to show that ordinary Muslims do not agree with Islam4UK and will public - happy to publicly oppose them.
GIFFORD: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the plans for the march offensive and disgusting. The Home secretary, Alan Johnson, said he will back any request from police or local government to ban the march. But the president of the Association of Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde, a former chief constable in Northern Ireland, said people have the right to march. Others might not like it, he said, but thats it.
Rob Gifford, NPR News, London.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand, sitting in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
From the amount of debate it inspired, it can be hard to recall that on Christmas Day 2009, nobody was killed on an airliner landing in Detroit. Still, a would-be bomber came close to succeeding, actually got explosives onto a crowded aircraft, and that has led to an intense discussion that we will sample this morning. In a moment, we'll hear about new security measures at airports. We start at the White House, where President Obama met with his national security team. The administration's initial response to this incident was relatively low key - not yesterday.
NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY: President Obama's message to the agency heads seated around a table in the White House Situation Room yesterday was chilling. This was a screw-up that could have been disastrous, he said. We dodged a bullet, but just barely. Emerging from the meeting 90 minutes later, Mr. Obama had an equally blunt assessment for the American people.
President BARACK OBAMA: When a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day, the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama says the problem wasn't a failure of intelligence gathering. The U.S. government knew, for example, that the young Nigerian man accused in the bomb attempt - Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - had traveled to Yemen, where he fell under the influence of Islamic extremists. Separately, the government had evidence that al-Qaida operatives in Yemen were working with a Nigerian, planning to strike at a U.S. target. But despite those warning signs and the fact that he brought his plane ticket with cash and carried no luggage, no effort was made to stop Abdulmutallab from boarding Northwest Airlines Flight 253 and allegedly trying to blow it up.
Pres. OBAMA: The bottom line is this: The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack, but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots.
HORSLEY: White House aides say there was no finger pointing around the Situation Room table yesterday. Instead, leaders of each agency took responsibility for their own organization's shortcomings. Mr. Obama ordered them to recommend fixes that could be made as soon as this week.
Pres. OBAMA: We have to better, and we will do better. And we have to do it quickly. American lives are on the line.
HORSLEY: Some steps have already been taken. From now on, for example, when the State Department issues a warning that someone has suspected terrorist ties, they'll also report whether that person holds a U.S. visa. That might have raised another red flag in Abdulmutallab's case. And Edward Alden, who studies visa policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, says it's just a good idea.
Mr. EDWARD ALDEN (Council on Foreign Relations): There should be procedures in place where if you have warnings about individuals and we know they posses U.S. visas, that the government ought to take another look at those visas.
HORSLEY: But Alden is less impressed with steps taken by the Homeland Security Department to tighten screening at international airports. Starting this week, anyone traveling to the U.S. from one of 14 suspect countries - including Yemen and Nigeria -will be subject to extra scrutiny such as pat-downs, luggage searches and in some cases, full-body scans.
Mr. ALDEN: It's a very crude tool that needlessly inconveniences a lot of people that we have nothing to worry about.
HORSLEY: Alden says terrorists are smart enough to simply launch their attacks from other countries and avoid the extra screening. Shoe bomber Richard Reid, for example, carried a British passport and flew from Paris. President Obama acknowledged yesterday that as terrorists adjust their tactics, United States will have to adjust its defenses. Some Republicans are again calling on the president to adjust his promise to close the Guantanamo prison camp. The administration is not going that far. But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says given the instability in Yemen right now, no more Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo will be transferred home.
Mr. ROBERT GIBBS (Spokesman, White House): While we remain committed to closing the facility, the determination has been made that right now, any additional transfers to Yemen is not a good idea.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama argued again yesterday that so long as it's open, Guantanamo serves as a recruiting tool for al-Qaida. He promised to close the prison in a way that keeps the American people safe.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep, with congratulations to Andrea Mitchell.
The NBC News correspondent was on TV's evening news more than any other reporter in the last decade. A news consultant says she logged 2,416 minutes on the air, and all those news reports were in addition to hosting a cable TV show. Mitchell once broadcast that show live from Indonesia in the middle of the night, while traveling with Hillary Clinton and wearing a foot brace.
It's MORNING EDITION.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Good morning. Im Madeleine Brand. Jonathan Doyle says the First Amendment protects him and his alter ego, Bigfoot. Last fall, he dressed up as Bigfoot and surprised hikers atop a mountain in a New Hampshire park. Doyle claims it was a bit of performance art - thats all. Call them Philistines, but park rangers were not amused when Doyle did it again, but bigger, with singing and dancing. They kicked him out of the park. Doyle has filed a complaint. He says even Bigfoot has free-speech rights. Its MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The 2010 election season has barely begun - on the surface, anyway - but there is news this morning that three Democrats have decided not to run for re-election to big jobs. Christopher Dodd, who has represented Connecticut in the United States Senate for three decades, was facing a tough campaign and now, he's checked out. Two other top Democrats, a senator and a governor, have also decided not to seek another term.
We're going to talk about this with NPR's Ken Rudin. He's our political editor. Ken, good morning.
KEN RUDIN: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Was Senator Dodd's announcement a surprise for you?
RUDIN: Well, it was a surprise only because he said he was running, and he was running and he was raising money. But it - here's where it shouldn't have been a surprise: His poll numbers have been awful for a year. He's probably the most vulnerable senator of either party, even in a state as blue as Connecticut, which hasn't elected a Republican to the Senate since 1982. He trailed his Republican opponents in every - polls. There were charges he got sweetheart mortgage deals from Countryside Financial. He helped...
INSKEEP: Countrywide Financial, yes.
RUDIN: That's right. Countrywide, that's right. He helped write the bill that protected the bonuses for the executives of AIG. They said he was too close to the insurance company. And in 2008, when he was running for president, he moved his entire family to Iowa for the caucuses, a move that turned out to be very unpopular back in Connecticut.
INSKEEP: So we should you have this guy who, we should remember, was chairman of a powerful committee. He ended up being central to the whole response to the financial crisis, which is something where you could come off as a hero, or you could come off hated. And it seems like it worked against him.
RUDIN: That's true. And also, he played a major role in the overhaul of the health-care system, too. Because when Ted Kennedy was very ill, it was Chris Dodd who picked up the reins and really shepherded most of that language, too. But again, it's not totally bad news for the Democratic Party. Richard Blumenthal, the state attorney general who at noon today will announce he is running, he's the most popular politician in Connecticut. And so while the headlines say that the Democrats are bailing ship, you know, there's another bailout. But in the case of Connecticut, it may not be the worst news for the Democrats.
INSKEEP: What about in North Dakota, where there's another U.S. senator, a Democratic senator, who is retiring, Byron Dorgan?
RUDIN: That was a bigger shock and probably much worse news for the Democrats. This is a very red state. It always votes Republican for president. John McCain got 53 percent of the vote in North Dakota. But it seems to love its Democratic senators, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan. Dorgan has been there since 1986. But again, he just said he's tired of the whole thing. He got tired of the bickering, the lack of comity - not comedy but comity. And they have a very popular Republican there, John Hoeven, Republican governor there. And if Hoeven does run for the Senate, it looks like there could be a Republican pick-up. While Chris Dodd's numbers were always bad, Dorgan's were not. And I think that's the bigger shock here.
INSKEEP: There's another big Democratic governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter, who's decided not to run. We've just got a little time left here, Ken Rudin. I'm curious if these three retirement announcements mean something significant for the Republican Party now, who will be trying to capture those seats.
RUDIN: Well, of course, you know, in the first midterm election of a new president, the in party always loses seats, and that's to be expected. This was a very bad-sounding day for the Democratic Party. Republicans hope to take advantage of it. But again, each state is individual and it could not - it may not be as bad for the Democrats as the headlines make it look out to be.
INSKEEP: Ken, thanks very much.
RUDIN: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's political editor Ken Rudin. He writes the Political Junkie blog on npr.org. And again, our news here this morning: Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd says he will retire rather than seek re-election. The same is true of Byron Dorgan, Democratic senator of North Dakota. And Colorado's Democratic governor, Bill Ritter, has also decided not to seek another term.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And let's hear next from somebody who's a regular on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," where he wears many different hats.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART")
M: I'm joined by senior foreign affairs correspondent John Oliver - our senior literary correspondent John Oliver joins us - for more I'm joined by senior presidential historian John Oliver. John, thank you so much for joining us.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
INSKEEP: Yes, John Oliver, also known as the senior British correspondent.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
And soon he'll be known for a new show. Tomorrow night, "John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show" will debut on Comedy Central. John Oliver joins us to discuss his comedy, but first, let's hear a clip from his show.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JOHN OLIVER'S NEW YORK STAND-UP SHOW")
M: Three and a half years I've lived here. I work hard, relatively speaking, for someone who does this for a living.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
M: I pay my taxes. I try to fit in. I've learnt your rudimentary language.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
M: I don't know what more you could reasonably expect me to do. And that's when it hit me. I know why I'm so angry. I know what this is. Taxation without representation.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)
BRAND: So you have some deep anger there about not being able to vote in America, even though you've been here for a very, very long time?
M: Yeah. I think yeah. I think anger is a very well-chosen word. Resentment. A sense of complete injustice, all of that. I mean, yeah, I understand that people laughed when I paused during that piece of spoken word, but they were wrong to do so. That was a very sincerely meant-from-the-heart sentiment.
BRAND: Well, do you even have a green card?
M: Yeah, I do now. Now you sound like a U.S. immigration officer. Actually, I do, as of just at the end of last year I finally now have a green card, so yes, I do. And I still don't get to vote.
BRAND: Well, what do you plan to do about it?
M: Well, I'm going to get a - I'm in the process of getting a very elaborate red coat stitched up, and then I will get my musket dusted and polished off, and then I'm taking this country back. You leave me no other choice.
BRAND: So you're actually going to be an anti-tea partier?
M: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Those tea-party people don't know what - they've had it too easy all the last 12 months. The British are coming. We'll show you what tyranny really is.
BRAND: Well, why are you so eager to become an American, or at least to vote or to be part of our ways?
M: It's not so much that I'm eager to be American as I'm eager for you to be British once more. I still see this as very much our land. No, I love it here. That is the truth, and so I want to stay, so I was very anxious to get a green card, because life on a visa can be perilous.
BRAND: Well, how did you get here in the first place, because you have only been here for three years and yet here you are on "The Daily Show" and it's, you know, it's not some small tiny club in a small town. This is the big time for a comedian.
M: It's the big times within the terms of basic cable, yes. You're right. But no, I was working and writing in England and then I got offered this job. I hadn't been to America before so it was very strange. It was my favorite show as I was in England. So coming here the first day was very, very strange.
BRAND: You can watch "The Daily Show" in England?
M: Yeah, I watched it online and now it's also on in England.
BRAND: Really?
M: Yeah, we have televisions there too.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BRAND: Shocking. So you've been working on "The Daily Show" since 2006 and you do a lot of these sketches where you go out on assignment and play the straight man and ask ridiculous questions of people. Do all of them know that you're a comedian and kind of poking fun?
M: They know what the show is, and I guess when you sit down opposite of someone, you often do have something in the back of your mind, thinking why are you here? Why are you doing this? If you know this show, why are you doing this? The truth is, they just want to be on TV.
INSKEEP: People want to be on TV. Politicians - it might be, okay, a gamble, or some - they know that we have a viewership who actually votes. So I guess it's a controlled gamble the whole time. They know - they know the show, though.
BRAND: It didn't seem like that when you interviewed the Swiss U.N. ambassador recently on the show.
M: Okay. That's possibly true.
BRAND: When you sat down with this ambassador...
M: Yes.
BRAND: ...and you started, you know, making fun of Swiss neutrality and...
M: Yeah.
BRAND: ...but then towards the end it gets really sticky and uncomfortable, not only for him, but for the viewers, and you can hear some uncomfortable laughter in the audience. And let's hear that.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART")
M: So easy to take a position on neutrality, hard to take a position on Hitler.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
M: We do - we did take strong positions on Hitler and many other things. We just didn't participate in the war. That's two different things.
M: Would it be possible for me to keep my gold here? Oh, Adolf, of course, lovely to see you again, come back in. What have you been up to? Actually, don't tell me. I want to be able to say I don't know.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BRAND: At that point, were you going for the humor or were you going for something else?
M: Yeah, I'm always going for the joke. It's a comedy show, so that is the most - that is the priority. And yet you also want to try and get - especially with - where you have interesting opportunities like sitting down with an ambassador, you want those jokes to illuminate something. And so the discussion you were referring was really about neutrality during the Second World War and whether that is appropriate, whether neutral - and you have to give him credit, he stands by it. You know, it's an all-in process, neutrality. You go for it and then (unintelligible) self-interest, to its logical conclusion.
BRAND: You probably get this question 100 times, but is there a big difference between British and American humor, do you think?
M: No, not really. No. That's the quickest way to answer that. The longest way is that I guess there are similar reference points - you know, your reference points have to change in a minor way, but so much of comedy is cross- cultural between the UK and the US. We get each other's stand-up comedians a lot and each other's comedy shows. So it isn't that much different. The only real difference in live comedy is alcohol level, which is significantly higher in the UK. Significantly higher.
BRAND: On the part of the performers or the audience?
M: Well, both, but especially the audience.
BRAND: Yeah, so is it a lot more raucous?
M: Yes, it is. It's a lot more raucous. There's a lot more - people really have come for a dialogue when they go to a stand-up show in the UK. They say, yeah, I understand that you have now finished your little comedy monologue; now I have something to say regarding what I've just heard.
BRAND: Maybe that's why you like the U.S. better.
M: That could be it. The U.S. is, surprisingly, more polite.
BRAND: Well, John Oliver, thank you very much.
M: You're welcome. It's a pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BRAND: John Oliver, "Daily Show" correspondent and host of the new show "John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show." This is a very polite MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
INSKEEP: And I'm Steve Inskeep.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Lawyers for the Obama administration argue in court today that detainees at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan should not have the same court access as those held at Guantanamo. That turns out to be the same position the Bush administration lawyers took. We have more this morning from NPR's Ari Shapiro.
ARI SHAPIRO: As soon as President Obama took office, he sent a strong public message that it was a new day for America's national security policy.
BARACK OBAMA: This morning I signed three executive orders. First, I can say without exception or equivocation that the United States will not torture.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: Ken Gude of the liberal think-tank Center for American Progress says President Obama had no choice.
KEN GUDE: It was vital. In fact, America's global leadership depended, and the credibility of America's political leadership depended on demonstrating a significant change from the Bush administration.
SHAPIRO: Almost immediately, Republicans accused the Obama administration of making Americans less safe. In May, former Vice President Dick Cheney put it this way...
DICK CHENEY: You can look at the facts and conclude that the comprehensive strategy has worked and therefore needs to be continued as vigilantly as ever. Or you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event - coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort.
SHAPIRO: Both characterizations of dramatic change may be false, according to Juan Zarate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was a counter-terrorism advisor to President Bush.
JUAN ZARATE: I don't think the administration has helped themselves, or frankly helped the country, by trying so hard to paint their policies as being so radically different from the past, when in fact they're not, and for the sake of the country they shouldn't be.
SHAPIRO: On CNN, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan pointed out that President Bush released many more Guantanamo detainees than President Obama.
JOHN BRENNAN: And let me put some facts out here. The last administration released 532 detainees from Guantanamo. During this administration we have transferred, in fact, 42 of these individuals overseas.
SHAPIRO: And when Republicans criticized President Obama for indicting the alleged Christmas Day bomber rather than sending him to a military trial, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs pointed to a similar incident from the Bush years. In a briefing yesterday, Gibbs mentioned Richard Reid, who tried to blow up an airplane in 2001.
ROBERT GIBBS: Decisions were made by the previous administration, after looking at all of the factors involved, to enter Richard Reid into our civil justice system.
SHAPIRO: This heightened emphasis on similarities to the Bush administration should not be a surprise, says Ken Gude of the Center for American Progress.
GUDE: The Obama administration is just facing withering attacks from the right. It's quite reasonable that the Obama administration says, hey, wait a minute - yes, we've made some changes, but here are some areas where we're doing things in similar ways from the previous administration.
SHAPIRO: Kate Martin, who directs the Center for National Security Studies, says that's the wrong focus. She says when you emphasize similarities and differences, you fall into a political trap that misses whether a policy is fundamentally good or bad.
KATE MARTIN: And it makes it, I think, very difficult to have the kind of public conversation we need to have about is this a wise policy, is it working, you know, in what direction does the United States want to move, because it's been so politicized.
SHAPIRO: Besides, says Martin, there's no such thing as the country's national security policy. There are thousands of specific policy decisions.
MARTIN: You know, the world is very complex, and in order to deal with the world we have to understand the complexities of it.
SHAPIRO: Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.
MICHELE BRAND, Host:
A small galaxy of astronomers is gathering today in Washington. Three thousand astronomers are sharing exciting discoveries, such as a new map of the strange dark matter that surrounds our Milky Way galaxy. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE: Astrophysicist David Law says scientists think this mysterious dark matter must be there because they can see the effects of its gravity as it pulls on the orbits of stars and galaxies.
DAVID LAW: While we might not be able to see the dark matter, it's a vitally important component of our galaxy. It makes up the bulk of what the actual stuff is in our galaxy, oftentimes greater than 70 percent or, in many cases, greater than 90 percent of the total mass of the galaxy is in this dark matter.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Law currently works at the University of California, Los Angeles. He wondered: If you could see the cloud of dark matter enveloping the Milky Way, what would it look like? What shape would it be? He knew he could get clues from how the dark matter alters the paths of dwarf galaxies and clusters of stars as they orbit the Milky Way.
LAW: And based on the shape of those paths, we can say what the shape of the dark matter itself has to be.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Now, you can't actually watch a dwarf galaxy go all the way around our Milky Way. That would take about a billion years. But Law and his colleagues used a kind of trick to reconstruct the path of one orbiting galaxy.
LAW: As it flies around the Milky Way, tidal forces from the Milky Way are shredding stars out of it into streams that trail behind it and even go ahead of it, along its orbit.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says you can picture the bright, visible part of our Milky Way as a flat, round, dinner plate.
LAW: And if you picture that sitting inside a large beach ball, then that represents the dark matter halo. And if you then came along to that beach ball and put one hand on one side and one hand on the other and squeezed it, that's something like we think the dark matter is. It's squeezed along that direction, and the dinner plate of the disk of the Milky Way is sitting inside of it.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Law presented this new dark matter map at a major conference of the American Astronomical Society. He says it should help scientists as they try to understand the nature of dark matter, because whatever it is, it's got to be able to form this kind of squashed beach ball.
LAW: You have to have some kind of a dark matter particle which can build a halo like this, because this is generally what we see surrounding the Milky Way.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
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BRAND: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Unidentified Man: These experiments. Don't be a damned fool.
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JOSHUA BROCKMAN: Unidentified Woman: Happy birthday. Can you believe it? He is growing up so fast.
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BROCKMAN: The company - a division of ZeniMax Media - is also having a teenage growth spurt of its own. Todd Howard.
HOWARD: For our company, there are certain areas we're hiring very aggressively 'cause we are growing rapidly.
BROCKMAN: And the entire video game universe is maturing. Drew Davidson is the director of the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
DREW DAVIDSON: I'd say game industries are sort of coming out of their adolescence. You know, they're in their late teens and so there's still a lot of growing to do.
BROCKMAN: Davidson says colleges around the country are tuned in.
DAVIDSON: We're seeing a huge upswing in terms of universities trying to offer degrees that focus around games or interactive media. The why is just because they're so popular.
BROCKMAN: More than 200 institutions from MIT to DigiPen Institute of Technology are offering courses or degrees in video games. Michael Gallagher heads the Entertainment Software Association, a trade group for the video game industry.
MICHAEL GALLAGHER: The U.S. is the number one video game market in the world. So, here at home we have a very strong market for employment in video games.
BROCKMAN: And that market is growing because of mainstream demand. Just look around - you can see people of all ages playing games on mobile phones. Social networking games are also wildly popular on Facebook. Todd Howard of Bethesda Softworks says people also want jobs in the video game industry, because a day at the office is casual, not corporate.
HOWARD: Sometimes I equate it to an organized fraternity. We play games at lunch, we have a giant movie theater in the building, we have a pool table, we have multiple video game setups.
BROCKMAN: They also have their own chef. So, employees effectively live at the office. It's an industry that values creative collaborations between artists, designers and programmers. The majority of jobs are full time with benefits, and it's a fluid career with people moving across the country, or the world, to take on new projects. But recruiter Mary-Margaret Walker says these patterns may change.
MARY: I think we will see more consulting and more contracting and more virtual working.
BROCKMAN: That means development teams may no longer work and play in the same physical space.
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BROCKMAN: Back in Todd Howard's office at Bethesda Softworks, he's got both hands on the wheel - I mean the Xbox 360.
HOWARD: The greatest feeling in the world is making a game and then going to the store and seeing somebody buy it. It's very special.
BROCKMAN: Joshua Brockman, NPR News.
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INSKEEP: Unidentified Man: For at least the last 50 years or so, every time there's been a slowdown, the businesses have expanded in its wake and indeed have way exceeded what the businesses were at before.
INSKEEP: The financial sector tomorrow.
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INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
In our series, new jobs for a new decade, we're looking into job of the future. In a moment, how a video game company is faring. First, though, NPR's Wendy Kauffman reports on what part technology will play as the economy rebounds.
WENDY KAUFMAN: Tech jobs are everywhere. Not just at companies like Google and Microsoft, but also at places like hospitals, banks, insurance companies and retailers. If they manage lots of data they need technology workers and many of the new jobs will come from them. Others will come from brand new companies. Companies like...
JOE AIKEN: SynapticMash.
KAUFMAN: The firm's Joe Aiken explains the unusual name.
AIKEN: It is actually the whole concept of synapses in the brain where learning happens and mashing up of different technologies.
KAUFMAN: Mashing and merging technologies with education is a relatively new idea and it's creating new jobs. This start up, for example, creates software that helps educators see where kids are struggling in the classroom and what teaching strategies make a difference. Ryan Vanderpol, a senior software engineer here, says it's not often that you get to do something useful and have fun doing it.
RYAN VANDERPOL: It's enjoyable. I work with a lot of really cool people all the time, and get to do a lot of different things and that's why I'm here.
KAUFMAN: The company which now has about 30 employees hopes to expand to about 150 over the next few years. Indeed, says Joe Aiken, they are hiring right now.
AIKEN: We're looking for database administrator, we're looking for people highly skilled in CSS, which is a technology that supports Web site development; we are looking for high-end programmers.
ED LAZOWSKA: Let's talk about what this nation should be investing in.
KAUFMAN: Ed Lazowska, holds the Bill and Melinda Gates chair in computer science at the University of Washington.
LAZOWSKA: What this nation should be investing in is jobs that create other jobs, and that is what technology jobs do.
KAUFMAN: For starters even the tech jobs that don't require a four year college degree pay rather well, and the more workers make the more they are likely to spend. And spending creates other jobs. But perhaps more importantly many technology jobs drive innovation. Some create new industries or different approaches to old ones. We'll have novel drugs will emerge because of the Human Genome Project. And music and movies are now in our hands because of mobile technology. We'll have better transportation planning too, says Ed Lazowska.
LAZOWSKA: For example, getting information through your smart phone about where the transit is instead you having to look at the schedule and guess. It means routing transit vehicles around traffic congestions, so they don't spend all their time sitting on bridges or underpasses. That's what we do.
KAUFMAN: But just how many new jobs are we talking about? The research and consulting firm IDC recently estimated about a million new technology-related jobs will be created in the next four to five years. That's about 10 percent more than we have now.
PAMELA PASSMAN: Some of those numbers may seem small.
KAUFMAN: But Pamela Passman, a corporate vice president at Microsoft, says you have to look at the big picture.
PASSMAN: Across most sectors of the economy, we see the number of jobs shrinking. We see jobs in the IT sector growing - not as much as they grew in past years - but there still is growth.
KAUFMAN: But she and many others believe that for technology-based industries to really blossom, some public policies need to change. They advocate more generous tax credits for firms doing research and development, and they want to see more emphasis on science and math education. Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, suggests we think back to what worked well in the 1990s.
ROB ATKINSON: One of the nice things about the 90s was we had this virtuous cycle, if you will. We had investment related innovation, which related to more demand; more people wanted to go in the field, we had more investment. We need to get back to that.
KAUFMAN: Wendy Kaufman, NPR News, Seattle.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
Another security lapse in another part of the world. It involves Ireland and Slovakia and explosives in a suitcase. NPR's Rob Gifford explains.
ROB GIFFORD: Ludmila Stanova, spokeswoman for the Slovakian Interior Ministry, takes up the story of what then happened on one such exercise last Saturday.
LUDMILA STANOVA: A border police officer who works as a dog handler placed two samples of an explosive into one bag. The sniffer dog found one sample, after which the police officer and the dog were called off to a different matter, and the officer had forgotten to take out the second sample.
GIFFORD: Rob Gifford, NPR News.
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BRAND: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
If you want a sign of the importance of American aid abroad, look no further than Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In all those countries, the United States has struggled to improve the economy or the standard of living as a way to bring stability. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says development needs to be just as important as defense and diplomacy. But only today, one year into the Obama presidency, is she swearing in somebody to run the U.S. government's foreign assistance agency. And Rajiv Shah has a tough job ahead, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN: Secretary Clinton once complained that the vetting process was a nightmare for the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. She even put off the speech on development until she had someone in place to swear in.
INSKEEP: We are so pleased that day has come. It's been a long wait to find the right person, but Raj was worth the months that we spent thinking about how best to build and strengthen USAID.
KELEMEN: Rajiv Shah is just 36 years old. Clinton says he has the passion and commitment to revitalize an institution she says is central to U.S. foreign policy. In a speech to the Center for Global Development, Clinton talked about the need to make sure U.S. aid programs are based on partnership, not patronage.
INSKEEP: In the past, we have sometimes dictated solutions from afar, often missing our mark on the ground. Our new approach is to work in partnership with developing countries that take the lead in designing and implementing evidence-based strategies with clear goals.
KELEMEN: She says the U.S. will pay particular attention to food security, as well as women and girls. She also talked about how technological advances and health and agriculture have helped saved lives, a topic the USAID administrator Rajiv Shah addressed in a conference call.
KELEMEN: We will look very carefully at how we can use our core social skills in the area of technology development of science and of doing things in more innovative ways - often with the private sector, private companies or private foundations - to really bring a higher level of innovation to the area of development and to bring that creativity and risk-taking that often does lead to some of the most important breakthroughs on behalf of the world's poorest population.
KELEMEN: A medical doctor by training, Shah used to run health and agriculture programs at the Gates Foundation. He has a huge job ahead running the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to Congressman Howard Berman, a Democrat from California.
R: A very big job, but he seems like the person who just might be able to pull it off.
KELEMEN: Berman chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and has taken a lead in reform efforts of U.S. foreign assistance programs. He's worried that USAID has lost too many technical experts over the years - so many that the agency can't even monitor contracts that well.
R: When you don't have enough engineers or agronomists to know whether a building program or a food program is achieving its results, how do you evaluate whether that contract made sense, whether it should be renewed, whether someone else should be found? You have to have some expertise. Inside the staff of the USAID, we've lost too much of it.
KELEMEN: And accountability matters more than ever, Berman adds.
R: If the American taxpayers think that foreign assistance money is going down the drain, pretty soon, we in Congress will quit supporting it. That would be a terrible mistake, I think, from a national security point of view, from an economic interest point of view, and from a humanitarian point of view.
KELEMEN: The U.S. is tripling its non-military aid to Pakistan. It's also boosting assistance to Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, which is facing civil strife and trying to contain al-Qaida militants. A top State Department official said it may not be easy to work on poverty reduction programs in that environment, but without development, the official said, you'll ever have security. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
Hi, John.
JOHN FEINSTEIN: Good morning, Madeleine. How are you?
BRAND: Fine, thank you. Well, both of these teams are 13-0 coming into this game. And so do you have any predictions? Can you look into your crystal ball and tell us who you think is going to win?
FEINSTEIN: I know Texas fans are pointing to the upset that they pulled over Southern Cal in the championship game four years ago. And there's no doubt that that was a huge upset, and they won the national championship. But I would be very surprised if Nick Saban, Alabama's coach, lets this opportunity get away when he's got such a good team.
BRAND: This game, though, is not without its critics or its controversy. And why is that? What is so controversial about it?
FEINSTEIN: And yet those three teams had no chance to compete for the BCS national title. In every other sport, if you're undefeated, you keep playing until someone beats you. Only in college football at this level does that not occur.
BRAND: Now, I understand that the voters in at least one of the polls are not required to vote for tonight's winner.
FEINSTEIN: Defenders of the system will say, well, Alabama and Texas play in tougher conferences. Maybe, maybe not. But unless the teams play on the field, who among us knows who would win? So I think as a protest and out of respect for what Boise State accomplished this year, vote for Boise State. Make them the national champions in at least one poll.
BRAND: Well, let's talk about the coaches in tonight's game. Tell us about them.
FEINSTEIN: Very accomplished coaches. As I said, Nick Saban won a national championship while coaching at LSU. Mack Brown won that title, I mentioned, four years ago at Texas. Each is trying to become a two-time national champion, which is very rare in a coach's career. Pretty much guarantees you a spot in the hall of fame. And neither one of them's particularly old. They're both relatively young men, not like Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden, who are both over 80. And I think they'll be in coaching for a long time and will have many other opportunities to win this title.
BRAND: You, John, watched every single bowl game, 33 of them.
FEINSTEIN: There were some wonderful games. Navy played superbly in beating a team from the Big 12, the same conference as Texas, Missouri. Air Force won, beating Houston. And there were some unbelievably endings. It's a great time of year for college football. I just wish we could end it with a definitive national champion.
BRAND: Thank you, John.
FEINSTEIN: Thanks, Madeleine.
BRAND: Comments of John Feinstein. He's the author of, "A Civil War: Army Vs. Navy." His blog can be found at Feinsteinonthebrink.com.
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BRAND: This is NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
BRAND: fighting budget deficits. And this morning, we'll listen in to three governors who gave their State of the State addresses.
BRAND: And we begin in my home state, California, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told a story about his family pets. Yes, it's California. They include a pony and a pig. He said they work together, the pony and pig, to pry open containers of dog food. And if they can work together, Republican and Democrats should, too. John Myers of member station KQED has the first of our three reports.
JOHN MYERS: Arnold Schwarzenegger likes to boil down complicated issues into simple themes, and he did so again in his final State of the State address before being termed out of office.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: If I had to summarize in one word our focus for the coming year, it would be the word priorities. We have to get them straight, and we have to keep them straight.
MYERS: Of course, tax credits cost money, and Democrats wonder how the deficit-plagued state will pay for them. Democrat Karen Bass is the speaker of the California State Assembly.
KAREN BASS: I don't think that this year is the year to expand tax credits, frankly.
MYERS: Bass says a better plan would be repealing more than a billion dollars in tax breaks for big business, which were included in the state budget in 2009. That budget debate was contentious and, Schwarzenegger says, another example of what needs to change. The governor called on legislators to again consider reform of the budget process and spoke of its problems as though he were an outsider.
SCHWARZENEGGER: The budget crisis is our Katrina. We knew it was coming. We have known it for years. And yet Sacramento would not reinforce its economic levees.
MYERS: A recent visible sign of the budget mess has been the anger coming from California colleges and universities, where students have protested double- digit tuition hikes and caps on enrollment. Again, speaking almost as though he had not been governor the last six years, Schwarzenegger borrowed a line from his critics that California now spends more on prisons than it does on higher education.
SCHWARZENEGGER: What does it say about our state, what does it say about any state that focuses more on prison uniforms than on caps and gowns? It simply is not healthy. So I will submit to you a constitutional amendment so that never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education.
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MYERS: For NPR News, I'm John Myers in Sacramento.
ROBERT SMITH: And I'm Robert Smith in New York, where the only thing colder than the weather was Governor David Paterson's icy State of the State address.
DAVID PATERSON: This is a winter of reckoning.
SMITH: A reckoning on the New York state budget, which is facing a $7 billion deficit, and a personal reckoning for the man they call the accidental governor. Since David Paterson took over for the disgraced Eliot Spitzer, Paterson's approval ratings have plummeted. His reelection chances look dismal. So his answer yesterday was to act tough. Paterson started with the audience right in front of him: the legislature.
PATERSON: You have left me and other governors no choice. I will not write bad checks and we will not mortgage our children's future.
SMITH: Then Paterson proceeded to take swipes at the media, good government groups and pretty much anyone else who may have wandered in to see the speech.
PATERSON: The money interests, many of them here today as guests, have got to understand that their days of influence in this capital are numbered.
SMITH: For Paterson, the State of the State is ticked off. And that may not be a bad political move for the governor. Eliot Spitzer won the last election as a crusading reformer. And let's just say that the last four years ended up proving the need for reform. Spitzer resigned, former State Senate Leader Joe Bruno convicted of corruption. New York's former watchdog, Controller Alan Hevesi, pled guilty to fraud. I could go on, but what - OK, one more. State Senator Hiram Monserrate, convicted of assaulting his girlfriend.
PATERSON: Outside influence and inside decay have bred cynicism and scorn of the people that we represent.
SMITH: Paterson proposed a series of ethics reforms, but all of them need to pass the legislature, which didn't seem thrilled with the lecturing tone. State Senator John Sampson is the leader of the Democratic Conference.
JOHN SAMPSON: We don't have to like one another, but we need to respect one another. It's not about the governor. It's not about the legislature. It's about the people of the State of New York.
SMITH: Standing near Governor Paterson as he delivered his State of the State was the man who may challenge him later this year for the Democratic nomination: New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Polls show that Cuomo would win a primary battle against Paterson by almost 40 points. But the governor had a parting shot in his speech for anyone who wants to write his political obituary.
PATERSON: Some say that we will not succeed, that the story has already been written and the ending is the ordained. But storylines change and people change.
SMITH: Robert Smith, NPR News, New York.
TONY MCVEIGH: I'm Tony McVeigh in Frankfurt, Kentucky. Kentucky's financial problems pale in comparison to those in California and New York. But the Commonwealth does have its own budget woes. Since taking office in December 2007, Governor Steve Beshear has trimmed state spending six times to the tune of almost a billion dollars. And with the state still facing a huge deficit this fiscal year, Beshear just ordered most state agencies to trim spending by another three percent. The governor's now busy crafting a new two-year budget plan.
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U: The chair now calls to order this first joint session of the 2010 General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
MCVEIGH: In last night's State of the Commonwealth Address, Governor Beshear warned of more deficits ahead, possibly reaching $1.6 billion.
MCVEIGH: We're facing a huge deficit that will require us to make painful decisions about where we spend money. It will require sacrifice and restraint, but folks, this challenge can be overcome.
MCVEIGH: Last year, lawmakers raised taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. But this is an election year in Kentucky, and Governor Beshear says he won't pursue further tax hikes, especially in a recession. But the governor says the state can't stay stagnant.
MCVEIGH: I refuse to use this recession as an excuse not to move forward. I refuse to hunker down and hide, to just wait out this storm, to passively accept the economic situation that others have created for us.
MCVEIGH: And Beshear says Kentucky's not alone. Many other states are in far worse shape.
MCVEIGH: Many have undertaken radical solutions involving cuts to core priorities, mass layoffs, broad-base tax increases. But because of fiscal restraint and strategic thinking in the early days of this recession by all of us, Kentucky is in better condition. But our work has only begun.
MCVEIGH: But the Democratic governor's remarks drew a tepid response from Senate President David Williams. The Republican leader says Beshear still hasn't done enough to cut state spending.
S: If his budget deficit or shortfall is really $1.6 billion as he proposes to be, he's going to have to get very serious about proposing additional cuts in the budget and get into the base. I haven't seen that yet up to this juncture.
MCVEIGH: For NPR News, I'm Tony McVeigh in Frankfurt, Kentucky.
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INSKEEP: It's NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
NPR's business news starts with a surprise prediction from General Motors.
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BRAND: Ed Whitaker, GM's chairman and CEO says he thinks the struggling company will turn a profit this year. That would be the first time that's happened since 2004. It's a bold forecast, and it depends on a number of factors outside the company's control. The economy would have to get better and many people would have to go back to work. A profitable year for GM would be a good thing for taxpayers. The company is just out of bankruptcy. It still owes the government roughly $50 billion.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
In Phoenix this week, a regional airline, the Mesa Air Group, filed for bankruptcy. It's the latest bad news for a state that's been slammed by the recession. And we have more this morning from member station KJZZ and reporter Peter O'Dowd.
PETER O: CEO Jonathan Ornstein says regional business travel has taken a hit.
JONATHAN ORNSTEIN: There's just more aircraft out there than the current demand justifies, and these aircraft serve communities where business travel is the bulk of the traffic.
DOWD: Glenn Hammer is the president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce.
GLENN HAMMER: Unfortunately, for a lot of businesses in Arizona, it's not an isolated example. You know, since the recession began about two years ago, Arizona has lost about 300,000 jobs. We've lost over 10 percent of our entire workforce.
DOWD: Hammer says Mesa's bankruptcy hurts, but he hopes it presents an opportunity.
HAMMER: Our hope is that they would emerge healthier and stronger. We just feel this points to the absolute need to create the most business-friendly climate in this state.
DOWD: For NPR News, I'm Peter O'Dowd.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
Corey Takahashi reports.
COREY TAKAHASHI: When the musicians of Mariachi Plaza have no customers to perform for, they'll stroll the sidewalks and find ways of entertaining themselves.
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MARIACHI BAND: (singing) Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
TAKAHASHI: The plaza is surrounded by Mexican restaurants, music stores and budget housing - an entire mariachi infrastructure crammed within a couple blocks. But the mariachis say the main thing missing is work. Some are only getting one-third of the gigs they were a few years ago. A mariachi named Luis Molina says the plaza's a buyer's market, but customers should be careful.
BRAND: Most people just trust them, you know, and they trust them by the way they talk, by the way they look, and that's about it.
TAKAHASHI: He says some bogus mariachis just learn a handful of songs, then pass themselves off as pros.
BRAND: Giving the people the wrong image of mariachi. Mariachi's more than just knowing a couple songs. We're decent people, and we carry this culture throughout generations.
TAKAHASHI: Mariachi Plaza's facing economic forces from outside of the community, too.
U: The next stop is Mariachi Plaza station.
TAKAHASHI: In November, L.A. opened a new Metro train route that connects the once-isolated plaza to downtown. Janet Favela, an organizer with the East L.A. Community Corporation, says new investment in this area has raised rents and brought more scrutiny to its many street vendors. Favela says the mariachis could be a target of quality-of-life campaigns.
BRAND: It's been OK so far. They've been here for at least 20, 30 years. But like, will it continue to be OK?
TAKAHASHI: Luis Molina still stops by the plaza, but like a small but growing number of mariachis, he's also devised a Web strategy to book gigs.
BRAND: The way that I do it is, I go through the Internet, but they're all price shoppers, and that's when instead of helping, the technology of the Internet is actually not helping so much in that sense, where I have to lower so much the prices.
TAKAHASHI: Vanessa Canchola discovered Molina's band, Mariachi Estrella, on the Web. She works as an assistant at the manufacturing company L.A. Lighting. She was trying to find entertainment for recent company parties.
BRAND: Well, I just went to Google, and I searched mariachi, and I seen Mariachi Estrella.
TAKAHASHI: Because, you know, there's a Mariachi Plaza in Los Angeles, and some people go there. What would turn you off to that - or make you choose the Internet versus, like, picking up a mariachi on the street?
BRAND: Because I don't know anything about mariachi, so I just went to the Internet, and the Internet helped me.
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BRAND: I don't even know what you just said about the plaza. I didn't even know that.
TAKAHASHI: She didn't take the traditional route, but she got traditional results. Molina and his bandmates arrive in black charro outfits, greet the audience of factory workers, then fill this warehouse in suburban El Monte with music and dance from Mexico.
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MARIACHI ESTRELLA: (singing) Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
TAKAHASHI: For NPR News, I'm Corey Takahashi.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
Here in Washington, big changes to the nation's banking system are being considered. Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd will retire this year - he runs the Senate Banking Committee. What Dodd's announcement means for banking overhaul is the subject of our next story by NPR's Audie Cornish.
AUDIE CORNISH: In his retirement announcement in Connecticut, yesterday, Dodd said that after nearly 30 years of enjoying voter confidence he finds himself in the toughest political shape of his career.
CHRISTOPHER DODD: Let me quickly add that there have been times when my positions and actions have caused some of you to question that confidence. I regret that. But it's equally important that you know that I have never wavered in my determination to do the best job, to do the best job for our state and our nation.
CORNISH: Dodd was cleared of any wrongdoing, but Quinnipiac University pollster Doug Schwartz says the damage was done.
DOUG SCHWARTZ: It looked like he was, you know, too cozy with the financial industry - the AIG bonus controversy, another example of him, perhaps, looking like he was too cozy with the financial industry. So, those kinds of things really hurt him.
CORNISH: Dodd spent the last year trying to repair the damage by boosting consumer-friendly issues, such as the passage of new credit card regulations. And his initial drafts of the financial regulatory overhaul were stronger than those of the House or the Obama administration.
BRAND: Is the financial industry cheering or booing?
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SCOTT TALBOTT: Neither, neither.
CORNISH: Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable.
TALBOTT: Many have argued that he's moved to the left, to hard left, and many argue that that's a result of the politics and the need to prove or demonstrate to Connecticut voters that he's a populist. With the election removed, those forces will be removed from the equation and therefore might make it easier to craft a bipartisan reg reform bill.
CORNISH: But consumer lobbyists, such as Travis Plunkett, remain optimistic about Dodd's role.
TRAVIS PLUNKETT: Well, it's also an incentive for him to speak his mind, to call the issues as he sees him, to stop special interest deals that the public doesn't know about but that harm their interest.
CORNISH: And economist Vince Reinhart of the American Enterprise Institute, says Senator Dodd's retirement improves the chances of passing a bill.
VINCE REINHART: He's taken this opportunity to create his legacy, to put a capstone to it, namely significant financial reform. So, my betting actually is he will be more aggressive; he will be more ambitious.
CORNISH: Audie Cornish, NPR News, Washington.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
News of Christopher Dodd's retirement has one effect in the Senate and possibly another in this fall's elections.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Here's the way political analysts might think through a development like this: okay, Dodd was an incumbent and incumbents tend to have many advantages. So, in theory, Madeleine, that's bad for Democrats trying to keep his seat.
BRAND: But he was unpopular incumbent and it's a Democratic-leaning state, so there is a good chance a different Democrat can hold the seat for the party.
INSKEEP: This is one of many elections that will affect the Senate's balance of power, and NPR News analyst Juan Williams has been watching them. He's on the line once again. Juan, good morning.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Let's remember what's at stake here: the Democrats have a big advantage in the Senate - 60 out of 100 senators, if you count two Independents that vote with them most of the time. What's it mean though if Democrats were just to lose a seat or two or three?
WILLIAMS: All of that would have to be forced in this season right before the November election to say it's something that the Democrats can do and prevent the Republicans from filibustering or blocking that legislative movement.
INSKEEP: Now, I suppose time could be even shorter than we think here, because most of these elections are in the fall. The Democrats have the 60 for year in theory, but there's a test on January 19 - a special election for a vacant Senate seat in Massachusetts.
WILLIAMS: You know, political analysts right now are saying they could win 20 to 30 seats in the House. They could, as we've just said, end the filibuster-proof 60 in the Senate.
INSKEEP: Well, let's talk a little bit more about the Senate here. We mentioned Christopher Dodd - he's retiring. Democrats would seem to have a good chance at least to hold onto that seat, but there was another retirement in North Dakota where it's a bit of a redder state.
WILLIAMS: But that seat, as you said, is likely to go to the Republicans. Democrats in Connecticut, though, are probably, you know, not too sorry about Dodd going. Dodd's a great guy - don't mistake me - but the attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, there, is very popular and he may be a stronger Democratic candidate versus the Republican contenders - Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon.
INSKEEP: And let's just remember here: if Republicans, Juan, as you say, can just gain one seat or two or three, say, that that would give them a lot more power in the Senate. The Democrats seem to be vulnerable to lose some, but the Democrats have a chance to win some as well because Republicans have six senators retiring.
WILLIAMS: So, Republicans are on the defensive too.
INSKEEP: And in a couple of seconds here, what about incumbents who are facing challenges?
WILLIAMS: Well, you start with the two Democrats - Gillibrand in New York; Michael Bennett in Colorado - so, at least, you know, possibly primary challenges. A lot going on there - Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania as well.
INSKEEP: Some of the calculations that may affect the results of the 2010 elections from NPR News analyst Juan Williams. Juan, thanks very much.
WILLIAMS: You're welcome, Steve.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
Hi, Mike.
MIKE PESCA: Hi.
BRAND: All right. So I understand that this whole thing, this incident, began with a gambling debt.
PESCA: And then what happened next, which was recently reported today by the Washington Post, they put out more details, apparently Crittenton responded to this - what Arenas called a joke - Crittenton responded to this by grabbing his own gun and loading it and chambering a round.
BRAND: He just happened to have a gun on him in the locker room?
PESCA: He has invented a secret identify for himself and he calls himself Agent Zero. He yells Hibachi before he shoots. So he's seen as this quirky guy. And even on his Twitter feed he always talks about laughter curing the pain. And he liked to make a joke of everything. And of course this joke went horribly too far and he faces federal charges. He faces perhaps city charges. And the NBA just wasn't having any of it. And the NBA did not like how he reacted to the incident afterwards, what he twittered and what he acted like during pre-game player introductions in a game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday.
BRAND: So, yeah, so they're not amused at all. He's joking around. He's on Twitter - guns, ha-ha. And David Stern says, no, you are going to be suspended without pay. And that's a lot of pay, right?
PESCA: Yeah, he has a $111 million contract. He's in the second year of that. He's owed $80 million. And so you know, in official statements, Arenas, I guess, struck the right tone, or whoever helped him with his official statements. He said things like, joke or not, I now recognize what I did was a mistake and I was wrong.
BRAND: and perhaps even worse.
BRAND: So, Mike, what's the next size 13 shoe to drop?
PESCA: We, you know, it could be the loss of the rest of his contract. That happened with Plaxico Burress, who's an NFL player who pled guilty to a guns charge. Could be a long suspension. The NBA is taking guns in the locker room as seriously as they could take anything.
BRAND: Well, what about this guy Crittenton?
PESCA: What Arenas says is that he was trying to cover up for Crittenton and this is why he took all of the blame. But right now the authorities are saying that it's going to be very hard to bring a charge against Crittenton because there's no proof that he ever even had a gun or that the gun was even real. But Arenas admitted to bringing his guns to the locker room because he wanted to take them out of his house.
BRAND: This is NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. We have here a list of a few of the federal agencies charged with keeping us safe.
BRAND: NCTC.
INSKEEP: NSA.
BRAND: CIA.
INSKEEP: NSC.
BRAND: DHS.
INSKEEP: DOD.
BRAND: FBI.
INSKEEP: DOS. Post-9/11 reforms were supposed to streamline and coordinate the intelligence that all these agencies gather.
BRAND: Hi, Mary Louise.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: Hi, Madeleine.
BRAND: Well, paint us a picture, if you will, of how all these agencies, this alphabet soup of agencies, are supposed to work together post-9/11. I understand that representatives from them actually sit down together pretty regularly.
LOUISE KELLY: And I should mention, later today the White House is releasing a version of its first findings on the Christmas Day attack. We're expecting the president to announce some more of the steps he's taking to strengthen the system. So we'll be watching for that and any changes that he may choose to announce.
BRAND: Right. Well, walk us through what happens now with a hypothetical incident. Let's say the CIA gets a tip about someone at a terrorist training camp in Yemen. What is supposed to happen?
LOUISE KELLY: Sometimes it seems just to take a while for the system to catch up with itself. For example, an interesting twist today is that the L.A. Times is reporting in the case of Abdul Mutallab - this is the alleged bomber on Christmas Day - U.S. border enforcement officials actually did discover his extremist links in the terrorist database, but while he was airborne, while he was on that plane to Detroit, and that they were apparently planning to question him when he landed. By then, of course, it would've been too late.
BRAND: Right. Well, one of the recommendations from the 9/11 commission was a better computer system, computer systems that actually talk to each other between the various agencies. Has that been changed? Have those systems been upgraded?
LOUISE KELLY: When I was out just a few weeks ago at NCTC, I asked the current director whether this is better, has it changed. And he said it's better. Technology's better, but it's still a big challenge.
BRAND: Well, clearly the system didn't work on Christmas Day. Is there a sense that this reorganized intelligence community works at least better than it did before 9/11 in other incidents?
LOUISE KELLY: Again, an incident like Christmas Day underscores there's a lot of work still to be done.
BRAND: Could it be, Mary Louise, that there is just too much bureaucracy, that more is actually less?
LOUISE KELLY: I think that that is the sense now. We have since 9/11 created this Director of National Intelligence, the National Counterterrorism Center, the NCTC we've been talking about. I think before 9/11 the thinking was, you all these different spy agencies but no one focused on running the overall intelligence effort. One way to think about it is, you had a lot of spokes on the wheel but no hub. Now a reasonable question is, do we have too many hubs?
BRAND: Mary Louis Kelly is NPR's national security correspondent. Thank you.
LOUISE KELLY: Thank you.
MADELEINE BRAND, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
A State Department official is offering NPR a detailed explanation how elaborate security measures set up after 9/11 did not stop a would-be bomber.
BRAND: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. Nobody cancelled the Nigerian's visa, even though his father warned of his links to extremists.
INSKEEP: Where and when did Abdulmutallab receive a multiple-entry visa to the United States?
PATRICK KENNEDY: He received a multiple-entry visa to the United States at the American Embassy in London in 2008, and he had previously received a multiple-entry visa to the United States at the American Embassy in Nigeria in 2006.
INSKEEP: What reason did Abdulmutallab give for wanting a multiple-entry visa to the United States?
KENNEDY: Tourism.
INSKEEP: And that's a perfectly good reason.
KENNEDY: Perfectly good reason. We - tourism is one of the largest industries in the United States, and once we have met the threshold of national security, we encourage international commerce, including tourism, because it creates jobs in the United States.
INSKEEP: And what was done with this visa to ensure that it met the threshold of national security?
KENNEDY: Every visa application that the State Department receives, the individual's interviewed, has their fingerprints taken. That application is then put into the State Department's computer system and run against a database that is updated continuously.
INSKEEP: So, in 2008, these data checks turned up nothing, and so far as we know, even today, there wasn't anything to find in any American database of that time.
KENNEDY: Well, I know, that there was no information in any database when the visa was issued in 2008. There was nothing in his record that would say that he was a threat to the United States.
INSKEEP: So it gets to November 19, if I'm not mistaken.
KENNEDY: Right.
INSKEEP: Mr. Abdulmutallab's father goes into the United States consulate in Lagos, Nigeria. What is your understanding of the way that he expressed his concerns about his son?
KENNEDY: Well, my understanding is that he expressed his concern that his son had disappeared. He was concerned about his absence and that he may have come under the influence of extremists. And the counselor section immediately submitted a report to Washington and to the intelligence and law enforcement communities saying that here are the individual's names. Here are the particulars: his passport number, date and place of birth, and the comment that his father has reported, what I just said to you. And then we wait for instructions from the intelligence community to say, is this information, in your minds, sufficient to be of concern? Do you have any other information?
INSKEEP: You're saying everybody knew or should have known what you knew about this individual.
KENNEDY: When we filed a report, we send this report electronically to Washington, and through the electronic distribution system, it goes to every U.S. government agency involved in the national security clearance process involving law enforcement and the intelligence communities.
INSKEEP: What kind of report was this, involving Abdulmutallab and his father?
KENNEDY: The process that we follow when the information comes to the attention of the State Department and their counselor section is called Visas Viper. And you submit it to a range of U.S. government agencies in Washington.
INSKEEP: Is it called Visas Viper because it really is all about the credibility of visas and whether they should be maintained or revoked?
KENNEDY: It is all about telling the Washington headquarters that a concern has been raised. Here is a piece of information that we've - that has come into our possession: You, the community writ large, you tell us, do you have any pieces of information on this individual that will then guide the actions that we take?
INSKEEP: Did you get anything back?
KENNEDY: No.
INSKEEP: No information, whatsoever?
KENNEDY: No.
INSKEEP: Did the State Department or that counselor section there in Nigeria have enough information on its own to raise questions or even revoke that visa? Because the most incriminating piece of information about the gentleman was in your possession, it seems.
KENNEDY: We had his father's statement of concerns. And therefore, we take those very, very seriously, which is why we sent it in to all the appropriate agencies and said, what does this piece of information mean to you?
INSKEEP: But you didn't have enough on your own?
KENNEDY: We - there was not sufficient information in and of itself, is what we were told, to revoke the visa. Another thing I might say is that the process developed by the community following 9/11 calls for this collective approach. There are cases that arise where the law enforcement or intelligence communities actually want the person to come to the United States.
INSKEEP: They may like to arrest them under American law, say.
KENNEDY: They might like to arrest them. They might like to follow them.
INSKEEP: So in your judgment, did anything go wrong here?
KENNEDY: Oh, I think the president and the secretary of state have said that this was not the way the process should have worked.
INSKEEP: Mr. Kennedy, thanks very much.
KENNEDY: Certainly, my pleasure.
INSKEEP: So that's one perspective on what went wrong from Patrick Kennedy of the State Department.
BRAND: Another source explains what happened to the father's warning when it was passed on to Washington. A law enforcement source tells NPR the advisory reached the National Counter-Terrorism Center. Analysts there weren't sure the father was credible, so the center simply put the son's name on a list of people with possible extremists links, a list of half a million names.
INSKEEP: And on Christmas Day, yet another agency, Border Security, noticed his name on that list. Abdulmutallab was already on a plane, already in the air. The Los Angeles Times reports that border officials were planning to question him after the plane landed in Detroit.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION.
P: You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
If you've heard the band OK Go, it may have been on the internet.
OK GO (Band): (Singing) ...here it goes, here it goes, here it goes again. Oh, here it goes again.
BRAND: Viewers clicked on the band's 2006 video "Here It Goes Again" 50 million times. It shows four goofy guys on treadmills in skinny pants and neckties. They leap, jog, slide and duck from treadmill to treadmill. Three minutes of video led to nearly three years of non-stop touring. Next week, OK Go has a new album coming out. It's called "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky."
Singer Damian Kulash and bass player Tim Nordwind were inspired this time by a record they first played in elementary school: Prince's "Purple Rain."
(Soundbite of song "Darling Nikki")
PRINCE (Singer): (Singing) It said thank you for a funky time. Call me up whenever you want to grind.
Mr. TIM NORDWIND (Bass player, OK Go): I mean I remember hearing it as a 12-year-old kid and it made me jump on my bed. It made me feel like crying. It like - it really sort of fills a spectrum of emotions, which I think this record that we made kind of also does a little bit.
Mr. DAMIAN KULASH (Singer, OK Go): This is Damian, the singer. And what's weird about "Purple Rain" is that it's such a sexy record and I didn't know what any of that meant at 12, you know, like, when Nikki started to grind, I was like, she's got - she should get like a mouth guard or something.
I had no idea what he was talking about, but like, the emotional propulsion of that song is - I mean it's so raunchy even before you know what sex is, you know.
BRAND: Right, right. And even the way in one of the songs, I think it's "Skyscrapers," you shriek.
Mr. KULASH: Oh yeah, there's a real...
BRAND: That's a very Prince-y shriek.
Mr. KULASH: It is a very Prince-y shriek, yeah.
(Soundbite of song "Skyscrapers")
Mr. KULASH: (Singing) Yeah, I was blind. I was blind. I was blind.
BRAND: Now you recorded this album far, far away from where you live in Los Angeles.
Mr. KULASH: Yes.
Mr. NORDWIND: Yes, that's right. Yeah, this is Tim. Yeah, we recorded it in Fredonia, New York, which is almost Canada. We were basically locked up for 12 weeks in a converted Amish barn. There was like 24 feet of snow every day and I - there was some weeks where, you know, we just wouldn't even leave the cabin, 'cause we lived and recorded in this barn basically.
BRAND: So how much of the sound - this new sound, because the sound, it's got a lot of effects on it, and what's it called, with a guitar kind of sounding like it's...
Mr. NORDWIND: Exploding.
BRAND: Exploding, yeah. Or overmodulated.
Mr. NORDWIND: Yeah, there was a lot of plugging stuff in. You know, sort of like, that sounds awesome, let's plug in something else. So it makes it very spontaneous at the same time that it's very overthought, you know, and that's a good process for us 'cause we're people who tend to overthink everything.
BRAND: Give me an example off this album of some of that spontaneity that you just mentioned.
Mr. KULASH: The song "Skyscrapers..."
BRAND: Um-hum.
Mr. KULASH: The end of that song, the way we tracked that was Dan the drummer and me, Damian, I was playing guitar. At the end, Dan was supposed to sort of just watch me for a cue to end the song, but he'd gotten really, really into the groove and so the entire guitar solo at the end of that song, which is like 45 seconds, is me trying to get his attention, just trying to get him to look up. And I never would have written a guitar solo that way, but it's perfect for the song.
Mr. NORDWIND: Yeah, that is great.
BRAND: Should we hear it?
Mr. NORDWIND: Sure.
(Soundbite of music, "Skyscrapers")
Mr. KULASH: Look up, Dan.
(Soundbite of music, "Skyscrapers")
Mr. KULASH: Dan?
(Soundbite of music, "Skyscrapers")
Mr. KULASH: I mean if there's ever a cue to stop a song, it's like Dan, I'm not even playing, it was just...
Mr. NORDWIND: Yeah, it was just one man. Anytime.
(Soundbite of music, "Skyscrapers")
BRAND: Is it just me or is there a tone of melancholy throughout this album?
Mr. KULASH: The record sort of is kind of, I think, our attempt to find hope in hopeless situations. You know, we toured for 31 months on our last record and that basically destroys everything in your life.
Mr. NORDWIND: It takes a toll on you emotionally, personally.
BRAND: So you both sacrificed personal relationships for the band?
Mr. KULASH: Not intentionally necessarily, but it - yeah, you wind up three years later a totally different person unsure of how you've gotten there, kind of.
Mr. NORDWIND: And it's a strange thing to look back, and eventually we all sort of ended up at a point where all the sudden we were back at home sitting in some chair or in our bed going, like, oh my God did - I think we - I think we won a Grammy. I'm not quite sure, but I think I remember that.
Mr. KULASH: Well, and, you know, I hate being complaining, like, oh it's so difficult being on tour, because it's not. It's wonderful. I mean it's a dream come true, but you - sometimes when you get your dreams, then you realize, like, when you come back to real life, like, this is my life?
BRAND: Is there a song on this album that sort of gets at that, that moment where you get back you realize what do I have, what am I doing?
Mr. KULASH: Oh boy, I feel like a lot of the songs sort of have that.
BRAND: Yeah.
Mr. KULASH: I think the song that's closest to that is probably "Before the Earth Was Round."
Mr. NORDWIND: Um-hum.
Mr. KULASH: It's a sort of absurdist allegory where the whole world goes and they figure out the Earth is round. And they have knowledge now, and everything goes wrong because of it. And you know, they sort of lose - they lose mystery and poetry.
BRAND: The bite of the apple.
Mr. KULASH: Yes, it is the bite of the apple, exactly.
(Soundbite of music)
OK GO: (Singing) Before the earth was round, and there was no end to things. No one tried to measure what they knew...
Mr. KULASH: The challenge for us personally, especially in making this record was to keep it creative and to be looking for the things that actually turn us on creatively, as opposed to following the pattern that works.
BRAND: Um-hum.
Mr. KULASH: Because even when you're not wildly successful financially, and even when you're not at the top of the charts, anything that works gives everybody a reason to sort of push you in the direction of that thing that worked and you can spend your life sort of imitating yourself.
And it - and we had some things on our last record that were wildly successful and coming home and trying to figure out how to play the part of yourself, you know, like, how am I going to be that person that wrote this thing four or five years ago and who I just don't associate myself with at all anymore. It takes like some pretty big acts of courage, I think, to just be like, I am not going to do anything like I did last time.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. KULASH: We'd been having to describe this record - it's really difficult because it's a very like contradictory record. It's the happiest thing we've ever made and the saddest thing we've ever made. It's - we're proud of it. That part's good.
Mr. NORDWIND: Whatever it is.
Mr. KULASH: Yeah.
BRAND: Well, thank you both for coming in.
Mr. NORDWIND: You're welcome. Thanks for having us.
Mr. KULASH: Thank you.
BRAND: That's Damian Kulash and Tim Nordwind of the band OK Go.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: You can find a link to their latest music video and the making of it at npr.org.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Now, an Asian economy that's headed in the opposite direction. Within a year, China is likely to replace Japan as the world's second-largest economy. It's already kicked Germany from its position as the world's biggest exporter. China may look like a global power, but as NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing, China is also still a developing nation.
Mr. ANTHONY KUHN: It's a common news item these days, foreign emissaries traveling to Beijing to seek its cooperation on some global issue - take something like emissions cuts.
Tsinghua University economist Hu Angang says that, as goes China, so goes the world.
Mr. HU ANGANG (Economist, Tsinghua University): (Through translator) China will be at the core of the global trend of emissions reductions. China already accounts for a fifth of humanity. And in the future, China will account for 40 to 50 percent of the increase in new emissions. That's why the whole world is so concerned about when China's emissions will peak.
KUHN: In other words, because of its sheer size, China's importance in world affairs has outstripped its level of development or its capabilities. It's become a key global player without either the wealth or military muscle of a superpower.
Beijing's response to foreign concerns has been to emphasize that it is still a developing country with limited means.
In a recent interview with state media, Premier Wen Jiabao explained why development would remain China's priority.
Premier WEN JIABAO (China): (Foreign language spoken)
KUHN: A huge population, big regional differences in development and widespread poverty, he said, this is still China's basic situation.
So is China still a developing country? Well, it is and it isn't, says Tsinghua's Hu Angang. For one, he argues, economic disparities among China's regions are too great to generalize about the whole country. And, he says, the situation is too complex to use one measurement. China's per capita economic output, for example, isn't even among the top 100 nations.
But, Hu says, it's a totally different picture if you factor in health, education and the purchasing power of the local currency.
Mr. HU: (Through translator) In 1982, most Chinese were living in Third or Fourth World conditions. By 2006, a third of Chinese were living at First World standards. Two-thirds were at Second World standards, and only Tibet was in the Third World.
KUHN: Hu predicts that by these broader measurements, two-thirds of Chinese will be living at developed world levels in a decade. Analysts believe this is likely because China is in an economic growth spurt that could last for years. Part of this developmental phase is a ravenous appetite for energy, resources and consumer goods.
China Academy of Social Sciences climate expert Pan Jiahua says that as a latecomer to energy markets, China feels like it's attracting an unfair share of scrutiny.
Mr. PAN JIAHUA (Climate expert, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences): (Through translator) When China goes somewhere to obtain oil or natural resources; it draws a lot of international attention. This doesn't happen to U.S. or European countries. What we're doing is normal, but some people in those countries feel that we're stealing their resources.
KUHN: China's leadership realizes that the current phase of development carries big risks of social inequality and unrest. Many scholars say that lowering these risks requires political reform. But that's something for which, critics say, Beijing's appetite has been less than robust.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
MADELINE BRAND, host:
President Obama said yesterday that there will be increased passenger screening at airports, and that will include expanded use of whole body imaging scanners. Some airports have started using these devices, which can basically see through your clothes. And that has raised privacy concerns. Some in Congress want to limit their use. NPRs Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD: Security experts say that these full-body scanners work a lot better than the metal detectors commonly in use. Those don't detect explosives at all. And they say a lot of the privacy issues have been solved.
Mr. JOE REISS (American Science and Engineering): And that initiates the scan process. The scan itself takes about eight seconds.
(Soundbite of machinery)
ARNOLD: To take a look at the technology, I went to one of the companies that makes these scanners, American Science and Engineering. Joe Reiss is the VP of marketing. He helped me to hide a small package of fake explosives around my ankle.
Mr. REISS: There we go. Up.
ARNOLD: Okay. I've got some plastic explosives in my boot. So, all right. So then we'd walk in and I stand in front of a scanner over here or...
Mr. REISS: Yep. Exactly. We'll start the scan.
ARNOLD: Okay.
(Soundbite of scanner)
ARNOLD: Their scanner is about the size of a tall refrigerator and you just stand in front of it with your arms away from your sides.
Mr. REISS: And this is you right here on the display. Here's your little fancy microphone device down here at your hip.
ARNOLD: Um-hum.
Mr. REISS: And then here's the simulate that you put into your shoe, explosive simulate. And this bulge here around your ankle is an obviously anomaly.
ARNOLD: As far as privacy, the image on the monitor is definitely not very revealing. The system is configured with privacy software, so you can't see my face or really any body features at all. It looks more like while I stood there somebody traced a chalk or charcoal outline of me.
Mr. REISS: Yeah, it does look like charcoal. That's a good way to describe it. We're not really showing any, you know, detail of the person themselves. It's really just confined to the outline, almost silhouette-ish in nature.
ARNOLD: You can see what these body scans look like at npr.org. Also at airports, the people who view such images are off in another room in the airport, away from the passengers, so they have no idea who they're actually looking at. And so Reiss thinks that the privacy concerns have been addressed and airports should be doing a lot more full-body imaging scans.
Mr. REISS: The threat's real. We saw it with Flight 253. It's a near-miss. It's unfortunate, but it's the world we live in. And these personal screening systems provide, by far, the best detection capability you can get for finding threats on people.
ARNOLD: Still, some lawmakers remain concerned. Jason Chaffetz is a Republican congressman from Utah who co-authored a bill to block wider use of whole-body scans. He says he did that after seeing other types of these whole-body imaging scans that airports have been testing that he says were more anatomically revealing.
Representative Jason CHAFFETZ (Republican, Utah): Do we really need to take nude pictures of grandmas and my eight-year-old daughter in order to be able to secure an airplane? I just - I have a hard time with that.
ARNOLD: Chaffetz says as the privacy software gets better he might end up supporting the technology, but he's clearly uncomfortable with it. And he says there are other options, for instance, more bomb-sniffing dogs.
Mr. DOUGLAS LAIRD (Security Expert): He was - it's nonsensical and he's ill-advised.
ARNOLD: Douglas Laird is the former head of security for Northwest Airlines. He's in favor of the technology, and he doesn't like the current policy which allows passengers to opt out. They can choose a pat-down instead. So even if the few airports that have whole-body imaging scanners, the one guy who actually might have a bomb in his pants can avoid getting scanned.
Mr. LAIRD: You've got a difficulty finding it patting people down because the reluctance to really touch people, and so the privacy people have raised a fuss about it. But if you want to keep bombs off airplanes, it's a gap that really needs filling.
ARNOLD: Meanwhile, the government says it's planning to deploy 300 more full-body scanning machines at airports and the issue is on the agenda at congressional hearings later this month.
Chris Arnold, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It is Friday morning, when we make a few American lives a little more transparent. People sit down to answer questions from people they love in our series StoryCorps. And today we will hear from Larry Hoover, who spoke with his granddaughter, Anastasia Garcia, about growing up in New Mexico. As a teenager, he'd gotten in trouble with neighborhood gangs.
Mr. LARRY HOOVER: As a kid growing up in Santa Fe, we had the Lucianitos on one side of where we lived and we had the West Siders on the other side. So on Friday nights I would fight with the Lucianitos and on Saturday I would fight with the West Side. There was no knives and no guns. It's, you know, part of growing up.
And my mother would tell me, if you don't straighten yourself out, you're going to end up going to Springer, and Springer was a penal institution for juveniles. And lo and behold, my mother was right. Thirty years later I went to Springer, but I went as a teacher. They needed a graphic arts instructor and I had my own print shop.
And at that time there was no fence around Springer, so if they ran away, they could get away real easy. But in the five and a half years that I taught, I never had an escape. We had some really, really tough little boys there. I treated them like humans, even though what they did was wrong. They were there for a reason, to learn something and to better themselves.
And I would reward them on a Friday with a barbeque or I'd take them to the movie. I'd take them in a bus without no guards. My pencil was my weapon, was my sword. 'Cause if I gave them a zero for the day, they couldn't watch TV, they couldn't go to canteen, which is the little store where they go and buy their goodies. So that was my sword.
And not too long ago I got a phone call from one of the boys there. He called me from El Paso, Texas and he says, Mr. Hoover, this is Rudy. And I said, how you doing, Rudy. He says, well, you know, I'm the manager of a press here in El Paso, Texas and we're going to open another store. Would you like to come and work for me? And I told him, oh, I'm retired. No thanks. But that to me was my reward.
Ms. ANASTASIA GARCIA: He did good.
Mr. HOOVER: I taught him good and he did good.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: That's Larry Hoover with his granddaughter Anastasia Garcia. Their conversation is part of StoryCorps Historias, which is recording Latino voices around the country. And today's interview will be archived with all the others in a project at the Library of Congress. You can subscribe to the podcast at NPR.org.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
The question is: Where is that war? The American presence in Afghanistan is approaching 100,000 troops, and yet the attempted airline bombing on Christmas Day was planned in Yemen and allegedly carried out by a Nigerian.
NPR's Jackie Northam talks to experts about where the U.S. should be looking.
JACKIE NORTHAM: One of the hallmarks of al-Qaida and affiliates is their flexibility: They can quickly pick up and move, adapt and merge as circumstances require. That can make it difficult for U.S. and Western intelligence and counterterrorism agencies to track the Islamist group.
Sajjan Gohel, the director for international security at the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, points to Yemen. He says despite military training and financial assistance from U.S. officials on the ground there, terrorist groups were still able to form coalitions and plan attacks like the one on Northwest Airlines Christmas Day.
Mr. SAJJAN GOHEL (Director for International Security, Asia-Pacific Foundation): That is something that has been going now for the last many years. It's not a new development, but it's only caught our attention following the Christmas Day terrorist plot.
NORTHAM: And it was a sobering reminder that al-Qaida still has the U.S. in its sights.
The incident has raised many questions: whether there's another potential and similar threat elsewhere. Gohel points to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, an organization based in Algeria. He says the Caucasus are a concern, and Central Asia.
But there are also growing questions whether enough assistance was provided to Yemen, and are U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism agencies on top of the potential threats, or has too much of the focus been on Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
Gohel says those two countries are still the primary concern, for good reason.
Mr. GOHEL: Afghanistan and Pakistan still is the big challenge, because of the fact that you have the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistan Taliban, al-Qaida central and a whole plethora of other terrorist groups operating in the region.
NORTHAM: But Gohel says there needs to be equal focus on other countries that pose a similar threat, such as Yemen and Somalia.
Michael Kraig, a senior fellow with the Stanley Foundation, agrees, and takes it one step further. Kraig says given that al-Qaida is a global network, the U.S. needs to devote as much attention to all fragile or floundering states worldwide as it does to Afghanistan.
Mr. MICHAEL KRAIG (Senior Fellow, Stanley Foundation): You have to treat fragile states more equally in your monitoring, your intelligence, your diplomacy and your aid programs. Because if you take this lesson out of 9/11, it's all about Afghanistan, well then you end up with the result we've ended up with, which is al-Qaida simply moves to easier pickings.
NORTHAM: There are enormous resources going into Afghanistan: troops, intelligence agents, communications, drones, special forces.
Anthony Cordesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies says some assets are scarce, such as drones, unmanned aerial vehicles.
But Cordesman is adamant that Afghanistan is not soaking up valuable resources.
Mr. ANTHONY CORDESMAN (Center for Strategic and International Studies): Not in intelligence, not in special forces, not in the mix of assets that the intelligence community has to collect data for the kind of missions that currently exist.
NORTHAM: Cordesman disputes that intelligence agents, people who've developed expertise and language skills for a certain region, can be easily shifted from one area to another. He says the battle against jihadism covers most of the globe, which is redefining how the U.S. military and its intelligence and counterterrorism agencies operate.
Mr. CORDESMAN: This is changing the entire structure of U.S. intelligence, and we don't have all of the analysts and all of the assets we need to cover this. And that's not a matter of making trade-offs between Afghanistan and Algeria.
NORTHAM: Cordesman says it may take half a decade before the U.S. develops enough core expertise to cover Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the other trouble spots.
Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.
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BRAND: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
All this week in our series New Jobs For A New Decade, we've been looking at various parts of the economy and finding out where new jobs are likely to be created. And we're going to look this morning at Wall Street. Now, it used to be said that Wall Street profits, whether the market goes up or goes down, doesnt matter as long as the market moves, but not when it goes down as much as it did in the last couple of years. Banks, investment firms and insurance companies have lost about 700,000 jobs. Still, the financial sector has a history of booms and busts and jobs seem certain to come back.
NPRs Jim Zarroli reports on where those jobs are likely to come from.
JIM ZARROLI: Damian Handzy says its a question he hears a lot.
Mr. DAMIAN HANDZY (CEO, Investor Analytics): I do this for my family all the time, right? Dad, what do you do? And, you know, cousin, what do you do?
ZARROLI: What he does is something called risk management.
Mr. HANDZY: I help people understand what types of risks their investments are exposed to, and more importantly, how to mitigate those risks.
ZARROLI: Handzy runs a firm called Investor Analytics. Its hired by institutional investors like hedge funds who want to know how risky their investments are - what will happen to their portfolios if, say, the dollar falls or interest rates rise. The firm does this with the aid of highly complex computer models, some developed here in its Manhattan office.
Handzy is a nuclear physicist. He was part of a wave of scientists and mathematicians who came to Wall Street during the derivatives boom. He says business at his firm slowed down when the market crashed, but lately his small company has had to hire six new people.
Mr. HANDZY: It was sometime during the summer months of 2009 that we began seeing some signs of a thaw in the financial markets. And at that time people began seriously looking at risk management.
ZARROLI: As Wall Street recovers from the crash, many firms want to make sure they don't get saddled with the kind of toxic assets that helped cause the crisis in the first place, so they're trying to come up with better risk management models. It's one of the few areas in finance where jobs are growing right now.
The financial sector lost nearly 10 percent of its jobs over the past three years. Many will never come back, especially in areas like mortgage finance.
Richard Lipstein of Boyden Global Executive Search is a Wall Street recruiter.
Mr. RICHARD LIPSTEIN (Boyden Global Executive Search): If you sold the product that became toxic, that developed a bad reputation, you're going to have a great deal of difficulty getting another job, because, number one, that product is no longer of interest, and number two, you have a somewhat tainted reputation.
ZARROLI: Things won't necessarily be any better if you worked in one of the less controversial corners of the industry. Benjamin Poor of Cerulli Associates says on the one hand more firms are making money these days.
Mr. BENJAMIN POOR (Cerulli Associates): But I think, you know, once bitten twice shy, and they'll be sure to approach new hires with care.
ZARROLI: Poor says a lot of firms over-hired during the boom and don't want to make the same mistake again. But Poor also says hiring is taking place along the fringes. Some firms, like the bond giant PIMCO, are expanding, and they can choose from a huge pool of candidates.
Mr. POOR: We talk to, on a regular basis, people in the industry, some of whom have 20 years' experience, and they're not just, you know, average Joes, but they're really talented individuals who've been out of work for, you know, six to 12 months. And when that type of talent is available, you've got to be able to take advantage of that talent and go out and bring it into your firm.
ZARROLI: Poor says on Wall Street good talent is critical, and this skills glut is a huge opportunity, especially for small, privately held companies that can hire people without worrying about jittery shareholders. Because if the past is any guide, Wall Street will come back.
Finance Professor Roy Smith of NYU's Stern's School of Business says every downturn in the market has been followed by a period of innovation. Somebody came along and invented something that led to another boom, like securitization or derivatives.
Professor ROY SMITH (New York University): Wall Street lives in an environment of bull markets and bear markets, expansion and contraction for at least the last 50 years or so. Every time there's been a slowdown, the businesses have expanded in its wake, and indeed have way exceeded what the businesses were at before.
ZARROLI: Where will the next boom come from? Smith says one possibility is green technology. If there really is a boom in alternative energy, Wall Street will need people who can bring green companies to market or analyze their profit potential. That's just a guess, however. By their very nature, booms are hard to foresee, but when they come they almost always end up making some people very rich and creating jobs in the process.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
The University of Alabama won college football's national championship game last night. Alabama went into it ranked number one. It beat number two-ranked Texas 37 to 21 to clench the BCS Championship. It's Alabama's first title since 1992, and it didn't come easy. NPR's Tom Goldman has more.
TOM GOLDMAN: In this battle of two storied college football programs with two storied football slogans, it was hook 'em horns of Texas that first resounded throughout the Rose Bowl.
Texas was on the move early, passing and running well against Alabama's vaunted defense. To get a feel for the section of the Rose Bowl dressed in Texas burnt orange, I called NPR correspondent Wade Goodwyn, Texas class of '82. His wife had bought him a ticket - nice wife - as a birthday present.
WADE GOODWYN: Even though they said they didn't think we'd be able to run on Alabama, it looks like we're going to be able to run on Alabama - at least early.
GOLDMAN: The excitement of the moment masked the concern by Wade and other Texas fans about their star quarterback, Colt McCoy. On the Longhorn's fifth offensive play of the game, McCoy left with an injured right shoulder. The hit that sent him to the sidelines didn't look that bad. Surely, he'd be back.
But he never returned, and as the second quarter began, roll tide roll became the slogan of the night.
Unidentified Man: Ingram gets the handoff left, into the end zone, touchdown, Alabama.
GOLDMAN: Heisman Trophy-winning running back Mark Ingram rumbled into the end zone for Alabama's first points of the game, as heard here on ESPN radio. They were the first points of many. Alabama led 24-6 at half time. Texas was reeling with a very green freshman quarterback, Garrett Gilbert, at the helm. Longhorns head coach Mac Brown.
Mr. MAC BROWN (Head football coach, Texas Longhorns): You know, here's a guy on the sidelines standing there cold as could be, and all the sudden in the National Championship game you say, OK son, you got it. So I can't even imagine.
GOLDMAN: Brown says he told Gilbert, you're a good player. It's a hard learning curve, and you've got to learn fast. And wouldn't you know it, in the second half, Gilbert fired a 44-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Shipley. Then in the fourth quarter, this...
Unidentified Man: (unintelligible) Shipley's open - touchdown Texas. Wow. He got wide-open, down the right side.
GOLDMAN: The 28-yard TD pass to Shipley and a two-point conversion made the score 24 to 21. Suddenly, a great game - just as suddenly, over. Gilbert's magic ran out when he fumbled after getting blasted by an Alabama defender. A few plays later, Ingram put the game out of reach with his second touchdown run. Time expired, Alabama was crowned BCS Champion, and watching in Texas, Joe Barton wondered what could have been - not because he's a Texas fan, but because Congressman Joe Barton has lead the charge for a playoff system in college football.
Representative JOE BARTON (Republican, Texas): The way both Texas and Alabama played tonight, you'd have to say Florida would have given either one of these teams a pretty good game. I think Boise State would have - maybe Ohio State. I mean, you know? If you decided on an open playoff system, it'd be a truer test.
GOLDMAN: The man who's in charge of the current system, BCS Executive Director Bill Hancock, said before the game, the BCS is not completely popular, but I believe in it. Today, a bunch of people wearing Alabama crimson couldn't agree more.
Tom Goldman, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
There are some things that many of us do not do, even though they would save us money, like switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs or buy a new energy efficient refrigerator, or just turn off the lights in an empty room. It's as if we like wasting money. Now, that's not true, of course, but it is a hard problem to fix. NPR's David Kestenbaum from our Planet Money team has more.
DAVID KESTENBAUM (Software Designer, Google): Dan Reicher thinks he knows the solution. Every family just needs to attach this little device to the fusebox in their house. His family did it a few months ago. The device is pretty simple. It just measures the amount of electricity used in the house. He can see the information on a meter in his kitchen or online.
Mr. DAN REICHER (Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google Inc.): And every time I go to Google something or look at the weather or sports or the stocks, there sits my electricity use, in real time.
KESTENBAUM: Can you show me right now?
Mr. REICHER: Yeah. Let's see. I'll look back.
KESTENBAUM: I need to mention that Dan Reicher works for Google, which wrote the piece of software he's using. It's his job to show this stuff off. We met at the climate change talks in Copenhagen, where it was often pointed out that conservation, energy efficiency improvements, those are the easiest ways to begin to combat global warming.
Reicher thinks there's a simple reason we don't do these things: We lack information. On a laptop, he pulls up the information, a very detailed graph. You can see exactly when his family wakes up because the line goes up: The kids turn the lights on. His wife uses her hair dryer. Then there's this other huge spike.
Mr. REICHER: My six-year-old son saw this the other day, and it finally dawned on him. He was looking at our little meter, which normally is at 200 watts, and this thing shoots up to 1,800 watts. He says, daddy, look. And it was simply the toaster, you know, turning electrical energy into massive heat energy to singe this toast.
KESTENBAUM: Every bump or mountain on the chart was a mystery. And he found some easy things he could do to save money.
Mr. REICHER: I kept seeing this big spike, and I began to suspect it was my furnace. So I had my son go in the living room and turn the furnace off using the thermostat, and all of a sudden, within a couple of seconds, I saw this peak just drop precipitously.
KESTENBAUM: It turned out his furnace had a really old, inefficient motor, the thing that blows the heat around the house. So he replaced it. He also got a new refrigerator, which eventually will save him some money. Dan Riker was an assistant secretary at the Energy Department under President Clinton. He and people like him argue if we just had more information, we'll save money and we'll be better people and we'll help the environment.
Mr. REICHER: So at a very general level, we think knowledge is power. And, indeed, in this case, knowledge is less power.
KESTENBAUM: Oh, that was such a - who wrote that line? You wrote that line?
Mr. REICHER: You can send me to the pun-itentiary.
KESTENBAUM: It is true that right now, electricity is kind of a weird commodity. People just get their monthly bill. They don't know what is costing what.
Mr. REICHER: Imagine going into a grocery store and there were no prices on anything. You simply put it in your basket, and the end of the month, you got a bill, you know, pay $671.15. I don't think most people would stand for that.
KESTENBAUM: But there is debate about what effect these so-called smart meters would have. George Loewenstein is a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University.
Professor GEORGE LOEWENSTEIN (Behavioral Economist, Carnegie Mellon University): In fact, some of the information that a smart meter would give you might actually worsen your behavior because, for example, electricity is really amazingly cheap. It's amazingly cheap to air-condition your whole house for a few hours. And if the smart meter is giving you objective information about how much it's costing you, you might be surprised at how cheap it is rather than surprised at how expensive it is.
KESTENBAUM: Loewenstein says there are a lot of tests going on right now to assess the effect of putting in different kinds of smart meters. Some will do the thinking for you.
Prof. LOEWENSTEIN: Like they shut down your air conditioning at a peak time. And there is some research showing that people are surprisingly willing to go along with something like that.
KESTENBAUM: And that may be the most productive approach, he says: let the machines make our economic decisions for us.
David Kestenbaum, NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
NBC'S experiment with Jay Leno in primetime may not last much longer.
(Soundbite of TV show, "The Jay Leno Show")
Mr. JAY LENO (Host, "The Jay Leno Show"): As you may have heard, there's a rumor floating around. We may have - we were canceled. I heard it coming in this morning...
Mr. KEVIN EUBANKS (Musician): I heard it, too.
Mr. LENO: ...on the radio. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So far, nobody's said anything to me. But, Kev, you know, if we did get canceled, it would give us time to maybe do some traveling.
Mr. EUBANKS: That would be wonderful, man.
Mr. LENO: Yeah. In fact, I understand FOX is beautiful this time of year.
Mr. EUBANKS: It really is.
(Soundbite of laughter)
BRAND: Jay Leno last night, joking around about possibly being moved back to his old slot. And Kim Masters is here. Now, she's been following this story from L.A. So what is the latest? What's happening?
KIM MASTERS: Well, what seems clear is that Jay Leno's 10:00 primetime experiment is ending, probably at the end of this month. NBC seems to be trying to scramble to somehow return him to late night, keep him and Conan O'Brien both in the NBC fold and return 10 p.m. to scripted programming.
BRAND: So they're finally admitting that this was mistake?
MASTERS: Well, it seems to be a tacit admission. NBC spent basically all of Thursday reacting to Internet rumors and speculation. It was not exactly a study in great public relations strategy. They initially issued a statement saying that they were going to support Leno, but their affiliates were having some problems with the ratings.
And then they issued a statement saying they really like Conan. And meanwhile, the Internet just went crazy with all of this speculation. So it was just a day of sort of stunning chaos in the television world.
BRAND: Well, the original idea was to save some money, I understand, because primetime shows, scripted shows, they were costing NBC a lot of money.
MASTERS: Yes. And NBC wasn't doing well with them. And so they were going to do "Leno" and it was going to be cheap, and they didn't need to do a big number. But what happened is that not only did they not do a big number with "Leno" at 10, but they started to really crush their affiliated stations.
And for them, the 11:00 news is extremely important advertising revenue, and Leno was providing a really weak lead-in. So the ratings for the newscast on their affiliated stations fell. And Conan O'Brien, they had been number one at 11:35 with the "Tonight Show," he fell from that perch.
So basically, they were kind of cratering their schedule up and down the line. And it just, you know, you can be penny wise and pound foolish. And think this would be a case study in that.
BRAND: And what does it mean for the players involved, Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien?
MASTERS: Well, that's one of the mysteries of the day. I mean, you know, it seemed that NBC clearly put out signals yesterday that they were trying to keep them both. And there's no indication where Leno and O'Brien and any of these guys stand on this, whether they have to accept this or force a big payoff under the terms of their contract.
Obviously, Leno's monologue on Thursday was pretty hostile, with lots of negative jokes about NBC and how he doesn't trust the network and how FOX seems very attractive. So this is a story that's going to play out.
BRAND: So it could be that NBC loses both of these guys.
MASTERS: Who knows? I mean, one thing that NBC also has to do is rebuild its primetime schedule. And they've left themselves with a big crater at 10:00 at night, five nights a week. And that's very expensive and labor intensive to try to rebuild that with some hit programming.
BRAND: Kim Masters hosts member station KCRW's show, THE BUSINESS. It's a show about the TV and film industry.
Thanks, Kim.
MASTERS: Thank you, Madeleine.
(Soundbite of TV show, "The Jay Leno Show")
(Soundbite of music)
(Soundbite of cheering)
Mr. LENO: Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you very much.
(Soundbite of music)
(Soundbite of cheering)
BRAND: This is NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. Imagine that the government decreed that you could keep $40, and the rest of your money is worthless. This actually happened in North Korea last month. Since then, the North Korean currency restrictions have led to rampant inflation and food shortages and a very unhappy public, as NPR's Louisa Lim reports.
LOUISA LIM: Tens of thousands of North Koreans began the new year with a massive staged rally in central Pyongyang.
Unidentified Group: (Foreign language spoken)
LIM: Let's implement it, they shouted, referring to government policy. But words aside, many fear what the new year might bring. A month ago, North Korea pushed through reforms, effectively slashing two zeroes off the currency. People had to exchange their old currency for new at a rate of 100-1, but they could only change around $40.
Even in this tightly controlled state, that caused widespread dissatisfaction. People burnt money bearing founder Kim Il Sung's picture, or threw it into the river, both acts constituting political crimes. Marcus Noland, a North Korean expert at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, explains what happened next.
Mr. MARCUS NOLAND (North Korean Expert, Peterson Institute of International Economics): It appears that the regime did not anticipate the degree of pushback that it would get from the population on this. And so it was forced to raise limits on conversion in a series of what appear to be ad-hoc steps, not only raising overall limits, but providing compensatory pay raises to certain favored groups.
LIM: South Korean groups with sources in the north say subsidies of 500 won, about 15 U.S. dollars each, were given to the whole population. Then at the end of December, salaries were distributed at the same rate as if the two zeroes hadn't been knocked off. Marcus Noland again.
Mr. NOLAND: In effect, there has been 100-fold increase in purchasing power. If there are no more goods on the market, that simply is going to manifest itself in inflation.
LIM: And that's already happening.
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Woman #1: (Foreign language spoken)
LIM: Open Radio for North Korea broadcasts from Seoul, compiling reports from sources inside North Korea. It says rice prices have quintupled compared to before the reform. Other food prices have doubled. Other sources say after salaries were dispersed, the price of goods like pork was rising by the hour. Now, rice is hard to find. Supplies are being stockpiled, since traders believe prices will continue to climb.
Open Radio's president, Tae Kyung Ha, says public opinion swung behind the reforms after the salary hikes. But now worries are returning, especially given the chronic food shortages.
Mr. TAE KYUNG HA (President, Open Radio for North Korea): People, again, are getting frustrated, just after two weeks. People's emotion and people's reaction is very fluctuating. It's changing every week.
LIM: At the beginning of this month, the use of foreign currency was banned. The price of the new one on the black market has plummeted, with the dollar exchange rates 10 times higher than usual, according to some reports. Foreign trade has been affected, especially with China. A Chinese seafood trader, who would only give his name as Mr. Han, says the currency reforms have made importing North Korean goods uneconomical.
Mr. HAN (Seafood Trader): (Through translator) About 20 to 30 percent of Chinese companies have suspended business. We stopped last month, so we're doing OK. Those still doing business are losing a lot of money, in the tens of thousands of dollars.
LIM: These reforms constitute an attack on North Korea's emerging market economy and those newly minted businessmen who got rich from it. They signal a return to North Korea's former socialism. But Open Radio's Tae Kyung Ha says the real aim is lay the groundwork for the power succession to Kim Jong-un, son and presumptive heir to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. What's unprecedented is Pyongyang's new sensitivity to public opinion.
Mr. HA: This currency reform is the first policy initiative to stabilize Kim Jong-il's power succession. So if the public opinion to this policy is going bad, it might jeopardize the power succession plan.
(Soundbite of song, "The Country Will Be Aware of You")
Unidentified Woman #2: (Singing in foreign language)
LIM: "The Country Will Be Aware of You." This is the name of a North Korean song recorded last year, and its sentiments are finally true. What's not clear, however, is how Pyongyang will continue to disperse such huge salaries and feed its hungry population. South Korea's defense minister has been warning his troops that it's difficult to estimate the threats that will arise in the aftermath of the currency reform.
Louisa Lim, NPR News, Shanghai.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
NPR's business news starts with cheaper rent.
(Soundbite of music)
BRAND: Across the country, office rents fell an average of nine percent last year. They are now roughly equal in the two most expensive cities, New York and Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And prices have been falling much faster in New York than in Washington, D.C., which is why the research firm Reis Incorporated is predicting that the nation's capital is poised to overtake New York City as the most expensive place for office space. Part of the reason is that New York's financial sector has been bleeding jobs for years and part of the reason, of course, is that the government here in Washington is one of the few sectors that's been adding jobs.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And companies are still relocating to the D.C. area. Northrop Grumman, it receives many large Defense contracts, said this week, it's leaving sunny California for Washington, D.C.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Where it is snowy this morning and gorgeous outside.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Skiers in New England are enjoying the snow. Many resorts had scaled back their projections for holiday ticket sales because of the economy. But as Vermont Public Radio's Nina Keck reports, people are flocking to the slopes.
(Soundbite of cheering)
NINA KECK: Skiers and riders have been whooping it up all week in Vermont, savoring the afterglow of a storm that dropped nearly three feet of snow in parts of the state.
Tom Horrocks is a spokesman for Killington and Pico Resorts.
Mr. TOM HORROCKS (Spokesman, Killington and Pico Resorts): Pico's holiday numbers are off the charts. We doubled our business from a year ago and the good snow obviously goes a long way to get people out on the slopes and having fun.
KECK: Horrocks says for every inch of fresh snow, they can expect about a 10 percent increase in business the following weekend. If the snow falls in nearby metro areas like Boston and New York, so much the better.
Mr. HORROCKS: We call it the backyard syndrome. I mean we can get all the snow in the world on the mountain. But if there's no snow in the backyards, it's not necessarily going to mean people are going to come up and play in our snow.
KECK: Kate Piperno and Mike Porter, who are visiting Killington from Baltimore, say that definitely holds true for them.
Ms. KATE PIPERNO: We had a big snowstorm down in Maryland, a record one, basically, in December, and after that we were like all right, ski season is here. We've got to go.
KECK: Many Vermont ski resorts say reservations for the rest of January are better than expected.
For NPR News, I'm Nina Keck in Chittenden, Vermont.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
The annual gadget fest in Las Vegas is in full swing. It's the Consumer Electronics Show or CES, where technology companies show off their latest TVs, computers, cell phones and other tech wizardry.
NPR's Laura Sydell joins me from Las Vegas to talk about some of this year's highlights. And Laura, what was your favorite this year?
LAURA SYDELL: Blio. It's an e-book software and I have to say, it was just lovely. So it comes out next month and you'll be able to access more than a million books on it. And what's so great is that unlike some of the other e-book software you see out there, this one is color, it's interactive, so great for children's books. They showed us "The Three Little Pigs" and that was pretty wonderful. Great for textbooks. So say if you had an anatomy book and you were a medical student, it has interactive quizzes in the book. So it has all this nice stuff. I really loved it. It was one of my favorite things here.
BRAND: And just to be clear, the Blio is actually software. It's not a physical object.
SYDELL: Exactly. It's software so you would read it on one of these various devices.
BRAND: So would Blio have the same kind of access to book titles as Amazon does or with a Kindle?
SYDELL: It has different access to different books, and about a million free books. And you can read them on laptops, PCs, netbooks, certain e-readers, and you can read them perhaps on what's one of the biggest categories here, tablet computers. You know, it's a kind of interesting category and there's been a lot of buzz about them; although, most people probably don't know what I'm talking about at this point.
(Soundbite of laughter)
BRAND: Yeah, I know. I don't know what you're talking about.
SYDELL: A tablet computer, in its most basic form, it's a computer without the keyboard, and it didn't do well when it was first introduced in a big way about 10 years ago, but the technology's gotten better. In this day and age, it would basically be kind of a combination e-book, film watching device, music device. It would let you e-mail and you could use a stylus to actually write on it, and so instead of carrying all those different things, you could carry it in one thing and that's a tablet PC.
BRAND: OK. That sounds very appealing. What other hot stuff did you see this year?
SYDELL: Well, I have a pair of 3D glasses in my pocket.
BRAND: Just in case the world becomes 3D?
(Soundbite of laughter)
SYDELL: 3D technology is really big. You know, the film studios are behind it, the television networks, the hardware makers. ESPN has said they're actually going to start broadcasting some games in 3D and they are hoping that 3D will be the hope of the future for the film industry and the television industry. Everybody's banking a lot on this and so it is everywhere. I don't know if people are going to want to pay all that money, since they just laid out all that money for HDTV, but it is pretty cool to look at.
BRAND: Well, anything else you saw that was especially fun or surprising?
SYDELL: How about this, a TV that watches you back?
(Soundbite of laughter)
BRAND: Yikes.
SYDELL: So it actually - this television could actually see where your head was, and if you were on one side of the room it would direct the audio towards you in that direction. Also, if you're like a short person, as in a kid and you walk really close to it, the screen will talk back to you and it'll say move away from the screen.
BRAND: All right. NPR's Laura Sydell at the Consumer Electronics show where she's watching TV's and TV's are watching her.
Thanks Laura.
SYDELL: You're welcome.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
There are plenty of other products at the show. Our last word in business today is iPhone helicopter, a small helicopter controlled by Wi-Fi through your phone. There's also a pen with a hidden video camera and USB drive so you can work your James Bond mojo and then upload to YouTube. And there's an I.D. card that displays a moving 360 degree image of you - all the more reason to regret that bad picture on your driver's license.
And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And Im Madeleine Brand.
Every month for the past two years the economy has lost jobs, more than seven million gone. This morning the Labor Department will release its job numbers for December and tell us if the country has finally started to reverse that trend.
NPRs Frank Langfitt is with us in the studio to give us a preview.
And you've been studying these reports for years, Frank. Do you think that there will actually be an increase in jobs?
FRANK LANGFITT: Well, we seem to be right around that point, Madeleine. Maybe, if its not this month, in a couple of months. Most analysts, though, think not quite yet. There have been many good signs. Last month were only down 11,000 jobs, and first time claims for unemployment benefits, they've been falling. But there are some private reports that came out this week showing continued job loss in December. So altogether economists kind of expect may be another loss of about 10,000. Could be a small gain, these reports are volatile, and of course these are just estimates. Still, whatever the number is, its clear that the job market continues to improve and recent losses have been really relatively small.
Nothing like what we saw in the worst days of the recession. You remember there were periods where, you know, banks, auto companies, were laying off thousands, and we saw construction practically stop. January, just a year ago, we lost 700,000 jobs in just a month.
BRAND: And the U.S. job market is gigantic, right? I mean we're talking about more than 100 million jobs, although...
LANGFITT: Oh, absolutely - its huge.
BRAND: Yeah. So, is this - so if there's just a small increase, would that be significant?
LANGFITT: You know, you're right. If its 10 or 20 thousand jobs, thats just a drop in the bucket because this is such a dynamic economy. But there are psychological benefits. You know, jobs always lag in recovery. So even when the economy is technically growing, people in the job market dont really feel it. So if there is news that jobs are finally growing, that might boost some confidence in the general public and with businesses. And economics, as we all know, its very psychological. Economists measure things like consumer confidence. People are more hopeful about the future, they might start spending more. And thats really important in the United States economy, because 70 percent of our gross domestic product really comes from consumer spending.
BRAND: Yeah, so people need jobs to keep spending and we keep hearing from you and from economists that the economy is finally on the mend, that it is growing, but that its taking a while for businesses to start hiring again. Why is that?
LANGFITT: There are two big reasons. One goes back to what we were just talking about - confidence. Whats the future of the American economy? People arent sure - is it ever going to come back to the kind of growth and prosperity that we enjoyed just a few years ago? And in the shorter term there's another question - how sustainable is this recovery? Some manufacturers are bringing back workers because inventories have gone down, but once those inventories get bought up again, will there be enough people to continue buying things?
So we do see that we still have problems in the housing market. Credit is tight, and Americans are a lot poorer than they used to be. Another thing is businesses has become a lot leaner, some of them probably permanently. You know, as they cut staff, they put more work on remaining people and they found that they can make it work and save on labor costs. So it remains to be seen whether people are going to staff up the way they were three or four years ago.
BRAND: Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is around 10 percent, I believe nationally. What are the prospects for those millions of Americans out of work?
LANGFITT: Coming out of this recession, its not good. Hiring is expected to be slow, going on into the months of this year. Another big problem is we lost just so many jobs - as you mentioned at the top, more than seven million in two years, and its going to take many more years to make up all those job losses. So a lot of the unemployed people right now are really feeling squeezed. They have fewer jobs to choose from and the population has continued to grow, which means you have more people coming out of college and more competition for fewer, fewer jobs, and businesses that really arent very anxious to start hiring again and increase their costs when they dont know what the economy is really going to look like.
BRAND: NPRs labor correspondent Frank Langfitt, thank you.
LANGFITT: You're very welcome.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
The Food and Drug Administration says it's getting tougher on companies who sell tainted food and drugs. The past decade was a difficult one for the agency. The drugs it regulates now are more sophisticated. Food importers bring in products from places all over the world now, and Congress wants the FDA to do more.
Well, with new money and new leadership, the FDA says it's ready to adapt. NPR's Joanne Silberner reports.
JOANNE SILBERNER: One of the lowest moments for the FDA in recent years came in 2008 at a hearing of a congressional committee. Democratic Representative John Dingell grilled then-FDA Chief Andrew von Eschenbach about not inspecting foreign drug manufacturing plants and the failure to prevent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses. There was plenty of desk pounding.
Representative JOHN DINGELL (Democrat, Michigan): This committee wants you to have the resources that you need to do the job that you have to do to protect the American people. Sixty-two people died because of bad effort. Hundreds of others were made sick.
SILBERNER: The FDA inspected just one-fifth the number of food manufacturing facilities in 2000 as it did in 1980. Von Eschenbach tried to say that using modern technology, the agency could inspect more efficiently, but Dingell broke in.
Rep. DINGELL: I didn't fall off the cabbage wagon yesterday, sir. I've been talking to Food and Drug commissioners for 40 years, and you're not the first fellow that I've had to skin for not doing his job and coming up here and defending an indefensible situation.
SILBERNER: Dingell and others accused the agency of playing politics with an over-the-counter morning-after pill to prevent pregnancy. And FDA was taken to task time and again for failing to deal promptly with problems with popular drugs like Vioxx.
New challenges cropped up - bioterrorism, complicated biotech drugs, increasingly sophisticated medical devices, and then food safety.
Caroline Smith DeWaal is with the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Ms. CAROLINE SMITH DEWAAL (Center for Science in the Public Interest): In 2000, we were just becoming aware of the major role that produce played in causing food-borne illness outbreaks on a national level.
SILBERNER: And she says the agency was unequipped or unwilling to deal with it.
Ms. SMITH DEWAAL: You couldn't ask for more resources unless it was the policy of the administration that you were going to get more resources, and that wasn't the policy of the Bush administration.
SILBERNER: Food safety issues brought the financial crisis to a head - spinach, peppers, peanut butter, even dog food from China. So last spring the new administration brought in Margaret Hamburg, a former New York City health department commissioner, and the president promised to give her the tools to do her job. She's got a bigger staff on hand than her immediate predecessors, though it's still only at 1994 levels.
The FDA has faced less criticism from the pharmaceutical industry in recent years. Alan Goldhammer of the drug industry trade group says as for the long delays for drug approvals back in the 1980s...
Mr. ALAN GOLDHAMMER: We think at long last the financial support of the agency is level enough for the drug review program.
SILBERNER: In no small part because since 1992 the industry has been providing some of the funding for the reviews. His one concern: he says there appears to be interagency squabbles delaying some approvals. On the other side, Sid Wolf of the consumer advocacy organization Health Research Group says the drug approval process is still too industry friendly and that the agency needs to get tougher on prescription drugs already on the market.
FDA commissioner Hamburg is optimistic that she can make the drug review process safe and quick. She says she won't be shy about asking for more money for agency activities. She thinks she can bring the agency back.
Ms. MARGARET HAMBURG (Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration): We have gotten some additional resources in some key areas, and we're hoping that that trend will continue. We're also working with Congress in the hopes of getting new authorities in some key areas.
SILBERNER: Including widely supported food safety legislation that would bring in money from food processors for inspections and give the agency the power to assess fines.
The FDA has already set up offices in China and India, and it's got a lot more on its plate for the next few years. It just got the power to regulate tobacco; it just started monitoring drug information on the Internet. It's likely to be tasked with evaluating generic versions of biotech drugs. And through all this, Hamburg has promised to make the agency's inner workings more transparent.
Joanne Silberner, NPR News.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Nigeria is getting a lot of bad press these days. The suspect in the attempted airline bombing over Detroit is Nigerian. And the country has another problem. Its president hasnt been seen in six weeks. Hes been receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for a heart condition. The Nigerian government says hes doing well but hasnt said when hell return. Hes been gone so long that theres an attempt now to force him from office. NPRs Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports from the capital, Abuja.
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON: When Umaru Musa Yar'Adua was campaigning to become president three years ago, his poor health was already an issue. There was concern when he had to rush off for treatment abroad for a recurring kidney problem at the height of the campaign. Yar'Adua was asked then whether he had the energy and strength to lead Africas most populous nation and made light of the matter in this BBC archived recording.
(Soundbite of archived recording)
President UMARU MUSA YAR'ADUA (Nigeria): It appears that I am a normal person, because I know it is normal people who fall sick. It is abnormal people who go through life without being ill.
QUIST-ARCTON: Officials say YarAdua is in hospital in Saudi Arabia receiving treatment for heart problems. But Nigerians are asking how Africas top oil exporter with a long history of divisive military rule can afford to be leaderless at such a critical time. There's increasing international attention directed at Nigeria in the midst of the bungled alleged terror bombing in the U.S. by Nigerian Umar Farouk�Abdulmutallab. Back home here in Abuja, everyone seems to have a view about their presidents silence during this crisis.
Unidentified Man #1: We wish him quick recovery. That was a wish that he should hand over to his deputy so that the country can move on. And now we don't know whether hes still alive.
QUIST-ARCTON: The presidential dilemma has sparked legal challenges in court to try to oblige YarAdua to explain his absence, prove hes still able to govern Nigeria, or hand over to his vice president.
Unidentified Man #2: (Foreign language spoken)
QUIST-ARCTON: A lively session in the federal high court in Abuja this week considered law suits against the government, accusing President YarAdua of breaching the constitution by remaining in power while being unable to govern.
The legal cases were brought by the Nigerian bar association and prominent human rights lawyer Femi Falana. He said Nigerians were tired of the secrecy surrounding their president.
Mr. FEMI FALANA (Lawyer): He owes the country some explanation as to state affairs. The attorney general says yes, we are great. He was hospitalized, but hes able to perform the functions of his office. Now, the only way you can resolve that is to have evidence, the medical report, written by a doctor (unintelligible) to interview him in the interests of political stability of the country.
QUIST-ARCTON: The high court is scheduled to hold hearings Wednesday. Meanwhile, Nigerias foreign minister, Ojo Maduekwe, told the BBC there was no crisis and that the president was still in charge from his hospital bed.
Mr.�OJO MADUEKWE (Foreign Minister, Nigeria): Those who were around him give us a very optimistic assessment. We are concerned that he gets well soon.
QUIST-ARCTON: But the perception remains that without strong leadership a dangerous vacuum could lead to more political squabbling and maneuvering in Nigeria. Its just a year till the next presidential election here. And most Nigerians simply want an end to daily power and water shortages and long lines at gas stations. They want their president back home to deliver on these promises.
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Abuja.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Madeleine Brand.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep. Good morning. Lets take one more pass through the chain of events that ended with a passenger trying to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day. President Obama acknowledged intelligence failures yesterday, as did his counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan.
Mr. JOHN BRENNAN (Counterterrorism Advisor): This was not a failure to share information. In fact, our review found the intelligence agencies and analysts had the information they needed. It was a failure to connect and integrate and understand the intelligence we have.
INSKEEP: Turns out the U.S. had a good deal of information about the unfolding plot targeting the United States and even tried to act on it. NPRs Dina Temple-Raston has been reporting on this story. She has the latest.
Dina, Good morning.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What did the government know about the possible attack beforehand?
TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, senior intelligence officials tell NPR that in many respects U.S. intelligence agencies were everywhere they were supposed to be as they tried to zero in on this Christmas threat. Now, we know that the national security agency had intercepted communications among operatives from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen.
And in those intercepts the terrorist leaders had discussed that a Nigerian was apparently being trained for an attack. And while there wasnt specificity - I mean, clearly the NSA was listening to the right phone conversations if they picked up that intelligence.
INSKEEP: So was that actionable intelligence, as they say?
TEMPLE-RASTON: Not only actionable intelligence, but they actually acted upon it. I mean, a short time after they got the intercepts, officials tell NPR they worked with Yemen to launch a series of military raids against al-Qaida training camps, on a village that is several hundred yards away from Sana, the Yemeni capital. And that happened on December 17th.
And then at the time, when that was made public, it seemed like that was just another anti-al-Qaida operation. But in fact, sources tell us that the raid as aimed at derailing this holiday operation the NSA had heard about.
And then there was a second strike on December 24th. And you remember there was a missile strike aimed at senior al-Qaida operatives in Yemen? Again, officials tell NPR that that strike was called to try and derail this holiday attack that U.S. officials feared were underway.
INSKEEP: So we should be fair here. They still didn't have the specific identity of a suspect. But you're telling me that they knew that there was some kind of plot, that it involved some kind of Nigerian. And also, as weve heard on previous days, that there was this Nigerian who had - there were concerns being raised about a particular Nigerian who turned out to be the suspect.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Thats true. I mean, what happened is they didn't realize how far the plot had actually progressed. So they didn't connect the dots quickly enough to prevent Abdulmutallab, the suspect, from boarding the Northwest Flight 253 in Amsterdam.
What they also didn't realize was that, again, there was this Nigerian banker whod come to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and said that his son had been in Yemen, that he was worried hed been radicalized. I mean, clearly if those two pieces of information had come together this might - this story might have a different ending.
INSKEEP: Both those pieces of information were inside the government somewhere but not in the same place or in front of the same person at the same time.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Exactly.
INSKEEP: Well, thats being blamed on a failure to communicate, which is the same thing that people said was a problem after 9/11. Are intelligence and other agencies any better than they were?
TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, back during the 9/11 time, the problem was what they called stovepiping, right, that one agency would so jealously guard information against another agency because they felt it was theirs. There were turf problems. I don't think that was a problem this time. This time there was a lot of sharing going on. And what happened is people were sort of looking at the wrong screen.
Sort of like you get so much information, for example, in your email account, that you miss a very important message because youre inundated. And that seems to have been what happened here.
INSKEEP: So very briefly, this is too much information?
TEMPLE-RASTON: Yeah. Lets just give the example of the warning that came out of the U.S. embassy in Nigeria. The warning they used is something called a visa viper. And there are 180 U.S. embassies around the world. And just about every day they each provide at least one visa viper to the U.S. government saying theyre worried about someone who they got a piece of information and theyre worried about someone. Thats a lot of information when you think all these things are coming in.
INSKEEP: Dina, thanks very much.
TEMPLE-RASTON: You're welcome.
INSKEEP: Thats NPRs Dina Temple-Raston this morning.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Madeleine Brand, sitting in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
Two weeks after an attempted bombing was stopped onboard a plane, American officials are still debating what they can learn.
BRAND: We're hearing about our security throughout this morning. A Nigerian suspect who visited Yemen raises questions about whether the United States is looking for terrorists in the right places. And we'll have more on that in a moment.
INSKEEP: We start with President Obama's orders to improve the nation's early warning system.
NPR's Scott Horsley has a report.
SCOTT HORSLEY: President Obama says the best way to prevent someone from blowing up an airplane or launching some other kind of terrorist attack on the U.S. is to get timely, accurate intelligence about would-be attackers, share that information, analyze it, and then act on it quickly and effectively.
President BARACK OBAMA: That's what our intelligence community does every day. But unfortunately, that's not what happened in the lead-up to Christmas Day.
HORSLEY: Instead, the United States was caught by surprise when a young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boarded a Northwest Airlines jet with what authorities say were hidden explosives in his underwear. The bungled attack should not have been a surprise, though. Various intelligence agencies knew Abdulmutallab was in Yemen, under the influence of Islamic extremists. They knew that al-Qaida forces in Yemen were working with a Nigerian and wanted to attack the U.S. They even knew what kind of hidden explosives might be used.
The administration took pains to say this was not a case where one spy agency withheld what it knew from others, as sometimes happened before 9/11. But the president's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, says even though the pieces of the puzzles were widely available throughout the intelligence community, no one managed to put them together.
Mr. JOHN BRENNAN (Deputy National Security Adviser, Homeland Security and Counterterrorism): The intelligence fell through the cracks. This was not a failure to collect or share intelligence. It was a failure to connect and integrate and understand the intelligence we had.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama ordered that from now on, someone in the intelligence community must be given specific responsibility to make sure every lead is followed up on. Our review of the Northwest Airlines attack uncovered a number of human errors. Some databases weren't thoroughly checked, for example. And for a time, the State Department mistakenly believed that Abdulmutallab didn't have a U.S. visa, because his name was misspelled. But, Mr. Obama said, no one person or agency is to blame for what he called a systemic failure.
Pres. OBAMA: I am less interested in passing out blame than I am in learning from and correcting these mistakes to make us safer.
HORSLEY: Ultimately, Mr. Obama said, the buck stops with him, although his adviser Brennan also took some of the blame.
Mr. BRENNAN: I told the president today I let him down, and I told him that I will do better, and we will do better as a team.
HORSLEY: The government is reviewing its terrorist watch lists, and will be looking for new ways to sift through the mountains of information it collects. But Mr. Obama says even the best intelligence can't identify every would-be terrorist ahead of time. So he's also ordering beefed-up security at airports in the U.S. and abroad. The Department of Homeland Security was already planning to install another 300 full-body scanners around the country to be supplemented with pat-downs and sniffer dogs. Mr. Obama's also putting the national laboratories to work on technology that can find the explosives metal detectors miss.
Pres. OBAMA: There is, of course, no full-proof solution. As we develop new screening technologies and procedures, our adversaries will seek new ways to evade them, that was - as was shown by the Christmas attack. In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary.
HORSLEY: Even as he promised stronger defensive measures, Mr. Obama vowed the U.S. will not sacrifice its open society or give in to what he called a siege mentality.
Pres. OBAMA: Great and proud nations don't hunker down and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust. That is exactly what our adversaries want, and so long as I am president, we will never hand them that victory. We will define the character of our country, not some band of small men intent on killing innocent men, women and children.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama repeated that the U.S. is a nation at war against al-Qaida. And he promised to do whatever it takes to defeat them.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
Some TV viewers have seen enough of President Obama - not that they're against him, they're just against him speaking February 2nd. If his annual speech to Congress came that night, it would preempt the premiere of a popular TV series. So there is a Facebook group called Americans Against the State of the Union on the Same Night as "Lost." The president's Afghanistan speech kept viewers in some markets from seeing a "Charlie Brown Christmas." You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The first name of Geyer is Peter, not Steve.
Good morning. Im Madeleine Brand. A couple in Washington state is filling their home with aluminum cans. They have more than 18,000 in their living room. People around Spokane are donating their empties. The couples goal: 400,000. Andrea Parrish and Steve Geyer want to recycle all those cans and make about $4,000 to pay for their wedding. Nothing extravagant: a potluck, some flowers, and some home-brewed beer in a mug.
Its MORNING EDITION.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
Some economists had expected to see the job market make minor gains, or at least come close. But the Labor Department reports a net loss of 85,000 jobs last month. Still, in the huge American workforce, the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 10 percent.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
MADELEINE BRAND, host:
And I'm Madeleine Brand.
There's disappointing news from the Labor Department today. The nation lost 85,000 jobs in December. Few economists expected such a big loss. Still, the unemployment rate remains at 10 percent.
NPR labor correspondent Frank Langfitt joins me now in the studio to sort out the latest numbers. And Frank, this is pretty disappointing overall.
FRANK LANGFITT: It is, Madeleine. You know, economists thought we might lose 10 to 20,000 jobs in December. And some even thought we'd just be flat, we wouldn't lose any at all. But obviously this is worse.
I think the big message from reading the report is that the recovery in this labor market is going to be a long hard slog. I talked to some economists this morning and what they said is employers are facing a lot of uncertainty right now. Consumer demand isn't clear. They don't know if there's going to be enough market for products to justify hiring new people. You got health care legislation, so they don't know what's going to cost to hire a new person. For manufacturers you've got the economics of cap and trade legislation; that's not clear either.
All this uncertainty adds up for most businesses just standing pat on hiring. Then on the negative side, you know, manufacturing, they've been suffering for a long time, they're still doing some layoffs. Housing market is stabilizing, but construction firms still laying off too.
BRAND: Any good news at all in this report?
LANGFITT: Yeah. There's a little bit. November, we actually gained jobs. They do revisions at the Department of Labor, so we actually got 4,000. So that's kind of the good news. But the problem is the American job market's enormous. A hundred and thirty-eight million people are employed in this country. So an increase of 4,000, hardly anyone's really going to feel that.
Another piece of good news, though - temp hiring is up for the fourth month in a row. And that means that companies, you know, often they hire temps first before bringing on full-time staff. So we're slowly getting there.
BRAND: Hmm. Well, what about - we've been talking about the psychological impact of these reports, and so what about that? What will this report have?
LANGFITT: You know, when you look at the numbers, obviously these - it's just data. But if you look at some of the data, you can really see it, and it's pretty brutal. People are out of work longer and longer. I'll give you an example. Six million people, more than six million, are now out of work for more than 27 weeks. That's a huge figure.
The other thing is we talked a little bit about the unemployment rate. The reason it's still at 10 percent and didn't go up is because hundreds of thousands of people just quit looking for work in December. And they look around, they don't see anybody hiring, and they just give up. And once those people stop looking, the government no longer really counts them in the unemployment rate. So the real unemployment rate is almost certainly higher than 10 percent.
BRAND: Now, a lot of those unemployed people are probably wondering when jobs are finally going to start picking up. I mean, we talk about it a lot and you've been talking...
LANGFITT: We do.
BRAND: ...to economists this morning. And what are they saying for the long term?
LANGFITT: Well, they were more hopeful last month, and now they are pushing their estimates back into the year. A couple of guys I talked to today said spring. Sometime in spring they hope that we would see sustained gains in the labor market. The problem is - and I hate to always say the problem is - but even then the numbers probably won't be enough to bring this unemployment rate down.
They say that we'll need at least 100,000 a month or more to begin to provide enough jobs for so many unemployed people out there. And part of the reason is the population keeps growing. You got more college graduates. You have more people out there so there's more competition. And also, another thing is that people expect that as jobs do begin to pick up, more of the unemployed, the people who quit looking, at going to come back into the market looking as well.
So right now the Fed is saying that things will still be at nine percent, in the mid-nine percent at the end of the year and could stay higher in the middle of the year.
BRAND: NPR's Frank Langfitt with the news that the nation lost 85,000 jobs in December. Frank, thank you.
LANGFITT: Happy to do it.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
Music producer Willie Mitchell passed away this week. You may not know his name, but you probably know his sound. He was the producer and arranger behind a string of hits by Al Green in the 1970s. Those recordings and many more were part of a body of work which spanned six decades. The 81-year-old musician died Tuesday of cardiac arrest in the city he helped put on the musical map -Memphis, Tennessee.
Here's NPR's Felix Contreras.
FELIX CONTRERAS: Willie Mitchell's story is one of a musician who stayed true to his roots, both cultural and musical, and spun gold from those beginnings.
(Soundbite of music)
CONTRERAS: He was born in Mississippi, but raised in Memphis. And when he was released from the Army in 1954, he returned to Memphis and helped establish it at the soul music capital of the South.
(Soundbite of music)
CONTRERAS: Mitchell had a few regional hits before moving from the bandstand to the mixing board in 1960, producing sessions for vocalist Lee Rogers, Ann Peebles and O.V. Wright.
(Soundbite of song, "I've Been Searching")
Mr. O.V. WRIGHT (Singer): (Singing) I've been searching, I've been searching, I've been searching, I can't find what I'm looking for.
CONTRERAS: Mitchell did his first sessions for Hi Records at a movie house turned recording studio. Royal Studios was located just a few blocks from the Stax Recording Studio in South Memphis. Mitchell never worked anywhere else.
Ms. ANDRIA LISLE (Freelance Journalist): When you walk in that room at Royal, it's like a circus tent.
CONTRERAS: Memphis-based freelance journalist Andria Lisle visited Royal many times. Mitchell bought the studio in 1970, and Lisle says he didn't change much over the years.
Ms. LISLE: It's covered in burlap - the drapes down from the ceiling down the wall - and it's sloped, because it was a movie theater. And, you know, you've got the vocal booth and of course you've got Al's mic, which is in fact the microphone that Al Green recorded his greatest stuff on in the 1970s.
CONTRERAS: Willie Mitchell started working with a young soul singer named Albert Green at the beginning of that decade, and in just over two years Mitchell and Green produced seven singles that each sold over one million copies. In an interview with NPR in 2000, both Al Green and Willie Mitchell pulled back the curtain on Mitchell's skills as a producer for the 1972 hit "Let's Stay Together."
(Soundbite of archived recording)
Mr. AL GREEN (Singer): I'm in here trying to blow the studio top off and Willie kept saying, no, just sing it. I'm going, like, I think I need to just muscle up and sing it. He said don't try to handle the song, Al. Just let the song happen. Just let it ooze out.
Mr. WILLIE MITCHELL (Producer): I wanted his golden voice on it and he kept giving me somebody else's voice, and that's why we just kept going over and over and over and over again. When he nailed it, I said that's the one.
(Soundbite of song, "Let's Stay Together")
Mr. GREEN: (Singing) I, I'm so in love with you, whatever you want to do, it's all right with me...
CONTRERAS: Mitchell and Green parted ways in 1976, but Royal Studios stayed busy. In the 1980s, Keith Richards recorded a solo album there; even Al Green returned in 1989. More recently, it was John Mayer and Rod Stewart. They all trekked to Memphis, hoping to tap into a bit of the Mitchell magic. They could've gone anywhere to make records, but journalist Andria Lisle says Memphis was as much a part of the Mitchell sound as any piece of equipment in Royal Studios.
Ms. LISLE: Willie knew that the magic was Memphis and he didn't need to go anywhere else. Everybody came to him.
CONTRERAS: Mitchell's son will take over production at the legendary studio. And if future generations of musicians travel to Memphis to record, they'll know exactly where to find Royal Studios. It sits on a street that was recently renamed Willie Mitchell Boulevard.
Felix Contreras, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
I want to tell you a little story and see if you recognize it. It's the story of a 30-something-year-old woman, a New Yorker, who's been through a terrible, nasty divorce. So she decides to take a year for herself to travel and try to heal.
The woman starts in Italy, where she gorges on pasta and gelato that's the pleasure part of the trip. Then she heads to India for yoga and meditation. And finally, she visits Indonesia, where she tries to find balance but ends up -as you do - meeting a handsome Brazilian man 17 years her senior and falling madly in love.
All right, if this is all starting to sound familiar, that's because its the story of Elizabeth Gilbert's mega-best-selling memoir from 2006, called "Eat, Pray, Love." The book spent more than a year at the number one spot on The New York Times best-seller list, so if that's not a hard act to follow, I dont know what is. But Elizabeth Gilbert decided to try, and she's got a new book coming out, called "Committed." She joins us from our New York bureau to talk about it.
Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming in.
Ms. ELIZABETH GILBERT (Author, "Committed"): Thanks for having me, Mary Louise.
KELLY: So we should start with the title, "Committed," which...
Ms. GILBERT: A little double meaning.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: Well, it's a little bit of a giveaway.
KELLY: I'm sure there were many readers still in suspense. We mentioned that at the end of "Eat, Pray, Love," where that left off, you had recently met this Brazilian man. And I guess we can reveal you made it. Youre still together.
Ms. GILBERT: We're still together. Yeah, it wasnt just a shipboard romance, as my grandmother said.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: Congratulations. Tell us about the new book.
Ms. GILBERT: Well, it was a kind of an accidental book. I didn't have any intention of writing another memoir. But what happened is that as readers of "Eat, Pray, Love" know I did meet that lovely, handsome Brazilian man and we made a pretty fierce commitment to each other that we would stay together forever but never marry.
Both of us were survivors of bad divorces, and I suppose I dont need to explain to anybody why that would make somebody hesitant to enter into the institution of matrimony again.
KELLY: Sure.
Ms. GILBERT: And we were very happily living out our lives. The problem was he wasn't a U.S. citizen and every time he came to visit me there was the, you know, the famous border crossing and Homeland Security and the INS. And one of these border crossings turned sour one day in Dallas-Fort Worth. And they peeled him out of the line and chucked him in jail and threw him out of the country. And I was informed by a man named Officer Tom at the Homeland Security Department in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport that the only way I could get him back was to marry him. So we like to say that it was an arranged marriage arranged by the INS.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: By the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Ms. GILBERT: Exactly. They were holding the shotgun, in the case of this shotgun marriage.
KELLY: But that took 10 months or more. And so in the meantime, you were in exile together, in a way.
Ms. GILBERT: We were. And in a way that can sort of only make sense to us, but made perfect sense to us at the time. Naturally, what we did was just go to Southeast Asia and wait it out there, traveling across Thailand and Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, sort of killing time and hoping to get back in.
KELLY: So is this new book, "Committed," is it a sequel to "Eat, Pray, Love"?
Ms. GILBERT: I dont mind if people call it a sequel. It would certainly be recognizable to people - it's my voice and obviously, these are two characters who you meet in "Eat, Pray, Love." The way that I see the difference between the tone of "Eat, Pray, Love" and the tone of "Committed" is the tone of romance versus the tone of marriage.
KELLY: Still in love but a little bit more sober.
Ms. GILBERT: Weve turned on all the fluorescent lights.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. GILBERT: Let's just put it that way, and I very much wanted to. I thought, let's try to strip the tone of romance out of this and really pick this thing apart.
KELLY: During those months, you interviewed housewives, Hmong housewives in Vietnam, poets, psychologists. At one point, I noticed you were quoting advice from Miss Manners on what makes a good marriage. You cast the net wide - and what did you come back with?
Ms. GILBERT: I really had such an aversion to matrimony when I started this. And I actually feared, when I started to do research on marriage, that the more I discovered about it, the more I would loathe it - you know, especially as a woman. What I didnt expect was to come away with this respect for marriage. And I say that in a guarded sense because I dont want to be mistaken for somebody who has respect for marriage that's so hard line that they want to pass legislation about it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. GILBERT: You know, what I'm talking about is a sort of historical respect for something that I discovered is not quite the rigid, boxy institution that I thought it was but is in fact an ongoing, millennia-long experiment in social living that is being tinkered with and altered with every generation, you know, with every culture every couple who comes into it puts their mark on it. And it has an almost Darwinian survival that I found really impressive.
KELLY: I gather that you, at one point, had an entire draft of this book completed and ready to ship it off to your publisher, and you decided you were going to throw the whole thing away.
Ms. GILBERT: Yeah.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: How come?
Ms. GILBERT: Because it was horrible.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. GILBERT: It was not fit for human consumption. It was a terrible, terrible book. And it's an awful realization to have something like that happen because I worked on it for, you know, close to two years and quite diligently and optimistically, the way that one does when one is writing. And it came to me quite suddenly, when I printed it out for the first time and opened it up to a random page and read a random paragraph and realized I had really misstepped, and I realized the entire book was wrong.
KELLY: In what way? Was it the way you were telling the story or the story itself?
Ms. GILBERT: Well, at the time I couldnt quite tell. All I knew was that it was off. And what I know now, and what I can see now, is that I was trying to appease 6 million Eat, Pray, Love readers when I wrote the first draft of the book, and I had them in the room with me, and I was writing it by committee, imaginarily consulting them as I was going and saying, is this what you liked about Eat, Pray, Love? Did you want more of this, or the goofy stuff? Do you want jokes? Do you want, you know, lightweight, what, what, what?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. GILBERT: You want spiritual things? So the whole was very forced and inauthentic, and it became a book that I became certain that nobody would like. I just couldnt put it out there.
KELLY: It must be wonderful, obviously, to write a book that 6 million people have bought and loved, but it must also be intimidating to think of all those people waiting for whatever youre going to write next.
Ms. GILBERT: Yeah, just to be clear, this is the exact definition of what we call a champagne problem.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: There are worse issues. My heart isnt bleeding too much for you.
Ms. GILBERT: Yeah, please feel sorry for me about the - you know, its - its really not that bad in terms of things that happen to people in the world at all. Its just a puzzle, you know. Its a kind of creative puzzle, to figure out how you write unselfconsciously again after that. And you really have to narrow down who youre telling a story to. And it wasnt until I narrowed the book down to, you know, two dozen people, the women in my life - my sister, my mother, my stepdaughter, my neighbors, all the people who I spent my life talking to - and it just makes a lot more sense now.
KELLY: Its interesting that that circle that you just described, that you say you narrowed it down to, the people you had in your mind as you were writing this - all women, unless Im mistaken. And yet this is a book about your happy marriage to a man.
Ms. GILBERT: Yeah, but what you have to understand is that, you know, we live in this time of this radical, new social experiment, and I think sometimes we forget how new it is. And the radical, unprecedented, new social experiment is what happens if we give women autonomy, education, finances - you know, control over their sexual biology? What happens if we give you all this freedom, what are you going to do with it? We have like, two decades of role models...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. GILBERT: ...on how to do that. And were all still sort of puzzling it out in a very intense way. And what differentiates, I think, the conversations that women have about intimacy from those that men have, you know, can be exemplified by the fact that when I was 19 years old and I was in college at NYU, my friends and I would sit up until 2 in the morning and sort of panic over how we were going to balance raising our children, being married and having careers. And I kind of dont think the guys down the hall in the dorm were doing that...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. GILBERT: ...when they were 19, but we already saw it coming, and this book is sort of picking up the thread of a conversation that I think Ive been having with my friends for 20 years.
KELLY: I have one last question for you. I dont want to let you go before we ask about - theres a movie being made about Eat, Pray, Love, the first memoir.
Ms. GILBERT: I heard that, too.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: And I heard youre being played by Julia Roberts, which was...
Ms. GILBERT: I heard that too, yes.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: It must be a little surreal.
Ms. GILBERT: No, its so beyond surreal that I have to say I have not even really begun to process it. I think that maybe when Im in my 70s, Ill start to unthread how that happened.
(Soundbite of laughter)
So it will be nice because shes sort of going back and reliving my journey and theyre filming it, so its like Im going to have a home movie of my trip, but portrayed by someone with flawless skin and 36-inch legs.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: Elizabeth Gilbert, were glad you came in to talk to us today about your new book, Committed. Thank you so much.
Ms. GILBERT: Thanks, its been a pleasure.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
We're down in Quantico, Virginia, at the Marine Corps University, and we're going to take you inside this lecture hall. There are about 200 students here. They're in their camouflage uniforms - they are not in your typical college student jean and T-shirts. Most of them are Marines. Many of them have already been to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this class we're bringing you to is part of the expeditionary warfare school. That's a yearlong program for officers.
Dr. PAULA HOLMES-EBER (Anthropologist): Morning.
CLASS: Morning.
KELLY: Paula Holmes-Eber is the anthropologist who's teaching the class. She teaches other classes on operational culture here at Marine Corps University. Let's listen in.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: We had, I think, this conversation the last time I was here, which is, you know, should we change another culture? The reality is the second you land on the ground with 100,000 troops eating and using the materials of the area, you've changed the economy, you've changed the environment. It's not should we; it's what are we doing, and is that what we want to be doing?
KELLY: The point of this class is to teach America's war fighters to be sensitive to other cultures, get them to think through how every move they make on the battlefield has a consequence - not just for enemy forces but for ordinary people.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: If I knock out a bridge and people can't get over the river to bring their goods to market, what you've done? You've changed the environment by knocking the bridge out. OK. That changes the economy 'cause the farmers can't bring their fruit to market. Well, guess what? The market - the fruit all spoils. OK. All the farmers suddenly no longer have the income they had. If people in that farming village were all one tribe, inadvertently, you just made a tribe poor.
KELLY: Holmes-Eber hopes that what she's teaching here won't just end up scrawled in a spiral notebook but actually informing decisions that military commanders make on the ground. So, she runs the class through a war game, a practice scenario about an imaginary U.S. military intervention in the North African nation of Tunisia. The challenges would be very different from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tunisia depends on beach tourism, and Holmes-Eber pushes her students: Don't think you could just go in, fight a war, and then pack up and leave.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: OK? Because people are going to not want to come and stay in those fancy hotels on the beaches, and Tunisia's income is going to go down. One of your challenges is going to be, how do you preserve the economy and not destroy it with your operations? Is there a way to not hamper the tourist economy in a major way? OK. Well, we'll see you - oh, sorry, good.
KELLY: Holmes-Eber is just wrapping up class when a student interrupts with a question about the war game. They've been asked not to disturb tourism in Northern Tunisia, but he doesn't see how that's possible given the mission they've been assigned.
Unidentified Man: Doing an amphibious offload way up in the north, and then driving all the way through this city's centers and whatnot on those highways down to the south; to me that didn't make any sense whatsoever. I mean, what...
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: I agree.
Unidentified Man: ...that's kind of what we have to operate with here 'cause that's the plan that we're given. But, I mean, you would see that as a pretty dumb idea, right?
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Absolutely. I have to tell you, your mission statement, with that strategy already in place, causes you such headaches 'cause you're driving all the way down the coast and destroying every vacations resort along the way. How do you mop that up, I dont know, but I think you've got a really big challenge.
Unidentified Man: Thank you, Doctor, I appreciate it.
(Soundbite of applause)
KELLY: So we've wrapped up the class with the students in the big lecture hall, and we've brought Dr. Paula Holmes-Eber back to her offices here at Marine Corps University Library. We sat in the classroom. You've got more than 200 in there. These are mostly officers, mostly Marine Corps, although the other services are there as well and some international students. All people with, correct me if I'm wrong, but considerably more experience in the war zone than you have.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Absolutely.
KELLY: How does that - that must be really intimidating.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Oh yeah. Well, it is intimidating and it isn't. I mean, yeah, I'm definitely out on a limb. I've got an audience that's looking at this blonde-haired, 5-foot, 4-inch female going: What does she know about anything? So, it is a challenge to gain credibility, to have them accept and respect what I do. The first year, I'll tell you, the hardest part was learning how to speak and understand Marine-speak.
KELLY: You had to learn the acronyms.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Yeah, well, it is a foreign culture. I mean, they have a foreign language, they have their own ceremonies, they have their own rituals, they have everything. Just a perfect foreign culture. So, I'm actually an anthropologist in two ways. I'm teaching about culture, trying to teach the principles of culture to Marines, but I'm also an anthropologist studying the Marine Corps, understanding them so that I can translate what I know. The more that I'm able to speak in a way that makes sense to them, use examples, that helps.
KELLY: And when your students go to Afghanistan, as many of them will, I understand, what are you hoping they'll do differently? I mean, part of it, it sounds as simple as thinking through you blow up this bridge, that has a consequence.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Right. Well, it can be as simple as that. It can be long term. What I hope is that instead of a long term - let's look at it truthfully. Afghanistan, nobody who's gone in there - the British, the Russians - it's bloody, it's horrible, it's protracted, and we never leave feeling particularly happy. I'd like to see that that could be changed. That by understanding and working with the local people and being able to cooperate successfully, I mean, I begin to become connected with them. I don't want them dying. I want them to come back and, you know, I want them to come back having done what we're asking them to do effectively and successfully.
And I think not understanding the culture is a huge detriment for them because they're always going to be working at a disadvantage.
KELLY: Is there any sort of conflict inherent in this? By which I mean, I'm sure most military officers would say it's great to respect cultural sensitivities; that's all well and good. But we're at war.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Right.
KELLY: The job of the U.S. military at war is to defeat the enemy, and you have to hurt the enemy to do that. How do you reconcile that with some of the concepts you're trying to teach?
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: I don't see them as at all contradictory. The goal is mission effectiveness. In other words, do what we've been asking them to do and come home. Well, if they fail because they don't understand the culture, then they didn't do what we asked them to do.
So, it's not about being touchy-feely and sweet and don't we like the natives -and I really hope that we don't kill as many people this way - but it's about that we fail if we don't understand culture. And so there's no contradiction. In fact, it's necessary.
KELLY: I want to ask you about your role here as an anthropologist working within and for the Marine Corps, because I understand there's many in your profession who see this as a traitorous act, who think it's wrong for an anthropologist to be teaching at Marine Corps University. Why?
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Well, yeah.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: OK.
KELLY: We'll let you squirm for a minute, and then you can answer.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Yeah, that's fine.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: It's awkward. Actually, it's one of the things that's made the Marines more sympathetic to me, 'cause they realize that I've had to run against my own field, my own profession, and go against the current and stand up, and say and do something that really isn't popular.
KELLY: But why isn't it? What's the issue?
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: The issue is - and it stems back from World War II and Vietnam War. Actually, anthropologists worked very closely with the military prior to that time. During Vietnam, there was some support that was very questionable. Anthropology was used as intelligence, used to destroy certain villages and harm populations. And anthropologists said, wait a minute, you know, that's not the intent of our information, to actually go out and harm the population.
And they set a do-no-harm standard. But the problem is that, you know what, first of all, there isn't black and white. It's not - in my opinion, not helping out the military, not working with them, is not without ethical implications. If we stay out of a situation, things are going to happen that wouldn't happen if we'd be there. So, I think you have a moral responsibility to - you know, doctors don't sit here and say, well, there's a guy dying on the street but he's not my patient; off I go.
I find that it's a lot grayer. It's not I don't cooperate with the military, therefore I'm innocent. You do. I think that we're all implicated. It's just a question of where that line is. I've had to make my own line for myself. I dont know what is morally wrong about teaching Marines about Islamabad, Arab culture, about understanding tribal structures. I can't think of anything that I could go to bed at night and say, oh, I've really done something wrong.
KELLY: Dr. Holmes-Eber, thank you.
Dr. HOLMES-EBER: Thank you.
(Soundbite of music)
KELLY: Paula Holmes-Eber, talking about teaching culture at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. That story was produced by Thomas Pierce and Carolyn Baylor.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
China is experiencing a resurgent interest in all things imperial. If you care to taste this fascination, there are restaurants in China that recreate imperial feasts in which scores of exotic courses are served over several days. You may find the price astronomic, the authenticity questionable and the animals on the menu too cute to eat, but as NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing, the feast remains a legendary part of China's culinary culture.
(Soundbite of squeaky door opening)
ANTHONY KUHN: The doors of a private room at the Cui Yuan Restaurant swing open and two waitresses in elaborate Manchu costumes bring in a first course for me to sample.
Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)
KUHN: A waitress explains that this soup was a favorite of the 18th century Manchu Emperor Yongzheng. The little brown cubes in the soup, she points out, are deer's blood. Sun Xiaochun is the restaurant's head chef and vice chairman of the Chinese Culinary Association. His specialty is the Manhan Quanxi, or Manchu and Han imperial feast.
Sun himself is an ethnic Manchu. His teacher's teacher, he explains, was a court chef at the summer palace in Chengde, a mountain resort town northeast of Beijing.
Mr. SUN XIAOCHUN (Head Chef, Cui Yuan Restaurant): (Through translator) The Manchu emperors would spend the summers hunting and drilling troops at this summer retreat. This place produced a unique source of ingredients, cooking methods and dishes.
KUHN: Sun's menu is heavily populated with wild game.
Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)
KUHN: Next up on my plate is a deer's lip, soft and smooth with a chewy outside layer. After that there's sea cucumber with swan goose meat, a rare waterfowl found in Manchuria. The swan goose tastes almost too light to be meat. I have to go ask the chef.
Mr. LIU YABIN (Chef): (Foreign language spoken)
KUHN: In the kitchen, Chef Liu Yabin explains that the breast of the swan goose has been mashed into a puree, then formed into little white nuggets. That explains that.
Back in the dining room, Sun says that his modern-day imperial feast is free of endangered species.
Mr. SUN: (Through translator) There are many ingredients we can no longer use, such as tiger meat. The imperial feast used to include a tiger's tail. Some rare species can now be raised on farms such as hazel grouses, swan geese, deer and mandarin ducks.
(Soundbite of chewing)
KUHN: Now, here's a bird I always thought I would appreciate for its appearance and not its taste. This is peacock stir-fried with hot peppers and peanuts. While I'd say it tastes like chicken but it really doesnt.
You can forget about getting a quick takeout from Sun's restaurant. His imperial feast contains 268 dishes, not including appetizers and deserts. His clients take up to a year to sample all 268, for which Sun charges them just over $54,000.
For a dispassionate eye and palate on all this, I turned to Eileen Wen Mooney, author of the book "Beijing Eats." She says Chinese imperial cuisine in general tends to be gimmicky and reliant on fancy presentation. She argues that locals order it more to impress guests than for the taste.
Ms. EILEEN MOONEY (Author, "Beijing Eats"): That's kind of misleading; people think Chinese people love to eat this kind of things. It's not like Chinese people really have this habit of loving exotic - you call it exotic in quotes.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. MOONEY: That doesn't represent what Chinese people like to eat.
KUHN: As for claims of authenticity, Mooney says this is a moot point, as nobody alive today has tasted a real imperial feast.
Chef Sun adds that while recipes for all 268 of his dishes can be found in imperial court cookbooks, imperial cuisine has evolved over centuries and it continues to do so today.
Mr. SUN: (Through translator) There may be some dishes which have lost their original taste. It may be the same dish, with the same ingredients and the same name and the same preparation, but we have to improve it to satisfy modern people's tastes.
KUHN: For all his compromises to contemporary tastes and wildlife laws, Sun seems to be doing well at preserving a tradition of what you might call imperial hubris of the culinary variety.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
At the National Gallery of Art here in Washington, there has been an incident.
(Soundbite of footsteps)
Ms. ELIZABETH KOSTOVA (Author, "The Swan Thieves"): I climbed the stairs to the tremendous marble rotunda at their summit and wandered among its gleaming variegated pillars for a few minutes, stood in the middle, taking a deep breath. Then a strange thing happened, the first of many times. I wondered if Robert had paused here and I felt his presence, or perhaps simply tried to guess what his experience must have been, here where he had preceded me. Had he known he was going to stab a painting, and known which painting?
KELLY: That's a scene early on in "The Swan Thieves," a new novel by Elizabeth Kostova. Ms. Kostova is the author of the previous bestseller "The Historian." In her new book, she moves us backward and forward in time, telling the contemporary story of a disturbed artist named Robert Oliver through the eyes of his psychiatrist. That's interwoven with the 19th century tale of the woman with whom Oliver is obsessed.
And Elizabeth Kostova has met up with his here in the National Gallery. Thank you so much for joining us.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Thank you for having me here.
KELLY: And this is, of course, where one of the opening scenes of "The Swan Thieves" unfolds, in the French Impressionist section. Tell us a little bit about that opening scene, what happens.
Ms. KOSTOVA: The psychiatrist, who is the narrator-observer of this story, Andrew Marlow, is an artist himself and he loves art. And one day he gets the case of his career, a really great artist named Robert Oliver. Oliver has been arrested for stabbing a painting in the National Gallery. And Marlow comes to the gallery to see the painting as part of his investigation into Oliver's life and his attempt to find out why Oliver has done this.
KELLY: And this is a particular painting that we learn, spend much of the book learning, why Robert Oliver, this very talented but very troubled painter, why he's obsessed with it.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Yes. And I was very happy to hear from a reader the other day that she had looked everywhere for this painting and discovered that it actually isn't here.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: So we should set our listeners straight from the beginning, to say fictional painting. Do not come to the National Gallery and look for it.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Fictional and do not stab it, please.
KELLY: But it would have been hanging, as you imagined it, with early works of French Impressionism.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Yes. It has very much a place in the galleries here. I chose a real gallery, although I invented several paintings actually to go with this story.
KELLY: Tell us a little bit more about this painter, the main character in your book. You spend much of the book, as a reader, trying to unravel his past and what brought him to that scene where he snaps here in the National Gallery.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Well, Robert Oliver is a landscape and portrait painter who's really reaching the peak of a great career. And when he is brought into Marlow's care, he refuses to speak. He refuses to tell his own story. Marlow, of course, wants to know how does he help him and who he is. And in the course of finding this out, he finds himself interviewing the women Robert Oliver has been closest to and also being drawn into Robert Oliver's obsession with a package of old letters that are from 19th century France, real letters.
KELLY: And because Robert Oliver himself won't speak, you tell the novel through different voices, through a couple of the women who he was close to, their voices, through his psychiatrist. So the story is unfolding simultaneously. You're hearing it from their prospective, you hear from everyone except Robert Oliver.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Very much so. I wanted this to be the portrait of an artist, but to have that artist kind of rise up in the midst of other people's voices.
KELLY: Your book, of course, as we've been talking about, is about art; it is also a love story or a collection of love stories. Robert Oliver has a number of loves that we learn about and get to know. There's also this 19th century story of a very young woman painter and a much older man.
Ms. KOSTOVA: That is a story of two artists as well. And it's a story of people who, I think, really would not be together, wouldn't be drawn together except through the power of art. And I wanted it to be much more than a story of just the clich� of mentorship, of the older person mentoring the younger one, although mentorship is an important topic in the book, actually.
But I wanted it to be the story of two very talented people, talented in different ways.
KELLY: And one thing I loved about that 19th century story was you rarely hear stories about, you know, people in their twilight years, love stories. We always, in popular culture, it's always two teenagers or people - spectacularly gorgeous people in their 20s. You write so movingly about the young woman realizing she's not his first love, she wasn't going to be his only love, but she was his last love, that he would die with her name on his lips. It's beautiful.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Well, thank you. Because this is a love story between two artists, it's, in a way they really love each universally, almost in spite of these differences in age, and they understand each other because of it. It was also really important to me in this book to balance that story of the much older man, the mentor and the younger woman artist, with an inversion of that.
There is also a love story imbedded in the book between a much younger man and a dynamic older woman.
KELLY: The two stories in your book - 19th century France, 20th century East Coast U.S. - come together in a surprising way at the very end - and we certainly won't reveal that. But I wonder, do you know how it's all going to turn out when you sit down to write? How much do you make up as you go along?
Ms. KOSTOVA: With "The Swan Thieves," I really didn't know how it would turn out. I had...
KELLY: Really? It's a huge risk. You're several hundred pages in and you're still trying to figure out if there'll be a good surprise ending?
Ms. KOSTOVA: And it was a huge risk but it also was very exciting. My first novel was heavily plotted. And although it's a deeply felt novel for me, it's kind of an intricate puzzle that I had to work out well ahead of time. And this book I really wrote imagining scenes almost the way you would stand in front of a painting.
And it was a moving experience to be sort of there with the computer not knowing exactly how this would turn out. And, of course, at a certain point I did have to solve things and write those scenes...
KELLY: Start leaving little crumbs of clues along the way for the reader.
Ms. KOSTOVA: It made the process somehow very really and very intimate too, actually, the writing of it.
KELLY: Is it scary knowing how many people read your first novel, your debut novel, which came out five years ago? You're going to have a big audience for this book.
Ms. KOSTOVA: There is a difference in writing a second book. You write a first novel. If you write it in total privacy and not necessarily with the expectation even of publication, which was the case with "The Historian," you do write it in a kind of privacy and innocence and it's very much just for you.
And writing a second book, you have a feeling of audience, I think, inevitably. But I'm happy to say that whenever I was composing, and I think a lot of writers would say this, I do forget everything else, if it's going well. I don't remember that there's any reader. I don't remember who I am or what year I was born. I really am with those characters.
I think writing fiction is a very benign form of insanity and...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. KOSTOVA: ...and it's also a joy. It's a joy to be alone with those characters. And I think any serious writer writes not at all for market but for that pleasure.
KELLY: Elizabeth Kostova, thank you so much for sitting down with us here at the National Gallery in Washington. And we've been talking, of course, about your new novel out next week, "The Swan Thieves." Thank you.
Ms. KOSTOVA: Thank you.
Pushing out through the doors, I experienced that mingled relief and disappointment one feels on departure from a great museum. Relief at being returned to the familiar, less intense, more manageable world, and disappointment at that world's lack of mystery.
(Soundbite of music)
KELLY: And you can read about psychiatrist Andrew Marlow's first impression of the painter Robert Oliver at our Web site, NPR.org.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Scott Simon returns next week. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
With much of the country in a deep freeze this week, it might make for good therapy to daydream a bit about summer.
(Soundbite of song, July Flame)
Ms. LAURA VEIRS (Singer): (Singing) July Flame, sweet summer peach, high up in the branch...
KELLY: July Flame is the summery title of the new CD by Laura Veirs. Veirs is known for writing and singing songs about nature, the great outdoors. And this new album, her seventh, is no exception. She joins us from the studios of Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. Welcome.
Ms. VEIRS: Hi, how are you?
KELLY: Hi, were great. And thanks so much for joining us. So I want to start by asking you about this title track, July Flame, which I gather is actually named after a peach.
Ms. VEIRS: It is. Its a variety of peach thats grown in Oregon, and I was at the farmers market a couple of years ago and saw the title for the variety and thought, thats a good song title; I should write a song about that. And then I did, and it turned out to be a good song, and ended up being the title of the record as well.
(Soundbite of song, July Flame)
Ms. VEIRS: (Singing) July Flame, Im seeing fireworks, they're so beautiful...
KELLY: Im told you grew up in Colorado, and then studied geology and Mandarin Chinese at college. Thats quite a combo.
Ms. VEIRS: Yeah, I started off with the Chinese, because I took a year off before college and went to Malaysia to live with my family for a year. So my Dad, hes a physics professor, and he was teaching at a college over there. And I decided to go and teach English, and poke around and travel around Asia. And I ended up in China, where my cousins were, and became fascinated with the language. And the written form in particular, I thought was so beautiful. I decided I wanted to pursue that in college and so I did, and went back to China several times and got pretty good at spoken Mandarin. I learned about 2,000 characters, and now I feel like I probably only know about 20 because these things go -
KELLY: It happens with foreign languages, doesn't it?
Ms. VEIRS: Yeah, if you dont use them, they go and so at that point, I was a geology major, and I decided it would be cool for my senior project to put my interests of Chinese and geology together into one project and go over to learn about geology and field assist in the Taklamakan Desert, which is in the northwest part of China.
KELLY: OK.
Ms. VEIRS: I ended up not really feeling very great about the geology side of things, and I wasnt a very good translator either, because no one there speaks Mandarin Chinese. So - and I didnt know that ahead of time.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: A fatal flaw in your plans there.
Ms. VEIRS: Totally fatal.
KELLY: But you did get something out of it. You bought your guitar and...
Ms. VEIRS: I did, I bought this really crappy guitar in Beijing. It was like, $5 and the strings - action was really high, and the strings were way off the neck, but I was able to push them down and write some songs. And it was the beginning of my feelings, though, that I want to be a writer. But ultimately, I realized that working with melody and words was my favorite thing, not just words alone on the page. And so I started taking songwriting more seriously after that.
(Soundbite of song)
KELLY: And I understand you wrote these songs on - this is another crappy guitar, apparently, as you call - this a theme for you, the crappy guitar.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. VEIRS: Yeah.
KELLY: Tell me why? Describe the process for me.
Ms. VEIRS: Its a guitar. Its a nylon string Goya. Its probably not terribly crappy. If I try to sell it, Id probably get a couple of hundred bucks. But its a guitar that Ive had...
KELLY: Youve moved past the $5 days.
Ms. VEIRS: Yeah. Up to 200.
KELLY: OK.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. VEIRS: But it was a guitar lying around the house growing up, and I started playing it during Christmas holidays when I started to write songs, like in my 20s, I would come home and play it. And I realized, wow, there are a lot of songs in this guitar. Like I just would sit down to play it and songs would come out, and I realized I needed to take it off my dads hands and bring it home.
And since then Ive recorded it on every album, and written tons and tons of songs on it and it just, I think it was Neil Young who said songs - certain guitars have songs in them. I hope its Neil Young, Im not sure - but that one has a lot of songs in it.
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. VEIRS: (Singing) She can really play it, she can really lay it down. Smile, good vibrations. Help me Rhonda, homeward bound.
KELLY: Tell me about another song on the album, Carol Kaye. Of course, this is Carol Kaye, the famous bass player and session musician. Was she an inspiration of yours?
Ms. VEIRS: Yes, she was. She has an amazing presence on so many different records. Shes the most recorded bass player of all time, and she grew up for part of her life in Everett, Washington, which is close to where we live. And I was just fascinated with her story. And then when I started listening to her bass parts, I was blown away. I mean, shes just so inventive and creative on the bass, and its no wonder she was called upon as like, the number one session player in much of the '60s and '70s.
(Soundbite of song, Carol Kaye)
Ms. VEIRS: (Singing) Mission impossible, oh, she's out of this world. Ten-thousand sessions from an Everett, Washington, girl.
KELLY: Were speaking with singer and songwriter Laura Veirs about your new CD, July Flame. One of the songs on here, Little Deschutes. Am I saying that right?
Ms. VEIRS: Yes.
KELLY: Thats such a rich, lush sound in this song. Is that what you were aiming for?
Ms. VEIRS: Yes, I mean, I think most of the songs on this album hold up pretty well on their own just with an instrument and a voice, and that was my goal going into it. But this one we piled a lot of stuff on, various drone sounds on the strings, sounds of Stephen Barber, whos an arranger who lives in Austin. And I love the way it turned out. I think its a really beautiful piece of music that captures a canoe trip that we took to the Little Deschutes River a couple of years ago.
(Soundbite of song, Little Deschutes)
Ms. VEIRS: (Singing) Peace I've known floating along, deep green river with you and a song. Something light - peace, I hope, to make with you my whole life long. I want nothing more than to float with you.
KELLY: Now, you are on your way to touring Europe later this month. Do you find the experience touring overseas different from touring here in the States?
Ms. VEIRS: Honestly, you get better treatment over there.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. VEIRS: They - especially in France, I love to tour there because at the venue, youll come in and do sound check, and then theyll clear the room and bring in these big, wooden tables. And the whole staff, including the ticket sellers and the merch sellers and the lighting people and the band, and everybody whos involved in the show will eat dinner together in the room. Its a very bonding thing; it makes it feel like a special show.
KELLY: Right. More of a team effort.
Ms. VEIRS: Yeah. And here youll often, you know, were not playing theaters yet, so youll walk into the bar, and theyll give you your $10 buyout and then youll go find a place to eat, and then youll come back. And its very more individual. But its just, Ive focused more on Europe, honestly, because I got my start there and I had momentum there. So I have some catching up to do here. But I feel optimistic about this record and people in this country responding well to it as well.
KELLY: And well see you on tour here in the States in February, right?
Ms. VEIRS: Yes.
KELLY: Great. Laura Veirs, talking about her new CD, July Flame, which comes out Tuesday on her own record label, called Raven Marching Band Records. She joined us from the studios of Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. Thanks so much.
Ms. VEIRS: Thanks for having me.
(Soundbite of music)
KELLY: You can hear Laura Veirs' complete album as part of our exclusive, First Listen series at nprmusic.org. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Mary Louise Kelly.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
All the talk this week of terrorism and thwarted attacks got me to thinking, as I often do, about the perils of living in Washington with a young family.
My regular gig at NPR is covering wars and terrorism, and so I spend a lot of time talking with officials at the Pentagon and the CIA and on Capitol Hill. And I sometimes ask them: What keeps you awake at night? What's scary is that they will nearly all tell you the same thing: another terrorist attack. And then they'll tell you: It's not a question of if, but when.
Then they'll tell you their biggest nightmare, which is, of course, that terrorists will get their hands on a nuclear weapon. And I dutifully nod and scribble down notes and file my story and then I go home, and I kiss my sons, and I tell them a story about dinosaurs or superheroes.
All of this was driven home on Christmas Day, when I was having a true Norman Rockwell moment with my family, complete with a roast browning in the oven and "Silent Night" playing in the background, and all of us zooming around on the new scooters that Santa brought. Then my BlackBerry lit up with news that a guy had just tried to blow up a plane en route to Detroit.
There is the journalist part of me that immediately feels the hair on the back of my neck rise, and starts thinking of all the sources I need to call. But there is also the mom part of me that pauses for just a moment to remember those words: not if, but when.
It's enough for me to shoot my husband the look the look that means, should we be thinking about packing up and moving the kids to, I don't know, the South Pacific? I mean, how can I a mother who frets over things like flu shots and diaper rash and whether my 4-year-old holds his pencil correctly how can I rationalize living here?
My kids, it should be said, are impervious to the danger. They listen to me reporting on the radio and absorb just bits and pieces. My younger son asked me the other day what General McChrystal looks like. My older son's teachers tell me that on the playground, instead of games like tag or cowboys and Indians, he suggests playing Taliban versus good soldiers. That one made me laugh, but it also made me worry.
I don't know what the answer is, aside from having a little faith that somehow, things will turn out OK. That, and then there was one other snippet I caught in the news this week: The South Pacific was just hit by several powerful earthquakes and a tsunami.
I guess the lesson is that once you're a parent, if you go looking for it, you'll find that danger lurks everywhere.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
Many of us these days spend time online at social networking sites - Facebook, say, or MySpace, or LinkedIn. And if you use those sites, you know how easy it is to happily fritter away hours in the Twitter-verse or some other online community. But what happens if you get sick of all those messages on your Facebook wall? Well, the brains behind a Web site called web2.0suicidemachine offer this encouragement to end it all, virtually.
Unidentified Man: It doesn't make your life better. You always think you're missing something. And above all, it makes you more stupid.
KELLY: Gordan Savicic is the CEO, which he says stands for chief euthanasia officer, of suicidemachine.org. He joins us on the phone from Vienna. And tell me, the idea here is what? To abandon your virtual life so you can get your actual life back?
Mr. GORDAN SAVICIC (Web 2.0 Suicide Machine): Well, that was certainly one of our intentions. Basically, if we try to remove as much content as possible, we change the profile picture and the password so you can't log in anymore.
KELLY: So what happens? If I were to go log in to suicidemachine.org...
Mr. SAVICIC: Mm-hmm.
KELLY: ...what do I see? How does it work?
Mr. SAVICIC: What happens is you click commit, and then....
KELLY: You click commit. Uh-huh.
Mr. SAVICIC: Yeah, yeah. There you see, basically, a remote desktop session, so you see how - what browser is being started. And then depending on the service you chose, you will see that the machine logs into your account. You see your friend list, and then basically the machine starts, based on our script, to remove the friend connections of everyone or in case of Twitter, we remove the followers and the people you follow, changes your profile picture, changes your password. And finally logs out.
KELLY: So, one by one deleting your friends online�
Mr. SAVICIC: Yes.
KELLY: �you watch them disappear.
Mr. SAVICIC: Yeah. You can take time and relax in front of the computer and see how your 2.0 life is passing away.
KELLY: What happens if you change your mind, halfway through?
Mr. SAVICIC: Hmm. That's a problem.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: That's a problem.
Mr. SAVICIC: Because we can't stop it, also, in the process.
KELLY: Well, have you had a lot of interest? How many people have signed up?
Mr. SAVICIC: We have around 900 users, and since last Sunday, Facebook blocked our service.
KELLY: Facebook has blocked your service.
Ms. SAVICIC: They basically didn't like the idea that we are unfriending other people's accounts. And we still have to decide how we react on that.
KELLY: That's Gordan Savicic from suicidemachine.org, which will help you commit social media suicide. It's the idea of a group called Modern, that's a bunch of artists, designers, and programmers based in Rotterdam. Facebook released a statement earlier this week saying Suicide Machine violates their rules of user interaction. The company says it is, quote, �currently investigating and considering whether to take further action.�
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly sitting in for Scott Simon.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was in a Detroit courtroom yesterday. He pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to blow up a plane on Christmas Day, while all week we've heard about the failure of U.S. spy agencies to stop Abdulmutallab from ever setting foot on Northwest Flight 253.
President Barack Obama says the U.S. government had all the information it needed but it failed to connect the dots. And the president has ordered changes designed to fix the system. Not everyone is optimistic.
Professor PAUL PILLAR (Georgetown University): We've heard all this before. We heard it after 9/11; we heard it after the last round of fixes to intelligence with the big reorganization five years ago.
KELLY: That's Paul Pillar, a former top official at the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. And he points to all the post-9/11 reforms - new agencies that were created to connect the dots. But Pillar says the answer doesn't lie in tweaking the bureaucracy.
Prof. PILLAR: The inherent challenges of trying to find those terrorist needles in the haystack of information that flows in every day to the intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security is always going to be with us no matter how much we try to fix the machinery.
KELLY: As you know, the CIA argued pretty forcefully against these reforms, against creating all of these new centers, saying it's going to mess it up, you're going to have too much bureaucracy, you're going to separate the analysts from the spies who collect intelligence. Do you hear from your former colleagues? Are they yelling now, we told you so?
Prof. PILLAR: I hear from that and I share some of that opinion. I believe that the reorganization of five years ago, if it had any effect at all, probably did make things a little bit worse. Remember what we were hearing after 9/11 -again, the connecting dots business, the information sharing business, information not flowing smoothly enough across bureaucratic lines. So what did we do in the reorganization? We created some new bureaucratic lines. Two more stovepipes basically. And I think that's part of what we're seeing in the most recent instance.
KELLY: One other thing that jumped out at me this week that I thought was interesting from the White House review, your former colleague, John Brennan, who's now the president's top counterterrorism advisor, he was asked what surprised him most as he's gone through and tried to sort through the attempted attack on Christmas Day. And he said what surprised him most was the al-Qaida branch based out of Yemen, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, how lethal they've become, that U.S. intelligence knew they had aspirations of attacking the U.S. mainland, didn't know they were at the point of actually doing it. Did you find that surprising as well?
Prof. PILLAR: Well, let me try to rephrase what I think John Brennan was saying, and that was, number one, the strategic picture was there, that what we now know as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is a group definitely worth worrying about, one that is concerned not only with events in Yemen and Saudi Arabia but does also share the transnational aspirations of al-Qaida Central, which makes it a danger to the United States.
But when you get to the point of a specific operation - in this case unleashing a Nigerian to do something against the United States - then you have moved from strategy to tactics. Strategically, I think we've had a pretty good sense of things, and overall that's what John Brennan was saying this week. When you get to the tactical operations, trying to get those fragments of information that are actionable and would allow us to roll up a particular plot, that is far more difficult.
KELLY: Is that a fixable challenge?
Prof. PILLAR: One can find ways to deal with that ultimately intractable problem through information technology, through analytic training - all the things we've been trying to do for years - but ultimately it is not something that can be fixed. Ultimately it is an inherent challenge that will face counterterrorist officials today and tomorrow and next year and beyond. And it is because of that inherent intractable challenge, we will, despite all our efforts to fix things, still have incidents like the one we had Christmas Day.
KELLY: Paul Pillar, former deputy chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and now a professor at Georgetown University, thank you very much.
Prof. PILLAR: You're quite welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
Turning to politics and the U.S. Senate race in Connecticut: It got a big shuffle this week, as five-term Democrat Christopher Dodd announced he won't run again. His poll numbers sank all through 2009, fueled by a drawn-out ethics scandal. In the end, the scandal didn't amount to much, but as NPR's Peter Overby reports, the taint was enough to push the senator out the door.
PETER OVERBY: At first glance, the case fits the formula for a Capitol Hill scandal. The lawmaker chairs a committee overseeing the financial industry. He also has a loan from a controversial finance company. Documents say he was in the company's VIP program - for customers who would get special treatment. News reports called the loan a sweetheart deal.
That's the outline of Senator Dodd's relationship with Countrywide Financial. It was one of the mortgage lenders that inflated America's housing bubble. Of course, Dodd said he didn't get anything special from Countrywide. This interview is from last summer.
Senator CHRISTOPHER DODD (Democrat, Connecticut): Never offered, never accepted, rates were standard market rates, no change in that, and this is just untrue.
OVERBY: But also, of course, his say-so wasn't enough. House Republicans called for an investigation. Here's Jeb Hensarling, of Texas, in 2008, talking with Sean Hannity on Fox News.
(Soundbite of "The Sean Hannity Show")
Representative JEB HENSARLING (Republican, Texas): What we appear to know is that the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee knew he was on a VIP list - and I don't know if he doesn't know what I in VIP means...
Mr. SEAN HANNITY (Host): The friends of Angelo list. Let me ask you ...
OVERBY: The Senate Ethics Committee investigated, going through 14 months and 18,000 pages of documents. Its conclusion: no credible evidence that Dodd violated the rules. No other authorities looked into the case. But that scandal, such as it turned out to be, played badly in a state where in recent years, prosecutors have nailed a governor, state treasurer and three mayors -just to name a few.
Dodd himself had alienated some constituents in 2007. He ran for president - as an incredible long shot - literally moving his family to Iowa, where he finished sixth in the Democratic caucuses. Combine that embarrassment and the Countrywide problem and by the end of '09, Dodd's approval rating in the polls had dropped to 33 percent. That's according to the Web site pollster.com.
Dodd was unable to raise those numbers. Countrywide had tarnished his image. He'd stopped being a powerful senator that Connecticut could be proud of. Now, he was cast as a Washington insider - too distant to from home state, too close to special interests.
In another era, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, would have come to Dodd's defense. Other senators would have, too, maybe - thanks to Dodd's skills at working across the aisle - even some Republicans.
Mr. KEN FELDMAN (Lobbyist): I'm sure that members of the Senate - Democrats and Republicans - didn't think that Dodd deserved this.
OVERBY: But Ken Feldman, a veteran lobbyist and consultant, says the Senate's not that kind of place anymore.
Mr. FELDMAN: There aren't strong members of the Senate who can pick him up and run interference for him. With all due respect, Harry Reid is not going to run interference for anybody. He's got to worry about himself.
OVERBY: Dodd also lost the support of longtime liberal allies back home, activists who'd worked with him on progressive legislation. Just recently: tobacco regulation, credit card reform, the health-care bill, and re-regulation of financial services. After the scandal hit, those activists took a walk.
Tom Swan is director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group.
Mr. TOM SWAN (Connecticut Citizen Action Group): We probably should've tried to work with him earlier to figure out a better strategy for addressing the ethical concerns.
OVERBY: But they didn't, a sign that in politics today, it doesn't take much of a scandal to scuttle a 30-year career in the Senate.
Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
Time now for your letters.
Last week, we rang in the New Year with a series of interviews looking ahead to the next decade in technology, medicine and fashion. But many of you wrote in to say that 2010 is not the start of a new decade. So we asked NPR librarian Kee Malesky. She explains it this way.
KEE MALESKY: This same outrage came up in 1999, 2000. When did the century begin? Our current calendar system was instituted retroactively and, of course, there was no Year Zero. Therefore, some people think all centuries and all decades must begin with the year one, so the century would be 1901 to 2001, and this decade would be 2011 to 2020. However, a century can actually be any hundred-year period, and a decade any period of 10 years. So this decade can start in 2010 and end in 2019.
KELLY: So, there you have it.
Last week, we also heard from Daniel Menaker, author of "A Good Talk," about the art of holding a good conversation. And Skip Lombardi of Sarasota, Florida, posted a comment on our Web site. He writes: Let's not forget the art of conversation through correspondence. Letter writing, whether on paper or in email, might be even more endangered than oral conversation. Having recently received a handwritten thank you note after a dinner party, I was surprised, delighted, and struck by just how rare a thing that is. Like the ritual of afternoon tea, there's something comforting and antiquated about letter writing simply for the sake of expressing pleasure in an exchange of words.
Last Saturday, guest host Ari Shapiro talked with musician Stace England about the life and work of legendary black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. After the interview aired, we received letters about the proper way to pronounce Micheaux's name.
Mr. England wrote us and he says: I often hear Oscar Micheaux's name pronounced up to four ways. In a 1981 documentary that included interviews with actors Bee Freeman and Lorenzo Tucker, both pronounced the name Meeshaw(ph) sometimes, but more often Mishaw(ph). Since this footage is quite rare and about all we have from people who knew him, I personally take my cues from it and say Mishaw.
Well, pronunciation issues aside, a number of you wrote to say you enjoyed the segment. It was among the most recommended interviews on NPR.org.
Bill Neiman of Wheaton, Illinois, writes, I'd never heard before of Micheaux, nor of Stace England and the Salt Kings. I enjoyed both the story of Micheaux and the music of the band telling his story.
(Soundbite of music)
KELLY: Well, we want to hear from you. You can email us by going to NPR.org and clicking on the link that says Contact Us. Or you can post your thoughts in the comments section of each story. We're also available on Facebook and Twitter, at Facebook.com/nprweekend and Twitter.com/nprweekend.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly, in for Scott Simon.
This week, President Obama talks terrorism with his security advisers, a federal grand jury indicts the man accused of trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight, and prominent Democrats announced they won't run for re-election.
NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr is with me. Nice to see you, Dan.
DANIEL SCHORR: Oh, welcome aboard.
KELLY: Thank you. Good to be here. Well, the big story this week continues to be terrorism.
SCHORR: Yes.
KELLY: And President Obama came out and gave a couple of speeches on that, after he came back from his holiday vacation this week. How do you - how did he do?
SCHORR: Well, I think he was a little slow off the mark, I might say. He was in Hawaii and didn't seem to react very much when the news came in of the attack on the Northwest plane. And then he decided he had to say something. And he seemed to move from a position of not wanting to alarm Americans too much and (unintelligible) alarming them enough to realize there is something very important that happened.
KELLY: Now, all these, of course, has prompted by the questions about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who has now been indicted on charges that he tried to blow up this flight en route to Detroit.
SCHORR: Right.
KELLY: Intelligence agencies scrambling all this week trying to explain how it was that they managed not to connect the dots, that they managed to allow this man to walk on to a flight.
SCHORR: Yeah, well, especially(ph) not connecting the dots gives you some sense that there are a lot of the things just waiting to be connected. We're dealing here with a database of 500,000 names. And I think I can understand, if nobody else seems to be able to understand, that it is very, very difficult to put all that together.
KELLY: Do you think anybody should be held accountable for what happened?
SCHORR: Well, I'll follow the president on this. First he talked about mistakes being made and did the typical passive tense, mistakes were made. And finally he came out the way he had to come out, where Truman came out. The buck stops here.
KELLY: The buck stops here. Wonder what you think this episode says about the nature of the war against al-Qaida and its sympathizers, this idea that even as President Obama and his administration are really focused on trying to fight terrorists along that Afghanistan-Pakistan border we hear�
SCHORR: Right.
KELLY: �so much about, meanwhile you have these offshoot groups that can plot operations from elsewhere.
SCHORR: That is exactly right. And they are being given kinds of opportunities, now in Yemen, for example, where you have a very weak government. Some speak of a failing government, some say it's a government which practically has failed. That is where this guy went and that's where he found his training and all of that. It is very, very difficult to keep track when things are in the hands of a government that can't even govern very well. And that's what we have now, a series, one after the other, of where the training takes place by the al-Qaida - Afghanistan, Pakistan. One place right now, the latest entry into the field -Yemen.
KELLY: Another challenge for this still relatively new Obama administration. Well, meanwhile, midterm elections coming up this year. And political maneuvering is already underway. Democrats looking for ways to hold on to that very slim majority that they have in the Senate and now we get news that two long-time Democratic Senators, Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan, are not running for re-election.
SCHORR: And that's right. And that makes four Democratic seats now in the Senate that may be up for grabs during the - during the next election. It tends to be true that a party in power and in general election loses some strength in the first off-year election, tends to be true. And that may be true here. Here in addition, there is a fact that the country is simply not happy with this government, either the Congress or with the presidency.
There are all these terrible problems that the country faces and they tend to say you're in charge, why don't you fix it. And they don't get fixed very easily. This tends now to work against the Democrats. And at the moment, it begins to look as though the Republicans are coasting towards important gains. But I say at the moment it looks because other things can't happen between now and next November, which may change then.
KELLY: We're talking politics and moving onto health care. The House returns from winter break this coming week.
SCHORR: Yes.
KELLY: They are going to start ironing out differences between the House and the Senate version of the health care bills. These negotiations - they are mostly going on in private. That's unusual. What happened to transparency?
SCHORR: What happened to - yes, it didn't. President Obama when campaigning said that he would let the thing open for it to be seen by C-Span...
KELLY: That's right.
SCHORR: � all on C-Span. Well, it didn't happen. And it's not likely to happen. The fact of the matter is when you come down to wire, and there are very delicate little things you've got to change and agree upon and so on, it really works better if you do it in private. And they know that. So, what they've done for the first time is to say, well, normally we would have a Senate/House conference on this question; they're saying now, well, before that we will have a little kind of private attempt to resolve these things. And so transparency it ain't.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KELLY: Transparency it ain't. Last thing we want to hit, Dan, the economy. Lots of folks out there had their fingers crossed for some positive news. There were some glimmers of hope back in November, but now we hear employers cut 85,000 jobs in December, that's more than we expected. Unemployment rate steady, 10 percent.
SCHORR: Right.
KELLY: What did you make of that - is the recession lasting longer than expected?
SCHORR: Well, that part of the recession certainly is. I mean, there have been improvements in other areas, but what really counts for most Americans anyway is jobs, jobs, jobs. And you get the, as you suggested, you get to the unemployment figure of about 10 percent. As long as that - that number doesn't move, you cannot speak of a recovery.
KELLY: NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr. Dan, great pleasure to get to interview you.
SCHORR: Oh...
KELLY: Thank you.
SCHORR: ...my pleasure.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
We are going to stay with that unemployment news and that number we mentioned. American businesses cut another 85,000 jobs last month. Over the last two years the U.S. economy has lost more than seven million jobs. That's bad news for Americans looking for work.
It also poses a political challenge for the White House, as NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY: Experts can point to a lot of encouraging sings that the U.S. economy is growing again, but for most people the sign that matters is a paycheck, especially if they are not getting one. President Obama says yesterday's disappointing jobs report is another reminder the road to recovery is never straight.
President BARACK OBAMA: We have to continue to work every single day to get our economy moving again. For most Americans and for me, that means jobs. It means whether we are putting people back to work.
HORSLEY: Some people did go back to work in November. A revised estimate shows the U.S. actually added jobs that month for the first time in almost two years. But the gain was small - only about 4,000 jobs, and quickly overshadowed by the steeper than expected job losses in December.
Christina Romer, who heads the president's Council Of Economic Advisors, says while last months job cuts were disappointing, they have to be kept in perspective.
Ms. CHRISTINA ROMER (Council Of Economic Advisors): This is how real recoveries happen. They come in fits and starts. And now it looks like November was a start and December was a little bit of a fit. And I think the important thing is what - you know, we keep emphasizing the overall trajectory.
HORSLEY: Job losses have slowed dramatically since the beginning of the year. And many economists say that's at least partly due to the federal government's stimulus program. Nigel Gault of the forecasting firm IHS Global Insight says December's job loses were a setback but a relatively small one.
Mr. NIGEL GAULT (IHS Global Insight): Given the momentum that seems to be there in the economy at the moment, particularly pick-up seems to be evident in manufacturing, some improvement in retail sales, it does seem that we are likely to be adding jobs over the next few months.
HORSLEY: But even if the economy starts adding jobs month after month, it will take a long time to fill the deep hole left by the recession. At least one in 10 Americans who wants to work can't find a job right now. And others are so discouraged they have quit looking; that's worst unemployment picture in at least a generation, as Mr. Obama knows all too well.
President OBAMA: Many of you know, I get about 10 letters a night that I take a look at. I often hear from Americans who are facing hard times. Americans have lost their jobs or can't afford to pay their bills. They are worried about what the future holds.
HORSLEY: The president's own political future, as well as that of congressional Democrats, could depend on how people feel about the economy. Some members of his own party want Mr. Obama to focus more exclusively on job creation. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says the president wakes up concerned every day about where the economy is, even if he is also pulled in other directions, by events like the attempted bombing of an airliner.
Mr. ROBERT GIBBS (White House Spokesman): I think Washington's attention is focused on jobs. I think Washington's attention is focused on our security situation. Each day Washington has to be focused on many different things.
HORSLEY: The White House is planning to raise the visibility of its work on the economy in the weeks to come. Yesterday, Mr. Obama announced the award of more than $2 billion in tax credits under the stimulus program to promote clean energy jobs. He says he'd like to see another $5 billion devoted to that effort.
President OBAMA: If we can tap the talents of our workers, and our innovators, and our entrepreneurs, if we can gain the lead in clean energy worldwide, then we'll forge a future where a better life is possible in our country over the long run.
HORSLEY: In the short run, though, each demand for more government spending will have to be weighed against worries over rising deficits. That's one big reason Mr. Obama seems reluctant to call for stimulus efforts on a scale that could have a dramatic impact on the unemployment rate. Instead, he'll be trying to get the most bang he can, both economically and politically, from a limited number of bucks.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
Tsutomu Yamaguchi died this week. He is the only person officially recognized as having survived the bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Despite the double radiation exposure, he lived to be 93 years old. On August 6th, 1945, Mr. Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima, when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the city. His eardrums burst and he was burned. But he survived and returned to his hometown of Nagasaki the next day. Two days later, the second bomb hit the city. Mr. Yamaguchi later said I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me from Hiroshima.
After the war, he worked for the occupying forces and in his later years wrote a memoir and spoke out against nuclear weapons. And just last month he was paid a visit by Hollywood director James Cameron. He wanted to discuss with him a film project about the bombings.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
With the New Year, there's a new push to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Those talks stalled last year. But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat down this week with Egyptian and Jordanian officials to talk about the U.S. commitment to the process. Among the officials she met with was Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. And he joins us now. Welcome to the program.
Mr. AHMED ABOUL GHEIT (Foreign Minister, Egypt): Thank you very much for hosting me.
KELLY: Well, you are in Washington. You came here this week in the hope of finding a way to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. What is you sense, sir, of the U.S. commitment at this point? How hard do you think the U.S. is prepared to push?
Mr. GHEIT: I think the Americans are committed and they understand the dynamics around the region. The region is passing through most difficult times, fundamentalism is on the rise, and we see that a possible clash between such fundamentalist forces and the West, and they need to diffuse that possibility, hence they need to push forward finding or seeking a Palestinian settlement, a settlement that would ensure the establishment of a Palestinian state. And that state would live in peace and security with Israel, but there are certain prerequisites for such a state, mainly the size of the territory.
And the territory should be established on the basis of the '67 lines, with the same area that has been occupied, and the possibility of swaps between - swaps in territories between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
KELLY: The other long negotiating process your government has been involved in is that between Fatah, which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and its rival, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Do you see any progress in those talks?
Mr. GHEIT: I do not think that we are making progress and I think we'll slow down a little bit till better prospects for success.
KELLY: Huh. And these two processes are linked, of course. Do you see real progress coming between the Palestinians and Israel if there isn't some sort of agreement in place between Fatah and Hamas?
Mr. GHEIT: I think we can proceed to - for the Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate together, and if we would manage to have an agreement on a settlement, then that would play as an added pressure on the rest of the Palestinian groups to come forward and to seek the reconciliation effort.
KELLY: Another issue I want to ask you about - Egypt has kept a blockade on its border with the Gaza Strip ever since Hamas took control there. As you know, that border�
Mr. GHEIT: Well, that is not very - that is not very accurate�
KELLY: Why?
Mr. GHEIT: �because we have the Rafah border crossing and that is in use for people for the crossing of Palestinians from Egypt to Gaza and the other way around, as well as�
KELLY: That is not always open though, sir.
Mr. GHEIT: It is open for extended periods of time. And many Palestinians are crossing - students, medical care and such of - such Palestinians. So it is not true at all for people to claim that Egyptians are blocking Gaza. That is one. But two, Israel is an occupation of Gaza and it is the occupying power and the occupying power according to international law has cases to ensure that the welfare of the people is ensured.
KELLY: Setting aside for a moment the question of Israel in this - is Egypt doing enough? Could Egypt - should Egypt be doing more to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip?
Mr. GHEIT: We are helping and we have been publishing lots of information on the number of thousands of tons of material that has been crossing from Egypt into Gaza, and the tens of thousands of tons of material, of provisions of medical needs. We are doing our part. No doubt we are doing our part, but we have to insist that the crossings on the Israeli side, between Israel and Gaza, are blocked because Israel is denying them their needs, because Israel is insisting that this very famous Israeli soldier has to be released from the hands of Hamas.
KELLY: This is Gilad Shalit.
Mr. GHEIT: Yes. So as we are trying to also find a settlement between the Israelis and Hamas, maybe that would compel the Israelis to open up the crossings on their side. The international community is also obliged to intervene with the Israelis, the way we keep pressing them, that you have to allow the international community to trade with the Palestinians through Israel, not relying only on Egypt.
KELLY: Ahmed Aboul Gheit. He's the foreign minister of Egypt. Thank you so much.
Mr. GHEIT: Thank you. Thank you very much.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
Cities are the largest emitters of ozone, the main ingredient in smog, and across the nation, urban areas have been the ones struggling to meet air quality standards while rural counties, which emit less ozone, have generally remained below smog pollution limits. But soon that may no longer be the case. The Environmental Protection Agency this week proposed a tighter ozone pollution standard and now many suburban and rural areas may be running into trouble with the Feds.
David Gorn has this report.
DAVID GORN: Some of the worst air pollution in the nation is in California. In fact, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Fresno consistently rank in the top 10 of the most polluted cities in the U.S. But if you go up to the far north of the state, in the mountains of Siskiyou County, near the Oregon border, the skies are clearer. But maybe not clear enough.
Mr. ELDON BECK (Air Pollution Control Officer): I don't think we've got the industrial activity and/or the population up here to have really created that situation as far as ozone goes.
GORN: That's Eldon Beck. He is sitting in his small Air Pollution Control Office up in the town of Yreka. Beck says it's a small operation up here, just him and his boss, who also doubles as the County Ag Commissioner and the Animal Control Officer. And Beck says he can't quite believe his county may soon be out of compliance with proposed new federal ozone standards.
Mr. BECK: Well, we're not very excited about that at all.
GORN: The current federal limit for ozone is 75 parts per billion. But the new plan is tougher, putting the ozone threshold at between 60 and 70 parts per billion. And that could send many more counties into non-compliance, which could eventually mean the loss of federal dollars, such as highway funding. This comes at a time when many suburban and rural counties are facing budget shortfalls and many are worried about more expense in a bad economy. But for Melissa Kelly-Ortega, living in the town of Merced, at the northern lip of the Central Valley, it might mean that her six-year-old can breathe a little easier.
Ms. MELISSA KELLY-ORTEGA (Bicycle Advisory Commission): The valley is actually like a bowl, so our pollution just sits here. In the summertime, what we're dealing with is ozone and smog and that's really a bunch of different types of pollutants, but then they're cooked by the sun. And so, we're kind of sitting in this big pot of pollution soup.
GORN: Ortega says her daughter has severe asthma because of it. Asthma and other respiratory diseases have increased as smog pollution levels have risen, says Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association. Sometimes people think of these ailments as mildly inconvenient, but she says they are much more of a health threat than that.
Ms. JANICE NOLEN (National Policy & Advocacy, American Lung Association): There are actually people who die from asthma. This is the kind of thing where children are turning blue and they end up in the emergency room at night.
GORN: But keeping pollutants out of the air is not a simple task. For one thing, smog travels. So for instance, San Francisco with its sea breezes is far below the ozone emission threshold. But its smog blows east into Sacramento, where the terrain bottles up that smog into the Sacramento Valley. Up in Siskiyou County, Eldon Beck says some of their pollution is from forest fires and some of it likely comes from the nearby city of Medford. So, what is cash-strapped Siskiyou supposed to do about that?
Mr. BECK: Somehow we're going to have to develop a plan, I guess, to try to come into compliance, but it's going to be a big expense all the way around.
GORN: Just how stringent the new regulation will be is up for discussion. A series of public meetings will be held this year in part to decide what ozone level is fair as well as safe.
For NPR News, I'm David Gorn.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
It used to be that if you were a high school senior and you had good grades, a decent SAT score, played a sport or an instrument, maybe did some volunteer work, that was enough to pretty much guarantee you a spot at your local state university. Well, not anymore. That's because so many public universities are cash-strapped these days, so they're courting out of state students because they pay higher tuition fees than in-state students.
We're joined by Barmak Nassirian. He is with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. And welcome. Thanks for coming in.
Mr. BARMAK NASSIRIAN (American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers): Thank you.
KELLY: So let me start by asking you, how widespread a trend is this?
Mr. NASSIRIAN: I think it's fair to describe it as a national trend. Most public institutions have experienced better than two years of budget cuts by now. They are often very restricted in terms of how much they can increase tuition for their in-state students. So out-of-state applicants have become particularly appealing to them just as a matter of balancing their budgets.
KELLY: So this is a trend across the country, not focused in any particular area?
Mr. NASSIRIAN: I would say it's a very detectable trend. Obviously, it has variations. Some places are significantly more selective than others, but in general, the one statement that I do think is true is that most public institutions are far more selective today than they were 10 or 20 years ago.
KELLY: And we're talking about this trend of state schools increasingly looking to out-of-state residents because they pay more money. Can you give us any sense of to what degree that's happening? Is this a tiny thing around the margins or is this a big deal, a big trend?
Mr. NASSIRIAN: This is a feature of the dysfunctional ways in which the publics are funded�
KELLY: The public universities are funded�
Mr. NASSIRIAN: �the public universities are funded by their respective states, because of course precisely at the point where families who have arguably paid into the system with state taxes for years, sometimes decades, it's at the point that they need these institutions the most that the institutions are least able to meet the demand. Why? Because the states tend to fund these institutions on an annual basis, and Governor Schwarzenegger�
KELLY: In California.
Mr. NASSIRIAN: �in California has proposed a fairly utopian idea of restoring higher education back to what it used to be 30 years ago, when 10 percent of the state's budget used to go to higher ed.
KELLY: Let me ask you about academic standards and how that factors in here. Is it true that students applying from out-of-state are going to be held to a higher academic standard than those applying in-state? How does that work?
Mr. NASSIRIAN: That has been true always and it remains true clear across the board. In-state applicants have better odds of being admitted to their respective state institutions. So what we are talking about is not so much that public institutions are going to now favor out-of-state applicants. It's just that they will take larger numbers of them than they have historically.
KELLY: So bottom line, if you're a student polishing your resume and sending it off with your application, hoping for admission to your state university, any tips, anything they should be doing to help guarantee or help insure their success with that application?
Mr. NASSIRIAN: Well, I mean at one level the advice I can given them is fairly obvious and perhaps even trite - you know, study, study, study. Be as well prepared as you can be, academically and otherwise, because that is the coin of the realm when it comes to admissions. In good times and bad, better prepared students, students who can document their progress over time, will be viewed more favorably.
And as much as we are disappointed with the overall budgetary situation when it comes to public higher education, it remains true that in the United States, any student who seeks to access higher education still can do so, and the last thing I want to do is to give any sense that that has fundamentally changed, because there is a place for everybody who seeks one.
KELLY: Be flexible and look around...
Mr. NASSIRIAN: Absolutely, do your homework.
KELLY: That's Barmak Nassirian. He is associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions officers; he joined me in our studios in Washington. Thanks so much for coming in.
Mr. NASSIRIAN: My pleasure.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Mary Louise Kelly in for Scott Simon. Time now for sports.
(Soundbite of music)
KELLY: It's play off time in the NFL. Three of this weekend's games are do-overs from last week. And on this chilly January weekend, we've got some baseball to talk about. But first, the sports scandal of the week continues to resonate. NBA star Gilbert Arenas of the Washington Wizards was suspended indefinitely this week after he displayed several hand guns in the Wizards' locker room.
Joining me now is NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Hi, Tom.
TOM GOLDMAN: Hi there.
KELLY: Hi. So last night the Wizards played their first home game without Arenas, who is their top scorer, and they actually gave their fans something to cheer about for once. What happened?
GOLDMAN: Yeah. Actually an inspiring night at the Verizon Center - haven't heard those words much. It started with Washington forward Antawn Jamison grabbing a microphone and addressing the crowd before the game. He told the fans the situation with Arenas was very embarrassing, and being a positive role model is something we don't take lightly. That's what he said. Then he went out and scored 28 points and he helped lead the Wizards back from a 10 point deficit in the final quarter to beat the division leading Orlando Magic.
KELLY: Who would have thought? So�
GOLDMAN: Yeah.
KELLY: �now as we said, the NBA suspended Arenas without pay. He is now facing possible criminal charges. There's been a lot of fall-out since his suspension.
GOLDMAN: Certainly has. Last night Arenas wasn't at the Verizon Center, his image was gone as well. The Wizards removed jerseys from merchandize racks. They edited Arenas out of the team's pre-game video on the score board. And a banner on the side of the arena with his picture on it was taken down. And also yesterday, four teammates were fined $10,000 each for clowning too much with Arenas when he pantomimed shooting teammates with imaginary pistols before a game earlier this week. And then finally, Mary Louise, the Wizards coach has banned gambling on the team plane. Other teams may follow suit. A dispute over a card game involving thousands of dollars apparently prompted the fight that led to that locker room gun situation.
KELLY: Tom, I want to switch gears and look at baseball, which has had to deal, of course, with different image problems like the use of banned performance enhancing drugs.
Former homerun champion Mark McGwuire was one of the players who got caught up in that controversy. He's back in the news - and can it be true - possibly back in the game?
(Soundbite of laughter)
GOLDMAN: We don't know about possibly in the game. Well, he is coming back this spring as a hitting coach with the St. Louis Cardinals, possibly as an active player. St. Louis manager Tony La Russa floated that idea putting him on the active roster for the playoffs, although La Russa said it was kind of tongue in cheek. Even if that doesn't happen, Big Mac will be back in the public eye. And he's been out of it pretty much since 2005, that's when he made that disastrous appearance before Congress at a hearing on steroids in baseball when he infamously clammed up and he sure sounded guilty of drug use, although nothing was ever proved.
KELLY: Okay. Well, enough about sports controversy. Let's talk actual sports. This is a big NFL weekend, postseason is here, four playoff games this weekend. Give us the rundown.
GOLDMAN: Well, three games are particularly intriguing because the teams, as you mentioned before, they played each other just last Sunday - the New York Jet stomped the Cincinnati Bengals, the Dallas Cowboys clobbered the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Green Bay Packers dominated the Arizona Cardinals.
KELLY: And what's the thinking behind all these rematches?
GOLDMAN: Well, each game has a different answer. There's no real trend really. And last week's results were somewhat skewed because Arizona and to a lesser extent Cincinnati, they didn't play all their star players for the entire games. They were resting them for the playoffs. I think full strength at home tomorrow, Arizona, despite injuries to a couple of key players, beats Green Bay. The Jets, however, are peaking at the right time. They've got a great defense and a great running attack, which is important in the postseason. I like them to win again. And Dallas/Philly, a great traditional match up, I'm going with a veteran Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb to do a turnaround from last week's disaster. He's got a heck of a lot of playoff experience. I'm taking Philly over a very hot Dallas Cowboys team.
KELLY: All right. The games to watch from NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Thanks, Tom.
GOLDMAN: You're welcome.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
While Americans start to whisper in hopeful tones about economic recovery, some states continue to register a disturbing sign of hard times: Bodies are being left unclaimed at local morgues.
From Oregon Public Broadcasting, April Baer has the story.
APRIL BAER: To step into the morgue at the Oregon medical examiner's office is to confront destitution at its most final.
(Soundbite of locker)
BAER: In this frigid, dark locker, the dead lie draped in plastic sheeting on steel tables. These aren't folks who died watched over by family. Dr. Karen Gunson's morgue is the first stop for people who were killed in car accidents or shootings, or who simply died at home by themselves.
Dr. KAREN GUNSON (Medical Examiner): Many times, if they happen to end up at the medical examiner's office, they have made some choices in their life, where they're no longer very close to their family. That might be drugs or alcohol or just wanderlust. It's extremely rare when we don't find someone.
BAER: Gunson says these people died unexpectedly, and their families - if they had families - weren't prepared.
Oregon's one of several states that provides funding for so-called indigent burials. Historically, this money pays for a final service for people with no home or relatives. But in 2009, Gunson says an unprecedented number of bodies went unclaimed some for a month or more not because family couldn't be found, but because the economy has left families unable to pay for even the most basic $500 cremation.
Ms. GUNSON: We don't really want to become a storage place.
BAER: The trend is elusive to track. In Oregon, demand on the indigent burial fund was so high last year, the Legislature had to nearly triple fees on death certificates to keep the fund solvent. Illinois received so many requests for burial help that its funds were temporarily shut down over the summer. And in Michigan, where the economy hemorrhaged 300,000 jobs last year, indigent burials nearly doubled, from 603 in 2008 to over 1,100.
Oregon has avoided overcrowding in its morgues with an arrangement that sends unclaimed remains to funeral homes, who then solicit families for at least partial payment. That's when the real negotiating over final arrangements begins.
Ms. ROSEMARY GOLDSWORTHY: My mom called me and she's like, you might want to call them because nothing's been done and this is what's going to happen if nobody pays.
BAER: Last October, Rosemary Goldsworthy was still reeling from the shock of her father's death when the mortuary began phoning asking for payment, or else.
Ms. GOLDSWORTHY: You know, he'll just get buried in a grave with a bunch of strangers who also aren't claimed, in some county cemetery.
BAER: Goldsworthy and her fianc� live in a town with 14 percent unemployment. They're barely getting by on his part-time pay at a furniture factory. While she negotiated a rare payment plan for her father's burial, family members told her they wouldn't be able to help with the $340 down payment. This kind of bruising discussion, funeral directors say, is not uncommon these days.
After months of negotiation, the mortuary finally agreed to release her father's ashes for a nominal fee. Goldsworthy said she thought constantly about what might become of his cremated remains and where they'd end up.
Ms. GOLDSWORTHY: I want some of him. I want to have a part of my dad.
BAER: But what about families who can't pay, won't pay or can't be found?
Erin Phelps is the owner of Omega Funeral and Cremation Services in Portland.
Mr. ERIN PHELPS (Owner, Omega Funeral and Cremation Services): Yeah, here we are, the cremated remains that are unclaimed, we keep them in this storage utility area.
BAER: In an unfinished corner of his mortuary's attic, rows and rows of plain white boxes stand neatly stacked, each one bearing the name of someone left unclaimed. Some 60 people have come to rest here over 16 years.
Phelps says there's no doubt many surviving families are having real trouble meeting burial expenses. But he's also noticed more people finding reasons not to pay to bury the family's black sheep, expecting the indigent burial fund to step in.
Mr. PHELPS: The thing I find hardest to take is when there are people who have the resources and simply will not do anything.
BAER: So, once every few months, when Phelps has a paid service scheduled at the Oregon Coast, his staff will take along the remains for cases that he considers closed after years of research. The ashes of the unclaimed will be trucked out to the ocean and scattered in the waters of Tillamook Bay.
For NPR News, I'm April Baer in Portland, Oregon.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Before Nintendo Wiis and Sony PlayStations, there were pinball machines. Pinball may be history for today's generation of gamers, but it's a history that David Silverman wants to preserve.
In the past 30 years, Silverman has collected 867 pinball machines, from 1920s flat box games designed to be played on bar tables, to today's free standing computerized games with music and sound effects. One day he hopes to open a national pinball museum where his prized possessions will be on display. For now, they reside in a building he constructed behind his house in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Silverman works as a landscaper specializing in Japanese gardens. But he found the time this past week to show us his collection of pinball machines and explain how his passion for pinball began.
Mr. DAVID SILVERMAN (Pinball Enthusiast): I immediately was attracted by the color; the color and the artwork as a four-year-old. I mean I was just fascinated with it. And my father gave me a bunch of nickels, and from that point on, as they say, you know, history in the making.
HANSEN: Take us to a game of that era when you were four.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yes. Okay. Over in here...
HANSEN: See if we can squeeze by these - the "Slick Chick."
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yeah, this game, "Coronation" would be a game of my era.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Mr. SILVERMAN: Now, realistically I would say I'm an average player. Not above average and I think probably when I was a young kid I was a better player than I am now. And most of the people I know who are older players feel the same way.
HANSEN: Look at you racking up one million.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yeah, I got a million. And to get a free game, you have to get 5,200,000 and all I have is two million, so I'm a kind of a pathetic player.
(Soundbite of laughter)
(Soundbite of a pinball machine)
HANSEN: Now, we happen to be back into another game, which appears much much older - this one.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
HANSEN: How old is this game?
Mr. SILVERMAN: This game's about 1929.
HANSEN: Right. So there's no flippers.
Mr. SILVERMAN: No flippers.
HANSEN: What there are, are there are these silver balls and you put some nickels up here.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yes.
HANSEN: Does that mean I can put it in?
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yes, absolutely.
HANSEN: All my balls come out.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Now you shoot it.
HANSEN: Okay. Do you want me to shoot it?
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yeah, you got two balls, so (unintelligible).
HANSEN: All right, let's see what I got. Missed. Yeah. That's where they all end up. Did you restore this game?
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yes. Yes, we restored this one.
HANSEN: And that's what you do as well, you restore games, you collect games.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Display games.
HANSEN: Display games. You let people come in and play games.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Yes.
HANSEN: And your ultimate goal is to actually have a pinball museum.
Mr. SILVERMAN: What I'm trying to do is save American history because these pinball machines go along the lines of history. The game you looked at before, "Coronation," was when Queen Elizabeth was coronated.
HANSEN: Really?
Mr. SILVERMAN: So this was...
HANSEN: Pinball was made in honor of the...
Mr. SILVERMAN: Exactly. And so many of the games that you see here have a lot to do with what was happening at the time. The artwork is similar as well.
HANSEN: I have to stop you, though, but Queen Elizabeth, I've never seen her in a bikini wearing a fuchsia cape with those little platform ankle shoes that they wore in 1950, blonde hair, something like, you know, Betty Grable or...
Mr. SILVERMAN: Well, you have to remember that pinball was a man's game. A lot of the pinball machines - the height of pinball was after World War II. So the soldiers coming home, who where used to pinup girls in their lockers, basically all the artwork � what we call the backglass � was to attract the player. And what was on them? Mostly women.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
HANSEN: You're actually standing in front of "Coronation."
Mr. SILVERMAN: Correct.
HANSEN: But it is flanked by "Sweet Adeline."
Mr. SILVERMAN: "Sweet Adeline."
HANSEN: "Roto Pool" is next to "Coronation, "Nine Sisters" is next to it and "Green Pastures" is next to that one. These seem to be a heyday of pinball. But they were always in these dark kind of nefarious places. When did pinball become kind of a social no-no?
Mr. SILVERMAN: That was actually pretty early. A company called Bally invented a payout game and once these games were invented, that was gambling. So pinball was outlawed in the three major cities that were important for pinball. That was New York City, that was Chicago and that was L.A. But not until 1976 did they finally legalize pinball in New York City.
HANSEN: Okay, so it's, you know, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon and you've got the urge to play some pinball. And you say, I'm going to go down to my museum, such as it is at this point, and I want to play a game. What game do you choose to play?
Mr. SILVERMAN: Well, there's a game right next to you called "Bing Bang Bar." That is my favorite game.
HANSEN: All right. Come on over. Let's take a look at this thing.
Mr. SILVERMAN: The black light will come on.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Mr. SILVERMAN: And it changes the color - all of the greens, all of the colors, especially when the room is dark, which is what I like to play pinball in.
HANSEN: Now this has things modern that I recognize: the little tracks where balls go, the ramps, the kind of in and out, and down and above. I mean, this is really bells and whistle.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Mr. SILVERMAN: And this is called the "Attract Mode." This is quite innovative because watch, it'll tell you the story.
HANSEN: (Reading) On the night of July 2nd, 1947, a loud crash was heard near Roswell, New Mexico. Remains of an alien spacecraft were recovered. Although this was officially denied by the United States government, was this craft an advance scout of an impending alien invasion of the earth? Or was it simply an accident by a group of joyriders having one too many?
Mr. SILVERMAN: That's the "Bing Bang Bar."
HANSEN: That's the "Bing Bang Bar."
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Mr. SILVERMAN: Anybody who comes in here who looks reputable can play the games with us.
HANSEN: All right, how do I look?
Mr. SILVERMAN: You look pretty reputable.
HANSEN: All right, I'm going to play this game.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Press that button.
HANSEN: Like I'm going to get that far.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Unidentified Man: Player one, Ray wants to see you at the bar.
HANSEN: Ray wants to see you at the bar.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Ray wants to see you at the bar.
HANSEN: Well, where's Ray?
Mr. SILVERMAN: Oh, Ray's up there.
HANSEN: All right.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Mr. SILVERMAN: You have 13 million so far.
HANSEN: All right.
Unidentified Man: Player one, I need to see some I.D.
HANSEN: I'm old enough.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Unidentified Woman: (unintelligible) upstairs.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Upstairs.
HANSEN: Up.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Well, watch what happens when the game's over.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Unintelligible Man: (unintelligible) impress me.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Watch. What happens when you're in a bar?
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
HANSEN: You drink too much?
Mr. SILVERMAN: You throw up.
HANSEN: David Silverman, thank you for showing us your collection of pinball machines and good luck with the pinball museum.
Mr. SILVERMAN: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
HANSEN: Would you mind if I played "Addam's Family?"
Mr. SILVERMAN: Of course.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
No doubt the unemployment figures are grim, but among African-American young men, they are downright catastrophic. Fifty-two percent of black men between the ages of 16 and 19 are unemployed - and that only counts those still looking for work. Economists says legions of other young black men - no one knows how many - have given up the search.
NPR's Sam Sanders reports.
SAM SANDERS: Andre Johnson is 18 and a student at the YouthBuild Charter School in the District of Columbia. He talks about his fruitless job search.
Mr. ANDRE JOHNSON: I apply for jobs every day, and usually I do it online, 'cause I know before when I used to go in the stores, they used to look at me actually different and weird, and they'd say, oh, we don't have no applications or nothing, and I never believed them.
SANDERS: Academics believe only 14 in 100 young black men actually have jobs. And Washington, D.C. has the worst teen employment rate in the country.
Experts point to several reasons for the disparity. Allison Lee is a job placement specialist at YouthBuild. The school helps youth complete their GEDs, gain job training and land internships and jobs. Lee says she sees discrimination from hiring managers firsthand.
Ms. ALLISON LEE (Job Placement Specialist, YouthBuild Charter School): They have told me on the phone or to my face that they're hiring, and when I send a student in by himself who's a young black male, they're told, no, we're not hiring.
SANDERS: Academics say there are other reasons for these high unemployment rates. There are few African-Americans working in hiring offices and few networks exist in their communities to help them get jobs. It all sets up a disturbing trend.
The Economic Policy Institute says the numbers are so bad, the job prospects of white, adult felons are still higher than those of black, teenage men without any criminal record. Also, older workers who have been laid-off from higher paying jobs are now taking the entry-level jobs many black teens apply for. In fact, more people over 55 are working in this recession than were before.
And it's not just low-income households that are hurting. Dr. Andrew Sum is with the Center for Labor Market Studies. He found that upper-middle-class black teenagers are less likely to be employed than low-income white teenagers. Sum says that young people need to work during their teen years.
Dr. ANDREW SUM (Center for Labor Market Studies): Those people who work a lot when they're teenagers not only benefit when they're teenagers, but they also will work more and earn more when they're 20 to 25 years old. The more you work now, the more you work tomorrow.
SANDERS: Eighteen-year-old Anthony Bishop stands in front of his school in Southeast D.C. It's the Building for the Future Charter School. He's on his lunch break outside in the cold. He's been applying for jobs and has tough love for jobseekers.
Mr. ANTHONY BISHOP: Young black men, they need to stop dressing certain ways when they go and apply for a job, 'cause some black people just, they'll just go on the job, you know, baggy jeans, you know, just try to apply for a job, but that ain't the right way to do it. You got to go dress for the occasion.
SANDERS: A few miles away, back at YouthBuild, 19-year-old Isaiah Brown has a few words for all the managers who wouldn't hire him.
Mr. ISAIAH BROWNI would just tell them you missed out on a good, hard worker who comes every day, who do what he's told. And you just missed out on a good opportunity for your business.
SANDERS: Corey Evans, another YouthBuild student, is still optimistic.
Mr. COREY EVANS: There's black brothers out there, just keep trying and don't let nothing hold you back.
SANDERS: Evans says the best way to get a job is to not worry about the economy, or your color, even if others do.
Sam Sanders, NPR News.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
State unemployment insurance is the safety net meant to help people get by when they lose their jobs. But last year more than half of all states failed to meet existing guidelines for timely benefit payments. Now the federal government wants to make states more accountable. From San Francisco, Rachel Dornhelm has more.
RACHEL DORNHELM: The list of states that have fallen behind on mailing initial unemployment benefits is long: California, Rhode Island, Arizona, Virginia, 32 states in all. In the worst-performers from January to September of last year, around a third of claimants waited more than three weeks for their first check. The federal guidelines recognize that sometimes there will be delays, but they say that number is too high. About an eighth of recipients experiencing that sort of delay is reasonable, they say, certainly not a third.
Assistant Secretary JANE OATES (Department of Labor): We understand the pressure that states are under, but there's probably no better time to address some of these problems than when you're pushing the stress points.
DORNHELM: That's Jane Oates, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Labor Department, which helps fund state unemployment insurance programs. She says improving states' performance and holding them more accountable is a priority of the Obama administration.
For California resident Arleen Stanton, any efforts will feel too late.
Ms. ARLEEN STANTON: It says: Our volume is very high due to the high demand for our service.
DORNHELM: Stanton is reading a printed email she pulled from an inch-thick green folder. Earlier this year, she was laid off from her job with a county health authority. Like millions of other Americans, she filed for unemployment. The checks would be a lifeline while she looked for a new job. They'd help her support two other family members and cover the mortgage.
Ms. STANTON: The groceries, the utilities, the things that come up, such as car insurance came up during this period of time.
DORNHELM: But for Stanton, filing for unemployment was just the first step into a maze of confusing correspondence and dialing and redialing the phone � trying to get through to a real live human being at the state Employment Development Department, or EDD.
Ms. STANTON: Unequivocally, I have never been able to get through on the phone.
DORNHELM: After a month without a check, Stanton was forced to dip into her retirement savings. After two months, an unemployment check finally arrived for the maximum benefit of $475 dollars a week.
George Wentworth, policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, says while high demand is part of the problem, the system is supposed to be a safety net.
Mr. GEORGE WENTWORTH (Policy Analyst, National Employment Law Projects): It really is the first line of defense against poverty. The difference between waiting three weeks for that first check and waiting five or six weeks is enormous for an unemployed worker who has limited savings.
DORNHELM: Wentworth says one problem is many states are working with decades-old computer systems. He says there's also an issue of staffing. In the 1990s, many unemployment agency jobs were cut when the Labor Department led a transition to call centers and more automated processes.
Mr. WENTWORTH: And now that we are seeing sort of unprecedented volumes of activity, states are having a hard time ramping back up, rebuilding capacity to handle this level of activity.
DORNHELM: In California, EDD spokeswoman Loree Levy estimates the unemployment department has increased staff around 40 percent in the last year to handle the flood of claims.
Ms. LOREE LEVY (Spokeswoman, EDD): The problem is we have to spend a good five months in training them. So, it's really right about now that we're starting to get a lot more proficient staff onboard to be able to help us with this continuing high demand for benefits.
DORNHELM: Levy says in California the demand is extreme. For the first nine months of 2009, the EDD handled 4.6 million new claims, nearly double the number for the same period in 2008. Levy concedes that it's very tough for clients to reach the department on the phone, though she says the situation is improving.
Ms. LEVY: Some people have to redial maybe as much as 42 times before they could get through on average. We had call huge blockage. Now, it's cut in half, sometimes it's as little as maybe 13 repeat dials, 17 repeat dials on average.
DORNHELM: Like all states that have not met federal guidelines, California has written a required corrective action plan. The National Employment Law Project's Wentworth says often states submit these plans and there is no follow-up or enforcement from the feds. He says after all the problems in this recession, now he's optimistic the system will get a big picture review by the Labor Department, or even Congress.
For NPR News, I'm Rachel Dornhelm.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
And joining us is puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Hi, Will.
WILL SHORTZ: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: You have a pinball machine at your house, do you not?
SHORTZ: Not only pinball, but it's a crossword pinball game from the 1950s.
HANSEN: Really? It's a Gottlieb machine, do you know?
SHORTZ: No, it's even better. It's a Williams. Considering what my name is, that's perfect - Williams' crossword pinball machine.
HANSEN: That is so fine. Well, I want to give you a heads up that we're going to be paying a visit to the home of a man who wants to start a pinball museum. And he restores them and he knows the history of them. So, just keep a heads up for that. And Williams and Gottlieb were great competitors - I learned that this past week. All right, well, what was the challenge you gave us last week?
SHORTZ: Yes. It involved a cool discovery by Ed Pegg, Jr., who runs the Web site MathPuzzle.com. I said, write down the digits two to seven in order, add two mathematical symbols to get an expression equaling 2010. Can you do it?
HANSEN: And what was the answer?
SHORTZ: Answer is 2,345 times six divided by seven. It's amazing.
HANSEN: Amazing. And 2010 - I think we're going with that. I had a tweet from a man, David Bales(ph), who says he's still writing Year of the Ox on his checks.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Well, we received about 2,000 entries this past week, and I've taken the advice of putting 2010 on all my checks already. From the correct entries, our randomly selected winner is Tor Kingdon of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hi, Tor.
Mr. TOR KINGDON: Hi.
HANSEN: How long did it take you to solve this puzzle?
Mr. KINGDON: It took me a little while of pondering on it, and then when I was feeding my son breakfast on Monday morning it kind of came to me.
HANSEN: Excellent. How long have you been playing?
Mr. KINGDON: I've been playing by myself, as it were, since the postcard days, but I never sent in a postcard. I've actually only entered three times.
HANSEN: Really? Well, third time's the charm, right? Or is it four?
Mr. KINGDON: I realize I'm going to get some hate mail for that.
HANSEN: What do you do in New Mexico?
Mr. KINGDON: I'm a sound engineer. My wife and I own a small business that does post-production audio for television and film.
HANSEN: Cool, way cool. Well, are you ready to play this puzzle?
Mr. KINGDON: I am.
HANSEN: Oh, Tor, be on my team. Will, meet Tor. Let's play.
SHORTZ: All right, Tor and Liane, today's puzzle is from the bad pun department. I'm going to read you some sentences. Each sentence has a blank. Fill the blank with the name of a vegetable that can complete the sentence in a punny way. For example, apologizing profusely, the boy said, you don't know how sorry I blank. You would say yam. You don't know how sorry I yam.
HANSEN: Are you groaning yet? Yeah. All right.
SHORTZ: All right. Number one: Marion performed her work so well, the boss increased her blank.
Mr. KINGDON: Her work increased her...
SHORTZ: Marion performed her work so well, the boss increased her...
Mr. KINGDON: Pay.
HANSEN: Yeah.
SHORTZ: Yeah, and what's a synonym of that?
HANSEN: You might put peanut butter on it for your young son.
Mr. KINGDON: Peanut butter on...
HANSEN: Or maybe you won't.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SHORTZ: Go ahead, Liane.
HANSEN: I'll help you out. It's celery, which...
SHORTZ: Increased her celery is correct. Good job.
Mr. KINGDON: Celery - salary.
HANSEN: Now you know how these puns work - groan.
Mr. KINGDON: I got the yam one, does that give me...
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: We'll give you a mulligan there.
SHORTZ: There you go. Number two: during the church service, the minister said please bow your heads and blank pray.
Mr. KINGDON: Blank pray.
HANSEN: Bow your heads and begin to pray.
Mr. KINGDON: Quietly pray? I don't...
HANSEN: Start to.
SHORTZ: And what's the main thing in a salad?
Mr. KINGDON: Lettuce. Oh, and lettuce pray.
HANSEN: Lettuce pray.
SHORTZ: Lettuce pray, good.
HANSEN: Oh no.
SHORTZ: Bob has been looking for a job for over a year, but he's confident something will eventually blank.
Mr. KINGDON: Turnip.
SHORTZ: Turnip, good.
HANSEN: You're getting it, Tor. You're on a roll.
SHORTZ: The executive at the Gold Medal Company asked: What do you blank that's made from wheat germ.
Mr. KINGDON: The Gold Medal Company, what do you...
SHORTZ: What do you blank that's made from wheat germ? And think about what Gold Medal makes.
Mr. KINGDON: Oh, what do you...
HANSEN: Flour.
Mr. KINGDON: Yeah, they make flour.
SHORTZ: Yeah.
Mr. KINGDON: And what do you grind, what do you, no.
SHORTZ: What do you blank that's made from wheat germ? And what vegetable ends in flour?
Mr. KINGDON: Cauliflower.
SHORTZ: There you go.
HANSEN: What do you call...
SHORTZ: What do you cauliflower that's made with wheat germ? Good. Okay. I saved the best the last.
HANSEN: Oh, I bet.
SHORTZ: It's a two-word answer: when someone finally found the missing wire for Pete's guitar, Pete asked, where has that blank? Here it is again: when someone finally found the missing wire for Pete's guitar, Pete asked, where has that blank?
HANSEN: Been. Something...
SHORTZ: Yeah.
Mr. KINGDON: Been...
SHORTZ: And that's the second word. What's the first word? Where has that...
HANSEN: You're not...
SHORTZ: What's the synonym for wire for a guitar?
HANSEN: String. Bean.
Mr. KINGDON: Where's that chord been?
HANSEN: String bean?
SHORTZ: Where has that string bean?
Mr. KINGDON: Oh, that is the best for last.
HANSEN: Yeah, that is the best...
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Tor, it sounds like you were just waiting for it to happen. These are hard and they're so bad, but the thing about them is you groan and you laugh. You have to laugh. That's the best pun. Oh, well, we have someone here that will tell you what you're going to get for being such a great player.
I mentioned pinball before to Will and this is pinball fanatic David Silverman. He is trying to start the National Pinball Museum. I visited his collection. He has more than 800 pinball machines and you can hear about them later. But, here he is telling you what you're going to get for playing our puzzle today.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
Mr. DAVID SILVERMAN (Pinball Enthusiast): For playing our puzzle today, you'll get a WEEKEND EDITION lapel pin, the "Scrabble Deluxe Edition" from Parker Brothers, the book series "Will Shortz Presents KenKen," Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from St. Martin's Press, one of Will Shortz's "Puzzlemaster Decks of Riddles and Challenges" from Chronicle Books and a CD compilation of NPR's Sunday puzzles.
(Soundbite of pinball machine)
HANSEN: Oh, free game, Tor.
Mr. KINGDON: Excellent.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: What do you think?
Mr. KINGDON: I think that's great. I'm a big fan of pinball. I miss the machines.
HANSEN: Oh, well, keep listening. Keep listening. He has an amazing collection. Before we let you go, Tor, what member station do you listen to?
Mr. KINGDON: I listen to KUNM in Albuquerque.
HANSEN: Tor Kingdon of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Thanks so much for playing the puzzle with us.
Mr. KINGDON: Oh, thank you.
HANSEN: All right. Will, a challenge for next week?
SHORTZ: Yes. Think of a familiar 10-letter hyphenated word that uses all seven letters of the alphabet from F to L, plus three other letters of your choosing. What word is it? And I'll tell you, it's a word everyone knows and it's in some dictionaries. So, again, a familiar 10-letter hyphenated word that uses all seven letters of the alphabet from F to L, plus three other letters of your choosing. What word is it?
HANSEN: Oh, I love your qualification: In some dictionaries, right - some rare book that only you have on your shelf?
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Probably not. You'll get the answer, and when you do, go to our Web site, NPR.org/puzzle, click on the Submit Your Answer link, only one entry per person, please. Our deadline is Thursday, 3 P.M. Eastern Time. Please include a phone number where we can reach you at about that time. We'll call you if you're the winner. You'll get to play puzzle on the air with the puzzle editor of The New York Times and WEEKEND EDITION's puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
Will, does your pinball machine actually still work?
SHORTZ: Oh, yeah.
HANSEN: Oh, yeah. How often do you play it?
SHORTZ: I used to play it constantly every day. But...
HANSEN: Oh, but you've given pinball for ping pong, right and for table tennis?
SHORTZ: Yeah, that's right. That's right.
HANSEN: Well, cool. I mean I got a chance to play some of those games and it was great fun. So anyway, before we get to it, I want to thank you very much. Will, talk to you next week.
SHORTZ: Thanks, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
The fallout from the failed attack on the Detroit-bound airliner Christmas Day continued throughout the past week. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, pleaded not guilty in federal court Friday. The day before, President Obama detailed what he called a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that we already had about Abdulmutallab. He then ordered reforms in intelligence gathering and airport security.
NPR News analyst Juan Williams is in the studio to discuss the week's events. Good morning, Juan. Nice to see you. Welcome back.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Nice to be here, Liane. Good morning.
HANSEN: So, how has the White House's response to these renewed terror threats both at home and abroad playing out in Congress, which is about to get back to work, and among the American people? Was he firm enough in his remarks on Thursday?
WILLIAMS: Well, look, you know what? By the end of the week he was displaying some sense of anger and anger at the bureaucracy and saying that the buck stops here with him, the president of the United States. He did not fire anyone, and there was some thought that one way to deal with this was some bloodletting. That you would point at somebody who was like the Barney Fife of this drama and say, Barney, you got to go. You know, Andy would say, sorry, you've gone too far this time.
If there was going to be such a character, it would've been John Brennan. He's in charge of this at the White House. And that instinct has been resisted because it seems as if, Liane, it goes much broader than simply one person. You know, when the report, the initial study that the president requested was put out late last week, what it came to was some very simple things, like, there is no process in which everybody who's identified as a terror or terror suspect has their visa status reviewed. I mean, you would've thought, well, of course, if you're on some kind of terror list they're not going to let you fly anywhere. But, no, it turns out that just wasn't done. Secondly, there's something like this: There is no single database that has all the terrorists in it. In other words, you may have varied places for it. So, you'll get, for example, CIA running its set of analysts. And then you get the National Counterterrorism Center running its set of things. And then, of course, you got on top of that this agency created in 2004, this National Director of Intelligence.
So, you get all of these people doing all different things. And there was a lack of coordination and as a result there were holes in the process. You would've think that there was several layers and that would have precluded it, but, in fact, it allowed it. So, the word around Washington, sort of, byword for the last week, has been connect the dots. And it's led cartoonists to make fun of it and all the rest.
HANSEN: Right. But there's also correcting mistakes and that's what President Obama said, but this is also political. There's a political aspect to it. Republicans called for heads to roll. Might the president's words be more effective if he did lay blame at someone's feet?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that from the White House perspective, they realize that politically, as you put it, Liane, there would be a sense of, you know, that there was somebody hanging in the wind and someone took responsibility and the administration understands how serious it is.
President Obama's response is you don't need to shake up the bureaucracy at this moment when it's vulnerable and when people, especially at the CIA after the bombing in Afghanistan that killed seven agents, feel as if, you know what? They're on the frontlines and that they are now not only sacrificing life, but they are being unfairly targeted and that there are other people in this game. So you have to be careful, I think, from the president's perspective, not to discombobulate a system that is struggling to find its feet.
HANSEN: Who is the White House point person on all of this?
WILLIAMS: Well, it'd be John Brennan, the president's chief counterterrorism adviser, Liane.
HANSEN: John Brennan. And so he will continue to ask his advice and counsel?
WILLIAMS: Without a doubt. And Brennan has lots of experience. He was over at the CIA. He was a candidate to be the CIA director when Leon Panetta was put in place. But, of course, there was some question, essentially, from the left about his participation and enhanced interrogations and all the rest.
Now, Brennan got in trouble last week, as it turns out, when he was on many of the Sunday TV shows and said, essentially, that decisions were made along the line about how to handle the Christmas bomber. Not to, in fact, put him in military hands, but to allow civilian courts to handle the matter - all of this kind of thing.
And, again, later in the week, then he also said this business about allowing people from Guantanamo to go back to Yemen, even though it's suspected that some of them are getting back into the terror game. A lot of that now has been reversed by the president. The president is saying no more detainees going back to Yemen for the time being. And similarly, the White House is making a big effort this week - Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman - to say that before Abdulmutallab was put into the civilian criminal justice system, he spent a great deal of time with federal investigators and was debriefed about his contacts with people in Yemen.
HANSEN: And very briefly, though, midterm elections are coming up, so that is going to add a different veneer to all of this.
WILLIAMS: Well, that's the politics. Now you've come to what, I think, is the story as we go forward. And the quick story here is that Democrats have long been suspect as being week on national defense and terror. Imagine Dick Cheney as a singular voice of criticism over this entire episode.
HANSEN: NPR News analyst Juan Williams, thanks a lot for coming in.
WILLIAMS: You're welcome, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
There was another attempted attack by an extremist in recent weeks - this one on New Year's Day. But rather than trying to kill hundreds, the 28-year-old man who carried out the attack in Denmark had targeted one man: Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
In 2005, Westergaard was asked by his newspaper Jyllands-Posten to draw the prophet Muhammad, quote, "as you see him," end quote. His cartoon outraged many Muslims who called it blasphemous and offensive. Drawing any images of the prophet Muhammad is prohibited in Islam. Protestors responded by setting fire to Danish embassies in Damascus, Beirut and Tehran.
Westergaard is now under the protection of the Danish Secret Service because of death threats. Kurt Westergaard reached us by phone. Mr. Westergaard, where are you?
Mr. KURT WESTERGAARD (Cartoonist): Well, I cannot tell you that because I am under the protection of the Danish Secret Service. So, I cannot inform you about my position.
HANSEN: Describe what happened to you on New Year's Day.
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Yes.
HANSEN: What happened?
Mr. WESTERGAARD: I was sitting in our living room with my little grandchild. She's five years old. And then the intruder, he came in. He smashed the window in our garden with a very big axe. So, I turned to the bathroom. And then the man, he started hammering at the bathroom door with his axe. Finally, the police came. I don't know how long time it lasted. But, anyway, it was some of the worst minutes of my life.
HANSEN: You published this cartoon back in 2005, and have you been in physical danger since then?
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Oh yes. I have been surveyed by the police and the Secret Service all the way. And now they increase the Secret Service.
HANSEN: You'll have a bodyguard full time.
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Yes, I suppose so.
HANSEN: Now, describe the cartoon that you drew.
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Oh, yes. The cartoon was a picture of a terrorist who looked like he was coming down from the mountains in Afghanistan. And in his turban he had a bomb. And under the bomb was the holy (unintelligible) inscription: There is only one God, Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.
HANSEN: Were you actually depicting Muhammad the prophet?
Mr. WESTERGAARD: I don't know. Somebody says it's Muhammad. I always say I don't know who it is. I think it is, first of all, a terrorist. And, well, I don't know anymore.
HANSEN: So, you were not aware that this cartoon would set off such a controversy.
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Well, that was a surprise, but I don't think I can do anything about that.
HANSEN: How has your life changed?
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Well, the rest of my life, I'm sure I've got to live with bodyguards. I'm also 75 years old, so, you know, my time is limited. But what is left I can spend with Secret Service bodyguards.
HANSEN: You must miss your normal life.
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Yes, in a way, I do, perhaps. But, nevertheless, with the bodyguards I can go everywhere.
HANSEN: Are you still working as a cartoonist?
Mr. WESTERGAARD: Yes, I am.
HANSEN: When you do drawings now, do you think twice about what you do?
Mr. WESTERGAARD: No. Well, of course, I've got to think about what to draw 'cause the - but I draw what I like to draw. Then it must be the editor's job to decide whether to use it or not.
HANSEN: But on the other hand, I mean, you know, given that this one cartoon that you say is only being interpreted as one of Muhammad because it appeared under the headline "The Face of Muhammad," your subject matter, are you now more prone to go to less controversial subjects?
Mr. WESTERGAARD: No, I don't think so. You know, I am soon 75 years old and at that age you don't have so much to risk. You are not so much afraid anymore.
HANSEN: Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. His 2005 cartoon depicting a terrorist that ran under the headline "The Face of Muhammad" was widely condemned by many Muslims. On New Year's Day he was attacked in his home. He phoned us from an undisclosed location.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly unemployment figures. December's jobless rate was the same as November's: 10 percent. But among African-Americans, unemployment increased by six-tenths of a percent to 16.2 percent.
Coming up, a report on the unemployment problems black teenagers face, but first, many college-educated black professionals have been struggling to find jobs in recent months, partly because of the economy and partly because of corporate America's spotty relationship with race.
Last month, The New York Times ran an article on African-Americans who've opted to, quote, "whiten," unquote, their resumes to get a foot in the corporate door, because any indication of their race could be a roadblock to an interview.
Joining us is Michelle T. Johnson who writes a column about diversity for the Kansas City Star. She's at member station KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri. Welcome to the program.
Ms. MICHELLE T. JOHNSON (Columnist, Kansas City Star): Hello, I'm glad to be here.
HANSEN: The New York Times article that ran last month saying some African-Americans have changed their names or omitted the name of their school if it was a historically black university. Is the concept of de-blacking a resume news to many African-Americans?
Ms. JOHNSON: No, not at all. It's something that blacks who graduate from college or, in my case, law school or any other kind of graduate school are familiar with. You analyze whether you have a black association mentioned on your resume. You have people look at your resume to do the check of, hmm, can someone tell that I'm black from this? You question whether the reason you haven't been getting any callbacks is because of what you list, because of your name or your organizations.
HANSEN: So, considering the corporate culture in America, is this a necessary move?
Ms. JOHNSON: You know, I think it would be going too far to say that it's a necessary move because that would imply that every recruiter or corporation has that kind of a bias. But it is something that one has to think of, especially when they're entering the job market, because anything that makes you stand out probably, in a way that even distracts a little bit from your qualifications can just be a problem.
There have been studies that have basically taken the same resume and they put a, quote, "black" name on it versus a name that isn't easily identified as black. And the person with the white or the nondescript name is twice as likely to be called for an interview.
HANSEN: Well, say there is someone who manages to enter the workforce and lands a job. Do the issues surrounding race go away?
Ms. JOHNSON: No, they never go away. I think if you're fortunate enough to work at a place where you get past that in terms of hiring and you do a great job and you develop wonderful relationships with people, then it may not be the dominant influence on how you progress, but it's always an influence.
I was an employment attorney for eight years, so as part of a litigation case, I would see lots of personnel files and it never ceased to amaze me how when a manager was talking about a African-American employee, their personality was almost always mentioned as part of their evaluation in a way that it wasn't mentioned with people who weren't black.
You know, that Mary, she sure is a joy to work with. Or the negative might happen. A black male may find himself having comments in his evaluation about how he's intimidating or difficult when comments about the personality or the attitude of coworkers who weren't black weren't mentioned in their evaluations.
HANSEN: What advice would you give to jobseekers?
Ms. JOHNSON: Well, no one likes to feel as if they have to turn into someone else to obtain a job. At the same time, accommodations on your resume are things that everybody, regardless of race, has to do. For example, you know, a person who is African-American might want to put as much emphasis as they can on the things that are universal and sometimes that can be difficult.
For example, if your only experience in leadership is in black organizations, then you're going to trick bag because if you take off those items, yeah, you've taken off any indicators that you're black, but you've also taken off the best stuff you have on your resume about your leadership potential.
HANSEN: Okay. So, hearing this, people who are in a position to hire, whom may be hearing this, what would you tell them to keep in mind?
Ms. JOHNSON: I would hope that employers, managers, HR professionals, recruiters would look at each resume at the value the person has to offer. What skills they have, what credentials they have. Did they force themselves, so to speak, to keep their eye on the ball? Which is - would this person be someone who would fit in our organization based on what they've done so far in their lives?
HANSEN: Michelle T. Johnson writes a column about diversity for the Kansas City Star. She joined us from member station KCUR. Thank you so much for being with us.
Ms. JOHNSON: You're welcome. It's been my pleasure.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Liane Hansen.
The president, several cabinet secretaries and many members of Congress this past week have been talking about what went wrong. The full picture of what led up to the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on its way to Detroit is still not clear. And the pieces of the puzzle are still being put together. President Obama says he is ultimately responsible for the security lapses. Some blame Congress for not following through on some of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Richard Ben-Veniste was a member of that independent bipartisan panel, and he's in the studio. Welcome to the program.
Mr. RICHARD BEN-VENISTE (Former Member, 9/11 Commission): Good morning.
HANSEN: The 9/11 Commission was set up to find out what security failures led to the 2001 terrorists attacks. It made recommendations on what the government needed to do to prevent more attacks. What grade would you give Congress for implementing those recommendations?
Mr. BEN-VENISTE: Well, I think we're pretty good except for, of course, Congress reforming itself in its oversight, but we knew that would be the most difficult of all of our recommendations. But, in this case, I think the structure is there to do a better job. And, in fact, in many respects, we have seen al-Qaida trying to be much more creative than they had been before, and so I think there's some credit for that. Of course, there was a failure here to keep Abdulmutallab off of the airline. And that is a mistake that must be corrected.
HANSEN: Do you think there is one significant recommendation that was not addressed by Congress that could have prevented this attempted attack?
Mr. BEN-VENISTE: Im not sure I would lay this at the foot of Congress. But with respect to our recommendations for screening passengers, particularly passengers who transit through airports in Western Europe to travel to the United States, that was a very important recommendation that we needed to be much more careful about how we screen for individuals coming from Third World countries.
The other was individuals and connecting the dots of connections. Now, Anwar Awlaki, who has emerged from both the Hansen episode and this episode...
HANSEN: And thats the Fort Hood shooting.
Mr. BEN-VENISTE: Yes. He is a Svengali of recruitment. He is the Pied Piper of these new suicide bombers. And so anyone who is connected to al-Awlaki should be considered radioactive.
We devoted a fair amount of space in our final report on the 9/11 Commission to this man, who was in the United States and who had contact with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers: Al-Hasmi and Mihdhar. So, this man and his connections both in the United States when he was here and, of course, anything he has been doing since, all of his connections have to be reexamined.
HANSEN: Im speaking with Richard Ben-Veniste, who was a member of the 9/11-Commission.
Overall, do you think that the intelligence bureaucracy is too big? I mean, the system is actually too big.
Mr. BEN-VENISTE: No, I dont think it's too big. I think it needs to be as focused as possible. I think we are collecting a tremendous amount of information, as we need to, in order to be able to anticipate what our adversaries are doing. And in this regard: We need to be sharper, and we need to be focused, and we need to be smarter than they.
This was a wakeup call for us. We dodged a bullet here. But it also showed that our adversary is capable of making mistakes. This technology they're using is tricky. It's unreliable and we got lucky here. We need to make our improvements before they make theirs. And this departure of our president from the politics of fear and the kind of thinking that was so prevalent in the last administration that urged America to be afraid - be very afraid - this is not what we're about.
I've got a big sign in my office that comes from the Brits, who were under the most horrendous terrorist bombing attack during World War II on a nightly basis - buzz bombs, bombers coming over the channel. And the sign says, "Stay calm. Carry on." And I think there's a part of that that this president needs to help lead our country about, that we need to be resilient, there will be instances where terrorists get through. And yet we need to learn that lesson and to be able to deal with these episodes without all of this partisan craziness that we're seeing.
We're not perfect and from time to time there will be mistakes. But I think the system is correct. We are an open society. We dont want to change that about ourselves. We dont want to live in some kind of police state because of this threat. If we do that, our adversaries will have defeated us without taking another life.
HANSEN: Richard Ben-Veniste served on the bipartisan 9/11 Commission and is now a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown, and he came into our Washington studio. Thank you so much.
Mr. BEN-VENISTE: You're very welcome, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Many Democrats rang in the New Year looking over their shoulders, perhaps at a Republican Party gaining momentum for the 2010 elections. And their dispositions probably didn't improve much this past week, with the announcements that Democratic Senators Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota would not seek re-election.
David Weigel is a senior reporter for the Web site the Washington Independent, and he covers conservative politics and he's in the studio.
David, welcome to the program.
Mr. DAVID WEIGEL (Senior Reporter, Washington Independent): Oh, thank you for having me.
HANSEN: So with the past week's events, do you see a shift in the balance of power in Washington?
Mr. WEIGEL: This actually has been interpreted as a one-to-one tradeoff in Senate seats. Chris Dodd had a lot of self-inflicted wounds from his presidential campaign, from his related lack of stewardship during the run to the financial crisis, so they feel like they have a better chance of holding their seat. But North Dakota went from a seat they might retain to a seat they are privately and publicly very bearish on.
HANSEN: Hmm. In the House, more than a dozen Republicans already have announced they won't be running for re-election. Are these safe seats or are the Republicans may be a little bit nervous?
Mr. WEIGEL: They were nervous a year ago. People forget already that senators in Kentucky, Ohio, New Hampshire, a few other places were bailing out when President Obama and the Democrats took over. There's been a shift since then, but there are actually seats that will probably flip Democratic in the House. Mike Castle is leaving his seat in Delaware, which people dont really think Republicans can hold. Mark Kirk in Illinois is running for the Senate and his seat might flip. The New Orleans seat, which went Republican in a fluke might flip.
But otherwise, everyone looks at the map and sees seats that went for Obama, where voters were just disappointed in the amount of, I guess you can boil it down to hope and change that theyve received so far.
HANSEN: Well, what do you think the chances are for the Republicans to pick up the dozens of seats in the House to take the majority?
Mr. WEIGEL: Well, even their chairman has said it's not very high. The map is still based on redistricting from 2002 when Republicans controlled everything. And you saw in places like Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania, seats that were meant to be rock solid suburban GOP territory, just became more liberal as the decade went on for a number of reasons - that hasnt stopped being true. So they need a bunch of bank shots in places like those suburbs to make this happen.
Will they win seats in the South? Oh, no one really doubts that. Tennessee has been a killing field for Democratic retirements. But winning a few Blue Dog seats doesnt actually change the Congress to the right.
HANSEN: You mentioned the chairman - Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. He's having a tough time lately about things he said publically about his own chances of winning back the House. And youve actually written about that.
Mr. WEIGEL: Yeah, he's irritated Republicans, frankly, because they started this year with a lot of good news, with everyone talking about the momentum. And he's released a book which he had in production for a while, but claims curiously in a radio interview that he wrote a year ago - he didnt.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. WEIGEL: The book refers to things that happened last November. And he, instead of taking advantage of all these Democratic problems, tripping over his own tongue again and again. And there was a meeting between - or a conference call between House Republicans and the RNC liaisons earlier in the week where they were just raging about this.
HANSEN: The Democrats also have to deal with now Senator Harry Reid's comments about President Obama in a new book. An apology has been given and accepted, but what do you make of it? Will it affect Reid?
Mr. WEIGEL: It would be a good opportunity for Reid to reassess - I dont think whether he wants to run for reelection. He wants to run for reelection, but how to do so? Because he comes from a state that voted very heavily for Obama. It's also a state thats had just massive collapse in housing prices because, you know, Vegas - Clark County (unintelligible) places. And he's not getting a lot of traction as the leader of the Democratic Party.
So, but he's very proud. He's raised a lot of money and his strategy is just to bully Republicans out of challenging him, and I dont think it'll affect that race. we'll talk about it for days, though.
HANSEN: Yeah. Briefly, conservatives are fired up right now. The Tea Party movement is going on. But do you think Republicans might want to reach out to moderates and independents?
Mr. WEIGEL: They dont really think that they have to. There is anger - in November 2008, there was anger at the way the country is going. There is the same anger now, it's just directed at a different party. People dont think that changing parties led to a turnaround in the economic situation. And it doesnt take a lot to convince them that they're right and they need to give the GOP a chance again.
HANSEN: But you dont think the Republican Party might move a little to the center.
Mr. WEIGEL: They kind of can't. There's just too many primaries where centrist candidates are losing to conservatives.
HANSEN: David Weigel is a senior reporter for the Washington Independent. He covers conservative politics. Thanks so much for coming in.
Mr. WEIGEL: Thank you so much.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Liane Hansen.
This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of one of the greatest diplomatic achievements in modern Africa. The signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan ended the continent's longest running civil war. The document also provided a six-year timetable for North and South Sudan either to work out differences or divorce amicably. There's only one year left. The most important issues remain unresolved and relations between North and South are deeply mistrustful.
NPR's East Africa correspondent Gwen Thompkins joins us from Nairobi to talk about this.
Hi, Gwen.
GWEN THOMPKINS: Hi, Liane. How are you?
HANSEN: Just fine, thanks. Take us back, would you please, to 2005 when the agreement was signed. Back then, how important was it for Sudan and for the United States?
THOMPKINS: Well, you know, Liane, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, it ended 22 years of civil war in Sudan. It took two years to broker. And in those 22 years of war, two million people died from fighting or from the conditions that were caused by the fighting. And millions more were displaced across Africa, across Europe and, of course, in the United States.
The Bush administration, and most particularly, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his special envoys, were instrumental in brokering the peace between North and South. This was one of the biggest achievements of the Bush administration and one of its lasting gifts to Africa. You know, but it's also important to note that Sudan's regional neighbors also got involved and helped broker the deal. So the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was something that Africans achieved for themselves.
HANSEN: What are now the remaining main points of tension between the two sides?
THOMPKINS: You know, it would be fair to say, Liane, that North and South Sudan have been incompatible for centuries. You know, these are all black people we're talking about. I mean the word Sudan means Land of the blacks. But the North defines itself as Arabic and Muslim, and the South defines itself as non-Arabic and Christian and animist.
And during the colonial period and the slave trade, Southern Sudanese were marched across Sudan and sold too slaveholding nations in the Middle East and Asia. And there's a lot of lingering bitterness about that, especially because human trafficking still takes place in Sudan.
Also, and maybe more importantly for the 21st century, neither the ruling party in Khartoum nor the British colonials ever invested in any kind of development in the South.
But the biggest cause for tension and the reason why the North would be very reluctant to see the South declare independence is because of oil. Most of Sudan's oil is in the South and oil is the number one source of income for the entire country.
HANSEN: So what has to happen between now and this time next year to keep the Comprehensive Peace Agreement on track?
THOMPKINS: Well, the first thing that needs to happen is that everybody needs to calm down. You know, there's been terrible ethnic fighting in the South and the Southern government has been unable to contain it. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. Also, in Darfur there's been terrible insecurity. And the Obama administration is linking the fate of Darfur now with the North-South peace agreement.
In April, national elections are supposed to take place. And early next year, the South is supposed to vote on whether it's going to stick with the North, or whether it's going to become an independent nation. But if the South becomes independent, then the question that is on everyone's mind - and thats from the people who are in Sudan to the regional neighbors - the big question is going to be whats next? Because, you know, the North, they just may fight for the oil.
And if they dont fight for the oil and Sudan becomes independent and this divorce happens amicably, then, you know, Southern Sudan is going to be one of the poorest independent nations in the world because the North owns all of the infrastructure that gets the oil out of the ground.
HANSEN: NPR's East Africa correspondent Gwen Thompkins. Thanks a lot, Gwen.
THOMPKINS: Thanks, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
In Israel this past week, the non-profit program Birthright Israel marked its 10th anniversary. The program pays for young Jews to go to Israel to explore their roots. More than 250,000 Jews from all over the world have been on Birthright tours. A new study shows that alumni of the program are much more likely to feel a continuing connection to the Jewish state. But the program has its critics.
NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO: The auditorium is packed with young men and women chanting - Israel, Israel, in front of a massive stage. The MC leaps around exhorting the crowd to cheer louder.
(Soundbite of cheering)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The participants are from countries that span the globe: Brazil, Russia and the United Kingdom. But by far, the largest group are the Americans where 75 percent of young Jews outside of Israel live.
(Soundbite of cheering and music)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" blasts out over the speakers, thousands of young people leap to their feet.
The past 10 years, Birthright has offered free 10-day trips here for Jews between the ages of 18 and 26. The goal is to have them reconnect with their Jewish identity, and a new study from Brandeis University shows that it has the desired effect. Participants are 57 percent more likely to marry a Jew and 23 percent more likely to feel a strong connection to Israel.
Speaking at the celebration, Israel's president Shimon Peres lauded the program.
President SHIMON PERES (Israel): All of you are participating in one of the most brilliant (unintelligible) and the most successful experience in the history of the Jewish people.
(Soundbite of cheering)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Gidi Mark is the CEO of Birthright Israel, called Taglit in Hebrew.
Mr. GIDI MARK (CEO, Birthright Israel): It all started by out of the concern that more and more young Jews decided to marry non-Jews. And, as you know, unfortunately we are as many as the Chinese. We want to keep our family strong and thats what we are doing.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: As they tour sites like Masada, the Holocaust Memorial - Yad Vashem, the Western Wall and the Golan Heights, participants are accompanied by young Israeli soldiers.
Unidentified Man: It's like normal to go to the army and they have friends in the army. And they have friends in Gaza Strip that may get killed every day. And they have friends that died in bus bombs and...
GARCIA-NAVARRO: At the end of the trip, the soldiers and the visitors say good-bye with testimonials from each side.
Nineteen-year-old Ellen Faulchy(ph) is from Northern Virginia.
Ms. ELLEN FAULCHY: Any time I watch the news now it's not going to be just another four people killed in a suicide attack. Like, you guys are here. Like you're doing the unbelievable to protect all of us. And I think I can say for all of us, thank you so much.
(Soundbite of applause)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The Israeli who led the tour, Ronan Malek(ph), ends the session with this message to the group.
Mr. RONAN MALEK (Tour Guide, Birthright Israel): Who are the soldiers of Israel? These are the soldiers. You think that those soldiers can kill somebody innocent?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Birthright Israel says it is a non-political organization, but critics say it espouses a particular point of view. To give the Palestinian side of the Mideast narrative, one group has started an alternative tour. It's called Birthright Unplugged.
Ms. DUNYA ALWAN (Director, Birthright Unplugged): Today is a really good day to see how settlements are functioning.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Dunya Alwan is an American of Jewish and Iraqi heritage. Today, she's shepherding a group of students from Boston College to the City of Hebron and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank.
Ms. ALWAN: The idea is to give them a breath of understanding of Palestinian voices through all of that travel. We speak with people from all sectors: government, social, social service. they have family home stays in a Palestinian refugee camp. Thats what theyve done last night.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Nicole Fisher(ph) is a Jewish student who decided to come on this tour rather than the one offered by Birthright Israel.
Ms. NICOLE FISHER (Boston College): Being able to see what goes on in these camps and being able to talk to people firsthand, you learn so much more. You know whats going on, as opposed to just seeing the Israeli side of it. It's good. It's good balance.
(Soundbite of traffic)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: In Hebron, the group walks through the center of the Old City. Twenty-two-year-old Maram Shuster(ph) is an Israeli who studies in the U.S. and is an alumni of Birthright Unplugged. She says Birthright Israel does more harm than good.
Ms. MARAM : These people made the trip all the way here. They're not being informed with any kind of truth, any kind of criticism about this country. And they're going to go back and be ambassadors and fall in love with a land that they know what about? They no nothing. So, for me, I have no other word than propaganda.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Birthright Unplugged is tiny in comparison to its rival organization. Only hundreds of young people have participated in this program, compared to the tens of thousands who go on Birthright Israel trips every year.
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Jerusalem.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The 121-year-old American Dialect Society voted on its 2009 Word of the Year. And the winner is: Tweet. Google was voted as the word of the decade. Grant Barrett is the chair of the society's new word committee. He's with us on the line from Baltimore, where the society met this past week. Hi, Grant.
Mr. GRANT BARRETT (Chair, American Dialect Society): Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: Okay. Tweet - noun or verb?
Mr. BARRETT: Both as a matter of fact. The noun is a short message sent via the Twitter.com service and the verb is the act of doing that.
HANSEN: How many votes did it get?
Mr. BARRETT: Sixty-nine.
HANSEN: And why is it the word of 2009, do you think?
Mr. BARRETT: A lot of people felt that this was the year of Twitter. Some people were even speaking of it as becoming so core to the Internet that it's like a public utility. It just becomes invisible and people build their Web sites and their applications on top of it.
HANSEN: Okay. Google - word of the decade?
Mr. BARRETT: Yeah, that was a surprise to me. I thought it might be something like texting or blog, but people decided that Google - and the argument from the floor from one of our members was that a lot of people blog, millions of people blog, but everybody googles, young and old. It's so generic that people go to Yahoo and google. So, it's google with a lower-case G.
HANSEN: How many votes did it get?
Mr. BARRETT: Seventy-four.
HANSEN: Okay. Were there any words not related to digital tech even in the running?
Mr. BARRETT: Yes, there were as a matter of fact. For the word of the decade, green was on the list, but I'm sorry to say that it only got one vote. And this is green the adjective, meaning related to ecological or environmental conservation or protection.
HANSEN: How many people voted?
Mr. BARRETT: Well, you know, people kind of come in and out of the room and it was packed. People were standing in the hallway. There were probably about 130 people there.
HANSEN: You also voted on the most creative word of 2009.
Mr. BARRETT: We did, and that's kind of a fun category as you might expect, because it's a chance to kind of prop up some words that are interesting but maybe not widely used. And the winner is one of those. It's Dracula Sneeze. This is in order not to spread the spray of your flu, you sneeze into the crook of your elbow rather than into your hand. And I've seen health officials in California use this in press conferences.
HANSEN: The word Dracula Sneeze.
Mr. BARRETT: Dracula sneeze, as in I want to suck your blood, that guy.
HANSEN: Okay. Gotcha. And most outrageous?
Mr. BARRETT: Most outrageous is death panel. A lot of people felt that this was outrageous because it was propaganda.
HANSEN: Any words kind of standing out in the first two weeks of 2010?
Mr. BARRETT: As a matter of fact, there is a word. If you use Twitter, you're probably familiar with hash tags. And hash tags are these little devices by which you write a message and then you put this little code there so other people can search for that code and find other messages on the same subject. Well, S-N-O-M-G is starting to be used by people as a hash tag for snow oh my god. So, all the snowstorms. People write some comment about a lot of snow is headed their way, and they'll put the hash tag S-N-O-M-G.
HANSEN: Grant Barrett is the chair of the new word committee for the American Dialect Society. He's also the host of the independent public radio show A Way with Words. He joined us by phone from Baltimore. Thanks a lot, Grant.
Mr. BARRETT: Thank you, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
(Soundbite of beeping)
HANSEN: The Consumer Electronics Show wraps up this weekend in Las Vegas. That's where some of the world's coolest gadgets have made their debut over the years. Remember Pong on Atari?
(Soundbite of beeping)
HANSEN: That was unveiled at CES in 1975. And we've come a long way since then: 3-D television, tablet computers, cars we can talk to. NPR's Laura Sydell was at the show in Las Vegas and she joins us to fill us in on the exciting products from this year's show. Welcome, Laura.
LAURA SYDELL: Nice to be here.
HANSEN: Does that sound of Pong take you back?
SYDELL: I'm not old enough to remember - I'm just kidding.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: But I'll tell you what I'm not ready for is 3-D television.
SYDELL: Yes, 3-D television. They're there and the glasses along with them, and there were a lot of them this year at CES. Everybody's putting out a 3-D television, and of course there is content that's coming up for 3-D - Sony, Discovery and Imax have teamed up. They're going to create a channel with just 3-D content. ESPN is going to put out about 85 games starting this year in June.
They're going to start with the World Cup, and they're going to have that in 3-D. And there were lots of TVs to watch them on. And it was pretty lovely stuff, I have to say.
HANSEN: Really? You liked it? It worked for you?
SYDELL: It does work in a certain way, although I have to admit I walked by a poster promoting it and you saw the families all sitting around with their 3-D glasses and it looked odd.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Like those old photos from the magazines of the '50s, right?
SYDELL: Yeah. It just looked odd. You know, somebody joked, you know, 3-D is the technology of the future and it always will be. You know, we've been talking about a long time, really, since Pong, right?
HANSEN: Really.
SYDELL: Just think about how long we've been talking about 3-D. But the technology's come a long way. The entire industry is behind it, they're pushing it. Now, I have to say as to whether or not it's going to happen as fast as they think it is, I'm skeptical.
HANSEN: Computers - Sony and HP, others - unveiled their version of something called the tablet. Not a phone, not a laptop; what is it?
SYDELL: Okay. Briefest description would probably be it's a laptop without a keyboard. With the latest versions or some of the versions I've seen you can use a stylus like a pen, so you could actually write into it. You can carry your movies, your books. And I want to say even though there were a lot of e-book readers on the floor, I think what we're really evolving to eventually is tablet computers. So, the e-book is a transition phase.
HANSEN: How soon will we see that?
SYDELL: Well, we're going to start seeing them very soon. But here is the big news that was looming over CES. At the end of the month, Apple is expected to announce a tablet computer. There are a lot of rumors about it. I believe when there's this many rumors that Apple's going to do something it's usually true. And everybody's waiting to see because Apple has this tendency to really push everything forward and create these beautiful. I mean, think about the iPod and the iPhone, right?
HANSEN: Speaking of an iPhone, was there really a helicopter drone at one company's making it can be remote controlled using an iPhone?
SYDELL: Yes. It's made by this French company called Parrot, and you can control it with an iPhone. And it kind of floats and hovers, and I think the idea is that you might be able to develop games for it. So, you know, kind of games that would be both computerized games and real world games. Go searching for clues with your own personal drone.
HANSEN: Wow. Lots of announcements about getting Internet in cars, voice-activated systems. Can I ask you about Magic Jack 2.0? This is a device, little gadget's going to sell...
SYDELL: Yes.
HANSEN: Yeah, I mean, actually it's something the cell carriers it's protesting because it's using radio waves without permission, right?
SYDELL: Yes, that's right. Well, Magic Jack's been out and there's been about five million people who purchased the previous Magic Jack, which basically let you make Internet phone calls on your computer. But the key here is that this one will actually, if you have your cell phone in the house, it will connect to your cell phone and you'll be able to make free cell phone calls. That would actually use the radio waves that these carriers have spent a lot of money to buy. And so that is why they're protesting.
The people who make it say, well, you don't own the waves that are actually in somebody's house and this is just for making free cell phone calls in the house. But it could save people a lot of money. These tech battles sometimes over who owns the airwaves can go on for a long time.
HANSEN: Finally, did you see the Google phone?
SYDELL: Yes, I have, and I liked it. People keep asking me is it an iPhone killer? I dont know if it's an iPhone killer but it moves quickly. I found the battery life to be longer than the iPhone, and I definitely found it to be something that was comparable to an iPhone. I really liked using it.
HANSEN: And the Google phone is called the Nexus One?
SYDELL: That is correct.
HANSEN: NPR's Laura Sydell was at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past week. Laura, thanks a lot.
SYDELL: You're welcome.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
As Google unveiled the Nexus One, another tech giant was making a big move. Apple paid nearly $300 million for mobile advertising company Quattro Wireless. This comes on the heels of Google's $800 million acquisition of AdMob in November. Gene Munster is a research analyst for the investment firm Piper-Jaffray, and he joins us from the studios of Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul. Welcome.
Mr. GENE MUNSTER (Research Analyst, Piper-Jaffray): Thanks for having me.
HANSEN: Is it my imagination or is the stage being set for some kind of epic battle between Apple and Google? What's happening?
Mr. MUNSTER: Well, it basically was a declaration of war from Google when they announced the Nexus One phone. And you're exactly right - the battleground is over advertising and really this explosive growth that's going to happen in the next 10 years with mobile devices.
And so two smart companies here - both Apple and Google, who realize the opportunity and the potential and think that's a great way to say it's going to be a battle.
HANSEN: What's the opportunity for Apple briefly?
Mr. MUNSTER: The opportunity is this advertising market in terms of the Quattro acquisitions specifically is that essentially what they want to do is create an environment where it's easy for app developers to make money. Eighty percent of the apps that are downloaded from iTunes are for free, and basically what Quattro will do is help those app developers make money easily.
HANSEN: And what does Google get out of acquiring AdMob?
Mr. MUNSTER: Well, Google gets the same. They want to have an easy platform, just like Apple, for their developers that make their apps to make money as well off those free applications. And so essentially Apple and Google have the exact same intentions in their acquisitions of AdMob and Quattro.
HANSEN: So, mobile ads are coming and there's something that's called location-based advertising. How does that work? I mean, you know, what would happen if I had, you know, one of these phones?
Mr. MUNSTER: Well, it's an advertisers dream. And essentially what happens is there's a lot of information that an advertiser has, that a network has just by you having one of these smartphones. As you're walking down the street, they know your exact location, they know your gender, your age, because you signed up for a plan. They also will know the time of day and so and some of your history searching habits in the past.
And so essentially these devices will be able to zap ads to you as you're walking down the street that maybe, for example, an ad for a coupon for a dinner that might be around the corner. But that potential - and that's just scratching the surface - is massive.
HANSEN: Yeah. I mean, the iPhones already have the maps that feature, you know, if you type restaurants and it shows pushpins. But this is an actual ad that I'll get if I'm near the restaurant and they want to advertise to me?
Mr. MUNSTER: Exactly. They could just present an ad to you, even though you might not even do a query.
HANSEN: That's going to annoy people, you know? Do you think?
Mr. MUNSTER: Well...
HANSEN: I mean, think how pop-up ads have really begun to annoy.
Mr. MUNSTER: Yeah, we think there's going to be, to that point, this secondary effect of essentially a lot of these free apps right now don't have advertising and they'll have a lot of advertising - it's going to get annoying. But then you'll have a pay-for option for $2 or 3 that get rid of the ads. So, $2 and let me be.
HANSEN: Did it surprise you that Apple got into the advertising business?
Mr. MUNSTER: It was a surprise. I mean, it's a historical day. The day that Google gets into the hardware business, Apple gets into the advertising business and this war begins. If you think about the next 10 years in computing and the mobile opportunity and the impressions that are being created and you step back, it does make a lot of sense that Apple gets in the advertising market.
Because an impression basically is a page you...an impression equals an opportunity to an advertiser. There's a lot of money that's going to be able to be made off of advertising with all these impressions.
HANSEN: Let's talk about that money. I mean, at your firm, Piper-Jaffray, both Apple and Google are important to your investors. How do you see the battle between these two giants from an investment point of view?
Mr. MUNSTER: Well, there are two ways to think about this. I mean, we think of Apple as more of a hunter and Google as more of a farmer. Apple is hunting for the next best technology and there are really advantages to have something cool and hot that people are going to want to buy on a month-to-month basis.
Google has a much different approach. They are very long-term focused, they really want to build a platform and really try to extend their reach from searching to other advertising. So, from an investment standpoint we think Apple is a great opportunity in the next year just because they have so many exciting products, including the tablet, which we believe will be out in the next couple of months.
And from Google's perspective it's a much safer and longer term bet.
HANSEN: Gene Munster is a research analyst for Piper-Jaffray. He joined us from the studios of Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul. Thanks so much.
Mr. MUNSTER: Thank you.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Tonight, "The Simpsons" marks its 20th year with an hour-long special. To be skewered by Homer, Marge, Lisa or even baby Maggie has become a badge of honor. Some of you tech nerds and gadget geeks might remember this message from the mouth of Bart Simpson.
(Soundbite of TV show, "The Simpsons")
Unidentified Man: Greetings, it is I your insanely great leader Steve Mobs. I'm speaking to you from Mapple(ph) Headquarters deep below the sea with an announcement that will completely change the way you look at everything. And that announcement is:
Ms. NANCY CARTWRIGHT: (as Bart Simpson) You're all losers. You think you're cool because you buy a $500 phone with a picture of a fruit on it? Well, guess what? They cost eight bucks to make and I pee on every one.
HANSEN: For the past two decades, when a social phenomenon became just a bit too trendy and if there was a trend that became a bit too hip you can bet "The Simpsons" made sharp but good natured fun of it. Here's to the next 20 years.
(Soundbite of TV show, "The Simpsons")
Ms. CARTWRIGHT: (as Bart Simpson) Cool, man.
Mr. DAN CASTELLANETA: (as Homer Simpson) (Singing) It's been so long now, and it seems that it was only yesterday. Ain't it funny how time slipped away?
LIANE HANSEN, host:
He Googled me - the archivist of the United States Googled me. Let me explain. This wasn't just random curiosity on his part. We had arranged to go to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. to interview David Ferriero, the new archivist of the United States. Mr. Ferriero, who will be sworn in this Wednesday, is the tenth person and the first librarian to hold the position.
So, like any good librarian, David Ferriero did his research. He learned that I ice skate, tap dance, used to live in London and was born in Massachusetts and that WEEKEND EDITION had won a James Beard Award in 1999 for a segment about a pork product in a blue can - Spam.
Mr. DAVID FERRIERO (Archivist, The National Archives): From the Eisenhower library, this came in this morning. This is a letter from Ike to Hormel congratulating them on their 75th anniversary of business. May I offer you my heartiest congratulations. You might be surprised to learn that I have long felt a certain kinship with your company, during World War II, of course. I ate my share of Spam along with millions of other soldiers. I'll even confess to a few unkind remarks about it uttered during the strain of battle - you understand. But as former commander of chief, I believe I can still especially forgive you your only sin - sending us so much of it.
HANSEN: This is an awesome responsibility that you have. I mean, we are sitting in the National Archives where one can come and see the Declaration of Independence, for example. It's the building that people know. What else are you in charge of?
Mr. FERRIERO: The largest facility that we have is actually on the campus of University of Maryland in College Park - a million-plus square feet of space. And then we have the presidential library system - 12, soon to be 13 presidential libraries - and then a series of regional records and archive centers around the country.
HANSEN: How do you...
Mr. FERRIERO: So, the entire collection is a collection of 10 billion items.
HANSEN: Ten billion items?
Mr. FERRIERO: Billion.
HANSEN: Okay. Ten billion things to worry about. What's your mission, your mandate, as it were?
Mr. FERRIERO: It is to collect, protect and make available the record of the United States in the simplest terms.
HANSEN: That collection includes treaties, military records, presidential letters, laws as well as ship manifests from Ellis Island and elsewhere, because people come here to research their family genealogy. There are also some curious items in the archives - Eva Braun's home movies, a letter from Elvis to Richard Nixon and President Carter's likeness painted on a grain of rice.
Some 10 billion things are housed in the National Archives, from the monumental to the miniscule. And David Ferriero is in charge of them all. New stuff is submitted every day. No wonder the new archivist is a Nancy Drew fan.
Mr. FERRIERO: Reference work is detective work, and I'm still very passionate about that reference aspect of getting involved in searching for information.
HANSEN: What's the first thing you want to see when you came to this building? What were you dying to be able to see?
Mr. FERRIERO: Well, it hasn't actually happened yet. But I grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts, and when I was growing up Beverly was the birthplace of the American Navy. And then somehow when I left Beverly, Marblehead scooped Beverly. So, one of my goals here in my tenure is to really determine whether Beverly is the birthplace of the American Navy.
But I can tell you one of the most exciting things that I have seen is the check with which we purchased Alaska - $7.2 million.
HANSEN: Why does that excite you so much?
Mr. FERRIERO: I didn't think that we just wrote a check. So, I was just amazed that there was actually a piece of paper that had been actually endorsed by a Russian on the back.
HANSEN: David Ferriero guided us into the bowels of the National Archives to see that check. It's in one of the treasures vaults.
Mr. FERRIERO: Where people don't ordinarily get to visit.
HANSEN: A magnetic card and a key are needed to enter. Everything in here is precious, important to the history of the U.S. government and not accessible to the public. This huge room filled with shelves, uniformly stacked with horizontal document boxes smells of history - a combination of old paper and clean air, a perfectly controlled environment to protect the collection.
Ms. JANE FITZGERALD (Civil and Old Military Archivist, National Archives): This is the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War.
HANSEN: Civil and Old Military Records Archivist Jane Fitzgerald flipped through the impressive treaty. Many of its pages were faded and very difficult to read.
Ms. FITZGERALD: And this is a signature page. You may recognize some significant signatures.
HANSEN: John Adams, Ben Franklin, John Jay - is that, that's John Jay - and Mr., is that Hartley?
Ms. FITZGERALD: David Hartley.
HANSEN: David Hartley, done in Paris.
At the bottom of that page, are a series of red wax seals bearing the imprint of each man's signet ring. The documents in the treasures vault are centuries old. Wampum beads are attached to one treaty signed with Midwestern Indian tribes.
The archivist of the United States, David Ferriero, is responsible for protecting the old as well as collecting and protecting the new. And that will include the monumental task of putting the contents of the archives online.
Mr. FERRIERO: We have 10 billion things. It's going to be a long time.
HANSEN: That work officially begins when David Ferriero is sworn in as the 10th archivist of the United States on January 13.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Time now for your letters. We received quite a bit of response after airing producer Sasha Aslanian's piece last week about the effects of divorce on children.
Margaret Carey of Montrose, Colorado left this comment on NPR.org: It is not the fact of divorce that hurts the children, it is the manner in which the parents behave afterward. Having practiced family law for a very long time now, I can tell you that while all children feel the effect of a divorce, parents who cooperate and refuse to put the children in the middle have children that are generally indistinguishable from other children.
Trina Grayburn(ph) of Portland, Oregon wrote: Because there's been so much failure in marriages and families, we need to have classes, counseling for kids on family life, how it should look, how to make it happen right, and classes on marriage before people jump blindly and passionately into marriage.
Last week, we also broadcast a report about how difficult it is to enforce on bans on cell phone use while driving. Tom Booker of Manassas, Virginia had this suggestion: Rather than using the bludgeon of criminal laws, why not try to scalpel of civil enforcement? In countries where consuming alcohol is forbidden, for example, automobile insurance policies are written in such a way as to deny coverage for alcohol-fueled accidents, leaving the driver personally liable for damage. Why not do the same with respect to mobile phones? The states could require as a condition of licensing that insurance companies exclude coverage for at-fault accidents when the driver is found to have been on the phone.
Finally, last week's story on the 90th anniversary of the famous Los Angeles restaurant Musso and Frank's Grille inspired Marilyn Carpenter of Spokane, Washington to share her memories of the eatery. My parents loved Musso's and we ate there often as I was growing up in the 1940s and '50s. My best memories are of the maitre d, Hans. He always greeted me as if I was a very important customer. Sometimes he would scoop me up and take me to a table where a movie star was sitting. One that I remember was Rhonda Fleming with her gorgeous red hair - she even kissed me. Thirty years later I returned with a friend and found the waiter who had always cared for us. He even remembered my dad.
We want to hear from you. To reach us, go to NPR.org and click on Contact Us. You can also join the discussion in the comments section of every story. We're on Facebook as well, Facebook.com/NPRWeekend. And you can send a tweet to us at NPRWeekend - all one word. I'm at NPRLiane - all one word - and Liane is spelled L-I-A-N-E.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
You can't avoid the ads for Lasik surgery.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADVERTISEMENT)
U: Yesterday, you depended on glasses. Today, you can choose Lasik.
AMOS: Over the last decade, millions of Americans have opted for the surgery, and for most, their vision is nearly perfect and they're happy - but not everyone.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
A rise in patient complaints about side effects has prompted the Food and Drug Administration to take a closer at Lasik. NPR's Patti Neighmond has more.
PATTI NEIGHMOND: During Lasik eye surgery, doctors use a laser to vaporize portions of the cornea, reshaping it for better vision. It's a relatively quick, simple outpatient procedure. But for some patients, the end result is not what they expected. Dr. Malvina Eydelman is with the FDA.
AMOS: They were reporting symptoms such as dry eyes, glare, starbursts and double vision, which was significantly affecting their quality of life.
NEIGHMOND: Take Paula Cofer, for example, who had Lasik in 2000.
AMOS: The first thing I noticed was that my right eye was very blurry. My left eye seemed pretty good in the daylight, but both eyes were very distorted at night. And I developed severe, persistent dry eyes.
NEIGHMOND: Which may not sound like a big problem, says Cofer, but make no mistake, she says. It's huge.
AMOS: For me, it's severe, constant burning. My eyes burn all the time.
NEIGHMOND: They're painful and require constant attention - eye drops, eye rinses, eyelid scrubs, a mask at night to keep dry air away from her eyes. She's had her tear ducts plugged to keep tears from draining away and finally, there's the moisture-retaining goggles.
AMOS: I look like a fly. They're very unattractive. I hate to wear them because they're so unattractive, but...
NEIGHMOND: They work. So Cofer wears them inside, where fans create lots of dry air - like at the gym. And she wears them outside when air is dry, like on a windy day. Cofer also suffers halos and glare at night.
AMOS: I can't see. If I drive a car at night, my vision is totally impaired. I'm not safe to drive. I can't see pedestrians on the side of the road.
NEIGHMOND: Eydelman says the agency's also looking into misleading claims.
AMOS: You can't, for example, promise vision free of glasses. Patients need to make sure that they understand even in the perfect-case scenarios, they don't need glasses for distance vision. There's a very high likelihood that they will need reading glasses. So something like a spectacle-free existence is obviously a misleading claim.
NEIGHMOND: Dr. Sanjay Patel is a researcher and specialist in corneal surgery at the Mayo Clinic. He says the study findings will be helpful.
AMOS: Right now, we do not have good data to actually give patients a percentage to say, there's an X percent chance that you're going to have dry eyes after refractive surgery. There are no good, large data series that give us those numbers.
NEIGHMOND: The FDA hopes to complete its study by 2012. In the meantime, Dr. Marguerite McDonald, who practices in New York and is spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, says recent advances should help complications like dry eye.
AMOS: Ten years ago, it was treatable, but we didn't have as many things in our bag of tricks. Now, we have a lot of things that can treat dry eye. They say never say never, but I have personally not encountered someone who couldn't be treated very successfully.
NEIGHMOND: There have been advances in laser technology too, says McDonald, which have decreased the risk of nighttime halos and glare.
AMOS: Wavefront-guided Lasik allows us to measure thousands and thousands of data points that define the optical pathway in each eye. That can now be measured, and small aberrations can be fixed.
NEIGHMOND: The FDA says it's encouraging patients to report any severe problems with Lasik - not only to the doctor who performed the surgery, but to the federal agency as well. Patti Neighmond, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
A few years back, Anbar Province in western Iraq was dominated by insurgents. Then things turned around with the help of a major push by the Americans, and the province was called a model for how to defeat the insurgents. But that assessment may have been premature. A slow drumbeat of assassinations and bombings is raising questions about Anbar's stability. As NPR's Quil Lawrence reports, the Americans are no longer playing a major role in what's happening there.
QUIL LAWRENCE: Unidentified Crowd: (Chanting in foreign language)
LAWRENCE: The daring attack hit on December 30 killing 24 people. A car bomb ripped through the parking lot outside the provincial governor's office. When rescue workers rushed to the scene, a suicide bomber dressed as a policeman entered the crowd. The second blast killed a member of the provincial council and maimed the governor, who had come to look around.
TARIQ AL: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: I warned the governor not to go out, but he wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, says Brigadier Tariq al-Assal. Assal was police chief in Anbar, but got sacked after the bombing. He claims it was impossible to keep the government building secure because the members of the provincial council refused to let their men or cars be searched when entering the compound.
AL: The provincial council, all them have bodyguards. The governor and his deputy have convoy, all them have bodyguards, without any search. No, no, no, no search. No.
LAWRENCE: Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: A subordinate said the new chief had been yanked into a meeting with Sheik Abu Risha and given an earful. It appears Baghdad failed to consult the sheik beforehand. Abu Risha has no official position in the government, but his alliance with the Americans has made him the kingmaker in Anbar.
AMOS: A three-way dispute between Baghdad, Abu Risha and the other tribal leaders is hurting security in the province, according to Adnan Jamil Muhanna, one of the few sheiks in Anbar who is considered neutral.
ADNAN JAMIL MUHANNA: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: Only one player seems unconcerned about the recent violence in Anbar - the U.S. military.
RAY ODIERNO: In terms of the overall security in Iraq, it doesn't concern me. But it does concern whenever there's violence.
LAWRENCE: General Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said recently that such attacks are to be expected before the coming Iraqi election in March.
ODIERNO: It's not a sign of crumbling security in Anbar. These are attacks that we think people will continue to try to attempt, between now and the elections, because they want to delegitimize the government. They do not want these elections to go forward. They do not want them to be successful.
LAWRENCE: Quil Lawrence, NPR News, Baghdad.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Now even in this uncertain economy in this country, there are some things we know for sure, and this week we're going to explore one of them: The workplace is becoming more diverse.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
The percentages of Hispanics, Asians, African-Americans in the workforce are growing at a much faster rate than whites.
INSKEEP: Unidentified Man #2: We got to change the attitude...
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO MONTAGE)
AMOS: And you notice, they're not just talking about women and minorities, corporate diversity is about young and old, gay and straight, disabled workers, we even heard the word height in that montage. Some people also described diversity as a safe word.
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW: Diversity more or less came into common parlance as a way of framing equal opportunity policies that was acceptable, not quite as controversial.
AMOS: I spoke with legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw who says diversity is a much less threatening word than affirmative action.
CRENSHAW: As we move away from those traditional kind of arguments to diversity, the focus of the argument trains our attention on the benefits of diversity. For companies, often it's framed in terms of there are markets that are untapped and if we really want to broaden the scope of our product, we need to have talent from the different communities that are traditionally underrepresented here.
AMOS: So how do you know if a company is truly making progress? If you are analyzing a company, what would you look for?
CRENSHAW: Or you can have a company that celebrates Mother's Day, right, but the question is do they have family leave policies, do they have flex time? So you can have a cosmetic policy but not have a structural one.
AMOS: You know, in the '60s when affirmative action became law, many companies complied because they had to.
CRENSHAW: Right.
AMOS: Now, research shows that diversity pays, because it's a reflection of society. So why are we still talking about this?
CRENSHAW: It's not surprising that we're still grappling with this. Quite frankly, the legal context has changed significantly. So we've moved from a period where companies thought they had to do it in order to comply to a period where they thought, well maybe we don't really have to worry about litigation, but perhaps they're other benefits for us in terms of market share, to a period now where a lot of companies sometimes worry that if they do too much then they're subject to suit from those who are claiming reverse discrimination. So it's a very complicated environment for companies right now.
AMOS: And here's another complication; there's been a number of news reports showing that in this economy minorities, particularly blacks and Hispanics, are disproportionately affected. The New York Times ran a story about recent black college graduates, who were what the article said, whitening their resumes. They were altering their names to make them sound whiter.
CRENSHAW: Well, absolutely. I mean - and this is again where the conversation about diversity, as opposed to remedying discrimination creates this huge gap, because there's a recognition that ones chances of even getting an interview are increased if the assumption is that you may in fact might be white. And there's a lot of studies that really back that up. So that's still in the background. As long as that's in the background they're going to be differential opportunities for people based on race. The real question is: Can we move diversity polices away from simply celebrating difference and focusing on this reality that still exists? This downturn in the economy is forcing us to revisit these questions.
AMOS: Thank you very much, Kimberle Crenshaw.
CRENSHAW: Thank you.
AMOS: Kimberle Crenshaw is a professor of law at UCLA and at Columbia University in New York.
INSKEEP: Unidentified Woman: Good question. You ready for a two-hour dissertation on this?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
INSKEEP: It could take that, although we promise we're not going to take that long tomorrow.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court revisits an issue it appeared to resolve just months ago, and that issue is crime labs. The question is whether the prosecution in criminal cases has a constitutional duty to produce crime lab analysts to testify about their findings. NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG: Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. We're going to get an eye exam today in Your Health. In a moment, we'll hear about the success of Lasik eye surgery and some of the complaints.
AMOS: But first, we'll look at the rising rates of nearsightedness and why researchers are surprised at what seems to be the cause. NPR's Joseph Shapiro explains.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO: Think of this as a kind of medical detective story. Start with this: The percentage of Americans who are nearsighted has gone way up in 30 years.
SUSAN VITALE: That's a pretty bit increase. It's a 66 percent increase.
SHAPIRO: The question is: Why? And in a mystery story, you've got suspects.
VITALE: Some of the risk factors that we know about for myopia are things like genetics, which is whether you have a family history of myopia. Things, possibly, like the amount of near-work that you do.
SHAPIRO: Near-work's been a suspect for hundreds of years. Even the scientist who came up with modern ideas for the lenses that correct nearsightedness, he blamed his own fuzzy eyesight on all the reading he did. That would be German astronomer Johannes Kepler.
DON MUTTI: Kepler wrote about it about 400 years ago, that he thought his nearsightedness was due to his intense study of astronomical tables and so forth.
SHAPIRO: Dr. Don Mutti at the Ohio State University is a kind of detective of myopia. Like other scientists researching this, he, too, suspected that after genetics, things like reading were probably a big cause.
MUTTI: It's the popular stereotype. Don't watch too much TV, or don't read, you know, under the covers with a flashlight.
SHAPIRO: For the past 20 years, Mutti's followed a group from childhood to adulthood to see who develops myopia. He found something significant: Time spent outdoors during childhood was important.
MUTTI: If you have two nearsighted parents and you engage in a low level of outdoor activity, your chances of becoming myopic by the eighth grade are about 60 percent. If children engaged in over 14 hours per week of outdoor activity, their chances of becoming nearsighted were now only about 20 percent. So it was quite a dramatic reduction in the risk of becoming myopic.
SHAPIRO: At first, that seems to support the theory that near-work causes nearsightedness: The more time kids spend indoors, the more likely they're watching TV or reading a book. But then Mutti and his colleagues looked closely at the kids before they became nearsighted, and the reading and close-up things they did didn't predict who'd be nearsighted later.
MUTTI: And what we found was that near-work had no influence at all. Children really aren't doing any more or less near-work - the children who are becoming nearsighted.
SHAPIRO: So that's another mystery. Why, then, does spending time outdoors make a difference? At first, scientists thought that outdoor exercise was the key. But it turned out kids who get indoor exercise don't get the benefits of reduced myopia. Now researchers are studying whether outdoor light somehow changes the way the eye grows.
MUTTI: Light levels might have a beneficial effect on the eye. Light levels change certain aspects in retinal physiology.
SHAPIRO: Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
For most people who get migraine headaches, light equals pain.
M: There's a stab of pain. It's an intensifying - sometimes, it can be to the point where you feel a wave of nausea come over you.
INSKEEP: NPR's Jon Hamilton tells us how a new study of blind patients, like Bird, has allowed researchers to finally explain how light becomes pain.
JON HAMILTON: A genetic disorder has left Heather Bird with almost no vision, even though she's just 22.
M: I have very limited light perception.
HAMILTON: Bird usually can't tell whether the world is bright or dim. But she says on some days, the difference becomes obvious.
M: If I have a migraine and I walk outside, even if I can't see that it's a sunny day versus an overcast day, I can go, oh, my headache just got worse. The sun must be out.
HAMILTON: But people like Bird were. Burstein says that suggested their eyes were still sending signals from a group of photoreceptor cells that was only discovered a few years ago.
D: These photoreceptors that make less than 1 percent of all the cells in the retina in the eye carry light signals to brain areas that have nothing to do with visual perception.
HAMILTON: To find out, his team did a series of experiments with rats. They traced the signals from these special light cells in the retina all the way to an area deep in the brain. It's an area that's not involved in vision.
D: It has something to do with pain and it contains, specifically, neurons that are activated during migraine headache.
HAMILTON: And that would explain how light could intensify the pain of a migraine even in someone who is blind. Burstein says the finding won't help doctors treat headaches directly, but it could lead to a drug that would let patients leave the confines of a dark room. And Burstein says that would be a big deal for all migraine sufferers.
D: It is, for many patients, difference between reading or not reading or writing or not writing, working or not working - a lot of the things that keep their life normal.
HAMILTON: Other researchers say finding these migraine cells deep in the brain may help explain how a wide range of sensory factors can increase migraine pain. Richard Lipton directs the Montefiore Headache Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
M: Some people are unusually sensitive to smells. They can't stand the smell of gasoline or perfume. Other people may be unusually sensitive to sound. Some people are unusually sensitive to movement.
HAMILTON: Lipton says the new study won't necessarily lead to treatments for these people, but he says it should reassure them that they're not imagining things.
M: Knowing that unusual experiences in migraine have been established in our biological basis, I think is a great comfort to people.
HAMILTON: Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Renee Montagne is away this week. And I'm delighted that NPR's Deborah Amos is sitting in. Deborah, good morning.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
We have two scenes this morning from the war on terrorism. We'll report on terror suspects who were caught and one double agent who succeeded.
INSKEEP: In a moment, we will hear details about the bomber who killed seven members of the CIA in Afghanistan. First, we're going to look at the large number of recent terrorism cases in the United States.
AMOS: NPR's Dina Temple-Raston explains why this seems to be happening now.
DINA TEMPLE: Samuel Rascoff is the counterterrorism expert at New York University Law School. He's been tracking how the U.S. drone offensive has forced al-Qaida to shift its strategy.
SAMUEL RASCOFF: What that's done is it's caused the franchise organizations in North Africa, in Yemen, and indeed around the world to come to the fore and to really represent the most significant threat that al-Qaida posses today, I think.
TEMPLE: Now experts say al-Qaida is going through another phase. This one is much like 2002. Rascoff says the drone attacks have robbed al-Qaida of a comfortable sanctuary. So it's turned again to affiliates, and that's part of the reason why he says we're seeing more terrorism cases in the U.S.
RASCOFF: The uptick in this smaller-type cells that we've been picking up in the States and overseas I think is a clear indication that al-Qaida is pursuing this franchise strategy.
TEMPLE: Does it mean al-Qaida's on the ropes?
RASCOFF: Well, the good news is that means that al-Qaida, as a headquarters organization, perceives itself to be limited and what it can do. The bad news is as a franchise, they're actually quite devastating in what they can pull off.
TEMPLE: The latest evidence: the Christmas Day Airliner bombing, which was organized by al-Qaida's arm in Yemen. Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, says al-Qaida has learned from its 2002 experience. Now, core al-Qaida is not just asking affiliates to pick up the slack. It's actually sending some of it's most trusted and skilled operatives to help these groups train them.
BRUCE HOFFMAN: In essence, it's forced multipliers to plus-up or to strengthen or to enhance the capabilities of its local and regional allies, and thus attempt to overwhelm the United States and its other enemies with, in essence, a strategy that amounts to death by a thousand cuts.
TEMPLE: More than two dozen Somali-Americans have left Minneapolis over the past two years to join a terrorist group in Somalia. Hoffman said the U.S. was naive to think that it was immune to al-Qaida's attempts to recruit new members, whether on the ground or through the Internet.
HOFFMAN: It's a reflection of a conscious strategy on the part of al- Qaida to use their propaganda or to use the Internet and other means of communication in order to gain a toehold on the United States.
TEMPLE: Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News, New York.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports from Jordan's capital, Amman.
LOURDES GARCIA: The al-Balawi family home in Amman occupies the first floor of a modest apartment block in a middle-class area of the city. This weekend, after footage of his son was broadcast around the world, the bomber's father, Khalil al-Balawi, spoke in halting English of his pain.
KHALIL AL: I am very, very sad when I saw Humam. I am very, very sad.
GARCIA: At a nearby store, a friend of Humam al-Balawi, Abu Unis(ph), says the 32-year-old doctor was a familiar figure in the neighborhood. He treated patients at a Palestinian refugee camp and was known for his good works.
ABU UNIS: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA: Analyst Hasan Abul Khania(ph) had been following the writings of Abu-Dujana for some time without knowing his real identity.
HASAN ABUL KHANIA: (Through Translator) He focused on jihad, on establishing an Islamic caliphate. And what was more distinctive, he focused on Gaza and Israel and America's support of Israel.
GARCIA: Balawi is of Palestinian heritage, and according to family members, he wanted to volunteer as a doctor in Gaza. Analyst Hasan Abul-Khania says Balawi is part of the new generation of al-Qaida operatives.
ABUL KHANIA: (Through Translator) The Internet has changed everything. The ones who go on the Internet already have skills. Balawi was a doctor. The Nigerian boy who attempted to blow up a plane was from an educated, wealthy family. The Fort Hood shooter was also educated. And they are being recruited through the Internet. The most important thing is that they are anonymous. They don't have ties to known militants, so it's harder for the intelligence services to find out who they are.
GARCIA: He says secrecy is paramount. Al-Balawi, for example, did not personally meet here in Jordan with other Salafi jihadists, fundamentalists Muslims who call for the establishment of an Islamic mother state.
ABUL KHANIA: (Through Translator) The tactics are being adapted. They are trying to be unpredictable. Now, someone planning an attack could be anyone, your neighbor, even your brother.
GARCIA: The official says the intelligence services here, who have strong ties to the CIA, tried to, quote, "lure him into establishing a relationship with the Americans." The official strongly emphasizes that Jordan did not run the operation. The Jordanian captain that was killed in the attack, the official said, was simply a liaison officer, despite his status as a member of the royal family. Analyst Marwan Shehadeh says Balawi's attack has proven deeply embarrassing for Jordan.
MARWAN SHEHADEH: This is, I mean, a hard blow for the Jordanians, and I think they will reorganize their strategy in dealing with al-Qaida.
GARCIA: Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Amman.
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Unidentified Woman: Yes, Mr. President?
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE CLIP, "DAVE")
KEVIN KLINE: Unidentified Woman: Right away, sir.
KLINE: And we have a lot of work to do, so we're not to be disturbed, OK?
KLINE: I understand, sir.
CHARLES GRODIN: (As Murray Blum) I'll tell you, Dave. I've been over this stuff a bunch of times. It just doesn't add up. Who does these books? I mean, if I ran my business this way, I'd be out of business.
AMOS: Our next guest is likely to agree with that statement. He's David Walker, and he was the comptroller of the United States and CEO of the Government Accountability Office from 1998 until 2008. He's currently the president and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, and he's the scariest CPA who's not doing your taxes.
AMOS: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility." Welcome to the program.
DAVID WALKER: Deborah, good to be with you. And I love that movie "Dave," and it's a great name, too.
AMOS: So you have to agree, then, with Murray Blum, the fictional accountant in the movie, that the real government's books are in trouble.
WALKER: There's no question. Our financial condition is much worse than advertised. We face large and growing structural deficits that threaten our future, and we need to start doing something about them.
AMOS: Now, you've written in your book that there is a moment coming soon when most of the government budget is going to go to servicing debt.
WALKER: That's correct. The GAO, under its latest simulation, said that within 12 years, without an increase in interest rates, the single-largest line item in the federal budget would be interest on the federal debt. That means more than defense, more than social security, more than Medicare. And that's obviously not acceptable.
AMOS: You point out that when President Clinton left office, we had a balanced budget and even a surplus. So how did it get so bad so quickly?
WALKER: People lost control. The money burned a hole in their pocket, through the floor and half way through the planet. Basically, the statutory budget controls that we had in place in the 1990s through President George Herbert Walker Bush, President Clinton, and the early part of the Bush 43 administration, they expired at the end of 2002 and things got totally out of control after that.
AMOS: What do you think that the specific dangers are of running a deficit this high?
WALKER: It's OK to run a deficit in the short term, when you're in a recession, when you face serious challenges dealing with housing and financial markets. It's not the current deficit that I'm concerned about. It's the structural deficit that will exist whether the economy's growing, whether or not we're at war, no matter what the circumstances are. The dangers are that we end up losing the confidence of our foreign lenders. They end up wanting to charge much higher interest rates. The dollar declines dramatically, and the effect on that on the budget, on the economy and on, frankly, Americans, the cost of credit and other things is not a positive sight.
AMOS: You write that the seriousness of this is for future generations, that there is no way for children and grandchildren, that they can avoid higher taxes. We do. How does that work?
WALKER: There are two kinds of taxes: current taxes and deferred taxes. Deficits, especially unreasonable deficits, represent deferred taxes on our children and grandchildren with interest. That's reality, and it's also math.
AMOS: Does that mean that at some future date, no matter what, that Congress is going to have to raise taxes to pay for what we're spending now?
WALKER: There's absolutely no question that taxes are going to have to go up. When you look at the promises that have been made for Medicare, for example, $38 trillion underfunded, Social Security $7.7 trillion underfunded, plus military and civilian pensions and retiree health care, to make the numbers work, you have to restructure those programs, constrain spending, and raise revenues.
AMOS: Almost every one of your solutions includes a blue ribbon panel. And I get the idea that you're suggesting that you don't quite trust the politicians to do this.
WALKER: Ultimately, elected officials will have a vote. However, the regular order is broken. Washington can't make progress on a single difficult issue at a time, much less multiple at once. And we're in a situation now where we have to make progress on budget controls, social security, health care and taxes quickly before we lose the confidence of our foreign lenders.
AMOS: Your polls show that Americans actually take this seriously, that they think the budget deficit and the dangers are more important than global warming and even health care reform. But those very politicians, in a broken system, are the ones that would have to convince people to do things like have their health care at work taxed or have benefits from Social Security go down. How does that work? How do you get politicians to sell the kind of ideas that actually get people turned out of office?
WALKER: Well, first, the American people are ahead of their politicians, as typically is the case. Eighty percent of Americans believe that escalating deficits and debts should be a higher priority. Seventy percent of Americans believe we need some type of special blue ribbon commission to be able to deal with it. But ultimately, the elected officials are going to have to make a decision on the recommendations to the commission, whether to go with them or not, and the president will have to decide whether to sign or veto it.
AMOS: When you look at how health care - that overall process went, does that make you more or less optimistic that the American government and the American system can implement these kind of broad changes that you're talking about?
WALKER: So our health care house is already mortgaged for more than its worth, and all we're doing is adding a new wing onto it. So it doesn't give me great confidence. And my question is is when are we going to start dealing with the real problems with health care costs that threaten to bankrupt the country and to make sure that we can deliver on the promises that make?
AMOS: No one argues that what you're talking about is crucially important, but we're in an even bigger financial hole. We're in a recession. So how do you talk about balancing the budget when government spending is the very thing that the economy has needed to sort of stir jobs and to keep the country afloat?
WALKER: I think it's very important to separate the short term from the structural. It's understandable to run deficits when you have a recession, a depression or unprecedented financial services and housing-type of challenges and crises that we've had. That's not what I'm concerned about. We will ultimately turn the economy around, but what we have to do is deal with the large known and growing structural deficits that are growing with the passage of time, and they're - are not long term anymore. They are within the horizon. They are going to hit our shores and we are not prepared.
AMOS: David Walker is the author of "Comeback America." Thank you very much.
WALKER: Deborah, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure being with you.
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AMOS: Tomorrow, we'll hear from the top two senators on the Budget Committee. They want to trim the deficit by setting up another kind of blue ribbon commission.
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AMOS: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Frank, good morning.
FRANK LANGFITT: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What are you expecting to see?
LANGFITT: And Ford, interestingly enough, is kind of seeming to try to separate itself from these other two. You know, Ford didn't go bankrupt, didn't take federal bailout money. And I was talking to an executive last week who said, you know, to some degree, they don't think of themselves as much of the Detroit Three anymore. They think of themselves as a different group of three, and that includes Honda and Toyota.
INSKEEP: Oh, they're the Detroit one, I suppose, or something to that effect.
LANGFITT: Think to that effect.
INSKEEP: Now, you mentioned General Motors. What are they going to actually put on the showroom floor, so to speak?
LANGFITT: And this is a segment, as they say in the car business, where you can sell a lot of units and where traditionally, GM just gets clobbered. So with all of this, you know, federal investment that we've all made to this company, if GM's going to profitable, the Cruze really has to be a success. So watch for that sometime later this year as they come out, see what the reviews are and see what the sales are like.
INSKEEP: So the Chevy Cruze is critical for General Motors. And then there's Chrysler. Now they've done some big, showy things at this auto show in the past. They sent a herd of steer onto the floor, if I'm not mistaken (unintelligible)...
LANGFITT: Well, that was actually outside. That would've really messed up the floor.
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LANGFITT: But it was outside of the Cobo Center, but it caught a lot of people's attention.
INSKEEP: OK. But what are they going to do this year? I mean, what other animals are they going to put on display, if any?
LANGFITT: Actually, you're not going to see any animals.
INSKEEP: Ah, I'm disappointed.
LANGFITT: Now, today, Sergio Marchionne is the CEO of Fiat, he now really runs Chrysler. He's going to be out on the floor today talking to reporters, trying to convince us and convince the people listening, you know, around the country that he can turn this company around. He did it with Fiat in Europe, and he's going to try to convince us that with Fiat technology, he can build small, affordable cars that people want to drive.
INSKEEP: Frank Langfitt's line is breaking up just a little bit, but we can hear you for a few more seconds, I think, Frank. I suppose it's no surprise that a number of congressional leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, are going to be Detroit. Why would they not go check on their investment, I suppose? Or our investment.
LANGFITT: Well, exactly right. They are going to check on it. They're going to be looking at fuel efficient technology that the government is actually creating loans for. And they want to see if these companies are no longer going to be making gas guzzlers as they did in the past, and kind of becoming greener.
INSKEEP: Right. Frank, thanks very much.
LANGFITT: Happy to do it, Steve.
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
NPR's business news starts with China's auto market racing ahead.
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AMOS: China is now the biggest automobile market in the world. China's carmakers tallied sales in 2009 and announced today that they surged to nearly 14 million vehicles. That means the Chinese bought more than three million more cars than Americans did last year. A lot of that was thanks to a government incentive program in China, and officials are expecting a bit of a slow down this years. But Chinese car executives still see plenty of pent-up demand, particularly in smaller cities where incomes are growing.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And today's last word in business is high-end houseboat. If you've ever dreamed of escaping and living out your life on a permanent cruise, you might contact a company in Beverly Hills, California, which has plans to build a billion-dollar cruise ship, and sell half the cabins as permanent homes.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Today, the Los Angeles Times reports that floating condos aboard the Utopia will range from $3.7 million to $26 million. A couple of years ago it might've been easy to get a loan to buy one of these cruising condos. Today it could be harder.
INSKEEP: And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
AMOS: And I'm Deborah Amos.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos, sitting in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
INSKEEP: Two things seemed clear as the president and Congress begin another year. One is that the president has won a lot of votes in Congress. The other is that even bigger challenges lie ahead, from Afghanistan to health care to the economy.
AMOS: In a moment, we'll hear what lawmakers think of the president's next steps. We'll also ask about some remarks about the president by Senate Leader Harry Reid.
INSKEEP: NPR's Don Gonyea reports.
DON GONYEA: In at least one way, President Obama has been no different from his predecessors. He's always ready to send a firm message to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
INSKEEP: It's a bill that will open the door to a better future for this nation, and that's why I urge members of Congress to come together and pass it.
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INSKEEP: I urge members of Congress to rise to this moment, answer the call of history and vote yes for health-insurance reform for America.
GONYEA: All presidents demand specific action by Congress or, at least they ask for it, but when you look at the votes of 2009 in which President Obama made his preference clear, his success rate was unprecedented, according to John Cranford of Congressional Quarterly.
AMOS: His success was 96.7 percent on all the votes where we said he had a clear position in both the House and the Senate. That's an extraordinary number.
GONYEA: CQ started scoring presidential success rates in Congress more than five decades ago. The previous high scores were held by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, with 93 percent; and Dwight Eisenhower, who scored 89 percent in 1953. CQ's Cranford notes that George W. Bush hit the high 80s in 2001, the year of 9/11.
AMOS: But Barack Obama surpassed them all.
GONYEA: A major reason for Mr. Obama's record high score this year is that he benefits from a lot of seats Democrats took away from Republicans in 2006 and 2008 elections, resulting in big majorities in the House and Senate for the president's party. But Sarah Binder, a congressional analyst at the Brookings Institution, says there is another key reason why he scored so well. She says he only took an official position on votes that were really important to him, those that he knew he had a very good chance of winning. He picked his battles carefully.
AMOS: He can do that because he has been in the Senate. His staff has been in the House. He understands the process here. They are consummate, I think, congressional insiders in understanding how this works.
GONYEA: Binder says the intense partisanship in Congress these days, a condition underlined in a separate Congressional Quarterly vote study out today, meant that Democrats were more likely to rally around the president when he asked them to, if only to deny Republicans a victory. But another contributing factor here may prove more controversial for the president and his party. It is his willingness to negotiate and to compromise. For example, as much as the president said he wanted a public option as part of a health- care bill, the final legislation won't have one, but that's not counted as a loss for the president under the scoring of this survey. Again, Sarah Binder.
AMOS: Where's the public option? He is not winning on a public option vote. That's long ago been compromised away.
GONYEA: Such compromises have brought strong criticism from the liberal wing of the president's own party. But White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a Congress veteran himself, says compromise has a long, long history, one that makes it a great part of the democratic process.
AMOS: The question is, are you compromising a set of principles, or are you making adjustments to tactics, venues, roads, different ideas that still achieve the same objective? And they're not all the same - every compromise is not the same in weight.
GONYEA: On health care, for example, the White House insists that compromise was the only way to get the 60 needed votes in the U.S. Senate. Rahm Emanuel also cautions that having the president score so high on votes where he took a stand is not at all the same thing as having the White House get everything it wanted. If you tell him you can't do much better than 96.7 percent, he comes back with...
AMOS: You obviously don't know what a Jewish mother's perspective is.
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GONYEA: Don Gonyea, NPR News, Washington.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
And for some analysis, we turn to NPR's Cokie Roberts, who's a regular on our Monday program. Good morning, Cokie.
COKIE ROBERTS: Morning Deborah, how nice to talk to you and have you on these shores.
AMOS: Indeed. The president still has many more legislative battles to wage. Yesterday, Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, said that the administration plans to do more to try to create jobs. Will Congress go along with that?
ROBERTS: And the deficit can't be in the way of that right now, because you can't get a deficit down when you have this many people out of work and not paying taxes. So, you have to get them back to work. She's definitely ready to talk about tax breaks from - tax credits for small business to hire people, as well as provided measures like extended unemployment benefits.
AMOS: But that's not going to be so easy. The previous stimulus packages are unpopular; the bailout of the financial institutions are extremely unpopular.
ROBERTS: Romer said yesterday, that the big bonus season is of, quote, "of course going to offend the American people. It offends me," she said. And the big bank CEOs will have to show up Wednesday at the first hearing of a 9-11-style commission that's been created to investigate the causes of the financial crisis. But they're not likely to make the public feel much better about them.
AMOS: Now, in the middle of this, President Obama is facing another crisis, and this is a flap over comments of the majority leader, Harry Reid. Some Republicans are calling for him to quit. Is that going to happen?
ROBERTS: But Harry Reid has a rough road ahead. I mean, you just heard in Don Gonyea's piece about Democrats representing areas that voted Republican and how they have got a hard election year ahead. And if Democrats start to see Reid as a liability in this election year, then, you know, all bets are off.
AMOS: Thank you very much. NPR's Cokie Roberts.
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AMOS: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
We're learning more about a suicide bomber in Afghanistan as well as his victims. Elsewhere in today's program, we profiled the man who killed seven officers of the CIA. Now, we have the story of one of his victims.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Because those killed worked for the CIA, we haven't heard much about them. But some of their families have now released their names.
AMOS: They include Jeremy Weiss of Arkansas.
INSKEEP: Harold Brown Jr., from Massachusetts.
AMOS: Elizabeth Hansen of Illinois.
INSKEEP: And Scott Roberson of Ohio, whose friends say he loved to work with the CIA.
AMOS: They gathered in Akron over the weekend for a memorial service. And as Tim Rudell of member station WKSU reports, they held their own Irish wake.
TIM RUDELL: A dozen of Roberson's friends from Atlanta gathered Saturday at Brubaker's, a sports pub in the Akron suburb of Stow. The memorial service was private and at an undisclosed location because of the CIA personnel who attended, so Roberson's Atlanta friends took a few hours to remember him their own way.
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RUDELL: Most were wearing biker jackets as they toasted the man they called Southside Scotty. They rode with him as members of the Iron Pigs, a law- enforcement motorcycle club, and worked beside him in the Atlanta Police Department. Roberson joined the force after graduating from Florida State. Former patrol partner Jack Bentley says there was something special about him even then.
AMOS: Scott just kind of had that aura about him, the George Washington effect. When he walked into a room, he commanded everybody's attention. He was that kind of a guy.
RUDELL: Police Officers Johnny Pucci(ph) and Steve Nichols remembered Scott Roberson as someone with unusual talent and drive.
AMOS: When 9/11 came, the next day he was already pulling strings to see if he was over the age limit to get into the military 'cause he wanted to do something for his country. He was like, I've got to do something.
AMOS: Scott felt like he needed to be a little further out, a little closer to making sure that the people in this country were safer.
RUDELL: Roberson worked the tough jobs - vice, undercover narcotics - and made detective in Atlanta. As J.B. Brown talks about how doing it to the fullest was just Southside Scotty's way, others here are nodding their heads.
AMOS: When I first met Scotty, he was riding a motorcycle called an ultra-ground pounder - no suspension, hard tail chopper, black, low, lean, mean, fast. The bike fit Scotty's persona. You know, he embraced everything he did completely.
RUDELL: He says Scott Roberson wanted to do more with his career, so he moved on to new professional challenges and then married Molly Kaiser.
AMOS: You could tell when you talked to him that he was finally complete, that he was marrying Molly and everything - you could just tell that he was finally where he needed to be in his life.
RUDELL: And, as Steve Nichols remembers Scott Roberson, he thinks of what his friend's mother just told him.
AMOS: Just like his mother said the other day, it was Scotty saying to his mom every time he left, no regrets, Mom, no regrets. I'm doing a good thing; I'm doing the right thing.
RUDELL: For NPR News, I'm Tim Rudell in Akron.
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AMOS: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Today in San Francisco, we're expecting that a federal judge will begin to hear arguments on whether California's ban on same-sex marriages violates the U.S. constitution. The case is attracting national attention, and not only because it will be the first federal trial ever broadcast over YouTube. It also has the potential to be a landmark case. Here's Rob Schmitz of member station KQED.
ROB SCHMITZ: For years, California has played a key role in the national debate over gay marriage. Voters here banned same-sex marriage a decade ago. The courts overturned the ban, and in November of 2008, Californians narrowly voted to effectively ban it again. Which brings us to today, the first day of a federal trial over the matter. Samantha Sabarzo(ph) isn't happy.
SAMANTHA SABARZO: It's really unfortunate that we have to waste resources through court hearings and, you know, challenges when the people have spoken.
SCHMITZ: Sabarzo volunteered to help pass Proposition 8, the ballot measure that amended the state constitution to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. It passed with 52 percent of the vote.
SABARZO: People have voted. Their vote counts. People want traditional marriage and understand the important of traditional marriage.
SCHMITZ: But Paul Katami thinks California's definition of marriage is a violation of his rights. Katami and his partner Jeffrey Zarrillo want to get married. The two are plaintiffs in the federal case against Proposition 8.
PAUL KATAMI: The law protects us as it protects everyone else, and that protection includes our right to marry and our pursuit of happiness together.
SCHMITZ: This case rests on the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. That was written to extend equal rights to African-Americans following the Civil War. The ruling will likely be appealed to the Ninth Circuit and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court. Last week, the judge made the controversial decision to allow the proceedings to be broadcast on YouTube.
DAVID LEVINE: This is like going to Disneyland for legal scholars.
SCHMITZ: David Levine is a professor at the U.C. Hastings College of the Law. He says it's an exciting case, not only because it has the potential to resolve such a heated national debate, but also because of the legal questions it raises.
LEVINE: Is it appropriate for the court to step in and to say, ok, we're going to jump forward on this cultural unfolding and we're going to say this is what the rule has to be? Or are the courts, especially federal courts, going to step back and say this is for the states and the democratic processes within those states to work out?
SCHMITZ: One factor contributing to the hype of this case is the unusual makeup of the legal team representing the plaintiffs: former solicitor general Ted Olson and trial lawyer David Boies. The two were rivals who represented George W. Bush and Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential dispute. Ted Olson is excited.
TED OLSON: I think this is one of the most important civil rights cases that this country has faced in a long, long time.
SCHMITZ: The bipartisan duo of Olson and Boies fighting together for same-sex marriage is exciting for many gay Americans. Still, some gay advocacy and civil rights groups have called the case premature. These groups have been steadily working for two decades with a calculated plan of making same-sex marriage legal in states where success seemed likely, and they're nervous with the idea of rolling the dice on what they see as a very conservative Supreme Court. Ted Olson disagrees.
OLSON: The lesson of history is that civil rights are won by people who stand up and fight for them and not people who sit down and quietly wait for things to happen.
SCHMITZ: The federal trial could take weeks. A decision is expected by summer. For NPR News, I'm Rob Schmitz in Los Angeles.
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
A town in southern Italy, Rosarno, has just seen some of the country's worst riots in decades. For three days, residents of the town clashed with African farm workers. This fighting was seen as part of the country's racial tensions, and also showed how organized crime holds a grip on the region. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI: The riots began Thursday after a gang of white youth attacked African farm workers. In angry reaction, hundreds of migrants began smashing cars and shops, and clashed with riot police and residents. Some locals fired on fleeing farm workers. Seventy people were left injured, including three migrants beaten with metal rods. Some farm workers vented their frustration with TV reporters, but were too frightened to give their names.
U: (Foreign language spoken)
POGGIOLI: One man said, there's too much blood here. I want to go back home to Africa. It's too dangerous here. Another man spoke of how the people of Rosarno treat the migrants.
U: (Foreign language spoken)
POGGIOLI: We Africans are not chickens, he said. They treat us like animals. We're here to work. They're always ganging up on us. Italians are racists, racists.
U: (Foreign language spoken)
POGGIOLI: Some 20,000 migrants in the Southern Calabria region work as seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers. Only about 6,000 have regular work permits. Most live in squalid conditions, in abandoned factories with no running water or electricity. Despite economic hardships, Italians are not willing to do this kind of farm labor. Nevertheless, there's growing resentment toward foreign workers. This is what one angry Rosarno resident thinks about African migrants.
U: (Through Translator) Of course I employed them, but I paid them and provided them with food. But I couldn't possibly provide housing for them. I'm not a racist, but these are people who are unable to live in a proper house.
POGGIOLI: Four days after the riots started, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had still not made any public comment. But Interior Minister Roberto Maroni's reaction to the riots sparked controversy.
M: (Through Translator) In all these years, there has been too much tolerance for illegal immigration, which has lead to an increase in crime and has produced degraded situations like Rosarno.
POGGIOLI: Writer Roberto Saviano, author of the best seller "Gomorra," which revealed the inner-workings of the Neapolitan Mafia, says the Ndrangheta bosses couldn't stand any form of rebellion and had to show who's in charge.
M: (Through Translator) Migrants are the only ones who have rebelled against organized crime. Of course, their methods are to be criticized, but we must look beyond that. These people are sick and tired of being ruled by criminals. They're very courageous because in that part of the world, saying no is really dangerous.
POGGIOLI: Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.
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INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It turns out an old dog can teach new tricks. Ask Uno, a cocker spaniel who may be the oldest living dog. He turned 22 on New Year's Day. That's more than a century in human years. Uno's vet says the old guy is an amazing dog, considering he's still healthy and going strong. He has a little trouble walking upstairs to get to his owner's bed. He's trained them to carry him up when he runs out of steam. It's MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
The city of Tokyo isn't running out of money, but it's running out of patience. For eight years, it's been waging war on its crows. The campaign reportedly began after a crow buzzed Tokyo's governor as he played golf, prompting a declaration that he would turn crow meat pies into Tokyo's favorite dish. Well, that hasn't happened, but the battle continues today, with mixed results - as NPR's Louisa Lim found out on a recent trip to Tokyo.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS AND CROWS CAWING)
LOUISA LIM: This is the sound that makes Yumiko Kono's heart beat faster as she pounds around Yoyogi Park in central Tokyo. She's a long-distance runner, who covers at least seven miles a day. She's highly sensitive to sound, since she's blind. She runs with the aid of a companion. A year and a half ago, she was attacked by a crow in the park, an experience that has traumatized her.
AMOS: (Through Translator) A crow landed on my head just for an instant while I was running. It was like it was using my head as a jumping board. I was surprised, then scared. Now, when I hear crows cawing and their wings flapping, I still get scared.
LIM: For Alfred Hitchcock fans, it's eerily reminiscent of his thriller "The Birds."
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE BIRDS")
LIM: I mean birds don't just go around attacking people without no reason, you know what I mean? Kids probably scared them, that's all.
LIM: These birds attacked.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS ATTACKING)
LIM: Tokyo's crow czar, Toshimasa Uno, admits crow numbers are on the up. He blames commuter crows who fly in to feast on the capital's garbage.
AMOS: We think the reason is that crows fly into Tokyo from the suburbs.
LIM: He says the corvine population now stands or flies at an estimated 21,200. That's despite millions of dollars spent on the war on crows.
AMOS: (Through Translator) The crow budget for 2009 was about $700,000. The year before, it worked out to around $50 for every crow killed. But we have to spend this money because people are complaining.
LIM: We're here with park manager Koji Takagi, and we're picking our way amongst the greenery. And we're going to see the crow traps the government has been using to try to battle the crows.
AMOS: (Through Translator) Most of the crows we catch with this trap are young ones that are inexperienced. But it's good to catch the young ones, so they can't breed and increase the number of crows.
LIM: Back in Yoyogi Park, birds are thrashing around inside the traps, which are enormous cages 10 by 20 feet, open in the middle. The crows are lured in by lard smeared on the ground. Once in, hanging spikes stop them from flying out. Park manager Takagi says every three days, the trapped crows are taken away to be gassed.
AMOS: (Through Translator) We do get complaints from people opposed to the crow extermination. But this is the policy of the environment bureau. People should also learn to deal with garbage better.
LIM: So we're now going to see a very unusual project here in Central Tokyo, in the swanky shopping district of Ginza.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEES BUZZING)
LIM: That buzzing noise that you can probably hear is 300,000 honeybees that are being kept in beehives, right in the center of Tokyo. Atsuo Tanaka, the co-founder of the Ginza Honeybee Project, says this project is actually helping keep the crows away.
AMOS: (Through Translator) The bees become very aggressive when they see shiny black objects, because it reminds them of bears or hornets that might attack them. So whenever they see crows, a whole swarm of bees will chase them.
LIM: And although the honeybees chase away the black marauders, they're surprisingly friendly to humans.
AMOS: You afraid?
LIM: You want me to touch these honeybees? Will they bite me?
AMOS: It's okay. No, no, no, no, no.
LIM: Louisa Lim, NPR News.
AMOS: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
At the Supreme Court today, a case will test the federal government's power to keep convicted sex offenders behind bars after they've served out their prison terms. Eighty-four such prisoners are now being held at a federal prison in North Carolina. NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG: Kansas Solicitor General Stephen McAllister, who filed a brief in the case siding with the federal government, summarizes the argument this way.
STEPHEN MCALLISTER: The federal law does have a provision allowing for the transfer of dangerous prisoners to the states, but as McAllister concedes, the states aren't interested.
MCALLISTER: We don't want 'em.
TOTENBERG: But lawyer Jeff Green, who filed a brief on the opposite side of the case, points to statistics showing a relatively low recidivism rate for sex offenders overall. The fact that some released offenders have committed terrible crimes proves a different point - that there's no way to predict future dangerousness.
JEFF GREEN: Those are hideous tragic crimes, but they demonstrate that the experts, in terms of identifying which individuals are dangerous, are no better than astrologers.
TOTENBERG: Green maintains that the government's so-called treatment program is nothing more than a Catch-22, in which the offender is required to talk about his sexual fantasies and accept responsibility, but then those conversations can be used against him if he seeks release.
GREEN: How is he going to demonstrate that he's capable of modifying his behavior or that his mental illness is cured so that he can get out? That is a practical impossibility.
TOTENBERG: Kansas solicitor general, McAllister, concedes that few offenders get out once they're civilly committed in the states. That opens up more questions for a federal statute that provides fewer protections for the accused. If you can civilly commit someone as sexually dangerous, why not civilly commit people believed to be just dangerous in general? McAllister says civil commitment has to be linked to a mental abnormality or condition. But a lot of people in prison are deeply disturbed - drug addicts, kleptomaniacs, vicious sociopaths - why not commit them too once they have completed their prison terms?
MCALLISTER: Constitutionally, it might be possible. I don't have a constitutionally limiting line for what kinds of mental disorders might be permissible and those not. If they lead to danger to others, potentially, they could be covered under such a law.
TOTENBERG: Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AMOS: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Many people will be watching the Fox Broadcast Network tonight because the country's most popular television show, "American Idol," begins its ninth season. It will also be the last season for Simon Cowell to sling cutting comments at aspiring singers.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN IDOL")
M: Eric, if you could imagine Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" singing at the point when she's doing all that on the bed, that's - no, seriously - that's what you sound like, because there were six of you in there.
INSKEEP: Fans of "Idol" might be relieved to hear that host Ryan Seacrest is under contract for another three years. It is hard to miss Mr. Seacrest on celebrity TV. He also hosts coverage of the Grammys, the Emmys, the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Now, it's easy to dismiss Ryan Seacrest as a pop culture Ken doll, but as NPR's Neda Ulaby explains, he has real power.
NEDA ULABY: So far, Ryan Seacrest has not taken over the entire world - only its shiniest, most glittery broadcasts.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DICK CLARK'S NEW YEAR'S ROCKIN' EVE")
M: Hello and welcome to the biggest, most spectacular New Year's Eve party in the entire world.
ULABY: The show still known as "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve" is now mainly hosted and produced by Ryan Seacrest. His sweetly vanilla good looks mask a monster of a work ethic.
INSKEEP: 00 a.m. to host a morning radio show in Los Angeles. Then he hosts a TV program for the E! channel. Then he edits and hosts a national radio show.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW)
ULABY: Stop the music. You're on air with Ryan Seacrest.
ULABY: On weekends, he relaxes by hosting the long-running pop radio shows, heard on over 500 stations.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW)
M: American Top 40 right here. I'll be with you on...
M: In the course of a very short period of time, he's essentially replaced Dick Clark in his longstanding emcee duties on so many shows.
ULABY: Larry Rosin is a media analyst and cofounder of Edison Research.
M: He's replaced Casey Kasem; he's replaced Rick Dees, who was the number one morning man in Los Angeles.
ULABY: And there's rumors, says Rosin, that Seacrest will eventually take over Larry King's show as well.
M: Tipping them over one by one, replacing every one of these sort of old media hosts. You would think a new guy, a different new guy or gal would come into each one of these positions, but in every case it's Ryan Seacrest.
ULABY: Ryan Seacrest pushed his reality show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" on "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE")
M: But, yes, I'm producing that and I'm producing "The Denise Richards Show," which launches on Memorial Day for E! as well.
M: What do you need these headaches for?
ULABY: Apparently Seacrest thrives on headaches. He built "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" into the channel's number one hit. Seacrest is known for working unbelievably hard, with an obsessively micromanaged schedule.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE")
M: Everything is, like, to the minute, but I love it. I love it.
M: Do you have, like, a daily schedule so you know exactly what - it's a grid, really.
M: I get a grid that's faxed to my house from my office the night before.
M: Really?
M: So it tells me what time I have to get ready for you. So I had to shower. So I got - three people are CCed, so three people know when I'm in the shower, three people know when I'm traveling to Jimmy Kimmel. They know...
M: Wow. You didn't have to shower for me. You could've came over...
ULABY: Seacrest's contract with "American Idol" is worth $45 million over the course of three years. Comcast and E! pay him another $21 million for the same amount of time. He has an uncanny knack for managing his own brand, says Tom Weeks. He's an executive at Starcom Entertainment.
M: He gets that people think he's a squeaky-clean guy. And there's a part of brands that you want to be approachable but you don't want to be so perfect that people just start ignoring you because it's not real anymore.
ULABY: Still, it's the glossy perfection of Seacrest's persona that moved author Dave Housley to write a short story about him. It's in a collection called "Ryan Seacrest is Famous." Housley finds his media mastery almost a little ominous. Ryan Seacrest seems so spookily prepackaged, he says he almost doesn't seem human, but...
M: Some kind of media conglomerate robot that's going to continue assembling jobs until he's kind of controlling everything. He's going to be the president of the United States.
ULABY: Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
INSKEEP: You hear Neda's forecasts on MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
T: How does a big corporation make itself look more like America?
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
To try to answer that question, let's talk about a company that was forced to face that very question. In 2001, African-American employees sued the giant company Sodexo, and soon afterward, the company hired a new head of diversity. We're going to listen to her story this morning.
: But why did she go to work in diversity at a company that was being sued for discrimination?
INSKEEP: Well, she explains that she wanted to make a difference. Let's listen to Rohini Anand.
: It was a very painful thing. It was a very painful thing for the company. I think it made us introspective. You never want to feel that there's even one person in the company who feels they don't have an opportunity to succeed.
INSKEEP: That's Rohini Anand, who was hired as vice president of diversity for Sodexo. It provides everything from food service to laundry for countless hotels and companies, and military bases and even prisons.
: So what exactly were sued for?
INSKEEP: You must have a moment, as you're thinking about going to work in a job like this, am I going to be able to change things or am I going to be in some way co-opted or used?
: That's a great question, and I think the organization knew that there was a lot of work to do to make the culture more inclusive. For me, that's what it's about.
INSKEEP: Rohini Anand grew up in India, which is a small reminder here that diversity isn't just about black and white. Here's one thing she highlights about her work at Sodexo. Different groups of minority employees - African-Americans, Hispanic, Asian, gay and lesbian - are encouraged to get together. And in these networking groups, they share experiences and identify their own weak points.
: So for instance, the Asian network group, you know, one of the things that they found was that sometimes Asians are rated lower in terms of communication skills, so they actually partnered with Toastmasters to help to develop their membership.
INSKEEP: Communicating, you mean with fellow employees? What's an example of what you're talking about?
: Well, an example might be for instance, and I want to be mindful that we're not stereotyping here, you know. I am an Asian-American. I don't think that everybody falls into these patterns, but they're some cultures where it is not appropriate to sell yourself, it's not appropriate to brag and it might be more appropriate to talk about the team.
INSKEEP: In fact, she thinks about a job candidate that she herself recently interviewed for possible promotion.
: It's a candidate who's internal, who I know is extremely good. Every time I asked her about her contributions, she was extremely reluctant to share with me what she had contributed. You know, this was an...
INSKEEP: What was her background?
: This was an Asian woman. You know, I found that I had to use different techniques than I would normally have in order to get the same information out of her. You know, that's one of the things that we do with our interviewers; we have a training on culturally competent recruiting - to understand the different values that people bring to the table. And that's true for recruiting, that's true for promotion. I mean there's some individuals in a promotion situation where they keep raising their hands and saying I'm ready for a promotion; I want a promotion. So is that the candidate that you eventually should promote?
INSKEEP: Have there been occasions where you have had someone come to you and say, you know, I'm being discriminated against because I'm African-American and you have to look into it and think about it and basically conclude actually no, you're not being promoted because you're not ready to be promoted or you're not competent?
: You're asking me a perception and reality question, because I think sometimes individuals have a sense of their own capability, but unless you give that individual feedback, there is no way of their knowing what they're not ready for.
INSKEEP: A minority employee or any employee should not be mystified about why they're not being promoted.
: Absolutely. They should not be mystified. They should be given feedback. They should be told what they need to do. Because when that's not given I think, you know, it creates a disconnect.
INSKEEP: So Deb, those are all things that Sodexo says it does to encourage diversity.
: Yeah, but how does a company make sure that minorities have a chance to be promoted?
INSKEEP: If I'm a manager here, what are the things that I have to do to get that 25 percent of the bonus?
: Good question. You ready for a two-hour dissertation on this?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
: You know, it's a complex score card.
INSKEEP: Complex because it's not just a quota system, hiring so many people. It involves how managers mentor people as well as how they promote.
: So we really do need to push our managers because it's very easy to hire, you know, more of the same.
INSKEEP: You ever go to your boss and say this particular manager, I've talked to this guy, he's hopeless? You just really need to get rid of this person.
: Yes.
INSKEEP: And has the person gone away?
: Yes.
INSKEEP: Has that happened a lot?
: No. But they're found in violation of our policies - yes, they will be terminated.
: Steve, that sounds impressive, but how do you measure if she's succeeding?
INSKEEP: Anand still says Sodexo is doing better when you compare the company to official census figures showing the number of qualified minorities available in the workforce, and she says they have at least kept their diversity while downsizing in a tough economy.
: That's one perspective. Later this week in our series, we'll hear about companies using in-house social networks to help women and minorities bond with each other.
INSKEEP: And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
: And I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
The two U.S. senators we're going to hear next want to find a way for the United States to cut down on its debts. They want to address a problem we heard about yesterday when former U.S. official David Walker warned of a long-term disaster.
M: We will ultimately turn the economy around, but what we have to do is deal with the large known and growing structural deficits that are growing with the passage of time and that are not long term anymore. They are within the horizon. They are going to hit our shores, and we are not prepared.
INSKEEP: One possible solution has the support of both Senators Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg. Conrad is the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. He's in Washington. Senator Conrad, welcome to the program.
INSKEEP: Good to be with you, and thanks for having us.
INSKEEP: And Senator Gregg is the top Republican on that same committee. He's on the line from his home state of New Hampshire. And Senator Gregg, welcome to you.
INSKEEP: Thank you, Steve. It's a pleasure to be here with you and talk with Kent, also.
INSKEEP: And before we get to your proposed solution, I want to understand from each of you, how serious is the debt problem the United States faces right now?
INSKEEP: Well, let me just say - this is Senator Conrad - I view this as a very serious threat facing the country. We've already seen in the last eight years a doubling of the debt. We're set to more than double it again the next eight years unless we have some change in course. Now, we've got to make long-term adjustments to our entitlement programs, to our revenue base to get on a firmer fiscal foundation.
INSKEEP: We're literally going to pass on to our children a country they can't afford. Their standard of living is going to go down dramatically. The tax burden will go up dramatically. The benefits for senior citizens who are retired will be adjusted dramatically if we allow ourselves to go over this cliff.
INSKEEP: I want to make sure what you're saying. It seems like you're both saying this is not just a problem of the recession, where we've had eye-popping trillion-dollar deficits. This was a problem before the recession and is going to be a problem after the recession, you're saying.
INSKEEP: This is Judd Gregg. There's no question that the recession has aggravated the situation and accelerated the problem, but the things that had to be done to get us out of this recession were reasonable actions, such as the decision to try to stabilize the financial industry. And they could be managed if we knew that as we went forward, we were going to start to reduce our level of debt, but just the opposite's happening. We're on a course that, as everybody is saying, is unsustainable.
INSKEEP: Let me just say, I agree entirely with Senator - what Senator Gregg has described. What the future will hold will be very big tax increases, very big benefit cuts in social security and Medicare if we don't find a way to develop solutions that are more timely. That's the reality, and some have been criticizing us saying, well, we just want to go out and cut Social Security and Medicare. I would say if they're saying the answer is do nothing, they're the ones that threaten Social Security and Medicare.
INSKEEP: Haven't you and your 98 colleagues in the United States Senate known just about everything you just told me for years?
INSKEEP: Yes. And, you know, we actually took action and got the country on a course of reducing deficits in the Clinton administration. Then we had 9/11. We had a series of tax cuts. We had wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, deficits and debt exploded. And now the question is: Do we make long-term adjustments, and do we do it in a way that's timely.
INSKEEP: Yeah, Kent's right. Congress is good at dealing with the next election. We're not good at dealing with the next generation. Now it's not over the horizon. It's not only on the horizon, it's closing fast. I mean, now that the problem is in front of us, we should do something about it.
INSKEEP: So what do you want to do?
INSKEEP: This is Kent. Our proposal is an 18-member task force, 16 members are from Congress - eight Democrats, eight Republicans - two representatives of the administration, including the secretary of the treasury. And if 14 of the 18 could agree on a set of proposals, that those proposals would come to Congress, to the House, to the Senate for a vote, and it would only pass if there was a super majority in both chambers and under our proposal, 60 votes in the Senate, 60 percent of the House. And, of course, the president would retain his right to veto.
INSKEEP: So just so I understand your proposal, a special group of senators, representatives, and some representatives of the administration, they go away, they come back with a package of presumably politically dangerous or painful budget cuts or tax increases or whatever they come up with, a handful of proposals, and Congress is going to have to vote that up or down. If your plan is approved, that's what would have to happen.
INSKEEP: There's one other element, here. This group will do a lot of public outreach, and they will also have an advisory group which has all the different folks who have an alleged vested interest in these questions, especially in the entitlement side and in the tax policy side. Public outreach is a very important part of this effort.
INSKEEP: What makes you think that your 18 members wouldn't face the same political pressure that 535 members of the House and Senate face right now?
INSKEEP: You know, if we look back in history, we've seen - every time we've faced a fiscal crisis, it took this kind of special procedure to deal with it. And there is no assurance that this would succeed, but at least you're giving a group of people a defined task. You're giving them the responsibility. They would know - unlike other commission approaches or other task force approaches - that the product of their work would come to an up or down vote.
INSKEEP: And you said that the product of their work would require a supermajority in both the House and the Senate in order to pass. Why would you include that requirement? Isn't that going to make it even harder to get things done?
INSKEEP: Well, Steve, at the essence of this issue - this is Judd Gregg again - all of these programs affect vast numbers of Americans. And nobody is going to accept a resolution to these programs or an attempt to address the questions which these programs have unless they perceive that the decisions are absolutely fair and absolutely bipartisan.
INSKEEP: But isn't it implied somewhere in a proposal like this that you really don't think your colleagues in the House and Senate are all that serious about reducing the national debt or they're not willing to take a lot of political risks to do it?
INSKEEP: Well, I think there's no question that the institution isn't capable of handing these types of issues in regular order. I mean, we've proven that over and over again. Is it the nature of the membership, or is it the nature of the institution? I suppose that could be debated by political scientists forever, but when you run into these types of very complex and difficult questions which affect huge constituencies and where the decisions involve adjusting the benefits package or the tax burden of huge constituencies - so doing it this way appears to me to be the only way you're going to accomplish it. Set up a procedure that leads to policy, which leads to action. And that's our goal.
INSKEEP: Judd Gregg is a Republican senator from New Hampshire. Senator Gregg, thanks very much.
INSKEEP: Thank you very much.
INSKEEP: Kent Conrad is a Democratic senator from North Dakota. Senator, thank you.
INSKEEP: You bet. Good to be with you, Steve.
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INSKEEP: Our discussions on the debt this week have sparked a lively debate online at npr.org, which you can join by going to our Web site. And you can also continue listening on the air tomorrow, when we will hear the argument against a Congressional commission to help tackle the deficit.
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
They lived in Europe. Eventually they died out and were replaced by modern humans from Africa - Neanderthals. Among anthropologists, Neanderthals don't get much credit for brainpower. But life in snowbound caves may not have been so brutish after all. NPR's Christopher Joyce reports that scientists working in Spain say they have evidence of some pretty sophisticated inventions.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE: They coexisted with modern humans for thousands of years and eventually disappeared. They weren't very smart. But archaeologist Joao Zilhao from the University of Bristol in England says he's found evidence at a Spanish excavation that might change that view. He's found shells with holes in them, apparently strung together and worn like beads. And there's something unusual on some of the shells.
JOAO ZILHAO: Glitter makeup or shimmer makeup.
JOYCE: That's right. Glitter makeup.
ZILHAO: Where you, over a foundation, you add shiny bits of something granular that shines and reflects. When light would shine on you, you'd reflect.
JOYCE: There were also several kinds of pigments at the site, including some that had to be mixed from different ingredients.
AMOS: Modern humans didn't migrate into Europe until about 40,000 years ago.
ZILHAO: The shells and the associated pigment evidence is 50,000 years old. So, I mean it can only be made by Neanderthals. There's no question about that.
JOYCE: So let's say Neanderthals did paint and wear those shells or use them to hold cosmetics. Well, to archaeologists, ornaments, shells, body painting aren't just ornaments, they're evidence of symbolic thinking.
ZILHAO: Things that represent ideas. Something that people wear in order to convey what they are. And you only need to do that in a world where you have a complex network of relations, because if you only interact with your family or people who have known you all their lives, they know who you are, you don't need to use an identity card.
JOYCE: Anthropologist Alison Brooks at George Washington University says Neanderthals were known to use pigments, but crudely, like crayons. She's surprised by the painted shells from Spain.
ALISON BROOKS: Okay, the Neanderthals went up a notch in my thinking. This is certainly the oldest and strongest evidence for Neanderthal symbolic behavior beyond just pigment use.
JOYCE: So even though Homo sapiens had developed symbolic thinking before they got to Europe, perhaps Neanderthals were figuring it out for themselves. Brooks suggests that maybe it was the arrival of those modern humans that pushed them into it.
BROOKS: In some way, modern humans were pushing populations in front of them, so that Neanderthals in southern Spain were becoming more crowded in some way, so that they were feeling the need to reach out to a larger safety net, if you like, of individuals.
JOYCE: Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
To find out more about one American carmaker at the show, we turn to Bob Lutz. He is vice chairman at GM, and he joins us from the auto show in Detroit. Mr. Lutz, thanks for taking time to be with us.
BOB LUTZ: Thanks for having me.
AMOS: When you first came to GM, what was the culture like, and since bankruptcy, how is it changed?
LUTZ: So a lot of good things happened. And I think what we've tried to do since Chapter 11 is redouble our focus on the product.
AMOS: I want to ask you about China. China's now the biggest auto market in the world.
LUTZ: Yeah, by quite a measure, yeah.
AMOS: So does that mean that Chinese tastes will eventually drive your designs?
LUTZ: So we all have to get used to the fact that the future of the global automobile business having the center of gravity is no longer going to be Europe or the United States; it's going to be China. And I think that to a certain extent China is helping drive our designs today in that the Buick Lacrosse, which is off to a very, very strong start both in the U.S. and in China, was kind of jointly designed to meet the needs of the consumer groups in both markets.
AMOS: I want to ask about your current CEO, Ed Whitaker. He's talked about an IPO, a public stock offering, by the end of the year. Why would an investor want to buy GM stock in nine months? The company's still struggling. Two CEOs have been fired in the last eight months. Is it time for an IPO?
AMOS: But I'll tell you, so far I think there's a great deal of investor confidence. And if and when we do the IPO, which, by the way, will not be before we have an impeccable story to tell, but when we have a great story to tell and we're ready with the IPO, I don't think there's going to be a shortage of investors.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
LUTZ: Thank you.
AMOS: Bob Lutz is vice chairman of General Motors.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Renee Montagne is on vacation. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
AMOS: An American car brand is still used as a synonym for high-priced luxury. You can find proof of that in this week's discussions in Washington about health care.
AMOS: Here's NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson.
MARA LIASSON: Here's the president in an interview with NPR last month.
INSKEEP: I think that we can structure something that protects ordinary workers, makes sure that they are getting a great health care plan, but also makes sure that they're not overpaying in a situation where they're just giving money to health insurance companies that instead could actually be going into their pockets in the form of higher salaries.
LIASSON: Here's AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka at the press club yesterday.
AMOS: But instead of taxing the rich, the Senate bill taxes the middle class by taxing workers' health plans - not just union members' health care plans. In fact, most of the 31 million uninsured or insured employees who will be hit by the excise tax are not union members.
LIASSON: Steve Rosenthal is the former political director of the AFL-CIO. He worries about what happens politically when union members are disillusioned with Democrats. And they are disillusioned today, Rosenthal says, because of the Cadillac tax and the fact that a bill making it easier to organize workers, the Employee Free Choice Act, still hasn't come up in the Senate.
AMOS: The union vote is really critical in - particularly in mid-term elections. And if you look at the numbers of the states that are battleground states in 2010 - places like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Illinois and Missouri and Michigan - certainly, these are all states where the union vote is significant, and by that, I mean anywhere from 25 percent of all the votes cast in these states, in some cases up to 37 percent. In 1994, we saw what happened when union members stayed home.
LIASSON: At the press club, Rich Trumka delivered an even sterner warning. He said no matter how hard union leaders may work this year for Democratic candidates, it may be hard to get their rank-and-file to follow them, the same problem Democrats faced in 1994.
AMOS: We swallowed our disappointment and we worked to preserve a Democratic majority in 1994 because we knew what the alternative was. But there was no way to persuade enough working Americans to go to the polls when they couldn't tell the difference between the policies of the two parties. So politicians who think that working people have it too good are actually inviting a repeat of 1994.
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LIASSON: At the White House, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed that scenario.
AMOS: I think working men and women in this country will be fully motivated in 2010 about the choices that they have in front of them.
LIASSON: Mara Liasson, NPR News, the White House.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
That Cadillac tax isn't the only tough issue Congress needs to resolve to get a final health bill to President Obama's desk.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Well, let's look at another tough issue. NPR's Julie Rovner reports on health care exchanges. These are the market places where millions of people could, in theory, buy coverage in a revamped health system.
JULIE ROVNER: If you've ever used your computer to book an airline ticket, you should be able to use the new health insurance exchange, says Jon Kingsdale.
AMOS: So we're like - little bit like Travelocity for health insurance. It's an electronic, automated store for insurance.
ROVNER: Kingsdale is executive director of the Commonwealth Connector. It's the independent agency that helps Massachusetts residents find health insurance coverage. Almost everyone in the state is now required to have insurance as a result of a law passed in 2006. Kingsdale says he and his staff have worked hard to make the process as simple as possible.
AMOS: Literally, they come on the Web site, give us a few pieces of information that are necessary to price a particular benefit plan.
ROVNER: That would be age, zip code and family-size.
AMOS: And then do they want what we call gold-level benefits, kind of a Cadillac plan? Or do they want silver or bronze? And we then can then array for them on the Web easy-to-compare options, typically three to five different health plans that meet the specifications they've given us.
ROVNER: Kingsdale says it typically takes people about 20 to 30 minutes to evaluate their options, decide which plan to purchase...
AMOS: ...and push a button, and they're enrolled.
ROVNER: But the Massachusetts connector is just one example of a health insurance exchange. Timothy Jost, a professor at the Washington and Lee University College of Law, says there are other examples within the federal government itself.
INSKEEP: The federal employee health benefits program and, in fact, the Medicare Advantage and Medicare prescription drug program look a lot like exchanges, as well.
ROVNER: As envisioned in the health overhaul bills, the new health exchanges would provide even more tools for consumers than many existing health exchanges. For example, says Jost...
AMOS: Under the Senate bill, one of the things that they would provide would be sort of little scenarios where if you get breast cancer, these are the kinds of things we will cover. These are the kinds of things we won't cover. These are the cost-sharing that you're going to face.
ROVNER: And if the exchanges really work correctly, says Kingsdale of the Massachusetts Connector, they could do even more than just help consumers make better choices.
AMOS: The comparison shopping and the sort of the bidding dynamics that this store, this insurance store would create would add some significant downward pressure on premiums. You know, just like Wal-Mart, it's just a store, but it's done a pretty remarkable job in pushing prices down. With enough volume and enough expertise, I think exchanges can have a similar impact.
ROVNER: Jost says he worries about the Senate's approach.
AMOS: It seems to me to be a much more complicated process that has a lot more room for failure and frankly I think a lot less accountability. Because if the state fails to do it, then the federal government is supposed to step in, but I think it's going to be difficult for the federal government to do that, to say to a state: You failed. We're taking over.
ROVNER: Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's freezing in Florida, and that's very bad news for farmers. They spent much of the past week working to protect their fields and groves. NPR's Greg Allen reports that the cold has taken a toll on oranges, tomatoes and all those other winter vegetables harvested in Florida.
GREG ALLEN: You may be shoveling snow in Duluth and Buffalo, but in South Florida, it's harvest time. Tomatoes are already being picked. Peppers, squash and cucumbers are coming in. On John Alger's farm in Homestead, the sweet corn is five feet high and almost ready. But he's not sure now if any of it will be harvested.
JOHN ALGER: You see how this leaf has been - froze last night? It's just burred up. It - you know, we had sustained low temperatures right up until about 8:00 o'clock this morning.
ALLEN: Alger points to large, discolored sections of the corn leaves. They're translucent, a sign that they froze and may soon turn black. If the leaves can't produce enough energy, the ears of corn will fail to fully develop, and Alger says they won't be worth harvesting.
ALGER: Probably, I'll end up with a crop here that's not marketable. Everything is sold cosmetically in the fresh fruit and vegetable market. And if it's not cosmetically perfect, they won't buy it.
ALLEN: Alger estimates that at least three-quarters of his corn crop was damaged by the freeze. Across South Florida's vegetable belt, it's a similar story. The average temperature if Miami this year is 68 degrees. Yesterday morning's hard freeze was the first here in years. Katie Edwards with the Miami-Dade Farm Bureau says it came at a bad time for vegetable growers.
KATIE EDWARDS: We just began harvesting tomatoes about two weeks ago, so we've been able to get a crop off of that tomato crop. But still, you know, we do have substantial losses that we're looking at for all of our row crops.
ALLEN: In Central and North Florida, in the heart of the state's citrus industry, it was much colder, with several consecutive days of below-freezing temperatures and even snow. To protect their crops, citrus growers flooded their groves to help keep the trees warm. But in many areas, that wasn't enough. Andrew Meadows is with Florida Citrus Mutual, a co-op that represents 8,000 orange growers.
ANDREW MEADOWS: Our line of demarcation is 28 degrees for four hours or more. That's when you start to get damaged fruit, damaged twigs and leaves. We did reach that in several of our growing areas. So we do expect some fruit damage at this point.
ALLEN: With citrus and vegetables, it will take some time to get a full damage assessment. But Phil Marraccini gets an instant measure of his business just by looking into the ponds and tanks on his tropical fish farm.
PHIL MARRACCINI: Anything starting to get below 60 degrees is going to be death. And you can see some of these catfish on the bottom are already dying.
ALLEN: Marraccini's father started this tropical fish business 60 years ago. Marraccini raises guppies, mollies, angelfish and 100 other fish varieties for the pet store trade. But in all his years in business, he says he's never seen anything like this. Most of his fish are dead or getting there. In one pool, fish are gathered in shallow water, warmed by the sun.
MARRACCINI: Even though some of them are still swimming, you can see they've already developed a fungus or something on them and you see them lining the edges. There's probably hundreds of them on the bottom that are dead. Most of this pool will probably die.
ALLEN: Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
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ALLEN: This is NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. South Carolina's legislature begins its session today, and one item on the agenda is punishment for the governor. Republican Mark Sanford, you may recall, disappeared for five days last June. He led his staff to believe that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, but later admitted he was visiting his mistress in Argentina. NPR's Adam Hochberg reports on what lawmakers have in mind now.
ADAM HOCHBERG: The proposed censure says Governor Sanford was derelict in his duties and brought dishonor, disgrace and shame upon his state. But despite that strong language, the resolution in many ways is a victory for the governor, because the legislature could've done much more. Back in the summer, when Sanford first confessed to his secret rendezvous with the woman he called his soulmate, legislative leaders talked seriously about impeaching him. Instead, Sanford is likely to escape with, at most, an ornately worded slap on the wrist.
AMOS: What you had was a situation in South Carolina where the sun, the moon and the stars all lined up on his behalf.
HOCHBERG: Todd Rutherford is a Democratic House member who was pushing for impeachment, but he says legislators had little appetite for a contentious debate in an election year, especially since Sanford will be leaving office next January, anyway. And he says Sanford was fortunate that the affair became public after last year's legislative session ended.
AMOS: We had no money in the state, so we couldn't convene a special session, because it cost the state too much in order to fund that. And time is simply past. People are tired of it. They don't want to deal with it. And so he is getting away with it.
HOCHBERG: Indeed. At the capitol yesterday, as legislators returned for this year's session, some spoke of what they called Sanford fatigue. Most members of the Republican-controlled legislature are taking their leave from a bipartisan House committee, which investigated Sanford's secret trip, as well as allegations that he violated state travel rules on other occasions. Committee member James Smith condemned Sanford for leaving the state without notice, but says it's not an impeachable offense.
AMOS: The collective wisdom of the committee was that it didn't rise to serious misconduct and that in the best interest of the state, that we put this behind us and get to focus on improving the lives of the people in South Carolina.
HOCHBERG: Smith says the House likely will pass the censure resolution this week. But it's less clear what will happen in the Senate. While leaders there also are eager to take it up quickly, a handful of Sanford's critics are threatening to stretch things out by demanding a new investigation. Republican Jake Knotts argues that a hasty vote will empower the governor.
AMOS: If we rubber-stamped the censorship, it would be over and done with, and what would keep him from saying, hey, it's over. I can go to Argentina anytime I want to now.
HOCHBERG: Governor Sanford declined an interview request and has said little about his personal situation lately, a marked difference from the summer when his awkward declarations of love for his mistress induced cringes in South Carolina and beyond. Speaking with reporters in November, Sanford seemed ready to move on.
HOCHBERG: What we're going to keep working on is a legislative agenda that I think will have real consequence and ripples going forward if we're able to enact it and really focus on the job at hand between now and 13 months from now when things wrap up for me.
HOCHBERG: Adam Hochberg, NPR News, Columbia, South Carolina.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
NPR's business starts with a toxic toy scare.
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AMOS: Wal-Mart has pulled some children's jewelry off its shelves. It comes after an investigation by the Associated Press. The investigation found high levels of the metal cadmium in toy jewelry sold at chain stores. Most of the items were made in China.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Now cadmium is a soft whitish metal that is cheap to use in manufacturing but it's also known to cause cancer. And unlike lead, it is not regulated in toys. The head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is now promising a crackdown on how the metal is used.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
If you happen to be anywhere near Detroit, you should feel comfortable dropping by the North American International Auto Show. After all, you - yes, you, Deborah Amos - are the owner of two big automakers.
AMOS: That's one of the big changes since the last auto show. The government has dramatically increased its investment in GM and Chrysler. So it's not surprising that top lawmakers drop by to check on the government's investment.
INSKEEP: Here's another thing that has changed in the past year. After one of their worst years ever, automakers have a slightly easier time imagining the future. We'll talk about what they see in this part of the program.
AMOS: But first NPR's Frank Langfitt has this report from the auto show.
FRANK LANGFITT: The North American International Auto Show is a place for car companies to differentiate themselves from the competition. And Ford, widely seen as the strongest of the Detroit three, did that first thing yesterday morning.
U: The winner, North American Truck of the Year for 2010, is the Ford Transit Connect.
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U: Ford collects for the Ford Fusion Hybrid.
LANGFITT: For only the third time at the show, one company won both truck and car of year. Yesterday Ford also launched the new Focus. It's a sleek compact car, and it's designed to steal customers from Toyota and Honda, companies that have traditionally stomped Detroit's small cars. Auto analysts gave the Focus strong marks. Jessica Caldwell works for Edmunds.com, the car consumer Web site. She says Ford, which did not take federal bail out money last year, is farther along in revamping its line than the other Detroit companies.
AMOS: Ford, I'd say, is about a year or even two years ahead of the curve. And even when you look at their sales, I think they are going to even challenge Toyota for the number two spot.
LANGFITT: That's in the United States. General Motors is still the biggest selling company here and it's launching its own new compact, the Chevy Cruze. In the past, critics complained that GM's small cars were cramped and cheap. Margaret Brooks says the Cruze is the exact opposite. She is head of marketing for small vehicles at Chevy, and she is pitching me the car.
AMOS: This is the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze, and it offers the roominess and amenities of a midsized car with the fuel economy and price of a compact.
LANGFITT: Brooks say that Cruze will get up to 40 miles a gallon on the highway, and it is roomy. I climb inside and push the seat all the way back.
U: I don't know if...
U: Push it all the way back.
LANGFITT: Oh, wow.
U: Good, okay.
LANGFITT: I'm about 6' 2" and could extend my legs all the way to the pedals, but analysts find the exterior of the Cruze, which has a honeycombed grill, a bit dull.
AMOS: I think the Cruze played it a little big safe from a design standpoint.
LANGFITT: Is the Cruze gonna be able to compete with Hondas and Toyotas?
AMOS: I think for a driving and engineering standpoint, I think it will be able to. I think...
LANGFITT: How about from a selling to customers standpoint?
AMOS: Well, they still have a perception issue. You know, a lot of people feel like they have to explain themselves when they buy a Chevy.
LANGFITT: Although GM's cars have improved in quality, many consumers won't look at them. In taking huge sums from the government last year, the company only reinforced old resentments. If GM still faces perception issues, Chrysler has become opaque. The company used to stage all kinds of stunts at the auto show, including herding steers outside the convention center here. But this year, the company, which is now run by Fiat, the Italian car maker, had almost no new products to show and held no formal press conference. Again, Rebecca Lindland.
AMOS: There is definitely a bit of a dip in the pipeline for Chrysler, which is a huge concern. I think the industry consensus is that we've got to get them through 2010 and '11 and then we will start to see some better and more improved product in 2012 and 2013, but those, the next 24 months, are going to be really tough for this company.
LANGFITT: Congress members toured the Chrysler exhibit and many others yesterday. They tried to strike an upbeat tone in what was otherwise a subdued affair. At day's end, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared the show a success.
AMOS: Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Detroit.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Sarah Palin has a new job. Fox News hired the former vice presidential hopeful and book author to be an on-air commentator and an analyst. She'll also host her own human interest show occasionally, called "American Stories." As NPR's Martin Kaste reports, the move only adds to the speculations about her plans for 2012.
MARTIN KASTE: It didn't take long for the promos to start rolling.
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U: There's a brand new face at Fox - Sarah Palin.
KASTE: Fox News didn't reveal much about their contract with Palin, except to say that it's, quote, "a multiyear deal." Tammy Haddad, a veteran cable news producer, says it's safe to assume that Fox is paying Palin millions, because she is just the kind of personality that cable news needs.
AMOS: It's people like Sarah Palin that make cable news tick, because she carries with her this incredible amount of sparkle. People like Sarah Palin come into it and people lean forward when they see them. They want to hear what she has to say.
KASTE: Palin is following plenty of other politicians into TV, but what's not yet been established is whether a TV job can lead to the White House. Pat Buchanan tried it and failed. Republican strategist Bradley Blakeman, who used to work for President George W. Bush, says Palin is taking a bit of a gamble.
AMOS: The question is, can a personality on television who happened to have been an elected official take that all the way to the White House? I think that remains to be seen. But certainly I think Palin is looking for ways to stay relevant and before the American people without having to declare a candidacy or be pegged as a candidate.
KASTE: Now that Palin has her own platform at Fox, Republican strategist Bradley Blakeman worries that she'll do more of the same.
AMOS: If she starts believing her own celebrity, it can do damage to the party, because in order to be a party you have to agree to certain principles and platforms and agree to be one of many.
KASTE: But others think Palin may be able to use her TV job to broaden her appeal. Keli Carender is an organizer for the Tea Party movement in Seattle. She's a Palin fan and she thinks the Fox deal is an opportunity.
AMOS: It'll give her time to learn and then to display her knowledge eloquently and just get a better handle on the mean machine of politics, I think.
KASTE: Martin Kaste, NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. Mark McGwire now admits what many people had assumed - he used steroids for much of his baseball career. And that includes 1998, when he set a record for most home runs hit in a season.
MARK MCGWIRE: I wish they'd never came into my life, but we're sitting here talking about it. I'm so sorry that I have to. I apologize to everybody in Major League Baseball, my family, the Marises, Bud Selig. Today was the hardest day of my life.
INSKEEP: MIKE PESCA. Hi.
INSKEEP: McGwire sounds quite emotional there. But he phrased everything very carefully or seemed to. For example, saying that his admission would, quote, "confirm what people have suspected." Why phrase it that way?
PESCA: And it was revealed in his interview with Bob Costas that hours before that hearing he had met with the congressmen and he said, as he reported to Bob Costas, I wanted to come clean. I guess they couldn't work out an agreement. So all he had been saying up to this point was I'm not here to talk about the past, and then he went away in shame.
INSKEEP: Okay. So that's what happened in the past. But now he's made this statement. What has he admitted to precisely here?
PESCA: So now that he is here to talk about the past, he says he doesn't know what kind of steroids he took. But he does say he took them throughout the '90s, including 1998. And the weirdest thing about his interview and his admission was that he says steroids didn't help him hit homeruns.
INSKEEP: Yeah. I mean, the statement that it's about his health rather than his strength, is that any real distinction?
PESCA: He seemed to not get the necessary and sufficient distinction that strength isn't all you need to hit homeruns, but how could you say it didn't help him homeruns? Bob Costas really pressed him on this point. It was an interview sort of geared towards future Hall of Fame voters and stat geeks. And McGwire didn't provide answers that went beyond, you know, I just had good timing and I was good at my hand-eye coordination.
INSKEEP: Now, from what you just said, we can infer one reason Mark McGwire might come clean at this moment. You said future Hall of Fame. He's not in the Hall of Fame yet, despite all those homeruns. Is there any other reason he would come clean now as it were?
PESCA: And he knew he'd have to answer many, many questions or else be a distraction to the team. So he had to find a forum to talk a little bit about his past. And that's what he did in his statement and his interview last night.
INSKEEP: Mike, always good to talk with you.
PESCA: Good to talk to you too.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's sports correspondent Michael Pesca.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Back in 1998, NPR's special correspondent Susan Stamberg visited a woman in Amsterdam and asked her a simple question.
SUSAN STAMBERG: How do you say diary in Dutch?
AMOS: Dagboek.
STAMBERG: Dagboek? Oh, daybook.
AMOS: Yes. Daybook.
STAMBERG: Dag?
AMOS: Yes.
STAMBERG: Boek.
AMOS: Boek.
STAMBERG: Is diary.
AMOS: That woman is Miep Gies. The diary she's referring to is Anne Frank's. Miep Gies helped Anne Frank hide with her family during World War II and saved Anne's diary after she and her family were captured by the Germans. Gies died yesterday at the age of 100. Teri Schultz has this remembrance.
TERI SCHULTZ: Providing refuge to Jews, she noted later, carried a punishment of at least six months in a concentration camp. Still, the Austrian-born Dutch woman, knighted by the governments of Germany and the Netherlands, recipient of a medal from Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, always insisted she had done nothing extraordinary.
AMOS: I, myself, I'm just a very common person. I simply had no choice. I could foresee many, many sleepless nights and a life filled with regret if I would have refused to help the Franks. And this was not the kind of life I was looking for at all.
SCHULTZ: Gies explained another motivation for emphasizing her modesty. She said if people are allowed to think it takes remarkable qualities to act boldly on behalf of others, few will attempt it.
AMOS: People should never think that you have to be a very special person to help those who need you.
SCHULTZ: But Gies clearly was very special, even when someone still unknown betrayed those she called the hiders and they were taken away at gunpoint to death camps. Gies was not intimidated. She sneaked back into the secret hideaway to try to preserve any belongings of the Franks that hadn't been destroyed or taken. And there she found what would eventually become a treasure of the entire world.
AMOS: I saw Anne's diary scattered all over the floor. I took it with me. I hoped I could return it to Anne after the war. I wanted to see her smile and hear her say, Oh Miep, my diary.
SCHULTZ: That day would never come, as Anne did not survive the Nazi death camps. But Otto Frank did. And he made his way back to Amsterdam in 1945 returning to stay with Gies and her husband. On the very sad day that year that he learned both his daughters had died in a camp, Otto Frank later explained in a documentary, Gies delivered him what he called a miracle.
AMOS: When I returned and after I heard the news that my children would not come back, Miep gave me the diary.
SCHULTZ: Gies described that moment herself years ago in an interview with the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam.
AMOS: (Foreign language spoken)
SCHULTZ: For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Starting today, $5,000 will buy you a piece of Arizona's government. We're not talking about buying access to legislators here. We're talking about the buildings that they meet in. More than two dozen state buildings are for sale and that includes the House and Senate and the governor's office. NPR's Ted Robbins explains.
TED ROBBINS: It's a bit unusual to sell a state capital, state hospital, prisons and park visitor centers, but when you have a billion and a half dollar deficit to make up between now and July, Arizona Department of Administration spokesman Alan Ecker says you do unusual things.
M: The proceeds will be going to - straight into the Arizona state general fund to offset the budget crisis that we're dealing with.
ROBBINS: The total - $735 million, Arizona would then lease back the buildings over 20 years. Investors would buy $5,000 certificates of participation and get an estimated four to five percent interest a year. The question is, how safe is an investment in the state of Arizona? Its credit rating was downgraded just last month because of its budget crisis. But Alan Ecker says, in this case, we're talking about buildings which have to operate if Arizona remains a state.
M: So the state would be very, very unlikely to ever default on payments and walk away from those facilities. So investors should have a strong peace of mind.
ROBBINS: Ted Robbins, NPR News, Tucson.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
The satellite-guided map told a truck driver exactly where he was in Salem, Oregon. Granted, that's what the system is designed to do. But apparently, it did not have a feature warning the truck driver to look for signs warning of low overhead clearance. Police say the driver was messing with his GPS when he drove his 14-foot-tall truck under an 11-foot-tall bridge. You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
G: It's MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
The Supreme Court turns to the business of pro-football today. It's going to hear a case that deals with the National Football League's exclusive licensing deal for selling billions of dollars worth of caps, jerseys, sweatshirts, and other apparel.
The court's ruling will either leave in place - or jeopardize -professional and collegiate sports deals that are in place right now. Here's NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.
NINA TOTENBERG: It used to be that lots of different companies had NFL licenses to sell stuff with NFL team logos. But since 2000, it's been all Reebok, all the time. That's the year the NFL decided it wanted to award its merchandising license for all 32 teams to just one company - Reebok.
Among those frozen out was American Needle, a family-owned company that specializes in head wear. The company went to court, claiming that the 32 teams, operating though the NFL, had conspired to give Reebok a monopoly in violation of the federal antitrust laws. The NFL countered that the league is a single entity that operates as one business, not 32 competing businesses.
A federal appeals court agreed with the NFL, and American Needle appealed to the Supreme Court.
JEFF CAREY: By doing that, they eliminated all of the price competition that existed among the existing licensees, with the result that they caused the prices to rise, and they collected more royalties.
TOTENBERG: He says that immediately after the Reebok deal eliminated competitors, the price of a high-end fitted team cap jumped from $19 to $30.
Reebok and the NFL counter that there can be many explanations for such a jump in price, including a better-quality product. And the league argues that a single licensee, among other things, is better able to fill orders quickly at the time of playoff and championship games.
But the crux of the case centers on whether the NFL is a single business or an umbrella organization for 32 competing businesses.
Nobody from the NFL wanted to talk on the record for this broadcast, but lawyers for other big sports leagues were less reticent. Jeff Mishkin filed a brief on behalf of the NBA. Football, he notes, can only be produced through the cooperation of the teams. And when it comes to merchandising agreements, the competition is not between the teams but between the NFL and other sports and entertainment.
JEFF MISHKIN: NFL competes against NBA basketball, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League - lots of other entertainment products.
TOTENBERG: So the price competition for a hat, he argues, is not between the teams but between a football hat or one for basketball, hockey, baseball or even a rock group.
MISHKIN: If the price of the hat you want gets too high, you will go buy another hat at a price you can afford.
TOTENBERG: A football hat. You won't buy a football hat. You will buy a basketball hat.
MISHKIN: Yeah, but it's a hat.
TOTENBERG: American Needle's Jeff Carey finds that theory laughable. People who want a Washington Redskins hat aren't going to be satisfied with a Washington Nationals hat, he says. A hat is not an NFL hat, it's a team hat.
CAREY: When you turn on your local radio, do you hear an ad for there will be an NFL football game or do you hear an ad that says the Washington Redskins are playing the Dallas Cowboys?
TOTENBERG: At a recent Atlanta Falcons game, a sampling of tailgaters showed a lot of team loyalty and no talk about the league. Ivan Mann said the price of jerseys and hats is a little high.
IVAN MANN: But it's a worthwhile investment - we're supporting the team.
TOTENBERG: Roy Irby, too, was all about the Falcons.
ROY IRBY: I've got on my Michael Turner jersey number 33. I'm a Michael Turner fan all the way live(ph).
TOTENBERG: None of the gamegoers we sampled knew about Reebok's exclusive deal with the NFL, but everyone in the sports business knows. While few experts expect a broad ruling in favor of the NFL, if the league is declared a single entity, that could allow it to set higher prices for tickets, concessions, parking at games, and even fees to join fantasy football leagues.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
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INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
And I'm Deborah Amos.
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STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
And I'm Deborah Amos.
Over the next few weeks, the country's biggest banks will tell investors how much they earned last year and how much they're handing out in executive bonuses. For the banks, this information comes with political risks.
The bonuses are expected to be sizable and will probably add to the anger over last year's bank bailout. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that bank regulators are now searching for ways to clamp down on those bonuses.
JIM ZARROLI: Federal and state law actually gives regulators relatively little authority over how much bankers are paid. But that may be changing.
DOUGLAS ELLIOTT: The public is so mad about the compensation issue, that every player out there wants to show they understand that public anger, so they're all pushing forward.
ZARROLI: Douglas Elliott of the Brookings Institution says Congress, the Federal Reserve and the White House are all talking about ways to rein in bankers' bonuses. Yesterday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which regulates many of the nation's banks, proposed raising insurance premiums on banks whose compensation practices encourage risky behavior.
Elliott says a lot of banks tie an employee's bonuses to the amount of money he or she earned that year. And that gives employees incentive to take short-term gambles, even if they suspect the strategy may lead to big problems down the road.
ELLIOTT: Because if you're a trader, all you have to do is have nine good years, make a lot of money, and then if you get no bonus in the 10th year, it's not that big a deal.
ZARROLI: Regulators have proposed several steps to reform the system. They want banks to impose clawback provisions on bonuses. That means employees might be forced to return the money they got if it turns out they did something especially risky.
They also want banks to issue more of their bonuses, not in cash, but in stock and require employees to hold onto it for longer periods. The thinking is that traders and bankers will take fewer risks if their personal wealth is tied to their employer's long-term health. Douglas Elliott says many banks have been chastened by the market meltdown and are already doing this on their own.
ELLIOTT: Look, and I'm speaking as a former banker here. We may be stupid, but we're not that stupid. The crisis really was very bad for the industry and the people in it. And collectively, there's been a lot learned, and that is being reflected in behavior now.
ZARROLI: But with Wall Street profits growing again, banks are also under growing pressure to hire the best employees, and they're doing that by offering big bonuses.
One bank official, speaking off the record, noted that some banks are once again offering guaranteed bonuses. They're promising prospective hires that they'll get their bonus no matter what happens - even if the person ends up losing the bank money.
That kind of lavish promise ups the ante for the industry as a whole. The same official said banks are also facing growing competition for the best talent from overseas financial institutions. All of that makes it much harder for banks to actually rein in their compensation, says Jay Brown of the University of Denver law school.
JAY BROWN: It's tough to be the one financial institution out there that pays reasonable compensation when everybody else is paying excessive compensation, or at least, you know, compensation that looks excessive, relatively speaking. There needs to be somebody that says, All of you must be more reasonable about this.
ZARROLI: That's what federal regulators like the FDIC are trying to do. But compensation consultant Allen Johnson scoffs at the idea that a bank's fees should be tied to how risky its compensation practices are.
ALLEN JOHNSON: That's about the silliest idea imaginable that the - an untrained regulator with 8,000 banks is going to go out and assess the risk of compensation programs, no experience, whatever.
ZARROLI: Johnson says it's really hard to figure out whether a specific compensation plan encourages risk and he's skeptical that regulators are up to the task.
JOHNSON: Well, they can hire thousands of people and this and that, but you can't even get experts to agree on what is a risky plan.
ZARROLI: But with public anger over last year's bailout growing, regulators are under increasing pressure to rein in bonuses. And over the next few weeks, that pressure is only likely to grow.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
The CEOs from four of the biggest banks that got government bailouts are on Capitol Hill today. They're fielding tough questions. But those questions aren't coming from lawmakers. They're coming from a commission that Congress established with a mandate to conduct a thorough investigation. One of the panel members started things out by inviting the public to pose questions, too.
BILL THOMAS: Anyone who wants to write me - Bill Thomas, FCIC.gov - and submit a question, we'll do the best we can to get you the answer.
AMOS: Former Congressman Bill Thomas. NPR's John Ydstie has this report on the commission's task.
JOHN YDSTIE: These are the first public hearings conducted by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. It's been compared to the 9/11 Commission, which probed the failures after the attack on the World Trade Center. The commission chairman, Phil Angelides, former California state treasurer, used some evocative language as he described the commission's task in an interview with NPR.
PHIL ANGELIDES: There's a need for accountability and responsibility. And I think it serves everyone's purpose to get the facts and the truth on the table so that this country can move on.
YDSTIE: Angelides, a former Democratic candidate for governor in California, is one of six Democratic appointees to the commission. There are also four Republican appointees. One of them is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, who was the top economic advisor to presidential candidate John McCain.
DOUGLAS HOLTZ: We owe the American people an official version of what happened. This is a national crisis. It's an expensive national endeavor to repair it. And I think people have the right to understand what happened and why.
YDSTIE: There are already plenty of explanations for what caused the financial crisis, from unrestrained risk-taking on Wall Street to irresponsible borrowing by homeowners. But Heather Murren, a former Merrill Lynch analyst and another Democratic appointee to the commission, says the cause and effect are not yet completely clear.
HEATHER MURREN: Our job is finding the actual facts and also sorting out the things that were most important from the things that were perhaps less important.
YDSTIE: The commission has an $8 million budget and has assembled a staff of 35 to investigate and analyze the ocean of data, research and testimony already compiled on the crisis.
It has been tasked by Congress to review 22 separate areas of interest, from fraud and abuse in the financial sector to compensation practices. The commission will gather testimony in hearings, including several panels of witnesses today and tomorrow. And, says Republican appointee former Congressman Bill Thomas, the commission will be hard to ignore.
THOMAS: We do have the power of the subpoena. We can refer to the Department of Justice. That's not a threat. That's just an understanding on the part of Congress that some people may not be as willing as others.
YDSTIE: One other challenge the commission faces is that the Congress is well down the road to a sweeping overhaul of financial regulation. The House has already passed a bill, and the Senate is likely to act before the commission's final report is due in December of this year. But Holtz-Eakin believes he and his colleagues can still have an impact.
HOLTZ: Financial regulation reform is not a one-shot operation. There will be future reforms in years to come. Even this reform has a timetable that's uncertain, so as they work on legislation this year and we find things, there's no reason why we can't inform the debate and provide some value.
YDSTIE: Both Holtz-Eakin and Murren express confidence that the commission will not get bogged down in partisanship, and that it will be able to reach a high level of agreement on the causes of the financial crisis.
John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
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STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
And I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
The capital of Haiti is a crowded coastal city of more than two million people. Port-au-Prince is the center of civic life for the Caribbean nation.
INSKEEP: It's also the work place of Maggie Boyer(ph) who was finishing another day when the ground began to shake yesterday.
MAGGIE BOYER: The quake hit about 5 PM local time. I was still at the office when the building started to shake. I first thought that maybe - there had been ah - particularly heavy trucks that had hit a wall, but it very quickly - the realization came that it was something much more severe.
AMOS: A nation that has struggled through decades of political trouble was undergoing a natural disaster, the earthquake, measured a magnitude 7.0.
BOYER: Port-au-Prince is a city of walls and, you know, these walls came tumbling down around the World Vision office. Cars were stuck and could not get in where trees fell. Couple of buildings collapsed, roofs were no longer horizontal. There were extensive signs of damage.
INSKEEP: Haiti's political and economic trouble means there are no real construction standards. And not long ago, the mayor of Port-au-Prince said that most of his city's buildings were unsafe even under normal circumstances.
AMOS: Well, outside the capital, an American named Luke Renner(ph) felt the ground began to shake.
LUKE RENNER: There were some really massive trees. And they were just moving like they were about to snap. It was pretty frightening.
AMOS: And he's been watching the first video images to make it out of the capital.
RENNER: I had seen the National Palace, which would be sort of the equivalent of our White House, if you will. I have seen footage of the cathedral. Those two are, you know, beyond repair. The Palace, basically the entire second storey fell down into the first storey.
AMOS: Officials say Haiti's president survived, the United Nations mission chief is missing after the U.N. headquarters collapsed.
INSKEEP: Elsewhere in the city, a teenage girl stood atop a car and she was watching the collapsed remains of an apartment building. Several men were pulling on a foot sticking from the rubble.
AMOS: World Vision's Maggie Boyer says the city changed in seconds.
BOYAR: And, of course, we had the after shocks to deal with, that - and they came intermittently every 10-15 minutes, we'd feel to the ground actually shake again. And at first, this was very scary for a lot of people and every time one would happen, we would actually hear the crowds in the street as people would - aaahh - there would be this collective yelp that would go up.
AMOS: Nobody knows the extent of the casualties last night. The loss of electric power left even the U.S. embassy in the dark.
BOYAR: In the main highways, the main streets, and also in kind of backstreets, there are many people with blankets and chairs and pillows with their babies close to them, but also sleeping under the stars because they feel safer doing that than staying inside their homes.
INSKEEP: That's Maggie Boyer, one of the survivors of an earthquake that struck Haiti yesterday.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Another person who has extensive first hand experience in Haiti is Jacqueline Charles, who covers the country for The Miami Herald. We reached her in Miami as she prepares to catch a flight there. Good morning.
JACQUELINE CHARLES: Good morning.
AMOS: Jacque, have you been in contact with people in Haiti? Have you been able to reach people there?
CHARLES: Well, I have a stringer on the ground, and that's how we are communicating. We were able to file a story about Haiti because all communications as far as cell phones and landlines were down. And essentially, you know, what we're getting from him was just anecdotal. I mean, the biggest question right now is: What is the level of the causality, the calamity that we're looking at?
And so even as I'm preparing to fly in to Haiti, I have no idea other than the fact that we know that some major buildings have collapsed, including the United Nations headquarters, the top level of the presidential palace. But again, outside of that, we're still trying to gain a specimen in terms of, you know, the damage.
AMOS: Haiti is often hit during hurricane season, and so they do have some experience with disasters. How prepared are they to deal with this kind of devastation?
CHARLES: You know, I mean, that is the big question. I did a story, just a couple of months ago at the start of hurricane season, about how the country was preparing for hurricane season - the lessons learned from these four back- to-back storms that basically battered Haiti in 2008. So on the one hand, you know, you have a hurricane, the weather patterns change, it starts to rain, the wind picks up. You've got time to go on a radio and to warn individuals.
But from the conversations that I had had with people, what they're telling me is that they're driving, they're going about their everyday business, and suddenly the cars started to shake. And then when they look, that houses are starting to fall. And other people look up and they see that the mountains are crumbling. So, from what we are hearing, this completely took people by surprise. It came out of nowhere. Yes, the country's sits on fault lines. People have talked about the possibility of an earthquake because of the environmental situation of the country, because of the recent devastation with the storms. But how real, you know, was this - did they expect for this to hit here and now? No. So this is going to be a true test in terms of the disaster management, and not just for the Haitians, but also for the international community that's there on the ground.
AMOS: Well, even before the earthquake, this is a country that depends heavily on international aid. With all this damage, can the country accommodate a large influx? We're hearing from everywhere that people want to jump in and help - the U.S. government, the U.S. military - across the world. Can they distribute this efficiently? Can they put it to use?
CHARLES: Well, I think the question before we even talk about distribution, we're going to have to talk about whether or not the aid will even arrive. I mean, ironically, two hours before the storm hit I was on the telephone with some folks in New York because former President Bill Clinton, and now U.N. special envoy to Haiti, was preparing to meet with the donors and to ask them what's going on with this aid disbursement.
I think an estimated $512 million was pledged, and according to the work of the United Nations has done, they are saying that only about 12 percent of it has been dispersed. So again, every time Haiti goes through a natural disaster, we do see an outpouring of individuals wanting to do things, both internationally and on the ground, but the problems always come in terms of disbursement and also coordination.
Because that's the other issue that, you know, while you're going to have the world food program that's going to, you know, kick up their programs to get food there. Individuals like Wyclef Jean has already sent out, you know, emails to individuals to try and raise funds. How do we coordinate to ensure that people are not doing the same things and that you basically maximize the effort and reach as many individuals as possible?
AMOS: How stable is the government there?
CHARLES: The government is very stable. I mean I have to tell you, you know, I've been reporting on this country for years now and in the last couple of years, you know, yes, there was a problem with gangs, but those, you know, they were disarmed and in the last two or three years, the country has been enjoying relative stability.
I just recently wrote a story about how it was going to get its first international hotel franchise in a decade because investors were starting to feel confident, both Haitians and non-Haitians alike. They were preparing to go to elections on February 28th, prior to that everybody was warming up for Carnival. There's supposed to be a presidential election, you know, in November. Now I think that the focus is just going to really shift to how do you dig yourself up from underneath this rubble?
AMOS: Jacqueline Charles of the The Miami Herald, thanks very much for talking to us.
CHARLES: Thank you.
AMOS: I know you're heading to Haiti today, yourself, so stay safe.
CHARLES: All right. Thank you.
INSKEEP: And rather than building hotels, Haitians now have to focus on recovering victims from buildings that collapsed yesterday. Most people are having to dig through the rubble by hand to try to find family or friends. An Associated Press videographer in Port-Au-Prince says a hospital is wrecked.
AMOS: People are standing by to rush in aid from the United States and Mexico, but last night, the Port-Au-Prince Airport remained closed. It'll take time simply to know the extent of the damage and even longer to start to recover.
INSKEEP: And as darkness began to fall last night, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official took a moment to look up from the wreckage of a Haitian city. He said the sky was gray with dust.
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STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
You know, it would be a mistake to think that the health overhaul bill is all about health insurance. It is about health insurance, but it also has a lot to do with money, specifically how to pay for the new benefits the bill would provide. NPR's Julie Rovner has this report on one new possibility.
JULIE ROVNER: So far, it's still little more than a trial balloon, but the newest idea for a way to help pay for the health bill is to extend the Medicare payroll tax to investment income as well, at least for people with high incomes. Medicare expert Marilyn Moon says that would represent a big change in how we pay for Medicare.
MARILYN MOON: Because the whole philosophy of using payroll as the basis has been that it's related to your contributions as a worker.
ROVNER: Moon says she understands why such attacks on investment income might be attractive to lawmakers right now, as they near the end of the legislative process on the health bill.
MOON: Everybody's scrambling, looking for a new solution to the challenges of the fact that there is no good tax that will make everybody happy.
ROVNER: But she worries about the potential ramifications.
MOON: When you add something new out of left field, there's always the concern that it hasn't been carefully vetted and people haven't thought through all the implications and the potential unintended consequences.
ROVNER: Budget watcher Stan Collender, however, takes just the opposite view.
STAN COLLENDER: Sometimes the best ideas in legislative fights come out after, you know, long, drawn-out debates, and, you know, looking for a compromise and suddenly someone comes up with something that, you know, no one thought of before, but just makes a great deal of sense. It's the legislative version of the, you know, necessity is the mother of invention.
ROVNER: Collender, a former Capitol Hill tax and budget aid, says that while some people may complain about taxing investments, that may be the only logical thing to do in the current economic climate.
COLLENDER: Let's think about since March, the stock market's up 65 percent or so, but unemployment is up to 10 percent. Under those circumstances, you would think that investments could bare a little bit more tax, whereas employment could not.
ROVNER: And whether or not this particular tax makes it into the final bill, Collender won't be surprised to see lots of new financing ideas cropping up. That's because the old way of funding legislation through budget cutting and taxing traditional income, he says...
COLLENDER: Just won't fly anymore. We know that they're politically unacceptable. So new ideas, things that haven't dared been mentioned before or just innovative ideas that have never come up before are likely to be much more likely in the future than anything that we've seen in the past.
ROVNER: In the near future, however, House and Senate negotiators are going to have to find a way to pay for a nearly trillion- dollar health care bill that will satisfy 60 Senators and 218 House members, not to mention a public growing more skeptical by the day. So far, it hasn't been easy.
Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
As the federal deficit grows, so does the talk about creating a Congressional commission to deal with it. We heard yesterday from Senators Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. They're proposing this commission to make the hard decisions necessary to slash the national debt. But the idea isn't popular with everyone. Dean Baker is an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and he joins us in our studios. Good morning.
DEAN BAKER: Thanks for having me on.
AMOS: What are your concerns about the creation of a Congressional commission?
BAKER: Well, this seems to be an effort to railroad cuts in social security and Medicare, cuts that would - are extremely unpopular, would never be passed by Congress in ordinary circumstances. It creates this unusual procedure without really any precedent when there's really no call for it.
The fact of the matter is we do have serious budget issues, but they're not caused by a reckless Congress. What they're caused by, on the one hand, was a war that, for whatever reason we've opted not to pay for - I should say wars - and more importantly, an economic collapse caused by a housing bubble. And it wasn't reckless spending by Congress.
AMOS: In your opinion, do you think the deficit is bad and must be addressed?
BAKER: Well, the deficit in 2010 is actually good. We would have higher unemployment rates. So if I could snap my finger and get rid of the deficit tomorrow without raising anyone's taxes, I wouldn't do it, 'cause we would have a more serious downturn than we currently have. In fact, I would actually say, at the moment, we would like to see a larger deficit. That would help get the unemployment rate down, and that's really a scandal, in my view.
Now over the longer term, we absolutely do have a deficit problem, but that comes from exploding health care costs. Our health care system is way more expensive than anyone else's in the world, and that translates into a deficit problem because we pay for roughly half of our health care through the public sector.
AMOS: We heard from members of the Senate Budget Committee yesterday and the chairman of that committee, Senator Conrad. This is what he had to say about cutting entitlements.
KENT CONRAD: Some have been criticizing us, saying, well, we just want to go out and cut Social Security and Medicare. I would say if they're saying the answer is do nothing, they're the ones that threaten Social Security and Medicare.
AMOS: And are you suggesting to do nothing or to do some of the trends, but not just as much?
BAKER: Well, I'd say we have a normal Congressional process, and there's really no evidence here that it's failed. We could say that we've had failed regulation in allowing the housing bubble to grow and create this collapse, but there really is no evidence that the normal Congressional process has failed.
Now, should we raise more revenue? I'd like to see us raise more revenue. One of the things I've done some work on is a financial transactions tax, taxing speculation on Wall Street. I think that would be a really good idea. There are places we can look to cut spending. It's not urgent. I wouldn't really recommend it for 2010, 2011 when the economy is very weak, but further out, absolutely.
And again, I would highlight military spending. And then again, over the longer term, as I said, we have to fix health care. Hopefully, President Obama's plan will be a first step in that direction, but there's clearly a lot more that we have to do.
AMOS: Let me ask you about entitlements, because this seems to be one place where you do get some agreement. One of them raised the retirement age. Another is a means test for benefits that, you know, someone who retires on $100,000, as opposed to someone who retires on $25,000, actually should pay a little bit for Medicare. Those ideas actually seem to have some majority behind them.
BAKER: Actually, I'd be very surprised of that. Certainly among economists, I really doubt you'd find that agreement. When you talk about raising the retirement age, certainly when you talk about Social Security, we're looking at a cohort of baby boomers who've just seen most of their wealth destroyed with the collapse of the housing bubble. They have very little to depend on other than their Social Security.
And I should point out, most people start collecting benefits at age 62. So raising the retirement age is simply a way of cutting benefits. And since most people have little other than their Social Security to get by on, that would make things even worse for them. When you talk about Medicare, health care expenses, of course, are very high for people age 66, 67. If we were to raise the Medicare eligibility age, that would be a very big difficulty for people in those years.
And when you raise the issue of means testing, when you start talking about a realistic means test, you have to start hitting very middle-income people. And, again, I don't think that's the sort of thing most people want to do. It's certainly not the sort of thing I've heard many economists advocate.
AMOS: Most people do want to address the debt. So how would you do it?
BAKER: As I keep saying, fix health care, fix health care, fix health care. The other part of the story, if we need more revenue, which I think we do, the best place to start is taxing the people that gave us this downturn. The financial transactions tax could raise well over $100 billion a year. I think that's a really good place to start. We may need more, but that's a really good place to start.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
BAKER: Thanks for having me on.
AMOS: Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
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DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. All this morning, we're bringing you updates on the earthquake that struck Haiti yesterday. It was a magnitude seven quake, and it was centered just a few miles from Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince.
AMOS: We're told that homes went sliding down hillsides in a city where many buildings are unsafe even in normal times. And this quake was strong enough to wreck many of the city's landmarks. Even the presidential palace crumbled, and the local headquarters of the United Nations collapsed. Electricity is out.
INSKEEP: Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and its infrastructure is weak even on good days. Parts of the country still haven't recovered from floods a year ago. The U.S. State Department and the military are coordinating American relief plans, and are being joined by many private relief agencies as well as other nations. And we will keep you updated as we learn more.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
We're also following up on one of the major stories of the last few weeks. The attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas Day has raised many questions about U.S. intelligence agencies. One question is whether the reforms made after 9/11 are working.
: John Negroponte, who is a business consultant now. But when you visit his Washington office, you see photos from his career in government service.
One photo shows Negroponte in the Oval Office with President George W. Bush, who made him the first National Intelligence director. Negroponte was the first man in charge of the reordered intelligence system that we have today.
What was the problem that you were supposed to fix with the intelligence community when you took over?
JOHN NEGROPONTE: Or what was the problem that the legislation was seeking to fix? Let me be clear to you on something. I had no dog in that fight. I was not involved in the run up to the passage of that legislation. I was ambassador to Iraq at the time.
The feeling was that the director of Central Intelligence was too focused on his day-to-day operational responsibility - in other words, running spies and running agents - and not focused enough on his community functions. So...
: Making the different agencies work together.
NEGROPONTE: Making the different agencies work together, worrying about standards for collection and analysis. So the idea was to create this director of National Intelligence - not to be a large directorate, but it would have a coordinating function over the 17 agencies. And that individual, the director of National Intelligence, then became the principal intelligence advisor of the president of the United States.
: When you emphasize to me that this was Congress's idea and you had nothing to do with it, you're telling me that literally because it is a fact. But I wonder if you're also emphasizing to me that you're not sure it was the smartest thing to do.
NEGROPONTE: Well, I said - well, it was Congress's - and I believe John Kerry during the presidential campaign said he supported the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. And I think President Bush, in the end, reluctantly - but it was a campaign year and intelligence was very much a matter of political controversy. I think he felt that he had no choice but to accept the passage of such legislation.
Yeah. I am, in fact, distancing myself somewhat from the idea. But it's sort of my approach to being a government executive. I was given a job to do, an assignment, just like I'd had in many other assignments in my diplomatic career, and I was going to do it to the best of my ability.
: Did the reorganization make sense?
NEGROPONTE: I think you could've made the old system work. In 2004, with the incredible turmoil and controversy over particularly the weapons of mass destruction fiasco - if it hadn't been for the WMD fiasco, we might not have had intelligence reform.
: Did the system that you put in place under the instructions of the new law make things any better?
NEGROPONTE: Well, I do believe we certainly made the effort to do that. We tried to adopt standards. We talked about ways of double-checking information - none of it really rocket science, but building in sort of automatic double-checking at various stages in the process so that you were really sure of your information and sure of your sources.
: Recent news has raised questions about how different agencies work together. We still have a lot of intelligence agencies. When you were the director of National Intelligence, when you took over, was coordination among agencies a real (unintelligible)?
NEGROPONTE: I don't think - here's a couple of things. First of all, they always say there's 17 agencies. Well, look, there's sort of like a group of five or so that are really key. And what we did during my time was to, in addition to having the broader meetings with the 16 or 17, we had more frequent meetings with this smaller group of agencies.
But it comes down to personalities, as it very often does in this town. And I think if you have a good working atmosphere between the various individual leaders of these organizations, things can be made to work quite effectively.
: So maybe it wasn't as big a problem?
NEGROPONTE: Well, it doesn't have to be a big problem.
: I'm glad you mentioned information sharing, because in recent weeks, we have had this attempted Christmas Day bombing, which has raised a lot of questions about how information was or was not shared.
NEGROPONTE: Yeah.
: And we have in public, a number of specific pieces of information. Somebody heard from the suspect's father, that the father was concerned about him.
NEGROPONTE: Right.
: Somebody overheard a conversation about al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula having some kind of Nigerian operative. There were a couple of concert pieces of information. As the guy who was in charge, or supervising the National Counterterrorism Center, when you heard the details of this story did you say wow, they really could've made something of this?
NEGROPONTE: No I did not. There are plots that we have disrupted. For example, the plot to blow up the airliners that were going to come from the United Kingdom, back - I think it was in 2007 or so. Goodness gracious. We had detailed information on what the plans were to carry out that plot so we were able to successfully disrupt it. I don't think this incident is on a par with some of those earlier plots that we disrupted, in terms of the narrative, in terms of the flow of information we had. This is one where we had two or three strands, where if you were quick and if you really chose to pay attention to this item, you might've put it together.
: Can you improve the analysis of fragments of information like this through any process or procedure?
NEGROPONTE: You know, I don't know any substitute for being attentive, vigilant, pouring over this material. I mean there are 28 different databases - at least they were when I was there - I'm sure it's as many, now - pouring into that National Counterterrorism Center. You had people from all these different agencies, occasionally something doesn't get into that data stream that ought to or something is not done that ought to have been done. But clearly, it's substantially greater than it was prior to 9/11.
: This must require a certain amount of creativity on the part of an analyst, to take a few bits of information and extrapolate from that what an enemy is doing, who wants to hide his...
NEGROPONTE: Right. And one swallow does not a summer make. I mean this is part of the problem, you know, the more information you have the better your analysis is going to be. There may have be a failure of imagination here. It may also be that in the end - I noticed even the president uses the conditional - he says it could've disrupted had we connected the dots. It might've been or it could've been.
: How would you judge the quality of the analysts who worked under you for a time?
NEGROPONTE: Well, they're good. Everybody's good and they work very hard. But here's an issue - with the so-called peace dividend at the end of the cold war and the Al Gore's effort that rightsizing government, which you may remember in the 1990s, we really cut back national security. So now we're starting, post- 9/11, to start building up that cadre of analysts. And after all, intelligence is about analysis. That's the key function.
: Granting that you can always find a few more policies or procedures to tweak, is the system roughly as good as it can be?
NEGROPONTE: Yeah. And it's getting better, but I think there has been - I got to say - it's been a big priority in the last 8- 10 years, also, in rebuilding our human intelligence capability. But that may even, in some respects, take more time than building up your analytic capability. I mean that trade craft takes time. You don't just create a spy overnight.
: Ambassador Negroponte, thanks very much.
NEGROPONTE: Thank you.
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: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
NPR's business news starts with a heads up for credit card users.
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AMOS: The Federal Reserve is offering consumers expanded protection when it comes to plastic. New regulations bar credit card companies from raising rates for one year after an account is opened. That's to stop the practice of sudden rate hikes. Credit card companies will also have to give customers more information about fees - and they'll have to consider a consumer's income and ability to pay before approving a new card. It'll make it harder for retailers to give out instant store credit cards. And some lenders have already bumped up rates to get an increase in before the new rules go into effect next month.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
This week we're looking at diversity in the workplace. Many companies like to portray themselves as big happy families, but sometimes they break that family down into smaller groups like women or minorities who can look out for each other.
Reporter Nancy Solomon spent some time at Chubb Insurance Company to find out how these groups work.
NANCY SOLOMON: At Chubb's New Jersey headquarters, there's a black employee network, groups for Latinos, Asians, people with disabilities, working parents, young people. There's a professional organization of women...
INSKEEP: And I think we also have one issue to talk about, a coaching circle that not really one group can take on...
Unidentified Woman #2: And yeah. Well, we've never...
Unidentified Woman #1: Did you ever hear from them?
Woman #2: I've actually contacted this person three times and they've not phoned me...
Woman #1: Okay, well, we need to talk about what we need to do...
SOLOMON: There's also a gay and lesbian network. Midlevel manager Keith L. Smith is a member.
KEITH SMITH: It's the face of diversity for gay and lesbian employees at the organization. Being able to be out and be yourself at work, it takes a level of pressure completely off your shoulders and allows you to be more productive.
SOLOMON: These groups can also change the workplace. The gay and lesbian network, for instance, convinced the company to provide domestic partnership benefits for its employees.
Donna Griffin, Chubb's chief diversity officer, says networking groups are a way to attract talent, especially young people who might Google a company before deciding whether or not to apply.
DONNA GRIFFIN: They do actually look at our Web site and they do look at awards - whether it's, you know, being recognized by the Human Rights Campaign or we're one of the top 50 companies this year for Latinas and, you know, we really try to go for awards.
SOLOMON: Griffin says networking groups aren't just there to make things nice for employees; they also help with Chubb's bottom line. The gay and lesbian convinced the company to allow same sex couples to purchase insurance together, and Griffin hopes that will bring in more business. And she says, the company has been able to recruit more minority brokers and market to immigrant communities with brochures in their first languages.
GRIFFIN: For example, in May of this year, we had a specific program that was geared towards our Asian-American agents and we utilized resources from our Asian business network in order to make that happen.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SOLOMON: The networking groups are becoming such a staple of corporate life, they've even shown up in popular culture. Here's a scene from the TV comedy "The Office."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE OFFICE")
JENNA FISCHER: (as Pam) Today's a Women in the Workplace thing. Jan's coming in from corporate to talk to all the women about, I don't really know what, but Michael's not allowed in.
SOLOMON: So Michael, played by Steve Carell, retaliates by getting the men together for a bonding session, which doesn't go the way he expects.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE OFFICE")
CRAIG ROBINSON: (as Darryl) You say we're the same but we get compensated very differently.
Unidentified Man #1: Yeah.
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah.
ROBINSON: (as Darryl) We work the same hours as you and you just said we work a lot harder.
STEVE CARELL: (as Michael Scott) You do. So...
ROBINSON: (as Darryl) But we get paid a lot less.
CARELL: It blows, it blows, man.
ROBINSON: (as Darryl) No this would not happen if we had a union.
DAVID DENMAN: (as Roy): That's what I'm talking about.
SOLOMON: In real life too, when new groups come together, it can pull a workplace apart. Harvard sociologist Frank Dobbin studies diversity strategies and says networking groups can balkanize a workplace, especially when it comes to racial minorities.
FRANK DOBBIN: When minorities start meeting together, they become re-segregated and whites start to see them as an oppositional group rather than as members of the corporation.
SOLOMON: But Dobbin says networking groups can help some people advance within a company. If you belong to a women's group, for example, statistics suggests you have a good chance of meeting women managers who might mentor you. Black men on the other hand, might have fewer managers to look up to.
DOBBIN: These are the people who can help you get ahead, and these are the people who identify talent and decide who gets promoted. It's managers, not other low-level workers.
SOLOMON: Terri Harrison in Chubb's legal department met her mentor through Chubb's women's group, and when the mentor was preparing to leave her job, she suggested Harrison apply for it.
TERRI HARRISON: And she was tax counsel. And I said I don't know any tax. She said well, you don't have to know any tax. You'll learn it. Like, but what's the job? Well, there's talking to a lot of people and you're a good talker. And she talked me into the job.
SOLOMON: And for employees anxious to move up the cooperate ladder, that kind of mentoring might be the best thing a networking group can offer.
Harvard's Frank Dobbin says if these groups just function like social clubs or outlets for employee complaints they run the risk of becoming mere window dressing; nice for the company brochure, but not the best way to make the company really look more like America.
For NPR News, I'm Nancy Solomon.
INSKEEP: Our series on diversity continues tomorrow when we look at the advertising industry. Critics say it portrays plenty of minorities but still does not hire enough of them.
Man #1: Madison Avenue is kind of a freeze-frame. It's kind of like if an anthropologist wanted to come back and see - well, what was discrimination like in 1970, you've got it right here in the advertising industry.
INSKEEP: And we'll have that story tomorrow.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
You know, Deb, when I was growing up in Indiana, the winners of big basketball tournaments got a special privilege; they got to cut down the nets. You'd climb up on a ladder; you'd take some scissors up there. People from the winning team would take home a little twist of rope as a memento.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Well, if that's the case, Steve, then we shouldn't be surprised by today's last word in business. It involves the Rose Bowl, where Alabama won the college football championship, last week. You too, can own a piece of that victory. A company bought the turf right off the field in Pasadena, California.
INSKEEP: This is a New Jersey firm. They plan to chop it up into three-by-three inch pieces and freeze-dry the bits, encased them in glass and sell them for $100 each. This also reminds of people who bought bits of the Berlin Wall. Supposedly, you could even find out if your bit of turf came from the end zone of touched the cleat of a player during an especially big play.
And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
AMOS: And I'm Deborah Amos.
INSKEEP: Rumble.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
Yesterday's Haitian earthquake measured 7.0 and it buried many people and collapsed buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Haiti has many connections to the United States, connections of both family and business, and just as the earthquake began, some people were preparing for a flight to Miami.
NPR's Greg Allen met them as they touched down safely in the United States.
GREG ALLEN: Like many Haitian-Americans, Claude Lanvier(ph) travels to Haiti frequently to visit family and friends. He is a taxi driver with a family of his own in Norwood, Massachusetts. He arrived in Miami last night on the first plane out of Haiti after the earthquake hit. He was scheduled to leave Port-au- Prince at 5:30 p.m. but the earthquake struck first. He and other passengers were in the airport waiting room when it hit.
CLAUDE LANVIER: The building started shaking and moving, and debris, the ceiling started falling, you know, everything moving to the left, moving to the right and people started crying, saying I'm dying, my kids, what's going on? And nobody knows, nobody knows. It was like people were flying (unintelligible). I fell on the ground and about 15 people falling on top of me. You know, my passport, you know, were missing, my green card were missing, and (unintelligible) I heard it's 7.0. This is a big.
ALLEN: Lanvier says at first he thought a plane had hit the building. The airport's windows were broken, the structure was cracked, but after checking the runway, airport personnel said it was safe for takeoff. Joslyn Dosane(ph) also came in on the plane from Port-au-Prince. He says by the time the jet was ready to take off, most of those with tickets had left the airport.
JOSLYN DOSANE: About 75 percent of the passengers didn't get on the plane, you know, and the saddening fact is, I mean, they're thinking, you know, they're scared because of the situation that went on, but it would have been better for them to actually get on the plane because what was happening was on the ground, not upstairs, you know. Basically they were just scared, you know, they were just scared to fly. They didn't know what was going to go on afterward.
ALLEN: Before the plane left Port-au-Prince, Annette Rosiye(ph) said she received information about her hometown, St. Marc, on the island's west coast, and the news was not good.
ANNETTE ROSIYE: I have one friend tell me, they have one hotel in St. Marc, half the hotel is broken.
ALLEN: Fell right down.
ROSIYE: Uh-huh
ALLEN: Everyone on the plane said they were grateful to have gotten out safely but arrived in Miami last night with the same thought - how to get in touch with family and friends in Haiti.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Novelist Edwidge Danticat was born in Haiti. She lived there until she was 12 and still has family in the country. She has written several books about the land of her birth and was awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant last September. She joins us by phone from Miami where she now lives. Good morning.
EDWIDGE DANTICAT: Good morning.
AMOS: Have you been able to get in touch with any of your relatives there?
DANTICAT: I was able last night to speak to my mother-in-law, who lives outside of Port-au-Prince. They are not getting much news there, but even as we were speaking to her, she was saying the ground is shaking, the ground is shaking. So she was still feeling some of the aftershocks way outside of Port- au-Prince in the south, in a place called Gromale(ph). But I've not been able to speak to any of my family members who live in the capital itself.
AMOS: Have you had word from them though?
DANTICAT: No, no word. We have a group of family members who are in Carrefour, which it seems was especially affected, and some others who live closer to the national palace in...
AMOS: Which was damaged seriously.
DANTICAT: Yes, it - we're rather fearful of what it means for a smaller building if the national palace was damaged to that degree.
AMOS: Have you heard anything about relief efforts getting into the country yet?
DANTICAT: Well, there are some efforts here. People are starting to meet in the community here in Miami - you know, Haitian Americans and others, but nothing, you know, has come through except more sort of different layers of bad news so far. I mean, we fearfully are waiting for the sun to rise to see what emerges, and I'm terrified that it promises to be very, very grim indeed.
AMOS: You spent much of your childhood in Haiti's capital. Tell us a little about the last time you were there.
DANTICAT: Well, the last time I was there - I was in (unintelligible) for Easter last year, and I was in a city outside of Port-au-Prince called Jacmel. And people are very concerned about Jacmel. So little news are piercing through in a place like Jacmel, which is in the mountains outside. We have not heard much come out of there. My fear in the situation is that, you know, whatever number we will hear, it will be so much worse than that, because there were so many places where people were living on the hillside and sometimes you have a slight mudslide and it's catastrophic. Imagine the scale of this. It's just the apocalypse for this very small and often tried(ph) country.
AMOS: And the tragedy is they missed the big hurricane this year and the earthquake came.
DANTICAT: Yeah, the last year we had four hurricanes in a row, and one cannot stress enough how much aid from individuals but also from all of Haiti's neighbors this will take to help save lives in the first instance, but also in the long run. There's just not enough hospitals or medical staff in Haiti to deal with something of this magnitude.
AMOS: Indeed. And thank you very much for joining us this morning.
DANTICAT: Thank you so much for having me.
AMOS: Edwidge Danticat has written several books about her native Haiti.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
We are following other news around the world, including this from China. It involves the giant Internet search company Google. Google says its Gmail service, which is an email service, has come under cyber attack directed against Chinese human rights activists. Google has not said whether it believes the Chinese government was responsible, but the Internet company has said it's going to stop censoring its search results in China - something the government is not going to like.
NPR's Louisa Lim is following the story in Shanghai. Hi, Louisa.
LOUISA LIM: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: How did this news emerge?
LIM: Well, it came out in a posting on Google's blog by the top lawyer there, David Drummond. And he said that Google would be taking this new approach to China after discovering that it had been a target of hacker attacks from inside China, which resulted in the theft of intellectual property. As you say, he said hackers had tried to gain access to Gmail accounts of human rights activists and that this had been a part of a coordinated attack on 20 major companies.
Google says that it will no longer censor the results on its search engine and it'll go into discussions with the Chinese government about this. If it isn't possible, it says, it will simply shut down its China offices.
INSKEEP: And we're in the middle here of a rather dramatic story about intellectual freedom here, aren't we, because Google had been criticized for going along with the Chinese government's demands to censor some Web sites.
LIM: That's right. Google was kind of late to the Chinese market. They only set up their Chinese language search engine, Google.cn, in 2006. And at the time there was a lot of controversy about whether a company whose motto is Don't Be Evil should be allowing themselves to have a search engine whose results are censored.
But at that point their thinking was that it was better to offer censored results than nothing at all. They would still be expanding access to information, so they went ahead.
INSKEEP: And now we have this situation where Google says that email has been hacked. They're talking about lifting their censorship and also talking, if I'm not mistaken, about possibly pulling out of China entirely. What has the reaction been like in China?
LIM: Well, it's pretty much spanned the spectrum of opinion. Some people are stunned, others are saddened, and quite a few are skeptical as well. Today, we saw some young netizens going to the Google headquarters in Beijing and laying flowers and bowing in front of the building. This was intended to show their respect, almost as a symbolic act of mourning.
And they feel that Google is one of probably the first major multinationals to take a stand against censorship in China. But many others don't rate Google's chances. In the last few hours we've also seen signs that news portals here are being asked to tone down their coverage of the story. And there are some people who believe that Google hasn't been massively successful in China, and they're wondering about Google's motivations - suggesting that Google might be in fact be sacrificing its China's business to buy goodwill elsewhere in the world.
INSKEEP: Louisa, always good to talk with you.
LIM: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: NPR's Louisa Lim is in Shanghai.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
So Deb, did you ever get your swine flu vaccine?
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Not yet. Did you get yours?
INSKEEP: I finally did, because I've got a small child. And so we went the other day and there was absolutely no line. Nobody was getting it.
AMOS: Do people still need to get it?
INSKEEP: Well, U.S. government officials say that in fact you still do. Here's NPR's Richard Knox.
RICHARD KNOX: It's been a rollercoaster year for flu vaccine companies. Last spring, the U.S. government signed contracts for $1.5 billion worth of pandemic flu vaccine; then in the fall millions of Americans lined up to get shots but there wasn't enough vaccine to go around. Now that there's plenty, the bottom's dropped out of the flu vaccine market.
BRUCE GELLIN: When we made those contracts, that was obviously early in the game, when we didn't get a full understanding of how things were going to play out.
KNOX: That's Dr. Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office. Gellin says he doesn't know how much more vaccine the government will buy. It's contracted for another $675 million worth.
GELLIN: Not all that vaccine has been made. So we still have vaccine coming in. They're still making vaccine and there's still demand out there. So I think that we need to be further along until we know what the final picture will be.
KNOX: Federal officials say they can tell manufacturers to stop making vaccine at any time and not have to pay for the rest of it. But the U.S. government is on the hook for what they've already ordered.
Donna Cary of Sanofi Pasteur says it's made all its U.S. vaccine.
DONNA CARY: The bulk of it has been shipped to the U.S. government. There are some final remaining shipments and we're doing that in accordance with the agreed-upon timelines with the U.S. government.
KNOX: Karen Lancaster of MedImmune, which supplies the FluMist nasal vaccine, says nothing about their contract has changed.
KAREN LANCASTER: We have completed manufacturing all of the bulk vaccine product. The majority of it has been delivered.
KNOX: But there are five vaccine makers who have U.S. contracts. I asked Federal Vaccine Director Gellin if some companies will be stuck with a vaccine that they can't sell that the government won't pay for.
GELLIN: I can't say, and it may vary company by company. That's a trickier question to answer, and particularly to say it about all companies.
KNOX: But there are two places companies might unload that unused vaccine. The U.S. government is prepared to buy 25 million doses for developing countries where pandemic flu is still spreading fast. And the bulk vaccine that hasn't been put into vials could be saved for next fall's seasonal flu vaccine as long as the flu virus doesn't mutate. If it does, all that excess vaccine will be worthless.
Richard Knox, NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
The unemployment rate for African-Americans is 16 percent, far exceeding the nation's overall rate. Half of the country's mortgages in default are held by blacks. Still, African-Americans are feeling a lot better about their prospects. That's the finding of a new poll by the Pew Research Center. NPR News analyst Juan Williams advised the researchers in developing and interpreting the poll, and he joins me now. Good morning.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Deborah.
AMOS: The headline of this poll is that African-Americans are much more optimistic about their life in America.
WILLIAMS: Well, it's pretty surprising. Twice as many blacks - 39 percent - now say the situation for black people in America is better than it's been over the course of the last five years. That is twice what it was in terms of black optimism in a poll done just two years previously.
AMOS: How much is this optimism due to the fact that Barack Obama was elected president?
WILLIAMS: Well, you'd have to say that's the major intervening event over the course of the past two years. But there's something else, I think, at work here, Deborah. We're now seeing black people over the course of the last three decades, when you've seen increases in education rates, graduation rates, housing rates and the like, I think black people for most of that period were reluctant to say in front of white people, you know what, things are getting better, for fear that whites would say, oh well, then we've done enough.
Now I think that progress has been sufficient that you have a larger cohort of blacks who say, you know what, we still face discrimination but things have gotten significantly better and I'm comfortable saying this to a pollster, that I think things are better and going to get better for my children.
And, you know, it's interesting also - in this Pew poll, 53 percent of African- Americans said blacks who are not getting ahead are responsible for their own situation. Only a third of African-Americans now say race is the primary impediment for an African-American who's not succeeding in the U.S. Again, astounding.
Fifteen years earlier, Deborah, it would've been exactly the opposite, that people would have said race is the primary reason that black people who aren't succeeding are not getting ahead in American society.
AMOS: Now, whites were also polled, so what stood out for you most about white attitudes?
WILLIAMS: Well, let's look at values for a second. Seventy percent of whites, along with 60 percent of blacks, say that blacks and whites have had increasingly similar values over the last 10 years. More and more you see blacks and whites saying we're thinking in similar terms as Americans. And I might add that if you were to ask black Americans about values, it's now the case that 52 percent of blacks say that the values of the black middle class and the black poor are becoming more divergent.
AMOS: Let's talk about Hispanics, because they also figured in this poll. What were the findings there?
WILLIAMS: If you ask Hispanics right now about Barack Obama, for example, it's 42 percent of Hispanics who say he's not paying enough attention to them, which is an intriguing finding because he's appointed Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court during this period. But in fact almost half of Hispanics want Barack Obama to do more in terms of their issues.
So it might mean that there's pressure on him and the Democratic Party to do more about immigration reform.
AMOS: Race is still a sensitive topic, Juan, and we just saw this again with the comments recently attributed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid about President Obama. Now, he said them in 2008. So remind us of what he said and tell us what the importance of it is.
WILLIAMS: Well, he said that candidate Obama had a good chance to win and justified it by saying this: Yes, he would be the first African-American president but he's a light-skinned black and he does not speak with a Negro dialect. It has sparked some criticism from Republican circles, who are calling on the Democratic Senate majority leader to resign, so they're using this to beat him up.
WILLIAMS: I have not heard one black person say anything critical about Harry Reid on this subject. They say, well, he was inelegant. But discussions of skin color and skin tone are common in the black community. I mean, this is an issue going back to days of slavery. And talking about dialects, I think every parent says to their child in the black community, if you're going to - you're going to have to speak the King's English if you hope to succeed in this society.
So the idea that he is guilty of some racial affront is a bit of a stretch.
AMOS: How much of this poll surprised you?
WILLIAMS: I think I was surprised to see that when it comes to intermarriage, young people - black and white - pretty much no problem. But once you get into a group in the mid-50s among whites, you see a precipitous drop in acceptance of interracial marriage. And here's the really funny thing, Deborah - that if you ask people about who they most object to marrying into their family, it's not a black, white, Hispanic, it's atheists. They say they don't want any atheists to marry into their family.
AMOS: Black, white or indifferent.
WILLIAMS: That's right.
AMOS: NPR News analyst Juan Williams, thank you very much.
WILLIAMS: You're welcome, Deborah.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Readers in Laredo, Texas are about to lose their only bookstore. That would make Laredo one of the largest cities in the nation without a local bookseller. And we have more this morning from David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio.
DAVID MARTIN DAVIES: The Laredo book based book club gathers once a month. Today, they're meeting in an opulent home on the north side of town. The driveway is filled with Mercedes and other luxury vehicles. Inside, the women discuss the literary arts and maybe share some local gossip.
Unidentified Woman #1: Half priced books (unintelligible).
Unidentified Woman #2: That would be ideal.
MARTIN DAVIES: A major topic is what to do about the closing of the border city's only bookstore - B. Dalton.
INSKEEP: We're going to get something. I just hope it's soon.
INSKEEP: I do, too. I do, too.
MARTIN DAVIES: B. Dalton is a small mall-based chain of bookstores owned by Barnes & Noble. When the Laredo store closes, the nearest bookstore will be 150 miles away in San Antonio. Veronica Castion(ph) is leading an effort to bring a new bookstore to the city of a quarter of a million people.
VERONICA CASTION: We really would love to have a store that has a coffee shop, an enticing children's section, merchandise for book lovers. Something like what other cities get. We love books in Laredo.
JOSE RAMIREZ: Many of us had suppressed(ph), you know, what had transpired...
MARTIN DAVIES: Today, the book club has a special guest, Jose Ramirez, the author of the book "Squint."
RAMIREZ: There's been divorce and death.
MARTIN DAVIES: "Squint" is Ramirez's memoir of growing up in Laredo with Hansen's disease, also known as leprosy. But without a bookstore, many readers in Ramirez's hometown may not be able to find his book.
RAMIREZ: I believe that Barnes & Noble has basically stigmatized the community of Laredo as being an illiterate town.
MARTIN DAVIES: Carolyn Brown, a Barnes & Nobles spokeswoman, said closing the bookstore is not a commentary on how much Laredoans love their books. The company is closing B. Daltons across the nation so it can focus on its larger, stand alone bookstores. Barnes & Noble said it wants to build one of those in Laredo, too, when they can get the right site. But that means Laredo is going to be without a bookstore for the foreseeable future.
Unidentified Woman #5: Your total's $70.01. There's your receipt.
Unidentified Man: Thank you.
MARTIN DAVIES: It's the last days of the Laredo B. Dalton, and some long time customers, like Annette Gonzales, are stopping by just to say goodbye to the store.
ANNETTE GONZALES: It's devastating. It's sad that there's going to be no full-fledged bookstore here, that we'll have to go online or be left to Target and Wal-Mart.
MARTIN DAVIES: Clive Warner shares that sentiment. He's stocking up on books today before his return home to Monterrey, Mexico, about 150 miles to the south.
CLIVE WARNER: This is horrendous, because I come over here to do my shopping for books. It means I'm going to have to go to McAllen in the future.
MARTIN DAVIES: The Liverpool native runs a small science fiction publishing house. He says the forecast is grim for many brick-and-mortar bookstores.
WARNER: Oh, they're finished. Everything's going online.
MARTIN DAVIES: And a number of industry experts seem equally pessimistic. Albert Greco is with the Institute for Publishing Research. He says blame a sour economy and changing consumer habits.
ALBERT GRECO: As ecommerce continues to grow and as more consumers buy ereaders and then buy ebooks, those two trends will have an impact, and probably a negative impact, on physical bookstores.
MARTIN DAVIES: Greco said Laredo is not alone in losing its last bookstore. Many small to midsize cities will see their bookstores close, because in the end, the one book that often matters most is the one the accountant keeps.
For NPR News, I'm David Martin Davies in San Antonio.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And the pressure on banks is not limited to their bonuses. The White House is also considering a new tax on banks. Let's bring in David Wessel. He's economics editor of the Wall Street Journal and a regular guest on this program.
David, Good morning once again.
DAVID WESSEL: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What's the administration have in mind?
WESSEL: Well, the administration sees a lot of political pressure to do something about the fact that the banks that were bailed out during the financial crisis seem to be making a lot of money and, as Jim's piece said, seem to be paying big bonuses. So one thing the government can do is take away some of their profits.
And what the president is likely to detail tomorrow, on Thursday, is a tax on banks to recover some of the costs that the government incurred during the bailout - a tax of about, maybe as much as $120 billion. Because the bailout bill says that the banking system, broadly defined, is supposed to reimburse tax payers for any costs that the government incurs before 2013.
INSKEEP: I guess that they're describing it as a fee rather than a tax here, but in any case it's a big bill for the banks if it goes through, right?
WESSEL: Absolutely.
INSKEEP: Why would you do this when the banks are still kind of in control of this situation here? They can pass on the cost to consumers if they want. They can say hey, we'll make even fewer loans than we've been making say.
WESSEL: Well, right. So the bank lobby is saying that we will just pass it on to consumers and they'll be worse off or they're saying if the government of the United States taxes U.S. banks that'll just be unfair because foreign banks will escape. But banks are a ripe target now because they're making money, because we still have very high unemployment, there's a lot of anger at them, and of course, there's a big deficit hole to fill and $120 billion would be a down payment on paying it off.
INSKEEP: A trillion dollar deficit at the moment, or more than a trillion dollars, $120 billion would help, I suppose. But it sounds like you think this is as much about the politics as it is about the numbers.
WESSEL: Absolutely. I mean we just see all over Washington, all sorts of ways of trying to squeeze some money out of the banks. As Jim's piece said, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is talking about trying to change banks behavior by - they're competition behavior - by levying a fee on banks that have risky compensation.
A number of members of Congress are talking about a tax on bonuses, like the one that has been proposed by the government of the United Kingdom. The International Monetary Fund is investigating whether we could have a global tax on financial transactions to raise money. So it's like everybody hitting at the piñata. There's a lot of money there and they want to shake it out.
INSKEEP: Well, let's remember the argument that was made at the time of the bailout and before, though, David Wessel, when they were rescuing firms. They talked about the problem of moral hazard. Many people spoke about the problem of letting people get away, in a sense, with their own bad financial risks and their own bad use of other people's money. Do you correct that moral hazard if you do impose this $120 billion fee or tax on banks and make sure that they pay some of the cost of cleaning up their own mess?
WESSEL: Well, I think that would probably be one argument for doing this. Of course, the people who actually take the risks aren't necessarily the people who, five years later, are going to have to pay this after the facts tax. So, I think resolving the moral hazard, the question of encouraging bad behavior by letting people expect a bailout from the government, is probably best addressed by other things like the discussion about having a new system where the government could take over a firm like Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns and decide who gets paid off and who doesn't, this so-called resolution authority that president Obama is asking Congress to give him.
INSKEEP: David, thanks very much.
WESSEL: You're welcome.
INSKEEP: David Wessel is economics editor of the Wall Street Journal.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
We'll be bringing you updates all morning, on the earthquake that struck Haiti. The epicenter of the magnitude seven quake was just outside the capital Port- Au-Prince. Few phones are working. The dead are still in the streets.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
We're told this quake toppled much of the presidential palace as well as other landmarks across the city of Port-Au-Prince, and of course many hillside shanties in a very poorly constructed city. The city's own mayor said that most of the structures were unsafe, even in normal times. The U.S. State Department and the International Red Cross and other aid groups are planning major relief operations.
The U.S. Coast Guard, we're told, is already sending Coast Guard cutters and aircraft from units on the east coast. But at the beginning, in the initial hours, this is down to human hands, people digging by hand through the rubble- to find friends and loved ones.
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DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Late night television comedy shows have been full of drama in recent days, and the latest episode has one of the comedians refusing to follow his script. Conan O'Brien says he won't go along with an NBC plan to start "The Tonight Show" after midnight. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates reports.
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES: NBC's prime time experiment, which moved Jay Leno from late night to 10 PM and Conan O'Brien into Leno's spot, has been declared a failure. At this week's Television Critics Association press tour, network executives announced they'd be shifting Leno back to late night. In a recent monologue that noted his move back to his old time slot, Leno had this tart assessment.
JAY LENO: I take pride in one thing. I leave NBC Prime Time the same way I found it: a complete disaster, so that's...
GRIGSBY BATES: Critics agree complete disaster was a pretty good way to describe NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker's switch. The new arrangement which aimed to keep both Leno and O'Brien lost viewers and money for the network affiliates. But the decision to reverse it was an agonizing one for NBC executives. Sharon Waxman is editor-n-chief of thewrap.com, which covers Hollywood.
SHARON WAXMAN: I had one NBC executive describe it to me as a Sophie's choice they were trying to avoid, which was a little bit, perhaps over dramatic, but understanding, you know, the context that they're working in.
GRIGSBY BATES: So NBC made its choice. But so has O'Brien. Shortly after the switch was announced, he released a statement saying that he would not be filling the 12:05 AM slot. For 60 years, "The Tonight Show" has aired immediately following the late local news, he wrote. Moving tonight into what essentially is the next day, Obrien says, will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. O'Brien went on to say he hoped NBC would resolve the matter quickly so he and his staff can go on to do a show we love for a company that values our work.
Many industry observers say it was highly impractical for NBC to assume it would be able to keep both Leno and O'Brien. Thewrap.com's Sharon Waxman said the attempt to do that closely parallels another juggling effort that often fails.
WAXMAN: It's like saying I love both my girlfriends, and I want to date both of them, and one of the girlfriends saying no, I love you too, but you have to choose.
GRIGSBY BATES: Now NBC has made its choice and one of the hosts it loves probably will kiss the network goodbye. Even if he doesn't know what comes next.
CONAN O: My name is Conan O'Brien and I may soon be available for children's parties, so let me know.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
GRIGSBY BATES: Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
A car at the auto show in Detroit this week has the same seating arrangement as a bicycle built for two. The car is called the Tango. It's only three feet, three inches wide. There is one driver's seat in front and one seat in back. The car is not cheap. George Clooney paid more than $100,000 for his, but as an electric car, it's energy efficient and it ends all debate about which kid gets to ride in the front seat. You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Good morning. I'm Deb Amos.
In the city of Corbin, Kentucky, it's a case of rival statues. Corbin is where Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Sanders opened his first restaurant in the 1930s. City leaders now want a bronze statue to honor this finger-licking good Colonel in downtown Corbin. But animal rights group PETA has proposed a statue, too. Their idea - a statue of the Colonel not in bronze, but rather in chicken droppings.
It's MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
And I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
In the next few minutes, we're going to hear voices from a disaster zone. It's the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, where an earthquake struck yesterday. We reached Maggie Boyer there. She's with the humanitarian group World Vision.
AMOS: The earthquake, as you know, happened last night, yesterday evening, around 5 p.m. local time. It was at the end of the workday, and I was at my desk at World Vision. And there was a noise, actually, and then the building and the desk started shaking. And I had thought that maybe a large truck had hit a wall close to me. But within seconds, of course, it became quite obvious that that was not at all the case, and that it was something else. Within a couple of minutes, those of us who were still at work were in the courtyard and trying to get a hold of family members, trying to place calls, trying to get a hold of our staff. And as I walked around the World Vision building in Haiti, it became obvious just how much damage the city had suffered, if where we were was any indication at all. We were walking...
AMOS: Maggie, did you have to spend the night last night in the World Vision office? Did you just stay where you were?
AMOS: No, no, no. We - night fell, and people were able to make their way home. That - the traffic was reduced a great deal, and we were able to get home. But again, I think what helps is that in the higher elevations, things are OK. But as you get lower and lower, things are not. So around the midtown - the area I'm calling the midtown, I would say - it was already obvious that something had gone terribly awry. Tree limbs were blocking traffic and walls had crumbled, and a roof had collapsed. And as we left that area to go down a little bit more in the area called Delmas, there were quite a few people outside. People were not - were choosing not to stay within their homes because it's not still confident that there would not be more aftershocks. So they were in the streets with their blankets and getting ready for the night.
AMOS: And Maggie, are you able to get out of the car and walk around? Are you able to drive close to where the - most of the damage is?
AMOS: We are able to drive in parts of the city. As you imagine, traffic was very, very, very heavy right after it happened, with people just desperately trying to get to their kids and trying to pick up their kids from school, and trying to get home to assess damages. This was around 5, 5:30, 6. Traffic was extremely heavy and really did not allow any movement in the city. But by 9, 9:30 last night, traffic was moving. There was - there were more possibilities to get in as - and by that time, the only - the obstacles that were keeping traffic - that were making traffic difficult were the broken lanes and walls and just rocks, and piles of rocks and rubble and dirt. Certainly, the back roads of the city, there was a bit of that. I was...
AMOS: Maggie we had heard reports or read reports here...
AMOS: ...walking through...
AMOS: We had read reports here that in some cases, the dead were still in the street, either buried in the rubble or where they fell, because it's been so difficult to get aid in. And people are still working through those piles of rubble with their hands.
AMOS: That is correct. We did see some persons in a couple of neighborhoods where maybe they had been just earlier with friends or classmates. There were trying to dig out from under, trying to see - there were people with flashlights calling peoples' names, trying to see if they were still in the buildings.
AMOS: 30, it was pretty dark, and as you can imagine, electricity was not readily available. So I think that (unintelligible) is being re-launched this morning for (unintelligible), and people are out and about, trying to do that.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
AMOS: Thank you.
AMOS: That's Maggie Boyer. She works for World Vision. She is one of the survivors of an earthquake that struck Haiti yesterday.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
A man named Ian Rogers woke up today on a hillside in the capital of Haiti and began walking the streets between buildings that had been wrecked by an earthquake.
IAN ROGERS: It was early in the morning, just before sunrise, and you and you had people already walking on the streets, walking very solemnly and clearly walking in directions to either look for relatives or to look for places that are more secure to stay.
INSKEEP: Ian Rogers is with Save the Children, one of the aid groups in a country that was in desperate shape even before yesterday's disaster knocked down many buildings in the capital.
He was walking through the city on the morning after a quake that measured a magnitude of 7.0.
AMOS: Aid agencies are rushing in to help. Miami Herald correspondent Jacqueline Charles reports that the airport is open for military and aid flights. But the air traffic control tower collapsed, so pilots will be guided only by what they can see.
We reached Jacqueline Charles in Florida as she was trying to get on a flight into Haiti, and she said that she had spoken with Haiti's president, Rene Preval, and the first lady, this morning.
JACQUELINE CHARLES: He basically described the scene as, quote-unquote, "unimaginable." He said he has not slept since yesterday. He fortunately was not in the presidential palace, which partially collapsed. At the time that I was speaking to him and the first lady, they were standing in front of parliament, where inside the president of the Haitian senate, Kelly Bastin(ph), was trapped. He has been trapped there overnight. He was still alive, but basically they were trying to rescue him as well as (unintelligible) outside of the parliament. He declined or was reluctant, really, to really give a death toll, because he said we really need to make an assessment, but he says that he had traveled to various neighborhoods and seen the devastation and that the country is destroyed.
There are a number of schools that have collapsed - you know, children that are trapped underneath, lots of dead bodies. In fact, they were stepping over dead bodies as they were standing before parliament.
AMOS: And this is the president and the first lady.
CHARLES: Yes, this is the president and the first lady. The house where he was at, that house has also undergone severe, severe damage, and he was able to get to safety. We have not heard much from the government because the communications has just been down.
AMOS: Jacki, we are reading that the aftershocks are almost as hard as the earthquake itself, something around 5.0.
CHARLES: Yes. I mean in fact while I was speaking to the president and the first lady, both of them said to me, Jacqueline, at this very moment we are feeling the aftershocks - I mean we are feeling it. Here we are a day later, they are still feeling the aftershocks, and from individuals who I spoke to yesterday, I think we counted - what, almost two dozen, if not more, aftershocks that were being felt.
AMOS: And we spoke to people this morning who said that there's almost two parts to the city. Up on the hills, people actually drove home last night. But down in the lower parts of the city, that's where the devastation is.
CHARLES: Yes, there are cars that are basically (unintelligible) roads - the president told me that there are people (unintelligible) sleep in their houses, they slept in the streets because they were too afraid to sleep in the house for fear that the walls would cave in on them. But also there are devastations in the hills, where you have some of the wealthier communities. We still have not received word on some of the hotels in terms of the devastation. I mean I think (unintelligible) the sun is out and basically, you know, they're waiting for rescue teams to come in to assist them, but also for them to really get a sense of how do you start to rebuild this country and basically dig it from underneath this rubble.
AMOS: Can we go back to an even more essential question: Do they have enough water?
CHARLES: That's the thing. The electricity now has been - you know, there's no electricity. I mean on a good day in Haiti, electricity is a problem. But I have to tell you - you know, because of the hurricane season, there was a lot of preparation, a lot of preparation that went in for hurricane season because of the four storms that battered that nation in 2008 in a matter of four weeks, and so as a result of that, the international aid organizations had stocked up with food and supplies. So I don't think that's going to be a real problem. I think the biggest problems, as Elizabeth Perval, the first lady, said to me, is going to be getting engineers, getting the type of equipment into the country to begin to lift some of this debris, to begin to dig some these people out from underneath this rubble. It's going to be providing medical assistance. I mean I've seen some (unintelligible) that have come out of the place and so that is really what they're going to need. The general hospital (unintelligible) hospital, it collapsed.
The president said those hospitals that are still standing, they are just packed, packed with people.
AMOS: And where are you going to go first, Jacki, when you get into town?
CHARLES: I think the biggest question for me when I get there is basically trying to see where we can get to. We don't know how far we can get.
AMOS: Thank you very much. Jacqueline Charles of the Miami Herald.
CHARLES: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Now, that earthquake destroyed public buildings, including the United Nations headquarters in Port-au-Prince. The chief of the U.N. is among about a hundred people reported missing. The presidential palace was damaged, though we're told the president survived. The National Cathedral was damaged, and the Roman Catholic archbishop is reported among the dead. This is what the city looked like after sunset to Paul McPhun of Doctors Without Borders.
M: These people are sleeping on all the roads where we have liked to be able to move last night, the roads that are not completely obstructed with rubble - massive destruction, including much of (unintelligible) infrastructure, also. And everywhere we go, a massive demand from people to help them with trapped family members, with people who are suffering from major, major injuries.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
McPhun describes the urgent, immediate needs of the population.
M: The reality, what we're seeing is severe traumas, head wounds, crushed limbs, severe problems that cannot be dealt with with the level of medical care that we currently have available with no infrastructure, really, to support it. So our major priority and focus is to reestablish, as soon as possible, a secondary level surgical capacity in the country.
AMOS: President Obama this morning pledged unwavering support to help Haiti recover from this disaster.
INSKEEP: We are just now beginning to learn the extent of the devastation, but the reports and images that we've seen of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes and men and women carrying their injured neighbors through the streets are truly heart-wrenching. Indeed, for a country and a people who are no strangers to hardship and suffering, this tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible.
INSKEEP: Now, we don't know the death toll from yesterday's earthquake in Haiti. We do expect the death toll to be high, and that is partly because of low construction standards in Port-au- Prince. It's also partly because the quake of 7.0 magnitude was centered so close to the city.
Here's NPR's Richard Harris.
RICHARD HARRIS: Large quakes frequently occur along the boundaries between the huge tectonic plates of the Earth's crust, which grind against one another. And scientists have known that Haiti sits on the boundary between the North American plate and the Caribbean plate. Geoff Abers, at Columbia University's Lamont- Doherty Earth Observatory, says it's the timing of the quake that came as a surprise.
AMOS: This is a fault segment that has been really quiet for about the last 200 years. There was one earthquake in the 1860s, but most of the larger, known earthquakes are back in the 1700s.
HARRIS: That means Haitians don't think of themselves as living in earthquake country. And it also means there's been a couple of centuries of geological stress that's built up on the fault. So the quake released a huge amount of energy. Some 30 to 60 miles of fault ruptured, according to preliminary estimates, and the ground shook in the initial quake for tens of seconds. The earthquake started only about six miles down, which is relatively shallow for a major earthquake. That made the shaking on the surface even more intense. There have been also more than a dozen aftershocks at magnitude five or higher, which is common after a large quake. Those aftershocks are likely to continue for days.
AMOS: One of the concerns right now is, there's a lot of structures that were badly damaged in the main shock, and they're now being exposed to these late aftershocks, some of which are quite significant.
HARRIS: Abers says geology is not the only reason this quake caused so much damage.
AMOS: The problem is, this is a fault - like the San Andreas Fault - that is on land and travels very close to major population centers. And this particular one goes very close to Port-au- Prince, where there is a tremendous amount of population density.
HARRIS: One consequence of that dense population is that people build even on the steep hillsides, and those hillsides are highly vulnerable during an earthquake. Landslides are common. Another big problem is that many buildings in Haiti are not built to modern standards. Brick and cinderblock buildings may not be adequately reinforced with steel bar, so they are not built to take the kind of shaking that this quake delivered.
Richard Harris, NPR News.
INSKEEP: And just one image from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, gives us an idea of the kind of devastation many residents face. It's one of many images we could choose. As a reporter watched yesterday, a teenage girl stood atop a car, watching the collapsed remains of an apartment building where several men were pulling on a foot sticking from the rubble.
You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. After the attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day, President Obama is promising big changes.
President BARACK OBAMA: More baggage screening, more passenger screening, and more advanced explosive detection capabilities, including those that can improve ability to detect the kind of explosive used on Christmas.
INSKEEP: The President wants to equip airports with hundreds of full body scanners that look for bombs and weapons. These scanners use X-rays, although the devices are not like the X-ray machines you think you know. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on the advantages and disadvantages of the new equipment.
JON HAMILTON: Medical X-rays are powerful enough to pass all the way through your body. Steven Smith, an electrical engineer, says the airport machines rely on a much weaker beam.
Mr. STEVEN SMITH (Spectrum San Diego): The X-rays you're using typically penetrate through your clothing and about an eighth to a quarter of an inch into your body, where they ricochet or backscatter back in the same direction they came from.
HAMILTON: To a sort of camera that captures a digital image. Smith designed one of the first of these so-called backscatter scanners 20 years ago. These days, he runs Spectrum San Diego, an electronic imaging company.
Smith says backscatter X-rays are safe because they require only an insignificant amount of radiation. But he says the images they produce can look a lot like a nude photograph.
Mr. SMITH: It shows everything under your clothing. And if you had something within a few millimeters of your skin surface, it would show that also.
HAMILTON: The government plans to use software that makes the images less graphic.
Prisons have been using the backscatter technology for many years to find knives, guns and contraband, even though the machines cost more than $150,000 apiece. More recently, the U.S. military has deployed the scanners in Iraq to protect bases there from terrorists.
Mr. SMITH: In general, body scanners are able to give you the same degree of detection capability as frisking someone would. But it is far less invasive than actually frisking someone.
HAMILTON: Smith, who is a former police officer, says he doesn't want to talk about what the scanners might not find. He says that could help terrorists.
Other experts, though, say backscatter scanners would probably miss a weapon or explosive concealed in a body cavity. And that apparent weakness has provided an opportunity for a company in Indiana called Nesch LLC. It's developing another low-dose X-ray device that can find contraband where other scanners can't. This machine is called DEXI. Ivan Nesch is the company's CEO.
Mr. IVAN NESCH (Nesch LLC): To my knowledge it's the only one that very reliably can detect the presence of explosives or illegal substances that are hidden inside of a human body.
HAMILTON: So can any of this X-ray tech really make air travel safer?
Mr. BRUCE SCHNEIER (Security Consultant): Of course not. It's sort of magical thinking.
HAMILTON: Bruce Schneier is a security consultant who sees a couple of big problems with the government strategy. First, he says, every technology has its limits. And he's not reassured by the government's new scanner.
Mr. SCHNEIER: It doesn't detect low-density explosives. It doesn't detect explosives that are thin. You know, it's really very limited as to what it detects. It might or might not have detected the underwear bomber. We don't actually know.
HAMILTON: Schneier says another problem is that even hundreds of scanners won't be enough to protect every airport.
Mr. SCHNEIER: Do you remember the 9/11 terrorists didn't go through security in Boston. They went through security in places like Maine, because once you're through security anywhere in the system, you're never screened again. So unless these machines are in every airport in the country, all we're doing is making the terrorists take another flight before they launch their attack.
HAMILTON: Schneier says the government's real problem isn't a lack of technology. It's a strategy that reacts to what has already happened, not what might happen next time.
Mr. SCHNEIER: Airports are the last line of defense and they're not a very good one. And reinforcing that line of defense really has very minimal return for security.
HAMILTON: He says taxpayers would get more for their money if the government invested less in hardware and more in investigations of potential terrorists and better intelligence.
Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
We have a little news this morning from the world of precious stones. The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the Zale Corporation, the jewelry retailer, has let go three of its top executives. This move comes after a poor performance by the company over the holidays.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
The chief financial officer, Matt Appel, isn't blaming the economy. He's quoted as saying it's clear somebody was selling jewelry this Christmas. It just wasn't us. The rival Signet Jewelers released figures yesterday showing it did far outshine Zale over the holidays.
INSKEEP: Now, the word bling does not begin to describe the dazzle on display right now at San Francisco's Legion of Honor Museum. The exhibition is called Cartier in America and it has precious pieces the French jeweler made over the years for this country's rich and famous. Here's NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg.
(Soundbite of music, "Puttin On the Ritz")
Mr. FRED ASTAIRE (Singer): (Singing) Come, let's mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks or umbrellas in their mitts. Puttin' on the Ritz.
SUSAN STAMBERG: During the Great Depression, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gave adoring moviegoers a look at the deluxe.
(Soundbite of music, "Puttin On the Ritz")
Mr. ASTAIRE: Dressed up like a million dollar trooper trying hard to look like Gary Cooper. Super duper...
STAMBERG: These dreary economic days, crowds are flocking to the Cartier show in San Francisco. In tough economic times, people need fantasy, even if they can't pronounce it.
STAMBERG: Did you say broach(ph) or brooch(ph)?
Mr. MARTIN CHAPMAN (Curator): A broach(ph).
STAMBERG: Potato, potato, tomato, tomato - curator Martin Chapman is looking at a potato-sized pin that belonged to Marjorie Merriweather Post, the Post cereal heiress, you know, Post Grapenuts, Post Toasties.
At Hillwood, her estate in Washington, D.C., there's a portrait of her wearing this brooch, an eight-inch-long cascade of diamond and green glitter.
Mr. CHAPMAN: And some people said she must have had a shoulder strap made of iron to hold this up because it's an enormous object made of seven carved Indian emeralds.
STAMBERG: A talented shopper, Majorie Merriweather Post was one of dozens of privileged Americans with big bank accounts and royal tastes who carried out an age-old custom of power adornment.
Mr. CHAPMAN: There is an ancient tradition in Europe that all the rulers - the princes of Europe - went into battle wearing all their best jewelry to act as a flag for their troops, but also as a way to buy themselves out of difficulties should they fall into enemy hands.
STAMBERG: Cartier made its reputation in the 1890s, so ancient princes went elsewhere for their battle gear. But gilded age Americans - Vanderbilts, Morgans, Astors, Goulds - got lots of their gilding from the French jeweler. In a 1909 photo, Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt sports a tiara, necklace, bracelet.
Mr. CHAPMAN: But the real concentration is at the bosom, where she has a very large breast ornament which is made of fringed diamonds ending in tassels, and in the middle is a very large diamond rose, which she bought from Cartier in 1904.
STAMBERG: A few years earlier, for his coronation, Queen Victoria's luxury-loving son Edward had named Cartier his royal jeweler. Some of the tiaras fashioned for Edward the 7th's Coronation are in the San Francisco show: diamonds, platinum - nice.
In that same period, the jewelry Cartier made for Americans was often more elaborate, blingier, than what was made for British and European royals. As time went by, American tastes streamlined some.
Al Jolson, Grace Kelly, her engagement ring seen here for the first time, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand, were all clients. So was an American divorcee who notoriously married into royalty.
Unidentified Woman #1: Exquisite.
Unidentified Woman #2: Absolutely fabulous.
Unidentified Woman #1: (Unintelligible) in real life. I've seen many pictures of it, but never in real life.
Unidentified Woman #2: Yes, it's unbelievable.
STAMBERG: The museum-goers are admiring a pin made for Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. The Duke brought in a necklace and four gemstone bracelets and asked Cartier to take them all apart and reconfigure them.
Mr. CHAPMAN: There is an important sense of recycling at that point. And with those pieces, Cartier came up with this extraordinary fantasy object: a clip brooch, as it's called, in the form of a flamingo, with its plumage bristling with rubies and sapphires and emeralds � not naturalistic coloring at all.
STAMBERG: It's got to be three inches tall and the body - the neck, the beginning of the back, and the legs - the skinny little legs are diamonds. But as you say, the rest are not.
Mr. CHAPMAN: Yes, absolutely.
STAMBERG: The pin was made in Paris in May 1940 � a month before the German invasion. The Windsors fled France and took the flamingo with them.
The British branch of the jewelry store got involved politically during World War II.
Mr. CHAPMAN: Cartier London was the center of the free French. They gave the upper floors to General de Gaulle. So Cartier was very patriotic during the war.
STAMBERG: The Paris store remained open throughout the war and kept producing objects, despite drastic shortages of luxury materials and money. They fashioned a golden cage, which enclosed a tiny bird.
Mr. CHAPMAN: It's made out of a very small amount of gold with coral, lapis wings and a diamond-set head.
STAMBERG: The pin was a subversive message from Cartier in protest against the Nazi occupation. In 1947, the jeweler made another bird and cage � but in this case the golden cage - the doors are open, yes?
Mr. CHAPMAN: Yes.
STAMBERG: And what you see is the bird emerging from it.
Mr. CHAMPMAN: Yes. Yes, that's the idea is - the joy of France emerging from the occupation of the Nazis.
(Soundbite of French national anthem)
STAMBERG: Bejeweled and costly stories of trials and triumphs, the exhibition Cartier and America is on view at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco until the middle of April.
I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.
(Soundbite of French national anthem)
INSKEEP: You can get a look at our jewelry display for nothing at npr.org -Elizabeth Taylor wearing a Cartier necklace and other spectacular photographs and images.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
This we're, looking at how companies try to make their workplace more diverse. Today, we'll hear what happens when an industry doesn't try hard enough. And that's the claim some people make about the advertising business. Gone are the days of the three-martini lunches and chain smoking in the office, as shown on the TV series "Mad Men." Critics say Madison Avenue is still decades behind the rest of corporate America when it comes to the issue of race.
From member station WNYC, Lisa Chow reports.
LISA CHOW: At 43, John Osborn is at the top of his game. When he was a rookie at the big ad agency BBDO, Osborn worked on a memorable TV ad for Pepsi, featuring Ray Charles.
(Soundbite of Pepsi TV commercial)
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. RAY CHARLES (Musician): Taste it. It's right.
Unidentified Group: (Singing) Diet Pepsi, uh-huh. Uh-huh.
CHOW: That was in 1991. Osborn rose quickly through the ranks, and now runs BBDO New York.
Mr. JOHN OSBORN (President, BBDO New York): A lot of my career has been, frankly, luck and being at the right place at the right time.
CHOW: That's a common refrain from people have achieved success, but critics of Madison Avenue say Osborn has an advantage that has nothing to do with luck, timing or talent: He's white. And so are almost all executives at the country's top ad firms. And Cyrus Mehri says that's a problem. He's an employment lawyer whose specialty is workplace discrimination.
Mr. CYRUS MEHRI (Employment Lawyer): It's kind of a freeze frame. It's kind of like if an anthropologist wanted to come back and see, well, what was discrimination like in 1970, you've got it right here in the advertising industry.
CHOW: In the past, Mehri has sued Coca-Cola and Texaco on racial discrimination charges, won huge settlements from each, and forced the companies to change the way they hire and promote employees. He's turning his attention to Madison Avenue and the lack of African-Americans in top management positions.
And Mehri isn't the first to look for discrimination there. In 2006, New York City's Human Rights Commission investigated BBDO and several other ad firms and found that blacks made up two-and-a-half percent of their managers. And in the core areas of creating the ads and managing the accounts, the number of blacks was even smaller.
Mr. MEHRI: I think they just haven't had the leadership from the top yet. And so you need to have a CEO who believes in the case for diversity as a business necessity and a fairness necessity, and who will bring about accountability measures to bring about change.
CHOW: Now, just because there are a lot of white executives in advertising doesn't mean lawyer Cyrus Mehri has a case. But some of those white executives do acknowledge the industry has been a closed one for a long time.
John Seifert is the CEO of North America at the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather.
Mr. JOHN SEIFERT (CEO, North America, Ogilvy & Mather): We go to certain universities. We hire people with certain skills. We develop and promote in a way that was not necessarily keeping up with the pace of new requirements. And so, we have legacies to deal with.
CHOW: But today, Seifert says more than half of the college grads accepted into Ogilvy & Mather's one-year associates program are minorities. And at BBDO, John Osborn says more than one-third of the managers hired last year were minorities. But neither agency would say how many blacks or minorities work in the critical creative and account management departments. CEO John Osborn says still, they're making progress.
Mr. OSBORN: Diversity at BBDO, safe to say, is not only nice to do. It is absolutely the right thing to do, and it's our top priority going forward. It's really celebrating the differences that ultimately unite us all.
Mr. SANFORD MOORE (Activist): They give all these platitudes. They'll get up and do mea culpas. You have all of these pious remarks.
CHOW: Sanford Moore is a long time critic of the industry. He worked at BBDO in the 1960s, and says the industry has been fighting these issues for decades. He has a folder of old newspaper articles.
Mr. MOORE: Here is a headline for April 26th, 1968, "Advertising: A Plea To Hire More Negroes," you know. It's called the great moral issue by Ogilvy & Mather chairman. Forty years ago, okay. And what it boils down to is in 40 years, they have not seen fit to hire black people.
CHOW: Sanford Moore, who's black, says he left BBDO on his own volition and his claims don't add up to a lawsuit. For that to happen, lawyers would have to find African-Americans who were frozen out of jobs, and they would have to show that the advertising industry should have more black employees based on the available applicant pool.
Mark Dichter defends corporations against discrimination suits.
Mr. MARK DICHTER (Attorney): There are disparities that suggest there's a need for further investigation. But it's a long way from that to proving that there was actual discrimination that the companies could be ordered by a court to make changes.
CHOW: Lawsuit or no lawsuit, the man who's interested in bringing a class action case against Madison Avenue, Cyrus Mehri, says there's a lot at stake here.
Mr. MEHRI: This industry is one of the industries that shapes America's hearts and minds more than any other. I mean, think about what children see, how many ads are on an hour of TV that they see.
CHOW: Mehri says one way to change the industry is to require managers to interview at least one minority candidate for every job posted.
Mehri persuaded the National Football League to adopt a similar rule eight years ago called the Rooney Rule. Yes, the industries are different, but Mehri says the results have been gratifying: five of the last six Super Bowl teams have had either a black head coach or a black general manager.
For NPR News, I'm Lisa Chow in New York.
AMOS: Tomorrow, coaching for minorities as they move up the corporate ladder.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
In such a poor country, Haiti's buildings were simply not built to withstand a powerful earthquake. NPR's Christopher Joyce talked to Haiti's only earthquake engineer.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE: When he was studying engineering in Haiti, Pierre Fouche's professors told him that at least one building there would survive an earthquake: the National Palace. The palace now lies in ruins.
Fouche is getting his doctorate in earthquake engineering at the University of Buffalo. He says as far as he knows, he's Haiti's only earthquake engineer. Fouche says his family has survived, but he's saddened by the fact that so many that didn't were killed because buildings in Haiti are so poorly constructed.
Mr. PIERRE FOUCHE (Earthquake Engineer): Many of the people, they are doing whatever that they want. They can build whatever that they want. One of the biggest problems, too, is that in the country, they do not even - we do not even have, like, a national building code, which is very sad.
JOYCE: Fouche says people with money can build reinforced concrete buildings with steel rods to strengthen walls and floors. But he says even these may not meet engineering standards to support a load vertically, and definitely cannot handle the side-to-side lateral forces of an earthquake.
Mr. FOUCHE: It's like earthquake, which is much more of a type of lateral loading, for lateral loading you need to have, like, special construction, but in many cases they are not designed, not even for, like, current daily loading.
JOYCE: But many people in Haiti live and work in unreinforced buildings -brick, block or concrete. He says some of these buildings use stacked bricks instead of solid, vertical columns to support ceilings.
Earthquakes put enormous stress on rigid buildings. Andre Filiatrault, who directs the earthquake engineering center at the University of Buffalo, explains what happens to a masonry or concrete wall that's perpendicular to the motion of the quake.
Professor ANDRE FILIATRAULT (Director, Earthquake Engineering, University of Buffalo): The wall just kind of explodes. Imagine if I'd hit a wall with my fist, I'm going to create a hole there. And imagine, you know, the shaking in that direction causing a bigger hole so the wall collapse, and eventually the slab falls down.
JOYCE: The slab being the wall or ceiling.
Filiatrault says televised images of Port-au-Prince suggested this kind of collapse was widespread.
Prof. FILIATRAULT: The video showed a complete dust over the entire city, and apparently that dust lasted quite a while - 10, 15 minutes or so. And this seems to indicate these types of buildings, concrete buildings, pancaking, creating a lot of dust.
JOYCE: Several big aftershocks followed the earthquake. Pierre Fouche says that makes the surviving buildings very dangerous.
Mr. FOUCHE: Once you have the aftershock, it's like you are shaking a building that is already damaged, so this is quite likely going to bring those buildings down.
JOYCE: There's another threat to buildings and people in Haiti, as well: quake-induced landslides. Haiti has very few trees left. It's one of the most deforested nations in the hemisphere.
Mark Ashton is a professor of ecology at the Yale School of Forestry who's studied the Caribbean. He says that without woody plants, water doesn't soak deeply into the soil. That causes erosion and unstable slopes.
Professor MARK ASHTON (Ecology, Yale School of Forestry): You can get rain-soaked soil, very fragile, without any rooting system, and you get very sudden movements - landslides.
JOYCE: Ashton says Haiti is a country with lots of steep slopes that are vulnerable to landslides. Besides the threat to people below, they could cover roads and slow down rescue and relief efforts.
Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
AMOS: In normal times, people in Haiti keep in close touch with many relatives in the United States.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
On Tuesday afternoon, Haitian-American Phillip Brutus was in Miami and text messaging with his wife at home.
Mr. PHILLIP BRUTUS: I got a text that she started to send me yesterday about maybe 5:30, but the text stopped in the middle. So, she said, hi, Phil. And then that was it.
INSKEEP: That was the moment the earthquake hit. Yesterday, Mr. Brutus was one of those who gathered and waited at the Notre-Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church in Miami.
AMOS: More people waited for word outside the Haitian consulate in New York City. Among them, Eve Filius(ph).
Mr. EVE FILIUS: I'm waiting for my uncle, who resides in Port-au-Prince, the capital. He works at the airport. He has eight children that live there. We haven't heard a word from that, and not one soul there.
AMOS: Many of the families have little to go on beyond the news of vast destruction, and the hope that aid will arrive soon for the millions who need it.
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AMOS: This is NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
As we've been reporting this morning, emergency food, medical supplies and personnel are being rushed to Haiti from around the world. Relief organizations say they're struggling to find the best way to get help to those who need it most. NPR's Pam Fessler reports on those challenges.
PAM FESSLER: The humanitarian group AmeriCares started moving out almost 10 tons of medical supplies from its warehouses in Stamford, Connecticut and Amsterdam shortly after the earthquake hit. The group's president, Curt Welling, said yesterday they were still trying to figure out the best way to get those supplies into Haiti, but he had no doubt they were urgently needed.
Mr. CURT WELLING (AmeriCares): So the nature of our response is to get that kind of thing there as quickly as possible, when it really does save lives and prolong lives and then to get people on the ground so we can begin to make an informed decision about where the gaps are and where the most urgent needs are.
FESSLER: And that's the big challenge for relief groups, which are hampered by a lack of information from within Haiti. While food, water, shelter and medical supplies are clearly in need, logistics are a challenge. Tracy Reines, director of international disaster response for the American Red Cross, says her group sent a helicopter over the damaged country yesterday to figure out which roads were passable. They're trying to bring in emergency response teams and supplies from the Dominican Republic.
Ms. TRACY REINES (American Red Cross): The initial needs right now are certainly search and rescue and health and hospitals. So that's the first piece going in. The second piece is going to be working with people who are injured and unfortunately who have lost their lives.
FESSLER: But exactly what comes next, she says, will be determined by what Red Cross personnel find when they get there.
Ms. REINES: We have to balance the instincts to put people on planes and go in to help with really targeting what is going to be most effective and efficient.
FESSLER: And that could take a few days. Emergency relief experts say after a big disaster, everyone wants to help immediately. But sometimes that means duplicating efforts, while missing some of those who are most in need.
In this case, the relief effort has been further complicated by the fact that aid groups already in Haiti � including the United Nations � were directly affected by the earthquake, suffering losses in personnel and facilities. Kip Scheidler, who handles global disaster response for Habitat for Humanity, says the needs will also change day to day.
Mr. KIP SCHEIDLER (Habitat for Humanity): Within a very short amount of time, a matter of days, the families will be returning to the site of their home, and they'll begin clean up. Our response more than likely will include helping those families in the clean up of their sites and the reconstruction of their homes.
FESSLER: Habitat has sent in a team of experts to try to link up with the group's 50 staffers already in the country. His group, like other nonprofits, say if people want to help the relief effort, they should send money. Many organizations already have links on their Web sites for Haitian relief. Even the U.S. State Department is encouraging people to contribute $10 to the Red Cross by sending a text message. But Bennett Weiner of the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance warns donors to be careful.
Mr. BENNETT WEINER (Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance): Because unfortunately there are some in the wake of such tragedies that will seek to take advantage of the emotion of the moment and perhaps send out questionable or fraudulent appeals.
FESSLER: He advises giving only to well-known relief groups and then to give directly, avoiding potential online scams. Relief agencies also say, while food and clothing drives might be well-intentioned, they're seldom the best way to help.
Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
We're going to take a journey this morning across the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. It's one of the largest cities in the Caribbean, and it was struck this week by an earthquake.
AMOS: Nobody knows the number of dead or wounded, and in any case, a mere number would tell you less than the devastation that stretches for miles.
INSKEEP: NPR's Carrie Kahn has arrived in Haiti. She's on the line. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE KAHN: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: How did you arrive in Port-au-Prince?
KAHN: I jumped on a private plane that was donated to a group called Global Institute. They are a group of doctors that work at the University of Miami, and they are trauma doctors. And about six of them came down and took a couple of reporters on the plane. And we landed in the airport and, Steve, it was incredible. These doctors were rushed to an ad-hoc triage center that was set up at the U.N. complex there at the airport. And they were working within five minutes of having their feet on the ground, and they were - I didn't see them stop the whole evening. They were working so hard. And there were hundreds of people, and they were in terrible, terrible shape.
INSKEEP: How were the people getting to the airport?
KAHN: It was incredible. I saw one man being wheeled there in a wheelbarrow. People told me that these were the lucky ones. A lot of the people were foreign nationals. Some of them were U.N. employees. But a lot of them, I came to learn, were at the Hotel Montana, which was a popular hotel in Port-au-Prince, and it was a seven-story hotel that has collapsed, and these were the survivors there. They were just people working at the hotel, staying at the hotel, and they had incredible stories.
One man told me he was trapped in the rubble for 16 hours and finally got out. And most of the people at the center had broken limbs, they had spinal injuries, they had internal bleeding. And I watched the doctors just work on them for hours. And late at night, by the time I left at about 10:00 o'clock last night, they had lost four people to minor injuries that they said that if they were in Miami would have been easily, easily cured.
INSKEEP: We're talking with NPR's Carrie Kahn. She's in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, which suffered an earthquake this week. And Carrie, what of the city have you been able to see since arriving yesterday?
KAHN: I left the airport at about 10:30 last night, and the city was completely dark. And it was difficult to see, but as you came to these neighborhoods, it reminded me of some of the firestorms that I covered in California where you'd see a house that was perfectly fine and the next one, right next door was leveled to the ground. You could just tell which buildings were able to keep standing were the ones that had better construction, and there was no better example of that as we passed a huge U.S. embassy compound, just mighty cement and steel, and it was perfectly fine and well lit, yet across the street, crumpled to the ground was a huge department store.
And as we came up into the hills of Port-au-Prince, into some of these neighborhoods, there were massive amount of people on the move. Just out of nowhere, they were just trying to find shelter. And you could see more and more damage, just huge buildings falling over on cars, falling over on other buildings. And people were sleeping in the streets. It was just a horrifying sight.
INSKEEP: I suppose even at that point, there must still have been people trying to dig survivors or possible survivors out of the rubble.
KAHN: They still are. We were up in the hills, here. It was about 11:00 o'clock at night and we saw people carrying a woman, out of what was - I was told it was one of the collapsed hospitals on a board. And so people are gathering in these - these horrible scenes of trying to dig for people. I heard about it down at the hospital, the medical center down at the airport, people were just telling it - hearing people crying and screaming, I'm still alive. I'm still alive. Help me. And just - people were helpless.
INSKEEP: And just to be clear, Carrie Kahn, it sounds like in your trip across much of the city, it was very clear to you that this damage is extremely widespread. It is a vast amount of Port-au-Prince that is damaged or destroyed here.
KAHN: I've heard reports that as many as three million people are affected, hundreds and thousands of homes. It is widespread, everywhere you go. I'm at a hotel here. This hotel has been damaged itself, and the roof has collapsed and two of the stories are pancaked. It's sort of is a V-shape in the middle of the hotel. It's really a nightmare here. Not many of the rooms are occupied, but people are laying body-to-body on the ground of this once beautiful hotel.
And they're on the road all the way up to the hotel, and those that can make it in the compound are everywhere, mostly around the pool. And they've grabbed pillows, cushions, table-cloths, whatever they can to find some sort of makeshift bed. And about 2:00 o'clock this morning, there was a huge aftershock, just a big jolt, and everybody was up and awake. And you could probably hear babies crying and people still moaning from - this is the second night that people have been out in the elements with injuries unattended to. It's definitely a terrible, terrible situation here.
INSKEEP: NPR's Carrie Kahn is in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Carrie, thanks very much.
KAHN: Thank you, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Well, China's not going to give up right away on Internet censorship. As we've been telling you this week, the giant search engine company Google says it may leave China if it has to keep censoring its service there. The Chinese answer is that Google should do as it's told and go along with government controls. NPR's Louisa Lim reports from Shanghai on a test of wills.
LOUISA LIM: Two years ago, civil rights lawyer Teng Biao found his Gmail account had been hacked into and his email addressed used to send viruses to contacts. And the electronic interference didn't stop there. He's convinced the Chinese authorities are involved. He describes what happened when he typed up a plan to investigate labor camps and detention centers in China.
Mr. TENG BIAO (Civil Rights Lawyer): (Through Translator) I saved this research plan in my mailbox and I didn't tell anyone about it. But when the police came to talk to me, they mentioned this plan. This shows they know clearly what's in my mailbox, even draft documents. I asked them how they knew, and they said they had all types of methods.
LIM: Such interference is the reason behind Google's threats to leave China. If it does so, it will be sacrificing any potential profits in the world's largest and fastest growing Internet market. China has an estimated 360 million Internet users. That creates a search engine market worth $1 billion last year. Google, in second place, enjoys around 36 percent market share behind market leader, the Chinese search engine Baidu. But the operating environment for Western businesses has been changing.
Mr. DUNCAN CLARK (Chairman, BDA China): There has certainly been a hardening of the climate in terms of foreign businesses in China over the last six to 12 months.
LIM: Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA telecoms consultancy in Beijing. He says multinationals are battling a Chinese attempt to enforce domestic encryption technology on their operations.
Mr. DUNCAN: There has been a sort of queasy feeling developing that protecting their own intellectual property or protecting their customer's IP has been called into question, as well as a raft of other measures, such as Chinese government agencies seeking to buy China - limiting the sales of Western companies in China. China is awash with cash. They don't necessarily need multinationals, perhaps, as much as they used to.
LIM: But some local Internet users certainly still feel they need Google. For a second day, they presented flowers at Google's office here in Shanghai.
Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)
LIM: So this is a very high-tech type of action. There's a couple of people here who've all got mobile phones, and they're tweeting, they're taking pictures of everything. And now security has arrived, and they're escorting us out of the building.
Some like Sun Lee(ph) are unhappy about the prospect of Google's departure.
Mr. SUN LEE: (Through Translator) If they really cared about information freedom, they'd stay in China and resist the Chinese government. The biggest beneficiary of Google's move is the Chinese government. And the biggest victims will be us netizens.
LIM: It's difficult to gage how widely that sentiment is shared. One local paper, The Global Times, ran on online poll asking if Google should be allowed to run an unfiltered search engine. At first, only 30 percent of respondents said yes. Then the number of those calling for an uncensored search engine suddenly soared dramatically. The paper stopped the poll and blamed the result on interference.
Louisa Lim, NPR News, Shanghai.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
We're going to take another look at the Internet now and the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan. Long before that attack, the bomber, Humam al-Balawi, was an active and prominent voice on extremist Islamist Web sites.
Jarret Brachman, who teaches at North Dakota State University, closely monitors many of those Web sites. He'd been following the radical postings of al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor, who wrote under an assumed name. Brachman says that both al-Balawi and the Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day are now regarded as heroes on those Web sites. Good morning.
Professor JARRET BRACHMAN (North Dakota State University): Good morning.
AMOS: You have posted some of this new material on your own Web site, and show us some of those postings that you've found about these two men. Just describe some of the things that we're seeing as we're looking at the web here.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Sure. Well, Abu Dujana al-Khorasani - this is the Jordanian triple agent, as he's become known. He's very quickly become a hero on the al-Qaida Web forums. And so people have been making their own photoshopped posters and celebratory banners.
AMOS: These are like sports posters.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Yeah. They show this Abu Dujana in positions, he's, you know, the martyr in heaven. He's in paradise. Other times, they show it superimposed with the logo of the CIA, you know, with bullet holes in it to show that, you know, he committed an operation that was very successful in their eyes.
AMOS: I'm looking at your Web site, and I'm seeing a headline that says more on A/Q - al-Qaida - finding success among the failures.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Right. So there's - you know, within the Western community, we look at the Nigerians' attempt to blow up the plane as a failure. He didn't follow through with the operation. For them, the fact that he was able to penetrate security, that he got to the point in which he did is almost just as good.
They have a fundamentally different understanding of what success is. For them, as long as they're in the fight, they've succeeded. As long as they're generating media attention, as long as this dominates our minds, they're winning. They don't have to actually execute the attack.
AMOS: Does the Internet bring these people together? Does it give a way for an angry young person in one country to communicate with people to feel like he's part of a bigger community?
Prof. BRACHMAN: Yeah. Many of these individuals who use the al-Qaida forums are desperately searching for meaning and identity and social relationships. They feel ostracized. They feel distanced, usually, from their family and from their religion. And so they're searching for something bigger than themselves.
You saw this with the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, in his postings there was two things reflected: One is that he was desperately lonely. He was living away from his parents. He couldn't find people who were similarly pious as him. But the other thing was that he was so morally righteous. Despite the fact that he had no idea who he was, he felt that he was in a moral position to lecture people on how they should be. And I think that's a really telling indicator of the kinds of people who are drawn to this movement.
AMOS: But that's a very important question. You read these Web sites a lot and study them. Is it clear to you? What is it that makes somebody walk that extra step from being angry, from posting, from having very strong opinions to saying all right, now I must do something?
Prof. BRACHMAN: Right. And that's the question. I think it's the human touch. I don't think the Internet's a sole sufficient reason for somebody to go out and blow themselves up. I think it certainly gets you pretty far down that road, but at some point, you need an intervention to come take you, kick you in the butt and push you into action.
AMOS: How do you counter this kind of propaganda on the Web?
Prof. BRACHMAN: Well, you know, there's a big debate about this. Some people advocate pulling down the Web sites altogether. At the same time, it's our only window into the mindset of people who believe in this, and so there's a lot of both intelligence and just, you know, sense of what's in the head of al-Qaida supporters that you can gain from these Web sites. The best expert on al-Qaida is al-Qaida. I mean, they make it easy for us to get to know them. All we have to do is take a little time and read what they're talking about.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
Prof. BRACHMAN: Thank you.
AMOS: Jarret Brachman is the author of "Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice." He teaches at North Dakota State University.
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AMOS: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Even as the economy shows signs of recovery, the country's leading banks remain a target of anger. Several of the nation's top bankers were called to Capitol Hill yesterday. They faced questions from the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which is looking into causes of the economic meltdown. NPR's John Ydstie has our report.
JOHN YDSTIE: Phil Angelides, chairman of the commission, opened the hearing with the top executives of four of the nation's biggest banks sitting before him at the witness table.
Mr. PHIL ANGELIDES (Chairman, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission): People are angry. They have a right to be. The fact is that Wall Street is enjoying record profits and bonuses in the wake of receiving trillions of dollars in government assistance, while so many families are struggling to stay afloat.
YDSTIE: Angelides said the commission, which Congress has charged with documenting the causes of the financial crisis, will follow the facts where they lead, and if necessary, refer wrongdoing to the proper authorities.
The bankers representing Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America didn't apologize directly for the role their institutions might have played in the financial debacle. But they all said mistakes were made, including Goldman's Lloyd Blankfein, who said in the midst of the bubble, banks ignored the escalating risks.
Mr. LLOYD BLANKFEIN (CEO, Goldman Sachs): We all rationalize, gosh, the world is getting wealthier, technology has done things. Things are more efficient. These businesses are going to do well. And I think we talked ourselves into a place of complacency, which, of course, after these events, will not happen again in my lifetime, as far as I'm concerned.
YDSTIE: The bankers said they're now dedicating more staff and resources to understanding and controlling risk. Chairman Angelides suggested to John Mack, head of Morgan Stanley, that the problem might be that risk managers aren't paid enough to attract the most talented people.
Mr. ANGELIDES: What's the pay structure and amounts for risk managers versus traders?
Mr. JOHN MACK (Chief executive officer, Morgan Stanley): Well, I would say that we've been very clear, especially in '08 when we changed our head risk manager, who many years ago was a trader, that he can make the same kind of money that our best trader can make. That's the change.
Mr. ANGELIDES: Or - all right. All right. Thank you very much.
YDSTIE: But Angelides suggested the banks' problems went beyond ignoring risk. He chided Blankfein for Goldman's sale of mortgage-backed securities to investors, while at the same time the bank was making bets against the same securities.
Mr. ANGELIDES: I'm just going to be blunt with you. It sounds to me a little bit like selling a car with faulty brakes and then buying an insurance policy on the buyer of those cars. It just - it doesn't seem to me that that's a practice that inspires confidence.
YDSTIE: Blankfein argued Goldman was only selling to very sophisticated investors who understood the risks they were taking.
The commission also heard from a second panel of Wall Street experts, who suggested regulators ignored warning signs, as well as the banks. Kyle Bass of Hayman Financial Advisors said he took concerns about mortgage-backed securities to the Federal Reserve. He told them his analysis showed the banks that owned them would be in trouble, even if home prices fell only a little.
Mr. KYLE BASS (Hayman Financial Advisors): Their answer was home prices always track income growth and jobs growth. And they showed me income growth on one chart and jobs growth on another and said we don't see what you're talking about, because incomes are still growing and jobs are still growing. And I said, well, you obviously don't realize where the dog and where the tail is.
YDSTIE: Ultimately, home prices fell sharply, financial chaos ensued and jobs and incomes declined. The commission hears from regulators today.
John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. We're going to spend much of the next few days learning about the effort to get relief to a Caribbean Island struck by an earthquake this week. A massive effort is cranking up to get supplies and medical facilities and other things to Haiti. American ships, helicopters, transport planes and Marine units will soon converge.
Relief agencies on the ground say this can't come too soon. The Red Cross has already run out of medical supplies and the chief of the organization there predicts the misery is likely to get worse. NPR's Richard Knox reports.
RICHARD KNOX: As soon as the shaking stopped, Matthew Marek and his colleagues at the Red Cross in Port-au-Prince crawled out from under their desks and went to work.
Mr. MATTHEW MAREK: We set up a triage clinic very quickly and tried to administer some type of first aid for those that we could, but it was very limited. We're talking pressure, you know, on lacerations and clean some of the wounds.
KNOX: But they couldn't keep up. Thousands of people streamed into central Port-au-Prince from what was left of the shantytowns perched precariously on the hills above the city.
Mr. MAREK: Walking around neighboring areas, it was extremely intense and surreal to see all the Haitians gathered together under, you know, light sheets and bedding on the street. We did that up until the sun came up.
KNOX: Last night, Marek says, the mood of the city matched the ominous, dark rain clouds overhead.
Mr. MAREK: The emotions are all over the place. There is frustrations. There are tensions. People are shocked. It's everything you can imagine. I mean, this is an - it looks like a bomb has gone off in Port-au-Prince.
KNOX: Relief workers and public health experts fear even more misery in the days ahead.
Dr. DAN FITZGERALD (Cornell Weill Medical College): I think there's going to be a series of health aftershocks.
KNOX: That's Dr. Dan Fitzgerald of Cornell Weill Medical College. He knows Haiti Well. He says for the next few days many more will die from their untreated injuries.
Dr. FITZGERALD: That's sort of the first wave. The second wave will be a lack of clean water, housing and sanitation. So people are going to start suffering from diarrheal diseases, respiratory tract infections.
KNOX: The next phase comes when what little food there is runs out.
Dr. FITZGERALD: There's no food. Haiti's already one of the most food insecure countries in the world. So people are going to start starving over the next week.
KNOX: And he predicts increasing chaos.
Dr. FITZGERALD: When you have three million people who are traumatized, have no clean water, no housing, no food, unfortunately, security is going to become a big issue where people are going to be fighting to survive.
KNOX: There's an outpouring of international aid trying to head off these catastrophes. But the Red Cross's Matthew Marek says the survivors are in for some very harsh times.
Mr. MAREK: I don't think all of our good intentions is going to be able to relieve the effect that this tragedy has had.
KNOX: Marek says all the aid in the world won't be enough.
Richard Knox, NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
And now some good news about men. Scientists have confirmed that they are still evolving, or at least the male chromosome is. NPR's Jon Hamilton explains.
JON HAMILTON: The male or Y chromosome is what makes men men. A few years ago, scientists began wondering whether it was in trouble. When they compared it to the X chromosome, which is carried by both men and women, the Y chromosome didn't seem to measure up. David Page, who directs the Whitehead Institute at MIT, says the contrast was pretty stark.
Professor DAVID PAGE (Whitehead Institute, MIT): The X chromosome standing tall, robust with many hundreds of genes, the human Y chromosome just a hollow shell of its former glory carrying on the order of 70 or 80 genes.
HAMILTON: For hundreds of millions of years, the Y had evolved by getting rid of genes. And that type of evolution can't go on forever. So Page decided there was something he needed to know about the Y chromosome.
Prof. PAGE: Was it really simply a victim of an inevitable, faded demise, or had it developed some new tricks along the way?
HAMILTON: To find out, he and a team of researchers compared the Y chromosome of a person to that of a chimp. Page says it turned out that both Ys had been evolving really fast for the past six million years or so.
Prof. PAGE: It's as if the Y chromosome is a house that's constantly being reconstructed or remodeled.
HAMILTON: A house without too many rooms, but there's a lot going on - more, actually, than in chromosomes with many more genes. Page says that's possible, because the Y chromosome contains unusual stretches of DNA that work like Tinker Toys. They're easy to pull apart, flip around and reassemble for a new purpose.
Prof. PAGE: It shows quite a degree of inventiveness and creativity that maybe the rest of the genome could learn something from.
HAMILTON: Like how to make the most of the genes you've got. The study appears in the online edition of the journal Nature.
Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
The obesity epidemic in America appears to be at a plateau. Two studies out this week show that decades-long increases in the number of obese and overweight Americans has leveled off, except for one group. Boys age six to 19 are still getting bigger, especially the heaviest boys.
With us now to discuss what's happening is Dr. Anjali Jain, a Washington D.C. pediatrician, and an obesity researcher.
Good morning. Thanks for being with us.
Dr. ANJALI JAIN (Pediatrician, researcher): Thank you.
AMOS: What we're going to look at is a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and it seems to suggest that we are reaching a plateau, but not the end of the problem. Is it slowing?
Dr. JAIN: It's hard to say for sure because of the numbers make it difficult to assess long-term trends. But they are hopeful signs, yes.
AMOS: But the worrying part is boys between the age of six to 19, especially those who are already overweight...
Dr. JAIN: Mm-hmm.
AMOS: ...why are they bucking the trend?
Dr. JAIN: Actually, as the obesity epidemic has come on, part of what's happened is not only has everyone been getting a little bit heavier or fatter, if you want to say that, but the heaviest kids have been getting disproportionately fatter. What is different this time is that we're seeing the lack of a plateau in that group.
AMOS: And why that particular group? What is it about those boys six to 19?
Dr. JAIN: Well, we don't know exactly, and we don't know why. It could be that they just haven't reached that plateau yet that girls reached earlier. That's some of the thinking.
AMOS: And when you talk about this particular group...
Dr. JAIN: Yes.
AMOS: ...that appears to be at risk...
Dr. JAIN: Right.
AMOS: ...what are you talking about in terms of obesity, in terms of weight?
Dr. JAIN: Okay. So, if you take, let's say, a 12-year-old boy that's about five feet tall, an absolutely ideal weight for a boy that height at that age would around 91 pounds - so relatively skinny, if you think about it. A kid who was overweight would be more like in the 120 range. And so a kid that's at the 97th percentile - beyond obese, really - would weigh around 133 pounds.
AMOS: Are there long-term health risks for a six to 19-year-old who is already 40 pounds overweight at that age?
Dr. JAIN: Absolutely, there are. I mean, there cannot even be immediate risk. About half of kids who are obese will have one other complication, as in hypertension. Often, they have orthopedic problems, asthma, a lot of other complications. Most kids who are obese as children become obese adults. And once you get to those heaviest sizes, like above the 97th percentile, the risk of complication just goes up exponentially.
AMOS: When you see a study like this that singles out a particular group -you're a pediatrician, you see kids.
Dr. JAIN: Mm-hmm.
AMOS: And does that make you think, okay, I really now have to do something?
Dr. JAIN: I've been feeling that the alarm bells have been going off for quite some time. And luckily childhood obesity is getting a lot more attention and a lot more funding than it used to, because a lot of experts have predicted that children's life spans today are going to be shorter than that of their parents.
AMOS: That's a pretty shocking statement.
Dr. JAIN: That's what people have predicted, if it continues at the current rate.
AMOS: So now you have a boy at risk between the ages of six and 19. Would you say to a parent, you really do have to go talk to your pediatrician?
Dr. JAIN: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, talk to a pediatrician, talk to their parents, the family. I mean, really, the whole family lifestyle has to change. It never works to only have something that one child does and nobody else is doing.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
Dr. JAIN: Thank you.
AMOS: Dr. Anjali Jain, a Washington, D.C. pediatrician and an obesity researcher.
(Soundbite of music)
AMOS: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
NPR's business news starts with foreclosures still rising.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: Millions of Americans need no reminding of this story, because they continue to live in fear of losing their own homes. The company RealtyTrac, which follows foreclosures, said that last year a record 2.8 million properties received a foreclosure notice. The company says that record could be broken this year. It is predicting that more than three million properties could enter some stage of foreclosure in 2010.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
And our last word in business today involves the ad agency Young & Rubicam. One of its clients is Accenture, a business consulting firm that recently dumped Tiger Woods as its main marketing icon.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The Wall Street Journal reports on Accenture's new global ad campaign which is out this week. Instead of Tiger, it will feature some fish and a few frogs and an elephant on a surfboard to symbolize high-performing companies. And you may notice also that animals are less likely to get involved in scandals.
That's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
AMOS: And I'm Deborah Amos.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
Soon after an earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, Haiti, some survivors gathered for what amounted to an informal roll call. People stood on the basketball court of a private school and looked around.
AMOS: One of the survivors was teacher Sameena Mulla(ph).
Ms. SAMEENA MULLA (Teacher): We had all the kids on the basketball court, and as we started to see our family and all of the teachers, I think, you know, we started to feel a little bit better that we could all see each other and whatever was going to happen, we were going to be there together.
AMOS: That gathering served as a reminder that the earthquake was a beginning as well as an end. Countless people have died.
INSKEEP: Countless survivors will look for someway to get through the coming days. The school is run by Sameena Mulla's father-in-law, Rudien May(ph).
Mr. RUDIEN MAY: People are chanting in the streets, praying, you know, it's very difficult because they know that from time to time they can experience aftershocks.
AMOS: And amid those aftershocks Sameena Mulla says people at the school have been sleeping outside.
Ms. MULLA: We have these big gym mats, so we pulled them all out to the center of the basketball court and everyone kind of piles on top of them.
INSKEEP: Mulla says they've been able to find at least one family member belonging to each of the students.
Ms. MULLA: (Unintelligible) like the worst is behind us, but it's started to get very cold and a lots of rain clouds seems to be moving in, and it was just very eerie, so we're all trying to talk about the fact that we're scared, and just calm ourselves down.
DEBORAH AMOS, host
And these are the very people to whom the U.S. and other nations are trying to send aid.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The Pentagon is sending ships, aircraft and medical teams along with thousands of U.S. Marines and soldiers. But as NPR's Tom Bowman reports, it will take days to move all these people and all that equipment.
TOM BOWMAN: President Obama says his administration will move aggressively to help save lives in Haiti. The president spoke yesterday at the White House.
President BARACK OBAMA: Because in disasters such as this the first hours and days are absolutely critical to saving lives and avoiding even greater tragedy, I have directed my teams to be as forward-leaning as possible in getting the help on the ground and coordinating with our international partners as well.
BOWMAN: But the day after the earthquake struck, the Pentagon was still trying to get a sense of the situation. Reconnaissance planes were flying over the devastated landscape. Military assessment teams were on their way.
Here's General Douglas Fraser, the military commander for the relief effort speaking to reporters at the Pentagon.
General DOUGLAS FRASER (Commander, U.S. Southern Command): We don't have a clear assessment right now what the situation on the ground is, what the needs within Port-au-Prince are, how extensive the situation is.
BOWMAN: Fraser says he wasn't sure if Haitian officials are right that hundreds of thousands are dead; that's why military assessment teams are on the ground now. The Pentagon has dispatched an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson. It will carry helicopters and humanitarian aid, and the Navy is sending a hospital ship, the Comfort. It will sail from Baltimore toward Haiti with hundreds of doctors and nurses. Also ready, a Marine ship from North Carolina with as many as 2,000 Marines. None of those ships are expected to arrive for days. Fraser was asked at the Pentagon whether valuable time is being lost while the military assesses the situation.
Gen. FRASER: We've found that the assessments are critical to making sure we get the right equipment in there and make the recovery efforts and the life supporting efforts as efficient as possible.
BOWMAN: As for any immediate assistance, General Fraser said just three civilian rescue teams are on their way, trained to dig through rubble and pull out those trapped. One's from Virginia, another from California, the third is a federal team from Florida. One team arrived in Haiti yesterday, the others are expected to arrive today.
BOWMAN: Do you expect to send support - more rescue teams heading down there in the next 24 hours?
Gen. FRASER: We will support whatever the requirements are to move in there. So, again, I just don't have a - it's a fluid situation, I don't have a good specific answer for you.
BOWMAN: Whether more rescue teams are sent, Fraser says, is up to the State Department's Agency for International Development, which has taken the lead in the effort. General Fraser says the airport runway at the capital, Port au Prince, seems to be in good shape and Pentagon officials expect U.S. military cargo planes to start arriving today with humanitarian aid.
Tom Bowman, NPR News, the Pentagon.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
From Massachusetts, Melinda Miles has been fielding calls from Americans who want to volunteer in Haiti. She is the executive director of an NGO called Working Together For Haiti. Good morning.
Ms. MELINDA MILES (Executive Director, Working Together For Haiti): Good morning.
AMOS: What are you telling Americans who call up and say I just want to do something? I will go and clear debris or distribute supplies, whatever is needed. What do you tell them?
Ms. MILES: Well, we're telling people that's going to be absolutely necessary but don't try to go yet. Right now the Port-au-Prince airport is still closed down and people who are in Port-au-Prince are isolated in different parts of the city and unable to travel around. So we're just asking people to stay put for now and to find projects that can use them in Haiti before they get on a plane to go there.
AMOS: And is money better than hands on the ground?
Ms. MILES: At this moment I would say yes. There are some operations already on the ground in Haiti that are poised to use funds immediately, and that is going to be the first wave of response. However, there will be an opportunity for people to go and help Haiti. I don't think it's today. I think today's the day to send your funds and to connect with groups that can use your hands in the future.
AMOS: What are you concerns about getting this aid operation organized?
Ms. MILES: Some of the concerns that I have stem just basically from basic shelter. Food, water and medical care are so huge right now for the people who are already in the city. I'm frightened that if more people show up - tons of volunteers - and they don't have structures to be inserted into to be useful, that it could just be a further strain on an already chaotic situation.
AMOS: The photographs and images from Haiti are so wrenching, and to know that the need is so great - people are shocked now. Is there some danger that there's a safety issue in Haiti as well for aid organizations?
Ms. MILES: Absolutely. I think that we're going to look at concerns with establishing security in Port-au-Prince so that people feel safe again. The population was totally in shock for the first 12 hours, more than 30 aftershocks. Those emotions are starting to turn into fear and anger in some places where the rescues have not come yet and where the response has been so slow.
AMOS: Even without an earthquake, Haiti has severe problems. So how does this emergency differ from disasters in other countries?
Ms. MILES: This is very wide scale and it hasn't affected sort of the - we talk about the poorest of the poor in Haiti and how they are living in makeshift homes, many by the sea. (Unintelligible) like this, a home made out of corrugated tin and cardboard may have withstood the earthquake better than buildings that are several stories high.
So we're looking at a situation where, for example, the very nice Hotel Montana has fallen onto a slum area in a ravine. And people who are living in slum areas that were not built out of cinder blocks may have fared better.
AMOS: And do you think that we are losing far more people than we should because there is no way to get to them?
Ms. MILES: I absolutely think that's true. And one group that I've been working with for a long out of the Delmar region opened their doors yesterday and used up all their supplies. They had Haitian doctors walking in off the street to help serve the population. So it's going to be very critical for groups that are on the ground to set up areas where people can come and receive that emergency medical aid and have their basic needs met.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
Ms. MILES: Thank you.
AMOS: Melinda Miles is head of Working Together for Haiti.
INSKEEP: And here's a reminder that aid is beginning to arrive from around the world. A Chinese jet said to be carrying tons of supplies plus search and rescue experts has arrived in Haiti, and more than 50 people in orange jumpsuits got out of that plane accompanied by trained dogs.
Later today, the American aircraft carrier USS Carl Vincent is expected off the Haitian coast. It's going to help with relief. And more U.S. Navy ships are underway, including one carrying 2,000 U.S. Marines. The need is desperate though. A doctor's assistant in Port-au-Prince says this is worst than a hurricane. There is no water and thirsty people are going to die.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cut short a trip to Asia to return to Washington to deal with this week's earthquake in Haiti. She told reporters in Hawaii before flying home that the earthquake was a blow for a country that had been on the right track. It was also devastating for the United Nations mission, which up to now had been a success story.
NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN: Secretary Clinton has had a long personal interest in Haiti. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is the U.N. special envoy for Haiti. And the secretary had her chief of staff working the issue well before the earthquake hit.
Secretary HILLARY CLINTON (Department of State): We had a good plan that the Haitian government developed that we were working with them to implement. And there was a lot of hope about what the future might hold for Haiti. This is not only a physical catastrophe but it's just a devastating blow to the people of Haiti.
KELEMEN: She said the U.S. is trying to help restore communications for the Haitian government. The most immediate priority though is to find survivors in a city of collapsed buildings. The U.N. headquarters was demolished by the earthquake, and Clinton said this is a tragedy for the U.N. on a scale similar to the 2003 bombing of the U.N. in Iraq.
Sec. CLINTON: The United Nations has suffered grievous losses. Some of us remember the devastating bombing in Baghdad and the bombing in Afghanistan. This earthquake, and the damage that it has imposed on the U.N. mission, is even more horrible in terms of loss of life.
KELEMEN: The Tunisian diplomat who runs the mission, Hedi Annabi, is believed to be among the dead. Last night, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would only say that Annabi is one of many U.N. officials who are still unaccounted for.
Secretary-General BAN KI-MOON (United Nations): It is our estimate that around hundred people were still working inside the building at the time this earthquake struck. Therefore it will be in the range of 100-150 that I'm quite, you know, concerned about.
KELEMEN: He sent the assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, Edmond Mullet, who was Annabi's predecessor to Haiti, to take over the mission and to help coordinate international relief efforts.
Rescue teams from the U.S. and China have arrived in Haiti, and the secretary-general says they're racing against time.
Mr. BAN: People buried under the rubble are still alive. We must save them, as many as possible. We must move immediately.
KELEMEN: Peacekeepers from Brazil, Jordan, Argentina and Chad were also among the victims. Still, U.N. officials say the peacekeeping force is out in the streets to ensure law and order, and the U.N. is planning to send in more officials to rebuild its mission.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Voters in New Orleans go to the polls next month to choose a successor to Mayor Ray Nagin. The crowded field of candidates thinned out recently when a top African-American candidate dropped out of the race. His departure raised the prospect that this mostly-black city could get its first white mayor in 32 years.
NPR's Debbie Elliott has more.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT: The latest twist in the New Orleans mayor's race came when State Senate Ed Murray suddenly ended his campaign earlier this month without even consulting his advisors. Murray said he was dropping out to avoid the prospect of a racially divisive runoff with Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu, who is white.
The news was hard for the African-American political establishment here, which had lined up behind the mild-mannered Murray in the hope he would force a runoff with the better funded and more widely known Landrieu.
Mr. LAMBERT BOISSIERE (Constable, New Orleans): We teased about whether or not a quarter horse could win a thoroughbred race. And I said sure he can if he keeps the thoroughbreds out. And we had done so up until post time.
ELLIOTT: New Orleans Constable Lambert Boissiere is a former state senator and city councilman. He says Mitch Landrieu's last minute entry into the race made it nearly impossible for Murray to raise enough money to compete.
Mr. BOISSIERE: The economy's bad since Katrina. Money's not flowing like it used to. In many cases the white businesses are holding up the money, more recently because of so-called white hope.
ELLIOTT: Boissiere is a leader of one of the city's oldest African-American political groups - a group that started in the 1970s to support Mitch Landrieu's father, Moon, the last white mayor of New Orleans. Ever since, African-Americans have held the mayor's office, known as the franchise because of the mayor's ability to help other black candidates and steer city contracts and services to the community.
Now three black candidates remain - former Judge Nadine Ramsey, fair housing advocate James Perry and businessman Troy Henry. Henry lashed out at the local media last week for prematurely crowning a white mayor after Murray dropped out.
Mr. TROY HENRY (Mayoral Candidate, New Orleans): It's a collection of reports that in essence is beginning to create an undertone that marginalizes African-American candidates in this race.
ELLIOTT: Polls show two white candidates in the lead - Landrieu and wealthy businessman John Georges. But Lambert Boissiere thinks Troy Henry has a shot at making it into a runoff with Landrieu, even though, like Ray Nagin, Henry is a businessman who has never held elected office. Boissiere says African-American political leaders have a dilemma.
Mr. BOISSIERE: We're debating - can we salvage him, can we pull him up? You know, do we have to go with Mitch? I mean, it's a decision we're trying to make. Mitch's family has been known to be liberal, but again, who best represents you - one of your own or someone else?
ELLIOTT: Mitch Landrieu addressed that question at a recent Dillard University forum.
Mr. MITCH LANDRIEU (Mayoral Candidate, New Orleans): And for anybody who thinks that race is not an issue, I want to tell you what my mama said: you can't go around it, you can't go over it, you can't ignore it, you got to go through it.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
ELLIOTT: After the forum, Landrieu said it's a question of inclusion.
Mr. LANDRIEU: You know, the issue in the race really centers around do people feel disenfranchised, do they think they're going to have an opportunity, do they think they have access. And so I wanted to send a message clearly tonight, as leader of the city of New Orleans, we have to get beyond race.
ELLIOTT: Troy Henry acknowledges that race is a factor but says it's not the critical question.
Mr. HENRY: What's more important is that our city come back and be transformed, which is what I'm all about.
ELLIOTT: Indeed, most of the questions of the forum were about fighting blight and crime and restoring the city's neighborhoods.
Ms. ROXY WILSON: The race of the mayor is not important to me.
ELLIOTT: Twenty-two-year-old Roxy Wilson(ph) is a senior at Dillard.
Ms. WILSON: Everybody's like I want a black mayor, I want a white mayor. It is of no concern to me. I want what's best for the city, because the city has gone down. It has never recovered from Katrina. And all I want to see is my city be something like it was before I left. 'Cause it still doesn't feel like home.
ELLIOTT: After the event, organizers planned to have the audience write the candidates. But the person in charge had to leave early - his house had been broken into. It was a fitting reminder of the serious problems that await the new mayor - black or white.
Debbie Elliott, NPR News, New Orleans.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
And we spoke to another airport security expert who agrees that scanners have limitations. Rafi Ron was chief of security at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, which does have a reputation for excellent security. Since 9/11 he's been a consultant to Logan Airport in Boston. I asked Rafi Ron if Israel uses racial profiling to screen passengers, a practice that's off limits to federal law enforcement in the United States.
Mr. RAFI RON (Consultant, Logan Airport): We use profiling. It is not the racial profiling. It is profiling that takes into consideration where somebody comes from, and if somebody's home address is Gaza, we should be paying more attention to details compared to, for example, a Holocaust survivor from Tel Aviv.
AMOS: So you're looking at where someone has been?
Mr. RON: Correct.
AMOS: What's your assessment of racial profiling?
Mr. RON: One of the problems with racial profiling is that there's a tendency to believe that this is the silver bullet to solve the problem. In other terms, if you're a Middle Eastern or if you're a Muslim, then you must be bad. And if you're a European and Christian, then you must be good.
But back in 1972, Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv was supposed to be attacked by a Palestinian, was never attacked by one. It was attacked by a Japanese terrorist killing 24 people. And it was attacked in the mid-'80s by a German terrorist answering to the name Miller.
AMOS: How then do you assess President Obama's decision on security? What you look at, he says, is citizens of 14 specific countries. They get greater scrutiny. That goes to what you're talking about at Ben Gurion.
Mr. RON: Correct. If somebody comes out of Yemen or somebody comes out of Somalia today, this is something that should certainly draw our attention. But I think it would be a mistake to use only that as the single criteria.
AMOS: For those who talk about racial profiling, you can miss a person like Richard Reid.
Mr. RON: Yeah, this is correct. Actually, it did happen, because when Richard Reid boarded the flight, according to the testimony of the flight attendant that stood at the door, her intuition led her to suspect Richard Reid that there's something very wrong with him. And she stopped him at the door, she looked at his boarding card and when she saw the name Richard Reid, suspicion disappeared. And then when he answered some special question in perfect English accent, he became completely innocent in her eyes. So if we needed to prove why racial profiling doesn't serve us well, then there it is.
AMOS: Well, let's talk about the latest one, which has some elements of failure in it. Our NPR correspondent has reported that U.S. intelligence had some information that a Nigerian man was involved in a terrorist plot being hatched in Yemen. And this was before Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab boarded the plane in Amsterdam. So are U.S. intelligence agencies set up to pass on these specific profiles to the airport screeners?
Mr. RON: Yes, I think that the main intelligence failure in the Abdul Mutallab case was people that evaluated the information on the intelligence side simply didn't understand well enough the needs of the people on the ground at the airport, and the aviation security system. And we need to make that transformation in the intelligence community and make people learn and understand much better the needs of the people in the field and make sure that they provide it in due time.
AMOS: Mr. Ron, you really are suggesting a whole different way of thinking about security. This is a very strategic as well as tactical way that you have to look every passenger in the eyes, that a screener has to think about that person.
Mr. RON: Yes, correct. What I suggest is simply to turn around the roles between technology and the human factor. If Abdul Mutallab was subjected to even a very basic interview at the airport, that would have exposed him. What we're doing right now is actually we are running machines and people are there to operate machines. In other terms, people support technology. I say technology should support people. And it should be skilled people at the center of our security concept rather than the other way around.
AMOS: All right. Thank you very much. Rafi Ron is the former chief of security for Israel's Ben Gurion Airport and the president of a consulting firm, New Age Security Solutions.
DEBORAH AMOS, host:
Good morning. I'm Deb Amos.
Move over, Mr. Geithner. There's a new secretary coming to the nation's capital. Today, D.C. will introduce the secretary of love and relationships. And officials have tapped the queen of romance herself, Dr. Ruth, to fill that role. It's all part of D.C.'s month-long stimulus plan to boost tourism. Officials say the effort has been inspired by the Obama's romantic date night. The romance is in time for Valentine's Day. It's MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep with a tale of a daring escape. Flooding struck a zoo outside the capital of Montenegro. Could've meant trouble for the country's only hippopotamus, except of course that hippos can swim. The two ton animal broke out of her cage and floated right out of the zoo, finding a dry spot a mile away. The zoo manager says the hippo is still at large, but zoo guards are watching her. And local people have been bringing the animal fresh hay.
You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And the major story we're following this morning is the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. NPR's Carrie Kahn has been walking around the Haitian city of Port-au-Prince this morning.
CARRIE KAHN: I'm on a hillside right now that is just collapsed building on collapsed building and rebars sticking out. You see limbs, you see bodies hanging out, you see relatively desperately trying to save - to get their (unintelligible) very few people still alive we've come across.
INSKEEP: That's one glimpse of Port-au-Prince from NPR's Carrie Kahn, who tells us the destruction reaches as far as she can see. And we'll hear more from Carrie throughout the day.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It is a Friday morning when we hear from our series, StoryCorps. This project is traveling the country to record people talking about their lives and loved ones. Lisa Ray stepped into a recording booth in Norfolk, Virginia because she wanted to share a particular memory of her father.
M: You know, that story - I've held onto that all those years because my dad kind of messed up. It was my chance to see him as a human being and it made me really happy that I had that one solid memory. I think every kid needs to see their parents as a human being.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: Lisa Ray in Norfolk, Virginia. He interview will be archived, along with all StoryCorps interviews, at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. The podcast is at NPR.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty tells the story.
BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY: Into this climate stepped Scott Lively, an American evangelical, who brought this message to a family life conference in Uganda last March.
SCOTT LIVELY: Male homosexuality has historically been, not adult to adult, it's been adult to teenager. Adults sodomizing teenage boys.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Afterwards, Lively spoke to the Ugandan parliament about what he calls the dangers of the gay agenda. A few months later, a bill was introduced to execute people for some homosexual acts. Lively says he thinks the bill goes too far.
LIVELY: But the fact that they're willing to stand up and say, no, we are not going let you homosexualize our country - that's a step in the right direction. And I would hope that that would spread to other countries.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Jim Naughton, a former canon in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., says their message plays one way in the United States, but differently in a place like Uganda.
JIM NAUGHTON: They are showing up in rooms filled with gasoline and throwing lighted matches around, and then saying, well, I never intended the fire.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Now, many U.S. evangelicals, including Scott Lively, say they are mortified by the death penalty provision. Naughton doesn't buy it.
NAUGHTON: I think if they were mortified, they would have been mortified immediately. Instead they were mortified, oh, two, three months into the campaign against this thing, when it was getting real traction.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Megachurch pastor Rick Warren is a case in point. Warren has extensive ties with religious leaders in Africa, including Uganda, and initially refused to condemn the bill. Finally, two months after the bill was introduced, he urged pastors of Uganda to oppose it in a video message.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO MESSAGE)
RICK WARREN: The potential law before your parliament is unjust, it's extreme and it's un-Christian.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: If Rick Warren was slow to condemn the bill, other Christian conservatives have yet to do so, says Warren Throckmorton, who teaches psychology at Grove City College. He says the Christian groups most publicly tied to Uganda have been the quietest.
WARREN THROCKMORTON: Joyce Meyer Ministries, for instance, they didn't want to comment; Oral Roberts University, they didn't want to comment; College of Prayer in Atlanta did not want to get involved, didn't want to issue a statement.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Throckmorton, a conservative evangelical himself, wonders what message that's sending to Uganda's religious leaders.
THROCKMORTON: Silence is often interpreted as consent.
MARTYN MINNS: The question is, what's the most effective way to deal with it?
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Martyn Minns is bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a group that broke from the Episcopal Church and is now aligned with African bishops. Minns says his group has been working behind the scenes to remove the death penalty from the bill, but he also says Uganda has a right to resist the wave of gay activism that he says is flooding in from the West.
MINNS: It's hard for any of us who have not lived under colonial rule to realize how offensive it is for people who have won that freedom to now, basically, be told - you're fools, you're ignorant. One day you'll grow up and be like us. That comes across in a very patronizing way.
BRADLEY HAGERTY: Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Richard Gonzales reports on an effort to mentor those minority managers.
RICHARD GONZALES: Rob Sundy is, by many measures, an American success story. He graduated from West Point, where he was a star athlete and student. He served in Kosovo, then went to Harvard to earn an MBA before going to work for General Mills. His career was off to a fast start.
M: This light bulb came on saying, OK, I have potential, and it almost scared me. And I'm like, what do I do now?
GONZALES: That might sound like a strange question coming from someone with Sundy's track record, but he says he felt like he was carrying some heavy cultural baggage. He's African-American, from working-class Detroit.
M: I think because of my life story and my different background, that it doesn't making navigating this organization or corporate America - it's just not intuitive or natural to me.
GONZALES: Sundy says he had confidence in his smarts and skills, but it's what he didn't know that nagged him. Like when he heard his peers talking about playing golf with a senior executive and realizing he didn't know golf at all. And then there were the meetings.
M: I would say something in a meeting, and then no one would really say anything. And then five minutes later, someone else in the room would say the exact same thing, and everyone would applaud the idea and say that's the greatest thing ever. And I would always have this impression after the meeting, I was like, why was my commentary not accepted the same way as this other person? And I think earlier in my career, you know, I might have had the impression that it had something to do with race.
GONZALES: Or maybe not, but Sundy says he knew he would need some help to achieve his dream of reaching the executive suite. His company, General Mills, had a relationship with a nonprofit group called Management Leadership for Tomorrow, or MLT. It coaches midlevel managers. MLT is a brainchild of John Rice.
M: If you are a non-minority manager, you are going to be able to turn to your left, turn to your right, look forward, look back and choose out of several people, hopefully, who can give you that informal feedback and guidance that's so critical.
GONZALES: Rice, who is African-American and a former executive with the National Basketball Association, says many minority managers, no matter how accomplished, are still looking for that kind of career guidance, often from fellow minorities.
M: So, to some extent, what we see and what we provide to these folks is the ability and the road map to play the game like everyone else is playing it.
GONZALES: Take, for example, Tuwisha Rogers. She's a rising account supervisor at Images USA, a black-owned marketing communications firm. Her coach, Patricia Hayling Price, is talking to Rogers over the phone, suggesting ways to raise her profile inside her company.
M: Remember the exercise that you did in the room where you, instead of spewing out everything that was on your mind, you withheld it?
M: Yes. It's been really helpful. Being able to stop, think about the five things that I want to talk about and come back with just one point has really changed, I think, some people's perception of what I say and do now. I think everyone thinks I'm intelligent, but now they're waiting to hear what the wisdom of Tuwisha at the end of the conversation. It was a great exercise.
GONZALES: This kind of coaching would be appropriate for anyone climbing the corporate ladder, but the coach, Hayling Price, says minority middle managers face a special challenge.
M: As a minority mid-manager on the rise, you are always leery of the snipers out there and all of the micro-inequities that exist in a corporate environment. When are they going to get you? You're expected to be faster, smarter, better in order to really gain the visibility. The stakes are huge.
GONZALES: Huge because major corporations and nonprofits are looking for a new generation of minority talent. Recruiting is one challenge, but MLT's John Rice says the bigger challenge is making sure minority managers have what it takes and get what they need to reach the top.
M: And for the minority manager, what they need to understand is, how do you play the game to win? What's the bar for excellence? What does it take to get promoted? What does it take to avoid the things that can derail somebody? We're trying to prepare people to navigate their careers in a way that takes the minority issue out of it.
GONZALES: Richard Gonzales, NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
We go now to Rome, where Pope Benedict visits Rome's main synagogue on Sunday. The visit comes at a time of Jewish-Catholic tensions. One of Italy's top rabbis is boycotting the event. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli tells us about the long history of troubled relations.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI: While roofers prepare for the pope's visit, guided tours of synagogue are still under way.
YAEL CALO: The first sign that the Jews arrived in Rome, we're talking about 161 before Common Era.
POGGIOLI: Yael Calo says Jews arrived here long before the birth of Christ.
CALO: We have 22 centuries uninterrupted presence in Rome.
POGGIOLI: Under papal rule persecution of Jews alternated with relative calm - until 1555, when Pope Paul IV ruled they shouldn't prosper alongside Christians. As infidels, he said, God condemned them to eternal servitude. He ordered all Jews in the Rome region be restricted to the eight-acre ghetto. Jews were not allowed to pursue education or practice professions, and could leave the ghetto only between sunrise and sunset.
CALO: The main occupation for more than three centuries for the Jews of Rome was selling used clothes. Schmata - that's the Yiddish word. Okay.
POGGIOLI: Guide Calo says Roman Jews were subjected to constant humiliations.
CALO: The main reason of the ghetto was not to kill the Jews - the Nazis are going to think about that later. The pope wanted them to convert to Christianity by letting them live a hard life.
POGGIOLI: Jews were forced to listen to priests' sermons and at times even forced to convert. The issue of conversion still rankles. A cartoon in an Italian-Jewish newspaper shows Benedict crossing the Tiber River on a tightrope, balancing with a pole - the word dialogue at one end, conversion at the other. The paper's editor, Guido Vitale, says these two contradictory aspirations undermine Jewish-Catholic relations.
GUIDO VITALE: (Through translator) We heard a variety of Jewish voices, and all agree that dialogue has value only if it's tackled with humility, honesty and mutual respect, and without the presumption of converting the other.
POGGIOLI: Veteran Vatican analyst Marco Politi says Roman Jews in particular cannot forgive Pius' silence during the Holocaust.
MARCO POLITI: Because during the war there was a great deportation of Roman Jews, practically directly under the windows of the papal palace. These Jews were kept by the Nazi troops. They stayed two days here in Rome waiting for the train to leave for Auschwitz. And the pope never spoke. He never said publicly this has not to happen.
POGGIOLI: Lisa Palmieri, the American Jewish Committee's liaison to the Vatican, says the Jewish-Catholic dialogue is essential for both sides, and it's crucial that there be no step backward.
LISA PALMIERI: It is hoped that the pope will realize that the Jewish requests regarding Pius XII be honored.
POGGIOLI: Those requests are that beatification be postponed until the Vatican opens up its archives to independent researchers.
AMOS: Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Patti Smith walked into our New York studios in a knit cap and scuffed snow boots. She was by herself, an unusual New York rock and roll celebrity.
AMOS: People say hello to me. I mean, sometimes the sanitation truck goes by and says, hey Patti...
AMOS: Really?
AMOS: You know, that's when it's cool. You know, if the postman is saying hello to you, then I feel like, wow, that's something special.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GLORIA")
AMOS: No one recognized her when she first came to the city, 20 years old, an aspiring artist with a passion for French poets and American rock and roll. Patti Smith recounts those years in a new book called "Just Kids," for those who know her music and those who don't.
AMOS: Sometimes they seem to think, you know, I came out of the womb, you know, cursing with an electric guitar, you know, so I think it's important for people to realize that we were all young, all naive, and also we had lived in a time that had magic.
AMOS: It's a very romantic book in some ways.
AMOS: It was a romantic time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ELEGIE")
AMOS: (Singing) I just don't know what to do tonight.
AMOS: The time - the early 1970s, before Patti Smith recorded her first album, ushering in the era of punk rock, before the great love of her life, Robert Mapplethorpe, made his mark as a photographer with sexually provocative images. They met on her first day in the city, and the book is the story of their romance and creative bond - young struggling artists, sometimes so poor they slept on the street.
AMOS: You know, I wasn't a stranger to hard times. I used to read the Bible. Well, I still do, but when I was young I read the Bible quite a bit, and by Christ's example, he embraced poverty. So all of my role models, whether it was the disciples or John the Baptist or Arthur Rimbaud, all, you know, slept under the stars.
AMOS: I think that it's a surprise to hear the godmother of punk say that she reads the Bible.
AMOS: Well, I don't know why. The very first word on my very first record is Jesus. So obviously...
AMOS: Didn't die for my sins. (Laughing)
AMOS: But I still invoke him as an entity to reckon with.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GLORIA")
AMOS: (Singing) Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine, meltin' in a pot of thieves, wild card up my sleeve...
AMOS: So much of what happens in your life is chance. You meet Robert Mapplethorpe and you become a couple almost immediately. What was it that linked the two of you together?
AMOS: We were really two of a kind. We were even physically, you know, we were both very lanky. We were both outsiders. We fulfilled a role for each other. As it says in the book, we woke up knowing that we were no longer alone.
AMOS: You both wanted to be artists, and I have a sense reading your book that neither one of you knew exactly what art you were going to pursue. You write that you actually said to him you ought to be a photographer.
AMOS: Well, no, I didn't say that. I said you should take your own photographs. I didn't mean for him to become a photographer.
AMOS: But he did.
AMOS: Yes, he did. Once he started taking pictures, he just fell in love with photography.
AMOS: This book is such a tribute to that relationship, and there's a moment when he is realizing that he is a gay man.
AMOS: Well, really when I met Robert, we were unformed. That's why I called the book "Just Kids." I really want people to comprehend that we were young. It took a while to become who we evolved into. And I think for Robert it was a struggle. At a certain point it meant that he had to make a choice.
AMOS: Did you feel left out by that, when he made that choice?
AMOS: I knew that I could never have a relationship with him, but of course as time went by I realized that what Robert and I had no one else would have - male or female.
AMOS: By the end of the book, you meet Robert again. He has AIDS at this time. You both know what is going to happen. Was it difficult to write about so much pain and loss?
AMOS: Oh, it's very painful. I mean, I promised Robert the day before he died that I would write our story. And it took me 20 years, but I kept my promise.
AMOS: Would you read the opening section of the book, which is the most heartrending?
AMOS: The phone rang and I rose to answer. It was Robert's youngest brother, Edward. He told me that he had given Robert one last kiss from me as he had promised. I stood motionless, frozen, then slowly as in a dream returned to my chair. At that moment, Tosca began the great aria "Vissi d'arte." I have lived for love. I have lived for art. I closed my eyes and folded my hands. Providence determined how I would say goodbye.
AMOS: Is there music that comes out of that loss?
AMOS: (Singing) Little emerald bird wants to fly away. If I cup my hand, could I make him stay, little emerald soul, little emerald eye, little emerald bird, we must say goodbye.
AMOS: That's beautiful. Thank you very much, Patti Smith.
AMOS: Thanks.
AMOS: Patti Smith's new book is called "Just Kids." Read an excerpt and see photos of Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe at npr.org.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Back in the winter of 2004, thousands of people took to the streets of the Ukrainian capital Kiev. They overturned a tainted election and they hoped for a new, democratic Ukraine. Now there's another election with 18 candidates standing for president. So what about the dreams of all those protestors? It seems they've been lost to political infighting and economic decline. Here's NPR David Greene from Kiev.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHEERING)
DAVID GREENE: The sounds from those cold nights in Kiev's Independence Square still seem to echo through the streets. The man who symbolized the revolution for Westerners was Viktor Yushchenko, his face left green and pockmarked by a mysterious poisoning. He became president.
YULIA TYMOSHENKO: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: Were you standing there in the square back in 2004 when Tymoshenko was up there talking and...
SVETLANA OSIPCHUK: Yes. Yes. I saw her. I saw them all. It was exciting.
GREENE: That's a voice from today. Twenty-four-year-old Svetlana Osipchuk was in Kiev this week at the university where she gathered with other students five years ago. Here's how she's feeling as the new election looms.
TYMOSHENKO: The unity of 2004 is broken now.
GREENE: Although both of them are candidates in Sunday's vote, Svetlana, for her part, says she won't vote for either of them. Still, she looks back to 2004 with no regret.
TYMOSHENKO: This aim was good. This aim was positive. This aim was a declaration of something new for our country, because it gave us a great democratic experience. And we could repeat it. And they know that we could repeat it.
GREENE: Mixed emotions are easy to find in Kiev these days.
NAZAR PERVAK: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: But if he has lost faith in politics, he points to changes in Ukraine that he does like.
PERVAK: (Through Translator) Before 2004, people, especially those working in state institutions, were afraid to show their political and social views in public. Now it has changed. The people are more open and not afraid.
GREENE: Nazar said he's not worried, even if the upcoming election turns back the Orange Revolution. The candidate leading in some polls is Viktor Yanukovych, the target of the Orange Revolution. He was the winner of that rigged election back in 2004. He still has significant backing in eastern Ukraine and a realistic chance to stage a comeback and turn the results of that popular revolt upside down.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELLS)
GREENE: That would be tough to swallow for another person on Kiev's Independence Square, Maria Moshkovska.
MARIA MOSHKOVSKA: This is one of the biggest monuments and the central monument which we have seen during Orange Revolution.
GREENE: She pointed out exactly where she stood in 2004. Like so many veterans of the Orange Revolution, she's been frustrated by all the political infighting. But maybe, she says, politicians in her country have learned some lessons.
MOSHKOVSKA: Because I'm Ukrainian, I always will be thinking that there is a chance.
GREENE: Even though she says the Orange Revolution has, in her words, come to nothing, she said she'd never discourage young people from taking to the streets when they think it's right.
MOSHKOVSKA: To fight to get freedom is very important for people. If the question will be to come or not to come, I'll come. I'll not stay home.
GREENE: David Greene, NPR News, Kiev.
INSKEEP: David became familiar to many of our listeners for his reports from the White House and for guest hosting this program. We just heard David's first report from a new beat. He's based in Moscow now, and we'll be listening for his reports right here on MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
And I'm Deborah Amos.
AMOS: The president of Haiti says 7,000 people have been buried so far. That's more than the number of people killed on 9/11.
INSKEEP: NPR's David Gilkey told us what happened when he climbed a hillside in Port-au-Prince.
DAVID GILKEY: There's sort of six major arteries that go up this hill, and four of them we tried to go up were blocked with piles of bodies in the middle of the streets. I know there was some reports that people in the neighborhoods were doing this intentionally, out of anger for nobody coming to help them. I don't know the reason, but had to turn around four times due to the piles of bodies in the middle of the road.
INSKEEP: We'll be hearing from NPR's team of reporters in Haiti throughout this morning, including Carrie Kahn in Port-au-Prince.
CARRIE KAHN: The streets of the capital are chaotic as residents continue to try and pull loved ones from the massive piles of crumbled buildings. Dead bodies lay along side nearly every road. Those who made it out alive search frantically for medical attention.
(SOUNDBITE OF SCREAMING)
KAHN: At the tiny Eliasoch(ph), their main clinic, there are no doctors attending to a few dozen people who've made it to the undamaged building. The injured lay on blood-stained mattresses taking up every inch of the concrete floor. Jordani Fitzgerald(ph) says doctors have come by, but don't stay long.
AMOS: Yeah, no doctor. They come. They out.
KAHN: Fitzgerald says his family survived the quake, so he came to the clinic to sit with people who are here alone.
AMOS: I come here just for help people who don't have someone, to help them.
KAHN: Most of his attention has gone to an eight-year-old girl named Daphne(ph). She has a broken arm.
AMOS: You see her? She got no mother, no father. She is alone. I brought some food for her and help her to be, you know, comfortable.
KAHN: Fitzgerald says there were 11 people living in her home. She's the only one who made it out alive. Down the street, Lonardis Roche's(ph) mother and father got out, but he says he lost his daughter.
AMOS: She's still buried here, has not come out yet.
KAHN: How old is your daughter?
AMOS: She's 21 years old.
KAHN: Oh.
AMOS: Yeah.
KAHN: I'm so sorry.
AMOS: Yeah. We are - I've got - we've got so many people take out alive, take out dead, and we still have some buried there we can - we're going to try. You see these people here?
KAHN: He points to visible limbs exposed in the rubble of his crushed home and next-door business.
AMOS: No government come here, no help, no ask people if you can help us. What's going on? Nobody's coming. Nobody show up.
KAHN: A single police patrol car did show up with three officers. They didn't want to give their names. I asked them: What are they doing for the people?
U: (Foreign language spoken)
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHATTER)
KAHN: They say emphatically, we are with the people, but we have nothing to give them. We have no help. As the government struggles, international aid is slowly making its way into the country. In the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Petionville, a canine search and rescue team from Fairfax, Virginia combs a huge rubble pile of what was once a rehabilitation center for disabled children. Rescue specialist Darrell Casey calls to his black lab.
AMOS: Come here, bud. Come on, boy. Come here.
KAHN: A few minutes later, Figel Bruno(ph), one of the directors of the center, shows up. He's holding the luggage tags of one of his young American volunteers. He believes she's buried under the rubble.
AMOS: She's one of the volunteers.
U: OK.
AMOS: So, we remove three people. One dead, and two alive.
KAHN: Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Good morning. Thanks for joining us.
AMOS: Such a pleasure to be with you.
AMOS: Ambassador, you know Haiti - how can this country rebuild after such an enormous tragedy?
AMOS: Well, the problem with rebuilding is, first of all, who's got the money to do it? Who's going to give the money? Second, where are the contractors going to come from? And third, what kind of supervisory structure of enforcement - because clearly, you need a decent building code there. It doesn't exist. How do you enforce a sensible combination of building code and zoning, if you will, on a place as free-wheeling, free-spirited and unenforceable as Haiti?
AMOS: Former President George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are leading up the U.S. recovery efforts. What do you think Haiti expects from the United States?
AMOS: But I'll tell you frankly, the world also has to have some expectations of Haitians, and one of them is an end to this sterile politics of group and gang with an eye on personal advantage that has dominated the politics of Haiti for - well, since its independence.
AMOS: Is there any silver lining, then, in this horrible tragedy that the world is paying attention to a place that needs this much help, and probably did the day before the earthquake?
AMOS: You know, I wouldn't look for silver linings anywhere in Haiti. It's going to be a slog. It's going to be tough. It's going to require serious politics and, frankly, even more serious decision making on the part of Haitians.
AMOS: The United States has such a close relationship with Haiti. We have had their leaders in exile. We have a huge Haitian community in Miami, in Washington and in Boston. Is it in our interest to fix Haiti this time?
AMOS: I believe it is, because one of the statistics that you hear trotted out is $2 a week, $2 a month, is the average wage there. That completely ignores the reality that there's probably a billion dollars a year in remittances that go from the diaspora in Canada and the U.S. back to the families in Haiti. Now, most of that money gets used for school fees and uniforms. It goes for consumption, in other words. It is not something that can be captured for investment and creation of new wealth.
AMOS: The United States has spent a great deal of money in Haiti already. USAID has been in Haiti for years. And yet, in this earthquake, we saw that part of the problem is simply buildings aren't built to withstand an earthquake in a country that's on a fault line. Have we been taking the wrong approach there?
AMOS: I think that's probably Monday morning quarterbacking. The fact is, we haven't really known for sure what approach to take. The problem in Haiti is on the one hand, you have this incredibly vibrant culture, as is reflected in the painting and in the music and in the sculpture, and indeed all of the arts. On the other hand, you have a record - in fact, the most dismal imaginable record of governance, one worthless dictator after another preying upon the people to line their pockets and to luxuriate in power. How do you break that in order to put Haiti into a new mold? I don't know.
AMOS: Thank you very much.
AMOS: You're welcome.
AMOS: Timothy Carney was a former ambassador to Haiti.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
There was a warning, of sorts, that the Haitian disaster was coming. Almost two years ago in March 2008, experts met with Haitian officials and said that their region was ripe for an earthquake. Haitian officials, we're told, listened intently, but earthquake forecasting is imprecise, and even two years' warning was not enough to prepare a city that had been badly constructed for many years. It was around the time of that warning that the mayor of Port-au-Prince said most of his city's buildings were unsafe, even in normal times.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
The push to change the nation's health care system has gained a little more support. Leaders of organized labor say they will go along with a plan to tax expensive health insurance plans, so-called Cadillac plans. The labor unions say they've won some concessions designed to shield middle-class families. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY: Labor leaders threatened to oppose the health care bill if it included such a tax, a potentially embarrassing setback for the president. The administration managed to put together a compromise, and a confident Mr. Obama spoke to House Democrats last night.
BARACK OBAMA: Today, we are on the doorstep of accomplishing something that Washington has been talking about since Teddy Roosevelt was president, and that is reforming health care and health insurance here in America. Now...
HORSLEY: All of those adjustments mean the tax would raise less money for expanding health care coverage. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was happy that a deal was made.
NANCY PELOSI: It just says that we are making progress to get closer to reconciling the House and Senate bills.
HORSLEY: For all the progress they've made, though, Democrats are not exactly in a celebratory mood. Mr. Obama acknowledged as much in thanking House members for their efforts.
OBAMA: Believe me, I know how big a lift this has been.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama said he reads the polls and catches the occasional story on cable TV showing sinking public support for the health care plan. Congressional scholar Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution says over the last year, sometimes unruly House Democrats have generally stuck by their president, despite those concerns.
THOMAS MANN: The reality is they have a shared political fate. And Obama has to make the case that they've got to stick together, because divided they will all almost certainly fail.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama expressed confidence that voters will like the health care plan better once it's signed into law and they're able to see for themselves what it does and doesn't do. He promised to campaign on behalf of the bill's consumer protections from one end of the country to the other.
OBAMA: If the Republicans want to campaign against what we've done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
HORSLEY: House Democrats devoted much of their two-day issues retreat this week to economic policymaking, and Mr. Obama pledged that will be his focus in the new year, as well.
OBAMA: We are going to have a sustained and relentless focus over the next several months on accelerating the pace of job creation, because that's priority number one.
HORSLEY: Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
W: 00 weeknight slots.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE JAY LENO SHOW")
: Hey, NBC said they wanted drama at 10:00. Now they got it.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
: Now they got it. Everybody...
: Jay Leno was right in more ways than one. Some of the shows taking his place are dramas, which made NPR's Neda Ulaby wonder what is so special about 10 PM.
NEDA ULABY: Once upon a time, a long time ago, NBC ruled 10:00 with smart, provocative dramas that became iconic.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "LAW AND ORDER" THEME)
ULABY: The very last remnant of that era is a franchise that's almost 20 years old: "Law and Order." And the way NBC executives decided to deal with that problem was to radically change directions last year. NBC co-chairman Marc Graboff welcomed Leno to 10:00.
: The planets aligned perfectly. This is the right show at the right time with exactly the right person.
ULABY: Or maybe not.
: I think NBC had kind of bet that the era of the 10 PM drama was dead.
ULABY: NBC lost that bet, says Eric Deggans. He covers television for the St. Petersburg Times. The network focused on profit, he says. Talk shows earn less money than dramas from advertisers, but they're amazingly cheaper to produce. People who make TV dramas found this a disturbing trend.
: I think we were all afraid that the drama was in trouble.
ULABY: Kurt Sutter is best known for writing and playing a hit man on the FX drama "The Shield."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SHIELD")
: (as Margos Dezerian) Reggie pulled off a power play, taking control of the Armenian operation.
ULABY: "The Shield" is one of the 10 P.M. basic cable shows that are, in some ways, this era's "Hill Street Blues." They include "Damages," "Mad Men," "Nip/Tuck" and "Breaking Bad." Recently, cable dramas have started to do something previously unheard of: beating the networks at 10 PM.
: One of the shows that beat Leno in the ratings was "Sons of Anarchy" on FX.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW "SONS OF ANARCHY")
: (as Ethan Zobelle) We feel it would be best for all concerned if you stopped dealing arms to the One-Niners and the Mayans.
: (as Clarence Clay Morrow) We're mechanics, Harley lovers.
ULABY: "Sons of Anarchy" is one of the better shows you'll see about murderous, gun-running motorcycle gangs. It was created by Kurt Sutter.
: The 10 PM slot, I think, is traditionally a different tone - shows with darker nature, violence or sexuality. The idea is that younger viewers are not watching TV after 10 PM.
ULABY: Ten is a sweet spot. The kids are in bed, but it's still prime time, when advertisers pay more. Later does not work, says Michael Wright. He's an executive at TNT and TBS, which produces 10 PM dramas like "Men of a Certain Age."
: It's just impractical on a business level to run an original, scripted drama at 11:00.
ULABY: But it's beginning to matter less when some shows run. Almost 30 percent of American households use TiVos or other DVRs. NBC seems to have thought Jay Leno was TiVo-proof. Topical shows have to be watched live in order to talk about them the next day.
: Actually, he was totally TiVo-vulnerable.
ULABY: TV critic Eric Deggans.
: People were using the 10 PM hour to watch things that they had recorded previously. You know, in my house, my wife records "Oprah," and so a lot of times we might be watching "Oprah" or we might be watching something else in that hour.
ULABY: Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Hi, Christine.
CHRISTINE BRENNAN: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: Normally, we would focus on women's figure skating. That's the marquee event. But not this time around, if you favor Americans, right?
BRENNAN: Well, that's correct. For the first time since 1964, the odds are that U.S. women will not win a medal at the Olympic Games.
INSKEEP: Not even a bronze. Nothing.
BRENNAN: And what's interesting, Steve, 1964, you might say, well, why then?
INSKEEP: Yeah.
BRENNAN: But it's pretty sad that the U.S. might not do anything at this Olympics in women's skating, and it will be almost a half a century since that's happened.
INSKEEP: You said there are some very young skaters, so maybe at best, it's a transitional period right now.
BRENNAN: Well, it is. And Rachael Flatt, for example, who's 17 - there's Ashley Wagner, who's 18. There are young skaters who think they can get in there. If they skate clean at the Olympics without any falling, sure they could sneak in for a bronze. But at this point, it's not seen as likely.
INSKEEP: What about the men?
BRENNAN: Well, the men are fascinating. Evan Lysacek is the reigning world champion, and he is favored to win the national title and go into the Olympics as a favorite for a medal, potentially even the gold medal. And if Lysacek were to win the gold, it would be the first time since 1988, Brian Boitano, that an American man wins the gold medal. So that would be a great achievement. And I'm sure you're asking, what about that guy Johnny Weir?
INSKEEP: I was about to ask that, as a matter of fact, yes.
BRENNAN: Well, Johnny Weir, who - fascinating character. He wore the Russian jacket when he was, you know, representing the U.S. at the 2006 Olympics. Three-time national champ, fell on hard times, fifth place last year. And - but if anything, it's interesting to see him fight for something after having a great run, being very talented in his early 20s. And I think he'll make the U.S. team because he saw what it was like to not have a title, and he missed it.
INSKEEP: Is it true that the men, while being very skilled, are taking fewer risks than they were a few years ago?
BRENNAN: Absolutely. Remember, even, what, eight years ago, there was all this talk about the quad, this guy named Tim Goebel, listeners may remember, who actually did three quads in one program, the long program.
INSKEEP: Is it a quadruple jump? Is that what it is?
BRENNAN: Now what's happened is the men are actually pulling back the risk/reward. Frankly, the point system is such that you can do a triple axle and then add a triple toe loop, and that's more points than a quad. So figure skating, as one coach told me, Steve, is actually going backwards. And that's unfortunate.
INSKEEP: And what do the skaters think about that?
BRENNAN: Well, they're playing it safe because they want to make the Olympic team. And I think that's, as I said, it's unfortunate, because as a sport, I think you want to see people go for the homerun. And now they're kind of going for the single and then trying to steal second.
INSKEEP: Christine, thanks very much. Appreciate it.
BRENNAN: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: Christine Brennan of USA Today.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
: Can it arrive in time to save thousands of Haitians who've survived the quake so far? NPR's Richard Knox reports on the efforts to get medical equipment and personnel into Haiti.
RICHARD KNOX: Orthopedic surgeon Richard Villar is packing up to fly to Port- au-Prince. When I caught up with him in London, he said he was surrounded by boxes of medical supplies and surgical equipment that will be flown out today.
RICHARD VILLAR: There is amputation equipment available. There's also equipment necessary to clean wounds. That is absolutely critical, because as a surgeon, if you are faced with dead tissue that will not recover, that has to be removed.
KNOX: Villar's the leader of a team from Merlin, a nonprofit medical rescue organization. Seven surgeons from the group plan to set up a surgical field hospital somewhere in Port-au-Prince. They don't know where yet.
VILLAR: In essence, I'm after trying to get people patched up, rescued and limbs preserved as rapidly as I can.
KNOX: The British mobile surgical unit will be among the first to arrive in Haiti. Once it's up and running, it'll be able to do about 60 operations a day. He says earthquakes are different from other disasters. The crush injuries and head trauma they cause require more surgical treatment right away.
VILLAR: The critical part is the part we're in right now. And the earlier we can get help out there, the better.
KNOX: The time window for rescuing those who can be rescued is five or six days. After that, he says...
VILLAR: People who have had life-threatening injuries are struggling, and they may not have made it.
KNOX: In Haiti, one of the leading coordinators of the medical rescue effort if Dr. Jorge Velasco. He agrees time is running out for severely injured earthquake victims. He's head of the Health and Education office at USAID in Haiti.
JORGE VELASCO: Every day that passes, of course, mortality rates will increase.
KNOX: Velasco says he has no idea how many earthquake survivors are in need of urgent medical care.
VELASCO: I would love to make an estimation, because that would help me plan. But it's really anybody's guess at the moment, because of all of the sheer magnitude of the situation.
KNOX: If people with broken bones and crushed muscles need to get surgical treatment within six days, that time window expires this Sunday. I asked Velasco if it's possible that field hospitals would be set up in Port-au-Prince by this weekend.
VELASCO: I won't say that it's unlikely that surgical units will be able to be installed by the weekend. Our hope is that we will be able to get some of these on the ground. Of course, I doubt whether that'll be sufficient.
KNOX: Enough of the injured have found their own way to these remote hospitals to put a strain on them, says Dr Michael Vanrooyen, a medical disaster specialist.
MICHAEL VANROOYEN: They're rapidly becoming overwhelmed with surgical issues. And one of their big needs is surgeons and anesthesiologists and orthopedic surgeons to deal with the big influx.
KNOX: Richard Know, NPR News.
: You'll find photos and the latest news from our team in Haiti on our Web site: npr.org.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
NPR's business news starts with a big bank profits.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AMOS: JPMorgan Chase has emerged from the financial crisis as a clear winner. The bank reports it made more than three-and-a-quarter billion dollars during the last three months of 2009. Those earnings came mainly from trading activity and investment banking. The bank also profited from the rally in stock prices over the last year. As a result, JPMorgan says it's paying employees 18 percent more in salaries, bonuses and benefits than the previous year.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OSCAR MEYER WIENER")
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
Oh, you know that song. You probably even know the words, because it is one of the most famous jingles in advertising. The Oscar Meyer Wiener song debuted in 1963, and according to the company Web site, it's the longest-running commercial jingle still in use. But today, the New York Times reports that Oscar Meyer is setting aside that famous tune.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
No.
AMOS: Yes. It's launching a new, $50 million campaign aimed at promoting all its meat products. The agency handling the Oscar Meyer account says it's trying to stay away from specific products and jingles and wants to extend the joy and exuberance associated with the brand to all the company's meat products, not just hotdogs and bologna.
INSKEEP: Deb, let's sing it. Because we can. You know that we can. Give me a tune. Give me a note to start on, here.
AMOS: (Singing) Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener...
INSKEEP: Oh, darn. We're out of time.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
AMOS: That's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
INSKEEP: I'm Steve Inskeep.
AMOS: And I'm Deborah Amos.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos, in for Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
People who wake up in Haiti this morning will spend another day living among the dead. That's the overwhelming fact of a country struck by an earthquake this week.
AMOS: We begin with NPR's Greg Allen.
GREG ALLEN: Narrow streets are lined with rubble, many are impassable. Walls, roofs, entire buildings have crumbled to the ground. In the Bel-Air neighborhood, a lot where a building once stood just a few days ago is now empty and being used as an impromptu bath house. People gather around a hose, filling buckets.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD NOISE)
U: He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead.
ALLEN: Phillip Mercier(ph) had just finished bathing his young daughter.
AMOS: Everything (unintelligible) everything is in the street. Everything is broken down. Is like somebody who live in a street, you know, eat in a street, drink water in the street, there is no pure water.
ALLEN: Not far away, the interior ministry building may, if anything, be in even worst shape. What once was a multistoried building, is now just a mound of rubble. Outside a team of rescue workers from the Dominican Republic is surveying the scene. But Migelina Taktu(ph) said they realized there was nothing they could do.
AMOS: We can't do anything because is a difficult situation there and our people can be in danger.
ALLEN: Do you think there's people alive in here?
AMOS: Yes.
ALLEN: Two people were still inside, according to bystanders. Throughout Port- au-Prince, the backhoes and bulldozers needed to move tons of rubble have been slow to arrive. One problem is that many of Haiti's contractors and construction companies were also devastated by the earthquake. Outside the interior ministry, Gerald Emil Brune(ph) was shaking his head over the sheer magnitude of the tragedy and Haiti's clear inability to respond. He is an executive with Tasina(ph), an architecture and engineering company. He was at work when the earthquake hit. His arms are scabbed. Injuries he received when the building collapsed and he fell to three floors, miraculously surviving. Others with the company, he says, weren't so lucky.
AMOS: We are, you know, recovering about eight cadavers, so far, from our office building. Senior engineers and architects, a lot of them are gone. The way the construction industry goes in Haiti, will probably are responsible for about 3000 families. And now it's all down, it's all gone.
ALLEN: Time and again Haitians ask the same thing. Where is the international community? Where is the help they desperately need? International help was more evident at the airport, now controlled by the U.S. military, where aid groups steadily arrived and foreign nationals waited to be airlifted out. Ashley Augustine(ph) was preparing to fly back to the U.S. She's with a children's nutrition program that worked in the town of Leogane near the epicenter of the earthquake. After the quake, she says, she went to work in an emergency clinic.
AMOS: We are now out of any medicine or equipment out in Leogane. We know aid workers are coming in, but we're just hoping that doesn't get bogged down in Port-au-Prince. Port-au-Prince has a lot of need too but Cafu(ph) and Leogane, everyone's house fell down, all the schools, all the clinics and hospitals, and there weren't many to begin with and now they have fallen and out of equipment and medicine.
ALLEN: Greg Allen, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Adam Hochberg has more.
ADAM HOCHBERG: The Toussaint Louverture airport in Port-au-Prince is one of Haiti's few remaining lifelines to the rest of the world. Since Wednesday, it's been struggling to accommodate planes filled with supplies, relief workers and volunteers - but it has been doing so under the most primitive conditions. There is no electricity, the air traffic control system is down, and pilots who have been using the airport say damage there is severe.
RICK HALLQUIST: It's beyond anything I have ever seen.
HOCHBERG: Rick Hallquist is a pilot for Missionary Flights International, a Christian relief organization based in Florida. For the past few days, he has been flying DC-3s into Port-au-Prince, shuttling in volunteers and supplies to an airport that's barely usable.
HALLQUIST: The tower is still standing, structurally, but the windows are blown out, so I'm sure there's anybody operating up there. Besides that, the airport terminal building is pretty compromised. There's a lot of cracks in the walls. There's people working inside but they're pretty much trying to limit their exposure inside the building.
HOCHBERG: Barry Ellis runs a charter service called Hop-A-Jet that's been flying doctors in from Miami. He says the situation was chaotic and sometimes exasperating.
BARRY ELLIS: Everybody that's trying to go in there, rightfully so, believes that they should have priority. Some airplanes have blood on board, they have doctors on board. So, it's initially very frustrating to a lot of the airplane, and therefore creates a hectic situation trying to get in there.
HOCHBERG: Rajiv Shah, who's coordinating the U.S. government's relief efforts, said restoring normal airport operations is a high priority.
RAJIV SHAH: We're maximizing our ability to get planes in there, to unload them, and to move them forward. There are going to be times when things do get jammed up there, but we're moving them as fast as we possibly can.
HOCHBERG: Adam Hochberg, NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
NPR's Joanne Silberner is traveling with medical rescue workers headed to Haiti, but she and they are not there yet. Last night, their plane was in a near-miss above the crowded airport in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Her plane was diverted and she joins us from another Caribbean island. Good morning.
JOANNE SILBERNER: Good morning.
AMOS: Why couldn't you make it in to Haiti?
SILBERNER: Well, last night, on the approach to the airport, there were too many planes coming in. We got caught in the backwash of another plane, the engine stalled. The pilot managed to pull us out of it. We headed up and away. Then we had some problems with cabin pressure and not a whole lot of fuel to keep on trying these attempts, so we came here.
AMOS: So, where did you end up?
SILBERNER: We ended up in Providenciales. And that's an island that's part of the Turks and Caicos.
AMOS: Who are you with?
SILBERNER: But I have to tell you that this near-miss did not faze this group. They're looking forward to getting up and going. They're very anxious to get there.
AMOS: Joanne Silberner, not quite in Haiti yet, and I guess we'll hear more from you once the medical teams and you get to Haiti.
SILBERNER: Yes.
AMOS: Thank you.
SILBERNER: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AMOS: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Tom, good morning.
TOM BOWMAN: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What did the government know?
BOWMAN: And then there are also questions about his performance as an officer, that he was a substandard performer. So everyone had a piece but no government agency had the entire picture that he was a threat.
INSKEEP: This is reminding me of reporting at the time from our own Danny Zwerdling, that Major Hasan's colleagues who worked with him in the Army hospitals had concerns about him, specifically at Walter Reed Medical Center.
BOWMAN: The head psychiatric resident at Walter Reed, Scott Moran, tried in the spring of 2007 to kick Major Hasan out. But his superiors never acted on it. Moran wrote in a memo, which NPR obtained, denouncing Hasan for his, quote, "patterns of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism."
INSKEEP: Okay. So somebody wrote a memo. But then there's, of course, the question of who gets it. Was this kind of information available to superiors who not only left Hasan in the service but actually promoted him?
BOWMAN: Now, I'm also told as the Army goes through this report in the coming weeks and months, we expect to see some disciplinary action against some of Hasan's supervisors, maybe as many as a half a dozen or so. And they could be disciplined by let's say letters of reprimand or something like that.
INSKEEP: All right. Letter of reprimand, maybe that seems appropriate for letting someone get promoted when the record didn't seem to show that they really deserved it. But isn't this a good deal more serious? I mean a lot of warning signs were missed leading up to a massacre here.
BOWMAN: No, absolutely. And of course the FBI is at fault here, because, again, they had these emails that Hasan sent to this cleric. And if you put that together with the problems that he had as an officer - what one officer told me, you know, if we had the entire picture of Hasan, the context with this radical cleric in Yemen, the substandard performance, so if you had all that together we would have seen him as a threat, and hopefully we would have tried to get him kicked out of the Army.
INSKEEP: Very briefly, Tom Bowman, what will this Pentagon report due out today recommend to prevent such problems in the future?
BOWMAN: And the other thing is - this is more subjective - they want to make sure the commanders, that they have a responsibility, they're going to tell them, to have a sense of who is serving under them, whether there are any complaints from colleagues and so forth.
INSKEEP: Okay.
BOWMAN: Just a better sense of who they are before any problems arise.
INSKEEP: Okay. Thanks very much. That's NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
This week, the commission held its first public hearings on Capitol Hill. The Planet Money team, Alex Blumberg and Chana Joffe-Walt, have this report on how the hearings went.
ALEX BLUMBERG: First off, Chana, this commission has its work cut out for it. Everyone had their own pet theory about what caused the crisis.
CHANA JOFFE: And the commission's charter seems to pay lip service to all of them. It says, and I'm reading here: The FCIC is charged with conducting a comprehensive examination of 22 areas of inquiry related to the financial crisis. Twenty-two.
BLUMBERG: Including, but not limited to, fraud and abuse in the financial sector, the global imbalance of saving and international capital flows, and the tax treatment of financial products and investments.
JOFFE: I really hope it's not that last one. If after a year of hearings and subpoenas and depositions they came out with a report that said, eh, it's the tax code, it would be a bit of a let down.
(SOUNDBITE OF GAVEL)
PHIL ANGELIDES: The meeting of the - oh good the mikes work. The meeting of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Committee Commission will come to order.
BLUMBERG: So that's Phil Angelides messing up the title of the commission he is chairman of. First up were the bankers. The heads of the four biggest banks on Wall Street - JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
JOFFE: And they had a plan. Number one, show you're apologetic. Number two, don't apologize for anything specific. Number three and most importantly, assure everyone things have changed, things are better now.
BLUMBERG: For example, Commissioner Heather Murren asked Lloyd Blankfein, head of Goldman Sachs, do you need more regulation? And he replied, well, we have a new regulator now, the New York Fed, and it's much more on the case than the one we used to have, the SEC.
LLOYD BLANKFEIN: I mean every day dozens of people from the New York Fed come in and they know every part of our business, look at papers, our processes, procedures in a very, very - our regulation is different now.
HEATHER MURREN: So is there yes in there, that there should be more regulation, more supervision?
BLANKFEIN: Well, there should have been more than there was in September under the old regime, and right now it feels much different, it feels like a lot of regulation, and appropriately a lot.
JOFFE: Well, that was the morning panel. The next panel to come before the commission in the afternoon - they saw things a little differently.
PETER SOLOMAN: I don't think there's been great improvement.
BLUMBERG: This is Peter Soloman. He is not some activist or anti-Wall Street crusader. He was actually vice chairman at Lehman Brothers in the 1980s, and now he runs his own investment firm.
JOFFE: Peter Soloman says the major cause of the crisis: the four guys you just heard from this morning, the big banks. In fact, this is the theme of all of the panelists in the next session, all of whom were finance guys. They all said the big banks spent a lot of money trying to get Congress and regulators to do what they wanted. First you're going to hear Peter Solomon and then Michael Mayo, a financial services analyst with Calyon Securities.
SOLOMON: I mean, you can't have this much lobbying, this much money spent without - I assume these folks wouldn't do all that unless they thought they were getting value received.
MICHAEL MAYO: The revenues the four banks represent this morning equal GDP of Argentina. If it's Argentina against Sheila Bair, who's going to win?
BLUMBERG: Sheila Bair, for those who don't know, she is the head regulator for commercial banks.
JOFFE: So it's sort of weird. Here you have a commission created by Congress to figure out what went wrong at the big banks, and one answer that seems to emerge: Congress can't resist the money the big banks throw at them.
BLUMBERG: I'm Alex Blumberg.
JOFFE: And I am Chana Joffe-Walt, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION.
DEBORAH AMOS, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Deborah Amos.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today the Pentagon releases its report on what the military missed before a massacre at Fort Hood, Texas. People who worked with him say Major Nadal Hasan left many warning signs before allegedly opening fire last year. But that did not stop the psychiatrist's transfer from Walter Reed Medical Center to Fort Hood for additional work. Defense Secretary Robert Gates summed up the Pentagon's conclusions a short time ago.
ROBERT GATES: In particular, the review concluded the DOD force protection programs are not properly focused on internal threats such as workplace violence and self-radicalization.
INSKEEP: Let's try to translate that with NPR's Daniel Zwerdling, who's been covering the story from the beginning. Daniel, good morning once again.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: DOD force protection. That's people who are supposed to look after things - security, basically - were not properly focused, Gates says, on internal threats.
ZWERDLING: Interesting. He said the military basically is focused, the whole structure was focused on foreign enemies, the Cold War, spies...
INSKEEP: Or enemies trying to infiltrate spies from outside. Okay.
ZWERDLING: Let me just mention that the military has not yet released the actual report, so I have not seen any fine print.
INSKEEP: Okay, so this is a general idea of what they're going to be reporting a little bit later on today. Now, they talk about the problem - Gates talks about the problem of self-radicalization. That seems to be part of what happened here. He also just mentions workplace violence, which suggests that Gates is concerned not only about Islamic radical threats but simply about mental illness and difficulty of that kind.
ZWERDLING: Now, remember, back in November I reported starting four or five years ago, Hasan's supervisors at Walter Reade and at the military's medical university had serious concerns about his - what one supervisor called his lack of professionalism and poor judgment. They said he was simply at best a mediocre psychiatrist and at worst a really bad one. The caught him proselytizing the patients about Islam.
INSKEEP: And still he kept his job and got promoted?
ZWERDLING: Exactly. He got a fellowship that normally is only given to the best psychiatrists, and so what the report should show, we hope, is, you know, who knew what about him, who reported it to whom, why did they promote him instead of kicking him out of...
INSKEEP: Well, now, did Gates talk about the failure of Major Hasan's commanders to pass on information that they had about him?
ZWERDLING: He did, actually. And as I reported in November, they sent him to Fort Hood - the top Army officials decided to send him to Fort Hood partly because they sort of hoped it would get him out of their hair. And we have another clip of Secretary Gates. Let's listen.
GATES: One of the core functions of leadership is assessing the performance and fitness of people honestly and openly. Failure to do so, or kicking the problem to the next unit or the next installation, may lead to damaging if not devastating consequences.
ZWERDLING: You know, it's not just the military that does this. It's institutions everywhere. Let's kick the problem guy to the person in that office. They'll deal with him.
INSKEEP: Daniel, thanks very much.
ZWERDLING: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: NPR's Daniel Zwerdling is reporting this morning on a Pentagon report due out a little bit later on today. Secretary Gates, the defense secretary, says that this report finds the Pentagon was not properly focused on internal threats like workplace and self-radicalization.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
The atomic bombs that ended World War II killed over a hundred, perhaps over 200,000 people. Over the past generation there's been a revisionist debate: Did the United States drop two atomic bombs to avoid a land invasion that might have killed a million Americans and millions of Japanese? Or did they drop the bomb to avoid the Soviet army coming in and sharing the spoils of conquering Japan, or for some other geopolitical goal? Were the prospects of a land invasion even more destructive than the opening of the nuclear age?
D.M. Giangreco, who is an editor for Military Review, has written a new book that takes advantage of declassified materials in both the United States and Japan to try to answer those questions. It's published by the Naval Institute Press and called "Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947."
Mr. Giangreco joins us from member station KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. D.M. GIANGRECO (Author, "Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947"): Oh, glad to be here.
SIMON: Help us understand what U.S. military planners had to look at, as they contemplated a land invasion of Japan in 1940, let's say 1943. Because as you suggest in this book, there were even some military units that were U.S. units that were held back from possible action in Berlin because it was understood they'd have to be sent to the Pacific.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Right. There was a very, very tight timetable. And everything had to work in terms of shipping, you know, the movement of troops because there was clearly not enough forces in the Pacific to be able to carry this off, and...
SIMON: And maybe we should explain, at least at that point in their planning, the participation of other Allied forces would've been limited, including Great Britain, France, Canada, for that matter the Soviet Union, because they had been fighting the war longer than the United States and they had just won, and had to get back to life.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Well, yes. That's exactly right. What they were essentially looking at for the invasion of Japan was what would functionally be a duplication of the casualty surge in Europe that was principally, you know, driven by combat in Europe, that that would be repeated in the Pacific. And that was not a pleasant prospect.
SIMON: Let me get to another aspect, if I could. In history it is often said that war planners had projected that a land invasion of Japan would've cost the lives of a million U.S. soldiers and many more Japanese. Where does that figure come from and does it seem right to you?
Mr. GIANGRECO: Well, you have to remember that these figures are basically put together by planning staffs' best guess from, you know, say, the terrain, the number of units that are going to be fielded; the number of enemy units that they're going to have to fight. And as early as middle part of 1944, when we started getting a pretty firm grasp of just how casualties were playing out, and they ultimately came to the conclusion that the casualties on the low end would be somewhere in the neighborhood, perhaps of, say, about a quarter-million and on the upper end, in through the million range.
SIMON: Someone who reads your book is struck time and time again how the Americans and the Japanese looked at the same experience and derived totally different conclusions. The invasion and battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima were ruinous in terms of casualties for the Japanese, even more than the Americans. The Americans extrapolated from that information well, the battles were bloody and costly but in the end it was worth it because the Japanese now understand that we are going to prevail.
The Japanese looked at those same numbers and said, well, the battles were bloody and costly but they were worth it because it gave us more time to prepare for the defense of our homeland and the Americans must know are prepared to suffer casualties at a rate that they are not.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Yes. These are the same people who after two atomic bombs and the Russian entry into the war were still saying, no, we can do this because we're still going be able to like force them to invade, because they surely can't have more atomic bombs.
SIMON: What about the argument, Mr. Giangreco, that in 1945 Japan was essentially defeated, even if they didn't know it?
Mr. GIANGRECO: Well, certainly there's a lot to that argument. But defeat and surrender are two very different things. Like if you use...
SIMON: The point of that being a nation might be defeated but until they surrender that perception is kind of useless.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Well, yes. I think that it's quite reasonable to argue that they would've been even harder to convince than the Germans. The Germans at least surrendered in fairly large numbers when they saw a hopeless situation, but the only time you ended up getting large numbers of Japanese to surrender was basically in Manchuria when the emperor said surrender now. And for the first time in the war you actually started getting, you know, large numbers of Japanese laying down their arms.
SIMON: In your appendix, toward the end of the book, you have a very moving letter written by James Michener.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Oh, yes.
SIMON: The novelist who we sometimes forget began his writing career, Tales of the South Pacific, which was made, of course, into a famous musical ultimately - James Michener was from a Quaker background. He was a man of peace. And he wrote a letter, October 20, of 1995, essentially saying there was no alternative to the end of World War II the way the U.S. ended. But he didnt let that letter be released until after his death, did he?
Mr. GIANGRECO: Well, no. It - much to the frustration of a couple of friends of his but for his own personal reasons, he really did not feel that he could let his views be public.
SIMON: He says in this letter, I know that if I went public with my views I would condemned and ridiculed. But recollecting his time in the South Pacific, he said, I stood there on the lip of the pulsating volcano and I know that I was terrified at what might happen and damn relieved when the invasion became unnecessary. I accept the military estimates that at least one million lives were saved and mine could have been one of them.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Yet theres a lot of Americans and Japanese who are alive today because we did not have to go in. Its astounding. While we were looking at some of our own casualty estimates, the Japanese military was doing much the same thing. And the figure of 20 million appears again and again.
SIMON: Twenty million Japanese who would have been killed.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Yes well, in some references it is to Japanese killed and others it is to casualties, but yes, the numbers are horrific but the casualness with which it was used and they felt it was worth it. Its just stunning to me when you go through some of this material.
SIMON: Mr. Giangreco, thanks so much.
Mr. GIANGRECO: Youre welcome.
SIMON: D. M. Giangreco, the author of Hell To Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan 1945-1947. He joined us from member station KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri.
(Soundbite of song, "Tik Tok")
Ms. KE$HA SEBERT (Singer): (Singing) Wake in the morning feeling like P. Diddy...
P. DIDDY: Hey, what up, girl?
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) ...got my glasses, I'm out the door. I'm gonna hit this city. Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack, 'cause when I leave for the night I ain't coming back.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
The pop world has a new sensation.
(Soundbite of song, "Tik Tok")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) Don't stop, make it pop, DJ, blow my speakers up, tonight, I'm a fight, 'til we see the sunlight. Tick tock on the clock, but the party don't stop, no, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Don't stop...
SIMON: That's Ke$ha, with her hit song "Tik Tok." Rolling Stone has called her music repulsive, obnoxious and ridiculously catchy.
(Soundbite of song, "Tik Tok")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) The party don't start 'til I walk in.
SIMON: Whatever it is, it's number one on the charts - Ke$ha has replaced Susan Boyle. "Tik Tok" is taken from her debut album, "Animal," that sold over 150,000 copies. She's been called the first breakout star of 2010. Ke$ha Sebert joins us from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
Ms. SEBERT: Thanks so much for having me.
SIMON: First, how do you like a description like Rolling Stone's? Let me read again - repulsive, obnoxious and ridiculously catchy.
Ms. SEBERT: I think it's funny. I think that I have then captured myself pretty accurately because I can be obnoxious. I don't think I'm necessarily repulsive, except for I haven't showered in a few days. But ridiculously catchy? I'm way into that part.
SIMON: Well, I can't tell that you haven't showered in a few days so...
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: You kind of grew up in the music business. The creative part, if you please, the behind-the-sheet-of-music part, as opposed to the performing part. What led you to the stage, finally?
Ms. SEBERT: One of my first memories was, I was kind of like, looking up at my mom as she was performing.
SIMON: This is Pebe Sebert, your mother...
Ms. SEBERT: Um-hum. My mom.
SIMON: ...who wrote "Old Flames Can't Hold Candle to You."
Ms. SEBERT: Yeah, that was recorded by - I dont know if you know this; you probably do - but Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard. So she's just an incredible writer - and person. And when I would go to high school, I'd come home and for fun, we would write songs together. So...
SIMON: This is in Nashville?
Ms. SEBERT: Um-hmm.
SIMON: Yeah.
Ms. SEBERT: And I always knew it was what I wanted to do. I never really thought about having a...
(Soundbite of cell phone ringing)
Ms. SEBERT: I'm sorry.
SIMON: Is that your cell phone?
Ms. SEBERT: I thought I turned it off. Let me turn it off.
SIMON: How funny. There you are, a now-famous musician, that's your ringtone?
Ms. SEBERT: Yeah. I am such a space cadet...
SIMON: I mean, people are probably downloading some of your songs as their ringtone and you've got that little, you know, otherworldly Martian bleep.
Ms. SEBERT: I want to get a beeper. I'm sick of this technology.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: I dont know if you can get them anymore.
Ms. SEBERT: No. I want to look into it 'cause then nobody can bother me; they can just page me. Call them back. But anyways, I'm sorry about that. No. What I was just saying is music - I've never really believed in having a fallback plan, so just kind of - I always knew this was what I was going to do.
SIMON: Tell us about the song "Stephen" that was co-written by your mother.
Ms. SEBERT: I love that song.
SIMON: Well, why don't we listen to a little of it.
Ms. SEBERT: All right. Yeah.
(Soundbite of song, "Stephen")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) Stephen, why won't you call me? Stephen, why won't you call me? I saw you in your tight ass rocker pants. You saw me, too. I laughed, 'cause I was completely trashed. And I watched your ugly girlfriend sneer across the room, as if I really care that she's here with you...
SIMON: This song winds up being unexpectedly touching. I'll tell our audience, OK, who are obviously going to notice a couple of other properties before they take my word that it's touching. But it is.
Ms. SEBERT: Well, the song is really vulnerable. It's about a guy that I was completely obsessed with - and he would just not give me the time of day - and being so frustrated over it. The chorus is Stephen, why won't you call me? I can't take rejection. Why won't you call me?
(Soundbite of song, "Stephen")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) Stephen, why won't you call me? I'm sitting here waiting. Why won't you call me? Stephen, I'm feeling pathetic. I can't take rejection. Why won't you call me?
SIMON: Is his name actually Stephen?
Ms. SEBERT: Oh, yes.
SIMON: Ooh, my word.
Ms. SEBERT: I really think it's the best revenge.
SIMON: Boy, a best-selling album. So we can hope that Stephen is like, stacking the toilet tissue at Wal-Mart now, right?
Ms. SEBERT: Well, I mean, he's such a loser.
SIMON: Which is an honest job, don't get me wrong. And respectable, but yeah.
Ms. SEBERT: No. He's just such a loser. Like, looking back on my obsession, it's kind of like just so silly. It's just, he wouldn't call.
SIMON: Because this record's doing so well, do you have an investment, even at the age of 22, at continuing to do teenage music?
Ms. SEBERT: I think that with this record, I just want to make people happy. I realize that I'm getting a lot of slack because I'm a chick, and I brush my teeth with Jack. And that's so shocking but...
SIMON: You mean Jack Daniels?
Ms. SEBERT: That would be the one.
SIMON: Yeah. I just thought I'd ask. Okay. We're non-commercial here but if I may, Crest might be more effective.
Ms. SEBERT: I don't think it's as, like...
SIMON: I'm not sure Jack...
Ms. SEBERT: ...as anti-bacterial.
SIMON: ...I'm not sure Jack cuts down on tartar, if you get my drift.
Ms. SEBERT: I dont know about that, but I think it is an anti-bacterial, right?
SIMON: You know, I guess it is.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. SEBERT: There you go.
SIMON: Right.
Ms. SEBERT: Better than nothing.
SIMON: Well, you know, a lot of people listening to us now just might be on the verge of brushing their teeth so, you know...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. SEBERT: Make the right choice.
SIMON: Yeah. Turn away from the medicine cabinet and go into the pantry. See if you can find a - well, I guess I have to say I'm kidding. In any event, let me just add that for the record.
Oh, talking about living like an animal, let's listen to "Backstabber," if we could.
(Soundbite of song, "Backstabber")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) Bored, stoned, sitting in your basement, all alone, 'cause your little conversation's got around, and look at what we all found out. Look at what we found. Lookie here, we all found out that you have got a set of loose lips, twisting stories all because you're jealous. Now I know exactly what you're all about. And this is what you're all about. Girl, you're such a backstabber...
SIMON: This is an angry song.
Ms. SEBERT: Well, it's not angry. It's more about chicks need to watch each other's backs. I feel like I treat my friends with so much respect, and they're like family. And when I'm wronged by somebody that is like, part of my family, it's rough. So I had to write a song about it.
(Soundbite of song, "Backstabber")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) I'm sick and tired of hearing all of my life from other people with all of your lies, wrapped up so tight, so maybe you should shut your mouth, shut your mouth, you never shut your mouth...
SIMON: I'm told you had just about perfect SAT scores.
Ms. SEBERT: It was close - 1,500. I was like, very studious. I was actually in the international baccalaureate program, in AP; I, like, loved physics and math, and I was in the marching band. And then after that practice, I would drive to Belmont - it's a college in Nashville - and just for fun, listen in on Cold War history classes, just 'cause - I just think it's so interesting.
And I was so curious kind of about all of that, I ended up taking my first solo trip to Cuba. So point being: I was very studious and really curious about a lot of things that are much deeper than, you know, partying and dancing.
SIMON: You've described this album, I gather, as celebrating - I'm going to read this now - boys, boots, beer, boobs.
Ms. SEBERT: It is a celebration. I think the whole record's kind of a celebration of fun and youth and life. I wrote every song on the record, and I've also written for other people as well. And so I'm really proud of this record. I wrote maybe over 200 songs.
SIMON: We're going to get some email saying: I don't listen to NPR to hear that kind of music.
I like you, and I like your music.
Ms. SEBERT: Thanks, and I like that. Because you know what? I just stand for fun. It's pop music; it's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. And I'm going to stand by the fact that I'm proud of this record, and I'm not a moron. So there.
(Soundbite of song, "Animal")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) I am in love with what we are, not what we should be...
SIMON: Ke$ha, awfully nice talking to you.
Ms. SEBERT: Deal. Nice to talk to you, man. Thank you so much.
SIMON: Our pleasure. Ke$ha in New York. Her debut album, "Animal," out now and selling - well, like an animal.
Ms. SEBERT: Thanks.
(Soundbite of song, "Animal")
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) So if it's just tonight, the animal inside, let it live and die. Like it's the end of time, like everything inside, let it live and die. This is our last chance...
SCOTT SIMON, host:
Quarterbacks, of course, are just about the most marketable players in the NFL. Theyre getting more protection on the field this season. Referees are handing out bigger penalties for hits, trying to keep the Leagues leading men in the game and off the injured list.
Nancy Farghalli reports.
(Soundbite of football game)
NANCY FARGHALLI: NFL star quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning spend their days dodging hits and sacks from 300 pound defensive linemen. But off the field many of the quarterbacks star in their own hits, in commercials. Take Peyton Manning.
(Soundbite of commercial)
Mr. PEYTON MANNING (Quarterback, Indianapolis Colts): I hate to bother you. Will you sign my melon. Peyton P-E-Y.
Unidentified Man: Groceries $41.
(Soundbite of commercial)
Mr. MANNING: Listen, most major sports like football are shot on a Sony HD camera. So sports...
Mr. PAUL SWANGUARD (President, Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, University of Oregon): He is about as prolific a marketer on the NFL as weve ever seen.
FARGHALLI: Thats Paul Swanguard. He teaches sports marketing at the University of Oregon. He says the NFL builds its success on players like Peyton Manning being everywhere, playing and pitching.
So the NFL understands that by protecting him as a player while hes out on the field gives them a way to reinforce what hes doing in those ads. He does no service to that effort if he is sitting on the sidelines wearing crutches or trying to figure out how to count from A to Z.
FARGHALLI: So, the NFL is going further than ever to protect quarterbacks. This season, roughing the passer calls are on the rise - the first time in three years - and several games had controversial roughing the passer calls. Some credit the increase to a new rule change, nicknamed the Brady Rule. Last season, a hit on Tom Brady's knee ended his season. Now referees can call a penalty if the defensive player hits a quarterback's knee.
Still, is the NFL going too far in protecting quarterbacks? After all, this is football.
Troy Aikman is a former quarterback and a Fox Sports broadcaster.
Mr. TROY AIKMAN (Former Quarterback): If the rules had been in place when I was playing, I believe that my career would have been extended three or four years.
FARGHALLI: Too bad. But Aikman says that one thing hasn't changed since his playing days. Referees follow the letter of the law with penalties, without looking at intention. Aikman says that's not always good.
Mr. AIKMAN: It's relatively easy then to determine whether or not a blow to a quarterback was deemed excessive or incidental. So, I'm discouraged by the fact that there have been a number of games that are influenced not that the outcomes are in question but a number of games that have been influenced based on the protection of the quarterback.
FARGHALLI: The NFL declined to comment for this story but says they review every penalty call of every game. But Aikman says the new rules will help keep quarterbacks in the league and in your commercials.
Mr. AIKMAN: I think we're going to see more and more quarterbacks especially, I think we're going to see them playing much longer than what we have in years past.
FARGHALLI: And for a league that likes its stars front and center, that's the best offense.
Nancy Farghalli, NPR News.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
A teenager from Washington State has been on the run for eight months. He has been acclaimed as some kind of modern day Jesse James, minus the killing.
Reporter Vanessa Romo has the story of the outlaw police say is an amateur criminal but a master escape artist.
VANESSA ROMO: The last time authorities had Colton Harris-Moore in custody was in April of 2008. At that point, he was serving time in a halfway house for youth offenders, just south of Seattle. Hed been convicted of theft and possession of stolen property. It was bed-check and he was in his p.j.'s. But soon after the nightly routine he climbed out a window and into the night. Since then, the now-18-year-old fugitive has eluded police in Washington, Idaho, even Canada, repeatedly vanishing into the woods. Police suspect hes stolen at least two planes, two boats and several cars and that he has broken into more than 50 homes. Yet the only thing growing faster than Harris-Moores alleged rap sheet is his legend.
Sheriff MARK BROWN (Camano Island County): I dont understand it myself.
ROMO: Local County Sheriff Mark Brown leans far back in his office chair and bristles at the mention of Harris-Moores exploding popularity.
Sheriff BROWN: Reasonable people would not want to idolize somebody or sensationalize somebody thats a thief.
ROMO: As of today, Harris-Moores wanted in five counties on multiple charges. But 10 of them are in Harris-Moores hometown Sheriff Brown's jurisdiction.
Sheriff BROWN: Taking motor vehicle on the second degree, attempting to elude malicious mischief third degree.
ROMO: Theres a competitive history between this department and Harris-Moore, starting when he was a toddler. Back then police appeared often on the doorstep of the double-wide trailer where Harris-Moore grew up responding to calls of domestic abuse between his mother and father. Over the years, police say Harris-Moore has evolved from a petty thief stealing food and blankets, to where he is today a convicted felon on the run.
During a recent appearance on a local Seattle radio show, Harris-Moores mother, Pamela Kohler, said she has no idea where her son is hiding.
Ms. PAMELA KOHLER: And I like it like that, because that way I dont have any information to give to the police.
ROMO: Kohler says shes writing a book about her sons exploits. She plans to use the profits to open an animal shelter for abused pets, something her son had dreamed of doing, she says. Kohler also claims hes a genius.
Ms. KOHLER: He took an IQ test a few years ago and hes three points below Einstein. And if he flew those planes without lessons, I am very, very proud.
ROMO: But hes not a boy only a mother can love. He has a growing legion of fans and not just locally. Harris-Moores infamy reaches far beyond the small Puget Sound community whose homes he has invaded and credit cards he has stolen. Feelings about Harris-Moore run the gamut from locals tired of the story and answering reporters questions to fierce fans enamored with the growing myth.
People have even written songs like this one, "The Ballad of Barefoot Harris."
(Soundbite of song The Ballad of Barefoot Harris)
Unidentified Man #1: (Singing) But hed never hurt a fly, and hed never kill a man, and he never will be found.
ROMO: Fans as far as Greece, Italy and Australia extend open-door invitations through the magic of Facebook. To date, there are more than 16,000 members signed on to a fan page who wish him luck on the lam. Girls, taken by his almond-shaped blue eyes, beg him to visit their homes and make offers of girlfriending him. Guys mock the law enforcement agencies who have failed to capture the 6-foot-5, 210-pound teen.
Aidin Stephens(ph) is also rooting for the runaway. And not just because Stephens sells fan club T-shirts bearing Harris-Moore's picture for $15 piece.
Mr. AIDIN STEPHENS: Being good doesnt really get you very far. Its kind of a suckers swindle.
ROMO: He explains the publics romanticized version of Harris-Moores alleged crime sprees this way.
Mr. STEPHENS: Theres haves and have-nots in the world, and whether hes a mastermind or not, he obviously was never going to have the kind of opportunities that some people might have to have a Mercedes or to be a pilot. I mean, its an expensive hobby to have an airplane.
ROMO: Nobody knows that better than Bob Rivers, whose plane was worth $150,000. That is, before Harris-Moore allegedly stole, then totaled it. It took police almost a year to link Rivers four-seater Cessna to the wanted teen. But despite their assertions, Rivers, a Seattle host for CBS Radio, is not entirely convinced Harris-Moore is really responsible. And hes reluctant to add to the fugitive's growing legend.
Mr. BOB RIVERS: Theres a saying in aviation: There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots. Colton has clearly done some bold things, but could he learn to fly on the Internet and then crash-land several planes in a row, in rugged terrain, and walk away each time without a scratch?
ROMO: The story, if true, is what makes Harris-Moore's life the stuff movies are made of. Just last month, a documentary film crew landed on Camano Island interviewing locals. And a slew of production companies have courted Kohler for access to her son. Of course, this isnt a movie. With each new crime thats attributed to the teen, the stakes get higher and the potential for a dangerous confrontation increases, which is why authorities and Harris-Moores mother are hoping for the least cinematic ending that the 18-year-old quietly turns himself in.
For NPR News, Im Vanessa Romo.
SIMON: And you can see a self-portrait of the teen outlaw taken by the stolen camera of course it would be stolen - on our Web site npr.org. Youre listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
The Obama administration announced last night that at least 100,000 Haitian immigrants who are in the United States illegally will be allowed to stay for the next year and a half. This means that none will be reported forgive me -deported to their devastated homeland for now. But any Haitians who attempt to flee to the U.S. will be sent back.
NPR's David Welna has the story.
DAVID WELNA: Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters in a conference call last night that all Haitians in the U.S. who were facing deportation before the earthquake struck Haiti are being given legal status for the time being. Just like nationals from other nations struck by catastrophe have in the past, these Haitians will be allowed to register for what's known as temporary protected status, or TPS. Napolitano called it a sort of time out for a large number of Haitians who might otherwise be deported.
Secretary JANET NAPOLITANO (Homeland Security Department): I've seen estimates of between one to 200,000 Haitian nationals currently in the country who do not have, or who are not legally in the United States. TPS gives them sort of an intermediate immigration status. It allows them only for a period of 18 months - while Haiti gets back on its feet - to remain in the United States, and authorizes them to work during that period.
WELNA: Napolitano noted that letting these Haitians work legally will allow them to send remittances to needy relatives in Haiti. The Bush administration had refused to grant TPS to Haitians in the U.S. even after floods devastated Haiti six years ago, and four hurricanes hit that nation in 2008.
Mark Krikorian heads the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates more restrictions on immigration. He concedes the earthquake in Haiti is precisely what TPS was designed to deal with.
Mr. MARK KRIKORIAN (Center for Immigration Studies): But the question is: Is it going to be temporary? Because all previous grants of TPS, in actual fact, ended up being permanent. Very few people, if any, have ever been deported after a grant of TPS.
WELNA: Krikorian worries that granting protected status to Haitians in the U.S. will trigger a refugee exodus from Haiti. But Secretary Napolitano stated emphatically last night that those Haitians who attempt to sneak into the U.S. will be sent home.
Secretary NAPOLITANO: At this moment of tragedy in Haiti, it is tempting for people suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake to seek refuge elsewhere. But attempting to leave Haiti now will only bring more hardship to the Haitian people and nation.
WELNA: Napolitano said there have been no signs yet of Haitians fleeing to the U.S. Massachusetts House Democrat Jim McGovern says sending such refugees back would be difficult.
Representative JIM MCGOVERN (Democrat, Massachusetts): The way you prevent that is, you respond the way we're responding right now, in dealing with the humanitarian crisis immediately. That's the way you avoid boatloads of refugees leaving Haiti and coming to the United States.
WELNA: McGovern is among the Democrats and Republicans who pushed hard for Haitians in the U.S. to be given temporary protected status.
David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
It really is too easy to ridicule what the Reverend Pat Robertson sometimes says. It's a bit like making fun of a man who mumbles stuff to himself on the subway about Martians, moon landings and 9/11. It's kindest, it's smartest, just to look away.
But millions of people regard Mr. Robertson as a source of wisdom, even though few people I can think of have said so many seriously dotty or malicious things during moments of epochal distress.
This week, as images of the suffering in Haiti began to reach the outside world, the Reverend Robertson told his viewers on "The 700 Club" that years ago, Haitians had made an improvident pact by saying to the devil, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. It's a true story, said the Reverend Robertson, and so the devil said, okay, it's a deal, and they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, but ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other - presumably this most recent lethal earthquake.
A few moments later Mr. Robertson did add that we need to pray for them, and right now we're helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.
But it's hard to detect the hand of God, much less his loving touch, in those remarks.
Enough about the Reverend Robertson. It's important to turn attention to Haiti.
It's moving to hear so many stories of so many Haitians bearing up with bravery and grace, and it's impressive to see the world dispatch so much help to Haiti. Medical search-and-rescue teams have arrived from such distant and dissimilar places as Iceland, Israel, and Fairfax, Virginia. Food and medicine is being sent from as far away as China, and as close as Canada and Cuba. In fact, the Cuban government is letting U.S. medical evacuation planes, which are military aircraft, fly over Cuba to reduce travel time. Catastrophe has at least temporarily overcome animosity.
The U.N. Secretary-General, U.S. cabinet officials and prime ministers are beginning to visit, bearing pledges of aid.
But when the famous faces have gone home, the bright lights packed up, and much of the news snaps back into normalcy, Haitians will face some of their darkest, most desperate hours. The struggle to survive, to build lives with clean water, safe food, medical care, security, education, and real opportunity, will be as urgent, if not as dramatic, as rescuing people from the rubble and ruin. Haiti will still be a great human emergency. It will last a lifetime.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
President Barack Obama joined former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to announce today that they'll lead a national drive to raise money to help survivors of Haiti's devastating earthquake. Former President Bush made a plea for more donations.
President GEORGE W. BUSH: I know a lot of people want to send blankets or water. Just send your cash. One of the things that the president and I will do is make sure your money is spent wisely.
SIMON: And President Obama provided an update on the US-led relief effort.
President BARACK OBAMA: Thousands of American personnel, civilian and military, are on the scene working to distribute clean drinking water and food and medicine and thousands of tons of emergency food supplies are arriving every day.
SIMON: NPR's Jason Beaubien has been in the capital. And Jason, tell us what's happening today.
JASON BEAUBIEN: Today is going to be more of what has been happening ever since this quake struck on Tuesday. It's still digging out. People are still trying to just get the basics - trying to get a place to sleep, trying to work out getting food, getting water. People are just really trying to deal with the basics and still trying to get people out of buildings.
There are still an untold number of people trapped inside buildings, alive, knocking on walls. People are trying to dig them out.
SIMON: And the - I can't begin to estimate, thousands, hundreds of thousands who are walking around with real wounds. How much medical care is available?
BEAUBIEN: Medical care is still a real issue here. Many of the clinics, many of the hospitals were severely damaged. Aid groups have been coming in and trying to get their operations set up. That is just starting to happen. It's been very makeshift in front of the hotel where I'm staying. This hotel was fairly severely damaged but it's habitable. A group has set up front here and people are just flooding in with their wounded loved ones, their relatives at night by flashlight.
There was - a gynecologist was out there sewing up people's heads, treating wounds. Yeah, it's very makeshift at the moment.
SIMON: Do you get the idea anybody's in charge or who is in charge?
BEAUBIEN: There's very much a sense that no one is in charge here. Occasionally you'll see some Haitian police on the streets, but there's very much a sense that the state has collapsed, in part because the governmental buildings have all collapsed. The government is not functioning. For a long time, it's been completely unclear where President Rene Preval is. There's very much a sense that things have broken down.
And it's interesting. You know, I was talking to a guy outside of a university where supposedly 60 people are still trapped inside, and they can hear them knocking on walls. And he was saying that it's going to be the United Nations, the United States, the international community, that they're going to have to take charge of getting control back over what's happening in Haiti.
Because even if the governmental people in Haiti wanted to get together, they have nowhere to meet, they have no means of communication. So in the short term, Haitians are really looking particularly to the U.S. to come in and try to get things moving, get this recovery operation going and move this country forward from a devastating disaster.
SIMON: Have people moved from shock, despair, to anger?
BEAUBIEN: You're getting some of that. The World Food Programme got out yesterday and started distributing just little biscuits from trucks and there was just mobs of people trying to get them. And things started to break down. But overall, it really hasn't gotten that bad yet.
And from what I've seen, being out on the streets, you are seeing some acts of looting and whatnot, but it's fairly minor, considering the fact that there doesn't seem to be any law and order. And considering sort of the scale of what's happened here, people seem to be taking it fairly calmly.
SIMON: NPR's Jason Beaubien in Port-au-Prince, thanks so much.
BEAUBIEN: You're welcome.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
Erin Lancer was one of those Americans caught in Haiti this week during the earthquakes. She was there to visit a three-year-old boy that she and her husband Michael are working to adopt. She didn't want to leave the country without Jeffrey, her newly adopted son. The boy doesn't have a U.S. passport yet.
There are reportedly 254 U.S. families who are in line to adopt Haitian children, and like many of them, the Lancers are appealing to their congressmen for help. Michael and Erin Lancer join us now from their home in West Seneca, New York, where Erin has just returned from Haiti. And thanks for being with us and welcome home, Erin.
Ms. ERIN LANCER: Thank you very much. I'm very, very glad to be home.
SIMON: What can you tell us about Jeffrey?
Ms. LANCER: We've been to visit him five times. I've been five times in this past 12 months, and he is a wonderful little boy, smart, funny. We can't wait for him to come home and join our family permanently.
SIMON: And he's okay through the earthquake now?
Ms. LANCER: Yes, he is okay. He's scared. He was very clingy the next two days. So, it was difficult.
SIMON: How's the orphanage doing?
Ms. LANCER: Well, I was not at the orphanage at the time. I've heard the orphanage is fine. They had some damage to walls and things, but nobody was injured. All the children are safe. I haven't heard specifically about his nanny. I'm waiting to hear.
SIMON: But the orphanage seems to have enough food for the moment, for example?
Ms. LANCER: Yes.
SIMON: Michael Lancer, I know you've been on the phone and email constantly to try and get this resolved. What are you hearing from people in Congress and the State Department?
Mr. MICHAEL LANCER: Actually, I'm pleasantly surprised, Scott, because when I started this process, what I heard from elected officials was you don't have a passport; you can't do that. (Unintelligible) proceeded, with the help of the media, actually, it went to, well, maybe you can do that. At this point, I'm working with Senator Schumer of New York, with two of our local representatives. Everybody's putting their heads together going, okay, now, how are we going to do this? What's the best way to make this happen? And it's very encouraging.
SIMON: What would be the best way for it to happen?
Mr. LANCER: The best thing to happen at this point would be the United States to reach an agreement with Haiti, saying there are these adoptive children in the process. Haiti, you have your hands full, we have parents here who are qualified and ready to take these children. So, at this point we are going to issue the proper documents to allow them to travel to the United States and then we can clean up the immigration issues later on.
SIMON: Erin Lancer, you were there during the earthquake. What was it like and how did you get out?
Ms. LANCER: I was staying in Port-au-Prince with some friends. We were playing outside, and all of the sudden there was a huge rumbling. Some of the people that I was with said they thought it was a bomb. I immediately sat down. I could not walk. The wall between the two houses - the house that we were staying at and the neighbor's house - was just swaying like a snake. It was terrifying. And I sat down and I dont know how, but my son came running up, screaming mama, mama. And I picked him up and we sat until it was over.
Our friends down the block came and got us. And their house did not sustain damage, and we were able to go over there and spend the rest of the days until we were able to evacuate.
SIMON: Erin, I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for you to leave Jeffrey.
Ms. LANCER: Yes. It's always difficult to leave him every time we've gone. This was just so much worse. I knew that Michael was working on trying to get him home, but I just didn't believe it. And Michael didn't really give us options; he said you need to come home. And, you know, I have children here at home, and I had to do it. It was not easy, but I know he's with our friends still getting...
SIMON: With your friends in that house in Port-au-Prince?
Ms. LANCER: Yes. So, he'll be safe until we can get him, and I hope it will be soon.
SIMON: Michael and Erin Lancer, thanks so much.
Ms. LANCER: Thank you very much, Scott. And we continue to pray for the people of Haiti. That's where the need is. We are so very aware of that.
Mr. LANCER: I agree with what Erin said. Really, we have been very blessed throughout this process but we don't want our story to overshadow that of the people who are in Haiti and suffering.
SIMON: Michael and Erin Lancer in West Seneca, New York, thanks so much.
Mr. and Mrs. LANCER: Thank you, Scott.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
This week, National Security Advisor Jim Jones went to the Middle East and met with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Secretary of State Clinton met last week with officials from Egypt and Jordan, but there is still no visible movement toward new peace talks.
We're joined now by Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. He's on the phone from Jerusalem. Mr. Ambassador, thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. MICHAEL OREN (Israeli Ambassador to the United States): Thank you, Scott. Pleasure to be here.
SIMON: What would it take to get Israelis and Palestinians and maybe Egyptians and Jordanians and others to the table?
Mr. OREN: Well, I think we, the Israelis, Egyptians, Jordanians, and certainly the Obama administration, are ready to return to the table. We have all agreed that negotiations should resume immediately without preconditions. We are waiting for Palestinian leadership under President Mahmoud Abbas to agree to come back to the negotiating table.
Israel has taken some unilateral measures, in fact, unprecedented measures, by freezing construction in the West Bank settlements for a 10-month period in an attempt to create better conditions for resuming those talks. We're still waiting for the Palestinians to join us, but that remains our position, as well as the position of the Obama administration, immediate resumption of talks without preconditions.
SIMON: Well, I have the impression that the Palestinians have said a freeze ought to be a freeze and a temporary freeze is not a freeze.
Mr. OREN: Well, the Palestinians have never made those demands in the past. We hope that they will return, and when they do return I can only assure them that the Israeli government is committed to moving as swiftly as possible to resolving all the outstanding issues, including some of those thornier issues, like Jerusalem and borders and refugees.
SIMON: Let me share something with you. Maybe you've heard it already. We had on this program last week the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. And we asked him about Egypt's border with Gaza and the blockade that he has on it at the moment. He said this...
Mr. AHMED ABOUL GHEIT (Foreign Minister, Egypt): It is not true at all for people to claim that Egyptians are blocking Gaza. That is one. But two, Israel is an occupation of Gaza and it is the occupying power, and occupying power, according to international law, has cases to ensure that the welfare of the people is ensured.
SIMON: What's your response to that, Mr. Ambassador?
Mr. OREN: Well, I have great respect for the Egyptian foreign minister, but I'll have to take issue. We basically share a border with Gaza in the same way that Egypt does. And like Egypt, we have a very severe problem with the Hamas regime in Gaza. A regime that is committed to destroying Israel, committed to killing Israelis. And for that reason, you know, we have sanctions against Gaza.
The border is not hermetically closed. Over a hundred trucks with food and medicine go each day into Gaza, and the U.N. can attest that there is no shortage of food or medicine in Gaza. We are, however, restricting the flow of certain construction materials which we think can be used by Hamas to rebuild its military infrastructure, which, again, could be used to kill Israelis. I think that's a very justifiable policy for any country so threatened.
SIMON: And Mr. Ambassador, I've had the impression that the United Nations, on the contrary, has specifically complained that there's a shortage of food and medicine coming into Gaza.
Mr. OREN: No. I reiterate: there is no shortage of food and medicine. There is an issue of housing materials. And we do not want the people of Gaza to suffer. We are not at war with the people of Gaza. But, unfortunately, Gaza is under this Hamas regime.
We are looking for finding a way where we can guarantee that construction materials that go into Gaza will be used for civilians and not for the military infrastructure of the Hamas regime.
SIMON: Mr. Ambassador, last week an Iranian nuclear scientist of some prominence, who, by the way, reportedly had had contacts with the opposition in Iran, was assassinated. President Ahmadinejad said Israel's responsible. Is that true?
Mr. OREN: I have no information on it. Our reading of it, that this man was probably assassinated because he was identified with the Iranian opposition. The death of a scientist, I think, is further indication of the level of violence in Iran, that this is a regime that not only threatens Israel and other Middle Eastern countries but threatens its own people.
SIMON: Mr. Ambassador, can I read some significance in the fact that, at least as I heard it, you said I have no information on that, but you didn't say no.
Mr. OREN: I just - I really don't have information on it. Do not read into it. The official position here is that we're uninvolved.
SIMON: Mr. Ambassador, so much of the world is sending assistance to Haiti. Israel as well?
Mr. OREN: Israel was one of the first countries in the world to respond to the disaster in Haiti, with doctors, with search dogs, with a medical field team and an entire, it's really defense forces rescue squad, which includes cranes, heavy machinery, for dealing with such crises.
SIMON: Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to the United States, thanks so much.
Mr. OREN: Thank you, Scott.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
More on that story on the assassination of physicist in Tehran. It's just the latest and bloodiest occurrence in a series of mysteries that have swirled around Iran's nuclear activities in recent years. At least two key figures with knowledge of Iran's secret nuclear program have disappeared, thought to be sharing their expertise with Western intelligence agencies.
NPR's Mike Shuster reports on the cloak-and-dagger game in Iran which has become deadly serious.
MIKE SHUSTER: Who killed Masoud Ali Mohammadi? He died on Tuesday when someone triggered a bomb hidden in a motorbike as he was getting into a car parked nearby. Iran's government moved quickly to control the story, blaming the murder on the usual suspects. This is from Press TV, Iran's English-language satellite and Internet channel.
(Soundbite of TV broadcast)
Unidentified Man #1: Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mihman-Parast said based on primary investigations, Washington, Israel and individuals, he called their mercenaries in Iran are behind the assassination.
SHUSTER: Ali Mohammadi was a professor of particle physics and quantum mechanics at Tehran University. And initially, Iran state-controlled media put out the story that he was a staunch supporter of Iran's Islamic government. He must have been targeted by a long-time foe of Iran's Islamic state, Imuja Hadeen Ekulk(ph), according to Mohammad Marandi, a pro-government professor at Tehran University.
Professor MOHAMMED MARANDI (Tehran University): It's widely believed among colleagues that he was assassinated by terrorist organizations, probably the MEK, which is, of course, supported by the United States and it has connections with the Americans and Israelis under a different name. So, for the most part, people here, in fact, everyone who I know, is blaming the United States and Israel for this crime.
SHUSTER: The State Department called that charge absurd. Then it was discovered Ali Mohammadi had no connection to Iran's nuclear program, a spokesman for the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization said. Some who knew him, like this student, say he did not support the government but backed the opposition, the Green Movement.
Unidentified Man #2: We know that the was a theoretical physicist. You know, he had political ideas as well, but we know that he was a critic of the current government. We really hope that the people who've done this will be found and will be punished.
SHUSTER: So, who did kill Masoud Ali Mohammadi? Supporters of the opposition are convinced it was Iran's secret police. The problem with that theory is that although Iran's intelligence agency has not hesitated to kill, this kind of bombing is not their preferred style, says Ahmed Sadri, an Iran analyst at Lake Forest College in Illinois.
Professor AHMED SADRI (Lake Forest College): This doesn't seem to be their way of killing people. It seems to be much more in line with an assassination that is conducted by elements of foreign governments, such as the Israelis. This damages their reputation and creates doubts about their competence in protecting the nation. So, why would they have killed him in this particular way?
SHUSTER: Why indeed. According to some analysts, Iranian agents made the killing look like an Israeli operation to convince the public that Iran is still under attack by its foreign enemies. This in order to shore up support for Iran's hard-line government seriously weakened by the ongoing protests in the streets.
That seemed to be the point that the speaker of the parliament, Ali Larijani, was trying to make a few days ago.
Mr. ALI LARIJANI (Speaker, Iranian Parliament): (Foreign language spoken)
SHUSTER: They spared no effort to obstruct Iran's nuclear program, he said. They talked of negotiations but imposed sanctions. They carried out the wishes of the Zionist regime by playing a new political trick every day.
There's no doubt Iran has been the target of covert operations to disrupt its nuclear program. Three years ago, Ali-Reza Asgari, former Iranian deputy defense minister, disappeared while in Turkey. It is likely he defected and provided valuable intelligence to the U.S. and Israel about a secret Iranian enrichment facility under construction in Iran and about Iran's help in building a secret nuclear reactor in Syria.
Then last year, Sha'harah Ramiri(ph), a nuclear engineer, disappeared while on religious pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Iran says the CIA abducted him but some analysts believe he too defected and provided intelligence to the U.S. about that secret enrichment site at Fordo, the existence of which was made public in September almost simultaneously by President Obama and Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
That's the view of Mohammed Sahimi(ph), an Iran analyst who writes for the Web site Tehran Bureau.
Mr. MOHAMMED SAHIMI (Analyst, Tehran Bureau): All indications are that Iran became aware that he has disappeared and he's not going to come back. So, if you put everything together, this story emerges that he probably defected, he probably has some information about Fordo facility and that's why both the United States and Iran decided to go out and publicly announce it.
SHUSTER: There is still much that is murky about all of these cases. What can be said for sure is that the spy game in Iran is treacherous, and with the bombing earlier this week, getting more and more dangerous all the time.
Mike Shuster, NPR News.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
We had a number of requests on our Facebook page and other places for me to talk about our family's trip to India. Well, we had a wonderful time. We went to a wedding - Nishant Dahiya, an NPR staff member and his wife, Valentina Pasquale. We all rode elephants and camels; we saw Jaipur's Pink City, and the monks and monkeys living in harmony in the Valley of the Monkeys.
I'd wondered how our daughters would react to seeing so many beggars. They see and speak with homeless people in the U.S., but they're not used to both the numbers of beggars that you can see in India, and their persistence.
My wife was careful to tell our daughters that we are lucky to have enough to eat and wear and sleep in a safe, warm place at night. At one point, our 6-year-old looked and saw a man and asked, is he poor or is he lucky? At the moment, she doesnt speak of people being rich or poor. She asks if they're poor or lucky, and knows that she is among the lucky. Well, I hope she holds on to that view for a while.
Meanwhile, we were all impressed all over again by India's majesty, chaos and genius.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
Everybody knows Ed Sullivan as the man who first brought Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Supremes, Woody Allen, Carol Burnett and Richard Pryor into millions of American homes. But each week the man who was what amounted to the gatekeeper for American entertainment also presented a parade of plates spinners, Marine drill teams, weird animal acts, magicians, ventriloquists, and a tiny little Italian mouse.
(Soundbite of, The Ed Sullivan Show)
Mr. ED SULLIVAN (Host): What are you going to be when you grow up?
TOPO GIGIO: I would like to be a scientist and do experiments.
Mr. SULLIVAN: Thats a wonderful career.
TOPO GIGIO: Its too dangerous for me.
Mr. SULLIVAN: Why do you say that, Topo?
TOPO GIGIO: The other scientists might think Im the experiment.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: Well, thats Topo Gigio, of course, our little Italian mouse friend.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: Of course, Ed Sullivan. Kind of hard not to do it as an invitation. Gerald Nachman has written a book about Ed Sullivan and the history of his show. Its called, Right Here on our Stage Tonight. Does everyone say that to you, Mr. Nachman?
Mr. GERALD NACHMAN (Author) A lot of people do and I find myself saying, even though I dont do very good at Sullivan impression. Everybody in time tries to do that.
SIMON: Mr. Nachman is joining us from member station KQED in San Francisco. His book is called, Right Here on Our Stage Tonight. When all is said and done, when you swipe out all the famous names, was this vaudeville on TV?
Mr. NACHMAN: He streamlined vaudeville for TV - you know, when you went to a vaudeville show - I never did, I'm not that old - but you would watch maybe two hours, two and a half hours ,and every act would be 10 or 15 minutes. Well, he had an hour show and he cut the comedians down to five minutes and the singer down to one or two songs. And he managed to pack in an awful lot into one hour.
SIMON: He would introduce a lot of, well, like retired prize fighters, retired athletes - just here tonight in our audience. We want to introduce - Im sorry, this is irresistible
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. NACHMAN: Its catching, its catching, yes.
SIMON: And, you know, you could see Joe Lewis, the great old heavyweight champ would be introduced.
Mr. NACHMAN: Well, something I found out in researching the book is that obviously those people didnt just happen to be sitting on the aisle on the audience. They were all paid a $1,000 to stand up and wave. And he would have everybody on, famous people, you know, war heroes; as you say, prize fighters -and I think the idea was to let everyone watching know that this was the only place to be Sunday nights at 8:00.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
(Soundbite of applause)
Mr. SULLIVAN: Ive been in the newspaper business, Ive never seen such a collection of stars in the place as are here tonight.
(Soundbite of applause)
Mr. SULLIVAN: (Unintelligible).
(Soundbite of music)
(Soundbite of applause)
SIMON: The show was not an immediate hit.
Mr. NACHMAN: While the show was a gradual hit, he was an immediate flop. The critics just vilified him because he would freeze up when he got on TV, you know, turn into a cigar-store Indian. And eventually he turned that around by becoming kind of an endearing guy, partly through such devices as talking to Topo Gigio, and that helped kind of warm him up. And also everybody came on and did imitations of him and that kind of established his identity and his persona and he became famous for being terrible.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
Mr. SULLIVAN: How long, Topo, do you think youll last in television if you cant sing or dance or act?
TOPO GIGIO: Eddy, how long have you being on the air?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. SULLIVAN: Topo, nobody likes a smart aleck mouse.
TOPO GIGIO: We have a really big show, a really big show.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: Talk to us, please, about our little Italian mouse friend, Topo Gigio.
Mr. NACHMAN: Well, it was a marionette and it took six people to move the arms and the legs and the toes would curl up and the eyes would roll. It was a very peculiar act and it was also an attempt by Sullivan to appeal to kids.
SIMON: And it was a show that families would watch together. That was the whole idea of having acts - now something for the kiddies, right?
Mr. NACHMAN: Yeah, unheard of today, that the whole family will watch - the grandparents and the parents and the kids will all watch the same show. But the kids watching that show would be exposed to things other than this, you know, then the music that they liked, they'd be exposed to comedians, they'd be exposed to, you know, ballet dancers and opera singers and every level of culture, and their parents, by the same token, would be exposed to rock singers and so on. And so it was really a way of, he really did kind of knit the family together on Sunday nights, for an hour anyway.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
Mr. ELVIS PRESLEY: This song is one of the saddest songs youve ever heard.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PRESLEY: It really tells a story, friends.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PRESLEY: Beautiful lyrics, it goes something like this.
(Soundbite of song)
Mr. SULLIVAN: (Singing) You ain't nothing but a hound dog...
SIMON: You know, we can talk about the famous names, but let me ask you about some of the others. Eric Brenn(ph).
Mr. NACHMAN: Oh yeah, he was a master plate spinner.
SIMON: Yeah.
Mr. NACHMAN: And, you know, they had many, many plate spinners on the show and all kinds of tumblers and acrobats and
SIMON: I havent seen a good plate spinner in years.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SIMON: I havent seen a bad plate spinner in years.
Mr. NACHMAN: Where did they all go, thats the question I have.
SIMON: Exactly.
Mr. NACHMAN: Since the Sullivan s went off the air.
SIMON: Paul Draper was a serious dancer, wasnt he?
Mr. NACHMAN: Right, a great modern dancer, I think. I dont he was a ballet dancer.
SIMON: No, he was a modern dancer.
Mr. NACHMAN: Yeah, he was blacklisted from the show, as was Larry Adler, the famous harmonica virtuoso, and
SIMON: blacklisted because they were blacklisted.
Mr. NACHMAN: Well, yeah, I should say they were blacklisted from TV and Sullivan wouldnt have them on even though his sympathies were rather liberal, actually. People think of him as - because he looked like a banker or something, that people thought he was conservative. But he was a lower middle class Irish Catholic who was, you know, married to a Jewish woman, had an Italian assistant. But he caved in on the matter of performers who were tainted in any way, because for him, you know, he was looking out for himself and the show.
SIMON: To put something on the other side of his ledger he - however he did put on people like James Brown and The Supremes and Richard Pryor, for that matter, when a lot of other mainstream TV shows, and a lot of other mainstream news organizations wouldnt have them.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
Mr. SULLIVAN: Now, ladies and gentleman, as everybody knows (unintelligible) whenever any new musical trend (unintelligible) the Charleston or the Black Bottom or any of the rhythm songs, the first area to find out about it in advance is Harlem.
Mr. NACHMAN: He brought black performers on the TV, almost all white TV in the early 50s, more than any other show. He would have Sammy Davis on when he was with the Will Mastin Trio, Pearl Bailey, kind of Harlem specialty acts like Peg Leg Bates, if you remember him.
SIMON: I was about to ask about - I couldn't remember his name, but the one-legged dancer.
Mr. NACHMAN: The one-legged tap dancer. And the guy named Pigmeat Markham, who allegedly became famous on laughing for here comes the judge. He would...
SIMON: Take us back if we could to the one-legged tap dancer.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. NACHMAN: All right.
SIMON: Wouldnt seem to be a good career decision for someone with just, who is a...
Mr. NACHMAN: Yeah, well, he was hell of a tap dancer, I guess, and he was on several times.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
(Soundbite of tap dancing)
SIMON: Its very difficult to explain to people nowadays how well, anything about Senor Wences.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
Unidentified Man: Your name? My name is Senor Wences. This is Yanni.
Mr. NACHMAN: He was a Spanish ventriloquist who has two characters. He would draw a face, two little button eyes and lipstick on his fist and he would talk to this little guy name Johnny, or Yanni, as he called them.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
Unidentified Man: How is your throat today? Not good. No? (Unintelligible) now listen to me, follow me, let me say one thing. Doh re me fa so la tee doh. Good.
Mr. NACHMAN: And then he had a just somebody head in a box, a guy with a beard in a box. He would open and close the box and say, s'alright, and the guy would say s'alright. But it would be (unintelligible)
SIMON: Okay.
Mr. NACHMAN: Yeah.
(Soundbite of The Ed Sullivan Show)
Unidentified Man: Hello, my friend. (Unintelligible) not yet. No, no, no, no. Are you tired? No. No? No. Okay, s'alright.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. NACHMAN: It was very peculiar. And Sullivans taste was pretty mainstream. So for him this is kind of far out stuff but it caught on and, you know, as I say in the book, he didnt discover a lot of people, which is a misconception. He had people on who had already made it another fields, whether they were recording artists, they were in night clubs or movies or radio. So in a way the show is a prism of what America was like in the 50s and 60s, because I say that, you know, we can tell a lot about country by what they choose to amuse themselves with.
SIMON: Mr. Nachman, nice talking to you.
Mr. NACHMAN: Well, thank you, Scott. I appreciate being on very much.
SIMON: Gerald Nachman, his new book - can I do it one more time?
Mr. NACHMAN: Yeah, go ahead.
SIMON: Right here on this stage tonight - Ed Sullivans America. S'alright, s'alright, s'okay, s'okay. This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Scott Simon.
This week Haiti struggles for survival after a devastating earthquake. President Obama proposes fees for big banks and the president makes a deal with labor unions on health care overhaul. NPRs senior news analyst Dan Schorr joins us. Hello, Dan
DANIEL SCHORR: Hi, Scott, welcome home.
SIMON: Thank you very much. Overwhelming event obviously of the week is the devastating earthquake and loss of life in Haiti. There has been a awful lot of coverage this week and will be more as the situation may grow even more urgent. What points would you like to add?
SCHORR: Yeah, well, the coverage has been quite remarkable. I have not seen American television networks move into a story as they are moving into this one and doing some great work.
SIMON: May I offer you another viewpoint?
SCHORR: You may.
SIMON: It comes from a good friend who happens to be my wife, who said while watching the coverage there is a very slender pipeline, as we know, through which all food, medicine, rescue equipment have to pass. Planes have to circle for hours. They had to close the airport for about five hours. She wonders if its responsible for U.S. and other news organizations to clot up that pipeline so their chartered planes with celebrity anchors can get in.
SCHORR: Oh, right, thats an interesting point, which I will take under consideration. What I really wanted to say about the great tragedy in Haiti right now is that part of their problem is indeed - you talked about planes coming in and going out, and that there is no one actually in charge. That makes things very difficult to deploy the aid which is coming in, if you dont know whom to apply to and whom to ask for help on this. I think sooner rather than later what is needed is that somebody, somebodies, be named in order to be the center of authority because the authority of the Haitian government doesnt go very far these days.
What I would like to see based on ancient, ancient memories is something like the old League of Nations mandates in which you had countries which entrust to United Nations, which then appointed one government in order to carry out that trust. I think the United States will be very important in this but I think equally important is to settle in the United Nations on an international effort represented by a UN mandate.
SIMON: While the world was focused on Haiti and will be for a while, financial news from Washington, D.C., where President Obama says he wants to put a tax on big banks to help pay back the bailout money. Prospect for that passing?
SCHORR: Well, its hard to say. Normally speaking, if you ask for something which is called a tax you will find the Republicans saying no we dont want any taxes. But this is rather special. The big banks right now are in great trouble with the American public. And apparently somebody has decided that you cant go wrong politically in attacking the banks. So therefore I think whats happening is that we will have the Democrats ready to vote for this. Republicans I think will have to consider whether they really want to stand there representing the banks at a time when Americans dont like banks.
SIMON: And let me ask you about Google in China. The company has threatened to leave the Chinese market after hackers attacked its infrastructure. There is some suggestion in Google that the Chinese used that infrastructure to track down dissidents who were using Gmail accounts. U.S. State Department says its going to lodge a formal complaint against China. What are the implications of Google leaving China if it happens?
SCHORR: Well, the implications are that China will not have access to what the world has access to. Clearly China wants to have Google or something very much like Google as a kind of a search engine. Clearly also, Google is now on the spot. They already had agreed earlier to accept some restrictions, which I think they are beginning now to regret, and they are beginning to threaten to pull out altogether. We have here this fascinating way in which ideology comes up against technology. You're never quite sure who is going to win.
SIMON: Also this week President Obama struck a deal with labor unions on - to levy a tax on what are called Cadillac health insurance plans. Why was this deal so important?
SCHORR: Well, the deal is important because the administration needs labor support to get this through. They're coming down to the wire now and it looks as though it's very, very close and to not have the labor unions supporting you I think would be very damaging to the chances of this being sold. They gave them a little bit, not all - typical compromise. That is, yes, we will have these taxing of these plans, but no, not right away, done in a few years from now. And they eliminated one little hurdle.
SIMON: The prospect for that health care bill to pass might be affected by the outcome of next weeks Senate race in Massachusetts, where you have a Democrat and Republican, according to many polls, all tied up. Now, how could a Democrat, Martha Coakley, running to succeed Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts, be tied with a Republican, Scott Brown, who says he'd vote against health care.
SCHORR: Yeah, well, it's quite amazing. It's really quite amazing. It was only two months ago that Coakley had a 30 point lead in this race, and thats been steadily eroded; it's quite amazing. It would be disaster not only for the candidate but for the Democratic Party, a thing so symbolic as Ted Kennedys seat.
SIMON: Finally this week, Miep Gies died at the age of 100.
SCHORR: Yes.
SIMON: One of the people who helped hide Anne Frank in the secret annex.
SCHORR: Yes, one of the very important ones, you can imagine. Her husband worked for Otto Frank, Anne Franks father, and they were hid away in the garret up there on the (Dutch spoken) in Amsterdam. It was Miep Gies who night after night came and brought food for them and told them what was happening in the outside world. She probably would have been executed if the Nazis had found her there, and I met her after the war on a trip that she made here.
SIMON: Dan, wont you see you for a few weeks. I am going away for spinal surgery. I expect to be back in February, better than ever, and will be glad to see you.
SCHORR: I look forward to seeing you and all the best.
SIMON: Thanks very much. Dan Schorr.
SCHORR: Thank you.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
Turning again to Haiti, efforts to help survivors of the devastating earthquake there have been stymied by lack of water, electricity, doctors and medical supplies. Makeshift clinics have been set up to tend to the injured. NPRs Greg Allen has more from Port-au-Prince.
GREG ALLEN: On a sidewalk in the dense Bel-Air neighborhood, a crowd of people are gathered. One mans head is wrapped in a bandage. Its one of dozens of makeshift medical clinics that have sprung up all over the city. Reno Adolf(ph) says this one was set up by the mayors office.
Mr. RENO ADOLF: We have no means, no medications and nothing. We have two volunteers, doctors, and two nurses, and we thought that was imperative to do that.
ALLEN: For medicine, the doctors have Tylenol, topical antibiotic, bandages, and thats about it. Even more frustrating there's no place to send patients with severe injuries.
Unidentified Child: (Foreign language spoken)
Dr. NANCY GELINE(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
Unidentified Child: (Foreign language spoken)
ALLEN: On a street just outside the general hospital, Dr. Nancy Geline is trying to give an injection to a seven year old girl. Its a heartbreaking scene. Bernadette Bernard(ph), the childs cousin, describes what happened.
Ms. BERNADETTE BERNARD: (Foreign language spoken)
ALLEN: The girl was in a neighbors house, she says, when it collapsed. To pull her from the rubble, rescuers were forced to amputate her hand. Her arm is bandaged but she is still awaiting surgery to have her wound sewn up and properly treated. Meanwhile, sleeping in the hospital bed out in the elements. Dr. Geline says the hospital itself is another casualty of the earthquake.
Dr. GELINE: (Through translator) (unintelligible) inside (unintelligible) to stay inside. They collapsed, they crushed.
ALLEN: (unintelligible) collapse. Yeah.
The patients who were inside the building were moved outside. And earthquake victims, many with serious trauma, are lying on the ground wherever they can find room.
We are in an area that would be a beautiful park but outside there are hospital beds everywhere, people lying on the ground on palettes, on blankets, and there's some pretty bad cases here. You see people who have arms missing, limbs, legs missing, other internal injuries, trying to get the attention of the doctors when they come through; family members are sitting by. Its a very chaotic scene but at the same time people are remaining calm, thinking that there is some place where theyll get some help.
ALLEN: Under a tree an elderly man lies in a hospital bed with a piece of cardboard over his feet. Dr. Urbab Ditall(ph) says the mans right foot was smashed in the earthquake.
Dr. URBAB DITALL: Well try to clean the wound and to give some analgesic for the pain and try to prepare him for (unintelligible).
ALLEN: Amputated,
Dr. DITALL: Amputated.
ALLEN: Do you know how long hes been here?
Dr. DITALL: We dont know, because there are many of them here, I dont know. Were going to take (unintelligible).
ALLEN: Help...
Dr. DITALL: (Unintelligible)
ALLEN: The director of the hospital, Dr. Alex Laseg(ph), is desperate for outside assistance.
Dr. ALEX LASEG: We need material. We need medication, painkillers, antibiotics, and we need also every team(ph) medical or surgical that could help us.
ALLEN: International medical groups are already here providing what help they can. Whats still missing is a comprehensive approach to getting medical supplies and doctors where theyre most needed. At Port-au-Princes general hospital, Margaret Aguirre with the International Medical Corp arrives saying she just found the World Health Organization had a supply of drugs and medical supplies available. And she is hopeful that her team could soon help set up a surgical unit at the hospital.
Dr. MARGARET AGUIRRE (International Medical Corps): Yeah, I mean, we hope so. But we have to set up tents and get things sanitized so we have to be sure we can do that.
ALLEN: Because you talking about open your surgeries then.
Dr. AGUIRRE: Yeah.
ALLEN: The good news is that the international community is responding. Several countries are sending fully equipped field hospitals. The U.N. is planning a large medical facility at the city stadium. But Laview Vidrasco(ph) with the International Medical Corps says its a race against the clock.
Dr. LAVIEW VIDRASCO (International Medical Corps): What well see later is probably some infections starting because of some of the fractures. So, if those fractures are unattended, untreated, well start seeing infection, sepsis, people dying of other causes, losing blood.
ALLEN: The question for many the Haitians awaiting medical care is not whether help will arrive but whether it will arrive in time.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Scott Simon.
This week President Obama drew from the well of public outrage over Wall Street bonuses. Bankers at top firms are expected to earn nearly 18 percent more than they did in 2008, according to the Wall Street Journal. And President Obama says that he plans to ask Congress to impose a new tax on some of the nations largest financial companies.
Our friend, Joe Nocera, business columnist for the New York Times - he joins us from the studios of the Radio Foundation in New York. Joe, thanks for being with us.
Mr. JOE NOCERA (New York Times): Oh, thanks for having me, Scott.
SIMON: So how would what the White House calls the financial crisis responsibility fee work?
Mr. NOCERA: Well, first of all, it is clearly aimed at punishing bankers for these extravagant bonuses, which just will not stop. So let's be clear about what the purpose is. And the truth is also that the TARP money that they are going to be reclaiming, getting again, the firms that are actually going to lose money on TARP are not the banks that are going to be taxed, it's Chrysler, it's General Motors and it's AIG.
Having said that, the plan is a pretty simple one. They're going to put a tax on the size of the assets. Remember those toxic assets everybody got in trouble with? Banks still have tons and tons of assets, some of them are toxic, many of them are not, and there's simply going to be a tax on those assets. So the more assets you have, the larger the tax. The fewer assets you have, the lower the tax.
SIMON: Now, what about the argument I think banks make that essentially that's a tax on success, and the whole idea of helping them survive was to get business going, not to tax it?
Mr. NOCERA: Well, they do make a point. That is actually a valid point. And let me point out, first of all, that only one banker in the United States has complained about that tax and that's Jamie Diamond(ph), whose firm, JP Morgan, more or less sidestepped the worst of the crisis.
Having said that, a tax like this is in fact going to make it tougher to make loans, which is, you know, another goal that the Obama administration has. The Obama administration's real problem is that it has a series of goals that are very much in conflict. It wants banks to make a lot of loans. It wants banks to be successful, but it also wants banks to reign in practices like bonuses and so on and to slim down so that it doesn't have the size of the assets, it's not too big to fail anymore, and these, you know, this tax very much accentuates the fact that these goals are in conflict.
SIMON: If the public is outraged about bonuses, why not make a provision to tax the bonuses?
Mr. NOCERA: That's a really good question. In England the government has decided that they're going to put a 50 percent tax on all bonuses over $40,000. It's mildly inexplicable why that hasn't happened here. And to be honest, Scott, I think a lot of people think that this this administration, with Geithner as the secretary of the Treasury, with Larry Summers in the White House, really has a deep reluctance to get involved in how these people get paid. Even Ken Feinberg, the so-called pay czar, you know, his mandate is now only two financial companies, Citi and AIG, because everybody else has given the TARP money back.
So I think there is some sort of secret empathy here on the bonus issue.
SIMON: New York Time business columnist Joe Nocera joined us from the studios of the Radio Foundation in New York. Joe, thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. NOCERA: Thanks for having me, Scott, and good luck.
SIMON: Thanks very much.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This week, federal agents arrested more than a dozen people in the Detroit area in a $14 million Medicare fraud scheme that focused on home health care. Investigation was launched by a federal strike force that's trying to crack down on Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Tim Menke is on that strike force. He's the deputy inspector general for investigations at the Department of Health and Human Services. Thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. TIM MENKE (Deputy Inspector General For Investigations, Department of Health and Human Services): Hi Scott, good to be here.
SIMON: What are some of the alleged crimes?
Mr. MENKE: Well, its a crime that is very common and that is setting up a phony billing system with a home health agency, and what will happen is a beneficiary may be approached, and unfortunately now it seems like in economically depressed areas because they tend to be an easier target for these recruiters. The beneficiary will be offered several hundred dollars for all of their Medicare or Medicaid information. The recruiter will then compile a list and then that recruiter will get paid roughly $300 to $400.
The crook at the top who set up the phony company then takes that list and starts billing Medicare because on the surface it appears the crook got a legitimate provider's license and a provider number.
SIMON: Potentially, how big is Medicare and Medicaid fraud in this country?
Mr. MENKE: Roughly $60 billion a year, and we recover about $4 billion a year with (unintelligible) - the office of the inspector general. But its just tip of the iceberg. And we see many different patterns across the United States and were using data analysis to hone in on this criminal activity and bring these people to justice.
SIMON: I understand that organized crime and even street gangs have gotten into the act.
Mr. MENKE: Absolutely.
SIMON: Because its so lucrative?
Mr. MENKE: Absolutely. Its lucrative and its safe for them. Why rob a bank and risk getting shot when you can click a mouse and bill Medicare or Medicaid, basically lie on some forms and make millions of dollars doing so.
SIMON: So if Tony Soprano were real, he conceivably could be clicking the mouse to steal money.
Mr. MENKE: Conceivably, but the way we look at organized crime isnt any particular group or category. Weve seen multiple different cultures engaging in organized criminal activity. We see Armenians, Cubans, Nigerians, Russians, Ukrainians, you name it across the board. Theyre using very similar methods. And whats disturbing now is were seeing a viral nature of health care fraud going across the United States where some of these groups are actually merging.
SIMON: You know, the litany of getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse has been going on for a generation or more. Im going to risk asking you, if you, if you think some of the projections that have made about how much money could be saved and maybe poured into health care overhaul plan are realistic.
Mr. MENKE: Well, first of all, Im nonpolitical. So, the bottom line is I can tell you what we recovered. Last year we recovered $4 billion, but I feel thats just a tip of the iceberg. Its kind of hard defining how much fraud is actually out there, and its almost like how many stars are in the sky billions. Those are the ones we can see.
SIMON: What are the kind of stories you tell when you can, when you go home or talk to friends about some of the more outrageous things you've discovered?
Mr. MENKE: The sheer level of fraud that were seeing, the audacity, the violence. I think were a little concerned because of some of the things were finding on search warrants. Historically, weve taken boxes of paper in a typical fraud investigation. Now, because of the organized crime and street gang influence, were taking machine guns, automatic weapons, out of facilities that are engaged in health fraud. Thats a little disturbing for me. I have roughly 500 special agents assigned to work this health care fraud and it puts a whole new spin on things. Its not the traditional white collar fraud that we were working five years ago. Its getting edgier and more dangerous.
SIMON: Tim Menke, deputy inspector general for investigations at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, thanks very much.
Mr. MENKE: Thanks Scott, I appreciate it.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
Other news about Haiti - a small organization called Yele Haiti has received millions of dollars in donations since Tuesdays earthquake, but serious questions have arisen about its book-keeping.
NPRs Neda Ulaby reports.
NEDA ULABY: Musician Wyclef Jean started a charitable organization in his home country after selling millions of albums here.
(Soundbite of song)
Mr. WYCLEF JEAN (Singer): (Singing) When I come back, therell be no need (unintelligible) I have enough money to buy out (unintelligible)
ULABY: The former Fugees member opened a U.S. branch of his organization in the late 1990s. In 2005, it became known as Yele Haiti.
Mr. ART TAYLOR: It looks like the organization up until now has operated on a pretty small scale.
ULABY: Art Taylor(ph) tracks charities for the Better Business Bureau.
Mr. TAYLOR: Most of the money they collect they seem to distribute out in the form of grants to other organizations.
ULABY: Schools, environmental groups. Yele Haitis annual budget is around $2 million. Thats how much it has gotten in donations this week alone, which piqued William Basdens(ph) curiosity.
Mr. WILLIAM BASDEN: This is a charity that now is getting lots and lots of money. I think its a legitimate question to wonder whether they know what to do with the money
ULABY: So the editor of the Web site The Smoking Gun and his staff dug through Yele Haitis public IRS filings. They found that back then it was known as the Wyclef Jean Foundation it was dissolved involuntarily by the state, Florida, where it was based. But Yele Haitis president, Hugh Locke, begs to differ.
Mr. HUGH LOCKE (President, Yele Haiti): It was never dissolved, it was simply that it had gone inactive, and there hadnt been filings because there wasnt sufficient activity.
ULABY: Still, after the foundation reorganized in 2005, it took several years for it to file tax return. And in the Smoking Gun's Bastone says the returns prove substantial financial mismanagement, especially in 2006.
Mr. BASTONE: During that one year in the vicinity of $410,000 basically went to Mr. Jean and his partner.
ULABY: More than a quarter of that money went to a recording studio that Jean and his business partner own. And it looked to Bastone like Jean was paid $100,000 to perform in a benefit for his own foundation. The Yele Haiti president Hugh Locke says that can be explained too.
Mr. HUGH LOCKE (President, Yele Haiti): That $100,000 covered a range of different services, including musicians and equipment rental.
ULABY: Locke says Yele Haiti did nothing wrong.
Mr. LOCKE: Not that this is a justification. We were focused on delivery of services in Haiti.
ULABY: Yele Haiti has also been criticized because its Web site claims 100 percent of donations now are going to earthquake relief. Thats true, says Locke; overhead costs are paid from its base budget. And because this is not just a story about dollars and cents, I asked Locke if he had lost staff in the earthquake. This is how he responded.
(Soundbite of labored breathing)
ULABY: The last thing this organization needed was a public relations disaster on top of the one in Haiti.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
(Soundbite of song, Gone Till November)
Mr. WYCLEF JEAN (Singer): (singing) And I committed that Ill be back in November.
SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Scott Simon. Time for sports.
(Soundbite of music)
NFL playoffs continue this week and the most compelling characters could be a couple of graybeards trying to get one more chance in the Super Bowl. ESPNs Howard Bryant joins us. Howard, thanks very much for being with us.
Mr. HOWARD BRYANT (ESPN): Good morning, Scott. Happy New Year.
SIMON: And happy New Year to you. Of course, I mean Kurt Warner of the Cardinals and Brett Favre of the Vikings. Now, Kurt Warner had a historic game last week with just four incompletes but five touch-down passes. But he had to throw so many touch down passes because the Cards defense is like a screen door.
Mr. BRYANT: Yeah, exactly, its going to be an amazing weekend of football game. The only thing that I ask of these players is that they cease and desist with their life and death metaphors with whats going on in Haiti and just play their games. But, I think that this is going to be one of the best, best football playoffs going because you have so many motivated teams. You have got a great story line with Brett Favre trying to get there one more time. Hes been to two Super Bowls but hasnt been to one in 11 years.
And Kurt Warner - lets not forget that the Cardinals are the defending National Football Conference champions. They lost to the Steelers in the Super Bowl. You know, its not necessarily an upset. Theyre just defending their crown. Youve got the Dallas Cowboys who finally won a play-off game. And they are the best team going in in their conference. And then youve got two other teams that are trying to do something that theyve been trying to cap off for a while, which is the Chargers trying to finally get over the hump and go to the Super Bowl.
And the Colts, who blew a chance at going undefeated, seemingly on purpose.
SIMON: Yeah.
Mr. BRYANT: And now theyre trying to win the Super Bowl for the second time in three years.
SIMON: Heres a great line up. Can I talk about Kurt Warner?
Mr. BRYANT: Kurt Warner is tremendous. And lets not forget that when he left the Rams, people thought his career was over. He went to the Giants and didnt do a whole lot there. And he was a backup in Arizona and was supposed to...
SIMON: Yeah. But you know what he did do, he accepted his backup status. He helped the quarterback that he was supposed to tutor.
My point is, everything I read about Kurt Warner convinces me that he is just a sterling human being, up to and including all of his activities in the community. And he plays so well at the age of 38. Tell me hes not on steroids.
Mr. BRYANT: Well, I always steer clear of talking about what stellar human beings these athletes are, because I dont know them outside of the field. I only know them in their office. But for everything that weve seen, he is a tremendous, tremendous individual and I agree with you.
Most players who have won back to back MVPs would pout and complain when they were made a backup. Some of them wouldnt even play at all. I remember Allen Iverson had threatened to retire instead of being made a backup. He wouldnt even sit on the bench for a few minutes. So it does show a complete lack of ego on his part, and the fact that he can still play at this level is also great.
SIMON: Yesterday Gilbert Arenas the Washington Wizards entered a guilty plea for bringing guns into the team locker room. He said he did it to get them out of his house in Virginia and out of reach of his children, and he brandished them just as a joke. Is he finished in D.C. and/or the NBA?
Mr. BRYANT: It would seem so that he needs at least a new start. Hes got too much talent to be finished in the NBA. I think one of the problems that we have in the sports department is we try to make things so simple. This is not a simple case. We have a drug cult - I mean not a drug - a gun culture in our society. And I think that it trickles into the sports leagues. I remember when I had breakfast with Tony Dungy a couple of weeks ago and he said when he was coaching the Colts, he asked how many players in the room had guns and the whole team raised their hand.
SIMON: Oh my.
Mr. BRYANT: So this is something that hes going to have to deal with and be responsible for but at the same time I think theres a larger question at work too.
SIMON: Well, next time I have breakfast with Peyton Manning, Ill ask him. I had lunch with Tony Dungy. Howard, thanks so much.
Mr. BRYANT: My pleasure.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Colorado has played some important roles in Barack Obama's young presidential career. His party nominated him in Denver. And just one month after the inauguration, it's where he chose to sign a huge stimulus package into law. In 2008, Mr. Obama won the Colorado with a nine-point margin, which was surprising because just a few years before, the state was barely distinguishable in a sea of Republican red on political maps.
But as NPR's Jeff Brady reports, it may be too early to put Colorado in the Democrats column for good.
JEFF BRADY: Before 2008, Colorado was accustomed to being flyover country. Candidates would pass it by on their way to voter-rich California. But during the campaign, Barack Obama made at least 10 visits.
Republican political analyst Katy Atkinson says that impressed voters here.
Ms. KATY ATKINSON (Republican Political Analyst): One thing about Colorado is we're really kind of a low self-esteem state. So we like it a lot when people on the national level pay attention to us.
BRADY: And the state rewarded Mr. Obama well with an even wider margin of victory than he got in the country as a whole.
Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli says that was an astounding victory that capped off a series of big wins for Democrats in the state. But Ciruli says recent polling shows the Democrats' hold on power here is tenuous.
Mr. FLOYD CIRULI (Colorado Pollster): Less than two years later, you are already seeing the air run out of that balloon, democrats on the defensive, the national brand of the Democratic Party, which was so popular, in deep trouble and Democrats in the state are hurting too.
BRADY: In Colorado, the change is due to the third of voters who don't belong to either party. Ciruli says these unaffiliated voters often seem more susceptible to changing political tides. And with the economy and wars hurting Democrats now, they're taking another look at the Republican Party. This changing sentiment was reinforced by a surprise announcement from first-term Democratic Governor Bill Ritter a few weeks back.
Governor BILL RITTER (Democrat, Colorado): So today I'm announcing the ending of one of my roles. I'm no longer going to be a candidate for re-election in 2010.
BRADY: Ritter said he wants to spend more time being a father and a husband. But it was difficult to ignore polls that showed him trailing a Republican challenger.
(Soundbite of vehicles)
BRADY: In downtown Loveland, Colorado, it's easy to find voters who don't belong to a political party. Richard Blumenshine says he voted for Barack Obama and is generally satisfied, though criticism quickly follows.
Mr. RICHARD BLUMENSHINE: He said he was going to change the party or change Washington, and he hired the same old people, if you will.
BRADY: Another independent voter, Zack Anderson(ph) says he also voted for Mr. Obama. He's concerned about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he's disappointed with the health care overhaul.
Mr. ZACK ANDERSON: I would like to have seen the health care reform be a little stronger. I would have liked to have seen a public option.
BRADY: Such criticism and Governor Ritter's decision to step down has Colorado Republicans, like voter Jim Esquiebel, energized again.
Mr. JIM ESQUIBEL: Seems to me like the rats are jumping over the ship, so to speak. I think things are probably going to change. I'm really looking forward to the elections this year to see what happens.
BRADY: And the Republican Party in Colorado seems more organized now, after years of intra-party fighting mostly over social issues. Republican political analyst Katy Atkinson does have a word of caution for her political allies, though. She says current polling only indicates what's happening now.
Ms. ATKINSON: If the election were held today, I think it would be a great day for Republicans. But the election won't be held today. It'll be held in November and so much can happen. I mean, the political landscape changes so quickly in Colorado.
BRADY: A lesson Colorado Democrats appear to be learning now.
Jeff Brady, NPR News, Denver.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Perhaps the most well remembered words delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. were in his "I Have a Dream" speech. Poet E. Ethelbert Miller says there's more than just the dream in that speech.
Mr. E. ETHELBERT MILLER (Poet): Back in the old days of vinyl albums and those sweet 45s, there was often a flip side of a hit song that you wanted to dance to more than anything else. It was a side not played on the radio, but instead hummed perhaps during the privacy of one's shower.
When I listen to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, I'm always curious as to why many of us overlook the opening statements of his 1963 address. It's as if we only want to hear one side of his speech. Why do we quickly repeat the words, I have a dream, and not the words, America has given the Negro people a bad check, which has come back marked insufficient funds, but we refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt, we refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vault of opportunity of this nation?
I feel these words by King are also inspiring. King spoke of a debt before he spoke of the dream. This is important to remember because it shows his focus on economic conditions and problems in America. King was not concerned not only with fighting segregation and discrimination, but also with fighting poverty.
During his last year he was organizing a poor people's campaign to come to Washington, D.C. It was the labor demands of sanitation workers that encouraged him to travel to Memphis in 1968. King knew it took hard work to fulfill a dream.
In 2010, poverty can disguise itself by hiding behind unemployment lines, housing foreclosures and the inability of a young person to afford a college education. When we look around our nation, many businesses are suffering from insufficient funds, as are too many families.
Once again, we wonder if the great vaults of America are still rich with opportunities for everyone. The fierce urgency of now is what Martin Luther King mentioned back in 1963. But how long is now? Every year we cling dearly to the last lines of King's speech because of their poetic beauty. King's words echo those of Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. I believe he heard America singing.
Our hearts today are two laws that simply contain sorrow songs and blues. In 2010, we need to know which side of the record is playing - the dream or the debt. When we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday, we shouldn't just remember and examine one speech. The man, the minister, the prophet is too complex for that, yet his "I Have a Dream" speech should be understood in its entirety. Next to his speeches, we should place his sermons. Here, we will find King's compassion for his fellow man. Here, we will continue to discover words that will provide us with a strength to love.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: Poet E. Ethelbert Miller is board chair of the Institute for Policy Studies and director of the African-American Resource Center at Howard University.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: In his 1963, "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. King described the Constitution as a promissory note to all Americans regardless of race.
Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (Late Civil Rights Leader): When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.
(Soundbite of applause)
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Ringo Starr, why is the only ring you have on a wedding ring?
Mr. RINGO STARR (Musician): Because I didn't feel I needed a lot of rings on today. I don't wear a lot anymore anyway. You know, I mean, I'm not the fully decked Ringo.
HANSEN: But he did sport a lobe full of earrings, tinted glasses and a big white star on his T-shirt. We met the former Beatle - really, can you be a former Beatle - in a cramped but opulently furnished dressing room backstage at NBC's Rockefeller Center this past week. He was about to go on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" to promote his new album, "Y Not."
A lot of guest stars appear with Ringo Starr's band - Joss Stone, Joe Walsh, Dave Stewart and his Fab Four mate Sir Paul McCartney. On "Y Not," Ringo Starr has produced a recording full of tunes that look both forward and back.
(Soundbite of song, "The Other Side of Liverpool")
Mr. STARR: (Singing) The other side of Liverpool is cold and damp. Only way out of it, drunk guitar and amp. The other side of Liverpool, where I came from, my mother was a barmaid. At the age of three, my father was gone.
HANSEN: This is the first record you've produced in your solo career with your producer.
Mr. STARR: It is. It's the first time I actually took complete control of the reins. Now, with this one, I had so much fun with this.
HANSEN: Sir George Martin once told me that producing sometimes is as much the art of subtraction as it is the art of addition. You're nodding. You agree with him.
Mr. STARR: I agree completely with him because I've always felt a space is as good as a fill, you know what I mean? Gaps can be very emotional. I mean, that's in my drumming. When I drum, you know, I don't need to drum all over the track. I play with the singer and I can back off. And it's the same - this record, I think, you can definitely hear, not an emptiness, but the sparseness, you know?
HANSEN: You leave space.
Mr. STARR: I do, yeah.
HANSEN: Yeah.
Mr. STARR: For a note to breathe, for a crash to linger, you know?
HANSEN: So, it doesn't go without saying that because you're a producer and the drummer, the drummers end up higher in the mix.
Mr. STARR: Well, I do actually.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. STARR: No, it doesn't. You know, the drummer's always going to be there. They're the floor of the whole deal and everyone can stand up on you.
HANSEN: One of the things you have always said in documentaries I've seen is you love to be in a band. And this CD starts off no holds barred. This is a rock and roll band. "Fill in the Blanks," Joe Walsh - that's the statement you're making immediately.
Mr. STARR: Well, yes. You know, I mean, I'll say it again: I love being in a band. I've never had any big ideas about being the solo, you know, playing this, playing that. I love playing with other human beings. I've never practiced drums unless there was another human being in the room.
HANSEN: Really?
Mr. STARR: I've never gone to the bedroom and, you know, when I was starting out and practiced away. You know, if you could play, I'll play with you all night. But if I'm just playing by myself it gets boring pretty quick.
HANSEN: Was the drum your first instrument of choice?
Mr. STARR: The drum was the first and only instrument.
HANSEN: Really?
Mr. STARR: Yeah. I was 13 and I played drums. I was in hospital and they had a, you know, this lady would come around with percussive instruments to keep us busy. I also learned to knit in hospital. But anyway, that's another story. And I played the drums and then I wouldn't be in the band unless she gave me a drum. And I only wanted to be a drummer. That's where my soul is.
HANSEN: You have to tell us your side of the Pete Best story. How did you get the gig - your side of the story - as the drummer?
Mr. STARR: Well, my side of the story is still the same, is when it happened was that I was in Rory Storm and the Hurricanes in Liverpool. And Brian Epstein knocked on the door and he said: Pete can't make the gig, could you play with the Beatles? I said, sure.
HANSEN: Brian Epstein, have to ask, because you were one of the first groups -and I remember this 'cause I was your target audience, you know, a 'tween girl - dressed you in suits and ties.
Mr. STARR: No, Brian was great because he used to come up with these great ideas. And he says, you know, I think it'd be a great idea if you don't drink and smoke and swear at the audience while you're onstage.
HANSEN: The songs on your new CD, are these songs that you had written and were kind of hanging around?
Mr. STARR: No, nothing was written. The tracks were made first, that's why this is a crazy album. I started just playing synthesizer in the bedroom in L.A. -sound like one of those stories - and then I would put drums onto these synth tracks I'd found. Then the next level we put guitars on. We had no songs. We just had tracks. And so I had Joe Walsh on, I had Billy Squire. This record, if you passed through L.A. and I knew you, you're on the record, that's how it worked. I mean, let's get honest here, you know what I mean?
HANSEN: Nothing wrong with that.
Mr. STARR: No.
HANSEN: Nothing wrong with that.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: The one thing a lot of people are talking about this in terms of your calling up your mates is one of them was Paul McCartney.
Mr. STARR: Yeah.
HANSEN: And he performs with you on "Walk with You."
Mr. STARR: I see you said Sir George Martin, but you didn't say Sir Paul McCartney.
HANSEN: I didn't say Sir Paul 'cause I'm not used to it. Are you a sir yet?
Mr. STARR: No. And I never say Sir Paul or Sir George.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: But you're an MBE, right?
Mr. STARR: I am, but let's not get into that. Let's get into...
HANSEN: Anyway, Sir Paul...
Mr. STARR: Yes, I called Paul because he was coming to L.A., and when he heard "Walk with You," he wanted to sign on it, so he sang that part of it on tape.
(Soundbite of song, "Walk with You")
Mr. STARR and Mr. PAUL MCCARTNEY (Musician): (Singing) When I walk with you, when I talk with you, everything will be fine. When I walk with you, when I talk with you, everything will be fine.
Mr. STARR: (Singing) We'll be fine...
HANSEN: What do you think you learned from George Martin as a producer, Sir George?
Mr. STARR: Sir George Martin learns a lot more from me.
HANSEN: He did. Tell us what he learned from you.
Mr. STARR: He learned to keep the damn tape rolling 'cause we'd do, like, we'd do a great take and he didn't have the tape on, you know. And we'd say, George, turn the - and he'd - oh, did you want to record that, boys?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. STARR: But he was great. No, George was incredibly helpful to us. And, you know, we're buskers. The four of us are buskers - none of us can read music, we don't know anything about music. We only know how to play it. And George could write it down and he would say, you know, maybe if we just do this, lads, or that. But, you know, he was - George was the only person who took a chance on us to make a record 'cause every other label turned us down.
HANSEN: But he heard something. He heard something there.
Mr. STARR: He did hear something. And he wanted us to record other people's songs. And we said no. And every song he picked for us to record - that we didn't record - he gave to Jerry and the Pacemakers, or they're Brian Epstein acts usually. And they all had hits with it. You know, so it wasn't like he was picking bad stuff, but we were determined only to do our music. You know, Lennon and McCartney.
So, everyone was inventing because we were new at this and suddenly, can we do this, can we do that? And with George's help - well, I don't know why not, boys, and you know. We went and we did the first album in 12 hours and then we started to bring in more music. It changed on "Rubber Soul." It went, you know, and then it ended up for me "The White Album." We can't dismiss "Sgt. Pepper," but I loved "The White Album" and "Abbey Road," you know what I mean? You can feel we know what we're doing more.
HANSEN: Right. You can tell you're evolving.
Mr. STARR: Yeah. And so was George, and so were we all together because we'd spend time.
HANSEN: There are touches on this CD, I feel like you're making - you're honoring, particularly your band mates who have passed. The song, "Y Not," if I'm not mistaken, ends in this luscious Bollywood kind of Indian ending that I thought perhaps might be some kind of nod towards George and his sitar days?
Mr. STARR: Well, that's a better story than I've got.
HANSEN: Oh. What's your story then?
Mr. STARR: She was at LAX, Tina the tabla player, and Dave Stewart called me. I said, tell her to come on over, and she's on the record.
(Soundbite of laughter)
(Soundbite of song, "Y Not")
Mr. STARR: (Singing) Y not.
Unidentified Woman: (Singing foreign language)
Mr. STARR: (Singing) Y not.
Unidentified Woman: (Singing foreign language)
Mr. STARR: (Singing) Y not, y not, y not.
HANSEN: There I go looking for deep meaning, right?
Mr. STARR: Yeah. But I have written a song for George and we do focus on John for "Peace Dream" because he did die. I have no problem mentioning my band mates, you know, and writing lines and using lines. And usually on every record I've used the line from "Photograph" or "Don't Come Easy."
HANSEN: Right.
Mr. STARR: You know what I mean?
HANSEN: Act naturally (unintelligible).
Mr. STARR: I can use lines over and over again if it works for that song. I have no problem with that.
HANSEN: Right. But you don't consider yourself a songwriter, do you?
Mr. STARR: I do now.
HANSEN: You do.
Mr. STARR: I do. I'm a musician. I'm a drummer. I write songs.
HANSEN: Was hard days not your phrase?
Mr. STARR: It was. It's been a hard day's night.
HANSEN: Yeah.
Mr. STARR: It's called a malapropism, John used to say. And my head worked faster than my mouth, so two lines would come out together.
HANSEN: Yeah.
Mr. STARR: Not like I planned it. It's just how it was.
HANSEN: Have you ever played Beatles Guitar Hero?
Mr. STARR: Yes. I tried it when they were showing it to us, and I'm useless at it. So, next question.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Your son Zac is a drummer.
Mr. STARR: He is.
HANSEN: And your other son is a drummer as well, right?
Mr. STARR: He is.
HANSEN: And he thinks that this...
Mr. STARR: And my grandson is a drummer.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: You have a grandson.
Mr. STARR: I have many of them. I have seven grandchildren.
HANSEN: No.
Mr. STARR: All the family are doing great. And we had Christmas dinner - it was 28 of us and 12 of them were staying with us.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Favorite song on the CD?
Mr. STARR: It's hard. They're all, like, your babies. So...
HANSEN: Sure, I know. The tune you do with Joss Stone, "Who's Your Daddy."
Mr. STARR: Well, that's a rocker too.
HANSEN: Oh yeah.
Mr. STARR: And she just wails.
HANSEN: What a voice.
Mr. STARR: What a voice. And, you know, what a lot of fun. And how loose, you know, she's a young woman and she came over and we wrote it in no time and she did the vocal. You know, it's - okay, that's that.
(Soundbite of song, "Who's Your Daddy")
Ms. JOSS STONE (Musician): (Singing) I didn't contemplate, I know you're probably hard (unintelligible). We need to set a couple things straight. I won't take you lying down. I know you like to get around. You know I hate it when you're late. I know how you look when you're telling lies. Your (unintelligible) no surprise.
Mr. STARR: (Singing) Who's your daddy?
Ms. STONE: (Singing) Not you no more.
Mr. STARR: (Singing) Who's your daddy?
HANSEN: Ringo Starr signaled our interview time was up when he said, okay, what's the big question? So, we floated this idea: 400 years from now, do you think people will still be listening Mozart, Beethoven and the Beatles?
Mr. STARR: Well, yeah, I have to agree with that. You know, I do honestly believe the Beatles will be going down still. And, you know, we made those records quite a while ago and we keep putting the same records out 'cause we're not making any new ones. And the kids are interested in the music of them. They're not interested in us being moptops and Beatle boots and crazy suits. You know, it's all down to the music now. That's what they hear and that's what they love. So, there's a possibility that Beethoven and the Beatles, hey.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: I just wanted - Ringo Starr, thank you so much for giving us the time to talk to you.
Mr. STARR: Well, thank you. And this is very pleasant and relaxed.
HANSEN: Yeah.
Mr. STARR: So, can I just say peace and love?
(Soundbite of song, "All You Need is Love")
Mr. STARR: (Singing) Love is all you need. Love is all you need.
HANSEN: Ringo Starr's new album is called "Y Not." You can hear additional cuts from this CD at NPRMusic.org.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
And joining us is puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Hi, Will.
WILL SHORTZ: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: How are you this week?
SHORTZ: I'm doing great. I won a table tennis contest this past week. It was a celebrity event for a charity in Brooklyn, for a literacy group for kids. And Mike Myers were there, who's actually a pretty good player, David Schwimmer, Sean Avery from the NHL and a bunch of other people. Had a good time and raised a lot of money.
HANSEN: And won.
SHORTZ: That's it.
HANSEN: That's so cool, Will. Congratulations.
SHORTZ: Thanks.
HANSEN: Well done. You've only been working on this for how many years?
SHORTZ: I know.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Well, our listeners only had a week to work on the challenge that you gave for us last week. So, if you don't mind, would you repeat it?
SHORTZ: Yes. I said: Think of a familiar ten-letter hyphenated word that uses all seven letters of the alphabet from F to L, plus three other letters of your choosing. What word is it?
HANSEN: And your answer?
SHORTZ: The answer is half joking. I was only half joking.
HANSEN: You were only half joking, fascinating. Well, we received more than 1,600 entries this week, and from the correct entries are randomly selected winner is Christopher Slavik from Chicago. Hi, Chris.
Mr. CHRISTOPHER SLAVIK: Hi.
HANSEN: How are you?
Mr. SLAVIK: I am excited and scared.
HANSEN: Yeah. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. It's only a game, as they say. How long did it take you to solve the puzzle?
Mr. SLAVIK: It took me a few cracks. I worked on it, I don't know, five minutes or so each time and I think by the third try I got it.
HANSEN: You know, that's a really good way to go at puzzles. I do that with crosswords. I mean, if I'm getting stuck I just put it down and then guaranteed in an hour or two, you know, if I pick it up again I'll get more answers.
Mr. SLAVIK: It's amazing how that works.
HANSEN: Yeah, yeah. What do you do in Chicago?
Mr. SLAVIK: I work at the Chicago Symphony in public relations.
HANSEN: Delightful, delightful. Well, we have a special guest to read your puzzle prizes today. Not known for classical music, but I'm sure it's someone that you'll appreciate, okay?
Mr. SLAVIK: Okay.
HANSEN: All right. But first you have to play, you know.
Mr. SLAVIK: Right.
HANSEN: Are you ready?
Mr. SLAVIK: I guess so.
HANSEN: All right, Will, meet a rather nervous Chris. Let's play.
SHORTZ: All right, Chris, don't be nervous about this. Every answer today is a word, name or familiar phrase with alternating As. For example, if I said Woody Allen movie, you'd say "Bananas." We'll start with seven-letter answers. Number one is group of wagons traveling through a desert.
Mr. SLAVIK: Canostoga?
HANSEN: Think Arabian desert.
SHORTZ: No. Think of the Sahara.
Mr. SLAVIK: Oh, caravan.
SHORTZ: Caravan is it, good. Number two: a knight on King Arthur's round table.
Mr. SLAVIK: Lancelot.
SHORTZ: No. Remember, it's going to have alternating As. A is going to be every other letter, as in bananas and caravan.
HANSEN: Oh, I got to go through the whole roundtable. I know Gawain, but that's not a-a-a-a.
SHORTZ: Think of sir, blank. It's seven letters, alternating As.
HANSEN: Sir...
SHORTZ: Starts with a G.
Mr. SLAVIK: Galahad.
HANSEN: Galahad.
SHORTZ: Galahad is it. Try this: Islamic month of fasting.
Mr. SLAVIK: Ramadan.
SHORTZ: That's it. Capital of Venezuela.
Mr. SLAVIK: Caracas.
SHORTZ: That's correct. Language of Barcelona.
Mr. SLAVIK: Spanish, but that...
HANSEN: A different dialect. This one I know only because that's where my great-grandfather comes from. Catalan.
SHORTZ: Catalan.
HANSEN: Catalan.
SHORTZ: That's good. Nice. How about sleepwear?
Mr. SLAVIK: Pajamas.
SHORTZ: Pajamas is it. A hard road surface.
HANSEN: It's another word for, like, tar, right?
SHORTZ: Yeah. Or variation on that.
Mr. SLAVIK: I'm drawing a blank here.
HANSEN: This one I think I know.
SHORTZ: Liane?
HANSEN: It's kind of a guess, but madacan?
SHORTZ: You got it. It's pronounced macadam.
HANSEN: Macadam, okay.
SHORTZ: M-A-C-A-D-A-M. How about - it's a two-word phrase - distant? Something is distant, it's...
Mr. SLAVIK: Faraway.
SHORTZ: Faraway is it. Marathon runner Alberto, who won the New York City Marathon three times.
Mr. SLAVIK: I'm not going to know that one.
HANSEN: And neither am I.
SHORTZ: Uh-oh. Salazar. Alberto Salazar. How about Telly - that's T-E-L-L-Y, Telly who was on the telly?
Mr. SLAVIK: Savalas.
SHORTZ: Savalas is it. Now, we have some nine-letter answers, and your first one is July 1st as celebrated north of the border.
Mr. SLAVIK: Canada Day.
SHORTZ: Canada Day is it. A light summer headwear. It's a two-word phrase.
Mr. SLAVIK: Something hat.
SHORTZ: Some kind of hat. What kind of a hat. Think of a Central American country.
Mr. SLAVIK: Panama hat.
SHORTZ: Panama hat is it. How about body of water adjoining Cuba's capital?
Mr. SLAVIK: Bahama Sea - no.
SHORTZ: Well, first of all, what's the capital of Cuba?
HANSEN: Havana.
SHORTZ: Havana. And what's that body of water?
Mr. SLAVIK: Havana Bay.
SHORTZ: Havana Bay is it. The largest city in eastern Afghanistan. It starts with a J, which is pronounced like an H.
Mr. SLAVIK: I need to learn more geography, I think.
HANSEN: Yeah. Especially, Afghani geography because I can't get past Kandahar or Kabul.
SHORTZ: I'll tell you this, it's Jalalabad.
HANSEN: Okay.
Mr. SLAVIK: Okay.
SHORTZ: How about this: A light multi-hulled boat used for fishing or a sport. Starts with a C.
Mr. SLAVIK: Catamaran?
HANSEN: Catamaran.
SHORTZ: Catamaran is it. And your last one - and this is 11 letters long -connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Mr. SLAVIK: Panama Canal.
SHORTZ: Panama Canal is right.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: All right, Chris.
Mr. SLAVIK: Woo.
HANSEN: Woo. Nice work. Well, as I mentioned, you know, we have someone neat to read your puzzle prizes today. I know you're a classical music fan and that's your profession. But I imagine you like some pop music too, right?
Mr. SLAVIK: Sure.
HANSEN: All right. So to tell you what you'll be getting for being such a great player today, here is none other than Ringo Starr.
(Soundbite of song, "Everyone Wins")
Mr. RINGO STARR (Musician): (Singing) Oh, everyone wins.
For playing our puzzle today, you'll get a WEEKEND EDITION lapel pin, the "Scrabble Deluxe Edition" from Parker Brothers. Who typed this out? It's like typed by a four-year-old. The book series "Will Shortz Presents KenKen," Volume 1, 2 and 3, you lucky people, from St. Martin's Press. One of Will - how do you pronounce him - Shortz's "Puzzlemaster Decks of Riddles and Challenges" from Chronicle Books and a CD compilation from NPR's Sunday puzzle.
(Soundbite of song, "Everyone Wins")
Mr. STARR: (Singing) Everyone wins in the end.
HANSEN: What do you think, Chris?
Mr. SLAVIK: That's great. Now I just need Carl Kasell's voice on my answering machine.
HANSEN: Oh, and life will be complete, right?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. SLAVIK: Exactly.
HANSEN: All right. Before we let you go, tell us what member station you listen to, Chris.
Mr. SLAVIK: WBEZ, and I am a member.
HANSEN: Good for you. Chris Slavik from Chicago. Thanks so much for playing the puzzle today. Everyone wins.
Mr. SLAVIK: Thank you.
HANSEN: Okay, Will. You got a kick out of that too, didn't you?
SHORTZ: That was fantastic.
HANSEN: Wasn't that fun? All right, we have a challenge for next week, sir. What is it?
SHORTZ: Yes. It comes from Mike Reese who produces the "The Simpsons" and is co-creator of "The Critic." It's a little complicated, so listen up. I'm looking for the full names of a well-known TV actress and TV comedienne. The first four letters of the actress' first name are the last four letters of the comedienne's last name. And the first four letters of the comedienne's first name are the last four letters of the actress' last name. Who are these well-known entertainers?
So, again, the first four letters of the actress' first name are the last four letters of the comedienne's last name, and the first four letters of the comedienne's first name are the last four letters of the actress' last name. Who are these well-known entertainers?
HANSEN: Well, when you know, go to our Web site, NPR.org/puzzle and click on the Submit Your Answer link. Only one entry per person, please. Our deadline is Thursday, 3 P.M. Eastern Time. Please include a phone number where we can reach you at about that time. We'll call you if you're the winner and you'll get to play on the air with the puzzle editor of The New York Times and WEEKEND EDITION's puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
Will, thanks a lot.
SHORTZ: Thanks, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says at least 45,000 people were killed in Haiti's devastating earthquake. Even graver estimates have come from Haitian officials. The country's interior minister says he wouldn't be surprised if the death toll was more than double that.
For the survivors of the quake, the wait continues for food, water and temporary shelter. But officials say they have made progress moving aid out of the country's small airport and more aid supplies are due to flow in throughout the day.
From Port-au-Prince, NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.
CARRIE KAHN: Aid from around the world is making its way into Haiti. Planes from Canada, Nicaragua and even as far as Qatar taxied down the airport's single runway yesterday and lined up on the tarmac to offload water, medical supplies and food.
(Soundbite of airplanes)
KAHN: Also, two huge Argentine military cargo jets stopped in front of the badly damaged main terminal. Four U.N. trucks pulled up behind the jets and dozens of soldiers quickly began pulling boxes of canned meat out and heaving them up to the flatbeds.
(Soundbite of trucks)
KAHN: Argentine soldier Dario Lillja threw boxes up to the truck as fast as he could. He worked up quite a sweat.
Mr. DARIO LILLJA (Soldier, Argentina): (Spanish spoken)
KAHN: He says Haiti is worth the hard work. He'd do anything for the country. Lillja and his army company have been working here in the U.N. mission since last year. He says it's heartbreaking to watch such suffering and not being able to help. This is the first shipment from Argentina to make it in.
Mr. LILLJA: (Spanish spoken)
KAHN: Lillja says he's relieved now that aid is finally flowing. He says it's still not enough. The people deserve so much more.
Pilot Max Vargas says operations are much smoother. He dropped off a planeload of doctors from the Dominican Republic.
Mr. MAX VARGAS (Pilot): The Americans, especially the military, they took control of the air traffic system and now it's improved very much here. Much safer.
KAHN: Conditions at the airport were not without problems. Brazil and France complained that the U.S. military had denied landing permission for a couple of flights. During a quick tour of the airport yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made it clear that they Haitians are in charge.
Secretary HILLARY CLINTON (State Department): We are here at the invitation of your government to help you. I know of the great resilience and strength of the Haitian people. You have been severely tested, but I believe that Haiti can come back even stronger and better in the future.
KAHN: Clinton flew in on a C-130 cargo plane full of water and packaged meals for Haitians, along with shampoo, soap and other supplies for staff at the U.S. embassy. She flew back home with 50 Americans. Hundreds more stranded foreigners also made it out of Haiti, including a group of women missionaries from Iowa who waited more than six hours in the hot sun for a flight home.
(Soundbite of cheering)
Unidentified People: Thank God. Thank you. Thank you.
KAHN: The women not only praised God, but the U.S. soldiers who handed out ice cold sodas to ease the long wait. By four in the afternoon, 200 Americans, Haitians and other foreigners were climbing into the belly of a huge empty military cargo jet.
Unidentified Man: You have one more right here. One more. You have one more right here.
KAHN: Military personnel directed the passengers onto the floor, where they would sit cross-legged for the three-hour flight back to Miami. Gennie Hess, one of the missionaries from Iowa says she is so glad to be going home.
Ms. GENNIE HESS (Missionary): Oh, it feels wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Praise God. Sitting down. I've had my Coke. I am on a roll.
KAHN: She says the first thing she'll do at home is take a long shower.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
President Obama has ordered his cabinet to put relief for Haiti at the top of their priority lists. Among the cabinet members is Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. He just returned from a trip to Afghanistan and told us how the USDA is involved in Haiti.
Secretary TOM VILSACK (Department of Agriculture): Well, first of all, as was the case with President Obama, all of us within the Obama administration are deeply concerned and our hearts go out to all those who are struggling, those who have lost loved ones and those who aren't sure if their loved ones are still alive or not. We, no doubt, will be in a position when the reconstruction phase begins to send teams down to provide assistance and help as we rebuild roads and the basic infrastructure.
Agriculture is very, very important to the future of that country and, obviously, we're deeply concerned about the impact the earthquake will have on the capacity of farmers in that country to plant crops and to be able to harvest crops. So, we'll be working with USAID under their direction and with their leadership to make sure that we begin the process of trying to help some of the smaller farmsteads in that country get themselves back on their feet.
HANSEN: Now to your trip to Afghanistan. When most people think about agriculture in Afghanistan, the picture that immediately comes to mind is poppies - the key ingredient in heroin, main source of funding for the Taliban. Does that still remain an accurate portrayal?
Sec. VILSACK: Well, I think that the Karzai government has begun the process of changing that dynamic. We had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with Minister Rahimi, who is the minister of agriculture. Minister Rahimi is a visionary. He has in place a fairly concrete vision and ideas to what has to happen in agriculture in Afghanistan for it to prosper.
There needs to be a greater focus on productivity and production. They need to regenerate agribusiness. They need a natural resource management plan that focuses on water and restoring the forests that have been cut down. And he recognizes that there needs to be a significant amount of change in the management structure of the ministry.
HANSEN: You spent some time in Helmand province, where about 90 percent of the world's poppies are grown, and the United States has tried different strategies to lure farmers away from this very profitable crop. What would you say is working and what's not?
Sec. VILSACK: Well, we did see an example of something that is working. As you probably know, there was an eradication effort for a number of years to try to see if those crops could be destroyed, with, I think, limited success. And so the United States working in conjunction with the provincial governor helped to promote a plan in which farmers were given an option, a choice: the chance to have wheat seed and fertilizer at a substantially reduced cost.
A tremendous response to that program last year, and poppy production was reduced by a third, wheat production was up, and with a little bit of additional help, that country could become self-sufficient in terms of wheat. And wheat represents 80 percent of the cereal crop that's grown in Afghanistan and is a principal source of their food.
So, this was a positive first step. Now, what needs to be done is that those same farmers need to be encouraged to diversify their crop to include cash crops; crops that could potentially generate wealth through exports. There's a tremendous demand for Afghan fruit, vegetables and nuts. It's a longer term strategy, but since there was so much success with the wheat strategy, I think there is an excitement about the fact that there may be an alternative to poppy production.
HANSEN: How do you know that all of these efforts to help Afghan farmers make them better at producing high-value crops won't just make them better at producing poppy?
Sec. VILSACK: Well, I don't think so. I think given the choice, and I think we saw this reflected in Helmand province, given the choice, Afghan farmers want to produce what's beneficial for their families and what provides a sense of security for their country.
These people are tired of strife. They're tired of war. They're tired of having things destroyed. They want to build their country. They want to build a better future for their children. And they recognize in order for that to happen they have to have a strong, sustained agriculture. And I think there is a real honest desire in the part of the farmers that I talked with, and I had an opportunity to talk to a number of farmers in a number of different circumstances, there's really an opportunity. They are becoming more and more convinced that their government could provide them help.
The more they see their government working to try to create an atmosphere in which they can succeed, the greater the confidence they're going to have in that government. The greater the confidence they have in the government, the easier it is to resist the temptations of the Taliban or any other of the insurgents that are trying to stir up trouble in Afghanistan.
HANSEN: Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack returned last week from a tour of Afghanistan and he spoke to us from New York. Thank you very much.
Sec. VILSACK: Thank you.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
History unfolded in a San Francisco courtroom this past week - the first federal trial to challenge whether state laws banning same-sex marriage violate the U.S. Constitution. Scott Shafer of member station KQED is covering the trial and he has this report.
SCOTT SHAFER: Music from civil rights struggles gone by echoed off a federal court building in San Francisco this week, marking the start of a landmark trial challenging California's Proposition 8. Voters approved that measure in 2008, slamming the door on gay and lesbian weddings.
Paul Katami and his partner are one of two couples suing to have Prop 8 struck down.
Mr. PAUL KATAMI: People desire to fall in love and find a best friend and someone who supports you and is your biggest fan. And when you find that person, the natural next step is to want to marry that person.
SHAFER: The legal team representing Katami and the other three plaintiffs has infused this trial with star power and political buzz. David Boies and Theodore Olson were on opposite sides of the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case, with Olson winning the presidency for George W. Bush. Now the pair is teaming up against Prop 8, hoping to strike a huge victory for gay and lesbian rights. Olson says same-sex marriage is a cause conservatives like him should champion, not fight.
Mr. THEODORE OLSON (Attorney): Being denied the right to marry the person of one's choice is being relegated to a second-class citizenship in America.
SHAFER: In court this week, Olson and Boies called expert witnesses, including one from Harvard who recounted the history of marriage - how slaves were once prohibited from marrying and how interracial weddings were illegal in many states 40 years ago. Her point: that the definition of marriage is elastic and changing, that same-sex unions are a logical next step.
Attorneys defending Prop 8 put these witnesses under withering cross-examinations, hoping to discredit their expertise and testimony. On behalf of the defendants, Andy Pugno said the main issue is not historical discrimination.
Mr. ANDY PUGNO (Attorney): The court issue really is going to be who gets to decide ultimately what marriage will mean in the United States. Will it be the courts or will it be the people directly and through their elected representatives?
SHAFER: All week long, attorneys supporting gay marriage have worked to paint their clients as the latest victims of anti-gay bias, connecting the measure in history to Moral Majority Leader Jerry Falwell and Anita Bryant, who led the fight against gay rights in Florida 30 years ago. Point being that gay men and lesbians deserve the same kind of heightened legal protection under the law that racial minorities have.
But lawyers backing the measure claim gays and lesbians are not powerless victims, but rather, power brokers with allies like labor unions, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, even many religious leaders. But the week's biggest controversy occurred outside the courtroom.
Opponents of gay marriage asked the Supreme Court to step in and block a plan to upload video of the trial to the Internet, arguing the publicity could expose their witnesses to harassment and have a chilling effect on their testimony. On Wednesday, the high court agreed to the delight of defense attorney Andy Pugno.
Mr. PUGNO: People are better able to testify and the lawyers behave themselves a little bit better when the cameras are not running.
SHAFER: The high court's five-to-four decision had nothing to do with the merits of this case, but the conservative majority agreed with the arguments made by gay marriage opponents that broadcasting the trial could harm witnesses.
Since this case is likely to end up before the Supreme Court sooner or later, this ruling could be indicative of how they might ultimately rule on the issue of gay marriage, says David Levine of UC Hastings's College of the Law in San Francisco.
Professor DAVID LEVINE (Law, UC Hastings): If you wanted to read the tealeaves a little bit in terms of what that five justice majority might do on the merits in this case, one might think they're not that happy with what's going on here.
SHAFER: The trial continues next week with testimony from Yes on 8 campaign insiders, questioning that's sure to have sparks flying.
For NPR News, I'm Scott Shafer in San Francisco.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Tomorrow, millions of Americans will observe the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Dr. King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968 while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The Reverend Samuel Billy Kyles was standing next to him on that balcony that day. He had invited Dr. King, Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy to dinner at his home and the men were at the motel getting ready to leave.
When we spoke to Reverend Kyles in 1993, he described the moments before King was shot.
Reverend SAMUEL BILLY KYLES (Activist): He was leaning over the rail talking to Jesse. And so, only as I turned to walk away, when I walked away - I got four or five steps - I heard the shot. And I didn't realize it was a shot. I looked over the railing and people were ducking. And I looked back and he was lying mortally wounded. And I ran to him and saw this huge hole in his face. And I think it knocked one of his shoes off. And he had this crushed cigarette in his hand. And the tie I noticed because the impact severed the tie and turned the knot upside down. And he was just lying there.
HANSEN: The Reverend Samuel Billy Kyles is on the phone now with us from Chicago. It is so nice to hear your voice again, sir.
Rev. KYLES: Well, thank you so much.
HANSEN: What went through your mind just now when you were listening to that tape of you telling that story again?
Rev. KYLES: That part about the knot being turned upside down. I don't know, it's been a long time since I said that, but I was thinking, my goodness, how much else did I leave out 'cause it was just, the whole scene was incredible. I thought I was having a nightmare. But the nightmare was that I was awake. And to hear it again just brought that day back.
HANSEN: Reverend Kyles, when we spoke for the 25th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, you told me that Dr. King's death gave birth to another kind of movement. What would you say about where that new life stands now? How has it grown?
Rev. KYLES: All the progress we've made - we had so much to do. I mean, it was just so much. Even now, it has not been 150 years that my ancestors have been out of slavery. And to go from being illegal to know how to read to having had two secretary of states, to have a national holiday in honor of an African-American, that's mind-boggling.
HANSEN: We mustn't forget the election of President Obama as well.
Rev. KYLES: Absolutely. Absolutely. I was getting to it. I was just doing it slow.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Yes, sir.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Rev. KYLES: And I hear some people say, well, you know it's bad now. It's worse now than it was then. I said the only reason you can say that is you were not here then. It is not worse now than it was then. It is - we've made tremendous progress. And here we have a president of the United States of America of African descent.
I am so blessed and so thankful that I lived to see that, because very often, pioneers are not around to walk the trails they blazed. They blaze them and then they're gone.
HANSEN: Reverend Kyles, you're going to be preaching, as you do on a Sunday. How will you mark the King holiday in your homily, your sermon?
Rev. KYLES: I'll be talking about knocking holes in the darkness. It is said that Robert Louis Stevenson was a man who never enjoyed good health. He spent a lot of time in his room even as a child. He was always looking out the window. His nurse asked him one day, Robert, what are you doing? He said, I'm watching that old man knock holes in the darkness. She said, what are you talking about?
He would climb up the ladder and light the light, come down, move the ladder to the next pole, climb up, come down, move the ladder. And everywhere he would light a light it appeared to him with his little quick mind that a hole was being knocked in the darkness.
And so I'm suggesting that those of us who have the strength and the ability, we should be knocking holes in the darkness. So, Martin Luther King came to Memphis - it was a dark place to come, but he came and he came knocking holes in the darkness.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: The Reverend Samuel Billy Kyles joined us from Chicago. Reverend Kyles, thank you so much. It's so good to talk to you again.
Mr. KYLES: It's my pleasure.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Now, to your letters.
Last week we talked to diversity columnist Michelle T. Johnson of the Kansas City Star about African-Americans who erase race from their resumes to increase their chances of a job interview.
Matthew Scallon(ph) of Chula Vista, California wrote to us about his father who had difficulty finding work in the 1950s and had what many would consider to be a black name - Leroy. Scallon continued: When he changed the name of the resumes to Roy, the offers finally came in.
Many of you enjoyed our visit to the Silver Spring, Maryland home of pinball machine collector David Silverman. Kathy Brown(ph) left this comment on NPR.org: I was most excited when Liane asked to play the Addams Family pinball game. I have many fond memories of playing that pinball game at the local roller skating rink in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania in the 1980s. And Ralph Spencer of Rossville, Georgia shared this memory: Somehow I associate pinball machines with truant officers. Boy, those were the days.
(Soundbite of music)
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Our survey revealed that following WEEKEND EDITION through social media like Facebook and Twitter is a relatively new experience for most of the some 7,200 people who took our survey, but one they engage in frequently. Listeners say they initially became WEEKEND EDITION followers because they wanted to receive updates and additional information, but they have continued because they've enjoyed the interaction and the peeks behind the scenes.
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If you want to read more about our social media survey, go to NPR.org/Soapbox. And really, thanks again to all of you, our listeners, friends and followers.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
The international relief mission for Haiti is gathering momentum. As part of the response, search and rescue teams are moving through the capital city Port-au-Prince trying to locate people who might still be stranded beneath collapsed buildings.
NPR's Jackie Northam spent the day with a rescue team and has this report.
JACKIE NORTHAM: Even before the sun is over the horizon, search and rescue teams based at the main airport here are preparing for a long day. One particular convoy is made up of three dozen search and rescue workers from Spain and Iceland. They climb into the back of two large dump trucks loaded with gear and search dogs. The Spanish squad works the dogs. Icelandic squad members say they're more at home searching for avalanche survivors. But for the moment, they and other rescue workers are driving through the wreckage of Haiti's capital city.
(Soundbite of machinery)
NORTHAM: Despite the early hour, the streets are choked with people. The first stop for the search and rescue team is a flattened hotel in what could be charitably described as a dicey neighborhood.
Unidentified Man #1: (Foreign language spoken)
NORTHAM: The rescue workers put on their hard hats as they pass through one particularly unruly stretch. We could see looters carting off bags of rice and anything they could lay their hands on.
Michael Olafsson, the safety officer with the Icelandic team, says the area is considered a red zone.
Mr. MICHAEL OLAFSSON (Safety Officer, Iceland Search and Rescue Team): So the security is very - and you notice on the way, there were local militias guarding. You could see how they would be taking toll of people going pass.
NORTHAM: The convoy passes block after block of flattened buildings before finally stopping in front of the hotel. Local rescue organizations said they had received reports people could be trapped under the building. All of them said often the reports are nothing more than rumors but they have to be checked out. While the rescue workers unload the trucks, the squad leader, Magnus Hakonarson, talks with locals watching the operation.
Mr. MAGNUS HAKONARSON (Squad Leader, Iceland Search and Rescue Team): Can you ask if there's an employee of the hotel somewhere in this group, somebody who knows the building?
NORTHAM: With the aid of a translator, Hakonarson starts to get information. He draws a rough sketch of the hotel.
Unidentified Man #2: About four stories.
Mr. HAKONARSON: How many? Four stories?
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah.
Mr. HAKONARSON: And it's a cellar?
Unidentified Man #2: What's that?
Mr. HAKONARSON: Basement?
Unidentified Man #2: No, there's no basement.
Mr. HAKONARSON: No basement.
Unidentified Man #2: No basement.
Mr. HAKONARSON: Only you walk in here.
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah.
Mr. HAKONARSON: One...
Unidentified Man #2: Two, three, four.
Mr. HAKONARSON: ...two, three, four, and this is the room.
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah.
NORTHAM: The search teams send dogs into the ruins of the hotel. Petur Goodmundsson, a paramedic and technology specialist, says a dog will mark his spot if he detects anything.
Mr. PETUR GOODMUNDSSON (Paramedic, Technology Specialist; Iceland Search and Rescue Team): They bark or turn their head in a special way. And the dog handler knows his dog, so that dogs mark in a different way.
NORTHAM: If two dogs indicate there may be a person still alive, a listening device is installed. Rescue workers will knock on the concrete. Goodmundsson says they're not expecting to hear the word help.
Mr. GOODMUNDSSON: We are listening for noises and people moving or people knocking. Like the ones we found yesterday, the person was knocking, so we told them, knock three times and they knocked three times. Then we know it's not the water dripping or animal, rats or something like that.
NORTHAM: If they can talk to the survivor, rescue workers try to determine if anyone else is trapped. Despite all the efforts to find someone at the hotel, it's determined there are no survivors and the teams start packing up. Next stop is the University of Haiti. As the trucks head off, squad leader Hakonarson says it's tough leaving.
Mr. HAKONARSON: Searching is easy. Leaving an area with relatives, that's a difficult thing.
(Soundbite of vehicles)
NORTHAM: By the time they reach the university, another search and rescue group from the U.S. is already working the area. But local people start approaching the group saying they're sure people are alive in a number of other buildings. The rescue crews question each person. It's a long process and requires looking around damaged buildings, says Erlander Birgisson, a structural engineer on the Icelandic squad.
Mr. ERLANDER BIRGISSON (Structural Engineer, Iceland Search and Rescue Team): Well, just going to see what it looks like now. I can see from the pictures they took it's very unstable, so we won't stay long in here. That's quite unstable. This will be going down in the next - if we have an aftershock, this will go down. Small tremor, yes, will bring this down.
NORTHAM: Birgisson says it's incredibly difficult to try to rescue people in the ruins of a city this size, with so many houses and with so little time remaining.
Jackie Northam, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Five years ago, the Orange Revolution swept Ukraine's capital Kiev. Protestors overturned a rigged election and demanded free democracy. Today, the former Soviet republic holds its first presidential election since that revolution and there's a twist: The leader in the polls is Viktor Yanukovych. In 2004, he was the revolution's enemy, the Russian-backed candidate who won the tainted election and had his victory thrown out.
For more on what his comeback says about Ukraine, NPR's David Greene joins us. He's at a polling station in Kiev. David, first of all, what's the scene there?
DAVID GREENE: Well, it's a snowy day in Kiev, Liane, but people are going to the polls. And the real sense here seems to be they just hope that after a lot of elections that did not seem that fair, that this one will actually go smoothly and it will be fair, free and they have winner sometime soon. So that's the hope.
HANSEN: And tell us a little about the candidates. There are some familiar names from the Orange Revolution, including the man who became president who was also poisoned.
GREENE: Yeah, Viktor Yushchenko, you might remember, the president. He was poisoned mysteriously back in the Orange Revolution. He has lost popularity. He's been running in single digits here, Liane. His once ally-now-rival, the Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, she's been doing fairly well and has a chance. The real story though is, as you said, Viktor Yanukovych, the enemy of the Orange Revolution - he was backed by Russia in 2004 - he's made quite a comeback.
HANSEN: Well, David Greene, we're about to hear your story about where Viktor Yanukovych is getting his support, and it begins at a train station.
(Soundbite of announcement)
Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: When I got off the train in Donyet(ph), it reminded me a lot of Pittsburgh in an earlier time. Instead of steel here, it's coal - a gritty industrial city, tough work ethic.
(Soundbite of coal mine)
GREENE: I stopped at one coal mine and sat in a small, smoky room where some miners were on their break. An orange, metal coil was heating the room. Miners were smoking or checking out a Russian version of Maxim magazine. It was a tough crowd.
Mr. MIKHAIL SCRILNIK(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: One of the men, Mikhail Scrilnik said Westerners, including me, can't understand life in this hard part of Ukraine.
Mr. SCRILNIK: (Through translator) The correspondent from the West can't understand how we live, how when you go to doctor you have to give him money to get good treatment. You don't understand how you have to give money to someone at school or your kid will be mistreated.
GREENE: So there's a window into the disconnect people here feel with the West, and in that context came the Orange Revolution. The miners here said it was like people in Kiev had seen images of the West on TV and suddenly wanted to remake America in Ukraine. Well, life in Ukraine hasn't improved since then, these men told me.
Mr. RAMAN FUDOROV(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: And that reality is setting in, miner Raman Fudorov said. More Ukrainians are realizing that the man who fell from grace in the revolution is the one who actually understands how to fix things here.
Mr. FUDOROV: (Through translator) Yanukovych, of course, he's an industrialist. When he was prime minister, we can see some development and we had stability. When he had to resign, the Orange people came to power and all their promises went down the drain.
GREENE: Here in coal country, Russian language is spoken far more than Ukrainian. And there's a tendency to think of Eastern Ukraine as pro-Russian. But, really, people are proud they're independent, proud to be Ukrainian. There's no desire to return to the politics of the Soviet era. That said, bad economic times like these are when you do hear some nostalgia for the stability of life in Soviet times.
(Soundbite of music)
GREENE: Musicians were playing outside a chilly market in Donyet.
Mr. SERGEI CHICHAI(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: One of them, Sergei Chichai, let his son have the stage so he could come chat. Chichai served in the Soviet Army in Afghanistan in the '80s and before that he was a coalminer.
Mr. CHICHAI: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: It was an old Soviet slogan, he told me, saying, coalminers were the guards of labor. They were respected and made solid wages. Now, he said, mines are neglected and unsafe. He said there'll be more deadly accidents.
Mr. CHICHAI: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: Yanukovych, he said, is the candidate most in tune with coal's legacy here. As president he would help the mines. Chichai said people are excited about setting Orange Revolution aside. Just read the yard signs, he says. They say: Yanukovych, forgive us. In other words, forgive us for letting that revolution rob you of the presidency the first time.
(Soundbite of music)
GREENE: As he got back to work, I caught up with two women who were huddled on an icy street corner.
Ms. ALEXANDRA VASILUVNA(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. ALLA GOLOSHGO(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: They spoke of lost jobs and struggles to buy food. Alexandra Vasiluvna is 76, and she's seen the pain at the machine plant in Donyet where she worked for 30 years.
Ms. VASILUNVNA: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: In Soviet time, she said, it was better. You could make 100 rubles and that was plenty for bread and other food and the pensions were better.
Ms. GOLOSHGO: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: Her friend, Alla Goloshgo, added: We're just waiting for a better life to come from Yanukovych.
Ms. GOLOSHGO: (Foreign language spoken)
GREENE: She then thanked me for visiting her part of Ukraine.
David Greene, NPR News.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
President Obama travels to Massachusetts today to bolster support for a Senate candidate in what's been a reliably Democratic state. It's a particularly important race for the president. His push for health care reform could turn on it. Mr. Obama's visit comes at a time when his job approval ratings and his presidency are at a crossroads.
Republicans and conservatives have been critical of his performance for months. But now his own party is becoming uneasy about an unending war in Afghanistan, the unfinished health care bill and an incomplete agenda after showing so much promise.
NPR political editor Ken Rudin joins us to talk about the first year of the Obama presidency. Hi, Ken.
KEN RUDIN: Good morning, Liane.
HANSEN: Are you surprised to find President Obama in this shape after a year in office?
RUDIN: Well, I would say yes only because his numbers in the beginning were so positive. Certainly in the early going, there were polls showing back in April and May, showed him with 60 percent approval, if not more. He was riding high. The Democrats were riding high. And at the same time, the Republicans were flailing. They were defined often as the party of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. And whereas they were, like, battling each other.
Then something seemed to happen by last summer, where the Republicans seemed to get united. Their anger against the Obama policies grew and grew. We saw those outbursts at the town hall meetings during the summer, the growth and the rise of the Tea Parties. And now it seems like, if you look at the polling numbers -and I can give some polling numbers - The Washington Post has President Obama with a 53 percent approval, CBS 46 percent approval. These are not good numbers, certainly not as good as they were when he was riding so high back in the last spring.
HANSEN: So, give us some numbers, pluses and minuses. Assess his first year.
RUDIN: Well, I'm kind of like the Nobel Committee on this because not that so much has been accomplished, but there has been great, great promise. So, of course, you know, they had the stimulus package, which worked, and the bank bailouts and this rescuing of the auto companies. And those things seemed to be very good. His reaching out to foreign countries, where President Bush had not done so. And yet, but limited results. I mean, we're still waiting. We're still waiting for any kind of reciprocity from Cuba or from North Korea, from Iran. There's still problems, of course, with Russia and China, and there seems to difficulties with them.
And on the domestic front, we still don't have a health care bill. We may have it soon, but we don't have it yet. There's still no word on climate control, things like that. So, you know, there's a lot things that could happen. And I guess the Nobel Peace Prize Committee decided, you know, that might happen. But until they do, they're not seen as accomplishments. And one thing - important thing to remember - Bill Clinton elected in 1992 was thought to be dead in the water in 1994, was re-elected in '96. Ronald Reagan elected in 1980, they had this 1982 recession and yet two years later he won 49 states.
So you can make the case that it's too early to write off President Obama. But the question is whether many of these congressional Democrats will be around for the ride in 2012.
HANSEN: Explain what's going on in the Democratic Party. I mean, they're critical of the president. They complain he hasn't been aggressive in pushing the health care plan. And he's let Republicans set the agenda. And they're not happy about the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.
RUDIN: Exactly. There was a growing discontent. You know, we've always talked about the united Republican Party and how the Republican Party is doing what it can to thwart the Obama initiatives. And yet, the Democrats are sitting back and watching this and they're saying: Wait a second. We should be riding high. We have a huge majority in the House. We have 60 votes in the Senate - and that's exactly why Massachusetts is so important and we could talk about that later, but we should be passing these things.
And yet many in the progressive wing of the party feel that the Obama -President Obama is too willing to compromise, too willing to give in to, like, the Joe Liebermans, the Ben Nelsons of the world, the moderate-centrist senators. While, you know, 58 senators may decide they want the public option in the health bill. But if one objects, well, that's thrown out the window.
If 58 senators say that there's too much focus on abortion, but if two senators object to that, then the president gives too much. They don't like that. They feel that they have the numbers to stand and they should be doing that. And here we have somebody who wants - who was elected in 2008 - to reverse the Bush foreign policy adventures and yet here the progressives watch President Obama's call for 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan. These policies are not necessarily uniformly unpopular, but they have made the left very weary and very nervous going into this year's elections.
HANSEN: And in the minute we have left, let's talk about that Senate campaign in Massachusetts in the special election. The president is going up to campaign for Democratic candidate for Senator Martha Coakley. Why has this become a race that the Democrats need to have the president involved?
RUDIN: Well, it's a - as you said earlier, this should be a slam dunk. Massachusetts, this is Ted Kennedy's seat he's had for 47 years. The Democrats have held it since 1953 when JFK had it. But one: Scott Brown, the Republican, is a good campaigner. Two: Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate, is not a good candidate. And but three, more importantly: health care may be at stake, at risk, because if Scott Brown wins, he is the 41st Republican senator robbing the Democrats of 60 votes. And it could make, if not health care, the rest of the agenda very, very difficult.
HANSEN: Ken Rudin is NPR's political editor. His Political Junkie blog can be found at NPR.org/junkie. Ken, thanks a lot.
RUDIN: Thank you, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
You've no doubt noticed that gas prices are creeping up again. If it was just a matter of supply and demand, that wouldn't be the case because there's a glut of oil on the market.
Here's Marianne Russ of Capitol Public Radio to explain why you're paying more at the pump.
MARIANNE RUSS: It's one thing to grumble about paying more to fill up your car. It's another thing entirely when you have 150 big rigs to refuel every day.
(Soundbite of engine starting up)
RUSS: Scott Blevins heads up Mountains Valley Express freight service in Manteca, about an hour south of Sacramento. He has operations in California, Nevada and Arizona.
Mr. SCOTT BLEVINS (Mountain Valley Express Freight Service): Diesel fuel for our company is roughly our third single largest cost.
RUSS: With most gas and diesel prices around $3 a gallon in California, Blevins spends about $330,000 a month on fuel. Higher prices hurt Blevins, but not in the way you might thing. Like many in the industry, he passes the higher cost onto his customers through a fuel surcharge. That makes it more expensive for them to ship their goods and that means...
Mr. BLEVINS: Ultimately, we consumers pay for it. I mean, if you look at your grocery bill lately, a large part of the cost of your groceries is due to fuel 'cause they all come on a truck.
RUSS: Blevins says business is down because his customers are shipping 15 to 20 percent less than they did a couple of years ago and that's largely because consumers are buying less stuff. So, what's driving the cost of gas up?
Mr. BOB VAN DER VALK (Consultant, 4Refuel): Unfortunately it's not supply and demand.
RUSS: That's Bob van der Valk, a fuel pricing analyst.
Mr. VAN DER VALK: Because supply is up, demand is down and prices should be going down and they did not.
RUSS: Van der Valk is a consultant with 4Refuel, a diesel fuel distributor in Washington state. He says the weak dollar has a lot to do with it.
Mr. VAN DER VALK: If the dollar is weak, crude oil goes up because everybody takes their money out of investing in the almighty dollar or the euro and putting it into, investing it in paper, barrels of crude oil.
RUSS: Van der Valk says that investment has helped pushed oil to around $80 a barrel and that means higher prices at the pump. He says they'll probably keep climbing. In California at least, which has the highest gas prices in the continental U.S., could be at $4 a gallon by the summer.
Esmael Adibi doesn't think prices will get that high. He's an economist at Chapman University in the Los Angeles area. But he is concerned about the effect of higher gas prices on the economic recovery.
Professor ESMAEL ADIBI (Chapman University): When gas prices go higher the way it did - one dollar per gallon over one year - what it means is kind of a tax on us. It's like we have less disposable income to spend.
RUSS: Adibi agrees the weak dollar is playing a role in high gas prices, but he says there are a number of contributing factors, including the cold snap in the eastern part of the country that increased demand for energy. In California, where unemployment is over 12 percent and the state budget has a $20 billion hole in it, Adibi says the gas pump isn't an effective place for consumers to be spending extra money.
Prof. ADIBI: Most of it is going to go to oil-producing countries and that's not going to be any benefit domestically for our economy.
RUSS: But it's important to keep things in perspective, that's according to Christopher Knittel. He's an economics professor at the University of California at Davis. He says, when you consider the things we don't pay for -what he calls the social costs of gasoline - three bucks doesn't sound so bad.
Professor CHRISTOPHER KNITTEL (Economics, University of California at Davis): If we worry about climate change, if we worry about even more local pollution such as smog, if we worry about the fact that our military is larger, the more oil we consume, all of those costs are not in that $3 a gallon. So, from that perspective, $3 a gallon is actually a pretty good deal.
RUSS: Compared to a year and a half ago when gas in California was over $4.50 a gallon, $3 many not sound so bad. But the uncertainty around where prices are headed next makes it pretty tough for business owners like Scott Blevins at Mountain Valley Express Trucking to plan their budgets for the year.
For NPR News, I'm Marianne Russ in Sacramento.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Americans have been moved by the devastation in Haiti, but in Florida, where essayist Diane Roberts lives, the quake has had a particular effect.
DIANE ROBERTS: It's impossible to turn away from the images and just as impossible to bear them. The concrete houses smashed back into dust, the cathedral reduced to rubble, the bodies covered pitifully with sheets and laid in the streets, the raw-eyed survivors sitting amidst the ruins of their nation.
For Florida, this is not some distant disaster. More than 350,000 people of Haitian descent live here. Haitian music, Haitian art and Haitian food are all ingredients in our culture. You hear Creole in Fort Lauderdale and South Beach - even up here in Tallahassee.
I have students from Port-au-Prince, Petionville and Gonaives. They've spent the last few days trying to get through to their families, staring all the while at screens full of death.
Haiti is 600 miles from Florida - not as close as Cuba, but close enough for thousands to risk the voyage. But while Cuba, that defiant socialist outlier is a noisy obsession, Haiti occupies a quieter but still profound place in the American psyche. Once it was the richest of France's colonies, awash in sugar and coffee money. But in 1791, the slaves of Haiti took to heart the cry of liberte, egalite, fraternite, from their masters over the water and started their own revolution.
You'd think the young United States would've welcomed the establishment of a sister republic. We too had fought to liberate ourselves from a colonial power. But Haiti was more threat than inspiration - the plantation south's worst nightmare. What if our slaves overthrew the white government and burned the big house down?
We didn't officially recognize Haiti's government until 1862 in the middle of our own war over slavery. During the next century and a half, we had a vexed relationship with Haiti - sometimes occupying it, sometimes supporting dictators, sometimes providing money and other aid.
Last spring, one of my Haitian students was telling me his country and the Deep South - that includes Florida - have always been intertwined. Look at Key West, he said, New Orleans and now Miami. You're like us - France and Africa in the mix.
He's right. We are linked by history far closer than 600 miles - and now by sorrow.
HANSEN: Diane Roberts teaches at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Old-timers in a remote desert of northwest Arizona still talk about the mushroom clouds. A half century ago they could ride on horseback up the nearest hill to watch the nuclear weapons tests being held next door in Nevada. Today, they also talk about the cancers that came after those tests. Eventually Congress agreed to pay compensation to most of these downwinders, except they left out one area in Arizona - one closest to the test site.
Now after decades of activism that may finally change, sparked in part by the recent death of the woman who led the fight for the downwinders there. Daniel Kraker of member station KNAU reports.
(Soundbite of music)
DANIEL KRAKER: Elenore Fanire was only 33 years old when she developed ovarian cancer. She was in her mid-50s when both her dad and younger brother died of cancer linked to radiation. She made it to 65 before she died recently of pancreatic cancer.
Mr. JOE HART: I'm going to issue this challenge to every one of you. Let's not let Elenore's life be in vain.
KRAKER: Joe Hart grew up with Fanire and spoke at her funeral.
Mr. HART: Let's get behind this day and understand and make these people pay for what they've done, residents of (unintelligible).
KRAKER: Nearly a decade ago, Fanire founded the Mohave Downwinders to persuade Congress to add the southern part of the county to the act. The largest city here is Kingman. Long-time resident Danielle Stephens showed me around.
Ms. DANIELLE STEPHENS: It's overwhelming that one town could be so inundated and most of the people were from this same age group. It's not a coincidence.
KRAKER: Before meeting me, Stephens jotted down a list of family members who've died from cancer. She counted 21 out of 25.
Ms. STEPHENS: This next house, my cousins lived there. The daughter passed away from a brain tumor. Their sister passed away from a brain tumor.
KRAKER: When the Downwinders Bill was voted on 20 years ago, the government never admitted the nuclear tests caused specific cancers, but since then it's paid out nearly $700 million to downwinders and given free medical screenings, unless, like Daniel Stephens's family, you lived in the southern part of Mojave County.
Ms. STEPHENS: It makes me feel like they just want to ignore us until our generation dies out and then they save all this money.
KRAKER: So, why wasn't the southern part of Mohave County included in the first place? No one knows for sure, but ask just about anyone in Kingman and they'll tell you it was because of bureaucratic bungling. In the original legislation, they say, the county was spelled with a J instead of an H. So a staffer omitted it from the bill thinking it referred to a county in California. Seriously, this all could be because of a typo?
Representative TRENT FRANKS (Republican, Arizona): I just don't see any other explanation for it.
KRAKER: That's Trent Franks, the Republican congressman who represents Mohave County.
Rep. FRANKS: Because Mohave County is the closest county to that test site. It's right in the wind path. And ultimately the cancer rates are more dramatic in Mohave County than they are anywhere else.
KRAKER: Indeed, cancer rates in Mohave County are the highest in the state, and the government itself has estimated that downwinders here were exposed to three times as much radioactive fallout as people in a neighboring county that is covered by the federal program. The difficulty it takes an act of Congress to revise the statute.
Now with Elenore Fanire's death and after several years of pressure from constituents, Congressman Franks will introduce a bill this month to add the southern part of Mohave County to the Downwinders legislation. That would be welcome news to Helen Graves.
Ms. HELEN GRAVES: There's all these needy people and so many have died. You know, when they could've helped their lives.
KRAKER: The 81-year-old post office worker has devoted their life to helping people in Kingman with cancer, ever since she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in her early 20s.
Ms. GRAVES: So, sure, it's a big disappointment and it just goes on and on and no one does anything.
KRAKER: With tears streaming down her cheeks, Graves says she's been to more funerals than she can count in Mohave County, so many that she stopped going. She didn't even go to Elenore Fanire's, but she hopes her death may finally lead to downwinders here getting recognition from the federal government.
For NPR News, I'm Daniel Kraker.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince is full of desperate survivors. Most have been displaced from their homes and are in need of help. NPR's Jason Beaubien has the story of one woman who survived with little more than an empty grain sack.
JASON BEAUBIEN: The neighborhood of Morne Lazare used to cling to a steep hillside in Port-au-Prince, now it's a swath of rubble. Some of it has even tumbled into the roadway below. Towards the top of the hill, a lone house is the only building still standing. Laundry still flies from a clothesline on its roof. The structure leans precariously out over an expanse of pancaked houses, shattered concrete blocks and twisted rebar. Malia Yvette, a middle-aged woman, is slumped dejectedly under a tree.
Ms. MALIA YVETTE: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: Yvette points to the pile of debris in front of her. She says three of her family members are dead inside. If you look over there, another three bodies are trapped. Over there, two, she says. One of her sons is trying to smash and cut through the concrete to get the cadavers out. Yvette used to sell vegetables from a small shop for a living.
Ms. YVETTE: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: Yvette tugs at the tattered green dress she's wearing and says, this is all I have now. This and this grain bag. The grain bag is empty. She says she sleeps in a park along with several of her neighbors.
Morne Lazare is not a rich area, but in Haiti, where more than half the population lives in poverty, it was a solid neighborhood. Most of the residents had jobs and the houses were solidly, if simply, built. Yvette says she'd like to rebuild her home, but she says she has no way to do it. She doesn't have anything - just this dress and a grain bag.
Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. Im Steve Inskeep. Renee Montagne is back on the air. Renee, welcome back. We missed you.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Thank you very much. Im glad to be back. And back healthier and rested up.
INSKEEP: Good.
MONTAGNE: Now we can move on to Your Health. NPRs Allison Aubrey continues her occasional series on small changes that can make a big difference in health, this time a focus on teaching emotional resilience to middle-school kids as a way to prevent depression.
ALLISON AUBREY: I want to begin my story with a man who told me that it took him 45 years to learn what he mightve been taught in sixth grade. John Kelly told me that the mind is a funny thing. He wonders how many of us have caught ourselves thinking, ugh, how can I be so stupid? Or, ugh, this will never work out. Its something he certainly did a lot of.
Dr. JOHN KELLY (Orthopedist): Absolutely. And my childhood was riddled with those thoughts. And you believe the things your mind tells you.
AUBREY: Seven or so years ago, Kelly hit a rough spot. His father was in a nursing home very sick, and he was facing a malpractice suit in his orthopedic practice.
Dr. KELLY: In retrospect, I did nothing wrong. At the time, you believe, boy, maybe Im not so good. And the thoughts start, you know, rising and you buy into it and you get this negative spiral. So I was really down.
AUBREY: When Kelly reached out for help to a therapist at the Beck Institute in Philadelphia, it had never dawned on him that he could see these bad circumstances any differently. His guilty thoughts were telling him that he was a terrible son not seeing his dad enough, and a terrible doctor.
But in a few months of therapy, he learned something new. He learned to play detective with his own thoughts, to look for evidence as to whether they were true.
Dr. KELLY: I was world champ at all-or-nothing thinking, like if one surgery didn't go well, then I was a no-good surgeon. Thats a common distortion that our mind plays on us. And after writing, you know, my thoughts down and looking at them and writing what I thought was a more realistic interpretation, after a while, you start really, truly recognizing that they were false.
AUBREY: Kelly says realizing this was a game changer. With more realistic thinking, his emotions changed, too.
Dr. KELLY: Youd often get immediate relief looking at the thoughts right away on paper and saying, this is crazy. I don't know why Im thinking these things.
AUBREY: When I asked Kelly if he wished hed known how to use these strategies earlier in life...
Dr. KELLY: Oh, my gosh, without question. I - look at all the years that I suffered needlessly - and you - what you learn is, you rewire your brain.
AUBREY: What studies show is that there are lots of John Kellys out there, and when they learn to check their negative thoughts against the facts and cope with stress, it can be as effective as taking antidepressant medicines. The evidence is quite strong.
Unidentified Man #1: If you're in the gym line, can you show me whos ready?
AUBREY: Now, where the story goes from here may sound like a leap, so stay with me. Ive moved on to a school, and Im standing outside the fifth-grade classrooms, a good place to explain that the latest research shows you can introduce the same techniques that John Kelly learned during one-on-one therapy to groups of 10-year-olds in a classroom.
Mr. TOM BRUNZELL (Dean KIPP Infinity Charter School): Listen, 10-year-olds are very good lawyers.
AUBREY: Tom Brunzell, dean of the KIPP Infinity Charter School in Harlem, says these kids are really ready for this Emotional Health 101 kind of class.
Mr. BRUNZELL: They're constantly looking for fairness in the world, and they're spotting unfairness in the world.
AUBREY: Brunzell says it does no good just to say, buck up or get over it. This is the age you can begin to show kids how to take control of their negative thoughts.
Mr. BRUNZELL: So we are going to talk about how your self-talk, the things you tell yourself, your thoughts, can lead you to different feelings when disappointing things happen.
AUBREY: Brunzell hands each kid a copy of the same cartoon strip, and he describes the picture in the first panel...
Mr. BRUNZELL: Youre going to see an angry coach talking to the players, to the team.
AUBREY: The coach is pointing to a zero score and looking down on the players, as if to say...
Mr. BRUNZELL: This team did a terrible job today. When are we going to do better in practice?
AUBREY: In the second panel, theres one boy, a player on the team, standing next to the coach. The thought bubble over his head is blank. The kids job is to fill it in. What must this kid be thinking? Brunzell tells them to jot it down.
Mr. BRUNZELL: Then write an arrow to the feeling that you think is connected to this belief? OK? Go.
AUBREY: As they picked up their pencils and began writing, I found myself wondering: Is there really more than one way the kids will see this situation? As the mom of a boy this age, Ive got pretty good insights into the 10-year-old brain. Turns out, the answer is yes.
Mr. BRUNZELL: OK. So I see people are almost finished.
AUBREY: Alicia Echavarriato shares first.
Ms. ALICIA ECHAVARRIATO (Student): What I wrote in my thought bubble was: Why is he so mean? His screaming makes me want to cry. I think I have a tear.
AUBREY: Alicia says the coach's anger feels like a personal attack, so she draws an arrow to sadness. If this happened to Alicia, it sounds as if shed really be down.
Mr. BRUNZELL: OK. It looks like Anthonys ready. Anthony, why don't you share?
AUBREY: Anthony Ortizs self-talk is a downer, too.
Mr. ANTHONY ORTIZ (Student): Man, we lost. We let the coach down. Were the worst team ever.
AUBREY: Another example of a kid taking it on himself and feeling bad. But heres a third interpretation.
Mr. BRYCE MARCUS (Student): What I wrote in my thought bubble was, I wont be mad next time. I will be better. The coach can be mad. So what? I'll do better next time.
AUBREY: So Bryce Marcus' player wasnt sad or angry. He actually felt OK. He realized the situation wasnt permanent. So here we have three kids, three different internal dialogues, each leading to a different emotional reaction.
Mr. BRUNZELL: So what I want you to understand here is that yes, the coach is being very negative in this cartoon. But you have a lot more control over your feelings than you think. And if you focus your self-talk on really feeling, you know, better about the next time, youre going to have a better shot at winning that game.
AUBREY: The kids nod their heads. They seem to get it. But can they actually put it to practice in real life?
Anthony Ortiz says it's tough. Take just the other day, when he missed what he says was an easy problem on a math test.
Mr. ORTIZ: You just think that you're stupid automatically, and that's the first thought that comes into your mind. But you have to try to like, fight that away.
AUBREY: He learned to stop and think about the real facts. Overall, his math grade is pretty good. And then there's Bryce Marcus. He says he's trying to use what he's learned.
Mr. MARCUS: It's come in handy here sometimes, when I get mad.
AUBREY: A few weeks ago, he said he was furious with his sister when he came home from school and found his video game broken on the floor. But before he started a fight, he stopped to find out the facts. Turns out, it was an accident.
Mr. MARCUS: I went into the bathroom, and I looked in the mirror and I was like...
(Soundbite of breathing)
Mr. MARCUS: ...and I was trying to calm down with facial expressions.
AUBREY: So is stepping back from a highly emotional reaction a sign that Bryce is learning to be more emotionally resilient?
Dr. JANE GILLHAM (Co-director, Penn Resiliency Program): Absolutely. I think that's a wonderful example, and that's really what we hope for, is that kids will internalize the skills enough that they can use them in the moment.
AUBREY: That's Jane Gillham, a lead researcher of resilience training. She says there are now more than a dozen published studies, all showing benefits.
Dr. GILLHAM: Well, I'm a skeptic. I'm a scientist and a skeptic, so it took a lot for me. But the evidence is starting to accumulate now that these skills can prevent the onset of depression, and that they have powerful effects.
AUBREY: None of this implies that resilience skills are some kind of magic bullet. Clearly, there are genes and life events that put some folks at higher risk.
Take, for example, 17-year-old Victoria Fornataro(ph). Clinical depression runs in her family, and she started struggling early in high school.
Ms. VICTORIA FORNATARO: I didnt have much energy. I wasnt sleeping at night.
AUBREY: After her primary care doc at Kaiser Permanente flagged it, she ended up in cognitive therapy, learning the same strategies John Kelly and the fifth graders learned. At the time, she was hanging out with a group of girls who were bringing her down.
Ms. FORNATARO: And just mean, petty things being said and done.
AUBREY: And she internalized all of it.
Ms. FORNATARO: And you start thinking, well, you know, maybe because of all these people dont like me, other people aren't going to like me. It's all me.
AUBREY: But after learning to check her thoughts and to look for evidence, she realized she was very likeable - and liked - around another set of friends, so she chose to start spending more time with them.
Researcher Greg Clark says there's evidence that teens like Fornataro are being helped by these strategies.
Mr. GREG CLARK (Researcher): If we make a difference and change the trajectory at that early point, then we might see - we hope we'll see better life outcomes for these teenagers that will extend in many ways.
AUBREY: Now just in the teen years, but perhaps over a whole lifetime.
Allison Aubrey, NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: Youre listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
As the nation marks Martin Luther King Day today, it does so the first time with an African-American president in the White House. And the year 2010 brings another first. NPR's Tovia Smith joins us now to talk about that. She's in Boston. Hi, Tovia.
TOVIA SMITH: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What's this first?
SMITH: Well, the first is that as of this month, Newton, Massachusetts - which is an overwhelmingly white affluent suburb just west of Boston - it is now the first U.S. city to be represented by a popularly elected African-American mayor, governor and, of course, president.
INSKEEP: And when you say popularly elected, you mean they've actually stood for election, they've been voted in, and executives at every level that people in Newton, Massachusetts look at are African-American.
SMITH: That's right. And of course there are others around the country. And to be sure, in the year 2010, just having an African-American mayor or a governor is not big news, but it is somewhat striking, as you say, to look through the eyes of a Newton resident and see African-Americans in not one, but rather every chief executive slot. And it was a bit of a wow to me personally, Steve, so we thought we'd go and check in with the trifecta, if you will, to see what they make of the milestone.
And we started with Setti Warren, shortly after he was elected mayor of Newton.
Mayor SETTI WARREN (Newton, Massachusetts): I think the day after, I started thinking about it, and realized how powerful, what an incredible statement about where our society is.
SMITH: Warren told me it was really emotional being sworn into office alongside his young daughter and his parents, who are part of a generation, of course, that was still fighting, in many cases, for the right to vote.
Mr. WARREN: You know, my father marched in the civil rights movement. Jim Crow was prevalent across the country. To go from that to having my daughter's generation have three African-Americans - mayor, governor and president -that's all she's ever going to know. You know, it's just business as usual.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. WARREN: I, Setti D. Warren, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.
Unidentified Woman: Congratulations, Mr. Mayor.
Mr. WARREN: To be alive for this was just incredible. I'm awed by it. I know my father is, and my mother too.
SMITH: Warren spoke with both President Obama and Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick after his election, but no one mentioned the milestone.
Mr. WARREN: It didn't come up, as amazing as that sounds. And I think the fact that it's not an issue is even more powerful.
SMITH: And that may be the most remarkable sign of progress - that something so recently considered only a dream may now be so unremarkable. Indeed, it wasn't until we asked about it that Governor Patrick first registered the way he, the mayor and the president had made history.
Governor DEVAL PATRICK (Democrat, Massachusetts): I think you're right.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Gov. PATRICK: So, a light is going off, yes.
SMITH: As it sinks it, the governor agrees the real big news is that it's not big news. He likens it to the moment he watched Barack Obama accept the Democratic nomination for president.
Gov. PATRICK: I remember Jennifer Hudson sang the national anthem.
(Soundbite of song, "Star-Spangled Banner")
Ms. JENNIFER HUDSON (Singer): (Singing) Oh, say can you see...
Gov. PATRICK: And about halfway through the national anthem, I just totally lost it. I just started sobbing. What was funny was that my kids just did not get it. It was like, what's the big deal, dad? You know, they just didn't get how deep those feelings ran. And as I say, that may be its own sign of progress.
SMITH: President Obama, who doesn't like to make a big issue of race, declined to weigh in on the milestone. As Governor Patrick puts it, don't expect any of the trifecta to be calling for a photo op to mark the occasion.
Gov. PATRICK: I think some of us of a certain age, we're still in that generation that is trying to figure out how to talk about this. I find that younger people, they don't get stuck in the awkwardness. It's not post-racial. They are aware of differences, but they are undeterred by those differences, and that is progress.
INSKEEP: That's Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick speaking with our own Tovia Smith about news that Newton, Massachusetts elected a black mayor, meaning they now have a black mayor, black governor, black president - all at the same time.
And, Tovia, Governor Patrick said that young people are less awkward talking about this. How are young people responding to this news?
SMITH: Well, I had a very interesting conversation with a group of high school students in Newton. And what I heard about the milestone was something between a wow and a whatever.
Ms. INGRID RUTIYEA(ph) (Student, Newton High School): It wasn't, like, that big of a thing. Like, okay, that's chill. Like, move along. It's cool.
SMITH: Students like Ingrid Rutiyea are quick to note that their progressive, solidly blue suburb of Newton is hardly representative of the nation, and that even in Newton, senior Jen Diamond says Martin Luther King's dream is still not totally a reality.
Ms. JEN DIAMOND (Senior, Newton High School): I mean, I don't think you can, like, deny that there is still prejudice, like, around. You know, that's not eliminated, we're not all done.
Mr. SAM KILEY (Senior, Newton High School): I guess you could say that we're 80 percent there.
SMITH: That's senior Sam Kiley, the only African-American in the random group. First, he told me that race is something no one ever thinks about. But then just a little bit later, Kiley and the others started offering a much less rosy view of things.
Ms. KILEY: Like, in the school, for example, during lunch, it's split up; the African-Americans sit on the stairs, and then there's everybody else. And, I mean, there's obviously still something there that hasn't quite connected, you know. So, his dream, personally I feel like it will never be completely met, completely, totally.
SMITH: As students began to open up, for example, talking about still-lingering stereotypes or their belief that minorities have a better shot than whites getting into college, the conversation became more and more uneasy.
Ms. DIAMOND: It's still true that, like...I don't want to...like, right now I'm having so much trouble saying what I think is definitely true. That I, like...it's so awkward.
SMITH: That got us talking about what Governor Patrick said about kids today being unfazed by race and being able to talk about it without the awkwardness of their parents' generation. Here's Sam Kiley again.
Mr. KILEY: It's not true. Because in general, it's still a tough, touchy subject still. It can still be hard.
INSKEEP: One of the students who took on that touchy subject with our own Tovia Smith. And, Tovia, it sounds like they are still awkward, but they're willing to have the discussion.
SMITH: That's right. Race is still definitely an issue here. But as senior Jen Diamond put it to me - she says, that's okay.
Ms. DIAMOND: I don't think Martin Luther King's dream was to deny that race exists or anything like that. Like, not necessarily to be colorblind so much as to look past color and to see the person themselves. And I think, like, this election has shown that there is, like, a possibility for people to do that.
SMITH: And, Steve, one other thing I was struck by, sitting with these students, is how often in our conversation they would use humor and crack jokes. They would kind of confront this stuff head-on. One student saying to me, for example, if only I were black I'd definitely get into my top college, and everybody would laugh, you know, albeit a little nervously at times, but they all said how important it was to use humor in breaking the ice about these things.
INSKEEP: NPR's Tovia Smith has been reporting from Newton, Massachusetts, which is the first city in the United States to have, all at the same time, a popularly elected mayor, governor and president who are African-American. Tovia, thanks very much.
SMITH: Thank you, Steve.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: On this Martin Luther King holiday, this is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Bethel College in Newton, Kansas will commemorate Martin Luther King Day with a recording of a speech, though its probably not the speech you're thinking of.
Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (Civil Rights Activist): We stand today on the threshold of the most constructive and creative period in the history of our nation in the area of race relations.
MONTAGNE: Those words from Dr. King havent been heard in half a century. Carla Eckels of KMUW in Wichita reports on a rare find: a students homemade audio tape.
CARLA ECKELS: On January 21st, 1960, Martin Luther King, Jr. came to Bethel College in south-central Kansas to speak on the future of integration. Fifty years later, Bethel officials were working on commemorating the anniversary of that speech. So Bethels Sondra Koontz says she asked a staff member to try to find it.
Ms. SONDRA KOONTZ (Bethel College): I asked our archivist for a copy of the transcript or the audio and found out that we didn't have it. So I was devastated. We sent out an email asking alums to respond to us, and Randy responded and said I think I have a copy somewhere.
ECKELS: Thats Randy Harmison, a retired engineer and Bethel alumnus, who had tucked the tape away for decades on his farm near Erie, Kansas. As a student at Bethel, Harmison remembers plugging his tape recorder into the PA system to record Dr. King.
Mr. RANDY HARMISON (Retired Engineer): I did record several events at Bethel, but this was a big-time attraction. It was a big deal, and I thought it would be good, if not for documentation, just to have as a keepsake. And no one else had thought of recording it, so I jumped right in there and did it, and I'm really glad I did.
ECKELS: Needless to say, Sondra Koontz was thrilled by the discovery.
Ms. KOONTZ: I wavered between thinking this is impossible and this is incredible.
ECKELS: Harmison found the King recording and mailed it to Koontz. But when Koontz received it, the tape was too frail to play. So she sent it to an audio restoration company in Maryland that made a CD for the college.
Ms. KOONTZ: They sent it back to us. We realized that we had a perfect recording with Martin Luther King, Jr.s thunderous voice coming through, and it's just great.
Dr. KING: The important thing about a man is not his specificity, but his fundamentum, not the texture of his hair or the color of his skin, but the texture and quality of his soul.
ECKELS: Duane Friesen, professor emeritus at Bethel, has used King's teachings in his classrooms. He remembers listening intently from the balcony during King's speech.
Professor DUANE FRIESEN (Bethel College): He kept repeating that we need to be maladjusted to our society. We can't accept the status quo. And he repeated that over and over again. I said I remember that, being a nonconformist. He had vigor about him, an energy. He carried himself with a dignity, a sense of composure. He had a persona about him.
Dr. KING: And I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to the evils of segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry.
ECKELS: Bethel alumni, including Randy Harmison, will be at the commemoration today to hear the speech. Harmison says all he wants is a CD copy for himself.
For NPR News, Im Carla Eckels.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And Im Renee Montagne.
For all the countless people killed in the rubble of Haiti, even more people are vulnerable now. They are the survivors of last weeks earthquake.
INSKEEP: Some are astonishingly lucky, like two survivors who have been pulled from the remains of a supermarket. Officials say they survived all these days by eating food that was trapped alongside them.
MONTAGNE: Many other people are in the open air, but struggling to get food and water. Well hear some of their stories this morning, and we begin with NPRs Carrie Kahn.
CARRIE KAHN: Haitian police spent hours chasing residents out of damaged markets in the capitals downtown. Each time the police left, groups dash back through crumbled doorways to pull out any goods they could. At the Port-au-Prince cemetery, Oberes Oblas(ph) told an NPR producer he saw police drop off four young men, who the officers said were looters. He says the police told the men to run into the cemetery.
Mr. OBERES OBLAST: Go, go, go, go, go move, move, move quick, and then lying on the floor, and then put the gun direct in their head and blow, blow.
KAHN: A crowd gathered around one of the men as he slowly bled to death. Many said he deserved to die because he was a thief. The shooting happened around the corner from the Port-au-Prince soccer stadium, where the hundreds of homeless were not getting food and water. Jean Charles Linares(ph) says hes so frustrated, he cant wait any longer for food.
Mr. JEAN CHARLES LINARES: You see, actually, now Im hungry. Im just drinking a bottle of water, so whats that? Im drinking, so without eating, whats that?
KAHN: A church group from Korea did try and deliver a truck filled with food and clothing to the stadiums back gate, but as the truck inched backward, the crowd swelled and rushed the vehicle.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
KAHN: The driver hit the gas, obviously fearful of the surging crowd. The same scene played out as Guillermo Compagna Jimenez(ph) tried to deliver water from his full tanker. The crowd rushed the truck parked along the busy Port-au-Prince thoroughfare. Jimenez works for a company in the Dominican Republic which donated the water.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
KAHN: Residents jostled and fought over control of the spigot controlling the flow of water out of the truck. They filled up whatever containers they had, small plastic bottles, large buckets, even metal pots. Everyone said it was their first clean supply of water theyve had in five days.
Mr. GUILLERMO COMPAGNA JIMINEZ: (Spanish spoken)
KAHN: Jimenez says hell keep his engine running. That way, when the last drop of water is delivered, he wont waste a minute getting out of there. Residents like France Dejon(ph) say they are frustrated by the slow pace of help and the growing insecurity in the city.
Mr. FRANCE DEJON: I hate to say that we need the Americans and British to take over this place.
(Soundbite of helicopter engine)
KAHN: The U.S. 82nd Airborne Division has arrived in Haiti. They stationed about 900 troops at the airport and expect to have a total of 3,500 soldiers here by the end of the week. Lieutenant Colonel Rob Molsbee(ph) says the divisions primary role will be to help establish law and order.
Lieutenant Colonel ROB MOLSBEE (82nd Airborne Division): Security is the most important thing when youre dealing with national disasters, because you want to give these other agencies the opportunity to do what they do.
KAHN: Molsbee led a five-truck convoy filled with medical supplies and doctors to the general hospital downtown. He says he wants to survey the hospital and hear from officials about what is needed there.
Unidentified Man: Welcome to Haiti.
KAHN: Along the crowded streets to the hospital, several people wave and say welcome to the armed soldiers dressed in full camouflage gear. Mosby says it will take a lot of coordination, and there are a lot of logistics still to be worked out before the 82nd will be able to provide security details.
Lt. Col. MOLSBEE: Now, luckily, the Haitian people are wonderful people, and they have not - you know, this is an environment that is it is horrible. It is it really breaks your heart to see wonderful people like this have to go through this.
KAHN: Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
MONTAGNE: And that story was produced with reporting from NPRs Amy Walters.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now the lower estimates of the numbers of Haitian dead are around 50,000. The highest estimates reached 200,000, and the wide range is a reminder here that any such number is really just a guess.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
It appears that even more people were forced out of their homes and are now living outside on the street or in city parks and other open spaces.
NPRs Greg Allen has been visiting some of those encampments.
GREG ALLEN: You cant really call them tent cities. A tent would be luxurious compared to the conditions in which a vast number of Haitians are now living.
This is called Place Canape Vert. Its really sort of an amphitheater with concrete seats circling around a central area. Its a place where people might have concerts or gather. And everywhere you look in here you see one tarpaulin after another, blankets strung up to hold the sun off people. Every square patch of ground, you've got whole extended families sitting on a mattress or on a blanket, just sitting here because there is nothing else to do.
Ms. REGINA SANTELM: (Foreign language spoken)
ALLEN: On a plot next to the street, Regina Santelm(ph) is kind of the person that's hard to miss. She talks to everyone who passes by while she cooks. She's working with her daughter to make food, she says, so she can support all 10 members of her family. She's making cabbage-filled pies called patties and frying them in oil over a charcoal stove. I ask her how she has the energy to work so hard just days after the earthquake.
Ms. SANTELM: (Through Translator) All things (unintelligible), she's saying that God will do, will do something for the whole family.
ALLEN: Like, all 10 members of them?
Unidentified Man: Yeah, 10 members of the family.
ALLEN: This neighborhood, Canape Vert, was hit hard by the earthquake. The stench of dead bodies permeates the area from surrounding homes where theyve not yet been removed. Almost as bad is the smell from a median strip in the road people are using as a toilet.
There's little food and water. It's an abominable situation that's only getting worse. While I'm there, patient Mars Smith(ph) was just one of the people who handed me a note with his phone numbers, address and email account.
Tell me, why are you giving me this paper?
Mr. MARS SMITH: So that my son will know my email address, you know, email...
ALLEN: Yeah.
Ms. SMITH: ...also my number, telephone.
ALLEN: Right.
Ms. SMITH: (unintelligible)
ALLEN: So to get the word out to your family that you're safe?
Ms. SMITH: Yeah. Yeah.
(Soundbite of baby crying)
ALLEN: This is a relatively small park, but several hundred people are crammed in here, and most are grieving for dead family and friends. There are the poor, also the middle class, people like Jean Antoine Batae(ph), who works for the UN. He's on a two-week leave while he recovers from the death of his mother and four sisters in the earthquake. Only his brother-in-law survived.
Mr. JEAN ANTOINE BATAE: They were assembly to pray in the afternoon. Before starting the prayer, the earthquake struck and everybody has been dead. Nobody is alive right now. The - I cannot even look at the house where they were living.
ALLEN: There are, by one count, more than 16 encampments like this Haiti. In La Gonave and other towns west of Port-au-Prince, 80 to 90 percent of the buildings were destroyed, displacing more than 50,000 people, according to the UN. The Haitian government is encouraging people to return to their homes, if possible. At the same times, it's making plans to set up 14 camps for displaced people, including some that will be located outside of the city.
In the heart of Port-au-Prince, near the presidential palace, the largest park, Champs De Mars, had now become the largest encampment. It's home to an estimated 50,000 people. Clothes hang out to dry on monuments. Under a tarp in one part of the park, Maton Garby(ph) is lying on a wooden door. It's the door neighbors carried her out on after the house fell down around her, injuring her back.
Ms. MATON GARBY: (Through Translator) She was inside the house, but after the earthquake, people just come and (unintelligible) in the house, you know. But...
ALLEN: And dug her up. Does she...
Unidentified Man: Yeah. She has been saved by the grace of God.
ALLEN: That's something you hear a lot from Haitians. It's God's will, they say. It's a faith that will be tested in coming weeks, months and years. Greg Allen, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: Now, out alongside the encampments that Greg described, rescue workers are still trying to find people in the wreckage of buildings. Elsewhere in today's program, we hear from NPR's Jackie Northam, who's followed one rescue crew outside the city. There are other devastated cities beyond the capital of Haiti.
Inside Port-au-Prince, a Danish staffer was pulled alive from the remains of the United Nations headquarters. In all, we're told about 1,700 rescue workers are digging through the rubble now and that crews report they have pulled about 70 people out of the rubble and into the open air.
(Soundbite of music)
You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
One big political story these past days has been the surprising strength of a Republican aiming to take the Senate seat that the late Ted Kennedy held for decades. That special election is tomorrow, and in a sign of turbulent political times, Democrat Martha Coakley could lose what was seen as a very safe seat to Republican Scott Brown, which is why President Obama went to Massachusetts over the weekend, hoping to rescue Coakley and his own political agenda. NPR Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY: Loyal Democrats filled a gymnasium at Boston's Northeastern University Sunday, and President Obama delivered the full-court press.
President BARACK OBAMA: You have the unique and special responsibility to fill the Senate seat that you sent Ted Kennedy to fill for nearly 47 years.
(Soundbite of cheering)
Pres. OBAMA: And I am here to tell you that the person for that job is your Attorney General Martha Coakley.
(Soundbite of cheering)
HORSLEY: Coakley would usually be a shoo-in in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans three to one but independent voters outnumber both, and many of them are gravitating to Republican Scott Brown. The once little-known state senator drew a big crowd at his own rally yesterday, putting Democrats, including the president, on the defensive.
State Senator SCOTT BROWN (Republican, Massachusetts): The voters are doing their own thinking, and the machine politicians don't quite know how to react. They put in a distress call from Washington. He's right down the street in Boston.
HORSLEY: The race is drawing national attention, not only because of the narrow margin in Massachusetts, but the margin in the U.S. Senate. A win by Brown would give the Republicans 41 votes needed to sideline Obama's agenda, starting with health care. And Brown has promised to do just that.
Sen. BROWN: This bill would raise taxes. It would cut Medicare a half a trillion dollars. It would be unfair to our veterans. It would destroy jobs and run our nation deeper into debt.
HORSLEY: The administration would argue with most of that, but Mr. Obama didn't dwell on health care, mindful, perhaps, the public is still deeply divided on the issue. Instead, both he and Coakley stressed populist measures, like a proposed tax on Wall Street banks. Brown's against it. Coakley says it's a way to hold Wall Street accountable.
Attorney General MARTHA MARY COAKLEY (Democrat, Massachusetts): And I'll tell you one thing: just because youre driving around in Massachusetts in a truck doesn't mean youre headed in the right direction.
HORSLEY: Brown's GMC pick-up truck has been a symbol of his every-man appeal. But Mr. Obama tried to put the breaks on that image, knowing that Brown voted 96 percent of the time with his fellow Republicans in the State House.
Pres. OBAMA: And where we don't want to go right now is backwards to the same policies they got us into this mess in the first place when we just started to make progress cleaning it up.
HORSLEY: That Mr. Obama has to make this argument in Massachusetts shows how far his own star has fallen in the last year. His national approval rating hovers around 50 percent, and he's facing nearly as much disappointment on the left as on the right.
Pres. OBAMA: So people are frustrated, and they're angry. And they have every right to be, I understand, because progress is slow. And no matter how much progress we make, it can't come fast enough for the people who need help right now, today.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama appealed for patience, telling the party faithful he has just one year to undo the previous eight. I can't do it by myself, he said. He'll find out tomorrow whether he has a 60th senator to help. Scott Horsley, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And lets get an update on the top item on the presidents agenda: health care. The legislation includes a so-called individual mandate, a requirement that nearly everyone buy health insurance. And that requirement faces a challenge from those who say its unconstitutional. Hes NPRs David Welna.
DAVID WELNA: Last June, Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley told Fox News Sunday he thought everyone should have to buy health insurance, since, as he put it then, theres no free lunch.
Senator CHUCK GRASSLEY (Republican, Iowa): I believe that there is a bipartisan consensus to have individual mandates.
WELNA: At the time, Grassley was still deep in negotiations with Senate Democrats on the Finance Committee over a health care bill. But by the time that panel's legislation came to a vote, Grassley had turned against both the bill and the requirement that everyone buy insurance, as well.
Sen. GRASSLEY: For the first time in the history of our country, 225 years, the federal government is saying you've got to buy something. That's never been before. You, as an individual, can do whatever you want to, buy whatever you want to, when you want to, where you want to get it. But now the federal government is saying you have to buy health insurance.
WELNA: Since then, a lot of other Republicans have joined Grassley in questioning the individual mandate.
Attorney General BILL MCCOLLUM (Republican, Florida): I view the individual mandate as a living tax. I call it a tax on living.
WELNA: That's Florida's Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum. Two weeks ago, he wrote fellow state attorneys general and urged them to explore a constitutional challenge.
Atty. Gen. MCCOLLUM: I'm assuming there will be a bill that becomes law and that it includes - and if it does include an individual mandate or what I call a living tax, then at that point, we have to make a decision. Do we challenge it in court? The first step would be to go into federal court and seek that challenge, and I would expect if that were to be the case, we'd have a sizable number of attorneys generals joining us.
WELNA: It's a legal battle that could end up in the Supreme Court, and already gearing up for that is Georgetown University law Professor Randy Barnett. He maintains Congress would be overstepping its powers enumerated in the Constitution if it required people to buy health insurance.
Professor RANDY BARNETT (Law, Georgetown University): Never in the history of the United States has the federal government ever required someone to engage in an economic activity with a private party. It's never been done, and anything that's never been done before has no precedent for it. So there's no judicial precedent upholding it. It would have to be a new decision by the Supreme Court to uphold this new extension of power. And if they uphold this, then there's pretty much nothing that Congress can't do, and that's the end of the enumerated power scheme.
Professor WILLIAM TREANOR (Dean, Fordham University School of Law): I'm very confident that this would be held constitutional because of the Supreme Court.
WELNA: That's the dean of Fordham University Law School, William Treanor. He says the mandate to buy health insurance would be seen by the high court as part of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce.
Prof. TREANOR: The view that it's not consistent with the enumerated powers is at odds with well-established precedent that runs back more than 70 years. I think this is very clearly something that Congress can do under the Commerce Clause power.
WELNA: And Wake Forest University constitutional expert Mark Hall says almost every legal scholar he knows considers an individual mandate for health insurance consistent with Congress' power to regulate. Here's why.
Professor MARK HALL (Constitutional Expert, Wake Forest University): An individual who goes out and tries to purchase health insurance cannot buy a policy that covers preexisting conditions or that asks no medical questions. Such a product's simply not sold in most states. And it can't really be sold economically, unless we require most people to have insurance. So the requirement is really part and parcel of the regulation of the structure and conditions for the marketplace that would allow a very desirable kind of product to be sold.
WELNA: And Yale legal scholar Akhil Amar says the fact that a requirement by health insurance would be enforced through fines shows that Congress is exercising an even more fundamental constitutional power: Its power to impose taxes. Amar says courts should not be concerned that such a mandate had been used before.
Professor AKHIL AMAR (Legal Scholar, Yale University): There's a first time for everything. Before there was a federal bank, there was no federal bank. Before there was a Social Security Administration, there was no Social Security Administration. Have we ever had a law just like this before? No. That's why it's being proposed. That's true with many laws.
WELNA: Still, should the individual mandate become law, opponents are saying see you in court. David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
INSKEEP: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
NPR's business news starts with hybrid vigor.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: Toyota is planning to ramp up its production of hybrid cars. That's according to a Japanese newspaper report which says the company aims to sell a million hybrid cars in 2011 - double the number it sold last year.
The report also says the company wants to add 10 new hybrids to its lineup over the next few years. This comes after last week's unveiling of the new FT-CH hybrid at the Detroit Auto Show. It's a sleek sedan that could be priced as low as the mid teens.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The United States wants European airports to increase the number of full-body scanners used to screen passengers. This turns out to be an expensive request. As Teri Schultz reports from Brussels, airport officials say safety measures will cost them money.
TERI SCHULTZ: It's not that European airports aren't concerned about security, says one of their representatives in Brussels. But they're also frustrated by the difficulties new measures entail.
Mr. ROBERT O'MEARA (Communications manager, Airports Council International Europe): It's an operational nightmare.
SCHULTZ: Robert O'Meara of Airports Council International Europe, representing more than 400 European airports, explains that security costs have gone from about eight percent of operating budgets before 9/11 to 35 percent now.
Mr. O'MEARA: Every time that there is a threat revealed, suddenly its a new excuse to add another layer of regulations that somebody else has to pay for.
SCHULTZ: And in Europe, that somebody is almost never the government that mandates the measures. ACI is now asking that governments pay for any new security procedures they deem necessary for equipment and for training. For some airports, that can't come soon enough.
Schiphol in Amsterdam, where the would-be Christmas bomber transited to the U.S., has already been ordered to buy 60 new body scanners at about $200,000 each. There's no promise of federal reimbursement. But Mirjam Snoerwang, a Schiphol spokesperson, doesnt seem too worried yet.
Ms. MIRJAM SNOERWANG (Spokesperson, Schiphol): Safety first. We ordered them, and after we're going to have discussion with the government who's going to pay the scans.
SCHULTZ: The Dutch government has ordered the new scanners to be operational within just a couple of weeks.
For NPR News, I'm Teri Schultz in Brussels.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
In the U.S., we produce 804,000 tons of phonebooks every year. That's the statistic that comes from the EPA. It's over five pounds of paper for every man, woman and child, including those too young to pick up a phone. One California lawmaker says its time to stop printing so many phone books.
From member station KQED in San Francisco, Amy Standen reports.
AMY STANDEN: Places like this are where old phone books go to die.
Mr. ROBERT REED (Spokesman Sunset Scavenger Company): Phone books presented a special challenge. There's a lot of them, a lot more than we need.
That's Robert Reed, a spokesman for Sunset Scavenger. They process recycling for San Francisco residents. He says some books are so heavy and so numerous, that his facility had to put in a whole separate system just to deal with them.
Mr. REED: They had to put in a special conveyor belt just for phone books.
STANDEN: And that is a waste of resources for a product on the verge of extinction, says California State Senator Leland Yee.
State Senator LELAND YEE (Democrat, California): Many individuals no longer use the White Page. They use the Internet. They use other kinds of resources to get at phone numbers.
STANDEN: This month, Senator Yee is introducing a bill to make White Pages opt-in for all of California. That means you'd have to register online or call an 800 number to order a copy. If you didnt ask for the White Pages directory, you wouldnt get one. And that's a good thing, according to Scott Cassel.
Mr. SCOTT CASSEL (Director, Product Stewardship Institute): Bottom line is that these books do impact global warming.
STANDEN: Cassel directs the Product Stewardship Institute, an environmental group in Boston.
Mr. CASSEL: From the production of these books, the manufacture of these directories, the distribution of them and also the disposal or the recycling of them.
STANDEN: Cassel says a few communities have passed opt-in laws for phone books, but statewide efforts have failed. North Carolina, Florida and New Mexico are just three of the states where anti-phonebook bills died, partly due to pressure from phonebook publishers. But Leland Yee's proposal is different. It only addresses White Pages. Here's Charles Laughlin, an analyst with The Kelsey Group, a research firm in Washington, D.C.
Mr. CHARLES LAUGHLIN (Analyst, The Kelsey Group): I dont think there's a publisher out there who wouldnt prefer to get rid of their residential White Pages.
STANDEN: White Pages are required by law in most states. They generate little or no ad revenue. Yellow Pages, that's the phonebook industry. They produce $13 billion a year in ad sales. That's more than all magazine advertising combined. This industry has been so lucrative that there are now more than 200 Yellow Page publishers in the U.S. Each year, they print almost twice as many Yellow Page directories as there are people - more, says Laughlin, than many of us want.
Mr. LAUGHLIN: I think people rightly will get three books in their house are wondering, why on Earth do I need three of these?
STANDEN: On the other hand, say the publishers, why should phone books be any different than breakfast cereal or magazines? You use the one you like best.
Mr. NEG NORTON (President, Yellow Pages Association): And I think that's probably the biggest misperception about our industry, that people are not using phone books anymore, and that's just not the case at all.
STANDEN: Neg Norton is president of the Yellow Pages Association, the leading industry group for phonebook publishers. He says the problem with proposals like the one in California is that they make phone books opt-in rather than opt-out.
Mr. NORTON: We're seeing that probably, you know, 80 to 85 percent of adults continue to use print directories every year.
STANDEN: So why make that 85 percent do all the work? Better, says Neg Norton, to take the opposite approach. To that end, the YPA has set up a site called yellowpagesoptout.com. It puts consumers in touch with the local companies who print and distribute Yellow Pages.
Mr. NORTON: They can either, you know, opt out of phone books or even increase the number of phone books that they get.
STANDEN: And if extra phone books are what youre after, maybe youre collecting booster seats or garden mulch, you might want to stock up. Even the industry acknowledges that with Craigslist and online search sites, the days of the phone book are numbered.
For NPR News, I'm Amy Standen.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Here's some real estate numbers from New York City, where prices are down, but you can still pay a lot of money to live in an alley, more or less. That's our last word in business today.
The address is number 75 1/2 Bedford Street. It's Greenwich Village, and it was built in 1873 over an alleyway between two other buildings. It's three stories high and nine-and-a-half feet wide. Former residents include the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. Somebody's paying a lot for what is known as the skinniest house in New York. The recently sold for almost $2.2 million.
And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep.
Were going to get a glimpse, now, on a portion of Haiti beyond Port-au-Prince. We have seen many images of destruction in the capital, this morning we will learn about another Haitian city called Leogane.
NPRs Jackie Northam went there with a team of search and rescue workers. She is on the line now. Jackie, what did you see?
JACKIE NORTHAM: Well, Steve, Leogane is about 40 miles west of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Its very close to the epicenter of last weeks earthquake. And I went out to this city - its normally about 160,000 people - and we went out, yesterday, with rescue teams from Iceland and the U.K. And these were the first teams to get out to the city since last weeks quake. Before we left, an assessment team which had just returned from the area, said that 80 percent of the buildings in Leogane were destroyed. In Port-au-Prince, you know, you get these areas or pockets where a lot of buildings have been damaged or have collapsed, but I have to tell you, it was shocking to drive into Leogane because the city was essentially flattened. You would be hard pressed to find a building that really had been damaged or collapsed, just mile after mile of buildings that had been destroyed.
INSKEEP: Does anybody have the beginnings of an idea of how many people were killed just in that one place?
NORTHAM: No, they are just getting out to that area now. This city isnt as congested as Port-au-Prince which is good news for Leogane because if you lose a building in Port-au-Prince, there is a very good chance you could lose a 100 people. In Leogane, these are normally one, two storey structures, so if they fall, you dont lose as many people. But again, they really have no sense how many people have been killed at this point, and they havent had people, outside help, to come in and determine that as well. Steve, I want to say one thing about this, though. In Port-au-Prince, you know, when you get these rescue teams, I've been out with them for the past couple of days. There have been quite aggressive crowds and youve seen a lot of looting going on and that type of thing. That wasnt the case in Leogane.
I have to say, the whole time people were waving and trying to help us and saying thank you - everything else. It wasnt nearly the same sort of crowd in Leogane that you were seeing in Port-au-Prince.
INSKEEP: So, did the rescue teams that you were with manage to find anybody? Pull anybody out of the rubble?
NORTHAM: No, no I am afraid they didnt. Neither the British nor the Icelandic teams were able to find anyone surviving. We were there, you know, on the fifth day after the earthquake. And really the only chance of anyone surviving is if they are in an air pocket. And we're seeing people being pulled from these sort of situations in Port-au-Prince. But that wasnt the case in Leogane. As I said, most of the houses, the buildings, you know, just two storey structures and the quality of the construction is incredibly poor.
And what happened is they just pancaked in the quake they really became - two storey buildings became one storey buildings and there arent any of these air pockets where people really could survive and it quickly became clear to the search and rescue teams that he chances of anyone surviving this long in those conditions were remote. You know, we were planning to stay out there in Leogane for a few days to go through the buildings, but in the end we had to come back to Port-au-Prince. It was just decided there are no survivors in any of these destroyed buildings in Leogane.
INSKEEP: Youve mentioned that there were fewer densely populated buildings than in Port-au-Prince but, of course, they were schools.
NORTHAM: Yeah and those were what we concentrated on when we were out there. And this is really the hardest part. I was actually with the Icelandic search and rescue team as they visited several of these schools and they spent a long time at one school where 40 to 50 students were believed to be when the quake happened. And the local residents said that about dozen children has been pulled out alive but that was several days ago. And again the Icelandic team spent a long time at this building.
They put in listening devices and they jackhammered into the flattened roof and they inserted cameras, they sent in dogs but in the end they walked away with nothing. They couldnt see or they couldnt hear any voices or any noise from under the building. And you know, Steve, its so difficult because these were kids in there and the rescue team, you know, they gave it what they had and you could tell they were upset. They've got kids. But you have to move on, you have to look at other areas. But, you know, we are into day six now and everything is on a time clock at this point.
INSKEEP: Well, precisely, where would they focus next?
NORTHAM: There are still some places just outside the city in Port-au-Prince, but what they are looking for is buildings again where they might have these air pockets where people may not have food or water but certainly they have had some air and they might not be in good shape but theyd still be alive, so this morning they head back out again and start searching. There are more than 25 international search teams right now here. Organization has had been a problem, trying to get one point of contact to get them all going, but they will head out again today because there is still a chance if they can find people in these air pockets that they can pull them out.
INSKEEP: NPRs Jackie Northam, thanks very much.
NORTHAM: Thank you, Steve.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And when President Obama turned to two of his predecessors to lead private fundraising efforts for Haiti, he was carrying something of a tradition. Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush embraced the challenge of getting Americans to help, not just in the weeks ahead, but in the long term. Mr. Clinton is making his first visit to Haiti since the earthquake today. And joining us now, as she does most Mondays is NPR news analyst Cokie Roberts. Good morning.
COKIE ROBERTS: Good morning, Renee.
MONTAGNE: So, President Obama is reaching out to previous presidents, and in fact, one-time rivals, in a way that George W. Bush first did.
ROBERTS: Right. It's the first time we're seeing that President Bush called on since his presidency, and after the awful bitterness at the end of his presidency, it was nice to hear him make a joke about his relationship with President Clinton. Here's former President Bush on ABC's "This Week."
Former President GEORGE W. BUSH: I used to talk to President Clinton during my presidency. And then, of course, called upon he and President 41 - my dad - to work together on the tsunami and then Katrina. And then when you're both retired you kind of hang around the retirement center together. And so he and I have become friends.
ROBERTS: I think that's something not many Americans expect to hear, but it does seem to happen with ex-presidents. I remember interviewing George H.W. Bush soon after he left office and he said, you know, I can't imagine that Bill Clinton and I will ever become friends the way Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter have. But in fact, it did happen, and over those relief efforts that they did together, but also over just the shared experience of a very small club of people.
And we're seeing it now with the former minority and majority leaders of the Senate - Tom Daschle and Bill Frist - also together working on infant mortality and international development. It kind of gives a hollowness, Renee, to all of this bitterness that we see around us in Washington when they leave office and seem to be best of friends.
MONTAGNE: Well, that bitterness that you speak of seems to be in display in Massachusetts, where there is, of course, a fight over a key Senate seat. An election tomorrow - what's your prediction on the outcome there?
ROBERTS: Oh, I'm not going to make that one. It's just really...
MONTAGNE: No predictions. Well, tell us how it's shaping up.
ROBERTS: It's very, very tight and, of course, the fate of Obama's program, President Obama's program rests on it because it is that crucial 60th vote in the Senate that we've talked about all year. The president was there yesterday; former President Clinton was there. Millions and millions of dollars have gone in.
This is a huge shock to the Democrats that it should even be close, much less in doubt. And the Republicans has played on a populist theme, which is not at all hard this year with this economy, but now this election is seen as a straight referendum on President Obama's health care bill. And somewhat ironic, given the fact that it's based a lot on a health care plan that's in place in Massachusetts that the Republican Scott Brown voted for.
But the Republicans are now framing this health care not as the bill itself but as an arrogant disdain for the will of the people. They keep saying that, you know, the American people are screaming don't pass this health care bill and that the Democrats are going to do it anyway. And that's how they're portraying the Democratic Party as kind of a deal-making pols out to fulfill their own agenda regardless of the people - and that's a real problem for the Democrats in this election in Massachusetts, particularly if you look at the economy -people are mad.
MONTAGNE: NPR's Cokie Roberts.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Male figure skaters arent necessarily the most intimidating athletes out there, especially given those one piece sequined outfits they wear. Still, yesterday at the U.S. National Figure Skating championships in Spokane, Washington, the top three male skaters sent a message to the competition at next months Olympic Games - watch out. The three who qualified for Vancouver were Jeremy Abbott, Evan Lysacek and the always colorful Johnny Weir. NPRs Tom Goldman sent this report.
TOM GOLDMAN: You expect anxious moments at a major figure skating competition. Nerves are part of what happens when you live the tenuous life on top of a blade a fraction of an inch wide. So anxiety must have been in the air yesterday at the Spokane Arena. Why else would Daren Hildebrand(ph), a veteran professional singer, double clutch on the national anthem.
Mr. DAREN HILDEBRAND (Singer): Second time I started I missed the same line, but luckily everyone else knew it.
GOLDMAN: Indeed, the audience came to Hildebrands rescue so he could soar to the finish.
(Soundbite of song, "The Star-Spangled Banner")
Mr. HILDEBRAND: (Singing): Land of the free and the home of the brave.
(Soundbite of applause)
(Soundbite of music)
GOLDMAN: The day may have started with nerves, but it ended with 24-year-old Jeremy Abbott in complete command on the ice. Abbott, the defending national champion performed with great style and power, landing all his jumps cleanly, including the elusive quad - four revolutions in the air. By the end of his four and a half minute free skate, Abbott spun a final blurry spin and the crowd was up and cheering for the two-time national champion.
(Soundbite of applause)
Mr. JEREMY ABBOTT (Figure skater): I was just so proud that this is probably the best performance Ive ever given in my entire life. But I know Im capable of so much more.
GOLDMAN: You hear that, Patrick Chan of Canada, Daisuke Takahashi of Japan, and all you other international stars. Abbotts got more in the tank. And so do his Olympic teammates. Yesterdays second place finisher and reigning world champion, Evan Lysacek said he used Spokane to try some new elements, including a quad, which started with him in the air and ended with him on his tush.
Mr. EVAN LYSACEK (Figure skater): What happened here is absolutely no reflection of what Im going to be like at the Olympics. And thats my one and only focus.
GOLDMAN: And in third place, resplendent in fox fur and sparkles.
Mr. JOHNNY WEIR (Figure skater): My costume looks pretty. So, I mean, Im happy about that.
GOLDMAN: The ever quotable former three-time U.S. champion Johnny Weir was not particularly happy with his performance. He also said the best is yet to come.
Mr. WEIR: I definitely have tunnel vision, like Evan said. The one thing that I will be doing on a daily basis is training and running everything with my coaches and working as hard as I can. I don't want my career to be remembered as something mediocre.
GOLDMAN: For Weir to leapfrog his teammates and the other world greats at the Olympics he might need to add more oomph to his art, more athleticism in the form of a quad, to go with his flowing grace on the ice. Yesterday, Weir hedged on the quad issue, saying hed rather skate an excellent clean program with what hes got. Lysacek, who failed on his quad attempt in Spokane, egged on his teammate.
Mr. LYSACEK: Just go for it. Just do it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. WEIR: Don't start with me. Not up here.
GOLDMAN: A month from today, the mens free skate in Vancouver will determine whether Weir or Lysacek or Abbott can make good on their promises and deliver the first U.S. mens figure skating Olympic gold medal in 22 years.
Tom Goldman, NPR, Spokane.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep.
More than 2,000 Marines are expected today in the capital of Haiti. The U.S. military is distributing food and water.
MONTAGNE: And Colonel Buck Elton says theyve made progress in running the Port-au-Prince airport.
Colonel BUCK ELTON: When we arrived there was no electricity, no communication, and no support. Since then, weve controlled approximately 600 takeoffs and landings from this 10,000 foot strip that normally operates three aircraft out of it on a daily basis.
MONTAGNE: The U.S. government says it has delivered 600,000 food rations. So the numbers sounds impressive. The question is whether enough can be delivered to enough places, and quickly enough, to help millions of people in needs.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Some aid agencies complain the U.S. military is pushing aside aid flights to make room for their own flights.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And Doctors Without Borders says there is little sign of significant aid distribution.
INSKEEP: Were going to talk about this and more with Charles MacCormack. Hes head of Save the Children and has just returned from Haiti. Hes on the line.
Good morning, sir.
Mr. CHARLES MACCORMACK (Chief Executive Officer, Save the Children): Good morning, Steve.
MONTAGNE: And let me begin, it's Renee here. How well is aid being distributed, in your opinion?
Mr. MACCORMACK: Well, its picked up enormously. And its very important to set priorities. There are still thousands buried beneath the rubble. And the very first thing is to deal with that. I saw a score of search and rescue teams with specially trained dogs and a number of rescue happening. So thats very important.
INSKEEP: Although, you do have to wonder, Mr. MacCormack, about that complaint that not enough aid is getting in quickly enough. Is the aid at what we would consider a realistic level? Could it be better?
Mr. MACCORMACK: Well, it can always be better. But having been in the tsunami and Katrina and a dozen other crises, this one is certainly probably ahead of the curve.
INSKEEP: And I want to ask about some of those disasters in a minute. But I do want to stay on Haiti for just a second, because this is a country where aid agencies have been distributing help for years, as you know very well. Im curious if enough of that existing infrastructure of people and buildings and materials survived that people can now adapt it to help in a new situation?
Mr. MACCORMACK: Right. Well, let me say first that its always the local people themselves who are most important. And on the food question I was quite impressed that a good deal of food was coming in from other parts of Haiti and was available by street vendors and so on. So that was very encouraging.
In regard to your question, Save the Children had 170 full-time staff on the ground a week ago. We have several hundred community volunteers, 30 trucks, 50 motorcycles. Thats very helpful, but its only a drop in the bucket. Theres going to have to be a huge increase in the aid assistance.
MONTAGNE: Back to what Steve just spoke of, how does the scale of the challenge in Haiti compare to the earthquake in Pakistan a few years ago or the tsunami in South Asia?
Mr. MACCORMACK: I think its very similar. Katrina, tsunami, Pakistan - I saw thousands of buildings that just were completely leveled, all the government buildings, the presidential palace, completely destroyed. No electricity. It compares definitely with these other major emergencies.
MONTAGNE: Although, I mean, in Pakistan, of course, there was very little infrastructure with the earthquake, because it was out in the countryside, but how much, given Haitis previous issues with roads and communications, are you behind the curve as far trying to make things move forward?
Mr. MACCORMACK: I think, today, were moving and others are moving as well as were, if not better, in other emergencies. The problem is a real lack of well-trained Haitians. In Pakistan, in Indonesia, in Katrina, we were able to bring in Pakistani, Indonesian, American accountants, water specialists, logisticians who spoke the language and knew the culture. There just arent enough of Haitian engineers and doctors and accountants and auditors.
INSKEEP: So youve got some resources but not nearly enough. Haiti, you say, does not have nearly as many resources as some other places that have suffered terrible natural disasters in recent years. Given all that, what has your agency, Save the Children, been able to do and what do you want to do that you are not yet able to do?
Mr. MACCORMACK: Well, we have been able to literally save children, and we've found children right out of the rubble and been able to provide them with emergency nutrition. When I was there yesterday, one of our health staff had a mother and newborn who were hemorrhaging badly and he was finally able to get them into a hospital. So, on the health side we are already supporting hospitals, doctors and nurses. Were getting supplies, family kits, pots and pans, cooking materials, I hope. And we are doing child protection because thousands of children have been separated from their parents. So we are identifying them and finding safe places for them to be protected.
INSKEEP: All right, Mr. MacCormack, thanks very much.
Mr. MACCORMACK: Thank you, Steve and Renee.
INSKEEP: Charles MacCormack is president and CEO of Save The Children. He has just returned from a visit to Haiti.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
In communities across America yesterday, Haitians gathered for Sunday services to pray for family and friends devastated by that earthquake. In South Florida, nearly a week after the tragedy, many Haitians are surviving on the one thing they have not lost, their faith. Leah Fleming, from member station WLRN in Miami, filed this report.
(Soundbite of prayer)
LEAH FLEMING: In Miamis Little Haiti neighborhood, the pews at Notre Dame D'Haiti Catholic Church overflow. Hundreds of worshippers, some spilling out the doors onto sidewalks are at mass today. Among them Colleen Franscoa(ph) and her children. Like others in this community, she is awaiting word on missing family members, and her heart aches for those she already knows have died.
Ms. COLLEEN FRANSCOA: Even though Im hurt. I lost my cousin. I lost my sister-in-law. I got two sisters, I still cannot find. But wait, God is good. I have to come here and pray with my children and explain to them, no matter what happen God still love us.
FLEMING: It is a theme echoed throughout the day at churches at South Florida and elsewhere. Father Reginald Jean-Mary holds a moment of silence and prays for those unaccounted for in Haiti. And for those who are suffering in his congregation, like Franscoa. Father Reginald says God has not forgotten Haiti or those with ties to the country.
Father Reginald JEAN-MARY (Notre Dame D'Haiti Catholic Church): Lord lifted up (unintelligible) and those who feel so high down (unintelligible) of the marginalized, he is on the side of those who are crying out for justice, for peace and help in hand.
FLEMING: Life in Haiti was hard before the earthquake. Residents there were still reeling from four major storms over the past hurricane season. But many congregants like Bernard Frederick(ph) say the earthquake is actually a blessing in disguise. Its brought much needed assistance, financial and other that will help them rebuild.
Mr. BERNARD FREDERICK: Nevertheless its better now. I think, I hope too. Because all over the world, focus on Haiti right now.
FLEMING: Frederick hopes to volunteer in Haiti this week. Haitians say God has always been and is still with the people of Haiti. Congregant Andre Pierre(ph) says sometimes things like earthquakes happen but God brings people together and in the end makes them stronger.
For NPR News, Im Leah Fleming in Miami.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
So Steve, did anything surprise you, last night, at the Golden Globes?
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Well, one thing, a little bit. "Up in the Air" with George Clooney - I mean, it was a critically acclaimed movie, and one that I, very much, enjoyed, it's a little bit surprised, it only won a Golden Globe for best screenplay - that was it, last night.
MONTAGNE: And you know, I was a little surprised that "Hurt Locker," which is also an acclaimed drama, won nothing at all at Golden Globes. And of course, all this matters because the Golden Globes are seen as a precursor to the Oscars.
INSKEEP: And if they are, it's good news for James Cameron's "Avatar," which won for both best picture and best director. We should mention that "Mad Men" took home the award for best television drama; MoNique, Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges were all winners for their respective performances.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Now, many great vocal performances, year after year, might get onto our list of 50 Great Voices. Thats the new series were launching this morning. Over the next year, youll hear profiles of 50 singers whove made their mark internationally and across recorded history.
To get started, Elizabeth Blair, who's producing this series, explains how we came up with the list.
ELIZABETH BLAIR: First, you probably just want to know who they are. Some of them are icons.
(Soundbite of song, "(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66")
Mr. NAT KING COLE (Singer): (Singing) If you ever plan to motor west...
(Soundbite of song, "Someone To Watch Over Me")
Ms. ELLA FITZGERALD (Singer): (Singing) Looking everywhere, havent found him yet...
(Soundbite of Song, "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart")
Ms. JANIS JOPLIN: (singing) And each time I tell myself when I think I've had enough...
(Soundbite of song, "Only the Lonely")
Mr. ROY ORBISON (Singer): (Singing) Only the lonely, dum-dum-dum-dumdy-doo-wah...
(Soundbite of song "Human Behaviour")
BJORK: (singing) Uncertain...
BLAIR: Coming up with 50 Great Voices wasnt easy. Step one was an on-air solicitation to the NPR audience.
FRANNIE KELLEY: People went crazy.
BLAIR: Frannie Kelley is an editor at NPR music who kept track of the submissions to the NPR Web site.
KELLEY: Over a hundred thousand people said this person, this person, dont forget about this person.
BLAIR: Among the most nominated among the audience were superstars like Josh Groban.
(Soundbite of song, "Believe")
Mr. JOSH GROBAN (Singer): (Singing) Children sleeping, snow is softly falling...
BLAIR: And superstars of another era.
(Soundbite of song, "Fly Me to the Moon")
Mr. FRANK SINATRA (Singer): (Singing) Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars...
BLAIR: But - and heres where you might start screaming at us - neither Sinatra nor Groban are among the 50 great voices we selected.
Mr. OLIVER WANG (Music Writer): No one really needs to make a case that Frank Sinatra has a great voice.
BLAIR: Oliver Wang is a music writer who was on a panel of experts who were part of the selection process.
Mr. WANG: If you asked me who are sort of the Top 10 voices in American history, I mean, Frank is automatic. I mean, you just know it impulsively, because thats been so hammered into us. And I think part of what the project should do is look at artists who are great, but not necessarily as recognizable or as such an obvious choice as someone like Frank.
BLAIR: In other words, discovery is a major part of 50 Great Voices. Note, were not calling these the greatest voices, just great. But this might still disappoint some people. The music we love is so important to us that when our favorites arent recognized we get upset - myself included. Even the president of NPR, Vivian Schiller, came by my desk and asked - is k.d. lang on the list?
(Soundbite of song, "Constant Craving")
Ms. K.D. LANG (Singer): (Singing) Even through the darkest phase, be it thick or thin...
BLAIR: She looked a little crestfallen when I said no. Now, of course k.d. lang is a great singer, beloved by millions. But for the sake of discovery, we decided to spotlight Kitty Wells, considered the first female to become a country music star. Keep in mind, back then, recording technology wasnt what it is today.
(Soundbite of song, "Release Me")
Ms. KITTY WELLS (Singer): (Singing) To live together is a sin, release me, and let me love again.
BLAIR: In the very big world of music, discovery is a tricky thing. Included in the 50 great voices are singers who are powerhouses within a genre, but not in the mainstream. Take classical. NPRs Tom Huizenga was on the panel.
TOM HUIZENGA: I take the idea that even though people like a Maria Callas are on the list for opera singers - certainly a superstar - means she is still going to be a discovery for most people.
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. MARIA CALLAS (Opera Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
BLAIR: The bedrock of 50 Great Voices is the emphasis on singers from around the world. We wanted to find out who are the Frank Sinatras and Aretha Franklins in other countries. And many of those well hear about were nominated by both panelists and the NPR audience.
Mr. ALEX PAMFILIO: My name is Alex Pamfilio, and I live in New York City. I nominated Elis Regina because Elis Regina was technically perfect.
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. ELIS REGINA (Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
Mr. MARC MEISNERE: My name is Mark Meisnere. Im from Washington D.C.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. MEISNERE: I nominated Dennis Brown because I think his tone and his ability to combine kind of American R&B with Jamaican singing deserves to be recognized.
(Soundbite of song, "Simply Red: Money in My Pocket")
Mr. DENNIS BROWN (Singer): (singing) Money in my pocket, but I just cant get no love...
Mr. JAMES JOHNSON: My name is James Johnson and I live in Oldsmar, Florida. I nominated Fairuz.
(Soundbite of song)
FAIRUZ (Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
Mr. JOHNSON: I think shes the most important singer in the Arab world still singing and she has an extraordinary voice.
(Soundbite of song)
FAIRUZ (Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
BLAIR: Matters of taste vary, to say the least. And the 50 Great Voices panel did not agree on everything. After coming up with a pretty massive list of singers, the elimination round began with a feisty conference call. Heres one of the exchanges between panelists Tim Page, Tom Huizenga, Tom Moon and Murray Horwitz - over Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen.
Unidentified Man #1: Queen is the single worst group of the '70s.
Unidentified Man #2: Hmm.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Unidentified Man #3: I think Freddie Mercury has got to stay.
Unidentified Man #4: But he could sing.
Unidentified Man #1: I think the phrase, but he could sing, does not qualify him.
(Soundbite of laughter)
(Soundbite of song, "Somebody to Love")
Mr. FREDDIE MERCURY (Lead singer, Queen): (Singing) Every day, every day, I try and I try and I try, but everybody wants to put me down, they say I'm goin' crazy...
BLAIR: Whenever you come up with any kind of list, whether its great athletes or great artists, there will be controversy. As one panelist put it, the 50 Great Voices series is bound to both please and infuriate - and thats partly the point.
Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(Soundbite of song, "Somebody to Love")
Mr. MERCURY: (Singing) Anybody, find me someone to love...
MONTAGNE: And its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning. Im Renee Montagne.
The worlds priciest ham goes on sale today at a posh food store in London. One hundred ham legs, and all each with a price with $3,000. The hams are wrapped in special aprons made by a Spanish tailor. They come with DNA certificates proving that the meats comes from pigs fed on wild grasses and acorns who roam freely in the fields of western Spain, each guided by its own private swine herder.
Its MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. Im Steve Inskeep.
Readers of the "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back" will find this news story familiar. In the Dr. Seuss book, the Cat leaves a pink ring around the bathtub. Efforts to clean up that mess only spread the pink to a dress, a bed, and finally the snow outside, which is sort of what happened in Buffalo, New York when a demolition contractor tore down an old business, it sent up a cloud of red food-coloring powder. The snow in one neighborhood really turned pink.
Its MORNING EDITION.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
We're going to hear, now, about hundreds of artificial bird's nests built by scientists in the Canadian arctic. They want to know why arctic shorebirds fly thousands of miles to lay their eggs. Here's NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE: Consider a bird like the White-Rumped Sandpiper.
(Soundbite of bird chirping)
GREENFIELDBOYCE: It weighs less than two ounces, but each year this little white and brown bird leaves the southern tip of South America and flies more than 9,000 miles to its breeding grounds in the arctic.
Ms. LAURA MCKINNON (University of Quebec at Rimouski): This is one of the reasons why I was interested in these birds, is because of their amazing migration strategies.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Laura McKinnon is a researcher with the University of Quebec at Rimouski.
Ms. MCKINNON: I've always been interested in, you know, the cost and benefits of flying further north.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Migrating to the arctic is exhausting and dangerous. But the benefits for shorebirds include lots of daylight, plenty of food for their young and fewer parasites.
McKinnon and her colleagues thought there might be one other advantage too.
Ms. MCKINNON: We thought that another one of the benefits of breeding further north could be reduced predation risk, and that's why we looked into this question.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: After all, a nest of eggs is a tasty snack, and the arctic has relatively few predators.
This is where the artificial nests come in. McKinnon and her colleagues wanted to watch nests at different breeding sites to see how long a nest could last without being plundered by an arctic fox or predatory bird. But they knew that some shorebirds are better than others at hiding their nests or fending off attackers.
To makes sure everything was equal at all of their study sites, McKinnon and her team decided to create fake nests full of tempting eggs.
Ms. MCKINNON: Luckily, shorebird nests are very, very simple and they are essentially just a small depression in the ground.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So, the nest part was easy - even though they had to build more than 1,500 of them. Filling all those nests was a lot harder. The researchers used real quail eggs, which are similar in size and color to many arctic shorebirds' eggs.
Ms. MCKINNON: We have to take those in our hand luggage on the plane going up to the arctic. It's a little bit of a challenge to get them there in one piece.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: They took these eggs to seven remote breeding sites. The sites spanned 2,000 miles from the sub-arctic to the high-arctic. What the scientists learned is published in the journal, Science. McKinnon says the further north a shorebird's nest is, the less likely its eggs are to becomes someone's dinner.
Ms. MCKINNON: So, a bird flying to Akimiski, which is the most southern part, if it decides to fly another 3,350 kilometers to Alert, Ellesmere Island, it could reduce its predation risk by 66 percent.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: This means the scientist's initial hunch about the role of predators appears to be right. David Lank studies shorebirds at Simon Frazier University, near Vancouver.
Mr. DAVID LANK (Simon Frazier University): You know, they've taken us a step closer towards understanding why birds might go so far.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: But he says the study also raises some questions.
Mr. LANK: If it were so great, to always go as far as possible so that you'd have the highest probability of your nest hatching, why doesn't everyone do it?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Some birds stop at the lower arctic, so maybe they prefer features like its longer nesting season. Still, he says all of this just goes to show a long trip that seems crazy to us can make sense for a bird that just wants to raise a family.
MONTAGNE: NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce.
It's NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The playwright Lydia Diamond is not happy about how African-American characters are portrayed onstage. Her complaint is one you often hear in theater, that African-Americans are pigeonholed into playing the impoverished character - the slave, the street thug. So Lydia Diamond wrote a play about the opposite: extremely wealthy African-Americans vacationing on Marthas Vineyard. NPRs Elizabeth Blair reports.
ELIZABETH BLAIR: The family in "Stick Fly" is old money - think the Kennedys -and yet ...
Ms. LYDIA DIAMOND: (Playwright) They live in a world that doesnt even know, really, that they exist.
BLAIR: In one scene, a plastic surgeon tells his family about a time he was in Pottery Barn, and a white sales girl followed him around. (Soundbite of stage play, "Stick Fly")
Unidentified Man #1: I saw this blonde sales girl; shes just on me. So I say, look. Ive traveled all over the world. Im a doctor, damn it. Why do you want to swipe me like that?
Ms. DIAMOND: And he says, what am I going to steal from Pottery Barn? This isnt unlike conversations that Ive had with my own family. The privilege doesnt necessarily shelter them from the prejudice thats sort of woven into the fabric of our society.
BLAIR: Lydia Diamond didn't grow up in a family with a lot of money, but her mom was an academic. And that, she says, gave her access to the privileged and the powerful. So when Diamond went into theater, she got tired of seeing mostly downtrodden black characters.
Ms. DIAMOND: I started out, also, as an actress. And I remember thinking, wow. I wish I could be in a play where I got to wear pretty clothes and didn't have to be in gunny sack.
BLAIR: There are no gunny sack-wearing slaves in "Stick Fly," nor are there any drug dealers. In this family, there are two doctors, a socialite, and an artist whos dating an entomologist whos fascinated with the bugs at the beach house.
(Soundbite of "Stick Fly")
Unidentified Woman #1: Your specimens up here are a little different than the ones I see every day.
Unidentified Woman #2: Specimens?
Unidentified Woman #1: Insects, I study them. The household fly, mostly. But Ill collect whatever, you know?
Unidentified Woman #2: Sure.
BLAIR: And remember that Pottery Barn scene when the son, whos a doctor, resents being followed around by a sales girl because he is a...
Unidentified Man #1: Well-dressed, well-read, well-traveled person.
Unidentified Man #2: So remind...
BLAIR: But his superiority offends the familys maid.
Unidentified Woman #3: So they should follow around a guy who works for, say, the phone company, just not you?
BLAIR: With "Stick Fly," Lydia Diamond makes the point that there are complex individuals within a race, within a social class, within a family, says theater director Derek Sanders.
Mr. DEREK SANDERS (Theater Director): That different hues of gray, of terms of race and class and how they divide is something that is very - kind of delicate, and I think Lydia nailed it.
BLAIR: Sanders is co-founder of Congo Square Theater in Chicago, where "Stick Fly" premiered. Years ago, Lydia Diamond said: America has a real comfort zone with seeing African-Americans in certain ways. In short, oppressed. So Diamond decided there was enough of that already and said to herself...
Ms. DIAMOND: I will never, I will never write a slave play.
BLAIR: But Diamond says shes loosened up since then. One of her most recent plays is about Harriet Jacobs, a real slave who hid in an attic for almost seven years.
Ms. DIAMOND: Ive had to sort of back off of my real judgment at like, well, the last thing we need in the world is another play about slaves, because I think theres something actually very interesting about the way we havent been taught our own history.
BLAIR: Lydia Diamonds play about Harriet Jacobs is currently at the Underground Railroad Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the next few months, "Stick Fly" is onstage in D.C., Boston and Houston.
Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Maybe youve heard the old joke that some women used to go to college to get their M.R.S. degree that is, a husband. In sheer economic terms, marriage was long the best way for a woman to get ahead economically. But�now, it seems that joke may be out of date. A study by the Pew Research Center�finds there's been a role reversal when it comes to men, women and the economics of marriage. NPRs Jennifer Ludden reports.
JENNIFER LUDDEN: The study compares marriages in 2007 to those in 1970. Remember attitudes about womens work back then? Well, heres that decade's leading armchair pundit, Archie Bunker, when his wife, Edith, decides to job hunt.
(Soundbite of TV show, All in the Family)
Ms. JEAN STAPLETON (As Judith Bunker): I'm just saying that somebody better bring some money in this house, and soon.
Mr. CARROLL OCONNOR (As Archie Bunker): Well, somebody will, but that somebodyll be wearing pants, not panties.
(Soundbite of laughter)
LUDDEN: No wonder most wives didn't work. Theyd only recently won the right not to be fired when they got married. And even a woman with a college degree likely made less than a man with a high-school diploma. Richard Fry is with the Pew Research Center.
Mr. RICHARD FRY (Pew Research Center): When you think about, from a guy's perspective, marriage wasn't such a great deal. You know, it raised a household size, but it didn't bring in a lot more income.
LUDDEN: Today, many more women work in a greater variety of jobs, and their median wages have risen far more than men's. On top of this for the first time ever among those 44 and under more women than men have college degrees. The Pew Centers D'Vera Cohn says it's all turned the marriage market on its head.
Ms. D'VERA COHN (Pew Research Center): We found that increasingly, women are more likely to marry husbands who have lower education levels than they do and lower income levels than they do, and the reverse is true for men.
LUDDEN: Men like Derek Monnig, whose wife makes about double what he does.
Mr. DEREK MONNIG: Well, she gets called a sugar mama quite often.
LUDDEN: Monnig and his wife are in their early 40s and work in the same telecommunications firm in Denver. She's two levels up the management chain. He says he would have been too intimidated to ask her out, but a colleague set them up. Six years into marriage, Monnig says he's fine with the income disparity. In fact, three of his wife's brothers are in the same position.
Mr. MONNIG: And it's kind of a joke. You know, we laugh about it when we get together. And it's kind of nice to be supported, you know?
LUDDEN: Still, pop culture can seem stuck in the '70s. Take the recently released movie Up in the Air, where female lead Vera Farmiga describes the ideal mate.
(Soundbite of movie, Up in the Air,)
Ms. VERA FERMIGA (Actress): (As Alex Goran) Please, let him earn more money than I do. You might not understand that now but believe me, you will one day. Otherwise, that's a recipe for disaster.
Ms. STEPHANIE COONTZ (Author, Marriage: A History): I think this is really an example of an outdated idea.
LUDDEN: Stephanie Coontz is the author of Marriage: A History. She says in a poll in 1967, two-thirds of women said they'd consider marrying a man they did not love if he had really good earnings potential.
Ms. COONTZ: Now, women have a completely different point of view. They say overwhelmingly 87 percent says it's more important to have a man who can communicate well, who can be intimate, and who will share the housework, than it is to have someone who earns more money than you do.
LUDDEN: But even some housework-sharing husbands are having trouble with this new economic order.
Mr. STEVEN HOLMES (Freelance Photographer): The tension really surrounds this notion of, I'm the man so I should be providing.
LUDDEN: Steve Holmes is a freelance photographer in Northern California and makes far less than his wife at IBM. Holmes says he often finds himself holding back in discussions about spending money.
Mr. HOLMES: Because I have this guilt that I feel like I am not an equal partner. So I will let her make the decision, even though I might have had a different opinion.
LUDDEN: In Fort Lauderdale, Shelly Murray used to rely on her husband's income and frankly, had no problem dipping into their joint account. But it's not the same for her husband now that she's a lawyer and the tables are turned.
Ms. SHELLY MURRAY: When there's some kind of a stress in the relationship, even something peripheral that has nothing to do with money, that will come up in the conversation.
LUDDEN: Marriage expert Stephanie Coontz says no one should exaggerate women's new economic prowess. They still make 77 cents to a man's dollar, and their earnings can lag over time since women are more likely to cut back to care for children. But this, too, is shifting. In Denver, Derek Monnig and his wife have started talking about having kids.
Mr. MONNIG: Making less, I would be the one to stay at home. We've already decided that.
LUDDEN: Monnig says his wife would love to stay home with a child. But financially speaking, that just wouldn't make sense.
Jennifer Ludden, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
We're nearing the first anniversary of President Obama's inauguration, so we're going to follow up on a few of his campaign promises - which ones he's kept and which he's broken.
We're joined here by Bill Adair, who has followed this for a year. He works for the St. Petersburg Times and their PolitiFact Web site, and is in charge of something called the Obameter - which is what, Bill?
Mr. BILL ADAIR (St. Petersburg Times, PolitiFact): The Obameter is something we launched right before Obama took office to track his campaign promises. So, we went through campaign documents and speeches and debate transcripts to see what promises he's made, and discovered - to our surprise - he made more than 500 individual promises.
So, we put them all in our database and for the past year, we've been doing something I think pretty extraordinary in journalism...
INSKEEP: Checking facts.
Mr. ADAIR: ...following each of them.
INSKEEP: Checking promises, OK.
Mr. ADAIR: And so we have rated them all as either promise kept, promise broken, compromise, in the works, or stalled.
INSKEEP: Well, let's talk about a few, specific promises. We'll start with Promise Number 126 on your list: Begin removing combat brigades from Iraq.
Mr. ADAIR: We've got that one actually rated, in the works. There was a similar promise that he said on his first day in office; he would bring in military leaders and direct them to end the war in Iraq. And that one is a promise kept. So, he's really made considerable progress. It's a little unclear whether he'll quite hit his deadlines, but he'll be close on our Obameter.
INSKEEP: Let's take one that's turned out to be a little more challenging, Number 177. He promised to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. How's he doing?
Mr. ADAIR: He's not going to meet his deadline. After he was elected, he set a deadline that he would have it closed by, actually, this week - by January 21st. That's been a difficult one - political opposition in Congress, difficulty finding places for the detainees. Still, there's been some progress and so we've got that one rated, in the works.
INSKEEP: Here is another promise on that list. He called for tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials.
Mr. ADAIR: We rated that one a promise broken. The same...
INSKEEP: This is a problem of people going in and out of government, and you can't really tell what side they're on after a while.
Mr. ADAIR: And this gets to a key theme during his campaign, which was that lobbyists were not going to run the Obama administration. But what happened, I think, he saw that - like many have - that in Washington, the lobbyists are the people who know how the place works. And so he appointed lobbyists to some key positions and basically created loopholes in the policy for them. So, that's been a difficult area for the Obama administration, that sort of transparency, open government.
He made a similar promise that he would televise the health-care negotiations on C-SPAN as a way of distinguishing himself from Hillary Clinton, who of course, had not done that when she headed the health-care task force in 1993. But then he got in office and discovered you can't cut deals on C-SPAN, and so we have that one also rated a promise broken.
INSKEEP: How overall would you rate his promises on health care so far?
Mr. ADAIR: Right now, we have them rated, in the works. But if the bill stays on track and passes, I think many of them will very quickly go to a promise kept. Others, we'll have to wait and see how things go once the law is enacted and the programs are established.
INSKEEP: So, out of those more than 500 promises, how many has the president managed to keep in the first year in office?
Mr. ADAIR: Well, if you look at the total count, he's actually done well - 91 promises kept and 33 that we've rated as a compromise. On 87 promises we have rated, stalled; and 14 we've rated, promise broken. For instance, some of the promises for the gay and lesbian community - repealing the don't ask don't tell policy, supporting the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act - those are stalled in our Obameter because the administration seems to have made a calculation not to pursue those in the first year.
INSKEEP: Bill Adair of the St. Petersburg Times and PolitiFact, thanks very much.
Mr. ADAIR: Thanks, Steve.
INSKEEP: By the way, the president delivers his State of the Union speech next week, January 27th. And as that event nears, you'll hear coverage on this public radio station and at NPR.org.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The bills are coming due for Iceland's financial crisis. Back in October 2008, three of Iceland's banks failed. Britain and the Netherlands came to the rescue, covering $5 billion in losses. Now, the president of Iceland has rejected a plan to repay the debt. NPR's Rob Gifford reports from Reykjavik.
ROB GIFFORD: The Icelandic banks and their online subsidiaries, with their high interest rates, had attracted many savers from Britain and the Netherlands. When the banks collapsed 15 months ago, the British and Dutch governments stepped in to refund their savers who lost money.
Britain and the Netherlands then negotiated a deal with the Icelandic government to get their money back, and that bill was passed by the Icelandic parliament. Two weeks ago, though, the president of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to sign the bill. Speaking in a telephone interview afterwards, he explained why.
President OLAFUR RAGNAR GRIMSSON (Iceland): The fundamental basis of the Icelandic political system is that the people, the nation, is the sovereign power. And it is the duty of the president under the constitution to make sure that the people of the country will have the final say on law.
GIFFORD: Grimsson had received a petition signed by a quarter of the population of Iceland, urging him to push for a renegotiation of the terms of the repayment.
As a result of the president's action, there must now be a referendum on the bill. That has thrilled the bill's opponents, who've set up a pressure group called In Defense. It's headed up by high school teacher Johannes Por Skulason, who says Iceland is not even obliged to reimburse Britain and the Netherlands. And even if it does pay some money back, it should be under much better terms.
Mr. JOHANNES POR SKULASON (Teacher; Director, In Defense): Iceland is doing what it can. We're saying we want to pay back, but we're being made to sign a deal that carries within it a risk of national bankruptcy, a risk of Iceland being pushed back to the financial middle ages for years to come.
GIFFORD: Certainly, the payback would hurt, with an interest rate of 5.5 percent. And Iceland already has an external debt of anywhere between three and six times its GDP, depending on who you listen to. Despite opposition, others within society and within government say that passing the law is fundamental to rebuilding Iceland's economic reputation and helping it enter the European Union. So the country just needs to bite the bullet and move on, without the complication of a referendum.
Iceland's finance minister, Steingrimur Sigfusson.
Mr. STEINGRIMUR SIGFUSSON (Finance Minister, Iceland): What do you think would have been the outcome in the United States if the taxpayers had got the chance to vote about the bill, the bailout? I mean, just imagine. It is not an easy task to get the voters to accept increased taxes and economical burdens because of irresponsible behaviors of bankers.
GIFFORD: Sigfusson is hugely frustrated at the president's decision not to sign the bill.
Mr. SIGFUSSON: Obviously, the case is immensely unpopular in Iceland, and quite understandably so. None of us like this, but that doesn't alter the fact that we need to deal with it, we need to solve it so that we are able to move forward and continue our economical restoration.
GIFFORD: There are people on both sides who are pushing for compromise to avoid the referendum altogether and the political turmoil and further economic delay that it could bring. Finance Minister Sigfusson says whether a referendum happens or not, there's something deeper going on in Iceland, moving away from what he calls the culture of neo-liberal greed that had taken hold, and returning home to its Nordic roots.
Mr. SIGFUSSON: I can be very frank about it: What we need to abolish is this neo-liberal greed philosophies that were driving things in the bubble years. What we want to build - re-establish in Iceland is a strong Nordic welfare society with equal justice and equality.
GIFFORD: Icelanders themselves - and there are only 330,000 of them - are divided on whether the president did the right thing or not. But regardless of their views on this particular bill, many share the finance minister's views that things simply got out of hand, and it's time to get back to more solid, dependable, Icelandic ways.
Rob Gifford, NPR News, Reykjavik.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Judi Chamberlin died over the weekend. She was a leader in a movement that took inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr. and other heroes of the fight for civil rights. Judi Chamberlin helped start something she liked to call Mad Pride, a movement for the rights and dignity of people with mental illness. NPR's Joseph Shapiro reports.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO: In 1966, Judi Chamberlin was 21 years old and seeing her doctor because she was dealing with a deep depression.
Ms. JUDI CHAMBERLIN (Founder, Mad Pride): After a while, he suggested I sign myself into a hospital because I was just not functioning, I was so depressed.
SHAPIRO: That's Chamberlin, telling her story on Madness Radio, a program by people like Chamberlin who call themselves psychiatric survivors.
Ms. CHAMBERLIN: And I just thought, oh, a hospital's a place where you get help. And you know, I'd been in hospitals for surgery and things like that and didn't think of it as having anything to do with your fundamental rights. So I just said, OK, I'll try it, and very quickly found out that once you sign papers to go in on a voluntary basis, but then you can't leave when you want to leave, which was absolutely shocking to me.
SHAPIRO: She got out of that state hospital, she recovered, and she eventually moved to Boston, where she started working with other ex-patients. They called themselves the Mental Patients Liberation Front. David Oaks came to the group in the mid-1970s.
Mr. DAVID OAKS (MindFreedom International): When I arrived at this storefront in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I was a senior Harvard student, had been locked up five times, so I was referred by Harvard to volunteer there. And I walked in, and it was a little, radical, ragtag group, Mental Patients Liberation Front. And Judi was right in the thick of folks - just really warm, community organizer.
SHAPIRO: Oaks now runs his own advocacy group, MindFreedom International.
Mr. OAKS: One thing that she immediately helped teach a lot of people was basic 101 about mental health liberation, that we're equal, that we have rights.
SHAPIRO: In 1978, Chamberlin published a book called "On Our Own." It argued that just the ability to have some say in your own treatment was a key part of making that treatment work.
Chamberlin's book became a manifesto for other patients. But it influenced lots of people in the mental health establishment, too. Today, notes David Oaks, it's common for people with mental illness to have a say.
Mr. OAKS: Most U.S. states now have an Office of Mental Health Consumer Affairs, or something to hear the voice of mental health clients. And it certainly is people like Judi that did that.
Chamberlin traveled the world as an advocate, even in the months before her death. More recently, she faced another illness: lung disease. And when her insurance company said she'd exhausted her hospice benefit, she feared going into a nursing home.
She started a blog about her fight to die at home. Last Saturday, she died as she wished: at home, in her favorite chair, surrounded by friends and family. She was 65.
Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
In the short term, those hurt in the earthquake are still struggling with injuries and the threat of disease. NPRs Joanne Silberner is with a medical team that has just set up a field clinic in Port-au-Prince.
JOANNE SILBERNER: I am in a partially destroyed technical school thats right next to this soccer field. There are about 2,000 people there. Theyve been there since the quake, living out in the open. Theyre very patient, and theyre very hopeful. One of the things they were doing last night was chanting. They were chanting: The earth shook, and God gave us another chance. And the hope is that this hospital will be their next chance.
MONTAGNE: How many people are being treated? How severe are the injuries?
SILBERNER: Well, this is the first U.S. government health clinic to open. It opened yesterday morning. The people they have been seeing have been mostly people with broken bones - that have been broken for a long time, or crush injuries. And whats going to be coming up, everyone's worried about, is the infectious diseases that you get when you're living in crowded and unsanitary conditions. And that could be a second disaster.
MONTAGNE: When you talk about infectious diseases, what exactly are you taking about?
SILBERNER: That would be mostly the diarrheal diseases. You know, when you cant get to clean water to clean yourself, and when you cant drink, when theres no clean water to drink, thats prime territory for diarrheal diseases.
MONTAGNE: Which, in those conditions, can be deadly - especially for children.
SILBERNER: Absolutely. And the other thing that can be deadly for children is dehydration. You know, again, its all about water. And Port-au-Prince didnt have that good an infrastructure, both governmentally and physically, before the quake, and now its severely burdened.
MONTAGNE: Back to the people that are being treated there, finally: Can you tell us the sort of the thing that you're seeing, you know, people who have obviously been suffering for days now?
SILBERNER: There are some very somber people around, and they have been living with these severe injuries, painful injuries. Last night, I saw a woman with two broken legs. They were terribly swollen. There were some lacerations on her legs. They had given her some morphine, and she was laying there quietly. Her husband was there as well, and they were just quiet and appreciative of the care they were given.
And by the way, if you hear a rooster in the background, that's because these tents have been set up in a courtyard that seems to be owned by this particular rooster.
MONTAGNE: Right. And we're speaking to you outside, I guess, also near a generator which has been brought in.
SILBERNER: That's right. This medical team brings in a lot of stuff. They bring, you know, they bring in the operating room. They bring in the gurneys, just everything you - well, almost everything you would see in a regular operating room - not quite. They don't have an x-ray machine.
One thing I should say is that they're not going to be able to treat everything they see. More people are going to die, and it may be worse in Haiti than after disasters in other places. Like when they had the earthquake in Bam, Iran, there was a sophisticated medical system, and they were able to put that back into place. Here, there was nothing to begin with.
MONTAGNE: Joanne, thanks very much, and we'll be talking to you again.
SILBERNER: Thank you, Renee.
MONTAGNE: NPR health correspondent Joanne Silberner, speaking to us from new medical facilities just set up alongside a soccer field in Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Some of the aid to Haiti is moving overland from the neighboring Dominican Republic. NPR's Russell Lewis is on the main border crossing between the two countries, and he's on the line. Russell, what do you see?
RUSSELL LEWIS: Well, I'm at a military compound here, set up by the Dominican military. They are aid groups here from the United States and elsewhere, and it's a big staging area. People are getting ready to go across the border, and there are a lot of people, a lot of supplies and people just ready to go - as they prepare to go each morning.
INSKEEP: How easy is this trip from the Dominican Republic down across the border and over to Port-au-Prince - or whichever city they may be heading for?
LEWIS: It seems to change day by day, although the reports that we're hearing are - is that it's still fairly easy. But this is being done, though, because there's a United Nations convoy that leaves each and every morning, first thing in the morning, but it is the one and only convoy. So if you miss the U.N. convoy in the morning, then you're sort of on your own, to sort of make your way from this part of the border into Port-au-Prince.
INSKEEP: What are aid workers saying to you?
LEWIS: There seems to be a level of frustration. They feel that there is a bottleneck here at the border. They feel as though the government here, as well as the Haitian government, on some levels are making it more difficult for them to get their supplies.
INSKEEP: And Russell, I want to ask about people coming the other way, going from Haiti into the Dominican Republic, where things might be a little more stable. What have you seen when you've gone, say, to nearby hospitals in the Dominican Republic?
LEWIS: There's a public hospital here in Jimani and last night, there were about three dozen people from Haiti that were there getting treatment. It was in sort of a makeshift waiting room. They were laying on the ground, laying on stretchers, even some laying on plywood. And the doctors and the nurses were sort of running from patient to patient, trying to treat them as best as they can. You know, it was difficult for them to get the treatment they were getting, but they were happy to be getting some treatment at all, it appeared.
INSKEEP: And are people from that public hospital also able to ship supplies and people forward to Haiti?
LEWIS: That is true. But a lot of what we're seeing here are people leaving Haiti, coming here, at least, to get some medical assistance, because they were saying that - they were feeling as though that they weren't getting the medical assistance they needed in Haiti.
INSKEEP: NPR's Russell Lewis is in the town of Jimani in the Dominican Republic. That's the main border crossing into Haiti. Russell, thanks very much.
LEWIS: You're welcome.
INSKEEP: And you can find many photos of Haiti at npr.org.
This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep.
Heres a difference between the earthquake in Haiti and disasters in the U.S.: After Katrina, for example, the national government had tremendous resources to call on, eventually. Thats less true in Haiti, where the devastated cities include the national capital. Coordinating aid now falls on a small group of people in a small building visited by NPRs Carrie Kahn.
(Soundbite of gate opening)
CARRIE KAHN: A skinny, uniformed security guard slowly raises the rusted metal-gate arm in front of the judicial police station, now the new home to the entire Haitian government. The parking lot is jammed with cars, and dozens of people freely move in and out of the one-story, cinderblock building. This is a far cry from the huge, white presidential palace, which before the quake, had a full-time contingent of guards and was protected by a 10-foot-tall, lime-green metal fence. Economic adviser to the president, Gabriel Verret, says the tiny police station by the airport was pretty much the only option left.
Mr. GABRIEL VERRET (Economic Adviser to President, Haiti): In addition to the palace, weve lost the parliament building. Weve lost the office of the prime minister. Weve lost the national courthouse, which is where you find the supreme court, the appellate courts, the
KAHN: The list of lost buildings goes on and on, from the countrys planning department to the Haitian equivalent of the IRS. He says without an officer, staff officials are not going to be able to collect taxes. Gonzagi Day(ph) works for the minister of commerce.
Mr. GONZAGI DAY (Employee, Minister of Commerce, Haiti): Were trying to keep the government working. But what happened now, I think there is already -shown up on the staff - the staff members of the government.
KAHN: He says the government is operating with just 15 percent of its former workforce.
Mr. DAY: That is because theres no places to put them to work.
KAHN: He says the meeting room inside the police station is so small, only the highest-level cabinet members can attend the daily, 8 a.m. briefing with the president. Despite the physical challenges, Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime says Haiti is being governed by Haitians.
Mr. PAUL ANTOINE BIEN-AIME (Interior Minister, Haiti): (Foreign language spoken)
KAHN: He says the government is in control of the situation and is holding several meetings, coordinating the work of both the national and the international recovery efforts. But many in the Haitian capital, homeless without food and water, continue to ask where is the government and their leaders. President Rene Preval has not given a press conference since the quake struck a week ago, and has been all but absent from public view except when greeting foreign dignitaries.
President RENE PREVAL (Haiti): (Foreign language spoken)
KAHN: Monday, Preval whisked to the airport to greet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who delivered aid and picked up 50 stranded Americans. Preval spoke to reporters for less than three minutes, limiting his comments to Haitis appreciation of U.S. aid. It was Clinton who worked the crowd to make sure their messages were getting out to the Haitian people.
Secretary HILLARY CLINTON (Department of State): Wheres the Haitian press? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. You can come. I'm...
KAHN: Preval, an agronomist who studied in Europe and spent much of his adult years away from Haiti, has never been one for flashy press conferences, even during the best of times. Charismatic former President John-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted from Haiti and has been living in exile, has hinted that he wants to return to the country to aid recovery efforts. However, many believe Aristides return would add political turmoil to the enormous list of troubles Haiti will have to deal with as it heads down the long road to recovery.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And Im Renee Montagne. Here are a few snapshots of the Haitian earthquake, as reported by our correspondents throughout this morning. The U.S. military is landing more troops in Haiti. Theyre straining against some of the same problems as civilians: a damaged airport and a closed port.
INSKEEP: NPRs Joanne Silberner is with an emergency medial team today. After a string of delays, they finally set up a field hospital, and doctors are trying to handle broken bones and prevent infections before more people die.
MONTAGNE: At the border with the Dominican Republic, one United Nations convoy moves into Haiti each morning, and NPRs Russell Lewis tells us some Haitians are moving out, seeking help across the border.
INSKEEP: Also this morning, NPRs Jason Beaubien is reporting from a hospital, where a man who was a patient before the earthquake is now left outside the building, alone.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Of course, the conversation on health care in this country continues to come back to coverage. Yesterday, we heard about a debate over the constitutionality of requiring Americans to buy health insurance. And theres another debate over the individual mandate. Its about affordability. NPRs Julie Rovner looks at what it would cost the average family.
JULIE ROVNER: Ron Pollack, of the consumer group Families USA, says he thinks how affordable newly mandated insurance is will determine whether the entire health overhaul effort is a public relations success or failure.
Mr. RON POLLACK (Families USA): I think the way the American public is going to view health reform is on a personal pocketbook test. If they feel that coverage is affordable, that care is affordable, then theyre really going to be very happy with health reform.
ROVNER: And if they feel care is not affordable - well, thats something lawmakers simply can't allow to happen, says Illinois Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.
Representative JAN SCHAKOWSKY (Democrat, Illinois): As Charlie Rangel, the chairman of Ways and Means, said: If they can't buy it, we can't sell it. There are no words, there are no messages that will cover up for that. And so we absolutely have to; its an imperative to adjust the affordability issues.
ROVNER: Schakowsky says adjust because theres a big difference between how affordable insurance would be in the House bill compared to the Senate bill. The House bill has much larger subsidies to help people who earn under two-and-half times the poverty line - about $55,000 a year for a family of four - buy insurance. Several religious and antipoverty groups highlighted those differences at a meeting held last week in a crowded hearing room on Capitol Hill.
Ms. GLORIA COOPER (San Diego Organizing Project): What is the key to health-care reform?
Unidentified Group: Affordability.
ROVNER: Heres how Gloria Cooper, of the San Diego Organizing Project,described whats at stake in the House-Senate negotiations.
Ms. COOPER: What they decide could mean the difference between a family with a sick child paying $5,000 a year for health care...
ROVNER: As they might under the Senate bill.
Ms. COOPER: ...or $1,800 per year.
ROVNER: The lower number they could end up paying under the House bill.
Ms. COOPER: Let me tell you, to a family that is struggling to get by, the difference really means a difference.
ROVNER: Among the people telling stories about being unable to afford care at the summit was a member of Congress, Maryland Democrat Donna Edwards. Seventeen years ago, said Edwards, she was a young mother without health insurance when she slipped and fell in the produce section of the grocery store. She was taken by ambulance to the local hospital.
Representative DONNA EDWARDS (Democrat, Maryland): They didn't say, do you have health-care insurance? They didn't say, wheres your card? They treated me. And it cost me thousands of dollars, nearly bankrupt me, put me in debt, just like millions of Americans across this country. Affordability is accessibility.
ROVNER: House members have been agitating for the Senate to take their more generous subsidy structure. They say thats more important than ever because the final bill is almost certain to drop the House-passed government-sponsored public option. That was supposed to be one way to put pressure on insurance companies to keep premiums low.
But Pollack, of Families USA, says that unlike some other differences between the bills, getting the Senate to do something about the affordability issue probably won't be all that difficult.
Mr. POLLACK: Theres no question that the House leadership wants to make this a top priority and have the Senate move closer to the House provisions. But I have to tell you, I think that the leaders in the Senate, they, too, want to improve affordability, and the White House wants to see this improve. So I believe from all three key sources - the House, the Senate, the White House -this is going to be a top priority.
ROVNER: Of course, making the bill more generous for those with moderate incomes will boost the measures bottom-line cost. And that means negotiators will have to raise that money somewhere else, which could set off a whole round of other problems.
Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Buying health insurance is not as much of a problem if you live in Europe, because most countries in the European Union offer universal health coverage. And EU citizens are covered even when they travel to or live in another EU country. Now, Spain says it's paying the cost of a new trend in health tourism. More and more northern Europeans are choosing to retire and take their health problems to Spain's Mediterranean coast. Here's Jerome Socolovsky.
JEROME SOCOLOVSKY: The Costa del Sol stretches from Malaga almost to Gibraltar, and its a lot like Florida. It gets year-round sunshine, and planeloads of seniors from colder climes up north fly down for all or part of the year. In fact, there are many places on the Costa del Sol where it's unusual to hear people speaking Spanish. EU citizens visiting Spain get free emergency medical care, and those who are permanent residents are covered for everything by Spain's free public health system.
Bane Hinman(ph) of Sweden is in a room at the brand-new Costa del Sol hospital in the resort town of Marbella. His skin, bearing numerous tattoos from his life as a sea captain, is heavily jaundiced.
Mr. BANE HINMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: Hinman says he was walking his dog on the beach when all of a sudden, he felt very dizzy. He's now being treated for hepatitis and a failing kidney. Like many Swedish snowbirds who flock to Marbella every winter, Hinman and his wife have paid into the Swedish health-care system all their lives. And in theory, Spain should be able to claim the cost of their care from an EU health fund. But the bureaucracy often doesnt work. Health authorities in the Valencia region - another popular destination for Europeans - say they spent $66 million to treat foreigners last year, but only got $10 million in compensation.
One of Spain's most influential retired politicians, Juan Carlos Rodriguez Ibarra, said in a recent radio interview that Spain's health-care system should be made less accessible to foreigners.
Mr. JUAN CARLOS RODRIGUEZ IBARRA: (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: Because one of the problems with the Spanish health-care system is that its too universal, so you start getting health tourism, he said. Lots of people from lots of country in Europe come to Spain with a $400 plane ticket and get a free hip operation. Many doctors working on the coast tell stories of British, German or Scandinavian patients coming to Spain to evade co-payments or long waiting lists for surgery back home - or simply because they prefer to convalesce on the beach.
Gregorio Blanco, of the Malaga Physicians Union, used to work as a primary care doctor at a clinic where half the patients were foreigners. He says non-Spanish-speaking patients pose an additional burden for Spanish doctors.
Dr. GREGORIO BLANCO (Malaga Physicians Union): (Spanish spoken)
SOCOLOVSKY: It's extra work, the difficulty of dealing with a foreign language and being sure youre making the right diagnosis, he says. He adds that doctors in the public health-care system are not always compensated for their treatment of non-resident patients. Sweden recently tried to push through an initiative in the European Union that would make cross-border care even easier. It would have given patients the right to seek elective surgery in other EU countries, and be compensated for it when faced with delays at home. But Spain led a group of countries that blocked the initiative. Spain's health minister said the measure would cost the country's health system $3 billion.
Still, pressure for an open EU health-care market is likely to increase. In recent years, the European Court of Justice has ruled that Europeans have the right to seek the quickest and best treatment anywhere in the EU.
For NPR News, I'm Jerome Socolovsky in Madrid.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: It's NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
NPR's business news starts with the chocolate merger of the century.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: The American food giant Kraft looks at - to swallow up the British chocolate maker Cadbury. Cadbury board members have accepted Kraft's latest offer of about $19 billion. This decision comes after months of resistance, in part over the price. Cadbury workers also feared for their jobs.
A Cadbury family member opposed the loss of the British company's independence to what she said is an American company she associates with plastic cheese - as if there was something wrong with that. This deal, if it goes through, would instantly make Kraft the world's biggest candy company.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
In Japan, nearly 16,000 people are about to lose their jobs in one of the country's biggest-ever corporate failures. Japan Airlines has been Asia's largest carrier, in terms of revenues. After three government bailouts over the last decade, the carrier today filed for bankruptcy. Its planes will stay in the air as the massively in-debt airline goes through a state-backed restructuring plan that involves cutting routes, reducing pensions, and losing a third of its workforce.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now let's talk about doing business near the edge of a disaster zone. Even as Haiti is recovering from an earthquake, cruise ships have resumed docking at a resort on the country's north coast. That's an area that was unaffected. Tourists stop there for the day to relax on the beach or go jet skiing.
The cruise line Royal Caribbean International owns this resort, and the company's CEO, Adam Goldstein, joined us to talk about his operations there.
Some people may be surprised to hear that youre still taking tourists to Haiti, given the conditions down there. Why?
Mr. ADAM GOLDSTEIN (CEO, Royal Caribbean International): We actually felt it was a pretty easy decision once we realized that the physical site at our property at Labadee was unaffected by the earthquake, and second, after the Haitian government made it clear that they wanted to continue to have our ships visit, both for the economic benefit that they normally bring, as well as the humanitarian aspect of delivering relief supplies. It was a no-brainer.
INSKEEP: Relief supplies - what are you doing?
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: We're unloading about 40 to 60 pallets' worth of materials with each ship call. Navigator of the Seas is there today. That's the second one that's been at Labadee since the earthquake. We're probably looking at about three calls per week - a lot of water, canned goods, and then shelter-type relief supplies to the extent that they're made available to us.
INSKEEP: And what do people do when they go ashore at Labadee?
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: They have fun and they enjoy themselves, and I think this is what you were alluding to at the beginning, because certainly some people are bothered by the incongruity of that. But the Haitian government understands that that is our business. And its through that business, of our guests enjoying themselves on the property, that we are able to offer help. And the first call of each of the ships going back right now, we're donating all of the revenue from the normal - sort of aqua park, jet ski-type activities to the relief effort.
INSKEEP: When people come down to Labadee, do they spend the night on the cruise ship, like its their hotel?
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: It's only a day call, in all cases.
INSKEEP: And the activities ashore, you said something about aqua sports. What else?
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, we've just invested $50 million into the property. I think Royal Caribbean is Haiti's largest foreign direct investor in any industry. We actually have a pier there now. We also have put in some fairly significant attractions, like a long zip line over the water and an alpine-style coaster on the hill, as well as cabanas and restaurants. So its a very full day, and now our guests understand in coming there that they are approximate to the affected area. And I think we'll see quite a bit of generosity on their part as well.
INSKEEP: This is not intended as a disrespectful remark about that $50 million investment, but if that is really the largest foreign direct investment in all of Haiti, $50 million in recreational facilities, that's a sad comment on the state of their economy, I think.
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, as you know, there's a very long history of deficiency and frustration that many people around the world have worked with the Haitian government to rectify, without a lot to show for it. And although this is a total disaster, the likes of which no one had imagined, there are people up to and including President Clinton, with whom I met, who feel that out of this tragedy, maybe some progress can be made that has been elusive in the past.
I think there was a sense prior to the earthquake that maybe there really were more opportunities than in the past to get Haiti moving forward economically. Now its been hit by this tragedy. But maybe out of this tragedy, better things can come.
INSKEEP: Like what?
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, a more comprehensive global effort to not only help with the rescue and the immediate recovery - which is, of course, is what's going on right now - but a true long-term reconstruction.
INSKEEP: Can you still envision increasing your company's investment in Haiti -opening another resort, say?
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: Well, I'll tell you the kind of thing that wed really like to do, and the Haitian government is very well aware of this. The Citadel is a fortress on the top of a hill near Cap Haitien. In my opinion, it could be the greatest single attraction in the entire Caribbean area. Nobody visits it. Why? Because the land and road infrastructure and the security situation has never existed there. Well, I think as a part of the reconstruction effort we're talking about here, stuff like that needs to happen.
Royal Caribbean wants to be involved. Maybe the type of relief effort we have in mind would do road construction and road maintenance that would sustain over time. And it would be a great attraction, as it should be. I just used that as one example. There clearly are opportunities. There's been some talk about Jacmel, which is a very nice city to the south of Port-au-Prince on the south coast, which was equally devastated by the earthquake, but it hasnt gotten hardly any publicity at all. That was typically where the Haitian government was asking us and others if we'd be interested to start a second cruise port. If Jacmel was to be reconstructed, more or less, from the ground up, that's something that could be considered as well.
INSKEEP: Adam Goldstein of Royal Caribbean, thanks very much for your time.
Mr. GOLDSTEIN: Thank you very much, and we appreciate everybody's help.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And as relief organizations around the world deliver necessities to Haiti like food, water and medical supplies, one group sees itself as ministering to a more intangible need. Our last word in business is audio Bible.
An American Christian group is sending solar-powered Bibles to Haiti. The devices broadcast scripture in Haitian Creole. Each is loud enough to be heard by hundreds of people. The group called Faith Comes by Hearing says 600 of its audio Bibles are on the way.
And that's the business news from MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep.
Conditions in Haiti are changing, though its hard to say if they are improving. Food and water are being rushed in, but distribution is slow because of damaged roads and poor communication. The U.S. military says about 1,000 troops are in Haiti now, but as well hear in a few minutes, many more have yet to arrive.
MONTAGNE: One week after an earthquake destroyed most of the capital city, the Haitian people are getting desperate. Many are starting to flee inland, and some have turned to violence.
NPRs Jason Beaubien is in Port-au-Prince, and he joins us now. Jason, where are you, and do you sense a change in mood?
JASON BEAUBIEN: I am in the Petionville neighborhood, which is sort of up the hill from downtown Port-au-Prince. And yes, absolutely, were feeling a shift in the mood. People have been incredibly patient up 'til now, but yesterday things really started to change. Things grew more violent, there was looting, and just anger in the streets in a way that there hadnt been in that first week after the quake.
MONTAGNE: Well, we have been seeing pictures and reading and hearing from you, all about some looting of stores and whatnot. Are you also seeing fighting over supplies that are coming in?
BEAUBIEN: Were only seeing fighting over some of the supplies that are just getting dropped, some of the air drops, people are just rushing in, just basically desperate to get to those supplies. But whats important to note is that there has been almost no aid reaching the people. The shops are not open. The stores are crushed. Banks are shut. There are shops that are not crushed. Those also are not open. So people basically have nowhere to turn, and so people have started looting the main commercial districts just below the national palace.
And yesterday, that violence really ramped up. People were in there with guns, people were burning shops, people were tearing into buildings. We drove down there at one point, and just this rock-throwing mob started hurling rocks and - just sort of a wave of people was coming out of the dust and the smoke from these burning buildings. It was quite dramatic that the shift - that seemed to be occurring.
MONTAGNE: Well, some aid groups have reported treating more victims of violence in the past few days, but I take it the real victims are still those who need medical help, or just simply water and food because of the quake.
BEAUBIEN: Thats absolutely right. People are just waiting for food, waiting for assistance. I put together a piece about this one man, his name is Robinson Bernard(ph). And I met him at the general hospital yesterday, in downtown Port-au-Prince. And he was in the hospital when the earthquake hit. The quake damaged the hospital. And he's still at the compound, but now he is out in the courtyard. He's splayed naked on a dilapidated mattress under a tree. And he says before the quake, his family came each day to clean and feed him.
Mr. ROBINSON BERNARD: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: They used to come, Bernard says, but they dont anymore. The 34-year-old Bernard is emaciated. His ribs protrude from his chest, and he barely has the strength to lift his head. He says he relies on strangers to give him food, and there is no one to clean his soiled bed sheets. Flies hover over him.
Mr. BERNARD: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: When the earthquake hit, I was sleeping, he says. The earth moved as if I was holding the steering wheel of a car, and then the plaster and the dust from the ceiling was all over me. Bernard used to be a plumber. He says he got in an argument with some men; they stole his cell phone and shot him. His legs are paralyzed, his face is unshaven, his fingernails are unclipped and packed with dirt.
Bernard doesnt know if his family members survived the quake or not, but he says he has faith that they are alive, and theyre just too busy and have too many problems of their own right now to come check on him. After the quake, he says, five journalists carried his bed out of the damaged hospital and left him here, under this tree. Bernard says hes been growing weaker each day since the quake, but he is confident he will survive.
Mr. BERNARD: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: The time for me to die has already passed, he says, referring to when he was shot back in November. I pray so much, and I have accepted Jesus into my life. This, he says, is whats keeping him alive.
Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Now the U.S. military is moving in troops, planes and ships to Haiti, but faces the same challenges as civilian aid groups: a small airport and a demolished port.
NPRs Tom Bowman reports.
TOM BOWMAN: They are called the Ready Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division -able to deploy within 18 hours, anywhere in the world for combat or humanitarian missions. On Friday, the nation's top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said 100 of those paratroopers were already in Haiti.
Admiral MIKE MULLEN: And the rest of the brigade will be on the ground by the end of the weekend.
BOWMAN: That didn't happen. Less than one-third of the 3,500 troops were on the ground as of last night to help in the relief effort. The rest are expected to arrive some time this week. Why? Major Christian Sorenson, a spokesman for the 82nd, blamed a clogged Port-au-Prince airport.
Major CHRISTIAN SORENSON (Spokesman, 82nd Airborne Division): The main reason, of course, is that the airfield at Haiti itself - there's a bottleneck there. You know, we're limited to the accessible runways there, and we are not the only aircraft that are trying to land at this time.
BOWMAN: In addition, Sorenson says it wouldn't make sense for the 82nd to parachute into Haiti before the military is able to support them on the ground.
Maj. SORENSON: When you have that many troops on the ground, those are, again, 3,000 additional mouths to feed.
BOWMAN: That's not good enough for retired Lieutenant General Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina. Here he is on CNN yesterday.
Lieutenant General RUSSEL HONORE (Retired): We need to drop the rest of that second brigade of the 82nd Airborne in there in daylight tomorrow morning and get this problem taken care of.
BOWMAN: Honore says he thinks the Obama administration made a mistake in putting the Agency for International Development in charge of the American effort rather than the U.S. military. They just don't have the operational experience, he told NPR.
Lt. Gen. HONORE: It requires a lot of logistics on the ground, quickly. It requires a lot of capability to evacuate people. And when you put USAID in the lead of this, I and again, it's nothing personal against them - the military's waiting for USAID to tell them what to do.
BOWMAN: So, if you had to change something, how would you change it at this point?
Lt. Gen. HONORE: I'd put General Keen in charge of the entire operation, working in support of the president and our ambassador on the ground, senior U.S. representative.
BOWMAN: That's Lieutenant General Ken Keen, the senior American officer in Haiti. He told reporters yesterday in Port-au-Prince, the U.S. is working with the Haitian government and the United Nations. The Americans are not in the lead.
Lieutenant General KEN KEEN: No. We are in support of the government of Haiti and the United Nations as it relates to humanitarian assistance. What we want to do is use our resources as best we can to enable the humanitarian assistance supplies to get out to the points I indicated.
BOWMAN: What Keen just mapped out is part of the problem, says retired Lieutenant General Gus Pagonis - too many people.
Lieutenant General GUS PAGONIS (Retired): Clearly, there has to be one agency, one single point of contact. Otherwise, logistics just doesn't work. You've got too many people stirring the pot.
BOWMAN: Pagonis should know - he was in charge of moving all troops and supplies during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Lt. Gen. PAGONIS: In all normal disasters, that's what happens. The government thinks they're in charge; the military thinks they're in charge; the police think they're in charge. With our own disaster in New Orleans, we had that huge problem.
BOWMAN: Still, Pagonis says the Pentagon can take steps on its own to make things better - starting with that airport. He suggests carving out a second runway to land military C-130 aircraft carrying water, food or paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne.
Lt. Gen. PAGONIS: The C-130s, you could set up an unimproved runway pretty rapidly if you have the bulldozers or the expertise to be able to clear the land. That's what they need to do.
BOWMAN: But as of last night, no one in the military was talking about a second runway.
Tom Bowman, NPR News, Washington.
INSKEEP: And our photographer David Gilkey is in Haiti. He's sending back images of misery in the Caribbean sun. They're at NPR.org.
It's NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Economic trouble is creeping closer to a place that was sheltered until recently: Montana. The state government has money. The housing market is relatively stable. But in Missoula, a big employer is shutting down. Montana Public Radios Emily Ritter has the story.
EMILY RITTER: Kim Lyles was born and raised in Montana. He and his wife, Susan, have four children and five grandkids, and have lived in Missoula most of their lives.
Mr. KIM LYLES: I had intended to retire at about 62, which is five years from now, and this kind of changes everything. And I really wasnt prepared, necessarily, for this outcome.
RITTER: On December 14th, the paper mill Lyles has worked at for 30 years announced it was shutting down. Smurfit-Stone laid off 417 people, the biggest blow to the states economy since the recession started. So Lyles is trying to figure out what will be next. He says hes too young to retire, too old to go back to school.
Mr. LYLES: Ill be 60 years old when I get out of the two-year program that they offer. And in all fairness, whos going to hire a 60-year-old guy, you know?
RITTER: Its a challenge a lot of the laid-off workers at the mill are having to grapple with. The average salary at Smurfit-Stone was $70,000 a year. Compare that with the average salary in Missoula - just over $40,000. Lyles says hell never find something else that pays that kind of money, in the state.
Mr. LYLES: I really don't want to leave. We don't have a fancy house, but its our house, you know? And I love Harleys. I told my wife that if I have to, Ill go work at the Harley shop. And she just shakes her head and says, you know, youre selling yourself short. And I keep telling her: I am short.
RITTER: About 70,000 people live in the Missoula Valley. Its nestled between the Sapphire, Bitterroot and Mission Mountain ranges. This western half of the state relied on the timber industry for the better part of a century. But production has slowed drastically in the last 30 years.
President of the United Steelworkers Local 885, Bob Johnson, says 26 mills have shut down since 1990. Six have closed their doors in just the last three years.
Mr. BOB JOHNSON (President, United Steelworkers Local 885): The types of industry that has left Montana isnt returning, and I don't see it returning anytime in the near future. At this point, I think Montanas just going to start seeing what this economy is actually - impacting us. It could be very frightening for the state.
RITTER: Businesses in downtown Missoula are also dealing with some big changes all of a sudden. Macys announced this month that they would close their Missoula store, one of the downtowns anchor retailers.
Ms. JULIE HILLY (Owner, Boutique): To have this happen does, you know, impart a little bit of fear.
RITTER: Julie Hilly(ph) opened her boutique in 2008, just months before the economy tanked. She has really relied on Macys customers who walk by her store.
Ms. HILLY: When people were not able to find things over at Macys, the employees at Macys were always so good about referring those customers down the street. And I think thats that's the key.
RITTER: At Smurfit-Stone, the fence around the mill is dotted with hardhats left by workers leaving their shifts for the last time.
Kim Lyles says hes not just losing a job, but feels like hes losing part of his extended family.
Mr. LYLES: Like I always try to tell people, don't feel bad for Sue and I; we'll get by. I just - it breaks my heart to see whats happening to these young kids that are just starting out in life, you know? I would like to see them have the same opportunities that we had. And I don't see that happening.
RITTER: Economists say the Missoula-area recession may have been slow to arrive -but isnt likely to go away until last next year.
For NPR News, Im Emily Ritter.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. Im Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And Im Renee Montagne. Its a race to the deadline today for states competing for federal education money known as Race to the Top. The fund is for states that can shows theyre embracing the Obama administrations education platform. Many educators say theyre disenchanted with the competitive process and won't take part. Overall though, the race is driving a huge wave of education measures, as NPRs Larry Abramson reports.
LARRY ABRAMSON: Four billion dollars is a lot of money, until you divide it up among the handful of states that are expected to win grants. Nebraska is asking for $122 million, which amounts to a measly $100 per student for the next four years. Still, education commissioner Roger Breed has had his staff working full-time on the states application.
Mr. ROGER BREED (Education Commissioner, Nebraska): Well, its pretty much been nonstop since November 19th.
ABRAMSON: Breed says though the grant is small, it would allow him to enact changes hes wanted for years. Nebraskas application envisions joining a national effort to establish common educational standards, improving the states ability to track student progress, and developing annual teacher evaluations that could track student achievement.
Roger Breed says hes also proposing to develop an online virtual school that would help school districts in small places like Axtell, Nebraska, where he used to be superintendent.
Mr. BREED: Then youre dealing with a school district of 270 students, K-12. When the math department meets at Axtell High School, its literally one person. So a virtual school would have a significant positive impact for Nebraska statewide.
ABRAMSON: If the Department of Education finds that other states are more deserving, Nebraska could end up with nothing to show for its efforts. Education commissioner Roger Breed says thats okay. The whole exercise has helped him figure out what the state should be doing.
The area getting the most attention in Race to the Top applications is teacher evaluation. The Department of Education is pushing for more rigorous evaluations tied to student achievement. Tim Daly, of the teacher training program the New Teacher Project, says the application process has already sowed the seeds of massive change.
Mr. TIM DALY: (New Teacher Project): Weve never tried to change teacher evaluation this much this fast. Its probably going to change more in the next five years than in the previous fifty.
ABRAMSON: Last week, the head of the American Federation of Teachers announced her union support for better evaluations. Tim Daly says this is an example of how states have used the application process to revise outdated policies.
Mr. DALY: This is about a recognition that weve done far too little for decades to improve outcomes for poor minority students in that this contest gave us a chance to look inward. And I think that states are not liking what theyre seeing when they look inward. They see policies that don't make any sense.
ABRAMSON: But many are not excited about all this self-analysis. Race to the Top requires some local buy-in. But Martin Brook, president of the school board in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, says his district would only get pennies if Michigan won the prize.
Mr. MARTIN BROOK (School Board President, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan): About $45,000.
ABRAMSON: The district calculated that complying with any Race to the Top grant would cost more than that and that kids in their district are doing just fine. So, like many other districts around the country, Bloomfield Hills refused to join the state effort to get that cash. In addition to all the compliance work, Martin Brook worried that his affluent district was being asked to endorse Race to the Tops emphasis on standardized tests.
Mr. BROOK: If were going to be measuring student performance and teachers based upon standardized test scores, then you're going to get teachers that just teach to standardized tests. And our district values comprehensive education above all else.
ABRAMSON: Other districts object to what they see as another Washington education power grab and refuse to sign on. The many strings attached to the Race to the Top money, however, have not deterred most state education leaders who kept polishing their applications right up to the deadline. One education commissioner said: If you find a federal program that comes without any strings, please tell me about it.
Larry Abramson, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Political leaders from across India gathered in the city of Calcutta today for the funeral of a man known as the patriarch of Indian Marxism. When Jyoti Basu died this past weekend, he was 95. He was one of Indias most prominent politicians and one of the worlds longest serving elected communist leaders. These days, capitalism and consumerism are sweeping across India, but as NPRs Philip Reeves reports, Calcutta is one of last bastions of Marxism.
PHILIP REEVES: Kolkata is a city addicted to politics. Hundreds of grubby red flags bearing the communist hammer and sickle flutter by the side of the road leading from the airport.
Unidentified Man #1: (Foreign language spoken)
REEVES: You dont have to drive far before you run into a Marxist with bullhorn. A few miles down the road, someone else is making a speech.
Unidentified Man #2: (Foreign language spoken)
REEVES: This time its one of the communists political foes. Hes undeterred by the traffic, the mustard yellow taxis and grimy buses, the bullocks and bikes, all battling to carve a path through yet another jam. That scene a couple of days ago is what is like on pretty much any average day in Kolkata. Thats why they say politics runs in the veins of the city. Thats why some people call it the red fortress. Today though was different than most. Today the city paused in its stride for the funeral of Jyoti Basu, the man Indias media calls the king of the communists. Kolkata is capital of the state of West Bengal. For 23 years, Basu was West Bengals chief minister, in charge of a communist-led coalition thats still in power.
From afar, West Bengal may seem pretty remote. On the map youll find it tucked into a corner of eastern India next to Bangladesh on a fertile sweep of land where the Ganges flows out into the Bay of Bengal. Yet its one of the most economically important parts of the region, the gateway to East Asia, including China. The populations roughly the same as Germanys, more than 80 million.
(Soundbite of crowd)
REEVES: The people of West Bengal are fond of saying they can pick out an intellectual from a 100 yards. They almost consider intellectuals to be a class in their own right. In this coffee shop there seemed to be quite a few. Bespectacled figures, hair swept back, earnestly holding forth around the tables. Among them is Chandrasekhar Bhattacharya, a writer and journalist. The conversation turns to why there is in West Bengal such a strong tradition of leftist politics.
Mr. CHANDRASEKHAR BHATTACHARYA (Journalist): The first English education, first newspaper, first college, first university of India, first printed book came up in Bengal. It was more developed, more intellectual.
REEVES: This particular coffee shops run by a cooperative, as you'd perhaps expect in this left-leaning city. Yet the waiters are wearing the same faded white livery and crested turbans that their predecessors wore when Kolkata was capital of Britains Indian empire. West Bengal has a long and painful colonial history. Bhattacharya thinks thats what created the regions leftist leaders.
Mr. BHATTACHARYA: They understood the problem. They started the revolt against the colonies. Whether it is Portuguese or the French or British, they fought it.
REEVES: This produced an unusual phenomenon: upper class Indian intellectuals, often educated at Oxford or Cambridge, espousing the cause of the proletariat. Indias media gave wall to wall coverage to Basus funeral today, filling the airwaves with fulsome tributes. He was one of the most prominent Indian politicians since the country gained independence some six decades ago. He knew Nehru, one of Indias founding fathers, and was a friend of Nehrus daughter, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He knew the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Cubas Fidel Castro.
He met Vietnams Ho Chi Min, after whom Basu and his comrades named a Calcutta street. It wasnt by chance that they chose the street where the U.S. consulate is located. In the mid-'90s, Basu nearly became Indias prime minister. Yet he was a contradictory figure, a patrician disliked by Marxist ideologues for his pragmatism, and disliked by capitalist ideologues for his Marxism.
Abhirup Sarkar, a political and economic analyst, says Basu will be remembered for the early stages of his stint in office, particularly for land reforms.
Mr. ABHIRUP SARKAR (Political and Economic Analyst): His main achievements were agricultural development, empowerment - social empowerment for the poor, and also a green revolution based on (unintelligible) rice.
REEVES: Sarkar believes those achievements were offset by failure.
Mr. SARKAR: Industry was totally destroyed. There was militant trade unionism. Farms, the enterprises, the companies - they left Bengal, one after the other.
REEVES: Basu belonged to whats the called the CPI(M), the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The party has been power in West Bengal for 33 years, winning seven elections in a row. Many observers predict it will finally be defeated in next years elections. It's been severely damaged by supporting several bloody attempts to push farmers and tribal people off their land to make way for big industrial projects. In the party offices you still find all the famous faces. There are pictures of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Debabrata Bandyopadhyay, a retired government official, says the party abandoned Marx and Lenin a long time ago. But he says the hardline party faithful have not forgotten Stalin. In fact, he says, they openly admire the Soviet dictator and his violent methods.
Mr. DEBABRATA BANDYOPADHYAY (Retired Government Official): They consider themselves Stalinist because they think that Stalin is the great God. Violence to them is something very noble.
REEVES: Something very...
Mr. BANDYOPADHYAY: Very noble, noble. It's nothing that you are horrified about. It's very noble. Nothing unethical.
Mr. SARKAR: I think it is sinister. It is sinister, yes.
REEVES: Abhirup Sarkar says the Communist Party exercises a worrying degree of autocratic control right across the spectrum, from villages to universities.
Mr. SARKAR: Those things are controlled by the party, entirely.
REEVES: University positions, police?
Mr. SARKAR: Oh yes.
REEVES: Health service?
Mr. SARKAR: Oh yes, absolutely. Health, education, administration - these are the three things. Those are completely dominated by the party, completely.
REEVES: What about Jyoti Basu? Analysts tend to portray him as an astute, aloof and skilled administrator, but not as a tyrant. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, a former Indian ambassador to the U.S., was a political opponent of Basus, but also a very close friend.
Mr. SIDDHARTHA SHANKAR RAY (Indian Ambassador to U.S., Former): Some of them were Stalinists. Jyoti was a Stalinist to start with. But that doesnt matter whether he was a Stalinist or Leninist or whatever it was, didnt matter. He was Jyoti Basu, a very fine man, and a man that I loved, still love.
REEVES: Phillip Reeves, NPR News, New Delhi.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
Here's an argument for carrying a gun: You never know when you'll have to shoot your way out of your own car. A northern California man was driving his SUV. He contends he was using the hands-free device of his cell phone when it somehow startled him and he drove his vehicle into a creek. It rapidly started sinking. The man was, though, a casino guard and he pulled out his gun and opened fire, blasting out a window and swimming to safety. You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning. Im Renee Montagne. Theres the Great Wall of China, the Great Fire Wall of China, and now the Great Chocolate Wall. It's an attraction at the World Chocolate Wonderland trade show in Beijing opening later this month. Chocolatiers hope to boost the treat's popularity in China, where its seen as mostly for children. The 33-foot long wall is made of dark chocolate bricks with white chocolate mortar and lined with 560 tiny chocolate replicas of the Terracotta army.
Its MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
If your health insurance covers prescriptions, you are probably a customer of a pharmacy benefit management company. You may not quite realize it. You may not even know what a pharmacy benefit management company is. But we're going to explain, because that's one type of business that is actually growing in this recession.
And as Matt Sepic of St. Louis Public Radio reports, so-called PBMs are poised for even more growth as baby boomers age and Congress prepares to overhaul health care.
MATT SEPIC: St. Louis-based Express Scripts is now the nation's largest pharmacy benefit management company. It's an island of prosperity located near a long-shuttered car plant and an empty terminal used in the movie "Up In The Air."
Express Scripts employs about 4,000 people here and plans to hire more when it opens a new mail-order prescription center.
Chief medical officer Steve Miller says the company is in an economic sweet spot. With prescription demand rising along with costs, someone needs to manage all those pills and negotiate lower prices with producers.
Dr. STEVE MILLER (Chief Medical Officer, Express Scripts): Pharmacy is the number one touch point in health care. People use their hospitals, on average, less than once a year. They use pharmacy, on average, 11 times a year.
SEPIC: The PBM industry emerged when health plans started covering prescriptions. Big insurance companies found negotiating with big pharma to be a hassle, so PBMs filled the void. Today, they cover more than 200 million Americans. Critics say that has marginalized small, independent pharmacies, because now even drugstore chains like CVS manage prescription benefits. But Express Scripts scientist Bob Nease says PBMs have the clout to check the power of drug companies.
Dr. BOB NEASE (Scientist, Express Scripts): The other way that we get buying power is by the ability to move market share, large numbers of members from a more expensive drug to a less expensive drug.
SEPIC: Nease says company researchers study ways to tweak incentives to urge people toward mail-order prescriptions, for example, which are cheaper to deliver. PBMs also push generics aggressively.
That's usually good for most customers, but it wasnt for Pat Cleeland. She takes medication to prevent seizures. When the drug went generic, her PBM said it would only pay for the cheaper pills, but Cleeland says her doctor would not allow it.
Ms. PAT CLEELAND: We didn't know how we were going to pay for getting a name brand in this medication. We had a partial refill from a local pharmacy. It was three days worth, and it was $85.
SEPIC: Cleeland says after her doctor got involved, she was able to avoid what could have been a bureaucratic nightmare.
Surveys show other customers are generally happy with PBMs. And Consumers Union health care analyst Steven Findlay says they're usually on the patient's side.
Mr. STEVEN FINDLAY (Health Care Analyst, Consumers Union): They absolutely do deliver a service to workers and consumers. There's no question.
SEPIC: But Findlay says the downside of pharmacy benefit managers is the negative effect theyve had on small independent pharmacies.
At Lindenwood Drug in St. Louis - a street-corner shop a world away from the Express Scripts office park - pharmacist Tom Hunt is still making a living, even as similar shops have closed. But he says PBMs make it tough.
Mr. TOM HUNT (Pharmacist): How many businesses do you know of that 80 to 90 percent of their sales are priced by a third party? Everything I fill out a prescription card for a patient with insurance, they're setting a price on it.
SEPIC: Hunt says these days, he's found a niche in customer service and even fills prescriptions for pets. But with drug costs continuing to climb and Congress on the verge of expanding access to health insurance, the pharmacy benefit management industry shows no immediate signs of slowing down.
For NPR News, I'm Matt Sepic in St. Louis.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger travels to Washington this morning, looking for cash. The governor's plan to erase California's $20 billion budget deficit relies on billions of federal dollars. And if he doesn't get the money, the governor plans to eliminate entire Social Services programs. John Myers of member station KQED has more.
JOHN MYERS: Arnold Schwarzenegger has long called himself the Collectinator -the guy who would settle a longstanding beef that California sends more money to D.C. than it gets back in federal help.
Just days after being elected in 2003, Schwarzenegger met with then-President Bush in Southern California and made it sound as though things were about to change.
Governor ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (Republican, California): We are paying - for each dollar that we pay, we only get $.77 back. So there's room to play with. I mean, so I'm absolutely convinced that we can get help and that we will get help.
MYERS: But even as recently as two weeks ago, he was still asking for the money.
Gov. SCHWARZENEGGER: I promised the people of California that I will be fighting for California and I will go and do everything that I can to get the federal money that we deserve.
MYERS: That was the governor at the unveiling of his new state budget. In that budget, Schwarzenegger has actually penciled in almost $8 billion in federal dollars to balance California's books. That includes money for health care for the poor and welfare assistance, for special education programs, and reimbursement for housing prison inmates who are undocumented immigrants.
Gov. SCHWARZENEGGER: For us to get stuck with the bill of incarceration of undocumented immigrants of $900 million is unfair. We're going to fly to Washington and we're going to fight for that money.
MYERS: Lately, the governor's been fighting mostly with members of his own congressional delegation, jabbing them for not doing more to level the playing field for California. Now, they are jabbing back.
Representative ZOE LOFGREN (Democrat, California): That whole premise that somehow California is being disproportionately treated is just false.
MYERS: Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from Silicon Valley, says for one thing, Schwarzenegger is using old data. She says a recent review that takes into account federal stimulus money suggests California is getting as much as $1.45 in federal services for every dollar in taxes.
Lofgren says while the state's sluggish economy could still use help, Governor Schwarzenegger is spending too much time blaming the feds.
Rep. LOFGREN: To pretend that he's not the governor and somehow he doesn't have a role in the continuing saga of the California budget nightmare is really a disappointment.
MYERS: Others say the governor is asking for the wrong money the wrong way. That's because dozens of states find their budgets in the red this year, and Schwarzenegger would be smart to have allies in the fight for federal help. Jean Ross leads the California Budget Project, which advocates for programs aimed at the working poor.
Ms. JEAN ROSS (Executive Director, California Budget Project): If you want to win the support of Congress, our governor should be going to Washington arm in arm with the 40, 45 other governors who are also facing budget shortfalls this year.
MYERS: Ross says the governor should focus his D.C. lobbying on a second national stimulus package. In the first one, California was awarded $85 billion - more than any state. But Schwarzenegger said last week another stimulus doesn't solve the problem.
Gov. SCHWARZENEGGER: We're not looking for one time revenue. We are not looking for two times revenue. We are looking for fairness.
MYERS: The question, though, is if Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn't gotten what he's wanted from the feds in the past, what makes him think he will get it now? After all, he's in the final year of his term, his job approval ratings are near rock bottom, and the only place more divided by partisan politics than his statehouse may be the nation's capital.
For NPR News, I'm John Myers in Sacramento.
(Soundbite of music)
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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Lets hear now from commentator Frank Deford, who's been thinking about abusive coaches, fantastic salaries, contracts torn to shreds. All in all, he says a rough time in college athletics.
FRANK DEFORD: Hardly had Alabama and Boise State settled in as co-champions of college football, did this new decade open with a veritable bombast of negativity about college sports. Coaches were fired for being abusive to players, coaches jumped contracts, money kept rolling into the fun and games, and even the secretary of education popped up to excoriate the whole business. The stink just continues to rise but don't worry, college fans, nothing good will come out of all the complaints.
We can start with USA Today, which has never won a Pulitzer, but doing an absolutely terrific front-page enterprise piece on how college sports continue to keep on draining colleges of money, even as colleges everywhere have to make cutbacks in that quaint little adjunct to the football and basketball programs, which is called education.
College athletic departments always respond, Well, gee whiz, we're not really taking all that much money away from the book-learning business because we get a lot of our money from boosters which is akin to a company protesting to its stockholders that, don't worry, we don't have to borrow from banks because the loan sharks are supporting us.
And booster buddies the coaches. Never have their excesses been more pinpointed. Besides the three highly paid football coaches fired for physically mistreating their unpaid athletic workers, we had even more spectacular job-jumping.
Lane Kiffin, the new USC coach, surely is this year's star mover and faker, pulling out of Tennessee after just one year to go to USC, which had just seen its coach, Pete Carroll, mysteriously abandon college football, where he's been a master, to return to the pros, where his past performance has been mediocre.
But then, USC was just penalized for basketball transgressions, and the rumors are that the football program may also be marked. The sorrow is that college sports have the capacity to soil almost anyone who is enticed by them. Lois DeFleur was the president of Binghamton University for 19 years. She did an amazing job for Binghamton, academic division. But when Binghamton tried to go big-time basketball, it ended up in a scandal, and President DeFleur was tarnished. The other day, she said she was stepping down for personal reasons. The ones who are hurt by sports and leave always say that, just like the coaches who jump and leave their old teams in the lurch, always proclaim that it's a new challenge.
Meanwhile, Arne Duncan, the education secretary, says it's a disgrace that colleges don't graduate more so-called student-athletes. But the truth is, sadly, that so many of these players are just sham students, being passed along. Don't waste your time with college sports, Mr. Secretary. American education has enough problems and no boosters to pay the bills.
MONTAGNE: Commentator Frank Deford joins us each Wednesday from member station WSHU in Fairfield, Connecticut.
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News, I Renee Montagne.
INSKEEP: And Im Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Scott Browns stunning upset in Massachusetts is a measure of the political difficulties facing President Obama. Its also a far cry from two years ago, when Mr. Obama rode into office by winning reliably Republican states such as Indiana.
NPRs Don Gonyea covered the campaign, and he returned to Indiana to see how President Obama is doing there now.
DON GONYEA: The sign in front of Zinszer's Bakery in Anderson, Indiana, offers a lure to fans of the Indianapolis Colts as the team makes a bid for another Super Bowl appearance.
Ms. RACHEL MURDOCK (Chief Baker, Zinszer's Bakery): We have our iced, homemade, hand-decorated Colts football cookies and helmets. The smiley faces are for after the Colts win.
GONYEA: That's Rachel Murdock, the chief baker at the shop. She voted for President Obama. She's a Democrat. She says she has no complaints for the president.
Ms. MURDOCK: He inherited an economy in a complete downturn, two wars that just - our troops should already have been pulled home from. I feel it's going to take him a little bit more time to get everything untangled from what they had thrown at him.
GONYEA: The city of Anderson is in Madison County, right in the state's midsection. It once boasted 25,000 General Motors manufacturing jobs. It was a company town. But over the past three decades, they've all disappeared - every one of them.
Ms. MURDOCK: Hi, Don.
Mr. DON WILLIAMS: Hi, how you doing?
GONYEA: Customers pop into the bakery. Sixty-one-year-old Don Williams has been laid off from two jobs in the past two years. His story is not unusual. He lost his house and his pension. Now, he delivers auto parts. His income has been cut in half.
He voted for President Obama and says he still backs him, but he does have one gripe, about the Wall Street bailout.
Mr. WILLIAMS: Give us the money instead of giving it to the banks, where they won't loan the money out to you, or the mortgage companies, where they won't loan it out to you, and let us spend it. Because if they would've given me money, I could have paid my house off and saved everything.
GONYEA: The economic worries that helped turned this red state blue are now working against the president. A new Indiana poll puts Mr. Obama's approval rating at 44 percent. Fifty-three percent disapprove.
Governor MITCH DANIELS (Republican, Indiana): Substantively, I think he's rubbed Hoosiers the wrong way on multiple fronts.
GONYEA: Mitch Daniels is the state's Republican governor.
Gov. DANIELS: Clearly, the deficits and the apparent reckless disregard for spending levels doesn't fit the way people here want to see their government conducted.
GONYEA: Back in Anderson one night last week, a group of about 20 local businesspeople gathered for their regular networking meeting.
There are Republicans, Democrats and independents here. Republican Chuck Kile, the owner of a local Skyline Chili restaurant, says President Obama's policies are bad for business. He says he never approved of the job the president is doing. Health care is the issue that angers him the most. Kile says he has attended anti-Obama rallies organized by the Tea Party movement.
Mr. CHUCK KILE (Owner, Skyline Chili Restaurant): I kind of wonder if Mr. Obama and some of the other people that are in the White House and the Congress, I wonder if they could just go through the process of what we have to do every week to make a payroll for 20 people. I don't think they've got a clue of how that happens.
GONYEA: But others here who did not vote for Mr. Obama were more generous, at least offering goodwill and hope for the new president. DeWayne Landwehr runs a business resource center in Anderson.
Mr. DEWAYNE LANDWEHR (Manager, Business Resource Center): When Obama won, I decided at that point, I want to give this guy a try. I want this guy to succeed. So I was ready and open. I said OK, let's see what you got. Let's see what you're going to do for the country.
GONYEA: But now, Landwehr says he's very disappointed.
Mr. LANDWEHR: Yeah, I think there is a lot of buyer's remorse.
GONYEA: It's not hard to find anger and frustration when you talk to people in Indiana. But even in these uncertain times, it's not difficult to find patience, either.
Much of the Midwest took an economic hit years before the current national downturn. People here tell you they know there's no quick fix and absent an election like the one held in Massachusetts yesterday, the buyer's remorse Mr. Landwehr talks about has nowhere to go right now.
Don Gonyea, NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Many Haitians are trying to leave Port-au-Prince, and some are finding refuge in the country next door. Haiti shares an island, sitting side by side with the Dominican Republic. And in the past week, that country has become a major disaster relief center. The relationship between these two nations has not always been harmonious. But after the earthquake, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez was the first head of state to visit Haiti, and hes pledged to help reconstruct Haiti. As NPRs John Burnett reports from Santo Domingo, Haitians taking refuge in the Dominican Republic are pleasantly surprised to find a warm welcome.
JOHN BURNETT: Traditionally, the border to the Dominican Republic has been unfriendly to Haitians, but in an unprecedented gesture of neighborliness, the D.R., as its called, has opened the border to injured Haitians, many of whom are being treated here at the Dario Contreras public hospital in the capital of Santo Domingo.
Forlorn Haitians of all ages lie stoically in hospital beds that now line the corridors, their gruesome wounds bandaged, their arms attached to I.V. bags.
ALVERA POLINESE(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: I never thought the Dominican president would do this, says Alvera Polinese, a 50-year-old Haitian, who lives in the D.R. She came to the hospital with the slim hope of finding her mother, whos not been heard from since the earthquake. He extended his hand to Haitians. He's shown that he loves the people of Haiti, she says.
All over town, Dominicans are bringing relief supplies into collection centers to be loaded onto trucks that will make the six-hour overland journey to Port-au-Prince.
At Centro Bono, a Jesuit charity, volunteers pack boxes full of penicillin, canned food, toilet paper, shoes, baby food and water.
No one remembers an outpouring like this before, not even when Haiti got hit by four cyclones in 2008 and its flooded towns begged for assistance. But the earthquake is different, says Sonia Adames, director of the Jesuit Aid Center.
Ms. SONIA ADAMES (Director, Jesuit Aid Center): (Through translator) Truly, there is a lot of prejudice toward Haiti in the Dominican Republic. But this earthquake that has physically shaken Haiti has also shaken Dominican society. People have their hearts in their hands.
BURNETT: Adames bustles around the warehouse, coordinating her volunteers with a clipboard and warm smile. She says despite this momentary outbreak of brotherly love, the old fears are there. Indeed, here in the narrow streets of the capital's old Spanish colonial sector, the earthquake has heightened age old worries of a human stampede from Haiti that could overwhelm the DR and dilute its Hispanic culture. Already Haitians make up 10 to 20 percent of the DRs 10 million people. They do the hard, low-paying labor, sweeping streets, cutting sugar cane, laying bricks.
Julio Cesar Rivera sells Rosaries in front of the cathedral.
Mr. JULIO CESAR RIVERA: (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: We had lots of Haitian immigrants before, and now we're going to have even more. And for good reason, because what happened was huge, he says but we can't absorb anymore. Our hospitals don't have any more bed space. We need to help them, but we Dominicans need help too. And with that he spotted a cluster of European tourists and raced away, his rosaries jangling. Hispaniola is the only island in the world shared by two countries that are so different, said Dan O'Neil. As director of the Pan American Development Foundation here in Santo Domingo for the past 12 years, O'Neil spends equal time in both countries.
Mr. DAN ONEIL (Director, Pan American Development Foundation): Haiti is a poor, black country, French-speaking - basically living on subsistence agriculture. The Dominican Republic, Spanish, Latin, export-focused economy, tourism. You couldn't have had two more different worlds and they meet at the border.
BURNETT: At the moment, the Dominican Republic is being transformed into a staging ground for the burgeoning Haitian relief effort, and will continue to play this role during the long reconstruction process. With gridlock at Haiti's airport, relief workers, journalists and now the U.S. military, are streaming into the DR's airports.
Rosa Maria Garcia, is president of the Dominican-Haitian Chamber of Commerce.
Ms. ROSA MARIA GARCIA (President, Dominican-Haitian Chamber of Commerce): Of course, it will benefit the Dominican Republic. It's already benefiting, because everything is coming up through here. All the shops are selling much more, all supermarkets are selling much more, because everybody who's buying to help Haiti is buying in the Dominican commerce.
BURNETT: Dominicans have long grimly observed Haiti's seemingly endless misfortunes, but in the past week, some have dared to think, perhaps Haiti can rebuild and get a fresh start, and things will be different this time. Because in the end, Dominicans know they cannot fully thrive unless their destitute neighbor comes along, too.
As they say here, the island of Hispaniola is a bird with two wings, a marriage without divorce.
John Burnett, NPR News, Santo Domingo.
MONTAGNE: Our coverage of the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake continues at npr.org. You will find photos, the latest on relief and security efforts and information on how to help.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. We'll learn more this morning about the man accused of trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab prompted a widespread debate about American security and intelligence. And in a moment, we'll talk with Joe Liebermann, a senator leading that effort. First, we'll travel to the suspect's hometown. It's Kaduna in northern Nigeria, a region that's predominantly Muslim. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton traveled there.
Unidentified Children: (Singing in foreign language)
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON: It's in this Quranic school with its dusty yard, named after his paternal grandparents and funded by his father, that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab learned to recite verses from the Muslim holy book from a very early age, much like these youngsters.
Unidentified Children: (Singing in foreign language)
QUIST-ARCTON: It's late afternoon, and dozens of veiled girls and boys wearing Muslim caps are studying after school at the Rabiatu Mutallab Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies. It's one of hundreds of such Quranic establishments here in Kaduna.
The bearded imam, Musa Umar Dumawa, has known Abdulmutallab since he was an infant. Dumawa condemned the alleged Christmas Day airline bomb plot by his former student.
Imam MUSA UMAR DUMAWA (Rabiatu Mutallab Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies): (Through translator) Yes, of course, I taught him. I was his spiritual teacher. I taught him when he was a very little child, and he was a very, very respectful boy, very, very obedient child. And I will keep on saying it, what this boy did, I believe he never got the ideas from here in Nigeria. It's very, very surprising what he's been associated with now.
QUIST-ARCTON: The imam last saw Abdulmutallab in Kaduna back in August.
Imam DUMAWA: (Through translator) Well, there's no way I could have known if there was anything disturbing him because he's a very, very reserved person. He doesn't socialize much. In fact, when he comes here, he prays. After the prayers, he says hello, hello to people and he walks away. That's why I cannot understand how he got himself into this mess.
(Soundbite of machine engine)
QUIST-ARCTON: I'm outside Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's house here in Kaduna. Not much activity here. The black gate has just opened. Somebody peeping out, but we're told that no family members are now staying in the house itself.
Mr. MICHAEL ADAH(ph): Farouk is a humble person. Since I know him, I've never in any way seen him behaving arrogantly - which shows the kind of humility in him.
QUIST-ARCTON: Michael Adah lives down the street from the Mutallabs. He's part of the same neighborhood youth association that Umar Farouk and his brothers nominally belong to. Adah says he's always found Abdulmutallab a gracious, unassuming and devout young man.
Mr. ADAH: Most of the people who are wealthy or even more educated, they don't show respects to all the lower-class people.
QUIST-ARCTON: Many here in Kaduna are asking how the son of a respected Muslim banker,, who was born to privilege and studied abroad, had come so badly unstuck. Abdulmutallab is now facing terrorism-related charges in the United States. Late last year, his father alerted U.S. and Nigerian security agencies about his son's increasingly radical views, and his decision to move to Yemen.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
QUIST-ARCTON: As children head home after another session learning the Quran, another longtime Mutallab neighbor and prominent human rights campaigner, Shehu Sani, says Nigerians must look for explanations right here in their own backyard in the Muslim-dominated north, where periodic religious violence has claimed hundreds of lives in the past decade.
Mr. SHEHU SANI (Human Rights Activist): The reality in Nigeria is that there is a rising spread of Islamic fundamentalism. But we don't have al-Qaida. We also do not have terrorist camps in Nigeria. But there is a reason to be concerned that the atmosphere is conducive for violent groups and individuals from the Middle East to have a foothold here.
QUIST-ARCTON: A reality, warns Shehu Sani, that his country must acknowledge and tackle.
Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Kaduna, northern Nigeria.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, Im Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And Im Renee Montagne.
It's January 20th, one year to the day after President Obama took office. On that day one year ago, huge crowds ignored the cold to witness his inauguration. This morning, the president wakes up to a bitter anniversary gift.
INSKEEP: Massachusetts elected a new senator last night. Republican Scott Brown won the U.S. Senate seat that the late Ted Kennedy held for the Democrats for decades. And just like that, Democrats lost their 60th vote in the Senate, which means they lost the power to pass bills over unanimous Republican opposition.
NPRs Tovia Smith reports.
TOVIA SMITH: A stunning upset barely begins to describe what Scott Brown pulled off last night. Not only did a Republican win statewide in left-leaning Massachusetts, but it was a relatively unknown state senator who won the seat held for nearly half a century by Ted Kennedy. And he managed to do it by coming from nowhere, closing a 30-point gap in just weeks, an almost epic feat that seemed to stun even Scott Brown himself.
Senator-elect SCOTT BROWN (Republican, Massachusetts): I knew things were really starting to click when I saw a handmade Scott Brown yard sign that I actually hadnt put there myself.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SMITH: Brown said it was voter frustration with President Obamas plan to overhaul health care that propelled him to victory.
Sen.-elect BROWN: And its being forced on the American people, and this bill is not being debated openly and fairly. It will raise taxes.
(Soundbite of cheering)
Sen.-elect BROWN: It will raise taxes. It will hurt Medicare. It will destroy jobs and run our nation deeper into debt.
SMITH: For her part, Martha Coakley said she was heartbroken at the outcome. She acknowledged voters anger, and went on to echo words of the late Senator Kennedy, who had called universal health care the cause of his life.
Attorney General MARTHA COAKLEY (Democrat, Massachusetts): The work begins anew. The hope rises again, and the dream lives on.
(Soundbite of crowd cheering)
SMITH: Coakley was roundly criticized for the way she ran her campaign. She was seen as stiff, somewhat distant and aloof. Many voters thought she felt a sense of entitlement to the seat. It was in stark contrast to Brown, who campaigned from his pickup truck as a kind of everyman, and relished every opportunity to mix it up with voters, especially last night.
Sen.-elect BROWN: Guys, listen. Im going to meet everybody, so just be patient, just take a step back and relax. Im not going anywhere. Im going to party with you guys, OK?
SMITH: On the campaign trail, Brown often repeated his promise to block the presidents plan to overhaul health care. Indeed, as he becomes the Republican's 41st vote in the Senate, he ends the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority, a prospect clearly on the minds of his supporters last night.
Unidentified Group: Forty-one, 41, 41...
SMITH: Massachusetts may not be the best place to measure support for overhauling health care since voters here already have universal coverage through a state program that still enjoys broad support, a point acknowledged by former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who signed the plan into law when he was governor.
Mr. MITT ROMNEY (Former Republican Governor, Massachusetts; Former Republican Presidential Candidate): We have a plan that does not cut Medicare, does not raise taxes, and does not have a public option. And for the people of Massachusetts to have Obama care would mean that they'd have to subsidize the rest of the nation with higher taxes and Medicare cuts. Why would they do that when we already have 98 percent of our people insured?
SMITH: It was a view expressed by many voters at the very busy polls yesterday, like in this heavily Democratic neighborhood in Lexington.
Ms. JOE MCLELLAN(ph): Im a Democrat by nature, but its time for a change.
SMITH: Thats 50-year-old Joe McLellan, who works in high-tech.
Mr. MCLELLAN: I live in a liberal community. Liberal values here, I endorse, but I think it was time to fix the spend, spend, spend, or there will be no United States - no future, our kids, that whole big deal.
SMITH: A spokesman for President Obama says he is surprised and frustrated by yesterdays vote. Indeed, the Democratic defeat is already reverberating around the nation, rattling Democrats and emboldening Republicans heading into this years midterm elections - a prospect thats got Brown supporters like Mike Sanders(ph), from Saugus, absolutely ecstatic.
Mr. MIKE SANDERS: If we can win the bluest of the blue states, you'd better watch out, the rest of the states.
SMITH: Also gleefully cheering on Scott Brown last night was a fellow Republican who's running for Congress from a district in western Massachusetts. There is no doubt, he said, that Scott Brown has just left us the recipe for success.
Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Here's what we know so far about another earthquake in Haiti: It measured a magnitude 6.1 this morning. That is a strong earthquake, though not nearly as powerful as last week's quake that destroyed so many buildings and lives. The quake did send people screaming into the streets and out of their damaged buildings this morning, and we're waiting to see if there is much more destruction. We are also waiting to see if security forces can keep the peace in Haiti over the coming days. Different parts of that job fall to the United Nations, the United States and Haitian security forces. NPR's Jackie Northam reports from Port-au-Prince.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
JACKIE NORTHAM: At the bottom of a rolling hill, which takes in spectacular views of the capital Port-au-Prince, thousands of Haitians wait impatiently to pick up food and water. Normally, this is the ninth hole of golf course at one of the city's premier country clubs.
Now, it's a forward operating base for U.S. troops, the 82nd Airborne, and it's a distribution site for relief supplies. In the morning, a group of some 8,000 to 10,000 Haitians jostle to the front of the line while U.S. military helicopters shuttled in boxes of food and water.
(Soundbite of helicopter)
NORTHAM: Local officials organize the lines and hand out the supplies, but it's American soldiers who keep order, sometimes attempting French, one of the local languages.
Unidentified Man #1: (French spoken)
NORTHAM: By late in the afternoon, the crowd on the side of the hill had swelled to about 25,000, and the food was gone. The crowd became rowdy, the situation tense.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
Unidentified Man #2: (French spoken)
NORTHAM: Officials yelled to the crowd to come back tomorrow, but this did little to calm the situation. Extra soldiers moved down the hill in case things got too far out of hand. U.S. Captain John Hartsock, in charge of the distribution site, ordered his men to take three steps back from the crowd and sit down. It was a gamble, but it did the trick. Many in the crowd also sat down, and the angry mood subsided.
Hartsock said he's never seen anything like it.
Captain JOHN HARTSOCK (U.S. Army): I'm thinking about possibly - you know, maybe not tomorrow, but the next day - if we're not in the distribution plan, have them sit down right off the bat. As soon as they come up here, they're sitting down. We've tried different things. Sometimes it goes smooth, sometimes it doesn't go smooth, and it's just that adjusting.
NORTHAM: Flexibility, constantly adjusting to the situation, may be the best strategy for U.S. and other international forces brought in to provide relief to the millions of Haitians left hungry and homeless by last week's earthquake. Roughly 11,000 American service personnel are here, offshore, or on their way to help in the relief operation. That will include providing protection at the aid-distribution sites, and instilling a sense of security on the streets.
Andre Bouchard, the chief security officer with the U.N., says some areas of the capital city are difficult to control.
Mr. ANDRE BOUCHARD (Chief Security Officer, United Nations): The thing is that we don't have, currently, a going order to say that we can contain specific areas. We have a situation where you can have looting happening roughly anywhere in downtown. Those are - it's not like a mob that's moving around. It's some groups. It could be there with individuals...
NORTHAM: Bouchard says he fears things will quickly get worse if relief supplies don't reach the people. Still, in spite of the crisis that has gripped this city, there are small moments of normalcy.
(Soundbite of car horn)
NORTHAM: Driving down a main thoroughfare, you can see throngs of people on the streets, small markets opening, and men washing and buffing their cars. But it doesn't take long before reality returns, when you see foreign troops patrolling the street and the long lines at the aid distribution sites.
Jackie Northam, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
One big provider of food aid after catastrophes is the U.N. World Food Program. The devastation in Haiti, though, is turning into one of its biggest challenges. By yesterday, it was just beginning to make a difference, as we heard from the World Food Program's David Orr when we reached him yesterday in Port-au-Prince.
Mr. DAVID ORR (U.N. World Food Program): We estimate that we've reached about 133,000 beneficiaries with some 880,000 rations. A ration is enough food for one person to last a day. And we're distributing mostly high-energy biscuits. These are fortified biscuits, and we have been distributing rice, pulses, oil and salt. Yesterday alone, we estimate we reached 95,000 beneficiaries in various locations in and around Port-au-Prince.
MONTAGNE: And of course, 95,000 is an enormous number, and yet we know that there are hundreds of thousands more there in need.
Mr. ORR: Well, that's correct. The need is absolutely enormous, as you say. Haitian government's estimate last week of 1 million people affected, a quarter of million people in urgent need. We are actually targeting 2 million people. Within the next week, we expect to move the equivalent of 10 million ready-to-eat meals, but it could take weeks, perhaps up to a month, before we can reach the 2 million target that we have set ourselves.
MONTAGNE: But you think you can do that?
Mr. ORR: Well, at the moment, things are going well, and every day things are improving in terms of coordination with the other partners, with the government, with U.N. peacekeepers, for example, who are actually now helping us with our distributions and providing military escorts. We're working closely with the Americans, who are obviously moving huge volumes of equipment and supplies.
We are flying, for example, high-energy biscuits into outlying areas. The town of Jacmel to the south, which was badly hit, was unreachable until recently because the road was down due to a mudslide. So every day, there is an improvement and there's a new development.
MONTAGNE: Tell us what it is like when you do bring food to the people. In the early days, when food arrived, that we saw near - sometimes pictures and heard of near riots of people trying to get what little there was. Is that still a problem for you? Do you need security forces to protect your staff and your supplies?
Mr. ORR: We do use security forces. We have been enjoying the services of the U.N. battalions on the distributions that I have accompanied. We've had Sri Lankan and Nepalese security organize the beneficiaries into orderly lines so everything goes as smooth as possible. I don't think we'd claim that all of these distributions are textbook, but I certainly haven't seen any instances of panic or anything out of control.
MONTAGNE: Your agency, I gather, is trying to set up places where people can come to get the food.
Mr. ORR: That is correct. We are establishing, as of this week, four fixed distribution points in the city of Port-au-Prince so that it will not just be a case of us going out and finding the people in the makeshift camps where they've congregated, but that they will have specific places within the city to which they will be able to come and whose locations they will know.
MONTAGNE: David Orr is with the World Food Program. Thank you very much for talking with us.
Mr. ORR: Thank you very much.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
A Senate committee is questioning top intelligence officials today to find out more about that attempted airline bombing on Christmas Day - in particular, why U.S. intelligence agencies didn't uncover the plot.
Senator Joe Lieberman is chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
Senator JOE LIEBERMAN (Independent, Connecticut): It's clear that information was being shared, which it wasn't pre-9/11, between the various intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies and Homeland Security people. But human error, as the president said, was made in handling that information. People didn't use good judgment.
MONTAGNE: You speak about human error - let me pose to you one of those moments. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - the embassy in Nigeria misspelled his name.
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yes.
MONTAGNE: May be a hard name to spell...
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yeah.
MONTAGNE: ...but the State Department initially didnt think he had a visa. You know...
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Boy, that's a terrible human error, but I will tell you that they discovered that within five days and there was still, what, 20 days before he got on the plane to come to the United States, to blow himself and a lot of other people up.
MONTAGNE: You were the architect of the legislation that created the National Counterterrorism Center after 9/11.
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yeah.
MONTAGNE: And specifically, this particular organization was created to connect the dots, bring together information.
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yeah. Look, the National Counterterrorism Center, to me, has been one of the unsung heroes of the post-9/11 Commission legislation years, because it really has been a place where all the people in the intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security communities sit, work together 24/7, 365 days a year, share information. But here's something that I want to ask the witnesses today. People at the National Counterterrorism Center have access to all the databases of all the agencies. There's total sharing. But I'm concerned that they dont have the easy ability to draw linkages between the various databases and...
MONTAGNE: Is that computers?
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yeah. That's...
MONTAGNE: Is that - literally, you cannot go in there and put Abdul Farouk, Nigerian, Yemen and come bring everything together?
Sen. LIEBERMAN: That's my concern. And I want to clarify that today. In other words, we all know that when we go into Google and we go into a subject matter, Google immediately searches an enormous number of databases. It's not clear to me that at the National Counterterrorism Center today, if you put in the name Umar Farouk, or even Nigerian, it will automatically cross-search all the intelligence and law enforcement databases it has. I want to find out whether that exists, and I'm afraid that it doesnt.
MONTAGNE: The director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who will be testifying before your committee, Michael Leiter...
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Right. Right.
MONTAGNE: ...spoke with NPR before the Christmas Day attack. And he had this to say...
Mr. MICHAEL LEITER (Director, National Counterterrorism Center): We're not going to stop every attack, but we have to do our best and we have to adjust based on, again, how the enemy changes their tactics.
MONTAGNE: Do you think its important for Americans to understand and accept that 100 percent success is not possible?
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yeah, look, realistically, in a society as open as ours, facing an enemy as inhumane and as little self-protecting of life as the Islamist extremist terrorists we're facing today, it's real hard to be 100 percent successful in stopping terrorist attacks against the United States. That's realism. But I will tell you something: It seems to me that our government, and we in Congress, ought to have the goal of stopping 100 percent of the attempts. And that's the aim of this hearing today.
MONTAGNE: Senator, thank you very much for talking with us.
Sen. LIEBERMAN: Thank you, Renee. Take care.
MONTAGNE: Senator Joe Lieberman is chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
And the attempted bombing of the Northwest plane was just the latest in a string of attacks linked to al-Qaida. You'll find a timeline of events linked to the group at our Web site, npr.org.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
NPR's Business News starts with an audit for the Federal Reserve.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: No less than the chairman of the Fed himself, Ben Bernanke, is calling for a full review of the Fed's $182 billion bailout of AIG. Bernanke sent a letter yesterday to the Government Accountability Office. That's the investigative arm of Congress. And he said he would welcome an investigation into the Fed's decisions and actions in the bailout. This is a conciliatory move, which comes at a key moment for Bernanke. His term as Fed chief is up at the end of the month, and some members of Congress are working to block confirmation for his next term.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Japan Airlines filed for bankruptcy yesterday, and it's one of the largest bankruptcies in Japan's history. JAL says it will keep flying, and two U.S. airlines remain interested in partnering with it.
NPR's Adam Hochberg reports.
ADAM HOCHBERG: The Japan Airlines that emerges from bankruptcy will be but a shadow of the company that once symbolized Japanese pride around the world. As part of its effort to erase a $25 billion debt, JAL will slash its flight schedule and lay off about a third of its workforce.
Analyst Richard Aboulafia says JAL adapted slowly to increased competition and to the world economic slowdown. Now, he says, it has to belatedly take steps to survive.
Mr. RICHARD ABOULAFIA (Analyst): They'll stay in business. They're just going to be in a smaller form because of the environment of the past 18 months. They have no choice but to cut capacity drastically.
HOCHBERG: Even in its weakened state, though, JAL still finds itself the target of a competition between two U.S. airlines: Delta and American. Both are seeking marketing partnerships with it.
Brett Snyder, who writes a blog called the Cranky Flier, says JAL has something U.S. airlines desperately need: takeoff and landing slots in Asia.
Mr. BRETT SNYDER (Blog Writer, Cranky Flier): Tokyo is still heavily slot-restricted at both of its airports, and Japan Airlines holds a ton of slots at those airports. So you need to be aligned with them, if youre a U.S. carrier, to create a network.
HOCHBERG: JAL currently is part of American's OneWorld network. But Delta's trying to lure it into the SkyTeam alliance. The U.S. airlines each are offering a billion dollars or more to the ailing Japanese company.
Adam Hochberg, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Our last word in business today: Skype. Traffic is soaring on that free, Internet-based calling service. According to the research firm TeleGeography, the number of calls on Skype grew much faster than the overall growth in overseas calls. Despite losing market share, it's not all doom and gloom for conventional phone companies.
Ian Fogg is an analyst for the marketing research firm Forrester Research.
Mr. IAN FOGG (Analyst, Forrester Research): People are communicating a lot more. People are making more phone calls. They're using instant messaging. They're using email. They're using Skype. They're using other ways of - using the Internet to talk.
MONTAGNE: So rather than treating Web-based phone services as rivals, British and European phone companies have decided it would be more lucrative to friend them by investing in them.
That's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep.
We are just beginning to get a glimpse of the scale of destruction beyond the capital of Haiti. This morning we'll travel outside Port-au-Prince to report on the aftermath of last weeks earthquake.
MONTAGNE: We'll hear from the Haitian city of Jacmel. Its on the southern coast. Its known for art and French colonial architecture, and as we heard this week on MORNING EDITION, tourism officials had been promoting its potential for future business.
NPRs Greg Allen went to see what remains of Jacmel now.
GREG ALLEN: The road to Jacmel is a narrow two-lane highway thats just reopened. As were driving, we see portions where the road is cracked and looked in danger of sliding down the mountains. Rock slides that block the road have been recently cleared but its still a hair-raising journey. After a few hours drive, we finally arrived at beach front town that until last week could be called charming.
Mr. WESHEL JEAN(ph): You see this (unintelligible) book called "Lonely Planet." You see my name on a page, on page 381. (Unintelligible) tourists around here. There was a lot of tourists but right now there is none.
ALLEN: Weshel Jean is a guide who seems to know everything and everybody in Jacmel, including most of the large expatriate community. People like Paul Baruch(ph).
Ms. PAUL BARUCH: Everything was moving. Do you know what it means, everything?
ALLEN: Baruch has lived with her husband, Murrow(ph), in Jacmel now for 30 years. She says she was sitting outside with friends when the earthquake hit.
Ms. BARUCH: And then suddenly we heard a noise coming from the (unintelligible). And then it start moving slowly and as the moving was stronger, then the noise was stronger until you could not hear anything but the noise. Ah, it was terrible.
ALLEN: The Baruchs live in Jacmels historic section near the waterfront -mostly two storey stone buildings with iron work and balconies reminiscent of New Orleans French quarter. Its now in ruins. Baruch says she doesnt know how shell pay for the repairs to her home. While we're talking Baruch, runs into a friend, Georgette Dujay(ph), who says she has decided to leave the country and move back to New York.
Ms. GEORGETTE DUJAY: Downtown is finished completely. So we need help to reconstruct everything, to rebuild Jacmel.
ALLEN: Residents believe their best hope lies in convincing architecture and historic preservation groups to come in and help rebuild and restore Jacmels treasures.
Unidentified Man: Watch your back.
ALLEN: Clean-up is already underway. Canadian troops arrived this week and immediately began using shovels to clear streets of rubble. Compared to Port-au-Prince, the devastation here is manageable. Except for the old section, individual buildings, not entire neighborhoods, were demolished in the earthquake. There were deaths here, but they're in the hundreds, not like Port-au-Prince, in the tens of thousands. Its a city where rebuilding seems possible and which is already starting to grow.
(Soundbite of vehicles)
ALLEN: At Jacmels bus station, vehicles arrive steadily from Port-au-Prince overloaded with passengers. Its a similar scene in provincial cities all over Haiti. Yolan Nelson(ph) says she is returning to her hometown because there really is no other choice.
Ms. YOLAN NELSON: (Through translator) Yeah. I think things are really dangerous in Port-au-Prince because people are dying. We are running for our lives because of the earthquake - because of the earthquake thats killing people in Port-au-Prince.
ALLEN: Where all the newcomers will live in Jacmel is another question. There are five encampments of people whose homes were destroyed or which were too dangerous to sleep in. On a visit to one camp, conditions seemed manageable and vastly better than the unsanitary and overcrowded camps in Port-au-Prince. While the numbers are smaller, fewer homes demolished, fewer dead and injured than in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel has its share of tragedy. Natasha Atien(ph) was part of a small crowd yesterday, examining a pile of rubble that used to be a school. I asked her how many students died.
Ms. NATASHA ATIEN: (Through translator) They lost their life. There are a lot(ph) - I really dont know because there are so many people who died inside.
ALLEN: Not far from the school, a crowd was gathered around the house where a search and rescue team was working. We stopped to see what was going on.
(Soundbite of baby crying)
ALLEN: Its an amazing scene here. We came across a rescue operation that pulled a baby out of a crushed house, seven days after the earthquake. The baby doesnt look like it could more than a month, two months old, and rescuers here are diapering it in the back of a pick-up truck.
How can one baby survive that long without water...
Mr. FRANCE LAMBERT(ph): Thats a miracle, man, a miracle.
ALLEN: France Lambert had it right. There seemed to be no other way to describe it. Its the kind of miracle Haiti will need a lot more of in the weeks and months ahead.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Jacmel.
INSKEEP: The ragged voice of NPRs Greg Allen, who's been on the ground for us since shortly after the earthquake.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States is sending additional ships to help with the recovery effort, including one equipped with cranes to clear debris from the port in Haitis capital. That port was destroyed by the earthquake, which is slowing down the flow of supplies. This is just one part of the U.S. military commitment. The U.S. expects to have about 5,000 Marines and soldiers on the ground in Haiti in the next few days. We are going to discuss the growing military presence with NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. He joins us now live. Tom, good morning.
TOM BOWMAN: Morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: What exactly is the U.S. militarys definition of its mission in Haiti?
BOWMAN: Well, the U.S. military says that their main effort now is to distribute food and to move that food and aid beyond the capital. We now have Marines on the ground at L�ogane. They tried to an airfield at Jacmel. And that is their main focus. They say they will provide security as well and they already provided security, for example, for a drop zone, when they dropped food and water in the other day.
So, again, the main effort: deliver aid.
INSKEEP: Although that gets you mentioned security - that gets to a complicated point. What exactly are the rules of engagement for them, particularly in a situation where there's a lot of fear of violence and many people may need security, civilians may feel they need security?
BOWMAN: Well, all they're saying now is that U.S. troops can defend themselves. They're not really talking much, and they never really talk much about rules of engagement. But I don't get a sense right now that they consider it all that dangerous. It's not like Afghanistan, where I've been, where you have detailed rules of engagement.
At this point they're really just focusing on delivering the aid. And the sense I get is they're not all that worried about violence. But clearly in a desperate situation like this anything could happen. They were seeing some incidents of violence, a bit of rioting.
But one of the commanders, Major General Allen, yesterday told us there's relative calm at this point.
INSKEEP: Is the U.S. military, are the officers you speak with, anyway, at all concerned about an expanding mission for the United States military in Haiti simply because the resources are there and so many other resources and governmental bodies are having trouble functioning at all?
BOWMAN: Oh yeah, I think so. I mean, what the Americans will say is that, hey, listen, we have 9,000 U.N. peacekeepers; we have 2,000 Haitian police out there now. But with the capabilities of the United States, with its wealth and its weaponry and all these ships heading down there, the sense is that, you know, the U.S. military could be there - Defense Secretary Gates says they'll be there for some time - but we could possibly see an expanded role down there, possibly with security, as we move into the weeks and months ahead. There's absolutely no doubt about that.
INSKEEP: Does it becomes at some point a challenge for the U.S. military already having big commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq to find troops to put down there and perhaps to rotate through there for a period of months or even longer?
BOWMAN: We could - that could be a problem in the coming months, but at this point, you know, they have the brigade of the 82nd on the ground - they're always on standby for something like this, and the Marines too. You're not talking about a lot of troops at this point. I think 5,000 boots on the ground is something they can easily handle.
But again, if this lasts, you know, many months, yes, absolutely, it could be something of a burden while you still have a large commitment of troops in Iraq and a growing one in Afghanistan.
INSKEEP: We're talking with NPR's Tom Bowman. He covers the U.S. military and he's reporting this morning on the U.S. military involvement in Haiti. And tom, I wonder if this is a place where there's a sense of familiarity for the U.S. military, simply because they've been in and out of that country for generations now.
BOWMAN: That's right. And let's face it, the American military has a checkered past down in Haiti, and the Marines in particular. They occupied the country early in the 1900s to protect American interests. They occupied it for almost 20 years. And they fought the rebels down there that opposed U.S. occupation and killed quite a few people.
But in more recent years, the Marines have been seen as a positive influence down there, providing security and also food aid as well.
INSKEEP: NPR's Tom Bowman. Tom, thanks very much.
BOWMAN: You're welcome, Steve.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
It was one year ago today that Barack Obama took the oath of office to become the 44th president of the United States. It was a time of great promise and his approval ratings reflected the hope the American people had placed in him. A year later, much has changed.
Yesterday, the Democrats and President Obama suffered a stunning loss in Massachusetts and the end of his 60-seat Democratic majority in the Senate. NPR's Mara Liasson reports.
MARA LIASSON: It wasn't even close. In the very blue state of Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown comfortably beat Martha Coakley to capture the once-safe Democratic Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy. Now the White House has to digest what the results mean for the president's agenda. Neil Newhouse is Brown's pollster.
Mr. NEIL NEWHOUSE (Pollster): This is an absolutely devastating blow to the president, and it's in Massachusetts of all states. This is going to shake Washington and shake the Obama administration. What is really interesting is even among the voters we polled in this race, a majority of them approve of the job that Obama's doing. You know, what the message these voters are sending is that Washington is not listening to us.
LIASSON: According to Gallup, Mr. Obama now has the second-lowest national approval rating of any modern president at this point. He's at 50 percent approval. Reagan was slightly lower, at 49. The White House attributes this drop to the huge plate of problems he inherited. Dan Pfeiffer is the White House communications director.
Mr. DAN PFEIFFER (White House Communications Director): This president came into office at a time of tremendous economic crisis, with two wars, with a series of unprecedented challenges. We've had to make very tough decisions, and they were not politically popular, but they were necessary. These are tough times. I mean, people are going to be discontented, and they should. And the president understands that.
LIASSON: But the president hasn't been able to convince Americans that he does, and as Neil Newhouse points out, his political capital has diminished to the point where he wasn't able to lend a hand to an embattled Democrat even in Massachusetts.
Mr. NEWHOUSE: In our polling in Massachusetts - we polled through the time that Obama actually came up to campaign for Martha Coakley - he didn't change any votes. He had no positive impact either in New Jersey or Virginia, in the gubernatorial races, or in this U.S. Senate election. I mean, people like him but he doesn't have the pull he had before.
LIASSON: Democratic pollster Peter Hart conducted a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll out today, which also found President Obama to be personally popular, but, Hart says, the voters haven't seen the change he promised them.
Mr. PETER HART (Democratic Pollster): They still see the financial institutions getting special bonuses. They still look at persistent high unemployment and a concern about what's around the corner. So the reflection is starting to be much more about this president than the situation he inherited.
LIASSON: The immediate question facing the president is what to do about health care. The Democrats seem convinced that they need to push ahead despite voter disapproval because failing to pass their number one priority would be political suicide. But with Republicans in lockstep opposition and without a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate, the Democrats' options to get health care through Congress quickly are limited and political unpalatable.
Beyond health care, the president always planned to pivot this year to a relentless focus on the economy, and that hasn't changed, says White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.
Mr. ROBERT GIBBS (White House Press Secretary): Whether there are 59 seats in the Senate or 60, we still have to work hard to get our economy back on track. We still have to work hard to make the promise of affordable, accessible health care for millions of Americans a reality. I don't believe that there's an entirely new agenda based on the result in Massachusetts.
LIASSON: But former Clinton White House aide Bill Galston says successful presidents from Kennedy to Reagan to Clinton know how to acknowledge and learn from their setbacks.
Mr. BILL GALSTON (Former Clinton White House Aide): It's time for the administration to pause, reflect, recalibrate, and if the message is steady as she goes, I think they'll pay an even bigger price than they will anyway.
LIASSON: Galston says the president has a short-term political judgment to make about the health care bill, but he has a much broader question to answer about his agenda for 2010 and beyond.
Mr. GALSTON: The American people, I believe, have sent a very clear signal that they want their government to be focused on the things that they think are most important, and those things are clearly jobs and economic growth, full-stop. And that means not climate change, it means not immigration reform, it means that the agenda for 2010 and beyond, until this economy recovers enough so that people can begin to think about other things, should be economic, period.
LIASSON: One week from today, when President Obama delivers his State of the Union address, voters will find out how he is planning to respond to the message from Massachusetts.
Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
So that's one major story we're following this morning; another, of course, is the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. And we're going to hear some of the sounds of that aftermath next. Even in the midst of the rubble, there are moments of reprieve, and NPR's Carrie Kahn sent us an audio postcard.
CARRIE KAHN: For those who survived the earthquake, daily life in the Haitian capital is consumed with enduring hunger, thirst and pain.
(Soundbite of singing)
KAHN: But there are breaks in the collective trauma - moments that can even bring a crowd to its feet and fill a dusty homeless encampment with song.
(Soundbite of singing)
KAHN: Women and children form a circle, chanting praise for Joshua's victory in Jericho. They call out for the walls to come down - a sadly ironic song in a city in ruin. Still, for them, it brings joy.
(Soundbite of singing)
KAHN: More people join in, the circle swells, and the beat becomes more frantic. Soon, everyone raises their hands to the sky, then points to the ground.
(Soundbite of singing and chanting)
KAHN: They sing long live God, death to Satan. This impromptu religious revival lasts for nearly an hour, tiring bodies yet freeing minds from the stress of daily survival.
That stress can be all-consuming during the pushing, yelling and shoving necessary to reach the front of the line. Yet even during the jostling behind the water tanker, there are moments of ecstatic relief.
(Soundbite of squealing)
KAHN: This woman lets out a squeal as she finally fills her large bucket with cool water.
(Soundbite of squealing)
KAHN: It was the first she had received in five days.
Not all cathartic moments are public. I saw one elderly woman nearly hidden by the leaves of the low-hanging tree. She said her simple song helped calm her tired nerves.
Unidentified Woman: (Singing) Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
KAHN: Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
Unidentified Woman: (Singing) Hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen. Hallelujah, hallelujah, amen.
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This was a week when two popular novelists died, Erich Segal and Robert B. Parker. They wrote very different stories, but their best known novels are set in almost the same place. NPRs Karen Grigsby Bates has this appreciation.
(Soundbite of song, "Love Story")
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES: If you were in America, in college, or in love in the early 1970s, you cant help but recognize that as the theme to Love Story, the movie based on the 1970 novel by Erich Segal. The doomed romance between two Harvard students from sharply different backgrounds included a lot of spiky repartee and this famous exchange, which occurred after a big argument.
(Soundbite of movie, Love Story)
Mr. RYAN ONEAL (As Oliver Barrett IV): Jenny, Im sorry.
Ms. ALI MACGRAW (As Jennifer Cavalleri): Don't. Love means never having to say youre sorry.
BATES: While Segal was writing about lovers in Cambridge, Robert Parker was focusing on the other side of the Charles River - Boston. Parkers hero, a boxer turned private investigator named Spenser, was as tough as the P.I.s created by his literary forefathers, Dashiell Hammett,�Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. Best-selling mystery writer Robert Crais�says that iconic trio should be enlarged to include Parker.
Mr. ROBERT CRAIS�(Author): He deserves a place with those others, because he not only reinvigorated the detective novel in America, but he virtually recreated it.
BATES: His predecessors lived in dives and sleuthed in a mono-cultural world. But Spenser was different. He lived in a nice apartment in a lovely Boston neighborhood. His best friend was a black man named Hawk. Robert Urich and Avery Brooks portrayed the duo in the 1980s CBS drama based on Parkers books.
(Soundbite of TV show, Spenser: For Hire)
Mr. ROBERT URICH (As Spenser): Hawk, I want justice as badly as you do, but theres go to be another way.
Mr. AVERY BROOKS (As Hawk): Don't let that halo slip down over your eyes sometime when Im not around. I really would miss you.
BATES: Instead of being a loner, Spenser is devoted to his girlfriend Susan, a Harvard psychologist who is equally devoted to him. Boston is as much of a character in Parkers 37 Spenser novels as his people are.
In this 2008 MORNING EDITION interview, Parker tells NPRs Lynn Neary a scenic bridge in the Boston Public Garden reappears in several of his books because its a great place for bad guys to meet. Parker says bad things happening in beautiful places is something he borrowed from Renaissance painters.
Mr. ROBERT PARKER (Author): They would always put death in the picture, as you'd paint some landscape and death would be in a corner there. And I think that the more idyllic and pastoral the environment, the more the non-pastoral, non-idyllic stands out.
BATES: Parkers real life was far less complex. Married to his childhood sweetheart for more than 50 years, Parker loved being a husband, father and friend. Cambridge neighbor Kate Mattes�stocked his books in her mystery bookstore, where hed often stop by to visit.
Ms. Kate Mattes�(Former owner, Kates Mystery Books): I saw him within the last two weeks. And I said, do you ever think youll do anything - that youll ever stop writing. He said, Not until the day I die.
BATES: Which is exactly what happened. On Tuesday, Robert Parker died sitting at his writing desk, doing what he loved. He was 77 years old.
Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. Im Renee Montagne.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep. Were still trying to learn more about the latest earthquake in Haiti. The U.S. Geological Survey says the preliminary reading is a magnitude of 6.0, which is weaker than the disastrous quake of last week, but still strong. And well get you more information about the damage, if any, from that quake, as we learn it.
Even as people respond to that many Haitians are thinking about leaving their country. NPRs Jason Beaubien reports from Port-au-Prince.
(Soundbite of horn honking.
JASON BEAUBIEN: Buses departing the capital for the north of the country leave from the station in the slum of Cite Soleil. Calling it a bus station is an overstatement. Its simply a place where old American school buses and flatbed trucks gather passengers on the street and then roll out of town. The area is always chaotic, but its been even busier lately as desperate residents try to leave the severely damaged city.
Ms. JUANITA LORA LI(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: Its not possible to live in Port-au-Prince right now, says Juanita Lora Li, because we don't have a house. Its just two sheets that we put up to sleep under and to cover our stuff. I don't know when Im going to come back. Shes trying to get to Cape Haitian with her sister and three children.
(Soundbite of crowd)
The old school buses that provide long haul transportation in Haiti are painted in bright colors, music blares inside and young men pile luggage into teetering pyramids on the roofs. Drivers say theyre departing the city with their buses completely packed and coming back with them almost empty.
Jean Claude Lepreatans(ph) hustling his family of nine towards a bus.
Mr. JEAN CLAUDE LEPREATAN: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: Our opinion is that the country is stuck right now, Lepreatan says. Families are just trying to move to another city.
Haitian officials estimate that the tembler killed at least 200,000 people and has left one and a half million displaced. Much of downtown Port-au-Prince was completely destroyed and neighborhoods throughout the city are flattened. People are also trying to get out at the airport. Huge crowds form whenever theres a flight or the potential for a flight or a rumor of a flight.
Outside the U.S. embassy, yesterday, hundreds of Haitians were trying to get visas to the states. Troops from the 882nd Airborne herded people into long lines in the midday sun. There were even reports that some people were trying to leave in boats.
(Soundbite of horns honking)
Back at the bus depot in Cite Soleil, Marta Josef(ph) is standing forlornly at the curb along with her seven-year-old niece. Two suitcases and several bundles wrapped in bed sheets are at her feet. Theyre trying to get to Cape Haitian, too. The bus fare is roughly 20 U.S. dollars per person, which Josef doesnt have.
Ms. MARTA JOSEF: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: I don't have the money to go, she says. Her house collapsed in the quake. She lost most of her belongings, including her cash. Shes been sleeping outside for the past week. And she says she hasnt seen any relief distributions. Josef says she can't survive in Port-au-Prince, and shes hoping one of the bus drivers will let her and her niece ride for free.
Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Many people who try, about this time of year, to work off their extra holiday pounds, spend time doing it in front of the television. You grab a remote, plant yourself on a balance board and assume that youre getting a real workout there in front of the TV.
NPRs Allison Keyes asks if that assumption is true.
ALLISON KEYES: Youve seen them - the indoor fitness fanatics. Not the ones crowded into a roomful of sweaty classmates, but the ones at home, working out with their TV video game trainer.
(Soundbite of video game)
Unidentified Man: Lets work together on improving your posture. Lets do the warrior pose together.
KEYES: For would be workout warriors like 24-year-old Chris Sterbank, programs like the Nintendo Wii Fit mean motivation and sometimes big changes.
Mr. CHRIS STERBANK: I lost about 30 pounds doing it.
KEYES: He says he started out with the yoga and was encouraged by the outcome, even though it wasnt much at first.
Mr. STERBANK: I did about a week with just solely Wii, and I saw that I was losing weight, just, I think, it was three-quarters of a pound or something, but I saw a result.
KEYES: But the game eventually suggested other changes to Sterbank, which led to a better diet and a daily run of up to 20 minutes away from the TV.
Mr. STERBANK: The more you play the more it kind of responds to you. So it would say like if I put it to roll late at night, it would say oh, try not playing it so late or well, then it would also suggest like why not try going for a run. So I was like, okay, I'll do it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. STERBANK: Ill do it.
(Soundbite of running on treadmill)
Ms. SARAH NATHAN: I think I can do it on my own and I dont need to buy a $200, $250 console to do it.
KEYES: Sarah Nathan, a 22-year-old New Jersey native, says she has friends like Chris who have gotten good results from video game workouts, but she prefers real training like running outside or on treadmills.
Ms. NATHAN: Normally I try to do between, Id say 45 to 90 minutes of cardio daily, depending on what Im doing.
Mr. CEDRIC BRYANT (Chief Science Officer, American Council on Exercise): The real thing is going to pay greater dividends in terms of calorie burn.
KEYES: Cedric Bryant is chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise which recently studied the fitness benefits of the Wii Fit and Dance Town. Dance Town is a video game where participants follow on-screen prompts to dance steps.
(Soundbite of song, "The Locomotion")
Unidentified Woman: (Singing) Everybody's doing a brand new dance, now. Come on baby, do the Locomotion.
KEYES: Bryant says the study found that generally, video game workouts alone arent enough of a good thing. Take the running games on the Wii for example.
Mr. BRYANT: The Free Run and the Island Run yielded about five and a half calories per minute. Real running you would expect to get about twice that.
KEYES: The study found that just using the Wii isnt enough for people in their twenties or for older folk who are reasonably fit. But Bryant says Dance Towns moderate and hard levels are sufficient for many older adults, especially those who are sedentary. Denitra Greer, a Washington D.C. based personnel trainer, explains why one should combine the video game workouts with cardio and weight training.
Ms. DENITRA GREER (Personal Trainer): Well, you still dont have enough resistance and you may not have the full range of motion as you think you do, because they dont challenge that. Whereas, with weight machines and exercise equipment, it challenges your range of motion, and it puts you in a place where you have to use work in certain areas versus a game system.
Unidentified Man: All right. Do this together. Right, walk. Left, walk...
KEYES: Greer says you should get to the gym two or three times in a week, in addition to your video fitness games. But Bryant hopes that just the fun of the games will get enough people off their butts and moving, and active people are healthier people.
Allison Keyes, NPR News, Washington.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning. Im Renee Montagne. Once upon a morning dreary, people waited weak and weary, near the grave of Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore. Each year someone dressed in black, face obscured by a wide brimmed hat, left a present for Poe's birthday. Rose and some cognac had been left, always before. This week, after more than 60 years, no one came, raising fears that Poes mystery mourner might be seen nevermore.
Its MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
A British woman finally made it home for Christmas. Before last month's holiday, she went out to buy a Christmas turkey. She and her husband live in a cottage on Cape Wrath, at the northwestern tip of Britain. Getting inland involved a car drive, a boat trip and a bus ride. And snow blocked her return trip for almost a month. After the weather improved, she told the BBC: We knew when we moved here, it was going to be quite a harsh environment. You're listening to MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
We have more information now about the latest development surrounding the Transportation Security Administration. President Obama's nominee to lead that office has withdrawn from consideration. In a statement, Erroll Southers said he was pulling out because his nomination had become, quote, a lightning rod for those with a political agenda.
NPR's Brian Naylor is covering this story. He's in our studios. Brian, good morning.
BRIAN NAYLOR: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Why did he consider himself a lightning rod?
NAYLOR: There were two issues. One involved whether to grant collective bargaining rights to TSA employees, the screeners that we all see at the airport. Republican Jim DeMint from South Carolina had put a hold on Southers' nomination because he said Southers wasn't clear about whether he would allow the screeners to organize. They're already allowed to join a union, but they've not, up until now, been given collective bargaining rights.
INSKEEP: And then you see both security and a political dilemma here. The question, from the security standpoint, is how could you allow them the theoretical right to strike - say, if there's going to be some security emergency and...
NAYLOR: Right.
INSKEEP: ...of course, the other side is someone just against unions, basically.
NAYLOR: Well, that's exactly it. The Democrats, from President Obama and Secretary Napolitano, have said that you can have both. You can have collective bargaining rights with limits on job actions, and the flexibility to deploy people where they're needed. So - and it seems as though there were the 60 votes up until today in the Senate to pass the nomination despite the hold, and he had some Republican support. The ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Susan Collins, had, in the past, supported him. So it's not clear exactly where the numbers lie.
INSKEEP: Although there was this other issue, as well, having to do with Southers' past and a background check that he had ordered while in government service in the past.
NAYLOR: That's right. He was a former FBI agent and some two decades ago, took the opportunity to do a background check on the boyfriend of his then-estranged wife. He originally told the committee in his nomination hearing, in his confirmation hearing that he had asked an employee of the San Diego Police Department to run the background check. He later amended that to admit that, in fact, he had done the check himself. And he had been reprimanded by the FBI for doing that.
Again, the committee leaders, the chairman, Senator Lieberman - the independent from Connecticut - and the ranking Republican, Collins, said that Southers continued to have their support. But apparently, it seems as though maybe that support has withered in the past couple of days.
INSKEEP: So a bit of a mystery, at least as of this morning, as to why the White House would fold the tent here, or that Erroll Southers personally would fold the tent. But in any event, he is pulling out. He's withdrawing his nomination to head the Transportation Security Administration. You see their employees - if you're at an airport, you see TSA on the shoulders of the security guards there. It's a very important agency right now. What is this withdrawal mean for the leadership of that agency?
NAYLOR: Well, they've been without a permanent leader since President Obama took office. And this an agency - as you say, they're on the frontlines of the battle to keep terrorists from boarding aircraft. Their role has come into question in this most recent incident, on the Christmas Day alleged bombing attempt by the Nigerian man. There have also been controversies lately about a TSA screening manual that appeared online. So there's a lot of leadership issues there.
INSKEEP: Questions for somebody else to take over now. NPR's Brian Naylor, bringing us up to date.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And I'm Renee Montagne. Even before an earthquake destroyed Port-au-Prince, the plight of the city's orphans was heart-rending. Now, there are many more orphaned children, and like thousands of people in the Haitian capital, they're living amid the rubble.
INSKEEP: We've reached NPR's Jason Beaubien. He is in Port-au-Prince. And Jason, where are you? What are you seeing?
JASON BEAUBIEN: Well, at the moment, I'm at an orphanage. They were completely full when the earthquake hit, and one of the striking things here is that more people keep bringing children here, and they just simply have to turn them away because they don't have the capacity, they don't have the resources to take new - any more children.
INSKEEP: So, very crowded orphanage there in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. What does anybody want to do with a building full of Haitian orphans? What are the plans?
BEAUBIEN: They would like to airlift all of them to the United States immediately, is what they would like to do. And they're in the process - these children were probably going to get adopted to Americans at some point. Some of them were in the process. Some - about 10 of them here actually had U.S. passports, and there are some little glitches that are holding them up. They're trying to get all of that worked out and basically just get these kids out of here because at this point, the entire city is in no way capable of supporting even just people that can function and can work. So they're really hoping to just get all of these orphans out of Port-au-Prince.
INSKEEP: Jason, how old are the orphans that you're visiting?
BEAUBIEN: There are babies that are in a, basically, a dilapidated Isuzu delivery truck. The babies sleep in the back of that truck. And then under a tarp, there are, sort of, kids who are a little bit older, probably two to five. And then they range all the way up to 15. And, obviously, the teenagers are outside. But everyone is sleeping outside at the moment, 150 orphans, and they're all sleeping out in the open.
INSKEEP: Is there food and water there for them?
BEAUBIEN: At the moment, they have water, and they've gotten - they have gotten some relief supplies brought in here. And they say they're still quite concerned about medicine. They're concerned about medical care. There's been -some of the kids have been getting sick. But they have gotten a few shipments of supplies into here.
INSKEEP: Is there a reasonable number of surviving adults to care for these very, very small children?
BEAUBIEN: Yes, there actually is. Because so many other people are displaced -there are quite a few Haitian women who have moved into the compound here and are just living with these orphans.
INSKEEP: And when you talk about infants in an Isuzu truck, what about the orphanage building or buildings themselves? Did they survive?
BEAUBIEN: Their building actually survived quite well. It had some damage. They haven't really had a chance to completely assess it, and that is part of why (unintelligible) that, and the fact that people are afraid to be sleeping inside. Obviously, after that incredibly powerful quake, there's great fear of getting back into buildings that people don't know whether or not they're safe.
INSKEEP: When, as you said, orphans are brought to this very full orphanage and are turned away, what is happening to those children?
BEAUBIEN: Every orphanage we've been to has said that they're just simply turning the kids away. It's kind of unclear what's happening with them. Probably, they're getting absorbed in with the other people who are sleeping on the streets, but those children are incredibly vulnerable. It's very unclear what's going to happen to an untold number of kids who have lost both their parents from this quake.
INSKEEP: NPR's Jason Beaubien is in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Jason, thanks very much.
BEAUBIEN: You're welcome, Steve.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
The U.S. has sent in a half dozen medical and surgical teams to treat the injured in Haiti. One, called the International Medical and Surgical Response Unit set up a makeshift hospital next to a soccer field earlier this week. We spoke to NPRs Joanne Silberner, when they first got there. This morning, she tells us the story of a woman who was treated at the surgical hospital with an unexpected complication.
JOANNE SILBERNER: Forty-year-old Denise Bazile is lying on an operating table made of pipes and wheels put together in a hurry. She is clearly still stunned and scared. She stares at the wall of the hospital tent and then at all the surgical equipment around her.
Ms. DENISE BAZILE: (Foreign language spoken)
SILBERNER: A brick wall fell down on her, she says. She was selling butter in an open air market. Both her lower legs were badly broken and she couldnt walk. Her 21-year-old son, Wondu, was at home when the quake hit. He had no idea where his mother was.
Mr. WONDU BAZILE: (Foreign language spoken)
SILBERNER: He found her the next day and paid $60 Haitian to help get her to a hospital. All they could do there was bandage her legs and then send her out.
Mr. BAZILE: (Foreign language spoken)
SILBERNER: Their house is unlivable. They've been camping out in a field. She was in terrible pain for six days. He got his mother here to this field hospital Monday when the U.S. team began arriving. They operated on her Tuesday.
In the operating room before the surgery begins, Nurse Roberta Dee tells me Bazile has been a great patient.
Ms. ROBERTA DEE (Nurse): If this were in the United States, man, and we had two broken legs, they would be screaming. They're so grateful to any little thing.
SILBERNER: With Bazile lying there quietly, Dee shows me the X-rays.
Ms. DEE: Her fractures, as you can see, this - she went to see a local doctor first and they did X-rays. But you can see, look at the bone, these are her legs. See the breaks?
SILBERNER: The bones aren't just broken. They're out of alignment. Orthopedic surgeon Christopher Born is going to stabilize Bazile's legs using something called an external fixator. It's done sometimes to stabilize a bad fracture for a few days or weeks until an internal metal rod can be inserted.
An anesthesiologist moves to Denise's head and the procedure begins. Born and his colleague James Kreig begin by making small incisions.
Dr. CHRISTOPHER BORN (Orthopedic Surgeon): We're going to have two sets of pins: one above the fracture and one below the fracture, and then a system of clamps and bars that go between the pins. And we'll try to align the fracture...
SILBERNER: At the end of the 45 minute procedure, Denise Bazile has what looks like scaffolding on each leg, held by pins going through her legs into her bones. Dr. Born is happy with the way the surgery went. The next day the doctors have arranged to get Bazile to the Comfort, the U.S. Navy ship, where she can have a permanent internal rod placed in each leg. But here's where the unexpected complication comes in.
(Soundbite of helicopter)
SILBERNER: When the helicopter arrives to take her away, Denise Bazile refuses to go. Her house has been destroyed. She can't walk. She doesn't want to be flown off to a ship or anywhere else unless her sister, who did survive, can come by first. And her sister can't be found.
At this point, Henri Ford walks up. He's a native Haitian, a surgeon with positions at the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. He's the camp fixer - doing surgery and helping the staff with cultural differences. He enters the tent and talks to Bazile. Even he can't convince her.
Dr. HENRI FORD (Surgeon): My people are stubborn. They know what they want.
SILBERNER: So she doesn't get transferred, and now...
Dr. FORD: She's going to stay here, I think. We will have some serious hard choices to make. If we need the place to take care of more acutely injured people, we will have to put her in the hallway. You know, this is combat zone.
SILBERNER: The staff will discuss trying to get her back in line to get on the Navy hospital ship. Within a few weeks, she'll need a second operation if she can find a hospital where she can get care.
Joanne Silberner, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Returning to the story of Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army Major charged in last years Fort Hood shooting, NPR has learned the Army has told some of the psychiatrists supervising Hasan at Walter Reed Hospital that it's investigating them and they may face punishment.
The Army said it will decide whether the doctors, quote, "failed to take appropriate action" against Hasan and were derelict in their duties. One name on the list of supervisor is a surprise, as NPRs Daniel Zwerdling reports.
DANIEL ZWERDLING: The evidence shows that a lot of doctors were worried about Nidal Hasan for years. The evidence also shows that only one supervisor actively tried to kick Hasan out of the psychiatry program. His name is Scott Moran. So heres the surprise.
Sources involved in the investigation say that Scott Moran is one of the officers who's now in big trouble. Moran wouldn't comment, but the sources tell NPR that all the supervisors under investigation are fairly low level officers, like Moran. Hes a major.
Mr. GARY MYERS (Attorney): They're attacking the wrong target.
ZWERDLING: Gary Myers is a lawyer who's representing another psychiatrist, whom he acknowledges is under investigation. His client is Colonel Charles Engel. Engel was Hasan's main supervisor in the fellowship program at the military's medical school. Myers says the Armys trying to find scapegoats. He says everybody knows by now that officials in the nation's intelligence agencies bear at least some responsibility for what happened at Fort Hood.
Mr. MYERS: The notion that it is attributable to lower-level physicians who were also mentors strikes me as being a bullet fired high and to the right.
ZWERDLING: Spokesmen for the Army said they won't confirm or deny that they've notified any officers that they're under investigation.
As you might remember, NPR reported troubling details about Hasans medical career back in November. We reported that right after Scott Moran took over the psychiatric residents program back in March 2007, he reviewed Hasan's record and he told colleagues they should get rid of him.
Moran�wrote a memo to the powerful credentials committee. The memo denounced Hasan for a pattern of poor judgment and a lack of professionalism. But sources and documents confirm that higher-ups told Moran to back off. They said going after Hasan might cause legal hassles.
Next, Hasan went to a fellowship at the military's medical university. And documents show that supervisors there got upset too. Some of Hasans supervisors were concerned that Hasan seemed to have extremist Islamic beliefs. Hasan seemed obsessed with a Muslim-American soldier who killed fellow troops in Kuwait. Some supervisors even wondered out loud: Could Nidal Hasan be psychotic?
Sources say the Armys investigating Charles Engel because he knew about those concerns, yet he allegedly didn't take tough enough action. Those same sources say the Armys investigating another psychiatrist named Colonel John Bradley for the same reason. Bradley has been running the psychiatry department at Walter Reed.
Colleagues say both men kept telling them were running training programs here. Were supposed to help people like Hasan try to improve. And sources say when they got on his back, Hasan occasionally did better work.
The investigation of Scott Moran is more puzzling, since documents suggest that he's the only one who actively tried to go after Hasan. Documents show that Moran did sign paperwork later that recommended Hasan for promotion, but that was after higher-up rebuffed him. So far there's no sign that the Army is investigating those higher-ups.
NPR tried to reach Moran, Bradley and Engel for comment. None of them responded. Sources say the Army has notified several other mid-level officers that they're being investigated too. The Army wont confirm those details either.
Daniel Zwerdling, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
The number of Americans filing bankruptcy rose substantially last year. Many who sought relief were middle class Americans who lost jobs, saw their businesses fail, or found themselves facing foreclosure. Bankruptcy is never pretty, but it can provide a fresh start for those who need it.
NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.
WENDY KAUFMAN: By the time Linda Frakes sought help from a bankruptcy lawyer, she owed about $150,000 on her credit cards. And the former corporate manager turned entrepreneur was getting deeper and deeper in debt. She tried to work out a repayment plan, but things did not go smoothly, and Frakes began to think that bankruptcy might be the only way out.
Ms. LINDA FRAKES: It wasn't something that I thought I would ever, ever, ever even consider let alone actually follow through with. It seemed like the scarlet letter to me.
KAUFMAN: The single mother in her 50s, who have been living an upper middle-class life in Atlanta, was both terrified and depressed.
Ms. FRAKES: Up until that point in my life, I really had defined myself by how successful I was and it was really, really difficult for me to come to the realization that I had gotten myself into this situation and wasnt able to figure it out. So to me the equation was I wasn't as smart as I thought I was.
KAUFMAN: Frakes, who's written about her late 2008 bankruptcy in a self-published book, owned several successful businesses. But market conditions changed and she couldn't sell them as she planned. She resorted to credit cards to keep herself and her businesses afloat. Then, the other shoe dropped someone who owed her a lot of money as part of a business deal quit paying.
Ms. FRAKES: What was left of the income that I was living off of disappeared and now I was scrounging just to pay daily living expenses, and that's when I became trapped.
KAUFMAN: Business failures are at the root of many personal bankruptcies, so are serious illnesses, divorce, a death in the family, and increasingly the loss of a job.
Some who turn to bankruptcy are simply deadbeats, but most are not says Seattle bankruptcy lawyer Gloria Nagler.
Ms. GLORIA NAGLER (Lawyer): Believe me, people do not come into my office and saying, whoopee, I get to file bankruptcy.
KAUFMAN: If they use Chapter 13 of the bankruptcy code, they sign on to debt repayment plans and in return get to keep certain assets. Those in more dire financial straits can try filing under Chapter 7 - assets are sold to pay off debts and what can't be paid is absolved.
Nagler says the would-be filers that she sees are often so embarrassed by their predicament they can't even look her in the eye.
Ms. NAGLER: I quickly, you know, let them know that it's not a moral failing. My God, the economy's falling apart all around us and there are so many people are filing bankruptcy I have twice the business, I can't even return all the calls, and every lawyer in town whose done bankruptcy is having the same situation.
KAUFMAN: Nationwide, personal bankruptcy filings rose to 1.4 million last year, about 30 percent more than the year before. And the number isn't likely to fall sharply any time soon.
In Seattle, for example, there are so many requests for free debtor counseling that the local bar association holds twice weekly sessions just for those considering bankruptcy.
Mr. JOHN FARVER (Lawyer): Hi, my name is John Farver and I can be your attorney tonight for half hour. I can give you any advice and assistance I can.
KAUFMAN: Over the next two hours, Farver and two other volunteer bankruptcy lawyers listen to stories like that of a well-dressed young woman who'd lost her high-paying job and her new position doesnt pay enough to cover her bills. Still, her wages are being garnished. Another woman, a scientist, had become ill and couldnt work for awhile. Then a sizeable contract she was working on got cancelled.
Mr. FARVER: So many people who have lost their job and all of a sudden, you know, can't afford what they easily could've afforded six months ago. Well, those people need to have their own personal bailout, you know, just like the fat cats on Wall Street.
KAUFMAN: In 2005 Congress overhauled the nation's bankruptcy laws intending to limit the number and scope of individual bankruptcy filings. But in this tough economy, the law has had limited effect, as huge numbers of Americans are legally shedding debt and hoping for a fresh start.
Wendy Kaufman, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Haitians may be hoping for a long term U.S. presence, but as NPRs Michele Kelemen reports, there are Haitian experts who say past interventions and attempts at development by the United States and other countries have done more harm than good.
MICHELE KELEMEN: Haiti was damaged well before the earthquake and not just because of decades of misrule; thats the view of Bob Maguire, a Haiti expert at Trinity Washington University.
Mr. BOB MAGUIRE (Trinity Washington University): Haiti has been damaged by those who peddle the denigration of Haiti and its people - the delusional televangelist or be it misinformed experts, who talk about things like basket case, failed state, trusteeship. But most of all, I think Haiti has been damaged by development policies and programs over the past 40 years that have not taken into account the aspirations of Haiti's people.
KELEMEN: In the 1990s, Maguire said, outside experts wanted to turn Haiti into Taiwan, building up factories and a private sector without doing what Taiwan did to make it a success - investing first in agriculture and universal education.
Mr. MAGUIRE: So that you had a human resource base that could benefit from the factories and not just be taken advantage of because of their cheap labor, and you had an agricultural base that could feed a growing urbanization. Haiti had neither of those and this is one of the reasons why that has been a failure and has done damage to Haiti.
KELEMEN: Because development programs focused on Port-au-Prince, he says, the city grew from 750,000 people in 1982 to more than two-and-a-half million when the earthquake struck. Now many people are returning back to rural areas.
Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the Earth Institute at Columbia University, says Haiti has also been the victim of U.S. political battles, whether it was the Clinton administration imposing sanctions to restore former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power, or the Bush administration squeezing the economy to push Aristide back out again.
Professor JEFFREY SACHS (Columbia University): It goes back a long, long time. But in the 20th century, the U.S. was military occupier and then it was the backer of a long-term, pretty despotic military regime and it trained a lot of the generals over time, including the generals that actually took out Aristide. So the U.S. involvement in this has not been pleasant, and it's a record that is widely ignored in this country.
KELEMEN: His advice going forward is keep it simple, keep it transparent, focus on Haiti's rural areas, and make rebuilding the country an international effort, not one made in Washington.
Prof. SACHS: It's just not so hard to build roads and to put in a power plant or to get bags of fertilizer to peasant farmers. These are pretty straightforward tasks. They require money, and it's money that we've not wanted to put in or it's money that has taken a distant back seat to political objectives.
KELEMEN: Sachs describes the donor community as typically ponderous and bureaucratic. He says countries would be more helpful now if they just pool their resources into one special fund, managed by the Inter-American Development Bank.
The assistant secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Albert Ramdin, also says that the key will be international coordination.
Mr. ALBERT RAMDIN (Organization of American States): There will be a role for everybody to play. Nobody needs to feel that they have to take a lead in this or that. There's so much to be done in rebuilding, reconstructing Haiti, Port-au-Prince, that there will be a role for everybody.
KELEMEN: Ambassador Ramdin told the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank, that he intends to keep Haiti high on the political agenda to make sure that donor countries have more staying power this time around.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
A basic question for the survival of any species, including humans, is how does a boy get the girl? Scientists know that competition among males is a big part of the answer.
Still, as NPRs Joe Palca reports, even when the boy gets the girl, the competition doesnt end.
JOE PALCA: In the animal kingdom, males are always looking for a leg up against the competition.
Ms. HEIDI FISHER (Harvard University): Large antlers and colorations that allow males to obtain access to female.
PALCA: Thats Heidi Fisher, a biologist at Harvard University. Things like big antlers and bright colors help male animals get a females attention. What Fisher is interested in is what happens next.
Ms. FISHER: This is the point at which the animals have already mated and theres still male-male competition.
PALCA: Its just a different kind of competition. Heres what Fisher means. She studies mice. From a male mouses point of view, after he has mated, the competition is over. It doesnt matter which of his sperm fertilizes the females egg. But...
Ms. FISHER: From the sperms perspective, of course it wants to be the sperm within the whole sample to fertilize the egg.
PALCA: So now its the sperm that compete. One strategy for getting to the egg might be called every man for himself. Each sperm would go it alone and hope for the best. But Fisher and others have shown that a clump of sperms swimming together move faster than a single sperm swimming alone.
Ms. FISHER: Its almost as if, if you dont cooperate, you'll be left behind. Because only the cells that are cooperating are going to be able to reach the egg with a decent speed to have a chance of fertilizing the egg.
PALCA: You still have to compete with other sperm in the clump when you reach the egg. But hey, at least you got there first. In her latest research published in this weeks Nature magazine, Fisher adds an interesting twist to the story. Female deer mice, it turns out, are promiscuous. They mate with several males when they go into heat. Fisher wondered whether the sperm would still take the approach of all-for-one and one-for-all, or whether sperm from one mouse would compete with sperm from another. So she took sperm from one male mouse and dyed it red.
Ms. FISHER: And then sperm from another male, and we dyed it green.
PALCA: Then she mixed the two sperm samples together, put them in a petri dish, and watched what happened.
Ms. FISHER: And what we found more often than not is that red sperm tend to clump more so together and green sperm tend to clump more so together.
PALCA: Or to put it more colloquially, sperm of a feather flock together. Fisher doesnt know how sperm know who to buddy up with and who to snub. All she knows is that they do, and presumably its all part of that drive to be the one to pass your genes on to the next generation.
Joe Palca, NPR News, Washington.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
For more than a week now, we've been watching the struggle to get aid to Haiti amid a nearly unfathomable devastation and dazed survivors. In some neighborhoods, the chaos had led to looting, in others, people are organizing to help each other.
NPRs Corey Flintoff is in Port-au-Prince, and he found his way back to a slum that he visited last year when times were better.
COREY FLINTOFF: Much of Carrefour Feuilles was always desperately poor, but people seemed to get by, eking out a living from small jobs, selling goods on the street and remittances from relatives working abroad. Carrefour Feuilles has gone from poor to destitute, its hillsides ragged with white gashes of rubble that used to be houses. People here say they've seen no help from their government or from the outside, but bodies have been removed, burned or buried, injured people have been delivered to hospitals, and homeless survivors have been sheltered under makeshift tarps. Besie Wilson(ph) greets visitors in a cave-like storefront pressed up against the rocky hillside.
Mr. BESIE WILSON: My name is Besie. (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: He calls himself the coordinator general of a ad-hoc aid organization, the impressive sounding Mission to Help in the Emergency. Wilson says his group organized rescue efforts, first aid and body removal as best it could, relying on donations from local people.
Mr. WILSON: (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: He shows his meager store of medical supplies, a cardboard carton with two rolls of gauze bandages and a dozen or so containers of over-the-counter medicines. There is more, he says: People being nursed, people being sheltered. Wilson leads the way up a steep track, pointing to the jumbles of cinderblocks and concrete that used to be houses. The air smells of rot.
Mr. WILSON: (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: Wilson says there are a lot of corpses decaying in the rubble that searchers were unable to extract. That would take heavy equipment, and its hard to imagine how digging machines could even make their way up a precarious path that drops away on one side into a steep ravine.
Mr. WILSON: (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: Further up the road, a woman sits with one swollen leg propped on a chair. Flies buzz over the stained gauze that covers a wound. This is an interpreter.
Unidentified Man #1: Her house fell upon her. Her legs was broken by the bricks. Now we are taking care of them by our own means.
FLINTOFF: Without any outside help. Still further, people cluster on thin blankets on the dusty road, shaded by a tarp that Wilson says his group provided.
Mr. WILSON: (Through translator) People have been showing us open sores and lacerations from being caught underneath the rubble or being caught in the collapse of their houses.
Unidentified Man #2: Yeah, I need help for her. Because she's very, very sick. She needs care. She needs care, medical.
FLINTOFF: One man is agitated and insistent. His young wife is propped on the ground in the arms of an older woman. She has a deep contusion on her thigh, raw and uncovered, the leg swelling like sausage to below her knee. What are you going to do about it, he asks.
Unidentified Man #3: (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: Wilson tries to calm the situation, telling the man that the organization he leads could have his wife carried down to the grounds of the general hospital on a stretcher.
Mr. WILSON: (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: On the way back down the hillside, Wilson repeats over and over his plea for international help, but dont give it to the Haitian government, he insists.
Mr. WILSON: (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: Wilson says, give it to the neighborhood groups that are close to the problem. For him, as for many Haitians, the national government is gone, and nothing but foreign assistance and neighborhood unity can ever put things right.
Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
When Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew into Pakistan this morning on an unannounced visit, it was his first visit as part of the Obama administration, which is not to say he's new to the country. Gates has a long history in Pakistan, and he says he's going to use that experience to drive home this message: The U.S. will not repeat past mistakes. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly is in Islamabad, traveling with the defense secretary. Good morning.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: Good morning, Renee.
MONTAGNE: And those past mistakes include quite prominently leaving Pakistan, as Pakistan sees it, in the lurch.
KELLY: That's exactly right. There is a sense that after the war with the Soviets and Afghanistan back in the '80s - a war in which the U.S., through the CIA, was, of course, heavily involved - that when the ended, the U.S. just walked away, got what it wanted, walked away and abandoned the whole region.
And today, there is a real fear among Pakistanis that that kind of behavior will be repeated, and it continues to hamper current U.S.-Pakistan cooperation, particularly in this key area of counterterrorism and trying to fight al-Qaida. So what Secretary Gates says is the whole point of this visit is to offer his personal promise, saying the U.S. is not going to walk away this time.
MONTAGNE: Well, okay, I just mentioned Gates long history in the region. Part of that history was that he was with the CIA at the point when this happened, when those mistakes were made.
KELLY: That's true. That's true. That is part of his history, and I think the plan is he's going to try to work that to his advantage, actually, and, you know, by saying, look. I know how badly this worked out the last time around. I was there. I saw it firsthand. Let's not go down that road again.
And he does have, for better or worse, long relationships with a lot of the players here. Interestingly, he's made a number of gestures on this trip to try to show respect to his Pakistani hosts. He has brought his wife, Becky, along on this trip, something he rarely does on overseas travel. And he's also scheduled a private session with rising military officers here. He says he wants to have a candid back and forth, really listen to them, get to know them, hear the views of the up-and-coming military leaders that the U.S. really hasn't had contact with for a couple of decades now.
MONTAGNE: You know, Mary Louise, much of the U.S. policy that gets Pakistanis mad has to do with the Pentagon - which, of course, Gates heads - the drone attacks in particular, also the buildup of troops in Afghanistan. What kind of reception is he likely to get there?
KELLY: Well, it's a good question. I mean, anti-Americanism is rampant here in Pakistan. The drone strikes, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, both touch points. The point with the U.S. troops in Afghanistan is a lot of Pakistanis worry that that could lead to more attacks here in Pakistan, because it may -if you have more U.S. troops on one side of the border, it may push extremists across onto the Pakistani side.
Secretary Gates is certainly aware of that. He's actually written about it in a piece he wrote that appears today in one of Pakistan's big papers, big newspapers, writing the Pakistani Taliban works with the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaida, all of these extremist groups. And his point is, if you have safe havens on one side of the border, that's going to lead to more attacks everywhere.
And I should say, that may be a bit of a tough sell here in Pakistan, because Pakistanis don't tend to lump all of these different extremist groups together. They have a different way of seeing it, not quite the same way as Secretary Gates is arguing for it to be viewed.
MONTAGNE: And finally, Mary Louise, I understand security in Islamabad is usually tight.
KELLY: There is extraordinary security for this visit, Renee. We were not allowed to report that Gates was coming here at all until he actually landed. We're being asked still not to report any specific events, any specific locations where he's going to be. And it was interesting, just on the short trip from the airport to our first stop here, we have already been through multiple I.D. checks, multiple security barriers. They're being very, very careful on this visit.
MONTAGNE: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, speaking to us from Islamabad, where she's traveling with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Thank you very much.
KELLY: Thank you, Renee.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
A parade of national security officials appeared yesterday before several Senate panels. They were explaining how a young Nigerian man with explosives sewn into his underwear was able to board a Northwest Air flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. Just as lawmakers probed homeland security matters, the White House was confronted with finding a new nominee to head the very agency that oversees security at the nation's airports. NPR's Brian Naylor begins his report at the hearings.
BRIAN NAYLOR: It was difficult to argue with the opening statement by Michael Leiter before the Senate Homeland Security panel. Leiter is head of the National Counterterrorism Center, the place where the intelligence dots were supposed to be connected.
Mr. MICHAEL LEITER (Director, National Counterterrorism Center): Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should not have stepped onto a plane on Christmas Day. The counterterrorism system collectively failed.
NAYLOR: Officials testified the system failed for, among other reasons, because a State Department employee misspelled bombing suspect Abdulmutallab's name when checking it against a list of U.S. visa holders. The State Department says it now has spell check software to prevent further such errors. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said security officials had also bowed to pressure to shrink terrorist watch lists.
Mr. DENNIS BLAIR (Director, National Intelligence): Frankly, I think the pressure was sort of going the other way in those last couple years. Things are going pretty well. You've got too many people on the no-fly list. Why are you searching grandmothers? You know, I think we are really learning from this incident, which thankfully, nobody was killed, and we'll make a tremendous leap forward.
NAYLOR: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said it would be impossible to prevent a similar attempt. But she added...
Secretary JANET NAPOLITANO (Department of Homeland Security): This administration and the men and women of the DHS are working 110 percent every day to minimize the likelihood of a successful terrorist attack against the homeland.
NAYLOR: Republicans pressed administration officials as to why Abdulmutallab was questioned by FBI agents and will be tried by a civilian court. They argue he should be treated as a military combatant and questioned by military interrogators, and then face a military tribunal. Arizona Republican John McCain.
Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican, Arizona): I think this decision was a terrible mistake which could impact our ability to defend this nation.
NAYLOR: At a separate hearing, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that the decision to question Abdulmutallab was made by FBI agents on the ground in Detroit. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has a new security issue before it: finding a replacement for its choice to head the TSA. Erroll Southers abruptly withdrew his name yesterday. His nomination had been blocked by Republican Senator Jim DeMint because of DeMint's concerns Southers might allow screeners at the TSA to bargain collectively for a labor contract. But Southers told NPR he was ready to move on.
Mr. ERROLL SOUTHERS (Former Nominee, TSA): I'm a counterterrorism professional, not a politician. So it appears that there's some gridlock in Congress right now. And all I know is I've been in limbo for quite some time, and the country is clearly focused on aviation security as it relates to the numerous transportation modes that might be vulnerable to a terrorist attack. And they need a leader and they need a leader now.
NAYLOR: Now the administration has to find that leader and fill a year-long vacancy in a department that's on the front lines in the battle to keep terrorists off of airplanes.
Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
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MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Lets turn now to a lawsuit in New York, claiming students are being hurt by the schools safety agents who are supposed to protect them. It comes after years of complaints that disciplinary actions, once handled by educators, are now managed by the police. Brought by the Civil Liberties Union against New York City and its police department, the lawsuit claims excessive force is being used against the students. Beth Fertig of member station WNYC has more.
BETH FERTIG: 13-year-old Dijah(ph) says she was walking into her Bronx middle school one morning last October when she and a friend were verbally threatened by two adults they didn't know. A school safety officer assigned to the building saw the exchange and tried to bring the girls and the adults inside. But Dijah says she was afraid and called her mother. She claims that prompted the officer to drag her inside where she was handcuffed.
DIJAH: When got into the building, the same officer tripped me and I fell face down on the ground. The officer put her knees on my back and taunted me, telling me to get up while she was pinning me on the ground.
FERTIG: Dijah spoke about her case at a press conference. Shes one of five middle and high school students named in a class action lawsuit against the city. The suit refers to her by the initials D.Y. to protect her identity. The New York Civil Liberties Union says conflicts like these seem to be on the rise.
Ms. DONNA LIEBERMAN (Executive Director, New York Civil Liberties Union): We get complaints all the time.
FERTIG: Executive director Donna Lieberman.
Ms. LIEBERMAN: Students are pushed and shoved, knocked to the ground, beaten up for doing nothing wrong. And even if they were doing something wrong, if theyre violating school rules then thats a matter of school discipline. It shouldnt be a matter for arrest.
FERTIG: The city declined to comment on the allegations because theyre still under review. A police spokesman calls them hyperbole. The Civil Liberties Union and the police department have tangled for years over allegations of aggressive force.
School safety used to be handled by the citys school system, but in 1998 it was transferred over to the police department. There are now more than 5,000 unarmed safety agents assigned to the citys 1,500 schools, plus another 200 police officers. And metal detectors are routinely deployed in high schools.
Mayor Michael Bloombergs administration says this approach is working. Major crimes in schools went down by more than 44 percent over the past nine years, and the head of the union that represents school safety agents defends his members. Gregory Floyd is president of Teamsters Local 237.
Mr. GREGORY FLOYD (President, Teamsters Local 237): Theyre up against physical attacks. They break up fights and they often get hurt. Theyre often punched, scratched, kicked. Theyre subject to verbal abuse.
FERTIG: Almost 600 weapons were seized in schools between July of last year and the middle of January. Floyd says safety officers are only supposed to arrest a student whos out of control, and in most cases its sufficient to call the principal.
Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union says she hopes the civil rights lawsuit forces the police department to turn discipline back over to educators. She also wants the city to give school safety officers more training. They currently receive 14 weeks, although regular officers get six months.
Ms. LIEBERMAN: Its not just about adequate training, its about proper training. Its about instructing any police who are in the school that they must, in the ordinary course of events, defer to the educators. Lieberman says whats happening in New York is part of a national trend as schools beef up security, and she says its important to protect students rights while protecting their schools.
For NPR News, Im Beth Fertig in New York.
MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
When she travels to a donor conference in Montreal next week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be among the many voices calling for better coordination of international efforts to rebuild Haiti. To find out what the U.S. has been able to do so far, we turn to Secretary Clintons point person on Haiti, her chief of staff Cheryl Mills. Mills has been to Haiti twice in the last week to work with President Rene Preval and other officials.
Ms. CHERYL MILLS (Chief of Staff, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton): The first time I was down, I did meet with Secretary Clinton, with President Preval. He had very specific goals for what he wanted to see for his country in this time. Our ambassador on the ground is constantly in touch with the president and the prime minister and their teams.
And so I think one of the things that is nice about the relationship that has developed is we have very clear lines of communication and that has been, I think, fortunate for this situation.
MONTAGNE: Well, there is the one, though, you know, issue there with the president. He doesnt seem to be showing much leadership directly to his people. There have been complaints, weve been reporting on, by Haitians saying they havent seen their president. They havent seen their leaders.
Ms. MILLS: Well, I know President Preval not only spoke publicly with Secretary Clinton when she was there, but also gave an interview to CNN. The reality is in this challenging situation it is a very difficult moment for everyone. And I think what everyone needs in this moment is to know that their leadership is committed to making sure that the needs that they have are actually being met. Thats something President Preval is doing.
MONTAGNE: Well, let me just, though, say something. I mean, some part of being a president of a country is showing that you're leading the people. I mean, meeting with the secretary of state and speaking on CNN doesnt seem to be a substitute, many would say, for, you know, wading in, going out amongst the people.
Ms. MILLS: Well, I think we obviously have our own definition of how we think of leadership and what our politicians do and how they do that. President Preval has not always been the most he doesnt share the same qualities that we think of in our traditional politicians here in the United States, but his commitment is really to getting things done, at least as I have observed.
He had no lack of clarity as to what were the first priorities. Subsequently, they meet at 8 a.m. every day. Our teams and other teams meet with the prime minister who sets the daily priorities for what needs to be addressed for Haiti and the Haitian people to ensure that theyre getting the food, the supplies and other things that are going to be necessary to sustain them and their country in this period of challenge.
MONTAGNE: During President Bill Clintons administration, the U.S. sent in troops to restore Haitis then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power after he was ousted in a coup. Some years later in his - in the early 2000s, he was, with the backing of the U.S. and help of the U.S., pushed once again into exile. Now he has said, pretty straightforwardly, that he wants to return to Haiti. What is the State Departments position on that?
Ms. MILLS: Well, I think our position right now is how do we provide the most assistance for rescue and relief of the individuals who are there, how do we support the government that is in power. Were not focused on what Aristide is doing. Were focused on how do we help the Haitian people.
MONTAGNE: Secretary Clinton went out of her way to reassure the Haitian people that, one, the U.S. is not an occupying force, and two, the U.S. is there for the long term. In practical terms, what do those two things mean?
Ms. MILLS: Well, the first is quite simple. We are deploying our military to assist in a disaster and rescue operation. They are not there for any other reason.
MONTAGNE: And...
Ms. MILLS: In terms of being there for the long term, I think we are invested in the success of Haiti and the success of the Haitian people. And our goal is to be an effective international partner in looking at the country-led plans that they have and stepping in to provide the kind of assistance that we can that ultimately will lead them to be self-sustaining. Thats the kind of partnership we spoke about before the earthquake. Thats the kind of partnership were going to have even after it.
MONTAGNE: Cheryl Mills is Secretary Clintons chief of staff, now overseeing U.S. efforts in Haiti for the State Department.
Thank you very much.
Ms. MILLS: Thank you so much.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Another partnership thats growing with Haiti involves U.S. corporations. Over the past week, businesses across the country have donated tens of millions of dollars in aid. Big companies, nonprofits and small mom and pop stores are all pitching in. businesses are also sending volunteers and supplies to crisis centers here in the U.S. for people who have family in Haiti. NPRs Chris Arnold reports from Boston.
CHRIS ARNOLD: Boston has a very large Haitian immigrant population. And at a resource center set up here by the city, hundreds of people have been coming by to use the phones. Theyre trying to reach loved ones in Haiti and figure out how to help them.
Unidentified Woman #1: (Foreign language spoken)
ARNOLD: Companies of all shapes and sizes have been calling here to offer whatever they can to help. Some of the people coming in don't speak much English, so the insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield has been sending employees here who speak Creole to volunteer as translators.
Ms. CATHLEEN JEANTIE(ph): The volunteer outpour has been tremendous.
ARNOLD: Cathleen Jeantie is running the center to that.
Ms. JEANTIE: We've had pizzas donated. Whole Foods has been great in donating food. We're also getting calls from companies willing to donate supplies, medical supplies. Weve had plumbing companies calling and saying, okay, you know, we're ready to go down if, you know, when the time is ready.
Ms. ANTOINETTE SENATU(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
ARNOLD: Antoinette Senatu has just come into the center. She has photographs of an infant, a child and some other family members. It turns out the children's mother was killed in the earthquake and now Senatu's 80-year-old mother is trying to take care of a 4-month-old baby and a toddler in Port-au-Prince, but her house has collapsed and they're living outdoors with hardly any shelter.
Ms. JEANTIE: She was saying that it's a piece of plastic that her grandmother had to put on two sticks to kind of provide some sort of warmth for the children.
Ms. SENATU: (Foreign language spoken)
Ms. JEANTIE: She was running with the kids in hand when this happened so she fell and broke her arm when this happened.
ARNOLD: So not only is she 80 years old and she doesnt have a house, she's got a broken arm as well.
Senatu wants to try to adopt these children who've lost their mother - who was her cousin - but the staff here says that it's still unclear how many desperate children like this will be allowed to come to the U.S., so they say that's another group that's been donating time: lawyers. There's a big need for families to get help navigating the immigration issues.
Ms. JEANTIE: You know, some immigration lawyers have agreed to make themselves available pro bono to be able to talk to people about what their options are.
ARNOLD: Antoinette Senatu says it's been very hard to get through to her mother in Haiti on a cell phone. She has to try again and again and only every few days can she get a connection.
Ms. SENATU: Every day I call. I just try every day.
ARNOLD: To try to help with that, T-Mobile is waiving long distance charges for existing customers to call Haiti through the end of January, and lot's of other big corporations are pledging help. Wal-Mart has donated more than a million dollars. Bank of America's pledged a million dollars.
Gerald McSwiggan is manager of the Disaster Assistance and Recovery Program at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Mr. GERALD McSWIGGAN (Manager, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Disaster Assistance and Recovery Program): It's been a week since the earthquake in Haiti and we have seen 203 companies that have donated more than $83 million to the relief effort. And this is one of the fastest outpouring of corporate dollars in an international disaster.
ARNOLD: McSwiggan says many of these companies dont have much of any business interests in Haiti.
Mr. McSWIGGAN: A lot of businesses who are giving dont necessarily have operations there. They dont have markets there. They're giving this because, frankly, its the right thing to do.
ARNOLD: Businesses aren't just donating cash. UPS is helping with free shipping and logistical support on the ground in Haiti. Ken Sternad is president of the UPS Foundation and he says there are starting to be conversations about how to improve the entire Haitian economy when it comes time to rebuild.
Mr. KEN STERNAD (President, UPS Foundation): Maybe rebuild and create something thats better than it ever has been. I mean that's obviously one of the, if not the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. That certainly has been a discussion. I've been party to those discussions.
ARNOLD: But for now, the crisis on the ground, of course, is still overwhelming all the efforts to send aid and the need for more support from the private sector is going to be enormous for years to come.
Chris Arnold, NPR News.
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MONTAGNE: Youre listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
NPR's business news starts with a plan for new restrictions on big banks.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: President Obama says the banks are still operating under the same rules that led to last year's financial meltdown. Speaking this hour at the White House, Mr. Obama said he wants to limit the size of the banks and prohibit them from trading on their own behalf, called proprietary trading. The White House wants Congress to add the proposal to legislation aimed at regulating the financial industry.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And one of the ways states have tried to cut budget deficits is by closing interstate rest stops - I guess on the theory that every little bit counts. Virginia shut down its highway stops but yesterday, the state announced that it's reopening 19 of them.
NPR's Adam Hochberg has more.
ADAM HOCHBERG: The decision to reopen the rest stops is one of the first actions of Virginia's new governor, Republican Bob McDonnell, who took office just this past weekend. During the campaign, he criticized his predecessor for shutting the facilities down and yesterday, he announced theyll start reopening next month.
Governor BOB MCDONNELL (Republican, Virginia): For our travelers that come to Virginia, that see tape across the entrance to the rest stop, its a sign that Virginia is closed for business. It's exactly the opposite signal that I need to send to people across the country.
HOCHBERG: Former Governor Tim Kaine hoped to save about $9 million a year closing about half of Virginia's rest areas. The state now plans to cut money instead from road maintenance, and also will seek private donations to fund the facilities.
John Townsend, of the AAA Motor Club, applauded the decision. He says drivers do, in fact, stop more often in places where rest areas are available. But even as Virginia reopens its rest areas, New York's governor this weekend proposed closing some there. Maine, Colorado and Vermont also have shut some down to save money.
Adam Hochberg, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
Relief supplies are flowing into Port-au-Prince to help hundreds and thousands of people left homeless by last weeks earthquake. Survivors have been praising American soldiers for their help. Last night President Obama was asked by ABC Newss George Stephanopoulos if the U.S. could afford prolonged military aid.
President BARACK OBAMA: I think we can't afford not to do it because Haiti is our neighbor. I want to make sure that when America projects its power around the world, it's not seen only when it's fighting a war. It's got to also be able to help people in desperate need. And ultimately that will be good for us and that will be good for our national security over the long term.
MONTAGNE: The U.S. military is now distributing more food than other agencies, but the effort has not been without snags, and it may not be enough.
NPRs Jason Beaubien reports.
(Soundbite of helicopter)
JASON BEAUBIEN: A constant stream of U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopters and hulking Sea Stallion choppers ferry pallets of bottled water and MREs, meals ready to eat, into a golf course in Port-au-Prince. The 82nd Airborne has set up an aid distribution site on the slope of a country club. As choppers land, the soldiers bucket brigade the water and food to the side of the field. The aircraft lifts off and another one circles in to touch down.
Unidentified Man: (Unintelligible)
BEAUBIEN: The Americans then bring the supplies to Haitians, who hand it out to two long lines of people that flow up the hill. Three women - Gladys(ph) and Natasha Marvelous(ph) and their cousin, Placid Kati(ph) - have just gotten packets of MREs and two bottles of water each. They say they have no idea what's in the food packets.
Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: The women says this is the first food aid they have received since the quake more than a week ago. Some people are so hungry that they tear into the MREs as soon as they get out of a line. The earthquake left hundreds of thousands of people across Port-au-Prince without homes, food or any way to make a living. The U.N. World Food Program has done some small scale food distribution in the streets, but this is the first and the only large scale food handout. The day before, the 82nd Airborne system broke down and they had to suspend the operation. They had run out of supplies and the site teetered on the brink of chaos as some 20,000 Haitians surged towards the soldiers on the hill. Yesterday, things went smoothly and they handed out food and water to 50 people a minute, from early morning until sun down.
Captain HANK COLEMAN (Forward Support Commander, 82nd Airborne): We're hitting our stride finally and we're getting out everything that comes to us, we are pushing it out to the Haitian people.
BEAUBIEN: Captain Hank Coleman is a forward support commander with the 82nd Airborne.
Capt. COLEMAN: The helicopters are actually coming so fast today, we were stuck unloading helicopters and then going down to the line to distribute. Its been very busy, but great.
BEAUBIEN: The 82nd Airborne handed out 32,000 bottles of water and more than 8,000 meal packets yesterday. They plan to ramp up distributions in other parts of the city soon. Away from the distribution site, people continue to pick through the rubble of their homes, searching for anything that might be salvageable in the debris. In the (unintelligible) neighborhood people say they are grateful for the international assistance thats starting to flow into Port-au-Prince but they say its not enough. Teronia Louis Thomas(ph) says its important that the international community oversees the aid operation because he says if money is given directly to the Haitian government, they'll steal it.
Mr. TERONIA LOUIS TOMAS: The international community has to accompany the Haitian government in rebuilding this country.
BEAUBIEN: Most of the Haitian government buildings toppled in the quake, and Tomas says the government, even when it was up and running, wasnt capable of handling a disaster of this scale.
Mr. TOMAS: You know, they havent been, you know, providing any (unintelligible) for years.
BEAUBIEN: Tomas and many other Haitians say they hope the U.S., the U.N. and other international bodies will have a strong presence in Haiti for years to come as the country attempts to recover.
Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
On Capitol Hill yesterday, Democrats struggled to pick up the pieces of their shattered health care bill. A bill that seemed to be just days from becoming law now appears all but blown to bits by the loss of a single Senate seat. NPR's Julie Rovner looks at where Democrats go from here.
JULIE ROVNER: Even though they'd seen the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat coming, and with it the 60 votes needed to overcome repeated Republican filibusters, congressional leaders seemed chastened yesterday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi began the day vowing this to the U.S. Conference of Mayors...
Representative NANCY PELOSI (Democrat, California, Speaker of the House): Heeding the particular concerns of the voters of Massachusetts last night, we heard, we will heed, we will move forward with their considerations in mind, but we will move forward for health care.
(Soundbite of applause)
ROVNER: But both President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid quickly took one option off the table: finishing the current negotiations and pushing a final bill through Congress before Republican Senator-Elect Scott Brown is certified and sworn in. Here was Reid yesterday afternoon...
Senator HARRY REID (Democrat, Nevada): We're not going to rush into anything, as you've heard. We're going to wait until the new senator arrives before we do anything more on health care.
ROVNER: Another option would be for the House to approve the bill already passed by the Senate and send it to the president. That wouldn't require another Senate vote. But the Senate-passed bill doesn't have many fans in the House. Ask just about any House Democrat what they don't like about the Senate bill and you'll get a long list. Here's Colorado Democrat Diana De Gette.
Representative DIANA DE GETTE (Democrat, Colorado): I have concerns with the way that the financing is structured. I have concerns about the way the exchange is structured through the states, because I don't think it'll save money.
ROVNER: Meanwhile, in an interview with ABC News yesterday, President Obama suggested the possibility of scaling the bill back to what he called, quote, "the elements that people agree on." Some members, like New York Congresswoman Nita Lowey, are taking that idea a step further, perhaps breaking the bill into small pieces and passing them a piece at a time.
Representative NITA LOWEY (Democrat, New York): For example, would people vote for the pre-existing condition provision? Would they vote for closing the donut hole?
ROVNER: The donut hole was a quirk in Medicare's drug benefit where coverage stops by seniors still have to pay their premiums.
But breaking the bill up would still require it to get through the Senate, where it would still be subject to Republican delay efforts. Republicans, for their part, made it clear their views on the health bill haven't changed. Here was Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor with his interpretation of what the public wants.
Senator MITCH MCCONNELL (Republican, Kentucky): They don't want the government taking over health care. They made that abundantly clear last night in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
ROVNER: But Democrats still have one way to overcome Republican objections in the Senate, says House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman.
Representative HENRY WAXMAN (Democrat, California): We do have a reconciliation process, which would take only a majority vote. That has been held in reserve and we're probably going to have to use it.
ROVNER: Budget reconciliation is a special kind of bill that can't be filibustered in the Senate and only needs 51 votes to pass. It's considered a last resort, but some think the time may have come. Waxman says the only thing worse would be doing no health bill at all.
Rep. WAXMAN: If we defeat it on our own because we don't, as a leadership, gather our troops to get it across the finish line, I think there'll be hell to pay with the voters in November.
ROVNER: The last time Democrats tried - and failed - to pass a health overhaul bill was in 1994. That year they lost their majorities in both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections.
Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Health care overhaul is not the only thing in peril after the Democrats' loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat. That's because nothing of consequence can get through the Senate without the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster and keep moving, which the Democrats, who run the Senate, no longer have.
And they've had little success peeling off votes from Republicans. NPR's David Welna reports.
DAVID WELNA: As the Senate's number two Democrat, Dick Durbin is his party's chief vote counter. Durbin says as a consequence of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown's victory, the Senate's 57 Democrats and two independents now face a sobering reality.
Senator RICHARD DURBIN (Democrat, Illinois): We can't get to 60 with Republican votes.
WELNA: And as Majority Leader Harry Reid lamented yesterday, getting even one Senate Republican to vote with Democrats on big issues has proven next to impossible.
Senator HARRY REID (Democrat, Nevada): Republicans have made a political calculation not to participate, and that's evident from what took place last year. Their answer to everything, everything, has been no.
Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican, Arizona): If they want to reach out and negotiate, I'm sure we will be able to sit down. We haven't yet.
WELNA: That's Arizona Republican John McCain. He says neither President Obama nor the Democrats have made what he calls a single legitimate outreach for negotiations over the past year.
Senator MCCAIN: Their strategy has been to try to pick off one or two Republicans and call it bipartisanship. That's bogus and everybody knows it.
WELNA: Maine's Susan Collins is one of three Senate Republicans who did end up voting for President Obama's big stimulus package early last year, when Democrats had only 58 members in their caucus. But Collins said yesterday she's not looking forward to having her vote courted again.
Senator SUSAN COLLINS (Republican, Maine): I think it's a mistake for the administration to try to constantly find the 60th vote. Instead, they should look at the message that was sent by Massachusetts last night.
WELNA: And that message, Collins said, was the Obama administration should pursue what she called a more moderate, inclusive agenda. The Senate's Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said yesterday it's time Democrats took a more bipartisan approach.
Senator MITCH MCCONNELL (Republican, Kentucky): We have said from the very beginning we want to be a full partner. You may have more votes than we do, but if you do it all by yourself, the public probably isn't going to buy it. And I think that's been amply demonstrated back in 2009. Maybe they'll take this message and take a different approach. We'll have to wait and see.
WELNA: According to number two Democrat Durbin, the only decision he and his fellow leaders reached yesterday about how to get to 60 was this...
Sen. DURBIN: In the heat of the moment, with the emotions running high, let's take a breath and really try to make a sensible decision on our strategy. Maybe not today, maybe not even this week, but soon, and let's do it in a thoughtful way.
WELNA: Longtime Congress watcher Darrell West of the Brookings Institution says things don't bode well for President Obama's agenda, including climate change and financial regulation.
Mr. DARRELL WEST (Brookings Institution): It's going to be very difficult for the president to get comprehensive large-scale policies through the Senate. Even though he has a big number of Democrats in that chamber, if he needs 60 votes to get anything done, he is not going to be able to cross that threshold.
WELNA: Some Democrats are even talking about changing the rules of the Senate so a simple majority of 51 votes could block a filibuster. Problem is, to change Senate rules you need 67 votes.
David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this morning said that nations that engage in cyber-attacks, quote, "face consequences and international condemnation." In a major speech outlining U.S. policy on Internet freedom and security, Clinton singled out China, urging that country to investigate cyber-attacks involving Google, attacks which prompted Google to say it might pull out of China.
In recent days, more than 30 American companies have had computers hacked allegedly from China. To talk about the State Department's efforts to deal with global problems with technology, Clinton's technology advisor came into our studio yesterday. Alec Ross said companies like Google shouldnt have to worry about cyber-attacks.
Mr. ALEC ROSS (U.S. State Department): I mean, the ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical. Cyberspace provides a platform for innovation and prosperity and the means to improve general welfare around the globe. So this is - this allegation has come and produced a significant level of concern on our part. And thats why we are looking to the Chinese government now for an explanation of it.
MONTAGNE: And if you can elaborate, how does these latest events play into Secretary Clintons new initiative on Internet freedom and security?
MR. ROSS: So Secretary Clinton plans to lay out a vision and a series of policies for protecting longstanding American values in a networked world. The recent news about China and Google has obviously gotten our attention. But whats gotten even more of our attention is the fact that 31 percent of the people in the world are now accessing the Internet on a censored Internet.
The secretary of state regards Internet freedom as a global issue. And there are a lot of other aspects of this that are very concerning. There are so-called honor killings in the Middle East, where young women are being beaten or being killed because they access social media. There are extreme examples of censorship throughout much of the world. So we really are engaging on this country-to-country, where our strategies will adjust and be appropriate to each country context.
MONTAGNE: How can the U.S. back up any demands it makes of countries like China or Iran or Syria to allow freedom on the Internet?
MR. ROSS: So one of the things that the United States has done for years, but hasnt spoken much about, is the role that we have played helping people at the grassroots access an open Internet. Some attention was drawn to this when it became public, that we helped play a role encouraging Twitter to keep its networks up in the Iranian election aftermath. I predict that you're going to see more efforts on our part so that citizens around the globe that want to access an uncensored Internet are able to.
MONTAGNE: Okay. So you know, encouraging Twitter to stay up during the demonstrations in Iran - you're coming at it from the angle of the outside. What is the thinking of what can be done on a government-to-government basis?
MR. ROSS: Yeah, so one thing that we can do is we can elevate this as a matter of our foreign policy. Until President Obama went to China and made Internet freedom a central human rights issue of his trip at the Shanghai town hall, Internet freedom was a piece of foreign policy arcana.
Both the presidents elevation of Internet freedom at the Shanghai town hall and now Secretary Clintons giving a major policy address about Internet freedom signals that this is something thats going to be at the table when we sit down with foreign ministers, when we sit down with our interlocutors the world around.
MONTAGNE: Well, I guess youre all diplomats, so it all sounds like, though, the power of persuasion rather than anything very muscular.
MR. ROSS: The power of persuasion when its Secretary Clinton is pretty significant. I also would highlight some initiatives of ours which is to empower people at the grassroots. Part of what were going to be doing is putting tools and resources on the Web freely for people around the globe to understand how they themselves can protect themselves in a networked environment.
MONTAGNE: Alec Ross is Secretary of State Hillary Clintons senior advisor for innovation.
Thanks very much for joining us.
MR. ROSS: Thank you, Renee.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
When hackers released some emails a couple of months ago of some of the worlds leading experts on global warming, it caused them huge embarrassment. The messages revealed ugly sniping going on behind the public discourse. Climate-change skeptics have pointed to those emails as evidence that global warming is a hoax. And even believers say the emails raise questions about scientific conduct.
NPRs Jon Hamilton wanted to see just how hot things have gotten in the world of climate science, so he spent some time in Atlanta with researchers at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society.
JON HAMILTON: The most notorious email seemed to discuss ways to prevent publication of research that challenged global warming. One also used the unfortunate word "trick" to describe a technique to massage temperature data. That sort of stuff has certainly made things more difficult for public figures trying to get limits on carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases.
But researchers in the trenches of climate science say theres really been no effect on the consensus that the Earth really is warming up.
(Soundbite of crowd)
HAMILTON: The trenches at the Meteorological Society meeting can be found in a vast underground chamber at the Georgia World Congress Center. Its filled with seemingly endless aisles of so-called poster presentations and their authors.
Kevin Goebbert, of Valparaiso University in Indiana, is standing in front of his poster describing trends in Australian cyclones.
Mr. KEVIN GOEBBERT (Valparaiso University): Ultimately, I dont think there was anything within the emails that really, you know, caused a great debate within the scientific community about the validity of the climate science.
HAMILTON: Not far away, Dave Gutzler, from the University of New Mexico, has a poster about 20th century droughts in the U.S. Gutzler says he and his colleagues tend to focus on climate data, not commentary. And he says the data havent changed.
Mr. DAVE GUTZLER (University of New Mexico): There are multiple lines of evidence that involve both completely independent data sets, such as glacier retreat, plus a whole body of modeling, plus a lot of process-based research about measuring heat in the oceans, things like that, that all point in the same direction.
HAMILTON: But Gutzler says the emails have shown something most researchers already knew about climate science, but the public may not have.
Mr. GUTZLER: Its contentious; its sometimes nasty. Thats because we're people, and we are dealing with problems that people care about very intensely both for personal and professional reasons, and because the public cares about it.
HAMILTON: Marcus Williams(ph) is a graduate student at Florida State University whose poster describes temperature variability in the southeastern U.S. Williams says the nastiness of the emails has hurt the field, even if it hasnt undermined the science.
Mr. MARCUS WILLIAMS: It did take a hit on our credibility somewhat. I mean, its never good to have people kind of pushing false agendas out there.
HAMILTON: The emails werent part of the meetings formal program. But they did come up frequently in sessions about climate. And one question scientists had was how to restore their damaged credibility. Chris Folland, from the U.K.s meteorological office, says one way would be to let everybody see the data that scientists have been using.
Mr. CHRIS FOLLAND (U.K. Meteorological Office): It would be very good to make all the data sets available that contribute to that land-surface temperature data set and of course, the sea-surface temperature data set - and indeed, all the other major data sets as are used in climate science.
HAMILTON: Folland concedes that could be tricky, though, because much of the data is proprietary. Other researchers suggested a new focus on the ethical issues involved in publishing climate studies. They say the emails show that the peer-review process can allow personal views rather than objective evaluation to affect where a paper gets published. Bill Hooke is in charge of policy for the American Meteorological Society. He says climate researchers need to realize that they are now in a very bright spotlight and act accordingly.
Mr. BILL HOOKE (American Meteorological Society): This science has gone from a science thats a side show and human affairs to science that matters. Its a science where people are placing billion-dollar and even trillion-dollar bets, and that requires a certain level of professionalism and caution about all communication.
HAMILTON: Hook says the email incident has offered climate scientists a pointed reminder of just how much is at stake and how easily things can go awry.
Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Now for Washington - the musical. It premiered on a stage in Frankfurt, Germany, this week. Theater-goers were treated to a singing Sarah Palin with go-go dancers, a Hillary Clinton solo, and Barack and Michelle Obama crooning over their budding romance. The production is called Hope. It sets the story of the 2008 election to song and dance.
Kyle James went to a rehearsal and brings us this report.
Unidentified Man #1: Check one, two.
Unidentified Man #2: Check one, two, three, four.
KYLE JAMES: In a rehearsal space technicians cue music and a group of performers take their positions for the first song of the new Obama musical. The lyrics talk about the concerns of many in America as the 2008 elections approached.
Unidentified Man #3: (Singing) (Unintelligible)
JAMES: One of the shows storylines centers around a fictional group of people living in a Chicago community. Among them there is a Puerto Rican man who has lost his job and his faith in politics, an African-American activist, and a conservative widow who has immigrated from Germany.
Unidentified Woman #1: Mr. John McCain is the only obvious choice to be the next president.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Unidentified Man #4: Oh, God.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. RANDALL HUTCHINS (Writer-Composer): Each person depicts a general circumstance that people found themselves in - jobless, losing their jobs, the homes, losing homes.
JAMES: Randall Hutchins is an American living in Germany, who wrote the show and composed the music. He said he wanted to show how the Obama campaign was able to inspire a large cross-section of people and restore their faith in the future.
Mr. HUTCHINS: The movement in the country was - the vibe was incredible, if you remember, you know, it was really a special time. So the inspiration came from that combination.
JAMES: The musical follows Barack Obamas path from community organizer to American president. Along the way he meets a certain Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, here played by Houston native Della Miles.
Ms. DELLA MILES (Actor): It shows how they were working together first and how they connected and how it became a relationship. There is a place where you see how they fell in love.
(Singing) But I feel so unusually shy.
Unidentified Man #5: (Singing) (Unintelligible)
JAMES: The musical features portrayals of a number of top politicians and figures from the election, including a very young looking Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin, who both have dance numbers. John McCain has a singing role, as does Jeremiah Wright, the pastor whose fiery rhetoric disrupted the Obama campaign. But center stage, of course, is Barack Obama, himself, and the musical climaxes with a rousing song inspired by the campaign slogan.
(Soundbite of song)
JAMES: Actor Jimmie Wilson, who hails from Detroit, plays the president.
Mr. JIMMIE WILSON (Actor): Its an honor to portray him. Its an opportunity also in my career because theres a lot of focus on this. Were getting a lot comments online, a lot of negative comments, but we don't listen to that.
JAMES: Indeed, the musical is taking a beating on the Internet. Comments on blogs and YouTube disparage it as being propaganda, pure cheese, deification or a lot of things you cant really say on the radio. Composer Hutchins denies hes written a musical about Saint Obama, but admits that the presidents falling approval ratings at home had to be taken into account.
Mr. HUTCHINS: I wanted to initially do it in the U.S. But if I would have, I think it would have been more controversial there. Right now President Obamas popularity is much higher in Europe, so it worked out.
JAMES: Hes not anticipating a run on Broadway anytime soon. For now, he hopes the show will draw good-sized audiences around Germany. After all, this is the country where 200,000 people turned out when Obama gave a speech in Berlin in 2008. Then, Hutchins says, he's looking toward a possible tour for the show in Africa, where the perils of Washington politics havent dulled the president's shine.
For NPR News, Im Kyle James.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning. Im Renee Montagne. Researchers think they found the remains of one of the first English princesses. Scientists believe that bones found wrapped in silk in a lead coffin two years ago in a cathedral in Germany are that of Eadgyth. Eadgyth was the sister of Englands first king, who ruled in the 10th century. She was chosen by the first Holy Roman Emperor as his queen, leading one researcher to call Eadgyth the Princess Diana of her day.
Its MORNING EDITION.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Our last word in business today is so long. NBC, this morning, made it official. It announced that after a seven-month stint hosting "The Tonight Show," Conan O'Brien will leave. That opens up the host chair for Jay Leno, whose primetime show was judged a flop. The Wall Street Journal reports the move will cost NBC quite a bit: 32 million in severance for Conan O'Brien and $12 million for his staff. The long and very public drama has made NBC the butt of late-night jokes. Though O'Brien, at least, won't be cracking wise about the network. His agreement with NBC includes a non-disparagement clause.
And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning. Im Renee Montagne with an update on news first reported by the National Enquirer and long denied by John Edwards that he fathered a child by a mistress, even as he campaigned for the Democratic nomination for president. Now, Edwards admits he lied. In a statement to the AP, Edwards says the child is his. Edwards changed his story just before his former aide, who originally claimed paternity comes out with a book that details his affair.
It's MORNING EDITION.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
In a sweeping decision today, the Supreme Court has struck down the century-old ban on corporate spending in federal elections. The ruling also invalidates similar corporate bans in state elections.
NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg is at the high court, and she joins us now live. Good morning, Nina.
NINA TOTENBERG: Good morning, Renee.
MONTAGNE: Now, the ban - what? It dates back to 1907.
TOTENBERG: Yeah. Since 1907, the nation's campaign finance laws have, for all practical purposes, banned corporate spending on candidate elections. In 1947, the ban was extended to unions. And in 2002, Congress passed the McCain-Feingold bill to plug loopholes that had emerged over the years. One provision banned broadcasting any ad 30 days before an election if it was financed with corporate funds. The Supreme Court upheld that law seven years ago, citing earlier rulings on corporate spending. And today, a markedly more conservative court with two Bush appointees now sitting reversed that earlier decision on the McCain-Feingold law and struck down any ban on corporate spending that Congress may enact.
MONTAGNE: And this has huge implications. You were in the courtroom today. Describe what happened.
TOTENBERG: Well, this was a special day added to the court calendar, because this is a law that is - that the court is instructed to expedite any consideration of rulings on it. And Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the decision for the 5-4 court. He said that the marketplace of ideas guaranteed by the Constitution includes corporations, which, after all, represent a significant segment of society and of our economic life. When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship, he said, to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment guarantee of free speech confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.
MONTAGNE: And so that is the majority, obviously. Was there a spoken dissent from the bench?
TOTENBERG: Yes. Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote part of the decision that was overturned today, he wrote the decision upholding the McCain-Feingold law, called the five-justice majority's decision a radical departure from precedent from a hundred years of law. He pointed out that corporations could, under the law, still spend money, but they had to use political action committees which regulate contributions and limit what individuals can give.
MONTAGNE: And that's under the current law.
TOTENBERG: That's under the current law that was struck down. This radical departure, he said, undoes the longstanding consensus in a democratic society on the need to limit corporate campaign spending. At bottom, the court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who recognize the need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It's a strange time, he said, to repudiate that common sense.
MONTAGNE: Well, practical implications: We have midterm elections this year. Does this decision mean there are no limits on what unions and corporations can spend?
TOTENBERG: It means that as long as they do it independently - and in the modern era, all you have to do is copy pretty much what the candidate is doing and follow it. As long as they do it independently, they can spend whatever they want. And it will undoubtedly help Republican candidates, since corporations have generally supported Republican candidates more. And it will probably lead to some new fights over how much corporations have to tell their shareholders about what they're doing and how much they have to - and whether they can be controlled in spending general treasury funds at all.
MONTAGNE: Nina, thank you.
TOTENBERG: You're welcome.
MONTAGNE: NPR's Nina Totenberg, on a Supreme Court ruling today, striking down a century-old ban on corporate spending in federal elections.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
It is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion 37 years ago. And today, jurors will begin hearing evidence in the trial of a man who admitted killing a doctor in Kansas who performed abortions. Scott Roeder�is charged with first degree murder in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller.
Roeder says he should be allowed to tell jurors why he committed the act, in his words: to protect unborn children. Prosecutors say any evidence about abortion is irrelevant. NPRs Kathy Lohr is in Wichita for the trial.
KATHY LOHR: Kansas prosecutors think its an open-and-shut murder case. Roeder allegedly drove from suburban Kansas City to George Tiller's church in Wichita last May, where he pulled out a gun and shot Tiller in the head. Many witnesses saw the shooting, and Roeder has admitted that he did it. But the case may not be so simple.
Judge Warren Wilbert ruled that Roeder cannot use a so-called justifiable homicide or necessity defense. But the judge did not rule out evidence that could lead to a lesser voluntary manslaughter charge. According to Kansas law, that's the quote, "unreasonable but honest belief that deadly force was justified."
Professor CARL TOBIAS (Law Professor, University of Richmond): It did seem very straightforward at the outset, but it seems less so now.
LOHR: Carl Tobias is law professor at the University of Richmond.
Prof. TOBIAS: The judge said he would entertain the evidence that defendants would introduce on a witness-by-witness, case-by-case basis. But that makes it very unpredictable - exactly what evidence will be proffered and what the judge will accept and allow the jury to hear.
Prosecutors argue evidence regarding Roeder's views on abortion and his view of Tiller should be excluded from the trial. They say this is a case of premeditated murder.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys declined to be interviewed before the trial, but some watching the case say Roeder has a right to present his defense, and that means abortion is an issue.
Michael Hirsh is a pro-life attorney.
Mr. MICHAEL HIRSH (Attorney): It's the 500-pound gorilla, you know - nobody wants to talk about it. But the fact is that if it wasn't for abortion, then, frankly, George Tiller wouldn't be dead right now. But the corollary of that is dozens of babies wouldn't be alive.
Many pro-life groups have condemned the killing, including Operation Rescue, a group that moved its headquarters to Wichita in 2002 to try to shut down Tiller's clinic. President Troy Newman says the trial is interesting, but he says it will have little impact on the movement or the efforts to end abortion.
Mr. TROY NEWMAN (President, Operation Rescue): Pro-life isn't being put on trial. A man who did a bizarre thing and executed an individual - that's who's being put on trial.
LOHR: But other abortion opponents do see the trial as a rallying point.
Reverend DONALD SPITZ (Founder, Pro-Life Virginia): It's very important because it shows that unborn babies deserve protection.
LOHR: Donald Spitz is with Pro-Life Virginia. Spitz runs an for Army of God Web site, and calls Roeder a hero.
Rev. SPITZ: All these years, our people, they get tried, brought before juries and brought before judges, and they're not allowed to say why they took the action that they did. They should be allowed to say why they took their action, and let the jury decide.
LOHR: Spitz says it's possible others could take violent action against doctors and clinics - and that's what worries those who support abortion rights.
Kathy Spillar is with the Feminist Majority Foundation.
Ms. KATHY SPILLAR (Executive vice president, Feminist Majority Foundation): And our fear, of course, is that it's going to embolden anti-abortion extremists to think that this is somehow a legitimate basis for use of deadly force.
LOHR: Pro-choice groups have asked the Justice Department to put law enforcement on alert in areas surrounding Wichita, and on routes they say extremists may take to get to the trial.
Ms. VICKI SAPORTA (President and CEO, National Abortion Federation): Coming to Wichita, we will have the who's who in the extreme wing of the anti-abortion movement.
LOHR: Vicki Saporta is with the National Abortion Federation.
Mr. SAPORTA: It's important that this proceed as a first-degree murder trial and that he gets convicted and goes to prison for the rest of his life. That will help serve as a deterrent for others who might want to follow in his footsteps and do harm to another abortion provider.
LOHR: The judge has warned the trial will not be a debate over abortion. But pro-choice activists fear allowing evidence that could lead to a lesser voluntary manslaughter charge, which carries a shorter sentence, will only create more tension over an issue that has bitterly divided Americans.
Kathy Lohr, NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
MONTAGNE: Youre listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
More than half a million people are sitting in the nation's jails this morning because they can't afford bail. They're at a stage where a judge has ruled they may be released before trial if they can come up with the money. Most can't. And it's costing taxpayers $9 billion a year to feed and house and cloth them. NPR's Laura Sullivan has been examining bail in the United States, and she spoke with one man in the Bronx, a conversation that shows sometimes the record on guilt and innocence depends on what an accused can afford.
LAURA SULLIVAN: I first met Shadu Green seven months ago in a place officially called the Vernon C. Bain Center. But every judge, layer and inmate in New York knows that this is The Boat - a giant, floating jail docked just across the river from Rikers Island. Sometimes, when the wind blows, you can feel it list just a little.
In a day room, Shadu Green is still wearing the T-shirt and jeans he had on when he was arrested three weeks earlier.
Mr. SHADU GREEN: Every day is horrible. I try not to show emotion because in here, you show emotions, they eat you alive.
SULLIVAN: Green is charged with a series of misdemeanors after getting pulled over in his car. But he doesn't have to be here. He's been granted bail. A judge has decided he's likely to show up for court when he's supposed to, if he can post a thousand dollar cash deposit. A bondsman has offered to post the money for him, for a $400 nonrefundable fee.
Green doesn't have $1,000. He doesn't have $400. He doesn't have $.44 to mail a letter to his mom asking for bail money.
So like thousands of inmates here and hundreds of thousands nationwide, Shadu Green is left with two options: He can fight his case, but he'll have to do it from here, behind bars. Or he can plead guilty and take the 60-day sentence prosecutors are offering him so he can go home. The only problem, he says, is that he believes he's not guilty.
Mr. GREEN: If you don't have money, you have to stay here. And that's the sad part about it. It's ruining your life, 'cause it's like, either way you have to be here.
SULLIVAN: Shadu Green is 25, skinny, with a nervous way of keeping an eye on the rest of the room. Court records show he was arrested June 7th. Officers say he was belligerent, assaulted them and resisted arrest. Green says he was pulled over for no reason and attacked by the officers.
Green wants a jury to decide who was right and who was wrong. He also knows a guilty plea is not helpful to the job prospects of a 25-year-old black man with a previous record, a minor weapons charge from several years ago. But as he stands here, you can hear him start to waver. He's done almost half the 60 days already.
Mr. GREEN: I cannot be here. I got my daughter, and that's what I'm thinking about. I have to do what I got to do.
SULLIVAN: The internal debate Green is waging at this very moment is one that national studies show usually works in prosecutors' favor. Defendants waiting in jail are far more likely to plead guilty than defendants waiting on the outside for their cases to wind their way through the system. They're also far more likely to receive and accept harsher punishments.
Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson declined NPR's request to talk about bail. But Marty Horn - at the time, the commissioner of New York City's jails -says he sees this scenario play out every day as he walks the hallways of Rikers Island.
Unidentified Man #1: Day sweep(ph).
(Soundbite of doors slamming)
Mr. MARTY HORN (Former Commission of New York City Jails): Individuals who insist on their innocence and refuse to plead guilty get held. But the people who choose to plead guilty get out faster.
Hey, Captain.
Unidentified Man: How we doing? How are you?
Mr. HORN: I'm good, man, how are you?
Unidentified Man #2: All right, sir.
Mr. HORN: So this guy is in this predicament, right? So, if he insists on his innocence, he sits here.
SULLIVAN: Does that seem fair?
Mr. HORN: I think our system unfortunately forces them to make a difficult choice.
(Soundbite of crowd chatter)
SULLIVAN: As I'm about to leave the day room, Shadu Green stops me. He says he's decided he's going to fight his case. He's already lost his apartment and his job. Still, he doesn't sound too convincing.
Mr. GREEN: I try not to, you know, let it get my mind and emotions get discouraged. It's hard, but you just have to do it.
SULLIVAN: A week later, though, Green was still sticking it out. He called me collect after bartering with the inmates who control the phones.
Mr. GREEN: Every day is something different or something new, especially at night. So, I mean, you just got to, you know, mind your business and, you know, hopefully, wake up the next day.
SULLIVAN: But by mid-July, nearly a month and a half after arriving at The Boat, Green called to say he was done. He was going to take the deal.
Mr. GREEN: Honestly, I just want to go home.
SULLIVAN: He says he's been crying a lot. He misses his daughter. His baby's mother can't pay the bills without his income.
Mr. GREEN: It's just that my family's out there. And it's going to make it seem like I'm trying to be greedy for just sitting in here.
SULLIVAN: Yet a few minutes later, he sounds like he still can't quite bring himself to accept the plea deal.
Mr. GREEN: If I take this plea, that's another charge on my record for nothing. They get to win, and at the end of the day I...
(Soundbite of dial tone)
SULLIVAN: Something happens in the background, and the phone goes dead. When Green calls back a while later, he's vague about what just happened. He says he doesn't want to talk about it. He sounds defeated.
Mr. GREEN: If I was wrong, I'd just be doing my time, because I just want to get it over with. But it's hard. 'Cause I've got to sit here, I've got to take all this, all because I want to prove a point, you know?
(Soundbite of dial tone)
SULLIVAN: I lose him again. I wonder what choice Shadu Green will make.
Then, a few days later, just as he is about to accept the prosecutors' deal, a small miracle happens for Shadu Green. His baby's mother scrapes together the last of the $400 she's been saving to pay the bail bondsman. And several hours later, Green is free.
Now, four months after that...
Mr. GREEN: I'm free, alive and free. That's the best thing.
SULLIVAN: Green is sitting on a park bench in the Bronx in a light November rain. An hour earlier, a judge postponed his case again for another two months.
He opens an old plastic umbrella and holds it over my head instead of his own. Its edge frames Yankee Stadium just down the hill - the old one, where, years ago, his grandmother took him before she died.
Mr. GREEN The whole time we were eating popcorn and sodas, and I miss my grandmother a lot.
SULLIVAN: Was that the first time you'd been?
Mr. GREEN: First and last, probably.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SULLIVAN: As he talks, it's hard to imagine Green surviving these months behind bars, waiting for his day in court. At this point, he would have been locked up four times longer than the punishment prosecutors were offering him.
Mr. GREEN: Being in jail makes you feel like there's no use to fighting. You're going to be away from your family, and that's just that.
SULLIVAN: Green has no money, no job, no place to live, and his case is months from being resolved. But for the first time since I met him, he seems almost invigorated.
Mr. GREEN: I'm willing to wait as long as five years if I have to, because I know I'm going to win. That's just how I feel.
SULLIVAN: Shadu Green may be guilty, or he may be innocent. But the point, he says, is that it's no longer up to the prosecutors, the police, the jail system or even just his willingness to stay in jail. It will be up to 12 New Yorkers he's never met. And the cost of that centuries-old privilege for Shadu Green, it turns out, was $400.
Laura Sullivan, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: And you can hear Laura's first story on bail in the U.S. at our Web site, npr.org.
This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
One year ago, a newly inaugurated President Obama made this announcement.
President BARACK OBAMA: We will close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and determine how to deal with those who have been held there.
MONTAGNE: Today was the target date for closing the camp, and Mr. Obama struggled to fulfill that promise before admitting it would not close on time. There are now nearly 200 men at Guantanamo. Closing the prison involves a legal process that started before President Obama took office.
The Supreme Court, in 2008, said detainees could challenge their imprisonment. Judges are having a hard time figuring out which rules to follow. NPRs Ari Shapiro reports.
ARI SHAPIRO: Im standing in front of the federal courthouse here in Washington, D.C. And about a year and a half ago, the Supreme Court opened these courthouse doors to Guantanamo detainees. Ever since, in one case after another, lawyers for the detainees have been coming before judges in this court house and asking the judges to answer the same question: Is this detainee an enemy combatant, or does the United States have to release him? Only problem is, theres no consensus about the definition of enemy combatant.
Judge ROYCE C. LAMBERTH (Chief Judge, Guantanamo Trials): It would have helped if we had had Congress give us a definition of an enemy combatant, but they didn't.
SHAPIRO: The chief judge overseeing these court-ordered Guantanamo trials, Royce C. Lamberth, spoke at an American Bar Association breakfast last month.
Judge LAMBERTH: The Bush administration gave us four different definitions. The Obama administration gave us another definition. Each of our courts is deciding for themselves a proper definition. Most of us have adopted one definition, but I have one renegade judge that's got another definition, and, you know, were doing what we can.
Mr. BENJAMIN WITTES (Brookings Institution): The judges are playing the role of the legislature - that is, they are writing the rules of the detention.
SHAPIRO: Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution has coauthored a detailed study of the opinions in the Guantanamo trials. He found that from one to judge to another, the trials are operating under different standards.
Mr. WITTES: They are the building blocks, the basic rules of any detention system. And they are completely in flux.
SHAPIRO: For example, Wittes says judges disagree about what it takes for an al-Qaida member to prove that he has severed ties with the terrorist group. Judges disagree on how much evidence the government needs in order to prove that someone is an enemy combatant. And they disagree about the kind of evidence thats allowed at these hearings.
Mr. WITTES: Judges all seem to agree that you can't beat evidence out of people, but the question of under what circumstances the taint of coercion will continue to preclude new statements seems to divide them very deeply.
SHAPIRO: When the Supreme Court ordered justices to start hearing these cases, they did not provide specific rules. And now, Wittes and his coauthors conclude, some judges are releasing detainees that other judges might keep locked up.
Mr. WITTES: So you have, in a relatively small group of cases, dramatically different outcomes, according to which judge you end up with.
SHAPIRO: Appeals courts are supposed to even out these differences and clarify the law, but the appeals court has not reviewed many Guantanamo decisions. Detainees' lawyers say things are not as chaotic as people think.
Mr. DAVID REMES (Attorney, Appeal for Justice): What's going on here is normal. It's routine. It's bread and butter, and it's nuts and bolts.
SHAPIRO: David Remes of the group Appeal for Justice has represented many Guantanamo detainees. He believes judges are evaluating the facts of individual cases and reaching different conclusions, just as in the criminal justice system.
Mr. REMES: I'll give you two juries and the same set of facts, and you'll get two different results. One will convict, the other will acquit. That's human nature. The fact that there's variety or variation in the trial courts is commonplace.
SHAPIRO: So far, most detainees have won their cases, and judges have ordered them to be released. Both President Bush and President Obama have struggled to fulfill those orders.
Since Congress has shown no interest in wading into this fight over legal rules and definitions, it seems the judges here in Washington will be left to work through the rest of the Guantanamo cases, in much the same way as they've done until now.
Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.
MONTAGNE: And you can read the new study of these Guantanamo rulings at our Web site: npr.org.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
It's time again for our series StoryCorps. This project has been traveling the country to record people talking about their lives and loved ones.
Today, we'll hear from Gwen Richards in Prairie Village, Kansas. She shared this story about her mother Helen, who was diagnosed in her 60s with Alzheimer's.
Ms. GWEN RICHARDS: My mother was the glue to our family, as I think mothers are. Everybody would come to visit mama - my brothers, everybody - we all would come to see mama. But my mom had Alzheimer's and we realized what was going on when she started getting lost.
I remember the day she went across the street to see Ms. Rednor(ph) and then she left to come home, but instead she headed the opposite direction. By this time, mama had a bracelet. I had gotten her a bracelet with her address and stuff on it. Well, a lady found her and gave her a ride home. And when she knocked at the door, it's like, mama, mama. She don't remember any of what had happened.
But, you know, it's just with this disease, even though she was physically there, we lost her. And that bothered me - it still bothers me.
It's also affected our family because now I have it as well. And because I had seen her before, I tried to tell my doctors - they didn't believe me. Oh, you look fine. How are you doing at work? Fine. What's your relationship like with your husband? Fine. If people aren't looking for it, they won't see it.
And the first test strongly suggested it; the second test confirmed it as much as can be, because it cannot be totally diagnosed until you pass away.
So the thing, which is hard for me to say, the thing that most concerns me are my children and them having to go through what I went through with my mother. And also the fact that my children could get it and grandchildren that I'll never see, possibly. Those are the things that concern me the most - not necessarily that I won't be here, but the family.
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MONTAGNE: Gwen Richards in Prairie Village, Kansas. She's been living with that diagnosis since 2008.
StoryCorps has been recording interviews with others living with memory loss. Those conversations, and all other conversations, will be archived at the Library of Congress. Subscribe to the project's Podcast at NPR.org.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
On Capitol Hill, Democrats are regrouping after Tuesdays election of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the Senate. If his victory is a sign that voters want them to scale back the health care bill, that won't be easy. NPRs Julie Rovner reports.
JULIE ROVNER: First things first, the House is not about to pass the Senate's version of the health overhaul bill. That pretty much puts a fork in the massive bill thats been nearly a year in the making. Yesterday, following what was reportedly a fairly rowdy meeting of House Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the votes for the Senate bill simply aren't there.
Representative NANCY PELOSI (Democrat, California; Speaker of the House): Unease would be a gentle word in terms of the attitude of my colleagues toward certain provisions of the Senate bill.
ROVNER: And so far, at least, the idea of scaling back and reaching out to Republicans doesn't seem likely to pay off, at least not while Republicans like House Minority Leader John Boehner smell electoral blood in the water.
Representative JOHN BOEHNER (Republican, Ohio; House Minority Leader): But listen, our goal is to stop this monstrosity. And we're working with our members so that we don't find ourselves in a position where they're able to pick off a few of our members and - to get this bill passed.
ROVNER: One option that seems to be gaining some traction is the idea of pulling out the most popular pieces of the health bill and passing them separately. President Obama even hinted at such a strategy in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday.
President BARACK OBAMA: I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on.
ROVNER: That may sound good. But in practice, says health policy analyst Jeff Goldsmith, it comes with its own set of political perils.
Mr. JEFF GOLDSMITH (Health Policy Analyst): Each one of those pieces has barbs attached to it. I mean, you can say, well, you know, health insurance reforms are really very popular across a broad spectrum, but then when you put them in - you know, like eliminating preexisting conditions or lifetime caps - you know, not only don't you have the health plans at the table, I mean, theyre going to come at you hammer and tongs.
ROVNER: In other words, powerful interest groups that have so far stayed mostly on the sidelines could declare full-out war.
At the same time, he says, many of the pieces of the bills only work in conjunction with other pieces, making picking and choosing problematic. In particular, hospitals, drug companies and other health-provider groups agreed to take pay cuts in Medicare because they knew they would recoup that money through other provisions of the bill that ensured that millions more people would be getting private insurance.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: If they don't have the healing balm of millions of new paying customers to salve their wounds, they're not going to sit still for the cost containment provisions in this bill. So the idea that you just have the freedom to pick little pieces of this, I think the real art form here is deciding who you can afford to piss off.
ROVNER: For example, requiring insurance companies to take people with preexisting health conditions without also requiring that everyone have coverage wouldn't cost very much and would be politically popular. After all, with no mandate, the government wouldn't have to provide subsidies for those with lower incomes. But it would make insurance companies furious. And, says Goldsmith, it would probably cause all premiums to rise, since people would likely wait until they got sick to buy insurance.
Mr. GOLDSMITH: Well, you can do it and then blame the insurers when the rates go up.
ROVNER: But while Congress ponders its options, lawmakers should keep in mind that waiting too long is also risky. Lawmakers are eager to get on to other agenda items, like jobs bills and financial regulation. They were hoping to have health care wrapped up by next month. About all they know now is that's not going to happen.
Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
MONTAGNE: And coverage of the fate of the health care overhaul continues on our health blog called Shots at npr.org.
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MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
There are small signs that things are getting better in Haitis capital, Port-au-Prince. The general hospital is functioning again and street vendors are selling food to those who have the money, but hundreds of thousands of people are still living on the streets.
In the first of two reports, heres NPRs Jason Beaubien.
(Soundbite of truck)
JASON BEAUBIEN: At daybreak, a battered tanker truck pulls up in front of the national palace and starts distributing water. Children rush to the truck with buckets. This is the only free source of water for the thousands of people who are sleeping outside in the area. Women come to the curb to brush their teeth, kids splash water over their faces. The curb also serves as a toilet. In Port-au-Prince, the water truck is a sign of improvement. Its better than nothing. In addition, a few bulldozers have started to demolish buildings. And while most of the shops, banks and other businesses that survived the quake remain shut, street markets operating again.
(Soundbite of tingling glass)
BEAUBIEN: At the (unintelligible) market near the port, soft drink vendors tap on glass bottles to advertise their presence.
Ms. WILMA FRANSCOIS(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: Wilma Franscois is selling beans and lentils from wicker baskets on the dirt floor. Shes returned to the market this week, but she says nothing has returned to normal.
Ms. FRANSCOIS: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: The 65-year-old Franscois says that not only she lost her home and she is living in the street, her entire business is broken. There are very few customers and the ones who are coming dont have much money to spend. The man she used to borrow money from is dead. So is her wholesaler. She says the food she salvaged after the quake is the last thing she has to sell.
Ms. FRANSCOIS: (Foreign language spoken)
BEAUBIEN: When all this is gone, Im just going to wait for death to come get me, she says. I dont have any other options. International aid agencies and the U.S. military are trying desperately to get aid into Port-au-Prince. The U.N.s World Food Program says it has moved tons of food into the Haitian capital and aims to deliver rations to 100,000 people a day in the coming days. The Haitian government estimates 1.5 million people were left homeless by the quake.
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BEAUBIEN: Thousands are still in makeshift hospitals and more wounded keep turning up at clinics each day. The U.S. Navy hospital ship, The Comfort, steamed into the harbor on Wednesday. Yesterday Navy helicopters took off from the lawn of the crumpled presidential palace carrying severely wounded patients out to the vessel.
Captain ANDREW JOHNSON (U.S. Navy): At this point, this is our second day of taking patients.
BEAUBIEN: Captain Andrew Johnson, the director of medical operations for The Comfort, says the ship will ease the burden on the citys beleaguered hospitals.
Capt. JOHNSON: Somewhere between a 1,000 and 1,100 patients could be on the ship. And we could run up to 11 operating rooms simultaneously.
BEAUBIEN: Captain Johnson says many of the injuries in this quake are complicated.
Capt. JOHNSON: Massive crush injuries to arms, legs, pelvises, head injuries, just blunt trauma.
BEAUBIEN: Matt Marek, the country representative for the American Red Cross in Haiti, says his organization continues to find people living in the camps who have broken limbs, open wounds and other injuries still untreated from the earthquake. A week and a half after the trembler, Marek says the primary unmet needs of people remain the same.
Mr. MATT MAREK (Country Representative, American Red Cross, Haiti): Medical attention is still needed, very much so, but you know, food, water, shelter.
BEAUBIEN: Before the quake, Haiti was already the poorest nation in the hemisphere, and Marek says it will take years to recover. Most government buildings in the capital now lie in ruins. Utilities, roads, sewers need to be rebuilt. So far the relief effort is being led by international aid groups and the U.S. military. But Marek says in the long term that cant continue.
Mr. MAREK: We cant ignore the fact that the Haitian government needs to rebound from this. I mean, this cannot be an effort that is solely, you know, run by the international community. It's not this is not - this is still a sovereign country.
BEAUBIEN: In the short term, Marek says, the focus still needs to be food, shelter, water. But in the coming days, this country has to consider how its going to rebuild, where the money is going to come from and where hundreds of thousands of displaced residents are going to survive in the meantime.
Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
All over Port-au-Prince, as we've seen and heard, people are camping out. With their homes demolished or just because theyre scared, Haitians have moved into the streets, where theyre forming neighborhood watch committees, sharing what they have as they try to keep their spirits up.
NPRs John Burnett visited one of those neighborhoods last night, and he sent us this postcard from Petionville.
JOHN BURNETT: As we approached a group of people lounging on the pavement of the Rue Clairvough(ph), I stupidly asked one of our translators, are they having a street party? Edson Madeas(ph), a 27-year-old cell phone company employee who's temporarily out of work, responds this way.
Mr. EDSON MADEAS: They are not having a street party here. I mean, people are so worried, they are so frustrated, so they don't have time to party and they are not even thinking of sex.
BURNETT: They've been out here for the past 10 nights. Women lie on bed sheets spread out under a crescent moon, their restive children unable to sleep. The only light comes from candles from an animated domino game.
(Soundbite of crumpling)
BURNETT: Maseo Lumpar(ph) is a 28-year-old telecommunications student who's taken upon himself to walk the crowd every night and make sure everyone's okay.
Mr. MASEO LUMPAR: (Through translator) The reason we organize this camping area is because a lot of prisons were destroyed. Now there are crooks, murderers and thieves everywhere. So we want to watch everybody. You've got these guys roaming at night. We want to see who's coming in and out of the neighborhood.
BURNETT: Unlike the twinkling lights of the big houses up on Mount Calvere(ph) that have their own generators, down here the Rue Clairveau is solidly middle class and no one has lights.
But unlike much of the capital, these homes didn't suffer catastrophic damage. Some have cracks in the walls but the houses are still standing. Residents have moved outdoors because they're afraid of a second quake and they're waiting for an engineer to tell them their houses are safe. Fortunately, it's the dry season in Haiti. The women pray that it doesn't rain.
(Soundbite of overlapping voices)
BURNETT: What happened here and throughout Port-au-Prince is the formation of spontaneous communities. It's the same thing that happened in the streets in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina. When the government never came, lots of people helped one another, looked out for one another.
At the Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, where thousands massed to await evacuation, some people cooked and fed the young ones and the old people first - others stood guard at night around the vulnerable to protect them from gangbangers.
Out here in the Rue Clairveau in the days after the earthquake, one can witness the same thing.
(Soundbite of water running)
BURNETT: Somebody tapped into the water line in the middle of the street and installed a spigot for communal washing and drinking.
Cooks share their rice and beans and plates of tomato and chicken. Unlike Port-au-Prince, the street markets are full of food up here in the P�tionville suburb. And to pass the time, they sing sacred music - just like they did in New Orleans.
(Soundbite of singing)
BURNETT: John Burnett, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
(Soundbite of singing)
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MONTAGNE: Governments all around the world have pledged nearly $1 billion in aid to Haiti, according to the latest estimate by the Associated Press. The United States leads the list. It has sent $130 million in aid, along with 12,000 military personnel, ships, helicopters and cargo planes. Still, even the impoverished West African nation of Liberia is sending help - $50,000 in aid.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And our Last Word in Business comes from video game publisher Electronic Arts, which says: Go Tiger.
Sales of the company's Tiger Woods golf game has grown, despite the scandal over Woods' martial infidelities. While some of the golfer's sponsors have dumped him and many others have scaled back their marketing plans, the video game world remains loyal. EA says it still plans to launch "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11" for game consoles and the iPhone this June.
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MONTAGNE: And that's the Business News on NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
NPR's Business News starts with more Toyota recalls.
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MONTAGNE: Toyota is recalling millions more vehicles again, because of problems with accelerator pedals. It's the second massive recall for Toyota in four months. The last recall was because of accelerator pedals getting stuck under floor mats. This new recall for Camry's and other sedan and truck models involves the gas pedal itself. Toyota says overtime, in some cases, the pedal becomes harder to press down or doesnt return to its normal position.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Home mortgage rates are falling again. They're back down to historically low levels.
NPR's Chris Arnold has more.
CHRIS ARNOLD: The lower rates have the phones ringing again at mortgage broker offices and the number of new loans being written has been rising for the past three weeks.
(Soundbite of radio ad)
Unidentified Man: Listen, if youve waited until now, this is your second chance to capitalize on some of the lowest rates in a generation. We can save you a fortune with this deal. It's the biggest no-brainer in the history of Earth.
ARNOLD: That's a radio ad for the mortgage company Lenox Financial, and that many people actually have been able to refinance their home loans and save hundreds of dollars a month.
Guy Cecala is the publisher of the Inside Mortgage Finance.
Mr. GUY CECALA (CEO and publisher, Inside Mortgage Finance): The record low mortgage rates weve seen over the past year aren't over yet. Rates are continuing to bounce around near five percent or even under, and it's a great time to go shopping for a home, particularly with a lot of distressed properties on the market, home prices are down.
ARNOLD: Still, many Americans can't qualify for those super loans rates.
Mr. CECALA: Mortgage underwriting is still extremely tight, the tightest weve seen in 20 or 30 years.
ARNOLD: Cecala says most loans being written lately are for people with an average credit score of around 760. That's a sterling credit score, and he says the people without that kind of credit score are having trouble. And he says a lot of other people dont have enough equity in their house to qualify for the low rates.
Chris Arnold, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And with the worst of the financial crisis over, President Obama is proposing tougher measures to regulate the banks. Yesterday, he asked Congress to take action to limit the size and activities of some of the nation's largest financial institutions.
And to find out more, we turn now to David Wessel. He's economics editor of the Wall Street Journal, joins us often on this program.
Good morning.
Mr. DAVID WESSEL (Economics editor, Wall Street Journal): Good morning, Renee.
MONTAGNE: Tell us exactly what the president is proposing.
Mr. WESSEL: Two things: one is to expand the existing limits on just how large any bank can get to cover more things. And the second, and the more interesting one actually, is to tell banks that if they're going to come under the federal safety net - deposit insurance, ability to borrow from the Fed, the knowledge that theyll get bailed out if they get in trouble - then they have to stick to basic banking and give up the risky trading for their own accounts or owning hedge funds. It's an approach that Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman has been promoting loudly for months and months and months, and one that, just until a couple weeks ago, the president's economic team has been distinctly unenthusiastic about.
MONTAGNE: And so why is he doing this now?
Mr. WESSEL: Well, politically, the president clearly is looking for ways to show the people that he's tough on Wall Street, that he's going to do something to prevent the big banks who are so unpopular from putting us through anything like the recent crisis. On the substance, President Obama, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said yesterday, that first of all, they want to prevent the American taxpayer from - as the president put it - being held hostage by a bank that's too big to fail. And secondly, they think that banks that want to gamble in the markets, such is their right, should do it with their own money and shouldnt do it with the knowledge that they're being backstopped by the taxpayers. It's not exactly a return to the Depression-era law known as Glass-Steagall, which limited the bank's ability to do things and was repealed in the late '90s. But it's in the spirit of Glass-Steagall, or a second cousin of Glass-Steagall.
MONTAGNE: Now David, the markets went down yesterday. Is that a bad reaction to this and did the banks react to this?
Mr. WESSEL: Well, the markets did fall yesterday. The stock market was down two percent, pulled down by banks stocks because this would definitely the limit banks ability to make money. I mean JP Morgan Chase, one of the biggest banks, lost more than six percent on its stock. And the bankers and the lobbyist for the bankers say look, this kind of trading didnt cause the crisis. This is unwise. It's impractical. It's imprudent. And so they're not happy about it, and there will be a big argument about this. This is not something that is going to necessarily sail through Congress. But the banks are really on the defensive now. I mean just a few days ago, the president proposed a new $9 billion a year fee or tax on them, so they're having a hard time defending themselves right now.
MONTAGNE: And you mentioned, earlier, that the president's economic team, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, not initially enthusiastic about this, came around. Why did they change?
Mr. WESSEL: Well, Larry Summers, the president's economic advisor, Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, have argued that the best way to prevent banks from getting into trouble and threatening the system again was to make them hold bigger capital cushions and make sure they had more ready cash. They didnt want to go back to these kinds of ridged rules, the ones that Mr. Volcker has been proposing. But Mr. Volcker's notion drew a lot of support from some big names in finance. The House passed a bill that would've allowed the regulators to do this and the specter of Goldman Sachs and other banks making so much money on trading while they were still being backstopped by the government really, I think, partly changed the argument. We understand that Vice President Joe Biden became an ally of Mr. Volcker. So just before Christmas, Mr. Geithner and Mr. Summers met with Mr. Volcker and apparently they came to an agreement and the president liked the idea.
MONTAGNE: Okay David, yes or no, will it make it through Congress?
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Mr. WESSEL: I'm not going to be able to give you a yes or no on that. It depends on what Senate Republicans do.
MONTAGNE: Okay.
Mr. WESSEL: Do they want to stop the president or do they want to beat up on the banks?
MONTAGNE: Okay. David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks very much.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
Steve Inskeep is in New York, where he's accepted a DuPont award. Were proud to say that he, Michele Norris, and others of our colleagues at NPR received the award for our coverage of race and politics in 2008 presidential election.
And we begin this mornings program with a major political milestone. The U.S. Supreme Court, by a five to four vote, has potentially transformed American politics and government, giving corporations and unions unfettered power to spend money in candidate elections.
The decision is seen - in the short run, at least - as helping Republicans and business interests, which generally have the most money at their disposal. President Obama and campaign reformers condemned the ruling, but there may be little they can do to counteract the high court decision. We have two reports now, beginning with NPRs legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.
NINA TOTENBERG: The Supreme Courts decision yesterday reversed a century-long congressional ban on corporate spending in candidate elections and decades of high court decisions upholding that ban. The ruling, by implication, also invalidates a ban on union spending, as well as similar state bans. Both campaign reform advocates and critics called the decision an earthquake in the law, transformative. Or, as former Republican National Committee General Counsel Ben Ginsberg put it...
Mr. BEN GINSBERG (Former General Counsel, Republican National Committee): It is going to look an awful lot like the Wild, Wild West when the campaign season heats up more.
TOTENBERG: To critics of campaign finance restrictions like Ginsberg, thats as it should be, because they believe corporations have a First Amendment right to express their views through campaign spending. The decision will restructure the way election campaigns are run, not just at the federal level, but at the state and local level, too. Trevor Potter, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and general counsel for Senator John McCains presidential campaign, notes that corporate spending bans in 24 states and countless localities will be obliterated almost overnight.
Mr. TREVOR POTTER (Former Chairman, Federal Election Commission): And suddenly, this prospect of a corporation thats unhappy with a zoning decision or the action of a local mayor being able to go in and spend enough money to defeat them in the next election or elect a new town council all with corporate funds is going to be a big shock.
TOTENBERG: Judicial elections in every state will now see more corporate and union spending, too. And in Congress, the floodgates are now fully open. Or as former GOP counsel Ben Ginsberg says...
Mr. GINSBERG: They will be - now be able to spend oodles squared.
TOTENBERG: Experts on both sides of the issue said yesterday that, at least initially, the Republican Party is likely to benefit from the decision. Jan Barron(ph) is an advocate for lifting the ban on corporate spending.
Mr. JAN BARRON: The potential beneficiary here would be the party or the candidates who are perceived as being more beneficial to free enterprise and business.
TOTENBERG: Experts pointed to other potential consequences of yesterday's ruling. Parties may be weakened because they're still limited by law in the money they can raise, while corporations and unions can now spend with abandon. As a result, there may be increased pressure on Congress to remove limits on party spending. Former Republican counsel Ginsberg.
Mr. GINSBERG: I do believe that this whole past 35 years of reform has now put us in a really bad system where candidates - either on their own or through parties - are small voices in the debate, and the special interest groups are running supreme.
TOTENBERG: President Obama blasted yesterdays ruling as a victory for Wall Street, big banks, big oil and big insurance companies, and he called on Congress to take steps to fix it. But reform advocates admitted privately that they could see few avenues to do that in light of the Supreme Courts broad language, declaring that corporations have a First Amendment right of free speech akin to individuals, and rejecting outright years of congressional findings that money is a corrupted influence in politics.
Former FEC chairman Potter called the courts decision essentially naive, and he lamented the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who served as a GOP leader in the Arizona state Senate before becoming a judge. Seven years ago, she wrote part of the decision upholding the McCain-Feingold law. That decision was reversed yesterday by a newly energized conservative majority that includes two justices named to the court by President Bush after O'Connors retirement. Trevor Potter.
Mr. POTTER: The absence of OConnor makes such a difference on this issue, because she really was the only one who absolutely got it as a legislator. And now you've got nine justices who all have a completely different background, either academics or executive branch, and they dont have a personal understanding of what goes on in a legislature and how the money is raised and what the pressures are.
TOTENBERG: Other critics of the decision were more blunt. Here's Fred Wertheimer, who's helped craft every piece of campaign reform legislation since Watergate.
Mr. FRED WERTHEIMER: This is the most radical and destructive campaign finance decision in Supreme Court history. Chief Justice Roberts and four of his colleagues abandoned long-standing judicial principles, judicial precedents and judicial restraint.
TOTENBERG: For the foreseeable future, though, the conservative court majority is in the driver's seat by a one vote majority.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
PETER OVERBY: I'm Peter Overby, in Washington.
One change that's likely from yesterday's court decision: truth in advertising.
You know those weird political ads that tell you to call the candidate? Like this one by the Committee for Truth in Politics in 2008. It accuses then-candidate Barack Obama of going easy on child predators.
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Unidentified Woman: Barack Obama was the only member that voted to allow early release for convicted sexual abusers. Call Senator Obama. Tell him to support the Prevention and Deterrence of Crimes Against Children Act.
OVERBY: It's a legal trick. The tell him line is supposed to make the ad be about an issue, not about the presidential election. And issue ads could be funded with money that would be illegal in a real campaign ad, like corporate money. Now, the Supreme Court says corporations can pay for political ads straight up. David Keating is director of the anti-tax advocacy group Club for Growth.
Mr. DAVID KEATING (Director, Club for Growth): So the ads will get more honest, I think. You know, instead of having all this nonsense about call him, they'll tell you what to do: Go vote.
OVERBY: But honest ads weren't really on the court's agenda. It was all about freeing up the speech rights of corporations - unions, too. But Steve Rosenthal, a long-time strategist in the union and progressive movements, says the court has tilted the playing field.
Mr. STEVE ROSENTHAL (Union and Progressive Movement Strategist): To now allow corporations to open their checkbooks and spend as much as they want, it's a very, very big problem. Unions will never have the type of money that corporations have.
OVERBY: And that's not even the biggest way in which yesterday's decision rearranges American politics.
Mr. LARRY NORTON (Former General Counsel, Federal Election Commission): It's a dramatic shift in the allocation of power or influence in campaigns.
OVERBY: Larry Norton is a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission.
Mr. NORTON: Candidates will still be subject to relatively low limits on individual contributions, but they will compete to get their voice heard and to control the message of the election with large corporations that will be able to spend unlimited sums on election ads.
OVERBY: Not everyone predicts an immediate tidal wave of corporate money, here. Campaign finance lawyer Ken Gross says that when it comes to political money, generally, most of his corporate clients ask him, quote, "how little they can do and say they've maxed out."
And big, publicly-held corporations tend to be risk-averse. They might not try this till the Federal Election Commission writes its regulations and some other more daring corporations go first.
Chris LaCivita will be looking for those adventurous corporations, too. He's a political consultant best known for producing the Swift Boat ads against Democrat John Kerry in 2004. He says the 2008 campaign was bad. FEC enforcement scared off too many donors.
Mr. CHRIS LACIVITA (Political Consultant): There were some committed Americans who wanted to communicate a message - you know, threats from the government be damned, they were still going to be involved. But at the end of the day, we were only able to accomplish a tiny portion, budget-wise, of what we originally set out to do.
OVERBY: But it's looking different now. When I called LaCivita yesterday, he sounded a kid who'd opened his Christmas presents and gotten just what he wanted.
Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.
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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Something that came up a lot during his presidential campaign was that Barack Obama had once been a community organizer, which meant that when he took office a lot of advocacy groups were confident that the White House would welcome their efforts to bring about change. Here's NPR's Pam Fessler checking in one year later.
PAM FESSLER: Right after President Obama was elected, more than 2,000 community organizers gathered in Washington to celebrate. After all, he was one of their own, having spent years organizing in the streets of Chicago. They cheered when Obama's aides promised them a seat at the table in the new administration.
But that was a year ago.
Unidentified People: Bail out the people. Bail out the people. Bail out the people.
FESSLER: This was last month, when those same organizers were outside the White House, protesting a lack of jobs for the unemployed.
Unidentified Man: What do we want?
Unidentified People:: Jobs.
Unidentified Man: When do we want them?
Unidentified People: Now.
Unidentified Man: When do we want them?
Mr. DEEPAK BHARGAVA (Center for Community Change): I think the glow is definitely off.
FESSLER: Deepak Bhargava is executive director of the Center for Community Change, the group that organized the White House protests and last year's gathering. The center's been at the forefront trying to get community organizers who generally advocate for the poor and disadvantaged to be a force in Washington.
Mr. BHARGAVA: I think people are more sobered by the reality of what we are up against, how much entrenched power, how much old ways of doing business need to be broken through.
FESSLER: Something that doesn't necessarily change with a friend in the White House.
Several things community organizers set out to get this year - a public health care option, more jobs, an immigration bill - haven't come to pass, although there have been victories. Both houses of Congress passed health care legislation and the economic stimulus package increased spending on the poor.
Bhargava says organizers also have had new access, meeting dozens of times with top White House aides and lawmakers.
Mr. BHARGAVA: Community organizations have been involved in the national debate in a way that they never have been before.
Ms. ANNA MARIA GULATTA(ph) (Volunteer, Virginia Organizing Project): My name is Anna and I'm a volunteer at the Virginia Organizing Project.
FESSLER: And that involvement is something that keeps this organizer energized.
Ms. GULATTA: And we just had a few questions for your wife about a bill that's in the U.S. Senate.
FESSLER: Anna Maria Gulatta has spent hours calling Virginians, asking them to support tougher financial regulations.
Joe Szakos, head of the Virginia Organizing Project, says that's something new. Community groups like his generally work on local issues. But they've now banded together in a national network to take advantage of a more friendly political atmosphere in Washington. But he says organizers are also pragmatic.
Mr. JOE SZAKOS (Virginia Organizing Project): People knew that there was going to be a lot of rough and tumble but that they had to focus their energy, wherever they were, to try to make some meaningful reforms, and it wasn't going to be easy.
FESSLER: On the upside, he says, a lot more people have become involved. His group has brought busloads of community activists to Washington to lobby. They've also knocked on thousands of doors, collecting information about potential voters. They hope that gives them more clout with lawmakers. Szakos says many organizers are encouraged.
Mr. SZAKOS: Even if everything tells them that, you know, you only got 60 percent of this and 82 percent of that, that's more than they had before.
Ms. LILLY ESTES(ph) (Community Organizer): To me, I think in terms of long term a lot, so I wasn't expecting things to be so drastically different in one year.
FESSLER: Lilly Estes has been organizing in Virginia for a long time, mostly for public housing residents in Richmond. She understands that President Obama has to compromise to get things done. She says she's more pleased with how he's changed the tone in Washington.
Alicia Knight, another Virginia organizer, agrees.
Ms. ALICIA KNIGHT (Community Organizer): Two years ago, the big debate on Capitol Hill was - does putting somebody upside down and pouring water down their throats constitute torture? This year they were talking about health care.
FESSLER: And that's progress, she said, in which people like her have played a part.
But now what? Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change is worried that if President Obama doesn't get a health care bill soon or do more to create jobs, the momentum could be lost.
Mr. BHARGAVA: The people will not turn out in the 2010 elections, that you'll see a kind of discouragement set in. So really the stakes are very high for what happens over these next few months.
FESSLER: All the more reason, he says, why community organizers need to keep the pressure up, whether it's from inside the White House or out.
Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Roman Polanski won't be a courtroom here in Los Angeles today, where his lawyers are hoping for a ruling that may put an end to the long-running sex case. Polanski is still under house arrest in Switzerland, battling extradition to the U.S. But he has a lot riding on todays hearing. NPRs Karen Grigsby Bates reports.
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES: Polanski has been a felon for 33 years, but he only did 42 days in a prison psychiatric unit after pleading guilty to having had sex with an underage girl. Now his attorneys are arguing thats enough. Theyre asking the judge to sentence Polanski to time served, meaning those days he spent in the prison hospital. Its a good deal if he can get it, says Loyola law professor and former federal prosecutor Laurie�Levenson.
Professor LAURIE�LEVENSON (Loyola Law School): Roman Polanski wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants the court to sentence him while hes away, sentence him to no more time in prison, find that there was misconduct, enforce what he said was the old deal, and then what will happen is Roman Polanski will get out of custody in Switzerland and go on to live his life. Thats what he wants.
BATES: Polanski remains under house arrest in Switzerland. But a sentence of time served would make him a free man. His lawyers have portrayed him as a victim, a man who fled the U.S. after an L.A. judge was about to renege on a deal not to send him away.
But instead of bringing him to Los Angeles to make his case in person, Polanskis lawyers want him to be sentenced in absentia, without being present. Thats extremely rare, says Robin Sax, a former sex crimes prosecutor in the L.A. County D.A.s office.
Ms. ROBIN SAX (Legal Analyst): It is not common for defendants in felony cases to be sentenced in absentia, primarily because most defendants in felony cases are in custody at the time of their sentencing.
BATES: But Sax believes Polanski may at least have a chance of getting what he wants. And even Polanskis victim, whos now in her mid-40s, is supporting his request to be sentenced to time served. Robin Sax says granting that motion is an imperfect solution in this long-running case. But it may be the most workable one.
Ms. SAX: Given the community reaction, being able to have the conviction stand, not having to go through the expense of dealing with the prosecutorial misconduct and judicial misconduct and factoring in the victims position.
BATES: Three decades, countless lawyers, two international courts of law and a sharply divided public here and abroad have everyone involved in the Polanski case pretty much burned out. Laurie Levenson...
Ms. LEVENSON: A lot of people want this to go away, including Judge Espinoza. But the question is how to do it fairly.
BATES: Polanski's supporters view him as a genius whos been punished enough. Nothing like the little thug he played in the movie Chinatown, where he took a slice out of Jack Nicholson.
(Soundbite of movie, Chinatown)
Mr. ROMAN POLANSKI (As Man with Knife): You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses. Next time you lose the whole thing.
BATES: But there is a flip side. A public outrage that a man who plied a 13-year-old girl with alcohol and drugs and then raped her might get off with only a few days served. It could all be decided today.
Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne. The Haitian government is planning a massive relocation of earthquake victims to camps outside the devastated capital of Port-au-Prince. Its aimed at staving off disease and it could involve as many as 400,000 people. Most of them are now living in squalid, makeshift shelters around the city. NPRs Corey Flintoff has this look at some of the places people are taking shelter.
COREY FLINTOFF: Survivors are sleeping in nearly every open space in the city, fearful that even the buildings that withstood last week's earthquake could collapse in one of the frequent aftershocks.
This is a small park on the edge of the city center, where several hundred people are camping on the pavement or in the dirt. A young woman who gives her name only as Mariyam sits on the curb with a cluster of other people who look worn by more than a week of living in the open, amid the dust and smoke of the ruined city. She speaks through an interpreter.
MARIYAM: (Through translator) I am sick. All of us are sick, and we are hungry too. There is (unintelligible) influenza. We've got - catch cold. We are afraid. We don't know what may happen at any time.
FLINTOFF: Is it dangerous here? I mean, have you seen any shootings? Have you seen anybody stealing, looting? Things like that?
MARIYAM: Yes. Yes.
FLINTOFF: What have you seen?
MARIYAM: (Through translator) There are a lot of thieves. They are sneaking into people's house. There are raping ladies. We are afraid. We don't know what to do.
FLINTOFF: There's an acrid stink of excrement in the air. When asked where people go to the bathroom, Mariyam points to a pair of sagging blue portable toilets a few yards away.
She says the toilets are overflowing and people are forced to relieve themselves on the ground or in the streets. This could cause one of things health workers fear most - an outbreak of disease among people who are already weakened and stressed.
Food is beginning to show up for sale on the street, but few who shelter here can afford it.
(Soundbite of horn honking)
FLINTOFF: Across the city, in the district called Delmas, people have stretched tarps in side streets and yards, many with bed-sheet banners that say, in English: We need help, food and medicine.
(Soundbite of singing)
FLINTOFF: But some people have it a little better. The tin-roofed Tabernacle du Plein Evangile the Full Gospel Tabernacle - survived the earthquake, and it's now sheltering its congregation. There are about 60 people in the church, including women tending babies, and a few heavily bandaged children.
Pastor JEAN NERVA MONDESTINE (Tabernacle du Plein Evangile): (Foreign language spoken)
FLINTOFF: Pastor Jean Nerva Mondestine says that more than 400 people come to sleep here each night, but he doesn't have food for them, or medical care. He says this street is dangerous at night, and the tabernacle is unguarded.
Pastor MONDESTINE: (Through translator) No, there is no security, but we are not afraid. We believe in God. We rely on God for our security.
FLINTOFF: Even for those who, like Mondestines congregation, have a roof over their heads, life is overcrowded, dirty and unhealthy.
It remains to be seen whether it's even possible to move hundreds of thousands of people out of the city, but if it is, many people now on the street may see it as a chance to survive.
Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
The fate of Congresss health care overhaul is unclear after this weeks election of Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts to the U.S. Senate. One of the major issues thats been holding up the health care bill is how to pay for it. The Senate wants to impose a Cadillac tax. That is a tax on the most expensive health care plans. Executives with gold-plated plans don't like it and neither do labor unions, whose workers have generous plans. But many economists say it could help everyone in the long run. Here are Planet Moneys Chana Joffe-Walt and David Kestenbaum.
DAVID KESTENBAUM: Economists on this issue feel lonely, sad and very misunderstood.
CHANA JOFFE-WALT: Well, yeah, because economists use math and charts to make their arguments. Labor unions use emotion and advertisements featuring sympathetic characters with asthma.
(Soundbite of advertisement)
Ms. VALERIE CASTLE(ph) STANLEY(ph): I have asthma and Ive had it since I was probably 10, 12 years old. And it seems to be progressively getting worse. I pay over $1,500 a year for my medication. And I need those medications to live. And I heard some senators wanted to tax our health care benefits. I just couldnt believe it.
KESTENBAUM: Valerie Castle Stanley is a union member. She is not rich. She makes $43,000 a year working at a call center for AT&T in Southwestern Virginia. You could see the mountains behind her.
JOFFE-WALT: Economists keep making the argument, usually in the form of charts and editorials, that the tax could actually help someone like Valerie if only she could see it the way they do.
KESTENBAUM: So, we said fine, convince her, convince Valery.
JOFFE-WALT: So, I went to Virginia and in an overheated library sat Valerie Castle Stanley down with a real live economist - suspenders and all.
Professor STEVEN STEARN (Economics, University of Virginia): My name is Steve Stearn. Im the Merrill Bankard professor of economics at the University of Virginia.
JOFFE-WALT: Its pretty awkward at first. Valerie tells Steve she's never met an economist, and she hates the Cadillac tax because it means her benefits will cost more.
Ms. STANLEY: Im on budget that's going to really hit hard.
JOFFE-WALT: Steve Sterner adjusts his enormous glasses and takes a breath. First thing, yes, he says your benefits would cost you more, but only if AT&T keeps your expensive plan. Dont worry, he says they probably wont.
KESTENBAUM: And heres where Valeries eyebrows jump up.
JOFFE-WALT: And Steve continues - says no, no, no, this is okay, because AT&T will get you a cheaper plan, they'll save money, and then they will give you that savings in higher wages.
KESTENBAUM: Again with the eyebrows.
Ms. STANLEY: They are not going to give us I'm at top wage, right now. Only cost I get - only wage increase I get is the cost of living.
Prof. STEARN: But they are getting something in return. If you were to say to them, we are willing to give up $8000 of health insurance benefits, then I dont see any reason why they wouldnt be willing to do that.
Ms. STANLEY: No, they're not, its not the way it works in bargaining at all. I know they are not going to give me that.
JOFFE-WALT: What is your proof, though, how do you know that is not going to happen.
Ms. STANLEY: That hasnt changed for 18 years.
JOFFE-WALT: Economists are convinced that this will happen. They say there's lots of data showing when employers pay more for health benefits, they pay less in wages. So, it should work in reverse. Less in benefits, more money to wages.
KESTENBAUM: Union say there is no proof it works in that opposite direction.
JOFFE-WALT: And to Valerie, the idea that she should be taxed in the first place is just insulting to her. She has given up wages over the years to get better benefits, great benefits she says she needs.
KESTENBAUM: Steve pauses, and says well, maybe not.
Prof. STEARN: When was the last time you had a medical emergency?
Ms. STANLEY: I went to the ER seven years ago when I broke my arm.
Prof. STEARN: It sounds like you dont need the health benefit plan that you have. On the whole, my guess is youre losing money on your health insurance. You would benefit from having a worse health benefit plan and taking that extra money and getting higher wages.
Ms. STANLEY: I disagree.
Prof. STEARN: But you should change your mind.
JOFFE-WALT: Economists like Steve see the Cadillac tax as a win-win. It will force us into more sensible health care plans, finally begin to drive down the cost of health care, people like Valery will get more money in their paychecks and will be just as healthy.
KESTENBAUM: But unions see it as a lose-lose. They worry people like Valery would get worse health benefits and they say there is no way employers will voluntarily raise wages, simply because they are saving money on health care.
JOFFE-WALT: And at the moment, the health care bill is locked right in the middle of this conversation. Im Chana Joffe-Walt.
KESTENBAUM: And Im David Kestenbaum, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: You are listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Next were going to look at the very private struggle behind a theory that changed the world. Creation, a new movie out today, traces the life of Charles Darwin and the years leading up to the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species.
Hes a loving family man, devoted to his deeply religious wife, Emma, and haunted by the death of his daughter, Annie. The movie also finds him to be a man of science, tortured by the explosive implications of his research on evolution. Here, Charles Darwin, played by Paul Bettany, arguing with a fellow biologist whos pushing him to publish.
(Soundbite of movie, Creation)
Mr. PAUL BETTANY (Actor): (as Charles Darwin) There is no book, theres fragments and theyre not in any fit state to publish.
Mr. TOBY JONES (Actor): (as Thomas Huxley) Nonsense. Ive read your detailed abstract and the argument is hugely powerful.
Mr. BETTANY: (as Charles Darwin) But thats my point, you see, you cant be entirely sure of that and thats why I need more time, I need...
Mr. JONES: (as Thomas Huxley) Mr. Darwin, sir.
Mr. BETTANY: (as Charles Darwin) Yes.
Mr. JONES: (as Thomas Huxley) Either youre being disingenuous or you do not fully understand your own theory. Evidently what is true of the barnacle is true of all creatures, even humans. Clearly the Almighty can no longer claim to have authored every species in under a week. You killed God, sir. You have killed God.
MONTAGNE: Creation is based on a book by Charles Darwins great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes. The book was inspired by a discovery Keynes made when he went looking for clues about his ancestor.
Mr. RANDAL KEYNES (Author, Creation: Darwin, His Daughter & Human Evolution): There was this big chest of drawers in my parents home, which I understood was full of pictures, letters, diaries, childrens games and books. I went to that chest of drawers, and I found this little writing case. When I opened it, I saw it was a childs writing case with a folded piece of paper that I recognized by then as Darwins handwriting. Its a sort of a scrawl. Hes an untidy writer. I saw this note and it was headed Annies Illness, and he had clearly been looking after her.
MONTAGNE: Hmm-umm.
Mr. KEYNES: She died at the age of 10, probably from tuberculosis. She had a lingering illness and this box must have been kept, I guessed, by Emma to remember her by.
MONTAGNE: That seems to have unlocked a whole story of a side of Charles Darwin that you might not have known or that people might not really know.
Mr. KEYNES: Quite unexpected, yes. I had always thought of Darwin as a great scientist, and great scientists, we reckon, spend most of their time in their laboratories in a white coat, not at home. When I saw that Darwin was devoted to his children from this little note about how he had cared for Annie, I quickly realized that Darwin had done most of his scientific work in his home, and that his children were always around him as he worked. This was a completely different view of a great scientist.
MONTAGNE: And Annie seems to have been - dont know if you can quite call her this - but something of a muse.
Mr. KEYNES: Yes, she was, in a sense, a favorite. Although, he never showed any favoritism towards the other children when he wrote about her, there was clearly something very special in their link. The movie maker, they suggest that Annie was a muse for Darwin. His memory of her encouraged him to carry on with his work and put it into a shape that would make sense to the readers of his time.
MONTAGNE: One of the reasons, in the film, that Darwin would not, for years, publish his work was that his beloved wife, Emma, had a deep faith in God. And here in the film, Emma, played by Jennifer Connelly, she challenges him.
(Soundbite of movie, Creation)
Ms. JENNIFER CONNELLY (Actor): (as Emma Darwin) Do you really care so little for your immortal home? Charles, do you not care that you may never pass through the gates of heaven? That you and I may be separated for all eternity?
Mr. BETTANY: (as Charles Darwin) Well, of course I care. Of course, I do. What do you think has kept me in limbo all these years?
MONTAGNE: Its pretty compelling argument from someone he dearly loved. But it didnt, in the end, change what he knew it to be true from his own work.
Mr. KEYNES: It didnt, because he had this great conflict between what his wife hoped was true, what he would have loved to be able to agree with her on, but what he just couldnt accept from his understanding of the natural world.
(Soundbite of movie, Creation)
Mr. BETTANY: (as Charles Darwin) Dear Hooker, I have finally decided. I think I owe it to my children to at least have the courage of my own convictions. My title will be On the Origin of Species, and I shall endeavor to keep God out of it. Although, no doubt he will see it as a personal attack.
MONTAGNE: Given how much evolution creates such a gulf between those who take it as scientific fact and those who would deny it, he and his wife were on opposite sides of that gulf. Did they find a common ground?
Mr. KEYNES: I should just explain what Emmas views were. She didnt believe in the literal truth of the Bible as some people with fundamentalist views do now. She believed in the importance of the commitment of faith in order to be able to enjoy the rewards of salvation. And she saw faith as a challenge, a difficulty, and I think this is true for many Christians. Darwin couldnt make that commitment, and it was because she knew he couldnt make that commitment of hope that there was salvation in the afterlife.
It has to be said that between the two of them, it was really she who made the great concession. Emma decided that her love for him should prevail over her fear that he wouldnt be joining her in the afterlife. And she just gave her love to him through the rest of their lives together, hoping, hoping, hoping that they would meet again, but not knowing.
MONTAGNE: Randal Keynes, the new movie, Creation is based on his book, Creation: Darwin, His Daughter & Human Evolution.
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Renee Montagne.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning. Im Renee Montagne. A long-running soap opera has a new home and a new cast member - at least for one episode. After 40 years in New York, ABC's�"All My Children"�has moved to L.A., though in TV land it is still Pine Valley. That brings much-needed jobs to L.A., and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa worked a few hours himself, playing himself for an episode. The mayors at a conference in Pine Valley and runs in to Erica Kane. Shes played by Susan Lucci.
Its MORNING EDITION.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
Good morning. Im Renee Montagne. Travelers going through airport security know better than to joke. Now so does a former screening agent at Philadelphia International. There a young passenger wasnt amused when the TSA agent confronted her with a small plastic bag of white powder. Rebecca Solomon told the Philadelphia Inquirer her mind raced when he demanded: Where did you get it? Turns out it was a prank. A TSA spokesperson says hes now an ex-screening agent.
Its MORNING EDITION.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Finally today, we mark the centennial birthday of a musical genius. That word gets thrown around a lot. But when it comes to music, Django Reinhardt certainly deserves that mantle. With no formal training, the guitarist created a new style of music in the 1930s and '40s, which came to be dubbed gypsy jazz. He's one of the few, if not only, European musicians to exert a serious influence on the American art form of jazz.
NPR's Tom Cole has an appreciation.
TOM COLE: People, even those who knew him, speak of Django Reinhardt with a kind of awe, as almost some superhuman being consumed with music.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. JOHN LEWIS (Pianist): He was the first great European jazz musician. Really, music was it. That was him. He and music were synonymous.
Mr. MICHAEL DREGNI (Author): Talking to his bass player, Emmanuel Soudieux, he leaned forward and just really wanted me to understand as he said, Django was a music made into a man.
COLE: Pianist John Lewis and biographer Michael Dregni talking about a musician who overcame enormous obstacles to become one of the most influential and popular performers of his day.
(Soundbite of music)
COLE: Django was born outside the town of Liberchies, Belgium in a wooden trailer to a family of Roma, or gypsies as they're commonly called. Nomads distrusted and persecuted wherever they went. But that's not the half of it. When he was 18, after establishing himself as a virtuoso of both guitar and banjo in the Paris clubs, Reinhardt suffered a terrible accident.
Michael Dregni has written two books about Django and the music he created.
Mr. DREGNI: He was playing banjo in a dance hall in Paris. He returned to his caravan late in the night. His young wife was making flowers out of celluloid that she would sell at cemeteries. And Django lit a candle and this candle fell onto the floor and it hit these celluloid flowers, which burst into flames, and the whole caravan went up. His whole right side of his body was burned. His left hand, his fretting hand, was horribly burned in this fire.
COLE: Burned, saving his pregnant wife. Django spent more than a year in and out of hospitals. No one thought he would play again. But the name Django means I awake in the Romani language, and that he did. Through hours of painful practice, he came up with a new way of playing that allowed him to generate flurries of notes with those two fingers and his lightning-quick right hand.
(Soundbite of music)
COLE: Django Reinhardt and the quintet of the Hot Club of France with Stephane Grappelli playing violin became the toast of Paris.
(Soundbite of music)
COLE: Then World War II broke out. More than a million Roma were exterminated along with five times that many Jews, yet Django and his band prospered. Again, author Michael Dregni.
Mr. DREGNI: The Germans used Paris basically as their rest and relaxation center. When the soldiers came, they wanted wine and women and song. And to many of them, jazz was the popular music, and Django was the most famous jazz musician in Paris. And it was really a golden age of swing with these gypsies living kind of this grand irony.
COLE: In 1940, with the La Marseillaise banned by the Germans, Django wrote a new anthem that struck a chord in France.
(Soundbite of song, "Nuages")
COLE: "Nuages" or "Clouds" became Django's best-known composition, a bittersweet ode to occupied France.
(Soundbite of song, "Nuages")
COLE: The liberation brought many American jazz musicians to Paris. One of them was the late John Lewis. In a 2000 NPR interview, he remembered having to drag Django away from the Dizzy Gillespie show so the guitarist could make his own gig.
Mr. LEWIS: We would play less American music more than anybody (unintelligible) around people. This man was literally playing himself into (unintelligible) you're going to pay attention to me.
(Soundbite of song, "Nuages")
COLE: That desire to play jazz kept pushing Django. He mastered hot jazz, swing and bebop. By the end of his life, he was experimenting with electric guitar. He's one of the few musicians to create an entire genre in his likeness.
Django Reinhardt died on a warm spring day in 1953. After a morning spent engaged in one of his favorite pastimes, fishing, Django went to a cafe where he collapsed from a stroke. He was just 43 years old.
Tom Cole, NPR News.
CORNISH: Celebrate Django Reinhardt's centennial by heading to npr.org for more music and stories from the jazz legend.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
A flock of whooping cranes flew to their winter homes in Florida this week guided by ultralight aircraft. Experts say there are only 350 of these rare birds left in the world. Their arrival is becoming an annual spectacle that draws thousands of bird lovers.
Vic Micolucci joined the waiting crowd near Tampa.
VIC MICOLUCCI: As the early-morning fog cleared at the Dunnellon Airport in Marion County, Florida and the temperatures slowly rose, eight-year-old Edon Palchar waited with his family to see the whooping cranes for the very first time.
Whats so cool about this?
Mr. EDON PALCHAR: That they can fly and they just follow the ultralight. Its really cool.
MICOLUCCI: Is it going to be worth it to stand out here in the cold and get up early to come and see it?
Mr. PALCHAR: Yeah, a lot, really worth it.
MICOLUCCI: Coming to watch the cranes fly over has become a yearly routine for 82-year-old Florence Scaron.
Ms. FLORENCE SCARON: I watch these whooping cranes from the time they are hatched, and when they take off from Wisconsin until they come down here for the past four years. And also, I watch them every day on the Internet.
(Soundbite of plane)
MICOLUCCI: As the drone of an engine broke the morning silence, cameras clicked, 10 slender, white birds with black wingtips, passed overhead, trailing behind an ultralight aircraft. When fully grown, their wings will stretch to nearly seven feet. Its part of Operation Migration, the mission keep the endangered birds from extinction.
Liz Condie has been with the group since it began in 2001.
Ms. LIZ CONDIE (Operation Migration): There were zero in eastern North America when we started migrating, that is, when we started this project. So over a hundred is we think pretty good in nine years.
MICOLUCCI: Each year, Operation Migration pilots lead a new flock of young birds from Wisconsin to two Florida wildlife refuges teaching them their winter migration.
Ms. CONDIE: There's nothing that can explain the feeling of accomplishment that you get when we finally release these birds here in Florida, knowing that we're adding to a population that 10 years ago didn't exist.
Ms. SARAH ZAMORSKY (Biologist, International Crane Foundation): This is (unintelligible).
MICOLUCCI: International Crane Foundation biologist Sarah Zamorsky says the birds are starting on what should be a lifelong tradition.
Ms. ZAMORSKY: They just have to be shown the way down south one time, whether it's with ultralights or older birds, and then they know how to go back on their own in the spring. So, thats what theyll do. These birds that spend the winter at the (unintelligible) usually in late March, early April, they'll just decide one day its the right day and they'll get up and theyll go and theyll head back north.
MICOLUCCI: And as this year's trip wraps up, the Operation Migration crew looks at it as a success.
(Soundbite of applause)
MICOLUCCI: All the young birds made it south safely, starting a new generation of a species still very much at risk.
For NPR News, Im Vic Micolucci.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Beijing-born pianist, Yuja Wang, says she started tinkering with the keys when she was about six years old.
(Soundbite of piano)
CORNISH: Her childhood was filled with the usual child-virtuoso circuit of concerts and competitions in China, Spain and Germany, and with instruction from top conservatories in the U.S. and Canada. But by the time she was 18, Wang had carved out an interesting niche for herself as a kind of pinch hitter the one to call when older, perhaps more seasoned big-name pianists couldnt make it to their engagement.
(Soundbite of piano)
CORNISH: Now, at 22, Yuja Wang is headlining a project of her own, her debut CD, Sonatas and Etudes. She joins us now from our New York Bureau. Yuja Wang, welcome.
Ms. YUJA WANG (Pianist; Sonatas and Etudes): Nice to be here.
CORNISH: Now, the first thing I want to talk about is the fact that youve been nominated for a Grammy on your debut album. Can you describe how you heard about that? What your first reaction was?
Ms. WANG: Well, I was very - it was very unexpected for me, of course, and I actually heard it the next morning because of those messages on Facebook. All my friends saying congratulations on the Grammy nomination. I was like, what are you guys talking about?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. WANG: And then I heard it from my manager and who was like, hey, congratulations. I said, how does people get to know this? So, it was a very, very nice surprise for me. And I did not expect that because it was only my first CD.
CORNISH: Now, you did have a lot of the intensive training as a really young person, right, six and seven. And your first concert you were only seven.
Ms. WANG: Yeah, I had a fake pedal down there like...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. WANG: ...because I couldnt reach the pedal and they have a box thing.
CORNISH: So your feet were sort of dangling.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. WANG: And surprisingly, all of them are on YouTube.
CORNISH: Its actually not so surprising its on YouTube because one of the places I saw you play was actually on YouTube as well. And it was of all things Flight of the Bumblebee.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Were going to listen to that for just a little bit.
(Soundbite of music, Flight of the Bumblebee)
CORNISH: Listening to that now, I mean, its sort of fun and I know youve got this wonderful debut CD of Sonatas but playing a song like that to a YouTube audience, whats the value in that for you?
Ms. WANG: Well, this is a tune that everyone knows, but its just so much harder because while listening to it, it sounds like a very big Bumblebee. And watching it, because thats a point on YouTube, its even more effective.
CORNISH: Youre saying, visually, you can convey (unintelligible).
Ms. WANG: Yeah. Yes. Visually its even more cool. And thats why I love live concerts because you can take the music in aurally and visually.
(Soundbite of music, Flight of the Bumblebee)
CORNISH: So, talk a little bit about how you decided what you wanted to present in your debut album?
Ms. WANG: Well, at first we were thinking about doing an anchor piece like the Bumblebee, or people probably saw or The Turkish March, or Carmen, those really hard transgressions and fun pieces. Theyre totally (unintelligible), people get really impressed by them at first. But I thought about it because I want to present myself as a serious musician. I mean, those are fun, but what Im really into are those lyrical, big, romantic pieces and contemporary stuff.
CORNISH: Could you talk us through one of the tracks on the album?
Ms. WANG: Yes. Well, theres the Liszt Sonata, for example, which is a humongous work because that would take a lifetime to digest that huge work. Its basically, its like an autobiography of Liszt himself, or some people think it is a story by Faust.
(Soundbite of music, Liszt Sonata)
Ms. WANG: So, it was really fun to learn the whole piece and the whole piece lasted 30 minutes.
CORNISH: So, it takes some stamina.
Ms. WANG: Yes, and actually I want to make it, present as a whole piece. So, I just recorded twice instead of playing little by little and put it together. I wanted to present it as a whole unified structure.
(Soundbite of music, Liszt Sonata)
Ms. WANG: And for contemporary stuff, theres a Ligeti, two Ligeti, which I love. I think its totally jazzy and fun to play. Its very hard. Its like splitting the brain to learn them.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. WANG: But once I learned it, its worth the work.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: Now, you are nominated for a Grammy and youre still, you know, 22.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. WANG: Yes.
CORNISH: ...youve got a while to go.
Ms. WANG: Mm-hmm.
CORNISH: Youve got the attention of the classical world and now the Grammy nomination, you know, essentially the world itself. And Im wondering how youre feeling about this moment of your life, especially since, I read you werent even originally considering the piano as a professional career.
Ms. WANG: I know, I think I just I think thats the best attitude, I guess. My mom is a dancer, and I tried dancing and I tried everything. And I love fashion as well. So, Im definitely into the creative artistic part but piano for me, I do love music. I dont like to play the piano, but I love music, thats why Im playing the piano.
CORNISH: And you just said you dont like to play the piano.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Repeat that or (unintelligible) that.
Ms. WANG: Piano, well, for me is just an instrument that could do whatever I want to do with music. Music is what interested me, what intrigues me.
(Soundbite of music)
Ms. WANG: I love opera. I love watching ballet. I love symphonic music more than piano music. But since piano could do whatever the orchestra, the whole orchestra can do, I chose piano.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: Well, whether youre sick with the piano or not...
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: ...we appreciate your music and we appreciate you for coming on the show.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. WANG: Thank you.
CORNISH: Pianist Yuja Wang, her debut CD is called Sonatas and Etudes. She joins us from our New York bureau. Thank you.
Ms. WANG: Thank you.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: You can hear Yuja Wang playlist on our Web site, npr.org.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
When I began covering Congress a year ago, one of the first people I met on the job was the chaplain of the Senate, Barry C. Black. And in this part of the program, you'll get to know him a little bit better. Tall, with a shiny shaved head, Chaplain Black is always starched and pressed to the nines, with polka-dotted bow ties and complimenting pocket squares.
He takes long but quick strides as he makes his way to the chamber - and never skips an opportunity to greet everyone - everyone - from interns and maintenance people to clerks and Capitol Hill police.
Dr. BARRY C. BLACK (Chaplain, Senate): The guardians of liberty, hey. Good to see you.
CORNISH: Of course, he doesn't have the wiggle room to be late.
Unidentified Woman: The Senate will come to order. The Chaplain Dr. Barry Black will lead the Senate in prayer.
CORNISH: Because it's Chaplain Black who kicks off the show on the Senate floor.
Dr. BLACK: Oh God, from whom all noble desires and all good counsels do proceed, crown the deliberations of our lawmakers with spacious thinking and with sympathy for all humanity.
CORNISH: I wanted to learn more about this spiritual leader of this secular body, so I visited him in his office - a well-appointed room with high-arching ceilings with wall-to-wall mahogany bookcases, a reminder of the room's origins as the Senate library.
From this third-floor perch, the chaplain enjoys one of the best views of the National Mall's mosaic of cherry trees, museums and monuments. We sit down to talk. And during a sound check for his microphone, we asked Chaplain Black what he had for breakfast, and instead we get:
Dr. BLACK: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you, they do not belong to you.
CORNISH: That's from Poet Khalil Gibran's book, "The Prophet." Chaplain Black is full of nuggets like this - quotes, passages and verses from the gospels to Longfellow and even Barney Fife. It's a practice that he picked up from his mother, Pearline. She was a devout Christian and a Seventh Day Adventist raising eight children in Baltimore's public housing. Her husband, Lester Black, was a truck driver, away for long stints for work.
In Pearline's house, any of her children could earn a nickel for memorizing a bible verse, but it was young Barry who began memorizing the sermons of famous preachers, such as that of the Reverend Peter Marshall, a Scottish Presbyterian minister, who served as Senate chaplain in the 1940s.
Dr. BLACK: I was eight years of age. My mother brought home a record, one of these big 78 records. My mother was a domestic and the woman for whom she worked had given her some records. And this was a narration, and so I put it on and I heard the words: the warming sun had been up for some hours over the city of David, and I was just absolutely drawn in.
Reverend PETER MARSHALL (Former Senator Chaplain):Already pilgrims and visitors were pouring in through the gates, mingling with merchants from the village's roundabout, with shepherds coming down from the hill and the narrow streets were crowded.
Dr. BLACK: And so, there's a wonderful kind of providence in the fact that not knowing that I was memorizing the words of the Senate chaplain I would one day be one of his successors.
CORNISH: Black went on to earn several college degrees. In the 1970s, he was preaching in North Carolina when he got to talking with two young black servicemen. They mentioned that in the Navy they'd never seen an African-American chaplain. This planted a seed and inspired Black to join the Navy shortly after.
Two decades later, he was Rear Admiral Barry Black, the first African-American to hold the position. It was there he learned to keep his prayers short, because his benedictions could only run as long as the first 45 seconds of the Navy hymn. It's one of many skills to come in handy since his 2003 appointment to the Senate, where he leads five bible study groups a week, offers spiritual counseling and, of course, is responsible for the daily prayer.
Dr. BLACK: Lord, lead our lawmakers on the road you have chosen. Guide them with your counsel and teach them with your precepts.
CORNISH: Sometimes in those prayers I notice there are sort of words about asking God to give them sort of guidance or providence. It's not just sort of God bless America. It seems like you're actually praying over the mechanics, the relationships in the Senate.
Dr. BLACK: A senator needs wisdom. A senator needs to be guided, supernaturally guided many times, on these issues. A senator is often dealing with issues where he or she isn't certain as to what he or she should do. I mean, senators will even come to me and ask me, you know, what do you think I should do on this thing? Senators actually get on their knees in their offices during the prayer.
CORNISH: We're talking with Chaplain Barry C. Black of the U.S. Senate. Chaplain Black, you almost occupy the exact space between church and state, and you are essentially a shepherd, and a religious shepherd, but for a secular flock. And what is that like, specifically on, say, the bible studies or some of the mentoring? How far reaching can that conversation be?
Dr. BLACK: Well, I think that almost any issue that you are debating, there are biblical aspects that can be discussed. For instance, when the health care bill as being debated in the chamber, the people at my bible study were from both sides of the aisle. And though we did not directly talk about the health care bill, I did a study on euthanasia and what the Bible says about end of life.
CORNISH: This would have been around the time where people were combating the term death panels.
Chaplain BLACK: That's correct.
CORNISH: And you actually kind of addressed this. You're...
Chaplain BLACK: Because the Bible does. And so, we were able to discuss that from a theological and a philosophical standpoint. So my Bible study themes come from what is actually going on on Capitol Hill.
CORNISH: At the same time, there are going to be a lot of our listeners who are going to say, I think it's inappropriate for there to be a pastor of any denomination offering his opinion to my senator, having that access that maybe I dont even have or I dont feel I have as a citizen. And is that appropriate?
Chaplain BLACK: Well, I would say to him or her that The Framers intended that that, guidance would be available to our lawmakers. And remember, the Establishment Clause says, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. So, to have the opportunity of being advised from an ethical perspective, The Framers basically said we think it should be there and I think that's why it's here.
CORNISH: The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the position of chaplain in 1983. The practice of opening legislative sessions with a prayer goes back to the Founding Fathers at the Continental Congress in 1774. Congressional chaplains have been a mainstay almost continuously ever since. Part of that tradition also includes representing the Senate in churches and houses of worship off the Hill, as well.
(Soundbite of song, "I Surrender All")
CORNISH: We caught up with him at the Washington Brazilian Seventh-Day Adventist Church in College Park, Maryland
Chaplain BLACK: (Unintelligible)
(Soundbite of laughter)
Chaplain BLACK: Let us pray. We surrender all, all to you, our blessed savior.
CORNISH: What is significant or valuable to you in coming to just a church in the community?
Chaplain BLACK: Well, you have to remember, this is my worship experience. So I need to worship. I need to have an opportunity to praise God. But because I am usually behind the pulpit, this is my umbilical cord and I really appreciate the opportunity.
CORNISH: An opportunity Chaplain Black takes four or five times a month, when he's invited to preach at various churches around the country. He also puts on events with other spiritual leaders throughout the year from rabbis to Muslims imams, and he does weddings, funerals and christenings for lawmakers, their families and their staff.
Chaplain, what is the thing that most surprised you about this job?
Chaplain BLACK: It was greater than I expected. The level of spirituality among many of the senators was greater than I expected it to be. And so that might be a pleasant surprise.
CORNISH: Appreciate you taking the time out to talk with us.
Chaplain BLACK: Ah, thank you for having me.
CORNISH: Barry C. Black is the 62nd chaplain of the United States Senate. Our story was produced by Walter Ray Watson. You can see pictures of the chaplain in action or read an excerpt from his memoir, "From the Hood to the Hill," at our Web site, NPR.org.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: You are listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Audie Cornish.
In Haiti, the city of Jacmel was once considered the countrys cultural capital. But its historic downtown rich in French colonial architecture is now all but destroyed. The quake struck at the heart of the citys arts community, badly damaging an important arts school and killing its American director.
NPRs Greg Allen visited Jacmel this week and has this report.
GREG ALLEN: Among Haitis cities, Jacmel is unique. For one thing, it had a large expatriate community of Americans and Canadians. It also was one of Haitis few tourist destinations.
Mr. JEAN MICHEL (Guide): All the tourists like this spot.
ALLEN: If youre a visitor here, youll probably meet Jean Michel. He gives tourists Jacmels historic downtown complete with its French colonial architecture, iron work and second-floor balconies.
Mr. MICHEL: This is called (unintelligible) which means commercial free. And when people come, they say, oh, look at that house, it looks like a New Orleans house.
ALLEN: Im just trying to figure out how many of the houses in the old section were damaged and it sounds like almost all of them.
Mr. MICHEL: Almost all. You can see it, you can see it from your eyes because look at those houses.
ALLEN: We clamber over fallen bricks, stones and twisted iron work, pass the house of Danish filmmaker Jorgen Leth. He barely escaped when it collapsed in the earthquake. He is one of the more prominent artists who call Jacmel home, but there are many others.
(Soundbite of crowd)
Ms. KEZIAH JEAN(ph) (Student, Cine Institute): Food is getting (unintelligible) but some people are saying that not everyone has been fed.
ALLEN: Keziah Jean is one of the students at Cine Institute. The film school started a few years ago by New Yorker, David Bell. Bell says that footage and much more uploaded by Cine Institute students gave the world some of its first post earthquake views of Jacmel.
Mr. DAVID BELL (Founder, Cine Institute): Theyve been out since day one. And with very difficult Internet connection, theyve managed to upload footage, which is being broadcast, CNN has broadcast stuff, ABC, I believe CBC did as well.
ALLEN: Another important cultural center in town is Fosaj. Its an art school founded in 2003 by an artist from a wealthy Jacmelian family. The city has long has been known for its Haitian painting and art was a major export. But Bell says with political instability of the past two decades, the art market collapsed.
Mr. BELL: Fosajs mission was to rejuvenate it and create a new school for artists, and create links and connections through the U.S. and Europe to find a marketplace for that art.
ALLEN: Fosaj has brought in visiting artists who work with the students to develop techniques and themes for their work. But the school building, located next to the beach in Jacmel, was another casualty of the earthquake.
(Soundbite of crowd)
Mr. MACARTHUR LAMETIER (Student, Fosaj): (Unintelligible) yeah, in Fosaj, yeah.
ALLEN: Macarthur Lametier is one of the Fosaj students. He points to the second floor of the school building. The outer wall is no longer there. It crumbled away in the earthquake. What we see exposed to the elements is Lametiers studio complete with paintings still hanging on the wall. In another building, Lametier shows us something else he was working on, a large papier mache sculpture.
Mr. LAMETIER: I was working for the Carnival.
ALLEN: Youre also preparing Carnival for this year?
Mr. LAMETIER: Yeah, yeah.
ALLEN: The Carnival is canceled and his float is on hold. In the earthquake, Fosaj lost something much more irreplaceable its director. Flo McGarrell was a 36-year-old American artist from Vermont who, a few years ago, became Fosajs director. Regine Boucard is from Jacmel, a Fosaj board member now living in New Orleans.
Ms. REGINE BOUCARD (Board Member, Fosaj): Flo was doing a wonderful job. We were all in admiration, how he took over and everybody loved him the artists, the students, the community. And he sort of understood the Haitians.
ALLEN: McGarrell wasnt at the school, but at a nearby hotel when it collapsed in the earthquake. His mother, Ann McGarrell, says her son became fascinated by Haiti when he was a child and saw the documentary, Divine Horsemen, about Haiti and voodoo.
McGarrell says her son was a strong-willed, decisive person. Several years ago, Flo, born female, decided to start transgender therapy and began living as a man,.
Ms. ANN McGARRELL: There is no comfort, Ill tell you that. But one thing that we possibly can bear is that Flo was doing something he absolutely loved doing, and was doing it extraordinarily well.
ALLEN: Those involved with Fosaj say it will survive. The foundation that runs it will find another building or rebuild the damaged studios. And eventually, theyll find another director to replace Flo McGarrell. As Jacmel rebuilds and recovers from the earthquake, art, they say, will be more important than ever.
Greg Allen, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, Host:
There has been plenty of uproar over the massive bonuses Wall Street firms have been awarding employees over the past two weeks. To try to diffuse that,
But Goldman is still paying employees a whopping $16 billion. J.P. Morgan Chase is paying out $9 billion. Some investors say the big payouts are a sign that there is something seriously wrong with Wall Streets compensation system.
NPRs Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD: Taxpayers and politicians are not the only ones upset about Wall Street bonuses. If youre a long term investor in, say, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley or Bank of America, those stocks are still down between 20 and 70 percent over the past three years. Shareholders have lost a lot of money. But executives and top employees at these and other financial firms are still rewarding themselves with billions of dollars in compensation and bonuses.
Mr. FREDERICK ROWE (Money Manager): It's completely crazy. And it makes people angry.
ARNOLD: Frederick Shad Rowe is a money manager in Dallas and the former chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board. He says bonuses and pay packages at many big public companies have gotten totally out of line and disconnected from performance. He says the S&P 500 is down at 28 percent over the past 10 years, meanwhile executive pay is still through the roof.
Mr. ROWE: It demoralizes everybody. Were all in this together. We live in a capitalist system, but the system has been co-opted or hijacked.
ARNOLD: Basically, Rowe says there's been a breakdown at the level of the board of directors for public companies. The boards approve those pay packages and the board is supposed to protect the interests of the stockowners, the shareholders, who actually own the company.
But in reality, he says, many people on those boards are paid a lot of money by company managements, and they've become beholden to managements. And too often, he says, they approve huge pay packages that siphon money away from shareholders.
Mr. ROWE: What really is the truth is the very small oligarchy has hijacked the system for its own short-term benefit. And its not right, and its not in the interest of America or most Americans.
ARNOLD: Whats more, critics like Rowe say, that these huge pay packages encourage the reckless risk taking that created the financial crisis in the first place. After all, a lot of these same people at the major Wall Street banks clearly made catastrophic mistakes. And now, just a year later, theyre getting big bonuses again. Rowe says that thats not the way capitalism is supposed to work.
Mr. ROWE: Hell no, theyve taken my money and they get the benefit of it, and they don't suffer the consequences.
ARNOLD: Of course, the investors who dont like how executives are being paid can always just sell their stock and pull their money out. But Rowe is heading up a shareholder rights group thats pushing for more power for shareholders to be able to get rid of directors that dont rein-in compensation.
Fred Lipman, is a lawyer who advises companies and whos written a book about responsible approaches to executive pay. You know, is something broken here or is the markets sort of working like a shit?
Mr. FRED LIPMAN (Lawyer): Well, I think the issue of executive bonuses has become politicized.
ARNOLD: Lipman says the bank bailouts have politicians and other people particularly upset about bonuses at the moment. But he thinks the government should largely stay out of it. He acknowledges that there have been problems with excessive pay, but he says the market is reforming itself.
Mr. LIPMAN: Overwhelmingly, more and more compensation committees are getting it. They are trying to exercise best practices, and theyre under pressure from a lot of constituencies to do so.
ARNOLD: Lipman is glad that many of the major banks say that theyre planning to tie more compensation to the longer term performance of their companies. Bank of America, for example, is expected to start reclaiming or clawing back bonuses if an employees bets later go bad.
But some who track executive pay dont think that overall theres been much progress. Patrick McGurn is an attorney with RiskMetrics Group, which advises investors on corporate governance issues.
Mr. PATRICK MCGURN (Attorney, RiskMetrics Group): Were seeing reform around the margins, but generally it is this just as usual. I think the big bonus payouts this year, you know, are really harkening back to the glory days of the industry and the numbers are obviously eye-popping.
ARNOLD: Meanwhile, President Obama is pushing for a 10-year, $90 billion bank tax to help reclaim bailout money, and the FDIC is floating a proposal to make banks pay a penalty for big pay packages that are not tied to long-term performance.
Chris Arnold, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
How many of you absolutely dread parallel parking? A lot I bet. Well, a British mathematician may have an answer, geometry. Simon Blackburn, a professor at the University of London says you can run a simple calculation and, voila, youre in. Here to discuss the theory is Keith Devlin, WEEKEND EDITIONs math guy. Welcome back, Keith.
Dr. KEITH DEVLIN (Co-Founder and Director, H-STAR Institute, Stanford University): Hi, Audie, nice to be back again.
CORNISH: So, whats the basic idea behind Professor Blackburns research?
Dr. DEVLIN: It's actually a very clever use of simple mathematics. In fact, the most complicated bit of mathematics it uses is our good old friend Pythagoras theorem.
CORNISH: That's a2 + b2 = c2, right?
Dr. DEVLIN: Absolutely. And thats really all you need, you just need to use that in a clever way. You put in a few figures about the size of your vehicle and the space that youre trying to get into. And the formula tells you exactly how much extra space you need, beyond the length of your vehicle, in order to park it in a simple, reverse-in, straighten-the-wheels, and switch-the-engine-off move.
CORNISH: So, give us a sense of how detailed the math is. What are the numbers you need to calculate using this system, and is it really practical?
Prof. DEVLIN: Simon Blackburn's formula and these four pieces of information. First of all, you have to tell it the radius of your cars turning cycle. That means if you give it a full lock to the left or right, it will turn in the circle. The radius of that thing is called the turning radius.
It needs the wheel base of your car which is the distance between the center of the front wheel and the rear wheel on either side. It needs the distance from your front wheel from the center of the front wheel to the front bumper. And the one extra piece of information it needs, you know, you pull up next to a car you need the width of that car.
CORNISH: Now I went out and did my parking job, which does involve a certain kind of estimation, where I pull up to the first car. And as Im reversing, I wait until the wheel sort of match up, then I jackknife into the space.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: And so Ive got my own sort of estimation and is a lot of this just based on your ability to do that kind of guess work?
Prof. DEVLIN: Yeah, and, you know, there are lots of examples when people look at saw the baseball field and various athletes, and people have put in wonderful shots on the basketball courts. Whats going on is that mathematics gives you a way of understanding in detail what people have learned to do simply by practice and expertise.
In fact, when we practice something, be it on the athletic field or in an automobile, we are becoming very good mathematicians at doing a particular kind of operation. But usually, we don't call it mathematics and we certainly don't give people a pass on the math test because they can park their car.
CORNISH: WEEKEND EDITIONs math guy, Keith Devlin, also a professor at Stanford University. Keith, thanks so much.
Prof. DEVLIN: Okay, my pleasure, Audie.
CORNISH: As a native Bostonian I consider myself a wicked good parker, so I decided to put my skills to the test, right outside NPR headquarters.
(Soundbite of car)
CORNISH: We pull up to the first car, length to length, nose to nose. You essentially want to measure - youre kind of like measuring the space by measuring this car in front of you. And the measure of a perfect parking job according to this mathematician is no back and forth, so thats we are aiming for here. So, now that my front wheel and the back wheel are lined up, Im backing in. Release, release, release of the wheel. Were in the space. Were looking good. Im stopping.
(Soundbite of break)
CORNISH: How far are we from the curb? Okay...
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Oh, look at that, thats like nine inches, thats genius.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: Youre listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Many people were surprised this week when my home state elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate seat once held by the late Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy, a giant of liberalism. Much of the shock comes from national pundits and party leaders. After all, it's Massachusetts, as if the name alone indicates that successful Republicans, like unicorns, are an intriguing idea but not real.
The fact is that Republicans have been elected to statewide office in Massachusetts. For most of my adult life, there were Republican governors. It's hard to pigeonhole Massachusetts' voters. Look at the voter registration rolls and you'll find that while Democrats outnumber Republicans, three to one, the number of Independents trumps all of them - about 50 percent of voters. And then there are the state Democrats.
In the last two years, four of them have left the state house in the wake of various allegations: corruption, bribery, sexual harassment. Meanwhile, the Democrat in the Senate race, State Attorney General Martha Coakley, allowed her campaign to unravel in a matter of weeks.
Should we start with the misspelling of the name of the state in a TV ad or the faux pas that might as well have been a mortal sin in Massachusetts, inadvertently calling the legendary former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling a Yankee fan?
All this is not to ignore the issues. How voters felt about taxes, the economy and terrorism all came into play, as well as, of course, health care. The fear that the health care bill will cost far more than lawmakers say it will and that citizens will bear the burden of that cost is real. That's what Senator-Elect Scott Brown honed in on.
The state was fertile ground for this kind of upset. So, is it any wonder that the home of the original tea party has given a boost to the tea party conservatives of today?
(Soundbite of song)
Unidentified Woman: (Singing) Where they speak with ease, Massachusetts. Boston, if you please, Massachusetts. Where they cost (unintelligible), Massachusetts, and where (unintelligible), Massachusetts. Spread the news around...
CORNISH: You're listening to NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish in for Scott Simon.
Haiti mourned its death today as hundreds pay final respects to an archbishop and other victims killed in last weeks earthquake. As humanitarian aid continues to pour into the country, tens of thousands of Haitians are trying to flea their destroyed capital, where living conditions are now primitive at best.
NPR's Jason Beaubien joins us at the Caribbean island's docks, where people are trying to leave by boat. Now, Jason, could you start out by describing the scene? Tell us where you are.
JASON BEAUBIEN: Well, the main port here in Port-au-Prince is actually heavily damaged, but I'm not even at the port. This is just a sort of a side of the water near Cite Soleil. And people have come down here to try to catch some boats that have been leaving and going to the south of Haiti. People refer to it as the south, but on the map it's sort of the southwest, cities along the coast there.
People have brought all their belongings. They've been sleeping overnight out here, just here waiting, hoping to get out of Port-au-Prince.
CORNISH: Who is the entity that's running these boats?
BEAUBIEN: These are just private boats. They're old, basically old clunkers. There's a bunch of rusty boats in the harbor, and what people do is they get into these very small, little boats and then they row them out to the other boat.
And earlier this week, it actually got incredibly chaotic as people just flooded one of the boats that came in. And the people were scrambling onto it, and there was concern that it was going to sink. These are just private boats, and that's what people are taking to get out.
CORNISH: Are you talking to people and what are they telling you?
BEAUBIEN: People are saying that, you know, they've lost their entire family. That their house fell down, killed everyone except them. Other members of their family are still out in Jeremie and these other places. And so, they're just trying to get out of here. And also, there's a sense that Port-au-Prince isn't livable anymore.
People that I'm talking to say they have gotten no food distribution whatsoever. And down here, they're also asking us for water. People are really desperate and that's a lot of what's driving this mass exodus at the moment, this recognition that you just cannot survive right now in this city.
CORNISH: And it's been 11 days since the massive earthquake shook Haiti. Can you give us a sense of if relief efforts are moving along any more than what we've heard.
BEAUBIEN: I mean, you might even be able to hear the helicopters in the sky at the moment. Certainly this relief effort, it's rolling, it's moving along. There are goods flowing into the country. There's tons of stuff out at the airport. But at the same time, if you talk to people on the street, most of them will say they have gotten absolutely nothing.
And yesterday, you had a massive food distribution by the World Food Programme. But so many people, thousands and thousands of people were standing in line. But in the end, they were getting one bottle of water and a little bag of cookies.
CORNISH: NPR's Jason Beaubien joining us from Haiti on the water's edge. Jason, thank you for talking with us.
BEAUBIEN: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
A week and a half after Haiti's earthquake, six health care teams from the U.S. government are in place in Port-au-Prince. These units are staffed by doctors and nurses who leave their own practices to help injured people in disasters. Sometimes, they get to help new life to begin as well.
NPR's Joanne Silberner has this profile of an American surgeon who's been in Port-au-Prince since three days after the earthquake.
JOANNE SILBERNER: Anna Kathryn Goodman kneels at the base of a camp cot in a stuffy vinyl hospital tent. In front of her is a pregnant woman - Nita Brazil(ph) - who's been in labor all day long.
Dr. ANNA KATHRYN GOODMAN (Obstetrician): Saw her the minute she walked into the tent, a beautiful young woman, very short with a very big tummy, clearly tired.
SILBERNER: Dr. Goodman has a baseball cap backwards on her head. It says A.K. -Relief for Alaska - but it's the name everyone calls her. Along with her baseball hat, A.K. Goodman wears navy blue military pants with lots of pockets and big black army boots. As she turns her head towards her patient, you can see five small earrings in each ear. Now, Nita Brazil has Dr. Goodman's full attention.
Dr. GOODMAN: So, I thought to myself, uh-oh, one baby, teeny little short woman, and is this going to be a big baby?
SILBERNER: Goodman even did an ultrasound check just to make sure she was not dealing with twins. At one point, she stopped to console the father who was outside the tent crying. He was worried the baby was so big because he had been giving his wife protein drinks during her pregnancy.
(Soundbite of crying)
SILBERNER: Looking back on it, there was a point where Dr. Goodman was really concerned that the labor wasn't progressing.
Dr. GOODMAN: Three hours later, she was still eight centimeters and the baby wasn't down.
It's too far up. You need to push it down to me.
Once I noticed that she hadn't changed, I didn't leave the tent.
(Soundbite of crying)
Dr. GOODMAN: Her cervix was swelling, because even though we were trying to coach her not to push, she was still pushing. At that point, I was thinking we might have to go a different route.
SILBERNER: You could have done a C-section here?
Dr. GOODMAN: Mm-hmm. Yes.
SILBERNER: And you've done them in the field?
Dr. GOODMAN: I have.
(Soundbite of crying)
SILBERNER: In her stateside job, A.K. Goodman is a surgeon in Boston who specializes in gynecology, obstetrics and oncology.
For the last five days, all she's seen is this school courtyard, which is smaller than a football field. It's full of medical tents, people and equipment and patients suffering from crush wounds and dehydration and broken bones.
On the soccer field next door, several thousand people are living outside because their houses were destroyed. Those who still have houses are afraid to go inside because of all the aftershocks.
Sure enough, as A.K. Goodman fulfills another of her duties on the medical team - sweeping the courtyard - things begin shaking again.
Dr. GOODMAN: It's shaking. I'm still trying to, like, (unintelligible). It's so annoying.
SILBERNER: Goodman stops what she's doing and scrambles around to make sure she could find all her team members.
Dr. GOODMAN: Where's Clyde?
SILBERNER: She finds them all - no one's hurt.
Dr. GOODMAN: Team four. All set.
SILBERNER: And then yells out their status to other groups of doctors and nurses - something they always do to make sure everyone's accounted for.
(Soundbite of people yelling)
Dr. GOODMAN: Come on, come on, come on.
SILBERNER: Meanwhile, Nita Brazil is about to bring some joy to the people working on other quake survivors in this courtyard.
(Soundbite of people yelling)
SILBERNER: After eight hours of labor and an hour of very active coaching by A.K. Goodman, Nita Brazil succeeds.
(Soundbite of cheering)
SILBERNER: And Goodman delivers a very much wanted seven-pound three-ounce baby boy.
Dr. GOODMAN: Look at that baby.
(Soundbite of cheering)
Dr. GOODMAN: It's really wonderful to see some wonderful, normal birth. It's nice to see little smiles on people's faces.
SILBERNER: A sign of hope in a badly bruised country. The new father has a baby hat ready - actually one blue and one pink. He was really prepared until the earthquake leveled their lives. Now, his family will have to return to tent life in the soccer field. A.K. Goodman is worried about them, but optimistic too.
Haitians have gotten through some tough times before; she's praying they'll get through this one as well.
Joanne Silberner, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Americans have donated hundreds of millions of dollars in relief money to Haiti since the earthquake 11 days ago. Last night, celebrities like George Clooney and Julia Roberts called on the world to give more in a telethon called "Hope for Haiti Now."
Ms. REESE WITHERSPOON (Actress): This is Reese Witherspoon and we really appreciate your call.
Mr. STEVEN SPIELBERG (Director): Hello, it's Steven Spielberg.
Unidentified Woman: Hi, Steven Spielberg, that's really cool to talk to you.
Mr. SPIELBERG: Well, it's cool to talk to you. Can I have your name?
CORNISH: They answered phones and shared stories from folks on the ground. The event was broadcast from Los Angeles, New York, London and Port-au-Prince and aired on all the major networks and some of the smaller ones too. Alicia Keys was the first performer, followed by many big acts - Taylor Swift, Neil Young and Stevie Wonder.
(Soundbite of song, "Bridge Over Troubled Waters")
Mr. STEVIE WONDER (Musician): (Singing) Like a bridge over troubled waters...
CORNISH: The donations will go to nonprofits like Oxfam America, the Red Cross and the new Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund. As Tom Hanks put it near the end of the night:
Mr. TOM HANKS (Actor): The phone line will remain open, the Web site will remain up, and you can purchase this amazing music on iTunes. Just keep going.
(Soundbite of song, "Bridge Over Troubled Waters")
Mr. WONDER: (Singing) ...when you're down and out, when youre on the street, when evening falls so hard...
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
President Barack Obama today criticized a Supreme Court decision which removes limits on corporate campaign donations.
President BARACK OBAMA: When this ruling came down, I instructed my administration to get to work immediately with members of Congress willing to fight for the American people to develop a forceful bipartisan response to this decision. We've begun this work, and it will be a priority for us until weve repaired the damage that has been done.
CORNISH: That's the president today speaking in his weekly address. And we're joined now by NPR News analyst Juan Williams. Juan, what's your impression of the Supreme Court's ruling?
JUAN WILLIAMS: Well, you know, to me, this is one of those where you just watch the faces of the Supreme Court justices. And John Paul Stevens' dissent in this case, I dont know how many people heard it but it was one of the most passionate, heartfelt, I mean, this is an old man speaking in a halting voice and saying that this is a violation of the integrity of the electoral process.
Of course, the other side of the argument, which carried the day from the conservatives, said the corporations are to be treated to individuals and individuals have free speech rights, and any attempt to limit their free speech is censorship.
So, what we see now is the door open, and the question is how far will the corporations and the unions go and where are the limits? They can contribute now to campaigns but not to candidates. And the question up in the air is about soft money that would go specifically to the parties.
And it just looks like for the moment, there would be no reason to imagine there would be any limits. And that's why you see the Democrats in the Congress trying to act quickly now to get some legislation in place before the midterms. I dont know if they'll be able to do it.
CORNISH: So, back in the 2008 election, most independent voters in Massachusetts backed President Barack Obama. But this week, they fueled Scott Brown's Senate win. How do you characterize the race?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think the key thing here is, first of all, to note that the state is heavily Democratic - it's three-to-one - but the largest sector of that electorate is independent. It's also that on so many issues, I think the liberal side of the Democratic electorate didn't turn out. It was a different electorate that voted in this election than the one that voted for Barack Obama.
And then you start to look at things like people who were discontented by the fact that there's no public option in the health care bill. There are people who are upset at President Obama for sending troops to Afghanistan, people who expected big changes and who just are not energized by the first year of Barack Obama. And I think that allowed then the more conservative independent voters and Republicans and tea party activists to really carry the day.
CORNISH: And you mentioned health care there. I mean, that overall legislation is, obviously, in question. What options do the Democrats have left?
WILLIAMS: Well, the number one option would be to try to get the Senate bill approved by the House. But Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says right now she doesn't see that as realistic. So, what you get as a measure from both White House and Democratic leadership on the Hill is let's take a break.
CORNISH: I was going to ask about that, Juan, because, you know, in relationships sometimes when someone says, let's take a break, it actually means you're getting dumped.
(Soundbite of laughter)
WILLIAMS: Audie, I don't want to know about your life here but...
(Soundbite of laughter)
WILLIAMS: ...I mean, I think you're onto something that's a political truth that Democrats hold there. Which is that while some Republicans, including Scott Brown, the new senator from Massachusetts, say, oh, let's start anew, Democrats don't believe that Republicans really want anything to get done and that all that talk is just rhetoric to try to satisfy the fact that - or speak to the idea that most Americans want some kind of health care reform. They just are unhappy with the current form of the bill as it had come to be embodied in the packages in the House and Senate.
CORNISH: NPR News analyst Juan Williams. Juan, thank you for speaking with us.
WILLIAMS: My pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Time now for your letters.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: First, a correction. Last week, we brought you the story of Colton Harris-Moore, an 18-year-old bandit who's been dubbed the modern day Jesse James. We reported that Harris-Moore has been on the run for eight months. He's actually been evading police for 20 months. The story about Harris-Moore, who is suspected of stealing several cars, a couple of boats and at least two planes, was among the most popular on NPR.org. A number of you said you were actually rooting for the young outlaw.
But Judy Matthews of Tallahassee, Florida writes, Shame on you for promoting the escapades of this person. That time could have been spent on a story to encourage young people to do better things, not worse.
And Margaret Leaf of Phoenix, Arizona left this comment, This is such a sad story. This kid is lost. He will go to prison when he is caught and he may come out hardened enough to murder. Certainly, he will come out worse than when he went in. He has no future now. We all failed him - a bright child, now a bright criminal.
CORNISH: And you either loved her or you hated her.
(Soundbite of song, "Tick Tock")
Ms. KESHA SEBERT (Singer): (Singing) Dont stop. Make your body pop...
CORNISH: But Kesha was the queen of the WEEKEND EDITION inbox this week. The letters poured in after Scott Simon's interview with the pop star last Saturday.
Annette Colby of Denver writes: With all the up and coming and established musicians out there, he picked her? Come on. You can do much better. I thought this radio station was supposed to be a bit more cultivated and cultured than most. What an insult.
And Elizabeth Sanchez of San Francisco called the interview excruciating. She says, we listen to NPR precisely to avoid this sort of stupidity.
But many of our listeners were on Team Kesha. Scott Keyster(ph) of Cyprus, Texas writes, I dont listen to NPR to hear that kind of music, but I do listen to hear intelligent thoughtful people talk about their art, which the young lady did in spades.
Linda Ambrosia of Hilo, Hawaii, says she found herself joyfully dancing in the kitchen. And Jody Barkley of Ohio says, I'm a 67-year-old white lady from conservative, Cincinnati and I think she rocks.
(Soundbite of song, Tick Tock)
Ms. SEBERT: (Singing) Woah-oh oh oh. Woah-oh oh oh.
CORNISH: And for those of you who wrote in with letters of support for WEEKEND EDITION host Scott Simon, we called him during our editorial meeting this week, and you'll be glad to know that his surgery went well, and his voice sounds great. Scott thanks you for your well wishes.
We want to hear from you. You can send us an email by going to NPR.org and clicking on Contact Us. We're also on Facebook at Facebook.com/nprweekend. And you can send us a tweet at Twitter.com/nprweekend.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: This is NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
Coming up, a young piano master finds out about her Grammy nomination on Facebook.
But first, you hear about these things happening and wonder if they ever really do. Well, last Monday, around 5:30 P.M., a half-pound meteor travelling about 220 miles an hour crashed through the office of Dr. Frank Ciampi. Dr. Ciampi has a family practice in Lorton, Virginia and he joins us now on the line.
Dr. Ciampi, welcome.
Dr. FRANK CIAMPI (Physician, Family Practice): Hi. Hi, Audie. How are you?
CORNISH: So, tell me about this. What happened?
Dr. CIAMPI: We heard this loud booming crash. And then, as I looked to my left, I saw this debris in the hallway. You know, there was a lot of debris everywhere.
CORNISH: So luckily, there were no patients nearby.
Dr. CIAMPI: There were no patients. We used the room all day long and it was amazing. Up until 10 minutes prior to that, there was somebody in there pretty much the whole day.
CORNISH: Did you suspect at first that it was a meteor?
Dr. CIAMPI: No way.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. CIAMPI: My partner and I looked at it and we thought something fell from like an airplane.
CORNISH: So unlike the comic books, it wasnt seeping some nebulous fluid that changed form or like a super hero didnt pop out of it.
Dr. CIAMPI: Thank God. And it wasnt warm either when you touched it.
CORNISH: Oh, okay.
Dr. CIAMPI: It was pretty cool. You know, to take it a few steps forward, well, as we were looking at it the following morning, we see that it's charred on the outside and its kind of dense on the inside. And we called up our office manager's husband whos majored in geology in college. And he came right over and he confirmed that it was a meteorite. And we immediately decided that we needed to call up the Smithsonian.
CORNISH: Did he tell you what about the look of it confirmed for him that it was a meteor?
Dr. CIAMPI: Yes. Well, he asked us a few things on the phone. He said is it, you know, is it dark on the outside. We said yes, it is. It's pretty dense. Are there flecks of metal in there? And then we said they were. And he said try to use a magnet and is it magnetic? And we said it is. So he got really excited after he found out it was magnetic.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. CIAMPI: He came right over. And in the interim, the Fairfax County Police came and they were excited too. At first they didnt think it was a big deal but when they looked at it they got excited also. And actually, the Fairfax County Police are the ones that called the news reporters. We didnt call them.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. CIAMPI: And then all hell broke loose. And when I called the Smithsonian that morning, they were kind of like, well, we get five of these a week. Most of them are nothing. But when they saw it they got excited also, so that's when things started heating up.
CORNISH: Now I imagine a rock like that would be worth a lot of money and I'm wondering if youre getting offers for it.
Dr. CIAMPI: No. Well, yeah. We are. We did get offers but everything, you know, we donated it to the Smithsonian. And if any money comes through the Smithsonian, it's going to be donated to Haiti and Doctors, you know, Without Borders.
CORNISH: So does insurance cover a hole in your roof - a hole produced by a meteorite?
Dr. CIAMPI: I assume it does. It's an act of God. I assume it does. But the landlord is dealing with that. And actually, the damage wasnt too bad in the roof. I mean it really - it was just a small hole. They just replaced that area and a few shingles, and so it looks pretty good now.
CORNISH: Now the experts tell us that the odds of actually having meteor comes steaming through your roof are something like a trillion to one.
Dr. CIAMPI: Oh, really? I thought it was a billion to one.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. CIAMPI: So it's a trillion to one. Wow.
CORNISH: Youre still in pretty special company.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. CIAMPI: A patient of mine yesterday, she did some statistics on the computer and she came up with a billion to one. That's what I've been telling everybody when they interview me, but I guess I was wrong.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Dr. Frank Ciampi in Lorton, Virginia, thanks so much for speaking with us.
Dr. CIAMPI: Youre welcome. Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month blocked YouTube from broadcasting the first federal trial over same-sex marriage.
But starting Monday, the popular online video site plans to show the California trial in its entirety. And in true Hollywood style, it'll be a reenactment. Producers are using the trial transcript to film a word-for-word reproduction.
KQED's Rob Schmitz reports.
ROB SCHMITZ: The trial itself was already being billed as the legal equivalent of the Hollywood blockbuster. Lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies, former rivals in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case, coming together to fight for same-sex marriage; a landmark case that could eventually decide whether gay and lesbian Americans have the right to marry. And all this was to be broadcast over YouTube.
All this hype worked for John Ireland, who was clicking on YouTube's site the first morning of the trial.
Mr. JOHN IRELAND (Director): And we were all poised over our computers, and then the word came that the U.S. Supreme Court had blocked that feed.
SCHMITZ: In his frustration, Ireland fell back on what he knows best. The Hollywood producer called his actor friend John Ainsworth. The two then called more actor friends and pretty soon they had a cast, ready to film a made for YouTube reenactment of the Proposition 8 trial. They wanted to send a message to the highest court in the land that if you won't allow it to be filmed, we'll do it ourselves.
Mr. TED OLSON (Attorney): The right to marry a person of one's choice extended to all individuals regardless of sexual orientation...
SCHMITZ: Ireland and Ainsworth fine tuned the edits for a trailer of the series on a laptop in Irelands kitchen. The two look tired. Ainsworth was up late last night. He has a supporting role on Greys Anatomy. And now, he and Ireland are trying to catch up with the trial, which is winding down after two weeks.
Theyll be filming throughout the weekend at a mock trial courtroom at USC by using transcripts of the trial proceedings as the script and notes from friends inside the courtroom as stage direction tips. Ireland says the goal is to film an accurate word-for-word account of the trial.
Mr. IRELAND: Ive spent a lot of time looking through these scripts over the past few days, and I never wanted to be an attorney. And I probably never will be an attorney. But theres a beauty of the direct examination a cross examination and then a redirect.
SCHMITZ: Its a beauty that for some whos up there with watching their grass grow in your backyard.
Mr. ANDREW PUGNO (General Counsel, Protectmarriage.com): I know its excruciating enough to sit through in the first place...
SCHMITZ: Thats Andrew Pugno.
Mr. PUGNO: I can imagine sitting through a reenactment.
SCHMITZ: Pugno is an attorney for Protect Marriage, the sponsor of Proposition 8. Pugno says that co-producers Ireland and Ainsworth, both married gay men, are hardly unbiased observers.
Mr. PUGNO: But its some folks that very much support same-sex marriage and would like to push their agenda and part of that includes dramatizing and reenacting whats happening here in the courtroom. They have a right to do that. Ill be interested to see if anyone pays attention.
SCHMITZ: Plenty of people are paying attention to live blogging from inside the courtroom. One blog has received hundreds of thousands of hits. They may also pay attention if theres a celebrity involved. Ireland says hes been approached by an A-list Hollywood actress, but he wont say who she is. He also says he was approached by a casting director whos worked on the TV series, Lost, and the latest Star Trek, film.
Mr. IRELAND: She approached us with this simple offer, which is tell me who you want and well get them.
SCHMITZ: The rumor of big-time stars getting on board has spurred at least one of the plaintiffs lawyers to send Ireland his headshot so that Ireland could find the right actor. Celebrities or not, heres a sniffed of the Barebones, trailer for the Prop 8 reenactment online at marriagetrial.com.
Mr. IRELAND: This case is about marriage and equality. Plaintiffs are being denied both the right to marry and the right to equality under the law.
Unidentified Man: And she said marriage is not for you people.
Mr. IRELAND: Fourteen million voters decided to uphold...
SCHMITZ: If you think thats riveting, stay tuned for the first episode this Monday, all seven hours of it. Get some popcorn, lots of it.
For NPR News, Im Rob Schmitz in Los Angeles.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Audie Cornish in for Scott Simon.
And Im joined now by NPRS senior news analyst Dan Schorr for a look back at the week in the news. Hi, Dan.
DANIEL SCHORR: Hi, Audie, and welcome aboard.
CORNISH: Thank you. So, Dan, what kind of week has it been?
SCHORR: Well, its been a week of the aftermath of the great earthquake in Haiti. And then there were a couple of seismic events in politics, one of them in Massachusetts, the other one in the Supreme Court.
CORNISH: Lets talk first about Haiti then. This week we started to see aid being distributed in the devastated capital of Port-au-Prince.
SCHORR: Yes.
CORNISH: But there are still tens of thousands, I mean if not hundreds of thousands of Haitians in need of basic necessities. So, whats next for Haiti? What do you see?
SCHORR: Well, first of all, whats next is more of same in trying to approve the delivery of aid to these poor, benighted people. Then therell be hundreds of thousands apparently trying to get away from Port-au-Prince. And then comes the big thing, the big reconstruction which will take us into the next century perhaps. But this is not going to be a short term thing.
CORNISH: But, Dan, how long do you think it will be before people lose interest in whats going in Haiti?
SCHORR: Well, thats the important question. What is very interesting is that the manuscript has already have taken this all to front page, theyre going to have all these other big, big stories, and this question of the next few weeks or so there may be more of that.
Americans are very good in moments of crisis, but they dont like to stay very long with the same subject. And so, Im afraid were going to get increasingly - people say, yeah I know, I gave already help and so on, why are they not all fixed up already?
CORNISH: On the topic of the changing political landscape here in the U.S., the outcome of the special election in Massachusetts this week certainly caused some consternation in Democratic circles here in Washington.
SCHORR: So he stole a furniture.
CORNISH: Yeah, Republican Scott Brown was elected on Tuesday to the Senate. Hes already visited the Capitol.
SCHORR: Well, thats right, thats right. And hes having a profound effect when you consider this just one senatorial election. And the question now has he put now the spike into the health care bill? Is he going to be responsible for more Republican victories in the election next November? Its unbelievable what this one election has done so far.
CORNISH: And then there is also this significant Supreme Court ruling that happened this week which would effectively open the door for unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions in political campaigns. So, how do you think this ruling will also affect the elections moving forward?
SCHORR: Well, it undoes a century of policy about trying to diminish the effect of money in politics. All of a sudden quite massively, it will be a lot of increase of money in politics with all that goes with that. The idea of, you know, you give a lot of money to somebody and then you have a friend in the Congress or a friend in the White House and so on, and what I do know is that, you know, a large part of the country is upset about this. And I think will be hearing more about it. I think theres a chance that efforts will be made in Congress to attenuate the effect of this.
CORNISH: Now, with all that weve discussed, I want to talk about President Obama and his agenda going forward. I mean this week also marked his first year in the presidency. What is the president facing as he starts his second year?
SCHORR: Well, hes facing more and more trouble. But whats very interesting, I remember back in 1995 when President Clinton also faced a great many Democratic losses in the previous off-year election and he said I am relevant. The president is relevant, especially an activist president, he said. And he went to come back. And before his term was over, he had gotten a lot done.
All right, this president goes out to Ohio and makes a big speech in which he says Im going to go on fighting, gives a long, long speech again about, explaining about health care and what he wants, and that wants the core principles of health care saved. He sounds a little angry, he sounds as though hes not giving up. He says Im fighting for the people and I imagine this is going to be a long fighting.
CORNISH: But during the campaign, President Obama talked a lot about bipartisanship, and it didnt exactly work out the way he had planned. What do you see for that effort, going forward?
SCHORR: Well, the president tries very hard to get bipartisan support and he didnt get very much bipartisan support in his first year. The question is, if he doesnt get it, what does he do? Well, I think that in general he will settle for almost anything he can get.
CORNISH: Mr. Obama is also continuing his offensive against the big banks. And last week, he was criticizing the fat cat bankers...
SCHORR: Right.
CORNISH: ...and proposed a tax on bank assets.
SCHORR: Right.
CORNISH: This week, he proposed rules that he says would limit risky investments by banks. Now why is the president going after them with such vengeance?
SCHORR: Well, because I think he likes to go after them with a vengeance. You know, historically, the bankers are always a good target for a populist president or a populist politician. And so, having been in trouble in a whole lot of other fronts, Im sure the president finds it great fun to pick on the bankers.
CORNISH: Is this an issue that you think voters care about as much as, say, health care or the economy?
SCHORR: I think so and, in some ways, even more. You can see a banker, you are to go home, you talk about bankers, you know what youre talking about. The other things tend to become rather theoretical for a great many Americans. It is very hard to explain what is really involved in health care, whats really involved in issues like global warming. Whereas bankers, you can look at them and say, oh, I hate you.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Now, finally, NBC Television Network is paying $45 million to get Conan O Brien to walk away from The Tonights Show...
SCHORR: Right.
CORNISH: And in its place, theyre bringing back to the hosts seat, Jay Leno.
SCHORR: Yup. I guess now I can sleep at night.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr. Dan, thank you.
SCHORR: My pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Our coverage of the situation in Haiti continues at npr.org, where youll find photo galleries and news of the latest security and relief efforts. And as aid workers flock to Haiti, the high-tech community has mobilized as well. Theyre banding together to create digital tools in support of the relief efforts.
Today, hundreds of techies are volunteering at marathon hacking events theyre calling crisis camps. One of these camps is taking place this morning here at NPRs headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Andy Carvin is NPR senior strategist for social media. Hes one of the event organizers and he joins us here in the studio. Andy, welcome.
ANDY CARVIN: Thanks, Audie.
CORNISH: So, first, tell me how crisis camps came together and what it is exactly you guys are doing?
CARVIN: Well, theres a history of bloggers and software developers getting together in times of crisis going back at least five years now. Thanks to the growth of social networking and Twitter. weve suddenly started to mobilize in such a way that its become a lot easier to get people together in person to develop software that can hopefully help relief efforts.
So, for example, when we started this about a week and a half ago, one of the projects that was developed was to create an iPhone app that would allow people to translate Creole to English and English back to Creole. And its also available on Google Android phones.
There are also efforts that have started and involved software companies like Google, for example. Ive been working with them, among other folks, to try to figure out a way of connecting all the various missing persons databases because the Red Cross, of course, has the big missing persons database but lots of blogs and news Web sites have started collecting list of missing people as well. So, Google has stepped up and actually figured out a way to connect all of these things together and hopefully help find some people in the process.
CORNISH: Can you talk about other ways that this is going to benefit Haitians directly?
CARVIN: When it comes to creating tools that are mostly online, we have to acknowledge the fact that only about 10 percent of the Haitian population is online. So, most of these tools are being designed in terms of assisting aid workers and other agencies that are down there. Having said that, there are things that we think are directly benefiting Haitians such as the translation tools that the aid workers are using.
There have also been attempts to invite many, many hundreds of volunteers to go through huge collections of photos of people being pulled out of the rubble or people being seen on the streets of Haiti and actually trying to identify who they are. And weve actually started to have some success with that as well.
So, the benefits arent always direct toward Haitians, but its certainly helping the overall relief efforts.
CORNISH: Andy Carvin is NPR senior strategist for social media. Andy, thanks for being with us.
CARVIN: Thanks for having me.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Most of us use search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo as our front door to the Internet. Weve grown accustomed to using keywords to search for everything from movie times to important issues dominating the news.
But lately researchers are paying more attention to the way children search for information online. Allison Druin is the director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland. She joins us here in our Washington studios. Allison, welcome.
Dr. ALLISON DRUIN (College of Information Studies, University of Maryland; Director, Human-Computer Interaction Lab): Thank you. Its great to be here.
CORNISH: Now, your lab actually developed a study, which is sponsored by Google, we should say...
Dr. DRUIN: Yes.
CORNISH: ...which focused on the ways children search for information online. So, walk me through this. Im seven years old. Im sitting down to the computer. I call up my favorite search engine because its pretty or fun or cute looking and Ive got a lookup some information on George Washington. What do I do that an adult wouldnt do?
Dr. DRUIN: One of the things that we asked, so could you find us an information on dolphins? Well, seven-year-old quickly boom, boom, boom, boom. They found information on the Miami dolphins and you...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. DRUIN: ...did not find out what dolphins eat. There were many children just sat there and watched until they would find the information. As opposed to, hey, couldnt you do a keyword. Nope, uh-uh. This is what I do. Ill find it, dont worry. We had one child swear he was going to find the vice presidents birthday next year in the Spongebob Squarepants Web site.
CORNISH: Somewhere.
Dr. DRUIN: Somewhere in there...
CORNISH: Spongebob had it.
Dr. DRUIN: Spongebob had it, yeah.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. DRUIN: What is it that parents can do right now to improve these skills? Well, they can be mentors in the sense of trying to motivate a kid to go further and farther. Also, being able to let kids see how you search and what you do to refine a search. Its those multi-step questions that trip up most people, for example, we asked what day next year will the vice presidents birthday be on? Well, this was a very interesting question because it takes three different searches to actually find that question, only about 0.5 percent of our kids could actually answer this question.
If we change the result pages, most kids dont click pass the first page. One of the things that we think that would be very valuable would be some sense of mentorship.
CORNISH: Mentorship from the computer.
Dr. DRUIN: Well, this is interesting. What we saw was there are many times where kids just sort of gave up, even though the information might have been there or they didnt realize that they had just misspelled something or kids say, oh, the information is not there, must not be important.
CORNISH: Would they do that would they essentially say if the Internet doesnt tell me so, it does not exist.
Dr. DRUIN: Yes, we saw this right off the bat from our early pilot studies. We found that boys stopped faster than girls, and this is across all the age groups. Girls, they keep on trying, but theyre less successful. And whats interesting is we found that there was less confidence in girls in terms of what they were doing. And so theyd say it was their problem. Whereas the boys would try and problem solve further and they didnt see it as their problem.
CORNISH: Some things dont change.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. DRUIN: It (unintelligible)
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Allison Druin is the director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland. She joined me here in the studio. Allison, thank you.
Dr. DRUIN: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Audie Cornish.
Time now for sports.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: Theres a competition tonight to decide wholl represent the U.S. in one of the Winter Olympics most popular events. Plus, weve got football. Tomorrow, two games to decide which teams move on to the Super Bowl.
Joining me now is NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Hey, Tom.
TOM GOLDMAN: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So before we start talking about tackling and touchdowns, lets deal with sequence and triple axels.
Tonight in Spokane, Washington, its one of the finals of the womens competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. And it looks like its down to three skaters vying for just two spots on the Olympic team.
GOLDMAN: Yeah, kind of unfair. The top three in the standings - Mirai Nagasu, Sasha Cohen, Rachel Flatt. They have the best shot at those top two spots. So, it will be nerve-wracking for them. Theyre separated by less than one point. But only two can qualify.
CORNISH: And Mirai Nagasu, just 16 years old. Shes leading after Thursdays short program. But I guess all the attention is on second place, on Sasha Cohen.
GOLDMAN: Thats right. This is a comeback for Cohen. She hasnt been on the competitive scene since 2006, the year she won the Olympic silver medal. Shes been skating in ice shows, but thats not the same as elite high-pressure competition.
Now, she did quite well in the short program in Spokane. The question is, can she skate the long program tonight without the mistakes that have plagued her in past pressure situations? If she does, Audie, her presence in Vancouver next month at the ancient skating age of 25 - will definitely spice up the competition there.
CORNISH: All right. So, I want to move on to tackle football. Weve got some champions who came here. Tomorrow, the Indianapolis Colts host the New York Jets in the AFC Championship game. And then later in the day, its the Minnesota Vikings against the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship. Tell me about these games.
GOLDMAN: Well, the Jets have been the wonderful story. Theyve won two straight playoff games on the road. Theyve got rookie quarterback, Mark Sanchez, a very funny head coach Rex Ryan who said at the start of the post-season his team would win the Super Bowl. That was a good laugh then but, you know, as the Jets have been inched closer, people arent laughing.
Theyre a tough team. Theyve got a great defense. Sadly for them, it all probably ends tomorrow, the main reason being that the Colts Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the NFL , one of the greatest ever. He is the guy who can figure out the Jets defense, which has confounded teams recently.
Now, it sounds impossible for New York to win. If the Jets run the ball well -which eats up a lot of time - that keeps Manning off the field. Thats New Yorks best hope. But thats why the Indianapolis defense is also key because if they can contain the running attack, force the Jets quarterback Sanchez to throw more, it may force him to make rookie mistakes, which he hasnt so far.
CORNISH: Well, nothing rookie about the quarterbacks in the second game. I mean, nine-year veteran Drew Brees for the Saints and that 40-year-old graybeard Brett Favre, talk about that.
GOLDMAN: Yeah, theyre both playing great. Their teams are clicking on offense and defense. It should be a very entertaining game and some key questions. Will the Vikings running back, Adrian Peterson, run well enough to divert defensive pressure away from Favre, allow him to make more of his magic? Will Drew Brees be able to counter the Vikings aggressing pass rush with short quick passes? Lots of questions you can answer either any of them, all of them either way, and thats why this game is hard to handicap.
CORNISH: And now, dispatch from the world with the random. It appears that the singer Prince hasnt had much trouble making a prediction. He wrote a new fight song for the Minnesota Vikings.
GOLDMAN: Yeah, Minnesotas...
(Soundbite of song, Purple and Gold)
Unidentified Group: (Singing) We come in the name of the purple and gold.
(Soundbite of laughter)
GOLDMAN: Sorry, dont mean to interrupt Prince. Hes the funkiest fan, wrote in ode to the Vikings this week. It predicts great things for Minnesota. The song is not great, Audie. Lets call it more spirit than art.
CORNISH: NPRs sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Tom, thanks.
GOLDMAN: Youre welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Picture a bleak, post-apocalyptic American wasteland. Nearly all of humanities wiped out, save for a solitary, dust-covered man carrying a sword and a mysterious book.
(Soundbite of movie, The Book of Eli)
Mr. DENZEL WASHINGTON (Actor): (As Eli) They showed us weapon. A weapon, and he (unintelligible). But the hearts and minds of the weak and the desperate, it will give us control of it. If we want to rule more than one small town, we have to have it. People will come from all over, they do exactly what I tell them if the words are from the book.
CORNISH: The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington, is the work of directors Albert and Allen Hughes, better known as the Hughes Brothers. Its the first movie in nearly nine years for the duo who also directed such films as Menace II Society, and Dead Presidents.
Albert and Allen Hughes join me now from the studios of NPR West. Welcome.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES (Co-Director, The Book of Eli): Thank you.
CORNISH: You guys are, first of all, its fraternal twins not identical twins?
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Well, theyve said back then we were fraternal but there were a lot of mistakes made in the early 70s and we havent had a DNA test. I suspect were identical, though.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES (Co-Director, The Book of Eli): Even though 60 pounds heavier than my brother.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Its just because I dont eat. This is Albert.
CORNISH: Oh, good, because if I said the name I might insult someone.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Now, because I know that you guys are heavily involved in script writing and script development, I want you to talk about what drew you to "The Book of Eli" as a story.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Well, Allen, I think you should start with that and then I'll finish with it, because if you came to Allen first...
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: You see how we're doing our names perfectly for NPR? It's Allen talking. Well, I read the - the script came, my agent said I finally found a movie for you. And I said, what's the title? And he said, "The Book of Eli," and that's when I go, wow, what a great title. And what's the log line? Lone warrior walking across the wasteland, post-nuclear with the last bible on the planet and the bad guy wants it to reboot civilization.
I read it - first 45 - at the 45-page mark, Gary Oldman's character, Carnegie, says just what you had at the clip there: it's not just a book, it's a weapon. And that's when the hair stood up - and I never had that kind of moment - and I read the rest of it and it really finished strong and I called Albert.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: He goes, this script, you got to read this script, you got to read this, you know. And I said, okay, I'll read it. So, I started reading it, I was flipping the page. I'm like, wow, this is cool, this is interesting. And then by the end, I just had kind of an uneasiness about what I just read and it was more to do with the spirituality and religious...
CORNISH: I want to ask you about that because usually in these dystopias, the big resource that people are battling over might be energy, it might be water. With this, not only is it a book, it's spiritual knowledge.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Well, at first that's what scared me about it because I'm not a true believer.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: That's Albert.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Yeah, and I called him up and I said I just read it. I dont know about this. And he sounded deflated and he basically said, well, just go to sleep on it. And he had been playing this Trent Reznor song for me the week before and - not for me, it was just playing in his car - it's called "Zero Sum."
And when I went to sleep, that song was what got me into the movie. I actually had a dream about the movie because I like the song so much. And then I woke up and I totally got it. And I saw what you can do with that kind of material if handled right. You can show the good and bad side of what we're fascinated by about religion. You know, it's like it's not so much the books as it is the people that mess up things.
CORNISH: Were there any concerns about it basically being considered a Christian movie or an evangelical movie? Because I know the audience I was in, I got the sense that people were actually surprised when this part of the plot was unveiled. And there was a little bit of looking around and, like, wait a second, am I in the right place?
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Yeah. I think the concern was just trying to strike a great spiritual balance whether you're a non-believer or a Buddhist or Hindu, you know, Muslim or Native American. There's a certain oneness that was met in the movie where everybody can get something out of it. It just so happens that Eli's personal journey involved the King James version of the bible.
(Soundbite of movie, "The Book of Eli")
Mr. DENZEL WASHINGTON (Actor): (As Eli) Both forms and thistles, it shall bring forth for us, for out of the ground we were taken for the dust we are. And to the dust we shall return.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: It's not about the Bible to us really. You know, that's a big part of the story, but it's about the guy. And in the end, you know, we were lost up out there. We know that this topic is controversial but, you know, the Christians have embraced it and that's great, you know. The problem is more with my people, you know, were liberals.
And it's interesting to me how a person like that can go into a "Star Wars" film or a "Lord of the Rings" film and totally buy into the fantasy if you're, let's say, an atheist liberal. But if you go into a movie like this, you can't buy into the fantasy of it.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: You know what I found interesting - this is Allen speaking -is that I don't consider myself a liberal anymore, and I'm definitely not conservative. But if you at the look liberal, left, left, left liberal and the right, right, right conservative, they're both so predictable. There has been critics who have given us high marks in the past and have body slammed this movie because of the Bible, because of the...
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: But they won't say it though.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: They won't say it.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: But you can tell...
CORNISH: But you think that's what's behind it.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Yeah, you can tell what's behind it because they're smart critics and they're not quantifying their hatred for the movie at all. They're just, it rubs them the wrong way. I think it's a good thing.
CORNISH: I'm speaking with Albert and Allen Hughes, directors of the new film, starring Denzel Washington, called "The Book of Eli."
Now, I also want to ask you how you got Denzel Washington involved and how he came to be a part of the picture.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: It's a very interesting journey with Denzel because we met Denzel probably 17 years ago when we were in the Cannes Film Festival at the French airport at the - what do they call it - the baggage...
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Baggage, luggage, yeah.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: And over the years, we had seen him and we've had conversations with him, never in a professional capacity but always kind of like the great crazy uncle that would come around and have geopolitical conversations with us, I mean long conversations with us. And this came up when we just signed onto the movie, we had a big meeting with the top brass at Warner Brothers and all the $20 million actors were on the table.
And I dont know why I was hesitant. But after going through the first three guys, I said what about Denzel? And the room stopped and you can just see, they all went, like, wow, only he probably is the only one that can pull this role off. So, went to Denzel. Unlike a lot of actors, Denzel's very decisive. He responds no right away or yes right away, and we got in the room with him right away.
That still wasn't an easy process. It took - he kind of veered away from it, did other things. And it was his son, who's a professional football player by the name of John David Washington, who read it and said, pops, you need to revisit this. This is his eldest son, the same one that convinced him to do "Training Day," for which he won his first lead male actor - what do they call that one?
CORNISH: Best Actor Oscar?
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: Best actor. And his son also convinced him to do "American Gangster." So, he had a great track record with his father, and his father reconsidered, read it and the rest is history.
CORNISH: Well, it's been nine years since your last film, and I have to ask what you've been doing in that time and am I going to have to wait another nine years before there's another Hughes Brothers film?
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: You are sweet.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: Well, I would hope not because we'd walking in with, like, wheelchairs and a cane the rate we're going right now. It's a combination of a lot of things. It's like we always like to live our life. The elements have to be right for us to make a movie. If there's one personality off in that room and, you know, we'll bow out gracefully. The material doesn't speak to us on an emotional level - it can be an action movie, it can be great but, you know, it needs to speak to us.
And there will not be another nine years, but I can guarantee one thing, for me - and I'm sure Albert will agree - is that we're connoisseurs of life. And in between each movie, we go out of our way to actually observe life and interact with real people. And we don't live in the buffer zone of valet cars and lunches in Hollywood, this, that and the other. So, I think the movies will get better over time. They won't get worse.
CORNISH: Well, we're all going to be looking forward to the next one. Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes, directors of the new film starring Denzel Washington, "The Book of Eli," thank you both for talking with us.
Mr. ALLEN HUGHES: Thank you.
Mr. ALBERT HUGHES: Thank you. It was great.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Cold weather in January is not news, but the first half of this month saw record-breaking low temperatures from the northern plains to Miami, the exceptional cold and icy conditions for truckers, orange growers, restaurant workers and so many others. The second half of the month brought intense winter storms to the West Coast.
But business owners don't have to take what Mother Nature dishes out anymore. Now they can turn to financial markets for help. Here to explain is senior business editor Marilyn Geewax. Welcome back, Marilyn.
MARILYN GEEWAX: Good morning, Liane.
HANSEN: All right, explain: How can financial markets help businesses cope with something as unpredictable as the weather?
GEEWAX: Well, you know, in the financial world people realize that business owners have to offset the economic impact of bad weather. So, think about how important that is. The Commerce Department says one-third of all our economic activity in this country has a direct link to the weather. We're talking about theme parks and utility companies, airlines. They all have this huge stake. And, of course, farmers have the biggest stake of all.
So, all of these business owners are looking for ways to - and they're willing to spend money to find ways to offset their risks. And we used to do that just simply through insurance. When you think about Lloyd's of London, that was more than 300 years ago they started helping merchants and ship owners to make sure that if your ship didn't come in, at least you didn't lose everything 'cause you had insurance.
So, the securities traders, they thought about this insurance and they wanted to take it up a notch. They thought of something a little bit more sophisticated. And about 20 years ago they created something called weather derivatives.
HANSEN: Weather derivatives. I mean, financial derivatives is a phrase we heard a lot during the market chaos in late 2008, but what's a weather derivative?
GEEWAX: Well, these are futures contracts and options that allow the two parties to effectively bet on the weather. On the one side of a contract, there's someone who's willing to bet their money and hopefully profit if the weather is mild, and on the other side, there's somebody who would gain if the weather turns out to be terrible.
HANSEN: Give us an example of how it would work.
GEEWAX: Well, let's say you're running a theme park in Florida and you know that you're going to lose a lot of money if it turns out to be exceptionally cold. So, a theme park operator could hedge against really cold days in January by using a weather futures contract. Effectively, it works as a swap. There's one party that gets paid if a certain number of days are colder than a set point - let's say 40 degrees - and the other party gets paid if it turns out to be warmer than expected.
HANSEN: So, does this mean businesses really don't have to worry about the weather?
GEEWAX: Well, it means that business owners who are prudent and they hedge their risks with the help of these futures contracts, they can avoid the worst consequences of bad weather. But here's one other thing to ponder, that even if the smartest financial wizards, the insurance experts, they don't really know how to create any instruments to hedge against global warming.
If we really do have the worst of the predictions come true with lots of coastal areas getting flooded and all sorts of huge storms, no one will be able to come up with a financial instrument big enough to protect against that kind of change. But I was looking at the jobs outlooks and there is one thing that might be a safe bet: a private sector weather consultant seems to be an area of growth for jobs. So, maybe the thing to do here is just to learn to be a meteorologist.
HANSEN: NPR's senior business editor Marilyn Geewax. Thanks a lot.
GEEWAX: You're welcome, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
If you plan to by a house this year, you can expect to have a better sense of what your closing costs will be. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has made significant changes to the Good Faith Estimate. The document used to be a tool lenders gave to borrowers early in the home buying process so they'd know how much house they could afford. But as of this month it's now a legally binding agreement.
From member station WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina, Scott Graf explains.
SCOTT GRAF: Lisa Satterfield is one of Charlotte's most successful realtors. In last year's depressed market, she still did over $7 million in business. Her specialty, she says, is taking care of her customers' every need.
Ms. LISA SATTERFIELD (Realtor): Hey, good. I got your call and I got your fax. I did. But there's one thing I do need to get you to initial on it. The...
GRAF: That's right. It used to be frustrating when an otherwise smooth deal would get all jumbled at closing. Sometimes, she says, a buyer would be asked to pay higher closing costs than what lenders had listed on the Good Faith Estimate.
Ms. SATTERFIELD: And the people got there and, you know, they were expecting perhaps a one percent origination. They get there and it's one-and-a-half percent. Something has changed with either their out-of-pocket expenses or their rate. And at that point, their feet are kind of tied.
GRAF: Satterfield says borrowers had two choices: Either pay the extra money or walk away from the deal. Charlotte mortgage lender Bill McConnell says it really wasn't much of a choice at all.
Mr. BILL MCCONNELL (Mortgage Lender): The homebuyer already had their belongings packed up on a moving truck. They are ready to move into their new home. At that point, they're really over a barrel. There's not a whole lot they could do other than pay the higher amount.
GRAF: But under the new rules, that shouldn't happen. What's offered to a borrower on the Good Faith Estimate is not supposed to change. And if costs do go up, the lender has to pay the difference. McConnell says it's another step in weeding out shady brokers.
Mr. MCCONNELL: It's raised the bar for all of us in the mortgage profession. I think it's going to really make us think. We're not going to be just the middlemen between the consumer and a bunch of mortgage products. We're really going to be looked at more now as the licensed professionals that we are.
GRAF: But sudden jumps in closing costs had been happening for years. What really provided the impetus for change was the housing crisis. By the time HUD announced the new and binding Good Faith Estimate in the fall of 2008, it was clear many homeowners had signed up for mortgages they didn't fully understand, or that turned out too good to be true. Millions were behind on their payments or facing foreclosure.
Vicki Bott is a deputy assistant secretary with HUD. She says the new document is meant to be more clear.
Ms. VICKI BOTT (Deputy Assistant Secretary, HUD): It is up to the industry to provide consumers with the ability to have documents that are understandable to a layman versus just an industry expert.
GRAF: But the new rules are not perfect. For instance, now a lender will only issue a Good Faith Estimate after a buyer has zeroed in on a specific house. But before buyers can get that far, they need to know things like an interest rate, down payment and monthly payments things the old Good Faith Estimate used to provide sooner. So lenders are now issuing worksheets with that information.
Again, realtor Lisa Satterfield.
Ms. SATTERFIELD: I have to be able to have somebody sit down with my client and say, okay, in reality this is what we're looking at. We can't call it a Good Faith Estimate anymore. But they have to be able to disclose and work with a client as they make decisions.
GRAF: Satterfield agrees with the intent to protect and inform homebuyers, but thinks more improvements still need to be made.
For NPR News, I'm Scott Graf in Charlotte.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The base baritone voice is perfectly suited for big, strong male roles in Wagnerian operas like Wotan, king of the gods in the "Ring Cycle."
But 25-year-old bass baritone Shenyang can sing Handel just as easily.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. SHENYANG (Opera Singer): (Singing in foreign language)
HANSEN: Shenyang he has combined his name to be spelled as one word is one of the most talked about young singers in opera. He won the prestigious Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in 2007. When opera star Renee Fleming heard him in Shanghai, she was floored by his voice and by what she called his musical intelligence. So she encouraged him to come to the Juilliard School in New York.
This past year, Shenyang debuted with the Metropolitan Opera. And in February, he will be appearing at the Met in "La Boheme." Both of Shenyang's parents are singers and he grew up surrounded by all sorts of music.
Mr. SHENYANG: To me, when I was a kid, I thought that classical music or opera is same as the pop. They're all music. They're all the beautiful things for the human. I still remember when I was in middle school or even younger I was listening to Michael Jackson and Karajan at the same time.
HANSEN: Herbert Von Karajan and Michael Jackson at the same time.
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah, they're both great.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Absolutely.
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah.
HANSEN: I would agree with you. You entered a children's singing contest?
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah. I went to a couple of, you know, children singing competitions. Usually I forgot a word. I dont know, it was not a correct thing for me 'cause it was little bit silly to me.
HANSEN: But, you know, you did win in a contest. You won Cardiff Singer of the World.
HANSEN: I mean, now, that's an important contest.
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah, probably it was the most important thing in my life.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. SHENYANG: (Singing in foreign language)
HANSEN: What did you sing?
Mr. SHENYANG: I had a Wagner piece. I had a Verdi. I had a Mozart. I had a Gounod - French. And finally, I sang the Rachmaninoff opera "Aleko."
HANSEN: Really?
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah, I knew that piece from my father 'cause he sang that piece in his graduation recital.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. SHENYANG: (Singing in foreign language)
Before a competition, Renee Fleming came to China and gave a recital in Shanghai. Also, she gave a master class in Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and she had four students. I was the one of them.
HANSEN: And she noticed you.
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah. And, you know, finally I won that. And we sent Renee a message right away, right after, you know, the announcement. And Renee was so, you know, extremely happy. And afterwards, she suggest me to come to New York and study here.
HANSEN: There was an article in the Financial Times of London last year and it said in the past few years the number of superb Chinese instrumentalists has grown exponentially. But vocalists are a rare phenomenon and its partly because the repertory is rooted in languages where in order to master it you have to go and live abroad.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. SHENYANG: (Singing in foreign language)
I think languages can be the most difficult things for us to learn. Even for American, for European people, language is - it's a part of the music for the singer. It's not only like all the diction correct - that's not enough. But, you know, you want to also get the sense of the language, get the great accent of the language and to sing it correctly. That's really hard, especially for Asian people.
HANSEN: Yeah. Youve been working very hard at it.
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah, plus someone helped me a lot for this.
HANSEN: Yeah.
Mr. SHENYANG: But for instrumentalists, they play the notes. They dont have language. The language is the music.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. SHENYANG: (Singing in foreign language)
HANSEN: We're speaking with opera singer Shenyang. Your name, I mean, you performed under several.
Mr. SHENYANG: Mm-hmm.
HANSEN: Shen Yang, Yang Shen, Shenyang - one word.
Mr. SHENYANG: I dont use Yang Shen because my family name actually is Shen, S-H-E-N.
HANSEN: Mm-hmm.
Mr. SHENYANG: Given name is Yang. But do you know why I cannot use the English name order of my name?
HANSEN: No.
Mr. SHENYANG: Because if we put that order like Yang Shen, that sounds in Chinese is really funny, which means the kidney of goat. So I dont want people call me the kidney of goat for 50 years. You know, it's - I should stop that.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. SHENYANG: So that's why Shirley Yuan(ph), you know, she had this kind of experience a lot. And she told me, I would just suggest you to use one word. Even it feels like a little bit pop.
HANSEN: Mm-hmm.
Mr. SHENYANG: You know, some pop singers would, like, use a single name. But it's okay. It's a city name. It's easy to pronounce. It's easy to remember and there's nothing strange vowels for you.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Yeah, thank you.
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah.
HANSEN: Youve actually been recording for a Chinese label, I believe, FengLin Records.
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah.
HANSEN: And are you interested in doing, like, pop songs? You used to make no difference when you were a kid between opera and pop music, but are you - do you have some crossover ambitions of your own?
Mr. SHENYANG: Actually, my first recording - and it was a commercial recording actually - that was a crossover album, you know.
HANSEN: Ah.
Mr. SHENYANG: I think I recorded when I was 19 years old. That was just for fun. But now I just want to forget that recording.
HANSEN: You want to forget about it?
Mr. SHENYANG: Yeah, because it's not my style.
HANSEN: Yeah, youre an opera singer.
Mr. SHENYANG: And I'm too young for the crossover music so it's...
HANSEN: Really?
Mr. SHENYANG: I dont expect, you know, I can be, Ill be able to be a really, really, really famous singer. But it's not my goal. I just want to - more and more people, or even just someone, or some few people would say I need Shenyang's singing. I need to hear him. That's all.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. SHENYANG: (Singing in foreign language)
I want music to be something like a food, like a wine or water. You know, you need that.
HANSEN: Bass baritone Shenyang joined us from our New York bureau. He will be appearing in February at the Metropolitan Opera in "La Boheme."
Thank you. Much luck to you.
Mr. SHENYANG: Oh, thank you so much.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. SHENYANG: (Singing in foreign language)
LIANE HANSEN, host:
It's been said that voice is the original instrument.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: And the a cappella group Sonos has taken this idea to a new level.
(Soundbite of music)
SONOS (A Cappella Group): (Singing) Again. It's a shame. It's a shame. It's a perfect shame. Creep under my door, and we do it again, oh, oh.
HANSEN: Sonos isn't your typical glee club. Aside from their novel vocal techniques and even some electronic manipulation, they've also cultivated a modern repertoire that includes unique renditions of music by Radiohead, Fleet Foxes, Bjork, Imogen Heap and more. "SonoSings" is the name of their new and first CD, and the sextet has traveled from their home base in Los Angeles to perform for us here in Studio 4A.
So, let me welcome each singer. Ben McLain, welcome.
Mr. BEN MCLAIN (Musician): Hi.
HANSEN: Katharine Hoye, welcome.
Ms. KATHERINE HOYE (Musician): Thanks.
HANSEN: And Jessica Freedman, welcome.
Ms. JESSICA FREEDMAN (Musician): Thank you.
HANSEN: Rachel Bearer, welcome.
Ms. RACHEL BEARER (Musician): Thank you. It's great to be here.
HANSEN: Paul Peglar?
Mr. PAUL PEGLAR (Musician): Yes.
HANSEN: All right, and Chris Harrison.
Mr. CHRIS HARRISON (Musician): Yes, hello.
HANSEN: Chris, let me just start before we hear some of the music, because you've done a lion's share of the arrangements for this new CD, "SonoSings," first song we're going to hear is one called "White Winter Hymnal" by the group Fleet Foxes. Let's just hear a little bit of the original so we can compare and contrast.
Mr. HARRISON: All right.
(Soundbite of song, "White Winter Hymnal")
FLEET FOXES: (Singing) I was falling in the, I was falling in the, I was falling in the, I was falling in the, I was falling in the, I was following in the pack all swallowed in the coats, with scarves of red tied around their throats.
HANSEN: Now, Fleet Foxes has really recently become popular. They're a new band. So, typical question, but how do you decide which groups and which songs you're going to cover when you make a CD like this?
Mr. HARRISON: That's a great question. Yeah, when the project started, we basically made kind of playlists or mixed CDs and our manager and business partner, Hugo Vereker made the same and we would trade and listen to each other's stuff. And we're, like, we think these songs are really cool and could be especially cool with voices, and he'd make us listen to some things.
And "White Winter" actually was one that I had never heard, I don't think any of us had heard before because it was, I think it had either just come out or was about to come out or something. It had come up on Hugo's radar and he brought it to our attention and said, hey, I'm thinking this, but, you know, like a hymnal and stuff like that, you know, a Beach Boys tune. So, what if we reworked it that way? And we did and it came out pretty nice.
(Soundbite of song, "White Winter Hymnal")
SONOS: (Singing) I was following the pack all swallowed in their coats with scarves of red tied 'round their throats to keep their little heads from falling in the snow, then I turned 'round and there you go, and, Michael, you would fall, in turn the white snow red as strawberries, in the summertime.
HANSEN: That's "White Winter Hymnal" performed in Studio 4A and it's actually a cover of a song that was originally done by Fleet Foxes.
What's it like for you guys to perform live in this era of Auto-Tune?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HARRISON: It's really fun. Well, it's interesting 'cause Auto-Tune, you know, Auto-Tune 10 years ago existed, but was a secret, you know. It was something that made it so really, really pretty people could have singing careers, who maybe wouldn't have otherwise. And since then it's being exposed as, like, a tool. It's kind of become like a musical toy or, you know, like things that...
HANSEN: An effect.
Mr. HARRISON: An effect, absolutely, yeah. Cher kind of blazed the trail there and then, you know, Kanye's favorite thing now is to put Auto-Tune (unintelligible).
HANSEN: Sure. And you can't hear Will.i.am without...
Mr. HARRISON: No, you sure can't.
HANSEN: ...Auto-Tune. But you do use some electronics.
Mr. HARRISON: We do, yeah. Nothing that fixes what we're doing, just things that augment what we're doing. The thing I use most often is an octave pedal.
HANSEN: Okay.
Mr. HARRISON: I guess in a sense that kind of fixes what I'm doing. I'm not a bass. Not one of us in this group is a bass. And so there are some notes we want to be able to hit that are really lower than most people can sing.
HANSEN: So, it kind of splits your vocals so you're doing a bass part and another part as well.
Mr. HARRISON: Exactly, yeah. I'm singing a note so it's letting through that note plus a note one octave below, which makes me sound a lot cooler than I actually am.
HANSEN: So, a bunch of bass singers haven't been, you know, trying to knock down the door of your recording studio and say, let me in.
Mr. HARRISON: We know what's going on. I've been complimented after many a show on my incredible low end and I've bowed my head in shame and admitted that it's...
Unidentified Man: Reluctantly.
Mr. HARRISON: Yeah. I can do a quick demonstration if you want.
HANSEN: Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
Mr. HARRISON: So, this is my actual singing voice.
(Soundbite of singing)
Mr. HARRISON: And here's if I add an octave.
(Soundbite of singing)
HANSEN: How cool is that?
Mr. HARRISON: I think it's pretty cool.
HANSEN: Yeah, it is cool. Purists don't mind, though, that you're doing that?
Mr. HARRISON: Well, they do.
Unidentified Woman: Well, some do.
Mr. HARRISON: But we're not really a purist band. We have, you know, we have distortion in our vocals.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: And you're the only guy I've ever seen sing barefoot.
Mr. HARRISON: Yeah.
HANSEN: Which is kind of interesting. Yeah. Feel it from the ground up, huh?
Mr. HARRISON: One of the, a KCRW DJ, an awesome guy who's been very supportive of us and plays our stuff, named Chris Douridas, actually asked me when we went in and set up and everything, he noticed, he was, like, oh cool, you're barefoot. That's like your thing, yeah? And at that moment I thought, yeah, you know.
HANSEN: It is now.
Mr. HARRISON: It is. Now it is. So, thank you, Chris.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: All right, well, we're going to hear one more performance from you live here in Studio 4A. You do a lot of modern music on "SonoSings," the CD, but this one is really a blast from the past. Let's play the original.
(Soundbite of song, "I Want You Back")
JACKSON 5 (Music Group): (Singing) Oh, baby, give me one more chance to show you that I love you. Won't you please let me back in your heart. Oh, darling...
HANSEN: And that's the original "I Want You Back" done by the Jackson 5. Classic, bubbly pop, but without giving it all away, this is a little darker version?
Mr. HARRISON: It is. It's a little different.
HANSEN: Yeah. All right, well, let's hear it. This is Sonos with "I Want You Back."
(Soundbite of song, "I Want You Back")
SONOS: (Singing) When I had you to myself, I didn't want you around. Those pretty faces always made you stand out in the crowd. But someone picked you from the bunch, one glance was all it took. Now it's much too late for me to take a second look.
Oh, baby, give me one more chance, won't you take me, please, back in your heart. Oh, darling, I was blind to let you go, but now that I see you in his arms, oo, I want you back.
Trying to live without your love was one long sleepless night. Let me show you, girl, that I know wrong from right. Every street you walk on I leave tearstains on the ground. Following the girl I didn't even want around. Oh, baby, give me one more chance. Won't you take me please back in your heart? Oh, darling, I was blind to let you go, but now that I see you in his arms...
I want you back, I want, oh, baby, come back to me. I want you back (I want you back), I want you back (I want you back), baby, come back to me. I want you back (I want you back), I want you back (I want you back), baby, come back to me. I want you back (I want you back), I want you back, oh, baby, come back to me. I want you back (I want you back), I want you back (I want you back), baby, come back to me. I want you back (I want you back), I want you back (I want you back), oh, baby, come back to me.
Oh, baby, give me one more chance. Won't you take me, please, back in your heart. Oh, darling, I was blind to let you go, but now that I see you...
HANSEN: A major hit by the Jackson 5 transposed into a minor key and through the vocals of the a cappella group Sonos. Great version of that tune.
Mr. HARRISON: Thank you.
HANSEN: The group Sonos is performing here in Studio 4A. Their new CD is called "SonoSings." It's on the Verve label. Jessica Freedman, Chris Harrison, Ben McLain, Rachel Bearer, Katharine Hoye and Paul Peglar, thank you all so much from coming in to play.
SONOS: Thank you.
Our piece was produced by Ned Wharton and engineered by Neil Tevault. You can hear full Studio 4A performances on our Web site NPRMusic.org. And just after we wrapped up our interview, manager Hugo Vereker announced that the group had prepared a special bonus for us.
Mr. HARRISON: Sonos bonus.
HANSEN: Sonos bonus.
(Soundbite of Sonos performing NPR theme song)
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
And joining us is puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Hey, Will.
WILL SHORTZ: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: Well, if it's near the end of January, then the crossword puzzle tournament can't be far behind, can it?
SHORTZ: That's right. It's the 33rd American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. It's coming up in four weeks, February 19 to 21 in Brooklyn. And a new feature this year is a puzzler's variety show Sunday morning just before the playoff round. And some of the officials and contestants will be performing music, comedy and other entertainment. So, I just want to mention that to listeners. You can also compete from home. And if you're interested in information, you can get it at CrosswordTournment.com.
HANSEN: So you're moving the variety show from Saturday night to Sunday morning?
SHORTZ: We have other stuff Saturday night this year.
HANSEN: It sounds like you're keeping it under wraps.
SHORTZ: Well, it's going to be trivia games and extra word games.
HANSEN: Wow. Well, I still remember the crew from Dinner Impossible last year. That was a lot of fun.
SHORTZ: That was great.
HANSEN: That was great. All right, well, let's get to our radio puzzle that we do every week and remind us of the challenge - a difficult one - that you gave us last week.
SHORTZ: Yes. It came from Mike Reese, who produces "The Simpsons" and is co-creator of "The Critic." I said: I'm looking for the full name of a well-known TV actress and TV comedienne. The first four letters of the actress' first name are the last four letters of the comedienne's last name. And the first four letters of the comedienne's first name are the last four of the actress' last name. Who are these well known entertainers?
HANSEN: This was a toughie. Just give us the answer.
SHORTZ: The answer is Teri Hatcher and Cheri Oteri.
HANSEN: Oh goodness. I tell you, you stumped them this week. You stumped them. We only received only, oh, well, just over 350 entries. And from those correct entries we randomly selected our winner, Mike Dill from Dallas, Texas. Hi, Mike.
Mr. MIKE DILL: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: So, how long did it take you to solve this puzzle?
Mr. DILL: It took a couple of days, but seriously, when I was out for a run, maybe half an hour to 45 minutes into it it came to me.
HANSEN: Wow. Do you listen to the show when you're running?
Mr. DILL: No. I get the puzzle online and then I (unintelligible) puzzle is and work on it while I'm physically occupied.
HANSEN: Ah. How long have you been playing?
Mr. DILL: A couple of years.
HANSEN: Okay. What do you do in Dallas?
Mr. DILL: I'm retired. I used to be a lawyer.
HANSEN: Okay. Well then, and a word man, obviously. Are you ready to play?
Mr. DILL: I am.
HANSEN: I think so. Will, meet Mike. Mike, meet Will. Let's play.
SHORTZ: All right, Mike. Today's puzzle is called J-R. Every answer is a familiar two-word phrase with the initials J-R. For example, if I said going for a spin in a stolen car, you would say joy ride. Number one is pastry with preserves inside.
Mr. DILL: Jelly roll.
SHORTZ: Jelly roll is right. Number two: what married taxpayers usually file with the IRS.
Mr. DILL: A joint return.
SHORTZ: Uh-huh. A pirate flag.
Mr. DILL: A jolly Roger.
SHORTZ: Right. What an appellate court exercises over a lower court.
Mr. DILL: Judicial review.
SHORTZ: Right. I thought you'd get that one. Item used in double dutch.
Mr. DILL: Jump rope.
SHORTZ: That's right. What's practiced by synagogue goers.
Mr. DILL: Jewish rituals.
SHORTZ: Okay. Or Jewish religion. Waterway forming part of Israel's border that goes to the Dead Sea.
Mr. DILL: Um, boy.
HANSEN: Jordan River?
Mr. DILL: Something river.
SHORTZ: Jordan...
Mr. DILL: Jordan River.
HANSEN: Jordan River.
SHORTZ: Jordan River is it. Elvis Presley film or number one song from it.
HANSEN: J-R, oh.
Mr. DILL: I'm lost.
HANSEN: Jailhouse...
SHORTZ: Liane?
HANSEN: "Jailhouse Rock?"
SHORTZ: "Jailhouse Rock," good. Nickname for a southern soldier in the Civil War.
Mr. DILL: A southern soldier. Something rebel?
SHORTZ: Reb.
Mr. DILL: Johnny Reb.
SHORTZ: Johnny Reb is it. Here's another one up your line: place for deliberations in a trial.
Mr. DILL: A jury room.
SHORTZ: Right. Place where sushi is served.
Mr. DILL: Japanese restaurant.
SHORTZ: Right. Dave Brubeck or Count Basie disc.
Mr. DILL: Jazz record.
SHORTZ: Yes. What a crime of passion is often committed in.
Mr. DILL: Um, something rage.
SHORTZ: Yes, what kind?
HANSEN: Jealous?
Mr. DILL: Jealous.
SHORTZ: Jealous rage, good. State license and two year's experience, for example.
Mr. DILL: Job requirement.
SHORTZ: That's it. Follower of the third U.S. president, a believer in agrarian democracy.
Mr. DILL: Follower of the third U.S. president. Um, boy.
HANSEN: Believer in agrarian democracy.
SHORTZ: Well, there was Washington and Adams and then who was third?
Mr. DILL: Jefferson.
SHORTZ: Yes.
Mr. DILL: Oh, Jeffersonian Republican?
SHORTZ: That's it. Good.
HANSEN: Nice. Very good.
SHORTZ: Distinctive alcohol from the Caribbean used to make a hurricane.
Mr. DILL: Jamaican rum?
SHORTZ: That's it. A very fast hare.
Mr. DILL: A very fast hare?
HANSEN: Hare.
SHORTZ: Hare, H-A-R-E.
Mr. DILL: Oh, hare. Oh, jack rabbit.
SHORTZ: Jack rabbit. And your last one: When Goldilocks tried the beds of the three bears, one bed was too hard, one was too soft and the third one was...
Mr. DILL: Just right.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SHORTZ: Just right. Good job.
HANSEN: Oh, just right. Mike Dill, well done. Yeah, gee...
Mr. DILL: Thank you, Liane. You definitely filled in some for me.
HANSEN: Oh, only a few. You were on a jelly roll, as they say.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: We have some special guests to tell you about your prizes for playing our puzzle today. They are members of the a cappella vocal sextet Sonos.
Unidentified Man #1: For playing our puzzle today, you'll get...
Unidentified Woman #1: A WEEKEND EDITION lapel pin.
Unidentified Woman #2: The "Scrabble Deluxe Edition" from Parker Brothers.
Unidentified Woman #1: The book series; "Will Shortz Presents KenKen," Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from St. Martin's Press.
Unidentified Man #1: One of Will Shortz's "Puzzlemaster Decks of Riddles and Challenges" from Chronicle Books.
Unidentified Man #2: And a CD compilation of NPR's Sunday Puzzle.
(Soundbite of singing)
HANSEN: Hey, Mike. What do you think?
Mr. DILL: Sounds great.
HANSEN: Dont they though? I mean, you know, weve got our own glee club at NPR on the show this week. Anyway, before we let you go, Mike, tell us what member station you listen to.
Mr. DILL: KERA in Dallas, Texas.
HANSEN: Mike Dill from Dallas, Texas, thanks a lot for playing our puzzle today.
Mr. DILL: Thank you both. I enjoyed it.
HANSEN: We did too. And, Will, we get to do it again. What's the challenge for next week?
SHORTZ: Yes. Think of a common first name for a boy starting with the letter E, two syllables. Rearrange all the letters to name a common first name for a girl, also in two syllables. What names are these? So, again, a common first name for a boy starting with the letter E in two syllables, rearrange all the letters to name a common first name for a girl, also in two syllables. What names are these?
HANSEN: When you have the answer, go to our Web site NPR.org/puzzle and click on the Submit Your Answer link. Only one entry per person, please. Our deadline is Thursday, 3 P.M. Eastern Time. Please include a phone number where we can reach you at about that time. We'll call you if youre the winner, and you can o play puzzle on the air with the puzzle editor of The New York Times and WEEKEND EDITION's puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
Thanks a lot, Will.
SHORTZ: Thanks, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Food and humanitarian aid are reaching Haiti in increasing quantities today. And U.S. and U.N. troops are starting to bring order to the quake-ravaged nation. But delivering health care to hundreds of thousands of Haitians remains a vexing task.
When the earthquake struck Haiti 12 days ago, the first foreign doctors -indeed in many cases the first doctors - to respond were from Cuba. A team of 380 Cuban health workers was already in Haiti when the quake hit, and shortly thereafter, dozens more arrived. Today, Cuban medical brigades are operating four clinics in Port-au-Prince and as the humanitarian crisis continues, their patient load grows.
NPR's John Burnett reports.
JOHN BURNETT: The 20 members of the Cuban Miracle Mission, as it's called, had been doing cataract surgeries at a clinic in downtown Port-au-Prince for nearly a year before the afternoon of January 12th, when the earth roared the city disintegrated.
Pharmacist Ildilisa Nunez(ph) says she and the others were on their way to their residence in the capital the moment the earthquake hit. They raced back to the clinic, which was in one of the hardest hit areas.
Dr. ILDILISA NUNEZ (Pharmacist): (Through translator) You can see that everything around here collapsed. And so the Haitians who lived in this neighborhood began coming immediately because they knew that Cuban doctors were here.
BURNETT: Six-hundred-and-five people came to the clinic for treatment in the first 12 hours after the quake. The eye surgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses converted their eye clinic into a trauma field hospital - and it still is.
(Soundbite of screaming)
BURNETT: A young woman in a yellow dress is restrained by her husband while a doctor administers antiseptic to a deep, infected wound on her right ankle.
(Soundbite of screaming)
BURNETT: Nunez, the pharmacist, looks at the injured people sitting on a bench waiting their turn to have their wounds cleaned and sutured.
Dr. NUNEZ: (Through translator) All those who are seated there came in this morning on their own. Their wounds are very dirty. They're all infected and they all require powerful antibiotics.
BURNETT: Havana has been sending medical missions to impoverished countries around the world since Cuban doctors first went to Algeria in 1963. Fidel Castro uses this international doctor diplomacy to help the poor and engender good will, though critics say it's more than a humanitarian gesture, it's a sort of Trojan horse of Cuban ideology.
Cuban doctors typically serve two years overseas, which doubles their returning salaries from $25 to $50 a month. Cuban medical brigades have been coming to Haiti for 11 years. The country has substandard hospitals and a severe doctor shortage. Half of Haiti's nearly 10 million people lack access to basic health care; most of the population seeks treatment from traditional healers.
For this reason, doctors from Cuba and any other contributing nation are deeply appreciated. Pharmacist Ildilisa Nunez, a slight grandmother who exudes cheerfulness amid the misery, is happy to extol her country's mission to a U.S. journalist.
Dr. NUNEZ: (Through translator) We in Cuba have a strong culture of help and education. Wherever we're needed we must go to help humanity.
BURNETT: A thin, serious young man named Junior Enrique Lopez, wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, is the logistics manager for the Cuban medical brigades in Haiti.
Mr. JUNIOR ENRIQUE LOPEZ (Medical Brigade Logistics Manager, Cuba): (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: He says the day after the earthquake, a plane arrived from Cuba with 60 doctors. Now we've receive two flights daily with food, medicine and other supplies. Mexicans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans have also sent aid to the Cuban clinics.
None of the 40 patients undergoing treatment here will stay in the hospital building. They're terrified of another earthquake. Doctors initially treated them inside the hospital, but the patients grabbed their IV bags and hobbled outside. Now everything is done under the sky. The patients camp out on the hospital grounds in yet another wretched tent city, cooking for themselves, using the far lawn for a privy, shooing flies, lying about and contemplating everything they've lost.
Ms. ANGELIE ZWAZAN(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: When the home of Angelie Zwazan collapsed, she says it crushed both her legs and killed three of her family members. She and her surviving daughter, Caroline, lie on a blanket next to the hospital seeking protection from the blue tarp over their heads and the image of the voodoo deity dangling from her neck.
Nearby, a man wheel's his grimacing wife in a wheelbarrow into the medical encampment. As a Cuban nurse checks her blood pressure, the woman takes her place at the end of the line.
John Burnett, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Joining us in the studio is the Baroness Catherine Ashton, the recently appointed European Union high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. Among her immediate responsibilities is coordinating the EU's aid efforts in Haiti. Welcome to the program, Lady Ashton.
Lady Baroness CATHERINE ASHTON (High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, European Union): Thank you.
HANSEN: What are the EU and its 27-member nations doing to help Haiti both immediately and in the long term?
Lady ASHTON: Well, the first thing to say is this is a big challenge for the European Union and for me, five weeks into the job to coordinate the efforts of the member states. Twenty-one member states have provided assistance on the ground from field hospitals, water sanitation, fire fighters - all of the things that have helped support the effort onto the United Nations to try and help these people. And it's a terrible, terrible set of circumstances.
Second thing is already between the European member states and the commission, we have about half a billion dollars available for aid to be able to start the process of rebuilding. Most importantly, the reason I'm in the United States is to talk with Secretary of State Clinton, which I've done, to begin the long process of recognizing we have to be there for the long haul to try and get this country into good shape and to try and support the people for the future.
HANSEN: Now, did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invite you to go to Haiti with her and you decided not to because you didn't want the attention focused on you?
Lady ASHTON: No. Actually, what happened was when we first discussed it, we both agreed that it was wrong to go at the immediate point when aid had to get in. And you will know from the reports here that the airfield was in a bad state until it was taken over by the military who'd been able to get it moving again. We had planes in the air that couldn't land because planes were still on the ground. It was the wrong moment to go.
For Secretary of State Clinton, the position was different. She was asked to go by the president of Haiti. He asked, would she go, and of course she very deliberately did not leave the airport. She went there, met with him, met with others and left. I was not in that position. For me, the time to go is when I've got something to contribute and when I'm not in the way of the immediate aid. And I will go to Haiti at that point and make sure that, as we begin to build long-term, we're talking to the government of Haiti so that the ownership is with them.
HANSEN: Do you have a timeframe in mind?
Lady ASHTON: I don't yet. I will wait and see what the U.N. say in terms of where they feel they are at the moment. And as we begin to pull the donor conferences together, as we begin the conversations of foreign affairs council of the 27 member states talking to me on Monday will get a greater feel for what efforts we think we can do. And then we can go and talk about the contribution we want to make.
HANSEN: Now to that meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both you and Secretary Clinton promised to keep increased pressure on Iran regarding its nuclear program. What is the EU's strategy at this point?
Lady ASHTON: Well, we agree with the United States that we have essentially a twin track approach. We need to recognize that the progress we wanted to make has not been achieved. We're disappointed, frankly, that Iran has not agreed to do what needs to be done. And that means we also have to then think that we have responsibilities to the international community to deal with that issue.
HANSEN: In conversations about putting pressure on Iran, have you discussed the idea of additional sanctions.
Ms. ASHTON: It is, of course, the most obvious thing that we have to contemplate. But in doing so, we've also got to be clear what we're trying to achieve if you like to be smart about what we do and to make sure that we don't affect ordinary people, but that we make the point and we make the point forcefully. This needs to be looked at so the Iranians have got to decide to, really, fulfill their own obligations to the (unintelligible) community.
HANSEN: This is essentially a new position because it's under the Lisbon Treaty that went into effect last month that allowed you to become the EU foreign minister. What do you consider to be the EU's most urgent foreign policy issues?
Lady ASHTON: Well, I think we'll be judged by what happens in our neighborhood. And that means if you look across the area, you very quickly get Western Balkans, what's happening in Bosnia and Kosovo and so on. And you go a little bit further and you see Ukraine and so on. And of course a key partner in all of that will be Russia. So, that for us I think is where we recognize we've got to add value and where we'll be judged.
HANSEN: Yeah. Europe was split over the war in Iraq and there are differing ideas about how Europe should relate to Russia. And since you brought up Russia, what are your ideas?
Lady ASHTON: Well, Russia's a key strategic partner and, of course, for the 27 member states, they have different histories as Russia. Therefore, they approach Russia from a different angle. What's really good, though, is when they come together we're able to formulate a policy. And one of the things my job entails is to allow the 27 countries to formulate policies together.
The United States has now developed a positive relationship with Russia, I think, of recent times that we're seeing the benefits of in the way that Russia is reacting to issues like Iran or the Middle East. We want to build on adding Europe as well.
HANSEN: What do you see as the future - look into your crystal ball - of the European Union?
Lady ASHTON: I hope what we'll see is the recognition that we've got a strong partnership of countries - however many it is in the future - who are able to engage across the world and provide value-added support by being Europe, whether that's economically, whether that's politically - certainly in foreign policy terms. And it is recognized and working closely with strategic allies like the U.S. to try and solve some of the world's problem.
You know, if you think going back to where we began on Haiti, we got to do this together because we're much better together. We can provide different things and we can provide much more for the people of Haiti if we're collaborating and that's what I want to see.
HANSEN: Baroness Catherine Ashton is the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy and she joined us in our studio. Thank you so much for coming in. It's very nice to meet you.
Lady ASHTON: Thank you.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
The passage of the much-debated health care overhaul bill is very much up in the air and congressional leaders are trying to figure out what to do next. But one good compromise issue popular among Republicans is likely to remain in whatever bill goes forward. The proposal would allow insurers to sell some health insurance policies to individuals across state lines for the first time.
But in states like California that aggressively regulate the industry there is cause for concern. From member station KQED in San Francisco, Sarah Varney reports.
SARAH VARNEY: Today, if an insurance company wants to sell a non-group policy in California it has to meet a long list of requirements. Any plan that offers prescription jobs, for example, must include contraceptive coverage. Insurers must pay for osteoporosis screening, HIV testing and reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Silicon Valley Democrat, wrote many of those laws when she was a state legislator. She says the proposal in Congress would allow insurance companies to sell plans from states with weak regulation and sidestep California's rules. She points to when credit card companies moved to South Dakota where the rules were lax.
Representative JACKIE SPEIER (Democrat, California): Because then the laws, the codas were determining their activities in other states. It is a race to the bottom.
VARNEY: Speier says California laws have managed to reign in the insurance industry and protect consumers. And she's unswayed by explicit language in the congressional designed to uphold those standards.
Rep. SPEIER: Health insurance is all about providing a service but making the highest profit.
VARNEY: Under the Senate bill, insurers selling interstate plans would still have to follow consumer protection standards. For example, a Californian buying an out-of-state policy would still have the right to dispute claims through independent medical review. And the interstate policies would have to meet new federal standards by including so-called essential health benefits - emergency and lab services, maternity and pediatric care, mental health treatment, wellness benefits and prescription drugs, among others.
Mr. J.P. WEISKI(ph): I don't think consumers that see any significant differences on a broad category level between the policies sold, say, from Arizona and a policy from California if they purchase one or the other.
VARNEY: J.P. Weiski represents companies that sell health insurance to individuals.
Mr. WEISKI: Where you would see some differences is in specific mandated benefits. You know, sorts of things like contraceptive mandates. The interstate plans would likely offer fewer guaranteed health care services for residents in tightly regulated states like California and Massachusetts.
But Americans living in more laissez-faire states would see the list of covered benefits expand. Ed Kaplan is an underwriting expert at the Segal Company, a national benefits consulting firm.
Mr. ED KAPLAN (Underwriting Expert, Segal Company): If you happen to be in a state where it's a little bit lax, you may have to improve some of their benefits to meet the federal coverage requirements.
VARNEY: The insurance industry and many small employers contend the provision would lead to greater competition and possibly lower rates. Industry spokesman Weiski.
Mr. WEISKI: And it's less of an issue for a state like California where it has some pretty robust competition. But if you're looking in a state like North Dakota and South Dakota, Montana, where the populations are relatively small, they have a hard time attracting carriers into that state. If you drop the barriers to entry, some companies may go in and start selling and trying to compete with the Blue Cross/Blue Shields in those states.
VARNEY: Even if the provision stays in the current House and Senate bills, out-of-state insurers face major hurdles before they could sell individual policies across state lines. The big one: State legislatures would have to approve reciprocal agreements with other states before any interstate policies would be allowed.
For NPR News, I'm Sarah Varney.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The shapes in high-fashion magazines may be changing. The latest issue of V, for example, is dedicated to models of all sizes. So, curvy figures as well as slim ones are featured in its glossy pages. Joining us from our New York bureau is Christopher Bartley, the features editor of V magazine. Hi, Christopher.
Mr. CHRISTOPHER BARTLEY (Features Editor, V Magazine): Hello. How are you?
HANSEN: And he is joined by plus-size supermodel Emme. Welcome to the program.
EMME (Supermodel): Hi, Liane. I'm so happy to be here.
HANSEN: Oh, it's nice to have you both. And Christopher, I'd like to start with you because this issue of V, it's called the size issue. And it features actresses Dakota Fanning and Gabourey Sidibe, from the movie "Precious." Now, these two women could physically not be more different.
Mr. BARTLEY: Exactly.
HANSEN: But the one thing they do have in common is the fact that they're both great actresses. But as a features editor, was there something behind - in your mind when you juxtaposed these two?
Mr. BARTLEY: Well, Gabby actually inspired the issue in a way, along with Crystal Wren, who we'll touch on later. But we saw the trailer for "Precious" in the office over the summer, and we just fell in love with her.
HANSEN: Emme, I want to bring you in because on your blog, you highlight some points in the debate over this V magazine issue and wrote that some people consider it a bold move on the magazine's part. But others say that full-sized women should be featured in every issue. Where do you stand on that?
EMME: Every issue.
HANSEN: Every issue.
(Soundbite of laughter)
EMME: Yeah. It shouldn't be an issue of size; it should be women. And I think that the media, especially women's magazines, would do themselves a favor if they truly, truly did this because it would reduce so much of the horrible push for the prepubescent image, the drive for thinness, the unrealistic expectations, I feel, that are just delivered to us day in and day out.
HANSEN: Christopher, you're nodding assent. I can hear you when Emme's talking about having other sized women featured in every issue. But is this a promotional effort, this one, or will V magazine continue to use models of all sizes?
Mr. BARTLEY: We absolutely will continue but - I mean, I do believe that anything has to start with a revolution of sorts. So, you have to be radical, and then conversations start from there.
EMME: Amen. Go, Christopher, go.
Mr. BARTLEY: You know, like...
(Soundbite of laughter)
EMME: And also, Liane, I have to jump in. I know Cindy Levy over at Glamour magazine, she has made a commitment - last year to have size 12s and 14s and 10s, and then also booking models that are size 6 and size 4, together in editorial spreads. Now, that is where we're going.
HANSEN: Emme, in the modeling world, what's considered a plus size?
EMME: In the modeling world, some might say 10, but I kind of laugh hysterically at that. Twelve, 14 and then 16 is kind of a fall-off for print. So the women that work are 12/14s and a solid 14.
HANSEN: Do you find the term plus size to be derogatory?
EMME: Degrading? Yes. Because it's quite obvious that we are fuller and shapely and, you know, have a little bit of sexiness...
HANSEN: Sure.
EMME: A lot of sexiness to us. So...
HANSEN: But plus size doesn't necessarily mean obese or unfit.
EMME: Absolutely. There's this controversy, that some people think that we sit back and kick back the milkshakes and the bonbons and all that. But in order to be a model, you have to train, you have to eat well, you have to think well of yourself. You have to be like, a natural, German-Polish, big-boned gal who likes to take care. And it's natural. It's a natural shape.
HANSEN: I'm speaking with supermodel Emme and Christopher Bartley, who's the features editor of V magazine, about the new size issue, which is on the newsstands now. Christopher, in the size issue, you have some pretty skillful Photoshopping to show, you know, a skinny and heavier version of the same model wearing the same clothes.
Mr. BARTLEY: That's actually two different models.
HANSEN: Is it really?
Mr. BARTLEY: Yes.
EMME: Yes. Very much.
Mr. BARTLEY: Two different.
HANSEN: All right. Well, what was the motivation for doing this?
Mr. BARTLEY: Well, that story specifically was to show that the same runway samples, which are a size 2, could be worn on a runway model and Crystal Wren. In each spread, there's a model wearing her size 2 sample. She looks great. Down the right, there's Crystal Wren wearing the same, exact outfit, and that she looks amazing as well. So...
HANSEN: And we're talking Versace; you know, we're talking Armani.
Mr. BARTLEY: Versace, Proenza Schouler.
HANSEN: Yeah.
EMME: I've had cut clothes up the back to demand the look that is on the runway can look great on a body that's a 14.
HANSEN: It's an interesting conversation to have when there's such a push now against obesity.
EMME: Correct. We definitely have a bipolar problem with our health in this country. One end, horrendous obesity and on the other side that's not talked about - and I'm glad to be able to bring this up - is another epidemic of anorexia, bulimia, associated disorders that are not really talked about. It's messy and it doesn't look great.
That's where the drive to be thin, thin, thin at all costs. And even women who are below a size 12 are the ones that are using more of the diet products than the ones that are above a size 12. You just kind of scratch your head and go, what is going on here? When are we going to shake ourselves?
HANSEN: Christopher Bartley is the features editor of V magazine, and Emme is a supermodel and TV personality. They joined us from our New York bureau. And you can find more about V magazine's size issue on our blog. Go to NPR.org/Soapbox. Thanks, both of you.
EMME: Thank you so much.
Mr. BARTLEY: Thank you so much.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
They handed out medals last night after the ladies final at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane, Washington. They could've passed around a torch too. Teenagers Rachael Flatt and Mirai Nagasu stole the show and qualified for next month's winter Olympics. But a 25-year-old former Olympian trying to make a comeback had her night end in disappointment - again.
From Spokane, NPR's Tom Goldman reports.
TOM GOLDMAN: After it was over, with all the jumps landed and the spins spun, second-place finisher and new Olympian Mirai Nagasu had an answer for all those who may have been asking: Mirai who?
Ms. MIRAI NAGASU (Figure Skater): We don't have, like, a strong Michelle Kwan or Kristi Yamaguchi to lead us on, but I feel that even though we're young, we have our big dreams to lead us on and that's what motivates us. And hopefully we can represent the U.S. well at the Olympics.
(Soundbite of music)
GOLDMAN: Nagasu's four-minute free skate to "Carmen" opened with a bang and never let up. Her challenging routine filled with difficult jumps, spins and elastic body positions had the crowd on its feet before the 16-year-old bundle of energy finally stopped moving.
(Soundbite of applause)
GOLDMAN: The judges marked down a few of Nagasu's jumps, which kept her from winning the competition. She didn't mind, because to her the performance was a triumph over the self doubt that had clouded her mind since winning this event two years ago. That's right - national women's champion at the age of 14. Her coach, Frank Carroll, says that was part of the problem - winning as a carefree 14-year-old.
Mr. FRANK CARROLL (Figure Skating Coach): And then suddenly the next year she realized she had to work her - to keep it going or accomplish that again, and I don't think she had any concept of that because it was just natural to her.
GOLDMAN: Carroll says improving her skating technique helped Nagasu quiet the voices inside telling her she was worthless and not a good skater. While Nagasu has worked to add technique to her natural artistry, her new Olympic teammate, 17-year-old Rachael Flatt, is striving to do the opposite.
(Soundbite of announcement)
(Soundbite of cheering)
GOLDMAN: Flatt's technical score following her performance drew cheers from the crowd. It was a powerful, athletic performance filled with difficult triple jumps cleanly landed. After two straight years of being runner-up at the nationals, Flatt had the title and her first Olympics. But she said she wanted more. In this case, more of what Nagasu has: the ability to be spectacular.
Ms. RACHAEL FLATT (U.S. Figure Skating Champion): You know, I've been pushing the envelope, but I haven't quite been 100 percent happy with, you know, with all of my performances. I've been on the cusp of doing great performances, but I've never been completely satisfied.
GOLDMAN: Sounds like a good set up for Vancouver, eh? At least Flatt has the opportunity for greatness at next month's Olympics. Not so for the skater who commanded most of the attention here in Spokane: 25-year-old Sasha Cohen, a 2006 Olympic silver medalist, a woman who has mesmerized with her grace and broken hearts with her mistakes.
She was back after a four-year hiatus from competition, and as it turns out, nothing had changed - her beauty and her bungles. A tentative free skate finally imploded. Listen carefully here.
(Soundbite of groaning)
GOLDMAN: That groan was when Cohen fell awkwardly on a jump and put the comeback on ice - literally. But afterwards, she came out and met reporters with a smile.
Ms. SASHA COHEN (Figure Skater): You know, it wasn't any, like, regret or, you know, wishing that I could do it again. Just really proud and special to be back after four years and be with this new field of girls and really proud of what this year has brought me.
GOLDMAN: Brought her to the end, someone asked? I dont know, she said, and then reconsidered. The one thing I knew for sure, said Sasha Cohen, is that everything always changes.
Tom Goldman, NPR News, Spokane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The public works crew in Hooksett, New Hampshire, has acquired a new weapon in its snow removal arsenal - lasers. More from Elaine Grant.
ELAINE GRANT: It's 6 a.m. and 17 degrees.
Mr. SCOTT BROWN: I started at 4 o'clock this morning. This is our - I think our third time out.
GRANT: In sweatshirt and jeans, coffee cup by his side, driver Scott Brown sits a dozen feet up, a king looking down over his roads. As the wind gusts to 40 miles an hour, snow swirls, softening the snow banks and blending pavement and yard. On the front of his mammoth truck is an 11-foot blade; on the right is a second blade, 10 feet long. It's called the wing. Brown moves both with a bank of controls in the middle of the cab.
The end of the wing is behind the driver - one reason mailboxes become storm victims. Towns used to employ wingmen whose whole job was to watch the wing and help the driver avoid accidents. Now, without a wingman, a driver must be a bit of a contortionist.
Mr. BROWN: When you're trying to get back as far as you can, you're hunched over in the seat. You're not paying attention to what's in front of you. So if somebody stops or there's a spin-out in front of you and you don't see it in time, it could be a problem.
GRANT: But Brown no longer has to tie himself in knots. A vivid-green laser beam now guides his plow. From the top of his truck, the laser beams a line down through the snow six inches to the right of Brown's wing. The beam ends in a two-inch circle on the ground, 30 feet in front of the truck. Although the beam disappears in daylight, it's a huge help now, before sunrise. This ghostly ruler shows Brown exactly where to drive.
Mr. BROWN: I know that where that beam is, I have six inches from where the edge of my wing is. So as long as I keep that beam away from whatever it is -mailbox, curb - I know that I won't hit it.
GRANT: And that's important because taking out mailboxes? It's not exactly a career-making move.
Mr. BROWN: One of the guys that's no longer here actually took out, I dont know, I think it was 80-something mailboxes in one storm.
GRANT: Hooksett Public Works Director Dale Hemeon says the lasers don't simply save mailboxes; they could save lives. The beam lets a driver watch the road and avoid hitting a child or a dog running out from a driveway. Still, some townspeople have squawked at the $2,500 price tag. Those gripes don't seem to be shared at Robie's Country Store, where early risers gather.
Twins Roger and Robert Duhaine run their own, private plowing business. They say they have replaced their fair share of mailboxes. And so Roger, the boss, has a certain perspective on the laser and on the town's plow drivers.
Mr. ROGER DUHAINE: They have less excuses because why? Well, it's another tool to go, well, did the laser hit the mailbox? Well, then why did you hit the mailbox? That's a hard one to explain to the boss, right?
(Soundbite of laughter)
GRANT: Now that he's got a laser to guide him, Scott Brown is hoping he never has to have that conversation again.
For NPR News, I'm Elaine Grant in Concord, New Hampshire.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Nearly two weeks after a massive earthquake devastated Haiti, the situation is still far from stable. Aid is beginning to flow, but military and humanitarian workers are encountering logistical problems at every turn. Food, water and other provisions are available on the streets, but only for those who can afford them. The government and the United Nations are still trying to find ways to get survivors to safer environments where help can be provided.
Corey Flintoff is part of the NPR reporting team in Haiti, and he joins us on the line from Port-au-Prince. Corey, why dont you tell us what you and the other reporters are seeing now?
COREY FLINTOFF: Well, Liane, we're definitely starting to see a bigger military presence. We're seeing U.S. and United Nations troops on the streets, not in large numbers, but they are there. We're seeing more humanitarian aid distribution. We're seeing more medical care available.
But things are still really chaotic. Most people in the city are still sleeping out on the streets. They're afraid of aftershocks. And I think that the prolonged stress of that kind of precarious existence that people have is starting to take its own kind of toll. Our reporters have been seeing bodies on the streets, and in some cases, they're fresh bodies, meaning that people are still dying.
HANSEN: As I said in my introduction to you, that food was available on the streets for sale. But how is it getting in? I mean, humanitarian groups have been having such a hard time delivering food.
FLINTOFF: You know, there's actually a fair amount of food for sale. I think part of it is that people are starting to get at food that was stored in some of the less damaged buildings. And by that, I dont mean looting. I mean food sellers and distributors have managed to recover some food that they had stored before the quake. But of course thats not going to last very long. And people have told me that so far there's no normal access to food distribution from Dominican Republic, for instance.
Quite a bit of produce such as sugar cane, and yams, and bananas and things like that seems to be coming in from farms in the countryside. But, you know, the other point, of course, is that food is only available for people who can pay for it and prices have gone up. Food vendors told us, in some cases, two or three times as high as they were before.
HANSEN: Well, what about the humanitarian aid? I mean, free food and water, does it seem to be getting to the people?
FLINTOFF: We're seeing some distribution, both, you know, from governments and private charities. But lines are huge. You know, the other day, my colleague, Jason Beaubien, did a fair estimate of about 4,000 people in a line that was snaking around the ruins of the National Palace.
Yesterday, too, there was a food distribution schedule at a police station in Cite Soleil - which is a big slum down by the harbor - that was cancelled. And it caused just enormous amount of frustration and desperation in people there. We know that distribution was rescheduled for this morning, but we dont know yet whether it's begun. So that humanitarian food is flowing but it still seems very slow.
HANSEN: What about remittances from expatriate family members in the U.S.? Is money getting available to people?
FLINTOFF: Yes, it does seem to be coming available. The banks opened yesterday. They were ordered to open and we saw long lines of people standing there trying to get remittances. Also, the wire offices like Western Union have been open for several days and people are getting money that way. So for those who have relatives in the U.S. or other countries that can help support them, there is a small amount of money now beginning to trickle in.
HANSEN: NPR's Corey Flintoff in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Corey, thank you very much.
FLINTOFF: Thank you, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The earthquake has promoted the U.S. government to give undocumented Haitians in this country Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. Immigration officials expect up to 200,000 applications, including nearly 68,000 from south Florida.
From Miami member station WLRN, Joshua Johnson has the story.
(Soundbite of church)
JOSHUA JOHNSON: Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church has long been a spiritual center for Haitians in Miami. On this day, it is also a very busy processing center with people crowded in the upstairs rooms.
Ms. MAGDA DOMINIQUE(ph): (Foreign language spoken)
JOHNSON: Magda Dominique volunteers with Miami's chapter of Catholic Charities. She's taking down the Social Security number of a man seeking Temporary Protected Status. Together they work through the two-part form, speaking in Creole, writing in English. Dominique says this could be his chance to rejoin society.
Ms. DOMINIQUE: He had legal status before and for some reason they didnt grant him relief. So as a result of that he was here illegally. And now, because of the TPS, he's now again eligible to seek employment here in the United States.
JOHNSON: TPS protects undocumented immigrants from deportation due to dangerous or unlivable conditions in their home country. Haitian advocates have sought TPS through generations of natural disasters and political unrest.
This applicant, Eylonse Charles(ph) has lived in the United States since 1993. He, like everyone else here, has one goal in mind: Find a job and send money back home.
Mr. EYLONSE CHARLES: (Foreign language spoken)
JOHNSON: I put down tiles, Charles says. I did work in general construction.
Mr. CHARLES: (Foreign language spoken)
JOHNSON: Charles lost that job, but TPS would make his search for work easier. It allows Haitians to get legitimate jobs, housing and a driver's license. It does not grant residency or citizenship and only Haitians who were in the U.S. when the earthquake hit can apply for TPS.
Immigration officials are busy holding public workshops and training service providers to help with the forms, which could lead to work permits within 90 days. But Florida and Miami Dade County in particular has seen unemployment rise dramatically as the construction sector has dried up.
Tony Villamil is the dean of the St. Thomas University School of Business in Miami Gardens. Villamil believes TPS recipients may have to search beyond construction to find work.
Mr. TONY VILLAMIL (St. Thomas University School of Business): Unfortunately, thats the worst area I would look for jobs because of the over-built that we have seen up to through 2008. We have a high degree of inventory of already-built construction in the private community.
JOHNSON: Since the federal government granted TPS last week, community groups all over south Florida have been busy helping with applications. Back at the church, volunteers help another man, Duverno Vertiloos(ph), complete the paperwork. He came with his wife and one of his children for a visit back in September. His other children and his parents survived the earthquake, but now they need his help to recover.
Mr. DUVERNO VERTILOOS: My country come to the bus station like that and I feel so sorry. So at that time, they gave us the TPS. That is a privilege for all Haitians to have opportunity to work in that country to help their families live in Haiti who destroyed so bad by that time of devastation.
JOHNSON: The protected status expires next year on July 22nd. Immigration officials say it's too soon to tell if it will be extended.
For NPR News, Im Joshua Johnson in Miami.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Liane Hansen.
Vice President Joe Biden visited Baghdad over the weekend. The White House said the trip had been planned for weeks, but Biden arrived right in the middle of a political crisis. An Iraqi parliamentary committee has disqualified 511 candidates from running in the upcoming general election on the grounds that they're connected to Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party. American officials fear that the move will alienate Sunni Arabs in Iraq, discredit the election, or even reignite sectarian violence.
NPR's Quil Lawrence joins us from Baghdad. And, Quil, I guess the first question is who's behind the move to ban these 511 candidates?
QUIL LAWRENCE: Well, since 2003 there's been a De-Baathification Committee, which was set up to decide who was a willing collaborator with Saddam Hussein and should be banned permanently from politics. So there's plenty of support from hundreds of thousands of people across Iraq who lost loved ones to torture or killed under Saddam.
At the same time, this list includes some Sunni politicians whove been working in parliament now for four years. And it would clearly be a blow to reconciliation efforts if they cut out some of these most prominent Sunni candidates from the race. That said, there's also some controversy because the De-Baathification Committee is run by Ahmed Chalabi.
HANSEN: Ahmed Chalabi sounds - it's a familiar name. Isnt he the man who was blamed with passing bad information to the Bush administration in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq?
LAWRENCE: Exactly. Chalabi has been on the Iraqi political scene for years. He's never been elected to a post in Iraq, but he is such a shrewd political survivor that he's managed to pull off this move and again become one of the most powerful people for this moment in Iraqi politics.
It doesnt look like he's done anything strictly illegal. Chalabi himself right now is conveniently out of the country. But his spokesman, Entifadh Qanbar, said that he thinks this is an Iraqi illegal process and it doesnt need Vice President Biden or anyone else to intervene.
Mr. ENTIFADH QANBAR (Spokesman, Ahmed Chalabi Spokesman): We dont need help from anybody. It's the law. We're just applying the law. This is not the job of the United States of America. I think the vast majority of the people are for disqualifying those people. And the vast majority of the list, they're not going to even challenge it in the court. They know they're guilty and they know if they raise up the issue, it will blow in their face.
HANSEN: Well, did Vice President Biden actually weigh in on the controversy?
LAWRENCE: Well, he was walking kind of a fine line. He didnt want to come to Iraq appearing that he was here to save the day; especially because of how it might look if he didnt save the day. But Iraqi politicians had been saying for days before he arrived that he had been offering suggestions. Publically, Biden's team only said that they were really concerned that this process wasnt transparent enough and that is very clear on the streets of Iraq.
No one really understands how this all this happened. It leaked out at first. It wasnt made public very forthrightly and no one's seen the evidence. At least one prominent name was allowed to withdraw, allowed to get his name off the list in agreement in return for taking his name out of the hat for the election. So people are very confused about this and it is giving that sort of perception of a taint to the process.
HANSEN: That's NPR's Quil Lawrence in Baghdad. Thank you.
LAWRENCE: Thank you, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The trial of a man accused of killing a Kansas abortion provider is under way in Wichita. Prosecutors have charged Scott Roeder with first-degree murder in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller. And last week they began to make their case.
Roeder has admitted he is guilty. He says he killed Tiller to protect unborn babies, and he says he should be allowed to tell that to the jury. But the district attorney has fought to keep any mention of abortion out of the trial.
NPR's Kathy Lohr reports.
KATHY LOHR: The trial began on the anniversary of the day the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion. That night there was a candlelight vigil for abortion providers killed in the past 15 years.
(Soundbite of music)
Unidentified Woman: Dr. David Gunn of Pensacola, Florida was fatally shot during a protest.
LOHR: About 30 abortion rights activists came to honor George Tiller and the remaining doctors who still provide abortions.
Ms. KARI ANN RINKER (Coordinator, Kansas National Organization for Women): We have to take a stronger stand or else the doctors will just cease to exist because of fear.
LOHR: Kari Ann Rinker is the state coordinator for the Kansas Chapter of the National Organization for Women. She's concerned because the judge has not ruled out the possibility of allowing evidence that could lead to a lesser voluntary manslaughter charge, which carries a 5 to 10-year sentence instead of life in prison.
Ms. RINKER: I think it's a very real possibility, with the right jurors gathered, that they could come to a completely illogical conclusion. And that is frightening.
LOHR: The judge has said he'll decide what evidence will be heard on a case-by-case basis. Prosecutors say this is a murder trial, that evidence about abortion is immaterial. But some who oppose abortion say Roeder should be given the chance to tell the jury why he committed the crime.
Ms. JENNIFER MCCOY: He should be able to present whatever evidence he feels necessary to explain whatever happened and what his belief was.
LOHR: Jennifer McCoy is eight months pregnant with her 10th child. She visits Roeder about once a week in jail. She says she's not surprised the prosecution has worked so hard to keep the abortion issue out of the trial.
Ms. MCCOY: Because they dont want to touch that with a 10-foot pole. Thats the whole thing that they want to avoid, when they realize that this case is mostly about that.
LOHR: In the courtroom during opening remarks, prosecutors did not mention abortion. Witnesses testified about the day Tiller was shot. They described the sound of the single gunshot and the bloody scene in the church foyer.
But defense attorney Mark Rudy tried to get abortion into the court record as he cross-examined church member Paul Riding(ph), who said Roeder had been to the church about six months before the crime. Rudy asked why the church was sometimes the target of those who wanted to interfere with services.
Mr. MARK RUDY (Defense Attorney): These people had disrupted your church before. Why did they disrupt your church?
Mr. PAUL RIDING: They probably dont like somebody in our church.
Mr. RUDY: Who would that be?
Mr. RIDING: Some of the Tillers. I dont know, maybe Mabel(ph).
LOHR: Defense attorneys did not give an opening statement, but reserved the time for later when they begin their case.
Prosecutors say as the trial continues, theyll produce evidence about the gun Roeder bought, his target practice the day before Tiller was killed and a calendar found at his home which highlighted the dates Tiller would be serving as a church usher.
Kathy Lohr, NPR News, Wichita.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Tomorrow, the U.S. Census Bureau kicks off its 2010 count in a rather far out location: Noorvik, Alaska, about 500 miles northwest of Anchorage. Population -well, yet to be determined. But at last check, 634. The census typically is conducted in Alaska's most remote native villages in the winter, when the frozen ground makes travel easier and before residents depart for fishing and hunting grounds.
Joining us by phone is the mayor of Noorvik, Bobby Wells. Welcome to the program.
Mayor BOBBY WELLS (Noorvik, Alaska): Thank you.
HANSEN: How did Noorvik get chosen to be the first community counted in the census?
Mayor WELLS: It was a phone call at first about February, and around the end of July we're still on the list. And by the time September came around, being at the top of the list, the Census Bureau asked for a meeting up here to be interviewed. And they wanted the municipal government, including the tribal government there and the elders. So, well, in a humble way I guess we just received them and made sure they had coffee, cookies, etc., you know, that kind of thing. Make them comfortable, so...
HANSEN: So, do you know who is chosen to be the first counted?
Mayor WELLS: Yes. We chose the eldest person in the village. He's 89 years old. And he's a World War II veteran in the Air Force. So, he was chosen.
HANSEN: Tell us a little bit about Noorvik. I mean, can you just describe it? What's the landscape like?
Oh, we're.
Mayor WELLS: Oh, we're real traditional village - hunting and fishing, a lot of that going on. I used to say about 65 percent - 10 years ago - of our food comes from hunting and fishing here. And we've got trees, mountains. It's a beautiful, beautiful village.
HANSEN: Is this your hometown, Noorvik?
Mayor WELLS: Yeah. I've been here since '53. So, I've seen quite a change happen here within those years.
HANSEN: And what kind of changes have you seen over the years?
Mayor WELLS: Oh, well, we didn't have snow machines then. Mail (unintelligible) would come probably twice a week. We had no tape recorders, no phones, nothing.
HANSEN: So, the population before this current census that begins, is it 634? Anecdotally, do you think that the village has grown or has it lost population?
Mayor WELLS: We should be at around 660. We are growing, you know. It's slow now. We had a tough year the last year, so we've had some people move out of the village. And we'll find out, see, you know, after the census.
HANSEN: Bobby Wells is the mayor of Noorvik, Alaska, the first community in the nation to be counted for the 2010 census. Thank you very much, Mayor Wells.
Mayor WELLS: Okay. Thanks for calling. Have a good day.
HANSEN: This is NPR News.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Not too long ago, Ali Shaw published his first novel, a fable. There's a creature, which turns animals and birds white. There's a recluse who breeds tiny, winged cattle. There's a boy who falls in love with a girl and tries to save her. Because in this tale, birds, animals and people mysteriously turn into glass.
"The Girl with Glass Feet" received critical acclaim when it was first published in England. The novel's author wrote it while working in the Oxford Bodleian Library. The book has just been published in the United States, and Ali Shaw joins us from the BBC in Oxford. Welcome to the program.
Mr. ALI SHAW (Author, "The Girl with Glass Feet"): Hi, Liane. Nice to be here.
HANSEN: Oh, it's great to have you here. Describe first the northern archipelago this fictional place where your tale is set.
Mr. SHAW: The archipelago is called St. Hauda's Land and one of the literary inspirations for it really was to try to create a contemporary landscape that would be reminiscent in a way of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy stories -those sorts of snowy, chilly, windblown environments, but were quite delicate and beautiful wintery magic can occur.
HANSEN: What references do you take Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Mermaid?" I mean, this is a love story and it's a young woman whose human legs are turning into class.
Mr. SHAW: Yeah, I absolutely adore that story. I think it's one of Andersen's best. And I wasn't trying to draw upon that story, specifically more on the landscapes and general tone of Hans Christian Andersen. But I think there is definitely a parallel in the way that you have a heroine who is out of her place.
Because in "The Girl with Glass Feet," Ida, who's the titular girl with glass feet, is there any character in this story who isn't from St. Hauda's Land? She's arrived there from the mainland, from a world that's much more colorful, much more usual than St. Hauda's Land is.
And so she's similar in a way to the little mermaid in the way that the little mermaid has to learn to adjust to our world, the world of two-footed people and the various pains and difficulties that come hand-in-hand with being human.
HANSEN: Tell us about now your hero, Midas. Man, that's a name deliberately taken straight from fairytale?
Mr. SHAW: Well, yeah. It's less of a direct reference, I think, to the myth in terms of Midas's character himself and more a reference to the element of that story, of the great story of Midas. Where when King Midas touches things and they turn into gold, it's a horrible distancing effect. You know, it ruins his life because everything he touches becomes remote and inaccessible to him and these sorts of invisible boundaries come up because he can't get near to people and so on.
Midas, in my story, is a very introverted man and he does have what really is probably best described as a phobia of touch and contact with other people. He's desperate to stay within his cell at all times. And he's a photographer and he interprets his entire life through the medium of his camera. It's almost like his camera is his glass, his telescope, his means of filtering of the information that the world gives to him and into things he can understand.
HANSEN: Looking through the glass lens, I mean, it's...
Mr. SHAW: Yeah.
HANSEN: ...Through a Glass Darkly, blah, blah, blah.
Mr. SHAW: Yeah.
HANSEN: But we later learn Midas' father had a heart of glass. Every time he felt affection, he felt a piercing pain, like a shard of glass, but it turned out that his heart was actually turning to glass.
Mr. SHAW: Yeah. And it's never explained 'cause I think to - and I don't have an explanation for it, I deliberately didn't include one and don't want to create one, really. Because the first to do so would be to move kind of into the realms of science fiction and so on, because then you start having explanations for everything. And this is magic, but it's not, sort of, Disney magic. It's magic as an expression of the hard things that can happen to people in real life.
HANSEN: Yeah. I mean, this is like hard, long night Norse magic that's happening.
Mr. SHAW: Yeah.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: I read that in the middle ages in Europe there was actually a glass dilution that was...
Mr. SHAW: That's right, yeah.
HANSEN: ...documented as a psychiatric condition. Tell us about that.
Mr. SHAW: Yeah. King Charles VI of France was the most high-profile chap who suffered under this thing. It's not quite the same as in my novel where you have a character who he's actually turning into glass. These people in the Middle Ages in Europe tended to think that their bodies were glass objects. So, they may think that they were a bottle or a beaker or a pair of spectacles. You know, they thought that they were glass items.
But they took it very seriously. And King Charles had a suit made of padded clothing in which he would sit because he would be terrified that if he sat down too hard without this suit, his body might shatter or...
HANSEN: Yeah.
Mr. SHAW: But there's an interesting parallel there I think with "The Girl with Glass Feet" in that all of the characters have wrapped themselves up in psychological, cotton wool suits if you like. So, they're terrified of breaking.
HANSEN: Yeah. Ali Shaw's first novel is called "The Girl with Glass Feet." It's just been published in the United States. And he joined us from the BBC in Oxford, England. Thank you so much. Good luck to you.
Mr. SHAW: Thank you. My pleasure.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Liane Hansen.
This week, President Obama gives his first official report on the State of the Union to Congress on the nation. The primetime address Wednesday night would be widely anticipated under any circumstances. But it comes at a time of stubborn high unemployment and economic resentment throughout the country. It's also a moment of great stress for the Democratic president and his majorities in the House and Senate.
Party leaders are discussing how to complete their health care legislation and proceed with the president's agenda after the loss of their 60th vote in the Senate.
Joining us to talk about the week ahead and the challenges beyond is NPR's senior Washington editor Ron Elving. Good morning, Ron.
RON ELVING: Good morning, Liane.
HANSEN: So much bad news for the Democrats last week: They lost Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts the Supreme Court threw out the ban on corporations funding campaigns and the number of new jobless claims went up. I mean, what do you think? Is this worse possible moment for the president to give a State of the Union Speech?
ELVING: You could say that. You could also say it's highly opportune because it's clearly time for something different from the White House and here's a chance to offer something different while you have the nation's attention. He needs to change the storyline and right now giving a speech is probably his best chance for doing that.
HANSEN: Do you know what he's going to say?
ELVING: He's going to say he's listening to what the country is saying. He's learning from his reversals and setbacks. He's going to focus on jobs and the economy, of course, and he's not going to talk about rescuing and restoring and rebuilding the economy.
He's also going to sound more conciliatory on some things, I think, especially health care. And, at the same time, there's also going to be a counter message, if you will, of confrontation. You know, he's bringing back David Plouffe, who was the campaign manager in 2008, and they want some issues that will allow them to reconnect with the populist energy that they were riding back then and that some conservatives and Republicans seem to be riding now. So theyll be pushing their new tax on big bonuses and the banks and some new size and risk limits on those banks.
HANSEN: Explain why he needs to be conciliatory on the health bill. Go back to that.
ELVING: Well, I think thats his best chance of salvaging something there. The House, you know, could pass the Senate version of the bill tomorrow and the president could sign it into law. But right now the votes aren't there for that in the House. So the sponsors of the bill need to regroup.
They need to go beyond the Congress to the care providers and the insurers and the interest groups and say, help us. You were with us before. We all thought we needed to get something done. Let's figure out how we refashion this thing and bring at least a few Republicans over in the Senate. If they could do that, it would make it more popular in the country and change the calculus for the House.
HANSEN: But Senate Republicans seem to be united against this bill. Do you think that strategy will work?
ELVING: You know, the Republicans have been united against this bill, especially since the Democrats got 60 votes six months ago. Now, when that happened people said Democrats have the votes to do what they want, they're just going to be a big legislation machine.
But the mirage of that super majority of 60 seemed to make the Senate worse. And the Republicans shut down completely at that point on cooperation, voting in lockstep against everything, even things that they liked. And several individual Democrats played games by withholding the 60th vote, cutting special deals for themselves and that trashed the public image of the bill.
HANSEN: In 20 seconds, can you tell us, if everybody feels so badly, how is it going to pass?
ELVING: Well, of course the bill's fate at this point is uncertain. And the bill itself also remains largely a mystery to most people. They just see the deal making and the disappointment and the finger pointing. So they tell the pollsters they're against it. If you ask people about the basic provisions of the bill, they do pretty well. So you have to reassemble the coalition outside Congress, streamline the vehicle and present it again.
HANSEN: Well done, NPR's senior Washington editor Ron Elving. Thanks a lot.
ELVING: Thank you, Liane.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed tightening the standard for smog. The goal is cleaner air and improved human health. But due to a quirk in atmospheric chemistry, the move would likely increase global warming.
NPR's Richard Harris explains.
RICHARD HARRIS: Smog isn't just ugly, EPA official Lydia Wegman says ozone smog kills. So, setting a new lower limit for ground-level ozone is a good thing.
Ms. LYDIA WEGMAN (EPA Official): There are very significant human health benefits that can be achieved.
HARRIS: Less smog means fewer asthma attacks, fewer kids in the hospital and fewer days of lost school.
Ms. WEGMAN: And we also believe that we can reduce the risk of early death for people with heart and lung disease.
HARRIS: But it turns out that fixing this problem is likely to make another one worse. That would be global warming. That's because the way many states and localities will reduce smog is by cracking down on the chemicals that produce ozone. And those include nitrogen oxides, or NOx.
Professor JASON WEST (University of North Carolina): The problem with reducing NOx is that by reducing NOx, you also, through atmospheric chemistry, increase the concentrations of methane in the atmosphere.
HARRIS: Jason West is at the University of North Carolina. He says methane gas is much more potent than even carbon dioxide at heating up the atmosphere.
Prof. WEST: By reducing NOx, the net effect on climate is that you make global warming worse.
HARRIS: In fact, you could make warming a lot worse if you got rid of all NOx and a related sulfur compound, that action alone would be enough to increase the Earth's temperature by two degrees Celsius and that's into the danger zone for the climate, according to many scientists and governments. U.S. pollution control laws are moving us gradually in that direction.
Prof. WEST: Europe's in very much the same situation we are. They're trying to control their own ozone as well. So, if they reduce their NOx and we reduce our NOx, suddenly we're talking about big numbers.
HARRIS: So, what do you do? Leave NOx in the atmosphere? Atmospheric Scientist Drew Shindell, at NASA's Goddard Institute in New York City, cringes at the thought.
Mr. DREW SHINDELL (NASA Goddard Institute): I would have trouble with the ethics of ever saying something like people should be choking in regions where these are emitted because of the sake of global climate.
HARRIS: Shindell argues that what's needed is a more holistic approach to the intimately linked problems of climate change and air quality.
Mr. SHINDELL: I think we need to have policies which try to take into account both air quality and climate change. And traditionally, these have been entirely separate.
HARRIS: And in the case of smog, there's actually a fairly easy way to deal with this. Jason West says it's true that reducing NOx will put more methane into the air, but it's not too hard to prevent emissions of methane from sources, like coal mines or leaky gas pipelines.
Prof. WEST: "Reducing methane emissions looks like a pretty promising way in that we know that we can get some of that methane reduced even at a cost savings. And we know that it's good for climate and good for air quality.
HARRIS: Unfortunately, unlike smog, which is a local problem and can be addressed with local measures, methane is a global pollutant. So, the usual way of attacking air pollution with local efforts simply won't do the trick.
Prof. WEST: If Los Angeles, for example, wanted to control its own methane, it would find that it would really have no effect.
HARRIS: So, eventually, dealing with local air pollution will require global action. Lydia Wegman at the EPA says her agency is starting to move in that direction.
Ms. WEGMAN: We definitely think that integrating air quality and climate concerns is the best way to go.
HARRIS: And she says that idea is being considered in the next review of smog standards, which is now getting under way.
Richard Harris, NPR News.
INSKEEP: And since these are intricately linked problems, we have a couple of linked reports here. Tomorrow, we'll hear about what it would take to control the potent warming gas, methane.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
The drug teenagers use most is alcohol. And when teens drink, they tend to binge, downing four or five drinks in a few hours. Researchers say binge drinking has a real impact on the developing brain.
Michelle Trudeau has more.
MICHELLE TRUDEAU: The teen brain handles alcohol differently than the adult brain, says neuroscientist Susan Tapert at the University of California, San Diego. This, for several reasons.
Dr. SUSAN TAPERT (Psychiatry, University of California San Diego): First of all, the adolescent brain is still undergoing several maturational processes that render it more vulnerable to some of the effects of substances.
TRUDEAU: Vulnerable because key areas of the brain under construction during the adolescent years are more sensitive to the toxic effects of drugs such as alcohol, says Tapert. She sees this effect in the thinking and memory of teenagers who binge drink.
In a study published last month, Tapert looked at 12- to 14-year-olds before theyd ever used any alcohol or drugs. Over time, some of the kids started to drink - a few rather heavily drinking four or five drinks per occasion, two to three times a month, classic binge-drinking behavior in teens.
Dr. TAPERT: So after about three years into the study, we compared these kids who had begun to drink heavily to those who had remained non-drinkers.
TRUDEAU: And found that the binge drinkers did worse on thinking and memory tests. Plus, there was a distinct gender difference.
Dr. TAPERT: For girls who've been engaging in heavy drinking during adolescence, it looks like they're performing more poorly on tests of spatial functioning, which links to mathematics, engineering kinds of functions.
TRUDEAU: And the boys?
Dr. TAPERT: For boys who engaged in binge drinking during adolescence, we see poor performance on tests of attention - so being able to focus on something that might be somewhat boring, for a sustained period of time.
TRUDEAU: Suggesting to Tapert that alcohol disturbs the normal development of brain areas responsible for spatial functioning in girls and attention in boys.
Dr. TAPERT: The magnitude of the difference is 10 percent. I like to think of it as the difference between an A and a B.
TRUDEAU: Pediatrician and brain researcher Ron Dahl, from the University of Pittsburgh, notes that adolescents seem to have a higher tolerance for the negative effects of binge drinking, such as the ill feelings, the nausea.
Dr. RON DAHL (Pediatrician, University of Pittsburgh): Which makes it easier to consume higher amounts and enjoy some of the positive aspects. But, of course, that also creates liability for the spiral of addiction and binge use of these substances.
TRUDEAU: Dahl adds that there's a unique feature of the teenage brain that drives much of their behavior during adolescence, and that is their brains are primed and ready for intense, all-consuming learning.
Dr. DAHL: Becoming passionate about a particular activity, a particular sport, passionate about literature or changing the world or a particular religion, you'd have to keep them from doing this thing.
TRUDEAU: It's a normal, predictable part of being a teenager.
Dr. DAHL: But those same tendencies to explore, and try new things and try on new identities, may also increase the likelihood of starting in negative pathways.
TRUDEAU: Susan Tapert wanted to find out in what way binge drinking affects a teen's developing brain. So using brain imaging, she focused on what's called the white matter of the brain.
Dr. TAPERT: White matter is very important for the relay of information between brain cells. And we know that it is continuing to develop during adolescence.
TRUDEAU: So Tapert imaged two groups of high-schoolers: a group of binge drinkers, and a matched group of teens with no history of binge drinking. Tapert reports in a study published last year a marked difference in the white matter of the binge drinkers.
Dr. TAPERT: They appeared to have a number of little dings throughout their brains' white matter, indicating poor quality.
TRUDEAU: And poor quality indicates poor, inefficient communication between brain cells.
Dr. TAPERT: These results were actually surprising to me because the binge-drinking kids hadn't, in fact, engaged in a great deal of binge drinking. They were drinking on average once or twice a month. But when they did drink, it was to a relatively high quantity - of at least four or five drinks an occasion.
TRUDEAU: In another study now in press, Tapert reports abnormal functioning in the hippocampus - a key area for memory formation - in teen binge drinkers. Reflecting their abnormal brain scans, the teens did more poorly on learning verbal material.
Tapert says it's unknown if the cognitive downward slide in teenage binge drinkers is reversible.
For NPR News, I'm Michelle Trudeau.
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: To see some of the brain scans from University of California study, visit npr.org.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
The island of Madagascar off the east coast of Africa is home to a bizarre menagerie of animals that live nowhere else. Biologists believe these creatures arrived millions of years ago from the African mainland, but no one really knows how they made the trip. Now, scientists are proposing that they floated there.
NPR's Christopher Joyce has this story on the animal arks of Madagascar.
(Soundbite of lemur)
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE: That's a lemur. Madagascar has some 70 kinds of this tree-dwelling primate, from the one-ounce pygmy mouse lemur to the eerily vocal indri, which looks like a teddy bear and sounds like an air horn.
Lemurs, chameleons, a mongoose-like mammal called a fossa these strange creatures look like they were left behind by Noah's ark. Scientists believe they got to Madagascar from Africa millions of years ago and evolved in their own peculiar ways. But how did they cross 300 miles of ocean that separates the continent and the island?
Seventy years ago, one biologist noticed that Madagascar's animals are small, so their ancestors probably were small too and could have rafted over as refugees on floating mats of vegetation or tree limbs.
Professor MATTHEW HUBER (Earth Science, Purdue University): But there was a big problem with the idea.
JOYCE: That's Matthew Huber, an Earth scientist from Purdue University.
Prof. HUBER: The ocean currents go the other way.
JOYCE: This was such a puzzle that some biologists concluded that the sea level must have been lower at some point, and the animals just walked over.
Huber says no way. The undersea geology isn't right for that. Besides, big animals, say lions and elephants, would have walked to Madagascar on the land bridge as well.
So, Huber and a scientific colleague in Hong Kong asked themselves, maybe the ocean currents were different millions of years ago. Huber built a computer model that simulated the Earth oceans, continents, even vegetation as it would have been 60 million years ago. And they found...
Prof. HUBER: As far as Madagascar is concerned, the currents went the other way. They go from Africa towards Madagascar in the past. And the reason is actually pretty straightforward the locations of the continents were different.
JOYCE: Africa and Madagascar sat about a thousand miles farther south back then. So, Huber writes in the journal Nature, a whole menagerie could have floated to Madagascar.
Not like it would have been much fun like a Hollywood movie. Huber says the currents were just right for the three-week voyage only a few times every century.
(Soundbite of lemurs)
JOYCE: So, you to be a very lucky lemur to get to Madagascar.
Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Lets turn to another disaster, one that hit the American Gulf Coast four and a half years ago. For years on MORNING EDITION, Donald Bordelon personified the struggle to recover after Hurricane Katrina. This past week, he died. We first met Donald and his wife Colleen at home outside New Orleans. It was soon after the flood that filled the first floor of their house.
Mr. DONALD BORDELON: To tell the truth, I just got home. How you doing, man. Donald Bordelon.
INSKEEP: Ok. Im Steve.
Ms. COLLEEN BORDELON: How you doing? Im Colleen.
INSKEEP: That evening in 2005, Donald and Colleen Bordelon were throwing cabinets, furniture and drywall out of their ruined home.
Mr. DONALD BORDELON: I guess its Id have to say, 40 years of everything in your house. Years and years of just...
Ms. BORDELON: Stuff people save.
Mr. BORDELON: Its not right, you know. You know, its hard to leave something like this. It really is.
INSKEEP: Well, you havent.
Mr. BORDELON: No, not yet.
INSKEEP: They didn't leave. The Bordelons stayed in that house evening during the flood. Afterward, they remained in that dead and silent land and listened as the birds began to return.
Mr. BORDELON: First two weeks, you aint heard that. You know, when I was coming in today, man, they had about 15 or 20 doves landed up in a tree.
INSKEEP: So, for the first period, the birds were gone.
Mr. BORDELON: Oh yeah, you didnt hear nothing at all.
Ms. BORDELON: Just the dogs barking.
Mr. BORDELON: All you heard was airboats running out in the marsh, looking for bodies or whatever, you know.
Ms. BORDELON: The helicopters
Mr. BORDELON: The helicopters, thousands of them blowing my top off.
INSKEEP: In the years that followed, the Bordelons spoke with us more than a dozen times and their determination had a way of inspiring people, even though the restoration went slowly and they had to flee another hurricane and they suffered other frustrations.
Mr. BORDELON: I try to stay happy all the time, man, but its the big old mess down here, you know. Give us another holler back in couple of months, you know, we'll see where we at then. I might be crying next time, I might be screaming and hollering, I might be locked up in jail, I dont know.
INSKEEP: Some people might wonder why the Bordelons would go through the agony of fixing up a house below sea level. But it was their home, where Donald grew up, over the years they slowly brought it back.
Mr. BORDELON: Oh, yeah, the inside coming out nice, you know. Got the TV, the cable in, all the furnitures pretty much in, you know.
INSKEEP: So, just for the record, for people to know, if you happen to have your house completely flooded out by a major hurricane, it only takes you about two years to get back in order.
Mr. BORDELON: Well, maybe three years.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. BORDELON: We still don't regular telephone service in this area. INSKEEP: They don't?
Mr. BORDELON: Nope. Still ain't got phone lines yet. They working on it, though. I'd say another two or three months, maybe, you know.
INSKEEP: The renovation was nearly done last week when Donald fell out of bed. Hed suffered a heart attack at age 53. After the funeral we spoke with Colleen Bordelon who said she thought talking might help. She said Donald always felt better when he spoke with us, which was surprising. We always thought it was the Bordelons who made us feel better. Colleen spoke from inside the house, and she remembered when she was a teenager, a friend asked about a certain boy.
Ms. BORDELON: And she says you know that boy, Donald, what you thought about him? I said, oh, his eyes are gorgeous, blue eyes, you know, hunk of a guy. And she says, well, he called me, he said he wanted to get to know you more. Can he come over? And I said sure. And then that was it - ever since.
INSKEEP: Decades later, Colleen remembered everything about that young man, even Donalds scent.
Ms. BORDELON: In his casket I put a bottle of Brute, you know. You know, the cologne, Brute. Thats what he wore when we met. You know, and you danced close together and all I could was just smell his clothes, he smelled so good. And the Wednesday before he died, you know, when I got in the bed, I just grabbed his T-shirt and smelled it and I fell asleep. Like it used to say, the zing was there, it never left.
INSKEEP: Is there some way that Donald Bordelon is always going to be in that house?
Ms. BORDELON: Oh, everywhere I look, everywhere I look.
INSKEEP: Well, is that a good feeling or a hard feeling right now?
Ms. BORDELON: Oh, its a terrific feeling. I know he is always here.
INSKEEP: Donald Bordelon accomplished what he set out to do. He lived his entire life at home.
(Soundbite of music)
INSKEEP: You can comment on the Bordelons at npr.org. We will send your comments to the family.
Its NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
You may think you know why you voted for one candidate instead of another for president.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
You may think you know why you invested in one stock or another.
SHAPIRO: You think you know, but the writer and journalist Shankar Vedantam is not as sure.
INSKEEP: He says that your hidden brain may be more responsible for these things than you realize. "The Hidden Brain" is the name of his new book. Vedantam uses that term for the way that your brain makes many decisions and judgments while you are not consciously thinking.
Mr. SHANKAR VEDANTAM (Writer, "The Hidden Brain"): Our conscious mind is the pilot of the plane, and the hidden brain is the autopilot function of the plane or the co-pilot function of the plane. And we transfer functions back and forth all the time between the pilot and the autopilot. The problem arises when we do this without our awareness, and the autopilot ends up flying the plane, when we should be flying the plane.
INSKEEP: So you argue that some of the hidden brain is simply the functions that we learn. We learn to do them in a way that makes sense, that is coherent to our minds, so that we can multi-task, say, so we could drive while listening to the radio. But you also suggest that some of these same mental functions play into serious social situations and how we see the world and how we see people around us.
Mr. VEDANTAM: That's exactly right, Steve. So much of the book focuses on the problems that the hidden brain causes in our everyday lives, and one of those central areas lies in our judgments about other people, especially people who come from backgrounds different from us, and especially in situations involving high pressure.
INSKEEP: You're talking about race here and ethnicity?
Mr. VEDANTAM: Race is one dimension of where the hidden brain plays a very powerful role, but it's one of many.
INSKEEP: Are you suggesting, though, that on some occasions, if I'm a white guy, that I may see you - an Indian-American or an African-American or a woman, or any number of different kinds of people - and make instant judgments about what kind of a person they are without even realizing that I'm doing this?
Mr. VEDANTAM: That's exactly what I'm saying, Steve.
INSKEEP: At what age, according to the research that you've done, do people begin to make distinctions based on race?
Mr. VEDANTAM: The research shows that the ability to start making these distinctions arises pretty much as early as researchers are able to study it. Researchers have looked as far back as children who are three years old, and what they tell us is that they have already begun to categorize the world.
INSKEEP: What did you learn looking at the results of some research from a daycare center in Canada?
Mr. VEDANTAM: There were several interesting experiments conducted at daycare centers in Montreal by a researcher called Francis Aboud, who found that children as young as three - these were studies of predominantly black and white children - that these children were categorizing faces according to race, according to whether they were good or bad, or clean or dirty, or cruel or kind, and invariably coming to the conclusion that white faces - whether white men or white women or white children - had positive attributes and black children had negative attributes. Now, these were children who are three years old. It's very difficult to call them bigots or to suggest that they are explicitly racially bias or have animosity in their hearts.
INSKEEP: Were they wired that way at birth, or were they learning something without realizing what they were learning?
Mr. VEDANTAM: I think the mind is, indeed, wired to form associations between people and concepts. I think that is true. But the fact that the associations that these children had connected particular groups to particular contexts does not come from biology. I believe it comes from culture. It comes from upbringing.
So to take one example, these children have probably seen hundreds of heterosexual couples and have formed associations that heterosexuality is the norm, because most of the families they see around them are heterosexuals. It's not that they don't see gays and lesbians living together as families, but because the hidden brain is a dumb system, because it forms these very quick associations based mostly on blind repetition, the hidden brains of these children come to think of heterosexuality as being normative, that is someone is not heterosexual, there must be something wrong with them. The overwhelming force of the cultural message is that certain things are normative and other things are not.
INSKEEP: What about black and white? What would cause a bias toward white people, then?
Mr. VEDANTAM: The bias toward white people also comes from the culture. When we look at television every day and we see who's on television, when we see people in positions of authority and dignity, we see white people far more than people of color. When we see homes and we see who lives in nice homes and who doesn't, we again have an association that white people generally tend to be better off than people of color. We tend to think of the conscious messages that we give children as being the most powerful education that we can give them.
But in the course of an average year, a teacher may talk about tolerance, let's say 50 times. And that's a very, very generous number. In terms of the unconscious mind, these children are seeing hundreds of examples on a weekly basis that tend to make associations between white people in positions of dignity or white people in positions of wealth. And it's these hidden associations that are essentially determine what happens in the unconscious minds of these children.
INSKEEP: I wonder if there's another lesson here, because you point out in passing in this book that there were any number of parents of the children who were studied, who found to have these unconscious racial biases. The parents tended to be well-meaning, and if they had any intent to teach their children anything about race, they wanted actually to say nothing about race, to call no attention to people's races, to have no message there whatsoever because the presumption was that any such message would be bad. What is the practical effect, if you're a parent, of not discussing this with your kids because you, being quite well meaning, don't want to call too much attention to race?
Mr. VEDANTAM: I think it's an excellent question, Steve, because I think what you're - the underlying question that you're asking is that in our society, we believe that color blindness is the ideal. That's a worthy aspiration, but it's an aspiration that isn't based or rooted in reality.
The reality of it is that our hidden minds, our hidden brains, will always recognize people's races, and they will do so from a very, very young age. And the far better approach is to put race on the table, to ask them to unpack the associations that they are learning to help us shape those associations in more effective ways.
INSKEEP: If the kids yank it into their conscious minds, they can make a more conscious decision.
Mr. VEDANTAM: I think that's right. I think what's important is not to assume that our hidden brains will always be clean machines. There will always be unconscious associations that we may or may not be happy with. So the problem is not that the plane has a pilot and an autopilot function. The problem is that sometimes, without the pilot even being aware of it, it's the autopilot function that's flying the plane. And what the book is trying to do is to say take back the controls.
INSKEEP: If you've got this mind with a lot of things happening in it, and some of them are conscious and a great many of them are unconscious and maybe working against your conscious intent, should you be wondering at some point which brain in there is the real you?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. VEDANTAM: You know, I think most of us think of ourselves as being conscious, intentional, deliberate creatures. I know that I think of myself that way. I know why I like this movie star or why I voted for this president, why I prefer this political party to that, why I have this policy view and not that.
As I have reported and written this book, I have become, in some ways, much more humble about my views and much less certain about myself. And it may well be that the hidden brain actually is much more in charge of what we do than our conscious minds and intentions.
INSKEEP: Shankar Vedantam is author of "The Hidden Brain." He also writes for the Washington Post. Thanks very much.
Mr. VEDANTAM: Thank you so much, Steve.
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INSKEEP: There's an excerpt from "The Hidden Brain" at our Web site, npr.org. Although, if you're motivated to go read it, who really knows why?
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep. Today in Your Health, well report on two hazardous habits, one is binge drinking among teenagers and we'll have more on that in a moment. First, we'll look at one of the challenges facing people who want to quit smoking. Millions of Americans say they have tried to quit and can't. And according to some researchers, people who smoke menthol cigarettes may have a harder time than most.
NPRs Brenda Wilson reports.
BRENDA WILSON: All tobacco is addictive, but researcher Jonathan Foulds suspects that menthol makes tobacco more addictive. Foulds is director of the Tobacco Dependence Program and the School of Public Health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry and Medicine of New Jersey.
Among almost 1,700 people enrolled in the universitys smoking cessation program, those who smoked menthols had a harder time quitting.
Dr. JONATHAN FOULDS (Director, Tobacco Dependence Program, University of Medicine and Dentistry and Medicine of New Jersey): Particularly for African-Americans and Latinos, if they tried to quit smoking and theyre a menthol smoker, it seems like their quit rate was less.
WILSON: You would think, Foulds says, that the cost of smoking, particularly in the northeastern United States, would be enough to help people in these hard times break the habit.
Dr. FOULDS: If youve been used to smoking 30 regular cigarettes a day and they used to be $2.50 and you could afford that, no problem. But now theyre $8, like they are in New Jersey or $11, as they are in Manhattan, you just can't afford to smoke, especially in this economy.
WILSON: Foulds says many studies have shown that menthol smokers get by with fewer cigarettes each day, but smoking less doesnt translate into quitting. Foulds says the body is addicted to a certain level of nicotine, not a certain number of cigarettes.
Dr. FOULDS: So your body tries to inhale more smoke per cigarette to get the usual dose of nicotine. With regular cigarettes, it becomes harsh because nicotine and the toxins in the smoke are harsh on your throat.
WILSON: A menthol cigarette, Foulds says, helps the poison go down smoother.
Dr. FOULDS: Menthol is a cooling agent that stimulates the cold receptors and it means that you're able to more easily inhale more smoke per cigarette. And we believe that that higher dose of nicotine from a cigarette is a more addictive way of smoking.
WILSON: But not all researchers agree that menthol makes it harder to quit. The largest manufacturer of menthol cigarettes, Lorillard, the maker of Newport cigarettes, points out the work of Dr. Andrew Hyland at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo. Hyland followed 13,000 smokers for five years. He found that low-income and less-educated people had a hard time quitting, but he saw no difference in menthol and regular cigarette smokers.
Dr. ANDREW HYLAND (Roswell Park Cancer Institute): If you look at how deeply people inhale - how much smoke they bring into their lungs - some studies show that it is easier, but other studies show not. To me, that means maybe theres something going on, but its probably not a huge deal. The menthol it's a tool. Its a marketing tool. Once theyre hooked on the product, with the nicotine, that's when they're in trouble.
WILSON: Whether menthol increases dependence on tobacco or not, Hyland agrees that menthols role in smoking is not entirely neutral. Though there are many more white Americans who smoke menthols, among African-Americans who smoke the majority smoke menthols.
56-year-old Larry Harrison started smoking menthols 38 years ago.
Mr. LARRY HARRISON: Fourteen days clean.
WILSON: Fourteen days. Thats not very long.
Mr. HARRISON: Yes, it is. When you've been smoking for 38 years, one day is a long time without a cigarette.
WILSON: When he started, the big menthol brand was Kool.
Mr. HARRISON: When you're trying to be somebody you aint the word cool might, you know, kick in, say, man, Im cool, so I smoke Kool, right? I don't know why I started, just everybody else was smoking and Kool was the popular cigarette.
WILSON: In the late 1950s, African-Americans were no more likely to smoke menthol than white Americans. Historical documents have shown that was changed by a major campaign of the tobacco industry, targeting the African-American community.
Brenda Wilson, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
And now were going to hear more about the Nigerian man who's accused of trying to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Well examine one phase in the life of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Long before he boarded a plane with explosives, he spent three years as a student in London. What we've learned about his time there offers clues about how and when he might have become radicalized.
SHAPIRO: An NPR News investigation has identified some of the people he met in Londons large Muslim community. British and U.S. intelligence authorities believe Abdulmutallab knew two other men with links to terror plots.
NPRs Dina Temple-Raston reports.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Im standing across from 2 Mansfield Street. This is where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lived from September 2005 to June 2008. After classes, he would return to this imposing white-colored building near Regents Park.
This is a very exclusive neighborhood, full of Mercedes and Rolls-Royces. Madonna even bought a house here. And this is where Abdulmutallab stayed, all by himself.
Dr. PETER NEUMANN (Expert on Radicalization, King's College London): As with many of these cases, the key is not necessarily the socioeconomics of the situation.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Peter Neumann is an expert on radicalization at King's College London.
Dr. NEUMANN: The key is a sense of feeling lost, a sense of searching for identity, a sense of needing something that makes sense of your life. And if at that point in time someone comes along and offers a very simplistic, yet very plausible, perhaps, explanation of what you can do with your life, that may seem attractive.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Abdulmutallab found just those sorts of people on the fringes of his school. MI5, the British equivalent to the FBI, has a list of 12 campuses it says have been fertile ground for extremist recruiters. University College London, or UCL, the school Abdulmutallab attended, is at the top of that list.
Dr. NEUMANN: Abdulmutallab, I'm pretty certain, was radicalized in London.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Again, Peter Neumann of King's College.
Dr. NEUMANN: He was president of the Islamic Society of University College London. And during that time, he regularly invited very radical speakers.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Security officials tell NPR that during that time, between 2005 and 2007, Abdulmutallab also befriended a suspected terrorist. The man's name was Waheed Zaman, and he happened to be president of an Islamic student society at another university. That school, London Metropolitan University, is also on the security services short list of campuses with radical Islamic elements.
The connection to Zaman is important. He was part of a group accused of planning a major terrorist attack back in 2006. Allegedly, they wanted to detonate homemade liquid bombs on board at least seven passenger planes. That episode is the reason you're not allowed to carry more than three ounces of liquid onto an airplane.
Security officials believe Abdulmutallab knew Zaman at the time. Zaman is about to be retried on charges linked to the plot.
Officials also tell NPR that Abdulmutallab was in contact with a second possible terrorist. That man was initially arrested two years ago as part of a plot to kidnap a British Muslim soldier and behead him. While the extent of these relationships is unclear, security officials say they're meaningful because they may shed light on when Abdulmutallab began the transformation from radical student to potential terrorist. Of course, all this seems clearer in hindsight.
Mr. PETER CLARKE (Former Director, Scotland Yard's Counterterrorism Unit): I think we have to be very wary of being too simple about this.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Peter Clarke is the former head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism unit.
Mr. CLARKE: We need to look at underlying issues. We need to look at the individual's life. We need to look at the specific influences that came to bear upon them, whether it's key individuals or key events or a gradual process that has drawn them into the position where they're willing to kill people in the hundreds and thousands.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Britain differs from the U.S. in that it has thousands of people in what authorities call a jihadi subculture, people in contact with Muslim extremists who never intend to commit violence. U.K. authorities say they concentrated on the several hundred people they think may actually act. And there was nothing about Abdulmutallab that suggested he was in that group.
Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News, London.
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ARI SHAPIRO, host:
You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
And Im Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
President Obama prepares for his State of the Union address this week after receiving a reminder of the limits of his power.
SHAPIRO: The speech comes one week after a special election in Massachusetts where Democrats lost what had been thought of as a safe seat. They also lost an important vote for their side in the Senate.
INSKEEP: Now the president hopes to recover and one major issue hes expected to bring up is the gigantic federal budget deficit. That is a delicate matter, which well report on this morning. Many Americans want federal borrowing to go down, but its hard to do that before the economy fully recovers.
NPRs Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY: The federal deficit hit a record $1.4 trillion last year, and as the debts keep piling up, voters have been piling on. Never mind that deficits grow automatically during a recession, when tax revenues drop and unemployment payments soar. Democratic pollster Geoff Garin says for many voters the deficit has become a kind of shorthand for what they see is government spending run amok.
Mr. GEOFF GARIN (Democratic Pollster): They see the tote board spinning and wonder where is all the money coming from and particularly worry about whether its going to be coming from them.
HORSLEY: A survey by the anti-deficit Peter G. Peterson Foundation found four out of five voters now believe controlling the deficit and the federal debt should be a high priority for the president and Congress. That popular concern has amplified the warnings regularly sounded by fiscal watchdogs like former Texas Congressman Charles Stenholm.
Mr. CHARLES STENHOLM (Republican Congressman, Texas, Former): As you build your credit card deficit, ultimately you have to pay for it. I like Yogi Berras version of the Herb Stein quote, That which cannot go on forever, usually wont.
HORSLEY: Stenholm co-chairs a budget reform task force that recommended a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes to keep the federal debt from ballooning as a share of the U.S. economy. The task force is careful to say spending cuts or tax hikes should be phased in slowly, after 2011, so as not to make the recession worse. But some liberals worry that even talking about deficit-fighting measures at this point is premature.
Mr. JOSH BIVENS (Economist, Economic Policy Institute): The time to start reining the deficit back in, is when the economy starts to recover and not one moment sooner.
HORSLEY: Josh Bivens is an economist at the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute. He says, in the current environment, fear of big deficits is misplaced. After all, interest rates are low, inflations no threat, and theres little danger that government borrowing will crowd out private investment which is still anemic. If anything, Bivens says, the government should be going deeper into debt in an effort to create more jobs.
Mr. BIVENS: Deficits are not always and everywhere, bad - its a tool. And sometimes the Federal Budget should go into bigger deficit to aid prosperity. Sometimes it should go into smaller deficits or even surpass. Were absolutely at a time, right now, where we need bigger deficits to aid that prosperity.
HORSLEY: Heres the rub. The same polls that find voters concerned about the deficit show they are downright alarmed about unemployment. And tackling either one of those problems is likely to make the other one worse. Spending money on job creation adds to the deficit, while fighting the deficit with spending cuts or higher taxes could choke off the recovery. Its a political minefield for the president. But pollster Garin says there is a path of escape.
Mr. GARIN: The voters accept the premise that you have to deal with the deficit in a way that is consistent with growing the economy.
HORSLEY: That means bigger deficits now, along with a promise of more budget discipline later. Thats the path President Obama is likely to take in his State of the Union address. Heres White House economic adviser Christina Romer in an interview with CNN.
Ms. CHRISTINA ROMER (White House Economic Adviser): To the degree that we, of course, care deeply about the deficit - and you are right, in 2010 that is going to be something very much that the president is focusing on and talking about. It is important to understand were also talking about actions taken right now, targeted actions, to jumpstart job creation, and there is no conflict between those.
HORSLEY: Over the weekend, Mr. Obama endorsed legislation that would set up a bipartisan budget commission to make recommendations on tax hikes and spending cuts later this year. One appeal of this approach is that it offers the promise of deficit reduction, while postponing any hard decisions, until the economy is on more solid ground or, at least, until after the November election.
Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. Im Steve Inskeep.
Renee Montagne is on assignment this week, and in the studios this week is NPRs Ari Shapiro. Welcome back, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Thanks. Morning, Steve.
Were going to report this morning on how the government of Haiti is responding to this months earthquake. In many ways, the government has been invisible. And while that may be understandable amid the destruction, it has left many Haitians with no faith in their leaders.
INSKEEP: In fact, some Haitians are suggesting they would like to see a change.
NPRS Tamara Keith reports.
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TAMARA KEITH: The funeral for the beloved Catholic Archbishop of Port-au-Prince attracted hundreds of Haitians, some who dressed up as best they could. The president, Rene Preval, was there. He has made very few public appearances since the quake and did not speak at the funeral. As Preval left, protestors chased after his motorcade.
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KEITH: Danny Dadol(ph) was one of them.
Ms. DANNY DADOL: (Through translator) Preval is not doing anything for us. We need help now, and he's not doing anything.
KEITH: She would like to see the former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, return to guide Haiti out of this crisis. Aristide has been in exile in South Africa since 2004, when opposition groups seized control of the government. Hes offered to come back, and Dadol says thats what the people want.
Ms. DADOL: (Through translator) I'd like for Preval to take care of the country, but the country doesnt want him. They'd rather have Aristide to come and help him out, because Aristide would do a better job.
KEITH: Haitis political history has been marked by violent coups and charges of inept or corrupt leadership. Then came the earthquake, almost two weeks ago, today. It struck at the heart of the government. The Haitian equivalent of the White House was destroyed, along with other major government offices. Preval talked about his governments struggles in a statement broadcast a few days ago on the radio.
President RENE PREVAL (Haiti): (Through translator) The big consequence is the government has been paralyzed because the national palace collapsed. The palace of justice collapsed. The parliament building collapsed. All the communication was down.
KEITH: This was only the presidents second official statement to the people since the quake. The first came a full 24 hours after disaster struck his country. Mario Viau is the general manager of radio station Signal FM. He says the president needed to be out there reassuring the public sooner. He says people arent simply feeling the presence of the government.
Mr. MARIO VIAU (General Manager, Signal FM): He's not talking much. So, we dont feel that much. But they good excuse on this, because there have been hate everywhere.
KEITH: Government officials are meeting daily with the various international agencies now working in the country, and there's a daily press briefing.
Ms. MARIE-LAURENCE JOCELYN LASSEGUE (Communication Minister, Haiti): (Through translator) We greet all the journalists here.
KEITH: Haitis communications minister, Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, sits at a folding table under a lush tree on the grounds of the makeshift government headquarters at a Port-au-Prince police station. At some point, someone comes up and pins a paper sign to the tree. It says: press.
Unidentified Man: We are trying to address this issue, as well, at the level of the problems(ph).
KEITH: A few minutes into the press conference, virtually all of the 20 or so reporters there scramble over to an SUV. It turns out they were all Brazilian, and a dignitary from Brazil was visiting. Lassegue doesnt seem to have much control over her own press conference. We ask if the government is organizing the relief efforts.
Ms. LASSEGUE: The government want to organize everything, but, you know, still now, some NGO, they go there and there, and they do the things the way they want to.
KEITH: She says the NGOs are doing as they please here. And that's certainly what it looks like, but Lassegue insists these groups must listen to the government.
Ms. LASSEGUE: They have to do it the way we want the things to do. Thank you.
KEITH: Are they?
Ms. LASSEGUE: Thank you.
KEITH: Are they?
Ms. LASSEGUE: They have to do it.
KEITH: There's only so much the government can do now. As President Preval put it, the earthquake made everyone feel disoriented. We all became refugees.
Tamara Keith, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Lets hear more about the Super Bowl now. Last night, the New Orleans Saints earned their first-ever ticket to the game. Theyll be playing the Indianapolis Colts, a franchise thats been to three previous Super Bowls. NPRs Mike Pesca joins me now to discuss this.
And good morning, Mike.
MIKE PESCA: How are you doing?
SHAPIRO: Good. So I was asleep, but I understand it was a thrilling overtime game last night when the Saints advanced against Minnesota. Tell us about what happened.
PESCA: You mean the raucous Superdome crowd did not wake you from 1,000 miles away? Thats how good a game it was. And let me, oh, Im not going to say correct you, but point out the Indianapolis Colts are going to their second Super Bowl. They were in Baltimore when they lost a couple of Super Bowls.
SHAPIRO: Right.
PESCA: So here we take it to New Orleans, and this was a game with a lot of offense and a lot of turnovers. Brett Favre, the Vikings quarterback, was - he passed for over 300 yards, but he also had a couple of interceptions. And Adrian Peterson, the Vikings running back was just - he was fantastic. He ran for over 100 yards. He has this, you know, the cliche is he runs through the lawn like he's shot out of a cannon. He just crackles.
But New Orleans had a great offense, too. And the scoring was such that no team ever got more than a touchdown lead. The game finally went into overtime, where Garrett Hartley hit a 40-yard field goal, sending the Saints to the Super Bowl. And it was Minnesotas five turnovers that they just couldnt overcome. You wouldnt think a team could overcome that. They didn't. Not even Brett Favre could.
SHAPIRO: Well, and what about the other game where the Indianapolis Colts advanced against the New York Jets?
PESCA: This was supposed to be maybe a blowout. I mean, everyone went into it thinking that Peyton Manning, the Colts quarterback, had the edge on the Jets. But I have to say, the Jets, who barely qualified for the playoffs, they dialed up a lot of blitzes.
And in the beginning they were confusing Peyton Manning, as much as such a smart player like Manning can be confused. And the Jets had a halftime lead. But Manning has this effect. Its not like a cliffhanger. Hes not like Indiana Jones, where you say, hows Indy going to get out of this one?
SHAPIRO: Uh-huh.
PESCA: Even when hes behind, you're so certain that he can make a comeback, and thats exactly what he did. The Colts scored on the last possession of the first half. They scored on their first possession in the second half and they put the Jets away behind the reigning NFL MVP and just a quarterback that makes every football person marvel at how good and calm he is.
SHAPIRO: Well, when these two teams meet up in Miami on February 7, who do you think is the favorite to win?
PESCA: Well, don't ask me. Ask the odds makers in Las Vegas who say that the Colts are about a four or five point favorite, and heres why. The Colts have cruised. They didn't really - they werent challenged. Theyve won by big scores in the playoffs. They maybe couldve gone undefeated in the regular season. The only losses they had were when they started resting their starters once they had clinched home field advantage in the playoffs.
But I would point this out. That in the playoffs the two teams the Colts have played - the Ravens and the Jets - who they blew out or they beat handily, those two teams do not have very good offenses.
And the New Orleans Saints have a great offense, a great quarterback - I havent mentioned Drew Brees yet. Hes the Saints quarterback. Hes excellent. Their coach, Sean Payton, is a genius. Theyll get a lot of guys open. So it really promises, I think, to be a very good Super Bowl.
SHAPIRO: Okay. Well, in the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, what do you think are the main storylines that the media is going to be covering in the story?
PESCA: Well, everyone is going to get behind the Saints in the city of New Orleans, how that city loves the team; how it frankly is a line item in the state budget that they give money to the Saints to keep them in New Orleans.
But the big thing is that Peyton Mannings dad, Archie Manning, probably the greatest Saint of all-time, the first Saint inducted into their hall of fame, so he has a big of a split allegiance. His son is quarterbacking one team, but he was the longtime quarterback of the New Orleans Saints. That will not go unobserved over the next two weeks.
SHAPIRO: All right. Thanks a lot, Mike.
PESCA: You got it.
SHAPIRO: NPRs Mike Pesca.
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SHAPIRO: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
NPR's Business News starts with layoffs at Wal-Mart.
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INSKEEP: Regular Wal-Mart stores still have growing sales, but the giant retailer is cutting more than 11,000 jobs at its Sam's Club warehouse stores. Most of the people losing their positions have been conducting in-store products demonstrations.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson told the New York Times the layoffs are not a cost-cutting measure, strictly speaking. The company has decided to outsource these jobs in the hope that a separate marketing company will do a better job and boost sales. Sam's Club faces tough competition from Costco. And earlier this month, Wal-Mart announced plans to close 10 Sam's Club stores.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Hollywood has helped launch the political careers of California Governors Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. And now, Silicon Valley may start churning out Golden State politicians.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Two wealthy Internet entrepreneurs are now running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Both have thrown millions of their own money into the campaign. One of them is Meg Whitman.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
She made her reputation as the CEO of the auction Web site eBay. Whitman writes about her experiences in a new book called "The Power of Many: Values for Success in Business and in Life." With a state budget deficit projected to be nearly $20 billion, I asked Whitman if her book provides a roadmap out of California's fiscal turmoil.
Ms. MEG WHITMAN: (Former President and CEO, eBay): Well, I think it provides an underlying set of values and beliefs that will be very helpful to try to turn California around. It's about being authentic. It's about being frugal and conserving resources. So many of the values that I write about in this book I think are helpful as I think about running for governor of California.
SHAPIRO: So much of the ethos that comes through in the book focuses on the desire of people to basically do the right thing and work together to accomplish the same end...
Ms. WHITMAN: Exactly.
SHAPIRO: ...which really seems true of the eBay community. But I wonder, in an inherently adversarial system like our political structure, you know, when you look at gridlock, deadlock in Sacramento in the state legislature, how do you apply a philosophy like that to a situation like running the state of California?
Ms. WHITMAN: Well, it may be gridlock in Sacramento, but it's not what the citizens of California want. They want a leader who can fundamentally change the direction of the state. And I think there's a roadmap forward here. Weve got to focus on doing three things: Weve got to create and keep jobs in California. Weve got to get government spending under control so that we can be competitive to keep jobs in California and make sure over time we can reduces taxes on the highest-taxed businesses and people in the country. And then weve got to fix our kindergarten through 12th grade education system, which is ranked near the bottom of all 50 states.
SHAPIRO: Before we get to how to accomplish those specific priorities, we have heard the current governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, say to the legislature again and again and again: People are sick of gridlock, you got to get your heads together and accomplish something. So far it hasnt worked. So how do you change that?
Ms. WHITMAN: I think its a couple of things. First is if you go to Sacramento with too broad an agenda, you'll be stymied by the legislature, you'll be stymied by the special interest, you'll be stymied by the bureaucracy. The next thing that is very central - and learnt this in my business career - you are only as good as the people who work for you. Youve got to have the right people in the right job who share the agenda of the governor. And then, the governor has to work with the legislature - no question about it - but the legislature has to work with the governor because we have line-item veto in California.
SHAPIRO: What industries do you see as the future of job growth in California?
Ms. WHITMAN: One good thing about California is we have quite a broad-based economy. We provide more fruits and vegetables and produce to the United States than any other state. So we have actually the single largest agricultural sector in the country. Obviously, we are ahead in high tech, green tech, biotech, and all those sectors are under attack. So weve got to take out top 10 industries and weve got to have an ombudsman who really works to make California attractive to those companies.
SHAPIRO: In your book, you talk about the ethos of conservation that pervades your family and the company eBay, and you have also said that as governor, one of your first acts would be to suspend California's new climate change bill, which curbs greenhouse gas emissions. Explain that to me.
Ms. WHITMAN: Well, I care a lot about the environment, but we are also facing an economic crisis. And when AB 32 was introduced, which is the bill that is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels, we had an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent. Today it's 12.5 percent. And the challenge around AB 32 is none of our neighboring states have anything like this regulation, and it will encourage company's jobs to move to neighboring states, and I have called for a one-year suspension on the implementation of AB 32 so we can get the economy back on its feet and really understand the long-term implication.
SHAPIRO: You talk a lot in the book about the importance of brand, and you say eBay's brand was trust, fun and opportunity. And you coined the phrase, country first for John McCain's presidential campaign. In the middle of this economic crisis, what do you see as California's brand?
Ms. WHITMAN: Well, California used to be in the dream-making business, and unfortunately what's happened I think we're now in the dream-breaking business. I think we can be the very best place to start a business, to grow a business, to invent a new technology, to change the world, to change the country. But weve got a lot of work to deliver a new California to the people of California.
SHAPIRO: Meg Whitman is the former CEO of eBay and she's currently running as a Republican gubernatorial candidate in California. Her Republican opponent, Steve Poizner, is also working on a book that will be out in April.
Thanks so much.
Ms. WHITMAN: Okay. Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
British Airways is experimenting with creative ways to cut costs, and that provides our Last Word in Business today: Trading places. The air carrier needs to cut more than $100 million dollars in expenses. And at one point, its CEO asked the staff to work for free. You can imagine how that went over. Now, with cabin crew threatening to strike, BA wants to keep going and Bloomberg News reports that the company is training its pilots, baggage handlers and engineers to take over the duties of flight attendants should they walk off the job. So maybe on your next flight to London you could have baggage handlers serving you tea, or perhaps a pilot selling you duty-free perfume.
That's the Business News on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
And joining us now, as she does most Mondays, is NPR News analyst Cokie Roberts. Good morning, Cokie.
COKIE ROBERTS: Good morning, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Well, we just heard Scott Horsley talked about a proposed bipartisan commission to deal with the budget deficit. Isnt this one of these recurring ideas that weve heard before?
(Soundbite of laughter)
ROBERTS: Yes, indeed. In fact, weve had bipartisan commissions before to deal with the deficit, and that didnt go anywhere. Weve had lots of commissions over the years. And everybody tries to model them after the commission that decided on base closings, or continually decides on base closings, when its time to close down the military bases. But that one is really unique, because there's an inevitability around that. Some bases are going to close, and the only question is which ones.
With others kind of commissions, it has much more of a crisis for them to have any kind of traction. Everybody has to believe that only the commission can fix something that is about to be desperate about it. That happened with the Social Security commission in 1982. But we've had Social Security commissions since then and Medicare commissions and deficit commissions, and none of them have made any difference at all.
Because there is not a sense that the deficit is a huge crisis, even though voters are upset about it. There's much more concern still, as you heard in Scott Horsley's piece, about unemployment, about upsets in the stock market, particularly at the end of last week when we saw the market drop after some senators said that they would fight the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Fed. So, the volatility there is still high.
SHAPIRO: Well, what is the outlook for Ben Bernanke? Is his reappointment really in danger?
ROBERTS: Well, over the weekend several senators worked quickly to shore up any doubts about that, that he would be confirmed this week is when it would have to happen, because they saw the markets drop. But, you know, you've got people saying you got to do this because of the markets. What's not clear is whether that line of argument works anymore, because people are so angry at that whole idea that you have to satisfy Wall Street.
And that's one of the things that we'll have to see how that plays out, you know, whether that argument can still work in Washington.
SHAPIRO: Right. That populist anger you mentioned seems to have been one of the driving forces in the Massachusetts senatorial election last week, which drove Republican Scott Brown to victory. So, President Obama delivers his State of the Union address this week. How do you expect him to deal with that anger in a speech?
ROBERTS: Well, I think there are a couple of ways he could go. He could try to rally his own troops and identify with the angry folks who are angry at Washington. He has used the word fight over and over again in his various appearances since the Massachusetts election. Of course, the problem with that is that he owns Washington at the moment. You know, he's been here a year now. This isn't some outside place to him.
But that does seem the likely course, with his appointment of David Plouffe, his former campaign manager, to come back in and help him with the political year. And that would certainly seem to be his approach.
Or the president could say to the Republicans, look, I really need you to save the country and see how they react. They haven't given him any reason to believe that they'll work with him. They haven't done it on the stimulus package; they haven't done it on health care. And, you know, health care is still out there as this great big thing that we've been talking about all year and that Congress has been working on all year. And we still don't know whether it's got any possibility of passing.
Democrats keep saying that they can get a health care bill but they can't tell us how they're going to get a health care bill.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Cokie Roberts. Thanks, Cokie.
ROBERTS: Um-hum.
SHAPIRO: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Evolution has brought us many things, and five decades ago it brought us this. Shall we, Steve?
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Oh please. Let's go.
(Soundbite of bubble wrap popping)
INSKEEP: That's the sound of bubble wrap, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a bang.
SHAPIRO: Bubble wrap's manufacturer, Sealed Air Corporation, celebrates National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day on the last Monday of every January.
INSKEEP: This year, the company is looking back to the time when two inventors developed this product in a small lab in New Jersey in the late 1950s.
SHAPIRO: They thought - no joke - they were creating a new kind of wallpaper. Then one of the investors looked out of an airplane window and noticed the way that the clouds seemed to cushion the plane during its descent.
INSKEEP: Now, of course, it is packaging as well as one of the favorite toys of my five-year-old.
SHAPIRO: And it has become a big part of pop culture. On this 50th birthday, we can tell you that more than 250 Facebook pages are dedicated to bubble wrap.
INSKEEP: All right.
(Soundbite of bubble wrap popping)
(Soundbite of music)
SHAPIRO: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Well, the United States completed the selection of its Olympic skating team over the weekend, and those skaters will be competing in less than three weeks at the Winter Games in Vancouver. Christine Brennan covered the U.S. figure skating championships for USA Today and joins us in the studio. Shes a regular guest here.
Christine, welcome back.
Ms. CHRISTINE BRENNAN (Columnist, USA Today): Well, thanks, Steve. Great to be here.
INSKEEP: Shes with us live. So which American skaters have the best chance to win a medal?
Ms. BRENNAN: Steve, believe it or not its in ice dancing. And were a dancing nation. Dancing with the Stars, its carried over right to ice.
INSKEEP: Ok.
Ms. BRENNAN: In 2006, Tanith Belbin, Ben Agosto won the Olympic silver medal, big surprise. That inspired a whole generation of young kids on the ice to think that they, too, could win an Olympic medal.
And one ice dance team that was with them in Detroit, the Detroit suburbs, Meryl Davis, Charlie White were so inspired that they have now beaten Belbin and Agosto at the national championships. White and Davis intricate, innovative. Theyre young. Theyre fresh. And they go in as Olympic medal hopefuls, even maybe Olympic gold medal hopefuls. And I know...
INSKEEP: You wouldnt call them favorites, but theyre hopefuls.
Ms. BRENNAN: Well, in ice dancing its a point system now, but you still got the old Eastern bloc and I don't know that theyre going to love the fact that theres two great ice dance teams now for the U.S.
INSKEEP: Wow. Now, the womens event is always one of the glamour events here. Whos going to be representing the Americans there?
Ms. BRENNAN: Its the athlete and the artist. The old traditional argument about figure skating: What is it, art or athleticism. Well, its both. And the athlete won, Rachael Flatt, 17 years old. Shes the daughter of a molecular biologist mother and a biochemical engineer father.
Dorothy Hamill, who works with her, says she loves her brain. I love her triple jumps. Shes got seven of those. And she just packs the program. Figure skating has become kind of pinball on ice. You rack up points here, there, everywhere. Rachael Flatt is excellent at that, steady, solid. Not necessarily beautiful on the ice, but shes going to be standing whenever else is wilting under the pressure.
And then the flipside of that, Mirai Nagasu. She won the world title - or the national title, excuse me, two years ago at 14. Now, shes 16. She crumbled under the pressure, crying everywhere. Her coach finally said theres no crying in figure skating. Of course theres crying in figure skating.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Theres no crying in baseball. But...
INSKEEP: Well, that we can see. But you have...
Ms. BRENNAN: Right. We have kids in...
INSKEEP: (Unintelligible)
Ms. BRENNAN: But for both sports there certainly have been some tears shed. But Mirai Nagasu is delightful. And shes got the cute factor, the energy, the exuberance of youth. And so youve got a 16 and a 17-year-old and theyre going to represent the U.S.
Id expect to see Flatt maybe trying to win a bronze. Although, Id say that its going to be a tough womens competition. And Nagasu, though, is really the Energizer bunny out there.
INSKEEP: You pointed out to us the other day that the women did not have as good a chance at medals as they have in the past. But the men do seem to have a good chance.
Ms. BRENNAN: They do. And the winner there was Jeremy Abbott, two-time national champ. Evan Lysacek, though, I think still has the odds on better chance to win a medal. Lysacek won the world title last year.
Lysacek is also coached by Frank Harold, the man who coaches Mirai Nagasu, the one who said no crying in skating. But I think Yevgeny Plushenko, the Russian who won in 06, is back, skating better than before.
So theres about eight men, Steve, who could win an Olympic gold medal. Ive never seen that deep of a field.
INSKEEP: Im curious. Do the Americans compete against each other as much as they do against anybody from outside?
Ms. BRENNAN: Thats a great question. They go as a team, quote, unquote. But absolutely. Its an individual sport. And, yeah, theyre going against each other, even as theyre all eating, you know, dinner together and rooming together in the Olympic dorms.
INSKEEP: And maybe crying together, but not on the ice.
Ms. BRENNAN: No crying on the ice.
INSKEEP: Christine, always good to talk with you.
Ms. BRENNAN: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: Christine Brennan of USA Today.
(Soundbite of music)
You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Its MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Im Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
And Im Ari Shapiro. Good morning.
The relief effort in Haiti is settling in for the long road ahead. Bulldozers are beginning to move debris for the massive job of rebuilding. The effort will require clearing away huge swaths of Port-au-Prince and starting over. NPRs John Burnett spoke with a construction magnate about what it will take to make that happen.
JOHN BURNETT: Michael Gay is about to become one of the busiest, most sought after men in Haiti. The lanky 62-year-old Haitian American owns GDG, the countrys largest concrete plant. Its his concrete that went into the two most prominent buildings that survived the quake - the massive new American embassy and the 12-story Digicel Building.
Gay rushed from his home in Naples, Florida to Haiti last week, and hes been in high level meetings ever since, with the Haitian president, international aid agencies and big engineering firms, all quietly planning how to resurrect the city of his birth.
Mr. MICHAEL GAY (Owner, GDG): We believe and we think were going - we hope to have a substantial positive role in helping to rebuild this country.
BURNETT: I don't mean this to sound harsh, but you're in a position to make a great deal of money now.
Mr. GAY: Well, its possible, but to be frank with you, Ive done that. Ive been there. Ive done that.
BURNETT: As a successful civil engineer in the States, Gay worked on some huge projects, such as the construction of the Eisenhower Tunnel where Interstate 70 passes under the continental divide in Colorado. But in terms of quantity, nothing will come close to the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince. Almost every important public building has to be rebuilt - from the national palace to the parliament, to the supreme court, to the ministry buildings.
Before that happens, though, before his concrete trucks can rumble down city streets, they have to deal with the millions of square yards of rubble.
Mr. GAY: Just from a psychological standpoint, the removal - the clean up operation needs to get going. This way, itll at least show to the population at large, that something is happening.
BURNETT: Gays concrete company owns more than 50 pieces of heavy equipment, which are about to be in high demand to remove debris from the city. In the days after the quake, in fact, it was GDGs excavators and cranes that were often seen helping recover bodies.
Today, the little clean up that has begun around town is mostly by hand.
(Soundbite of sweeping)
As aid groups are still figuring out how to get food to hungry Haitians, a blueprint is quietly being created to organize, delegate and commence the debris removal. On that front is a bit of good news. Well, at least not more terrible news.
BURNETT: So rubble is not necessarily trash?
Colonel RICK KAISER (Commander, 20th Engineer Brigade): No. No. I mean, it is if its in the wrong place. It is if its in the road. It is if its in your living area. But its not rubbish if it can be reused, says Colonel Rick Kaiser, commander of the 20th Engineering Brigade from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Hes currently in charge of the U.S. militarys building assessment teams. In the near future, hell be helping to coordinate debris removal.
Kaiser cautions that if everybody just starts hauling broken concrete out of the city and dumping it into the nearest field it can cause new problems, like damming drainage points.
Colonel KAISER: But there are so creative things we can do with the debris. We could create an artificial reef and enhance fishery and fish operations. We could use debris to help shore up mountainsides, where during torrential rains you get this run off. And so theres so many good things that we can do with it. Well help shape the plan, but ultimately its up to the government of Haiti to determine how they want to proceed.
BURNETT: The most common use of earthquake debris is to put it into enormous jaw-like crushers, apply great magnets to remove the rebar, then reuse the crushed concrete for roadbed and construction material. Again, Michael Gay.
Mr. GAY: Take those rubbles and crush them, remove the steel in it, ok, and use it in the future as fill material as you're doing new construction. Its out of the rubbles, hopefully, a new Haiti will be born, is my hope.
John Burnett, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
Good morning. Im Ari Shapiro.
Jury duty is a civic obligation, but lets be honest: Sometimes it comes at the worst possible time. Well, this morning, we can report to you that to escape jury duty, all you have to do is tell the court you're busy overseeing two wars and an economic crisis. President Obama was summoned to report to a Chicago-area courthouse for jury duty today. But theres just so much going on at work, a White House official tells the Associated Press, Mr. Obama's skipping out.
Its MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Good morning. Im Steve Inskeep with condolences to Emmett Pearson.
In 1974, the Minnesota Vikings lost the Super Bowl and the Minnesota farmer vowed not to trim his beard until they won. Thirty-six years later, hes still waiting. A photo shows a white beard, not as long as you might think, but a little scraggly. His wife tells the Post-Bulletin newspaper she was desperately hoping this would be the year. But the Vikings lost a playoff game, yesterday, to New Orleans in overtime.
Its MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Here's what we know about a series of explosions in Baghdad today. Gunmen and suicide bombers targeted three well-known hotels. At least 30 people were killed. Dozens more were wounded. One of the hotels is called the Hamra. NPR's office is located in that hotel compound. And it is from there, we're joined by correspondent Quil Lawrence.
Quil, what happened?
QUIL LAWRENCE: Well, three bombs, all within about six or eight minutes of each other, ripped through Baghdad late afternoon, local time. The most information we have is from the Hamra Hotel compound bombing, which as you say is very near the NPR office. And there, insurgents rushed the perimeter security checkpoint, and then managed to get a probably a small minivan or a small bus bomb inside.
The explosion left a crater that's about six yards across and over six feet deep. It shattered the houses nearby. Rescue workers are on the scene now. This - shattered windows for probably a quarter mile in distance. The other bombs hit other well-known hotels: The Babylon Hotel, which is near the river, and the Sheraton Hotel compound, which has been of course several times over the years.
INSKEEP: And we should observe - it's well-known that all of those hotels have been used for several years by Western journalists. There wasn't very much doubt about who the targets were here.
LAWRENCE: Yes. With the exception of the Babylon Hotel, which has mostly Arab and Iraqi customers, those two hotels have long been obvious symbols that it's known that there are Westerners, either security companies or journalists, working and living out of there. These bombs all come in a string of high-profile bombings. There have been less daily big bombs in Iraq, but this would be the fourth high-profile attack that government sources here say they think is designed to destroy people's confidence in the government's ability to provide security.
INSKEEP: Don't these attacks come during a period, the last year or two, in which a lot of the giant concrete barriers and security checkpoints and other extreme security measures that have been necessary in Baghdad have actually been coming down?
LAWRENCE: Yes. While the promises of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister's government here, was to open up Baghdad - and indeed, he'd done that to some extent, Iraqis were really taking back their own streets. But some of these thoroughfares, they started taking down some of the blast walls and then they stopped with the big bomb that came in August. Another bomb came in October. The most recent one before this was December 8, massive bombs that targeted government buildings. This one is targeting symbols of foreigners who still have a presence in Iraq.
INSKEEP: Do you ever find out who's behind these attacks?
LAWRENCE: Sometimes, al-Qaida in Iraq claims responsibility. The government has been blaming former Baath regime elements. They're often attributed to political reasons for these attacks. And recently we've had a lot of controversy over whether some Sunni Arab candidates, prominent candidates, might be banned from the election. There were some hints that there might be violence, but it's too early to say whether this has a direct relationship to that controversy, or it's just part of this slow campaign, which really has gotten under people's skin in Baghdad.
It's taken away that sense of calm. People had it was growing after the security gains. But these bombs come, sort of, every other month, and I've really noticed how people are on the edge here in the capital.
INSKEEP: Quil, thanks very much.
LAWRENCE: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: And be safe. That's NPR's Quil Lawrence in Baghdad, where a series of explosions and gunfire attacks on three hotels today killed more than 30 people and injured dozens.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Yesterday on MORNING EDITION, we heard how a possible solution to urban smog could end up contributing to increased global warming. Today, we'll report on methane, which also plays an important role in global warming. It appears it's on the rise in the atmosphere. NPR's Richard Harris reports on why efforts to control methane are faltering.
RICHARD HARRIS: Methane gas comes from all sorts of sources - wetlands, rice paddies, cow tummies, coal mines, leaking natural gas pipes, garbage dumps, even termites. Drew Shindell at NASA's Goddard Institute in New York says it's built up dramatically in the atmosphere.
DREW SHINDELL: It's gone up by 150 percent since the pre-industrial period. So, that's an enormous increase. CO2, by contrast, has only gone up by about 30 percent.
HARRIS: Molecule for molecule, methane is much more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, and that's just part of the trouble.
SHINDELL: Methane is much more complicated once it gets into the atmosphere than something like carbon dioxide is. And that's because it reacts with a lot of different important chemicals.
HARRIS: For example, methane in the atmosphere also creates ground-level ozone. And ozone isn't only bad for human health, it also contributes to global warming. Shindell recently totaled up all the effects of methane emissions and realized that the heating effect a not-too-distant second to carbon dioxide.
SHINDELL: So, that tells you that methane is actually a pretty big player.
HARRIS: A study published in Science magazine suggests that at least part of this increase is coming from the vast wetlands in Canada, Russia and the Arctic. The methane in wetlands comes from naturally occurring bacteria. But study author Paul Palmer at the University of Edinburgh says the bacteria are producing more methane because the temperature is rising.
PAUL PALMER: The higher the temperature, the more efficient they are at producing methane.
HARRIS: So, global warming is causing these wetlands to produce more methane, and the methane is causing more global warming.
PALMER: This really does emphasize the fact that we are having this vicious cycle in the climate system. And we're seeing it now.
HARRIS: Since methane is the main ingredient of natural gas, efforts to capture it can actually pay for themselves. You use the gas for energy. And Drew Shindell says, remember, methane contributes to ozone, which costs society real money because of its human health effects, and because ozone also damages crops.
SHINDELL: So, if you account for all the economics, all the gains that you get through the benefits of controlling methane that are not even related to climate, you find that many of the reductions you could make actually pay for themselves.
HARRIS: So, why is there relatively little effort now to control methane? Mohamed El-Ashry at the United Nations Foundation says part of the reason has been a fear by governments and advocates that attacking methane would be a dangerous distraction.
MOHAMED EL: People are worried about diverting the attention away from carbon dioxide. And it shouldn't really be the case at all.
HARRIS: El-Ashry is part of a group advocating for a new $200 million fund to help jump-start these methane programs again.
SHINDELL: Here is an opportunity to have some immediate effects in terms of impacts, particularly on the Arctic, as well as even secondary impacts, like on health.
HARRIS: Richard Harris, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Nearly a million homeowners have enrolled in President Obama's plan to modify mortgages. As of last month, only about 7 percent of them have received permanent loan modifications. And even that help may not be enough for an Arizona homeowner who spoke with NPR's Ted Robbins.
TED ROBBINS: Thad Salter sits at the dining room table in his home in Maricopa, Arizona. He sifts through a three-inch-thick pile of paper. It's a record of the long process to get a mortgage modification.
THAD SALTER: Just to kind of give you an example.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANGING, PAPER SHUFFLING)
SALTER: This is a lot of stuff.
ROBBINS: Salter needed to lower his $2,300 monthly payment because he lost his job as a human resources exec, and with it, 40 percent of his family's income. His lender, Chase, offered to extend the mortgage from 30 to 40 years and lower the interest rate from 6.8 to 2 percent. That would cut his payment roughly in half, which makes his initial reaction to the offer seem bizarre.
SALTER: I call it extortion - you know, government-backed extortion, basically. I mean, who in their right mind looking at this would accept this? No one would. No one should.
ROBBINS: To keep the bank from taking a loss, the modification includes a $107,000 balloon payment before he can pay off the mortgage. So financially, Thad Salter says he feels like a hostage.
SALTER: I'm not going to gain $200,000 of value on this house. That's just not going to happen. You know, I think it's going to take a lot longer than that to even break even on this house, if ever.
ROBBINS: Salter decided to take the modification and stay in his home for a few years. But he still wonders if it would be better to walk away from the home and give it back to the bank. Many of his neighbors did. Fifteen of the 22 homes on his block went into foreclosure over the last couple of years.
SALTER: I'm not one of those who believes in that, but I've seen so many other people do that.
ROBBINS: Spokesman Scott Talbott points out that walking away from a mortgage would bring down the Salters' credit rating. And he says if everyone did it, home values would go down even more. But mainly, Talbott says that homeowners who get modifications have an obligation to stay and pay.
SCOTT TALBOTT: The borrowers have signed a contract. They have signed a promissory note, which says I promise to repay. So in addition to a legal obligation, you can argue there's a moral obligation to repay.
BRENT WHITE: A contract is not a moral document. It's a legal document.
ROBBINS: Brent White is a law professor at the University of Arizona. He argues that there are good reasons for homeowners to break their contract. He says companies do it all the time, when it makes financial sense.
WHITE: So all this language about moral obligation in contractual obligations rest upon homeowners not understanding what a contract is.
ROBBINS: White's ideas have been criticized by the banking industry, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and at least one government-sponsored credit counseling agency. White says banks and the government aren't acting out of homeowners' financial interests. They're playing on their emotions.
WHITE: And for the bank, the rules of the game are make as much money as possible and use the fact that the homeowner is following moral norms to the bank's advantage.
ROBBINS: Thad Salter even drove around his town of Maricopa looking at other houses before deciding to accept the modification, because he didn't want to disrupt his family.
SALTER: You know, I could care less about myself. But the kids I was more concerned about, and my wife.
ROBBINS: Ted Robbins, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
You know when you have a decision to make, the standard advice is to think everything through and weigh the pros and cons and reason your way to the right choice. But today we have a story about the limits of our rational minds to help us make decisions. It comes to us from our friends at Radio Lab.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JAD ABUMRAD: Hey, Steve.
INSKEEP: That's Jad Abumrad of WNYC.
ROBERT KRULWICH: And this is me, Robert Krulwich.
INSKEEP: Oh, sorry, Robert, didn't mean to leave you out. Robert Krulwich as well.
KRULWICH: Hi.
INSKEEP: Okay, now, before we get started, remind us what Radio Lab is.
ABUMRAD: KRULWICH And also the world all around us.
ABUMRAD: Right, and today we're thinking about, as you said, how we make decisions. So Steve, let me just get things started by asking you - how many numbers do you think you can remember at once?
INSKEEP: I have no idea. Test me.
ABUMRAD: All right. Ready?
INSKEEP: Sure.
ABUMRAD: Four, six, one, seven, eight, two, three, 33...
KRULWICH: This always a trick question with him.
ABUMRAD: Zero...
INSKEEP: Four, six, seven, one, eight, two, three, 33, nine, one, and then after that I don't know what it is.
KRULWICH: That's good, actually, because, you know, I can do four, seven.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ABUMRAD: Robert is a special case, but it turns out there's a classic study in psychology that asks this very question. It happened in 1956, there was a psychologist named George Miller who asked people to memorize a bunch of different stuff - numbers, letters, musical notes - and what he found is that the average human being can hold about seven items in their short-term memory, seven.
INSKEEP: Like a phone number?
ABUMRAD: Exactly. Now the interesting thing is what happens to our decision- making powers when you try and get more than seven in your head.
KRULWICH: Unidentified Man #2: Yes...
ABUMRAD: Well, let me introduce you to someone.
BABA SHIV: I'm Baba Shiv, a professor here at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Marketing. A lot of my research has to do with the brain.
ABUMRAD: And tricking people.
SHIV: Oh yeah, absolutely.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KRULWICH: (Unintelligible) I want to you to tell about one particular experiment that he did.
SHIV: So the experiment it's pretty straightforward.
ABUMRAD: It goes like this. He got a bunch of subjects together. He said, okay, I'm going to give you all a number.
SHIV: A number...
ABUMRAD: ...on a little card, you're going to read the number, and I want you to commit that number to memory.
SHIV: Take as much time as you want to memorize the number.
ABUMRAD: Then he says...
SHIV: You're now going to walk to the next room and recall the number. And that's what subjects think. The subjects think that they're going to be doing in that study.
ABUMRAD: They know that they are going to be in one place getting a number, going to another place, reciting that number.
SHIV: That's right.
ABUMRAD: That's all they know.
SHIV: That's all they know.
KRULWICH: What they don't know is that not everybody is getting the same kind of number.
SHIV: Some people get a seven-digit number, some people get a two-digit number.
SHIV: That I can do by the way. I think I can do two digits.
ABUMRAD: No, I doubt it.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ABUMRAD: All the subjects have to do is they've got to memorize the number, walk out of room one down the hall, room two, then recite their number. Now, just imagine. You with me?
SHIV: Mm-hmm.
ABUMRAD: Person with a two digit number in the head is walking out of room one.
INSKEEP: One, two is my number. I can definitely remember this.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #3: 1228932...
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #3: 289...
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #4: Oh.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #3: Sure.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Woman #2: You can choose between either A) a big fat slice of chocolate cake, or B) a nice bowl of fruit salad.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Woman #2: ...or some healthy fruit?
ABUMRAD: The people - the people, this is crazy - the people with two digits in their head...
INSKEEP: You know, I love cake but I think I'll take the fruit.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Woman #1: It's healthy.
ABUMRAD: Whereas the people with seven digits in their head almost always choose the cake.
INSKEEP: You know, the cake. I want the cake.
ABUMRAD: And we're talking by huge margins here.
SHIV: It was significant. I mean, this was like in some cases, 20, 25, 30 point difference.
KRULWICH: So what does...
ABUMRAD: Meaning if you have seven digits in your head you are twice as likely to choose cake than fruit, twice.
KRULWICH: So let's give them...
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
KRULWICH: So the people with the seven digits get the cake. I get that part. I don't know why.
ABUMRAD: That doesn't interest you? As to why they would choose...
KRULWICH: Well, yeah, why?
ABUMRAD: Okay, good.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ABUMRAD: Now that I've got your interest, I'll tell you the theory.
KRULWICH: Okay.
ABUMRAD: And this is where it gets interesting. It seems that the brain is anatomically organized into different systems.
JONAH LEHRER: Dual systems is what they're called.
ABUMRAD: That's Jonah Lehrer, science writer, who we often call when talking about brainy stuff. According to Jonah, you have a rational deliberative system which is sort of more to the front of the brain, and then deeper in the brain you have an emotional unconscious system. According to Jonah, these two systems are often at war.
LEHRER: There's constant competition between the rational brain and the emotional brain. They're always competing for attention and to guide and direct your behavior.
ABUMRAD: Especially when you have a tough choice like Baba Shiv's cake versus fruit. There the competition is fierce.
SHIV: The emotional automatic system is just pushing them towards the cake.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #4: Chocolate frosting.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #4: Give me a chocolate now.
ABUMRAD: On the other hand...
SHIV: Unidentified Man #5: I'm thinking about this choice carefully.
SHIV: Unidentified Man #5: Calories, sugar, high fat content.
LEHRER: Unidentified Man #5: It's going to make you chubby.
LEHRER: Unidentified Man #5: It is not good for your health. It is not good for your self esteem.
SHIV: And that acts as a check.
ABUMRAD: Unidentified man #5: 1228936, 12285, 122, one, a cholest - 122...
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #5: Or 2...
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #5: 2...
ABUMRAD: Unidentified Man #5: Oh.
SHIV: Which means greater likelihood that the emotions will drive their choices.
ABUMRAD: The astounding thing here, says Jonah, is not simply that, you know, sometimes emotion wins over reason. It's how easily it wins. Seven numbers is all it takes to screw up reason.
LEHRER: Just think about how astonishingly limited that is.
KRULWICH: Mr. LEHRER And what we always rely on it, all the advice on decision making is stop and think, slow down, take your time, and yet when you actually look at the brain, that can lead you to rely on a feeble piece of machinery.
INSKEEP: Oh, okay, well, I'll just set aside this cake and thank Robert and Jad for stopping in. Thank you, gentlemen.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ABUMRAD: Sure thing.
KRULWICH: We kind of knew you'd do the cake.
INSKEEP: That's Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich from the show Radio Lab, a production of WNYC in New York. You can explore Radio Lab at npr.org.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Each day, two million people take off their shoes, separate the liquids in their carry-on luggage, and prepare to take a commercial flight. They all pass through airport security stations run by the Transportation Security Administration. The men and women of TSA are on the frontlines of the battle to keep the skies safe. They are also among the lowest paid of all federal employees, and they have one of the highest injury rates. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.
BRIAN NAYLOR: Unidentified Man: Up. Everybody stand up. Jackets off, please. All right. Got the badges, (unintelligible), tags.
NAYLOR: Supervisor Linda Coleman warns TSOs they'll likely have their hands full today because of bad weather the night before.
LINDA COLEMAN: Unidentified Woman: Liquid, aerosol, and gel(ph) bags out of your luggage. All outerwear must come off.
NAYLOR: Charles McLong's job title is bomb assessment officer. He gets called in if something looks, as he puts it, hinky.
CHARLES MCLONG: Like this, this particular bag here. We have a couple of masses there of something. Now they look like they could be oranges, but, as we know, the explosives can be made of anything. You can make plastic explosives look like anything.
NAYLOR: Then there are the salaries, which start at about $25,000 a year, one of the lowest rates in the federal government. Anthony Hutchinson, a 29-year-old father of two, says not only is it not easy raising a family on what he earns, it affects what he calls the mission.
ANTHONY HUTCHINSON: This is a very, very important job. You're dealing with people's lives every single day. And if you have an officer sitting there worrying about how they're going to pay their rent or whether their car is going to be taken from them because they can't pay their car note or how their children are going to eat or how they're going to pay for this and pay for that, then you're not going to have an officer there, happy officer there thinking about the mission. And that's what comes first. The mission comes first.
NAYLOR: Back at Reagan National Airport, I asked Lee Kair about some of the TSO's complaints. Kair is in charge of security operations for TSA. He says the agency has made great strides in addressing the injury rate. He says fewer officers have been leaving, especially now with the economy, and that most have been with the agency since its inception.
LEE KAIR: So, our officers have extremely difficult jobs. And they are very, very professional in what they do, and they're very trained and they're skilled at how to interact with people. You know, and frankly, our officers are dealing with two million people every day, and so many of our officers have been here - most of our officers have been here, frankly, since the beginning. So they know how to interact with people and they know what doesn't look right, what that anomaly is, and they can focus on that.
NAYLOR: Brain Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro. Senator-elect Scott Brown says he'll be sworn in next week, at the earliest. He became the Republican Party's new favorite when he won the late Edward Kennedy's seat a week ago. That upset ended Democrats 60- vote supermajority in the Senate. NPR's Tovia Smith has this profile of the Senator-elect from Massachusetts.
TOVIA SMITH: Campaigning in his blue jeans and pickup truck, Scott Brown ran for Senate as a kind of everyman. The morning after his big win, he seemed as shocked as anyone by his meteoric rise from his modest roots.
SCOTT BROWN: If you would have told me growing up that, you know, a guy whose mom was on welfare and parents had some, you know, marital troubles and, you know, I had some, you know, issues, you know, growing up, that a guy from Wrentham would be here going to Washington, D.C.? Are you kidding me?
SMITH: He calls himself fiscally conservative and socially conscious, and he's got an alluring story of a self-made guy and a patriot who served 30 years in the National Guard.
JIM VALLEE: He's not a one- dimensional caricature. He's a multifaceted guy. So he can't pigeonhole him.
SMITH: For example, Brown opposes certain abortion procedures, but says he supports a woman's right to choose. He opposes President Obama's plan to overhaul health care, but supports mandatory coverage in Massachusetts.
VALLEE: I think he does have deep convictions and values. He does beat to his own drum. I think that's the best way to put it. He's his own man.
SMITH: In fact, shyness doesn't seem to run in Brown's family at all. His wife is a well-known local TV reporter, and his daughter has had some national aspirations, as well.
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RYAN SEACREST: All right. If you want to vote for Ayla, 1-866-IDOL-06, 1-866...
SMITH: Brown's older daughter Ayla became something of a star on "American Idol." On the show, she credited her father for piquing her interest in music by singing to her.
AYLA BROWN: Embarrassingly, I actually thought he was Elvis till I was about nine years old, actually. Like, oh, my gosh, I hear my dad on the radio. And my friends were like, actually, that's Elvis Presley. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I'm so embarrassed.
SMITH: And it wouldn't be the last time. Ayla's jaw literally dropped after Brown introduced his daughters on election night and veered way off script.
BROWN: And just in case anybody who's watching throughout the country, yes, they're both available.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BROWN: No. No. No. Only kidding, only kidding. Arianna definitely is not available, but Ayla is.
RICHARD TISEI: Yeah. I think he says what comes to mind, and that speech was classic Scott.
SMITH: Minority Leader Richard Tisei served with Brown in the state Senate.
TISEI: Scott's a normal person, and he isn't all caught up in Washington-speak, and he's very down-to-earth and he's very authentic.
SMITH: That's one way of looking at it. His critics see Brown as prone to making politically incorrect statements, like the time he called his opponent's decision to have children with her lesbian partner, quote, "not normal."
MARY ANN GRENIER: And that was pretty stunning.
SMITH: That's Mary Ann Grenier, a Democratic activist who's worked for Brown's opponents in five races. While Brown has courted independent voters by vowing to be open-minded, Grenier says she's found Brown to be anything but.
ANN GRENIER: I never see him giving in. He has this smile and he has this affability, but when push comes to shove, he believes he is right all of the time.
SMITH: Supporters say that's just Brown having the courage of his convictions. Indeed, Brown is nothing if not resolute. Again, his friend Jim Vallee.
VALLEE: He's a pure competitor. You know, he's a gladiator in the arena. Once he steps in, you know, he knows it's only one person stepping out, and he wants to be that person. He gives everything 100 percent.
SMITH: Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's David Schaper reports from Chicago.
DAVID SCHAPER: Unidentified Man: Tired of being embarrassed by elected officials? Take a look at a real leader. Congressman Mark Kirk has a...
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SCHAPER: Polls show that Illinois Republican voters will likely nominate moderate, five-term Congressman Mark Kirk in next Tuesday's primary. He is considered by many to be the most electable Illinois Republican in some time, as every statewide office is now held by Democrats. And that's turned the Democratic primary race for the Senate seat into a battle of who stacks up best against Mark Kirk.
CHERYLE JACKSON: I am the best Democratic candidate to beat Mark Kirk because I'm strongest on the issues that Mark Kirk is weakest on.
SCHAPER: Frontrunner Alexi Giannoulias, the 33-year-old state treasurer who is a basketball-playing friend of the president's, agrees that voters are angry.
ALEXI GIANNOULIAS: And they're angry with insider politics. And I think for the past 10 years, Mark Kirk has been a part of that culture. He's taken money from insurance companies, from Wall Street banks, from large corporations, and he's voted their way time and time again.
SCHAPER: But as Giannoulias criticizes Kirk, he is on the defensive over a state college savings program that lost millions and his family's bank ties to Tony Rezko, the Blagojevich fundraiser convicted on corruption charges.
DAVID HOFFMAN: Here's the question on people's minds: Who can we trust?
SCHAPER: First-time candidate David Hoffman emphasizes he is scandal-free. The former federal prosecutor and independent inspector general at Chicago's City Hall says that's critically important for the nominee if the Democrats are to having any chance of keeping the seat.
HOFFMAN: We are worse off in Massachusetts because of the very corruption scandals that have racked the Democratic Party here, and we absolutely need a nominee who is going to take the corruption issue off the table, not allow Blagojevich or Rezko or any of these other characters to come in, and I am the only nominee who does that.
SCHAPER: Hoffman has earned the endorsements of just about every newspaper in the state, and though he's been gaining a lot of ground in recent weeks, polls still put both Hoffman and Jackson well behind Giannoulias.
MICHAEL MEZEY: The Democratic field is, to say the least, unimpressive.
SCHAPER: DePaul University political science Professor Michael Mezey says no matter who wins the Democrat primary next week, Republican Kirk will be tough to beat.
MEZEY: I don't think it's a lock, by any means. I think it'll be a competitive race, but I would have this high up on the list of seats that might well flip in 2010.
SCHAPER: David Schaper, NPR News, Chicago.
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INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Julie Rovner reports.
JULIE ROVNER: Here's Utah Senator Orrin Hatch on CNN's "Late Edition."
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ORRIN HATCH: We'd have to start over. There are a lot of things we can agree on right off the bat.
ROVNER: Over on NBC's "Meet the Press," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had a few examples.
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MITCH MCCONNELL: You start with junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals, interstate competition among insurance companies.
ROVNER: But there is just one problem, says health policy analyst Len Nichols of the non-partisan New America Foundation. If you take most of the ideas that Republicans are shopping around at the moment...
LEN NICHOLS: Then we're back to a policy that, frankly, was rejected by Republicans when they had a majority.
ROVNER: Take medical malpractice reform. Republicans have long advocated for a bill that would cap damages for victim's payments suffering at $250,000. It passed the Republican-led House eight times between 1995 and 2005, but it never even won a majority in the Republican-controlled Senate, despite several attempts. Republicans have long blamed the influence of trial lawyers, but Nichols says there is also just a lack of consensus on the issue.
NICHOLS: What's interesting is, on malpractice, a number of states have different models, some of which some states are very happy with. And what President Bush and now President Obama have both proposed is to encourage states to innovate along those lines and to recognize that states really are the place where malpractice jurisdiction lies, and therefore it's better to have a local medical community in the states to work this out.
ROVNER: Another favorite Republican proposal is selling insurance policies across state lines. That would let people in one state buy cheaper insurance in another state, but the insurance might not cover as much. And the idea has freaked out insurance regulators who'd no longer know who would be in charge of regulating what, says Dave Kendall. He's with the centrist Democratic think tank, Third Way.
DAVE KENDALL: Senator Enzi led an effort to try to do that, and he couldn't even get members of his own party to go along with it.
ROVNER: That would be Mike Enzi of Wyoming. In fact, he was one of several Republicans who spent much of last spring and summer unsuccessfully working to craft a bipartisan bill with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus. New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez said Sunday on CNN he's convinced the current GOP offer is simply another effort to kill the bill.
ROBERT MENENDEZ: When we hear about slow down and start over, it really means don't do anything. Republicans have come to the conclusion that the president's failure - not only in health care, but across the board - is the way to political victory.
ROVNER: Len Nichols, who says he was for bipartisanship in health care before bipartisanship was cool, says he is frustrated at how polarized the sides have become, particularly because the bill now stalled is fundamentally not that liberal.
NICHOLS: I would say that the legislation - both the House and the Senate, frankly - are far closer to the Republican bill in 1993.
ROVNER: That was a bill like the current House and Senate-passed measures that required everyone to have health insurance. It was cosponsored by a dozen and a half Republicans, including several who are still serving.
NICHOLS: It's much closer to that bill than it is to the Clinton plan of that era because it relies much more on markets, much more individual requirements, much more on incentives in the health care system. And to claim that this bill is somehow a left-wing government takeover is just rhetoric of a rather extreme sort. No question about it.
ROVNER: Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Next, we're going to meet some people in Haiti who have no reason left to hope, but haven't lost their determination. They have connections to people in the rubble of the Hotel Montana. It was one of the finest places in Port-au-Prince, a weigh station for tourists and aid workers and dignitaries. Some people were rescued when the hotel collapsed. As many as 100 are still missing, and some of their loved ones spoke with NPR's Tamara Keith.
TAMARA KEITH: The Hotel Montana is perched up on a hill with a view of the entire city. But 36-year-old Eric Nyman isn't looking at the scenery. He can't take his eyes off the pile of shattered concrete where he knows his fiancee is trapped, lost somewhere in a tangle of rebar, rock and bed sheets. He couldn't imagine being anywhere else.
ERIC NYMAN: Of course not. I mean, it's the love of my life. So...
KEITH: When the earthquake struck, the California native was in Panama. He's an environmental engineer and does development work there. That's where he met his 35-year-old fiancee, Chrystel Cancel, who's from France. She had just arrived in Port-au-Prince to work with USAID.
NYMAN: I was sitting in front of the TV and in front of the computer with very little information, and I just had to move. So I came to the site and started the search, along with everyone else.
(SOUNDBITE OF RUBBLE BEING MOVED)
KEITH: Alix Pasquet is looking for his ex-brother-in-law, Woody Bennett.
ALIX PASQUET: He's buried somewhere underneath this rubble.
KEITH: He knows Bennett is in the hotel's restaurant, where every Tuesday at the same time, he would enjoy a gazpacho with his friends. The restaurant was flattened.
PASQUET: You can smell - you know, the smell of death is very strong. Even if I force the French to remove every single slab of concrete, I'm going to have them do it until I find his body.
KEITH: Eric Nyman has the same resolve.
NYMAN: At this point, I've lived several lifetimes. And - the things that I've seen inside that hotel. And everyone here knows why I'm here and who I'm looking for, so when she is found, I'll know it. I'm not going to visit the body. I will just have closure. But then again, there are miracles, and...
KEITH: I asked him how long they've been engaged. The pain is visible in his face.
NYMAN: Three days.
KEITH: Tamara Keith, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
We have an update this morning on what's called the burqa debate in France. The question is whether the full head and body covering worn by many Muslim women should be banned. Today, a French commission recommended that it be outlawed in public buildings, like schools and hospitals. The country's been having this discussion for more than six months, and as Eleanor Beardsley reports, it's not over yet.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: The burqa debate erupted last summer when President Nicolas Sarkozy, out of the blue, declared the all-encompassing face covering veil unwelcome in France.
NICOLAS SARKOZY: (French spoken)
BEARDSLEY: The burqa is not a religious problem, he told the French parliament in his state-of-the-union-style address. It's a problem of freedom and the dignity of women.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
BEARDSLEY: Jean-Francois Cope, leader of Sarkozy's majority party in parliament, believes France needs a solid law against the burqa.
JEAN: The two reasons why we have to implement this legislation is to respect the rights of women, and second is the question of security. Who can imagine that people can just walk everywhere in the country with a burqa without the possibility for us to recognize their face?
BEARDSLEY: France is home to Europe's largest Muslim minority, but the sight of fully veiled women is not an everyday occurrence in most parts of the country. While the shoppers and vendors at a street market in the north of Paris are mostly immigrants from Africa and the Maghreb, no one's dressed in a burqa or niqab today. Like many, 22-year-old Selema Zabag(ph) is wearing a head scarf, or hijab.
SELEMA ZABAG: (French spoken)
BEARDSLEY: I think it's inadmissible in a country of so-called liberty to forbid people to wear what they want, says Zabag.
COPE: It's not a question of tolerance. We are very tolerant. Everybody can have his own religion. No problem with that. But it has to be subordinated to the law of the republic. And the law say you have to show your face.
BEARDSLEY: Jean-Francois Cope has been pounding home that message. Recently, in a popular late-night talk show watched by millions of French people, Cope faced off with a woman wearing a niqab who went by the name of Delilah.
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COPE: (Foreign language spoken)
DELILAH: (Foreign language spoken)
BEARDSLEY: Mohammed al-Madani(ph), who describes himself as a law-abiding, voting French citizen, says banning burqas, like banning minarets in Switzerland, is a blow to Muslims and a political ploy.
MOHAMMED AL: For us Muslims, it's very simple, in fact. The party of the president is trying to make the people of the extreme right, to make them vote for the UMP, for the president's party.
BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
NPR's business news starts with more money for electric cars.
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SHAPIRO: Washington is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to develop hybrid and electric car technologies here in the U.S. The aim is to develop the market so it doesn't become dominated by foreign automakers.
GM: Tesla Motors, which recently announced it will build two electric car manufacturing plants in California. Tesla will use $465 million dollars in government loans.
SHAPIRO: And private money is also going into clean car technology. A California company called Better Place announced yesterday that it received a $350 million investment from a group led by the bank HSBC. Better Place builds networks of charging stations for electric cars.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Laura Sydell has more.
LAURA SYDELL: Apple sold more than $8.7 million iPhones last quarter. But Wall Street was hoping for more than $9 million. Many analysts believe that their predictions might've been a little bit overly enthusiastic about iPhones. But Apple did beat some Wall Street sales predictions.
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SYDELL: Laura Sydell, NPR News, San Francisco.
T: Jenee Darden reports.
FARLEY HOM: How bad is your pain, from one to 10?
JENEE DARDEN: Farley Hom is an occupational therapist. Today, he's helping a patient at a rehab center for seniors in Southern California. The elderly man recently fractured bones in his neck after a fall. Hom tries to help the man move from his wheelchair to his bed on his own.
HOM: We'll see when you can have your pain meds next, OK? You want pain medication?
DARDEN: Hom has been an occupational therapist for 15 years. In case you're wondering, OT and physical therapy are not the same.
HOM: To this day, even my parents have difficulty explaining to their friends what I do for a living.
DARDEN: Here's how he breaks it down.
HOM: Occupational therapists help people to be as independent as possible with their activities of daily living. That can be anything from getting themselves dressed to brushing their teeth to driving.
DARDEN: Hom is the only male OT at the center, which is not unusual. Men make up only 10 percent of therapists. Historically, the profession has focused on recruiting women. Now, it's pushing for gender balance and actively reaching out to men. Hom says they want workers to be diverse, like the people they serve. For instance...
HOM: A male might prefer another male to be with him in the bathroom when we're working on toileting issues, simply because of dignity issues, privacy issues.
DARDEN: But Hom says there's a growing need for OT's in general, especially as baby boomers retire. Labor Department stats back this up. They show occupational therapy growing more than 20 percent over the next few years.
HOM: I've always been able to find work. I've never had a problem finding work.
DARDEN: Now that's something you rarely hear today, and the pay isn't bad, either. In California, an OT fresh out of grad school can start making up to $80,000 a year. Nationwide, the mean salary is about 67 grand. Good pay, steady work and a demand for male workers - in the so-called man session, why aren't more men signing up?
SHAWN PHIPPS: I think occupational therapy is one of those best kept secrets.
DARDEN: Shawn Phipps is president of the Occupational Therapy Association of California.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHILDREN CHATTERING)
DARDEN: On this day, he supervises therapists at a rehab center for kids with disabilities. He says people don't know about the profession, and a number of those who do view it as women's work.
PHIPPS: I think that occupational therapy is sometimes seen as a caretaking profession like nursing, and men traditionally have not been drawn especially to caretaking professions.
DARDEN: But OT's go beyond bedsides. Some work in technology and develop ideas to help people with disabilities function in everyday life. And you can find OT's treating injured workers.
PHIPPS: I'm aware of a number of men that work in industrial rehabilitation. An occupational therapist can play a role evaluating that worker's capability of returning to the workplace.
DARDEN: But Phipps says he notices men are starting to pay attention. He even convinced one of his friends to consider the profession. Sergio Sandoval worked in marketing research for 12 years, but was laid off more than a year ago and can't find work. Now he plans on applying to an OT graduate program. Sandoval says he made the career switch for a few reasons.
SERGIO SANDOVAL: The ability to work with people with disabilities to make a difference in their lives, and to also have steady work and create a future for myself.
DARDEN: For NPR's, I'm Janee Darden in Los Angeles.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Today's last word in business is for those who get stressed out by changing technology. The South Korean company LG is selling a type of television so old that many Americans alive today could hardly remember it.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Instead of a cutting-edge flat screen, this TV looks like it's straight out of the 1960s. LG has a brand new cathode ray tube television. It's nice and bulky in the back, with rabbit ear antennae on top.
INSKEEP: And knobs that you actually turn to change the channel and volume. It has a screen that is no fewer than 14 inches across. This TV sells for an old-fashion price of a little over $200, and it even has a button that turns everything to black and white, giving even the newest shows that "I Love Lucy" look.
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INSKEEP: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
SHAPIRO: And I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
It has now been two weeks since Haiti's earthquake and the international approach to the country is evolving.
INSKEEP: We have two reports this morning. In a moment, we'll hear from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who sat down with Michele Kelemen to talk about raising money to rebuild the country.
SHAPIRO: NPR's John Burnett spent the day with U.S. relief officials and sent this report.
JOHN BURNETT: Killick Point is a Haitian Coast Guard station about six miles off the coast from Port-au-Prince, shaded by mango and palm trees. Today, it's the site a mobile clinic set up by the U.S. Army's joint taskforce, Bravo, out of Honduras. Colonel Marie Dominguez is the doctor in charge here, where more than a thousand patients have been treated since the earthquake. She stands over a man lying on his stomach on a hospital bed with a hole in his back.
MARIE DOMINGUEZ: This is a gentleman who had a small wound on the day of the earthquake and he came in and he's got a big abscess on his back, which needs to be cleaned out, packed with dressing, changed everyday.
BURNETT: Dominguez says they don't see as many patients coming in with life and death wounds like before. It's been long enough that people have either gotten better from say, a crushed chest wound, or they've died.
DOMINGUEZ: And now, what we are really starting to see is a lot of infections coming in as well, you know, where people had a small wound or prick and then it's gotten infected, pussing(ph) out on them.
BURNETT: The U.S. military medical mission is overwhelmed. The Navy hospital ship, the USS Comfort, is filled with patients, as are the hospitals on-board an aircraft carrier and a helicopter carrier floating in the water off the Haitian coast. The 22 hospitals in Port-au-Prince are overflowing with earthquake victims. So, the plan is for the U.S. military to erect a convalescent care tent city as soon as this week, to get post-op patients off the ships and make room for more critical care cases.
RICH ELLISON: Some people are ready to go home. And, of course, the problem is they don't have a home to go to.
BURNETT: Dr. Rich Ellison, the chief surgeon for the U.S. military's joint taskforce Haiti says they are already preparing a piece of land, 10 miles north of the capital. He says the field hospital will start with 250 beds.
ELLISON: It's going to be like "M*A*S*H." It's going to be tents, cots, you know, food, water, things that they need, that we want them to be comfortable, but we don't want them to go home yet.
BURNETT: Looming over the humanitarian crisis is the arrival of the Caribbean rainy season in April. Haitians who lost their homes are living completely exposed to the elements, perhaps under a thin cotton sheet to protect them from the sun. USAID recently sent in some 10,000 rolls of plastic sheeting for makeshift shelters, says former ambassador Lewis Lucke. He's the U.S. government's coordinator for relief and recovery in Haiti.
LEWIS LUCKE: We are scrambling as hard as we can. We have received tremendous number of rolls of plastic sheeting, we are cutting it up and we are distributing it, and we are getting it out as quickly as we can with the use of Haitian labor.
BURNETT: And there's another deadline facing the aid providers: the expectation of a population that needs everything. Lieutenant General Ken Keen is the commander of JTF, Haiti.
KEN KEEN: Clearly, if we are unable to respond - and I say we, the international community, the United Nations, to meet the needs of the people - then there would be growing unrest.
BURNETT: Unidentified Man #2: When will you start to distribute food, and water, and tents?
BURNETT: A man demands, when will you start to distribute food, water and tents. The Marines guarding the landing zone are unfazed by the demanding crowd. Everything is relative, they've all done two tours in Iraq or Afghanistan where snipers and roadside bombs are a daily threat. Lance Corporal William Berdahoe(ph), from Passaic, New Jersey, wearing a cloth cap and light body armor, is asked about his surprise deployment to Haiti.
WILLIAM BERDAHOE: Beautiful. You don't gotta worry about getting shot or nothing. You know you're going home for a fact. You know, I worry about home. I will probably make it home this time. It's nice coming here and helping out the people.
BURNETT: John Burnett, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Diplomats from many countries gathered in Montreal yesterday to discuss rebuilding Haiti. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among them, and she spoke with NPR's Michele Kelemen.
MICHELE KELEMEN: French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, says what was destroyed in minutes in Haiti will take years to rebuild. Canada's foreign minister Lawrence Cannon said the donors agreed to coordinate their efforts. They haven't come up with a system to do that yet, but Secretary Clinton told NPR in an interview at the conference center in Montreal, that technical experts are looking for practical ways to use donor funds wisely.
HILLARY CLINTON: But it's going to be a very challenging time because the Haitian government knows it has to change. The people's mindsets about education and the importance of choosing it, participating in democracy - I think we're going to see a good effort and ultimately it's up to the Haitian people. But there's a great willingness by the international community to help.
KELEMEN: And you talk about partnering rather than being a patron of Haiti or patronage. How do you do that when the government was decimated in this?
CLINTON: When I went down to see President Preval a week ago Saturday, we talked, of course, about the immediate crisis and everything that had to be done. But he very clearly said, but we cannot lose all the work we've done. We need to take that work and make it better and build on it. So, I think we're in a good position to work with the Haitian government.
KELEMEN: But even getting the government back on its feet, I mean, the U.S., I guess, is offering some space - some workspace?
CLINTON: We are. We're offering some space; we're offering communications ability; we're offering security. I think we're going to be in a very positive position, working with the rest of the international community, to get prepared for the Donor's Conference in New York.
KELEMEN: Michele Kelemen, NPR News.
INSKEEP: Haiti's president is asking the world for hundreds of thousands of tents, and in solidarity with people in tents, President Rene Preval also says he is going to move into a tent home on the lawn of his collapsed palace in downtown Port- au-Prince.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE: Justice Department officials say the settlement requires some concessions that are supposed to create more competition in the ticketing business that Ticketmaster currently dominates. U.S. Representative Brad Sherman of California says the department did well, considering.
BRAD SHERMAN: The Justice Department had a very weak hand. This is vertical integration, which our antitrust laws generally allow. They were able to successfully negotiate for significant concessions.
ROSE: In order to close the deal, Ticketmaster has to license its ticketing software to AEG, the nation's second-largest concert promoter behind Live Nation. And it has to spin off part of its ticketing software and its ticketing business to another competitor, but that's not enough for some critics.
BILL PASCRELL: The Justice Department decision is a charade. There is a whole history on both of these dudes here, that have absolutely worked against the consumer.
ROSE: That's Congressman Bill Pascrell of New Jersey. Last year he introduced a bill called The Boss Act after Ticketmaster was caught selling tickets to a Bruce Springsteen show on the lucrative resale market before the show had actually sold out.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HUNGRY HEART")
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Lay down your money and you play your part, everybody's got a hungry heart...
ROSE: Glenn Peoples is a senior analyst at Billboard.com. He says the new company, to be known as Live Nation, would have more flexibility in what it can charge for tickets.
GLENN PEOPLES: There are seats that aren't being filled at a lot of concerts, and so some of the prices are going to go down so they can get people in there so they can get their parking money, so they can get their beer money, so they can get their merchandise money. And on the other side of it, the good seats, the in demand seats by people who really place the most value on these events, well, they're going to be paying more.
ROSE: Ticketmaster is limited by artists and venues who want to keep prices low to sell more tickets. But that helps create a thriving secondary market for the most popular concerts. The new Live Nation might be able to squeeze some of those middle men out. Congressman Brad Sherman said that would be good for artists.
SHERMAN: The highest prices are when you have to pay scalpers. And I believe that these changes will make sure that when you buy a ticket the majority of that money is going to the band you're a fan of rather than ticket resellers.
ROSE: But Congressman Bill Pascrell says that would be lousy for consumers.
PASCRELL: This merger guarantees to me that the average music fan can expect the ticket prices to continue to go up, now that one company is going to control nearly every segment of the live industry.
ROSE: For NPR News, I'm Joel Rose.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Ski resorts across the country are cashing in on a snowy winter. Skiers and snowboarders are packing the slopes and more than ever before they are wearing helmets. North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann explains why we're seeing this change.
BRIAN MANN: What convinced you that it was time?
TRACY FLETCHER: The safety factor. Even though I've been skiing forever, I could take a fall and it could be devastating.
MANN: Scott Brandi heads the Ski Areas of New York, part of the National Ski Areas Association. He says education has worked, nearly doubling voluntary ski helmet use over the last decade.
SCOTT BRANDI: You'll look at a ski school - a children's ski school class going on - you know, 90 to 100 percent of the kids are wearing helmets.
MANN: A new study released by the ski resort industry shows helmet use jumped from 43 percent to 48 percent among all skiers and snowboarders over the last year alone. But Brandi acknowledges that there are big gaps in helmet use, especially among older kids.
BRANDI: It goes down as the kids get a little older. Of course vanity comes in. Having had three teenagers, it was always a struggle to get them to wear it.
MANN: Back at Big Tupper Mountain, three high school guys are carrying their snowboards toward the snack bar. Zack Hockey, Corey Whitman and Zack Sheldon are wearing very cool wool caps. They say no one, no one will convince them to wear plastic on their heads.
INSKEEP: Unidentified Man #2: Yeah, it's like walking. You don't use a handrail if you know you can make it up the stairs.
MANN: In the time you've been riding without helmets, have you ever taken a fall?
INSKEEP: Unidentified Man #2: Yeah, he can barely tie his shoes.
INSKEEP: That's a lie. I can tie my shoes.
MANN: Ski and snowboard deaths fluctuate widely in the U.S., from about 20 to 60 fatalities each winter. About half of the people killed aren't wearing head gear. Skeptics say many of those crashes are so severe that helmets wouldn't help. Still, by the ski industry's measure, a quarter of children under the age of nine are still hitting the slopes without head protection and critics say that's unacceptable.
LELAND YEE: As someone who has seen the ill effects of brain injury, this is really about protecting our children.
MANN: Leland Yee is a child psychologist and a state senator in California. This month he introduced a bill that would make helmets mandatory for all skiers in that state under the age of 18.
YI: Incidents of traumatic brain or head injury could in fact be reduced by nearly 50 percent if in fact you wear a helmet. Then it just kind of popped in my head - well, why don't we require that?
MANN: Some in the ski industry say privately that mandatory helmet laws for kids may be inevitable, mirroring the passage of bicycle helmets and child safety seat rules. But the industry has lobbied hard to defeat bills, like the one in California. Scott Brandi says it would force ski areas to monitor the age of every customer on the slope.
BRANDI: Whether or not it's inevitable, you know, that may be. If there was a bill that got passed that made the ski area enforce it, it would be incredibly difficult operationally for us to comply.
MANN: For NPR News, I'm Brian Mann in New York.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Iraq is preparing for elections despite increasing violence there. A bomb struck central Baghdad today, killing at least 18 people. That comes after yesterday's attacks killed dozens in Baghdad. None of that is stopping candidates from standing in the national elections that are planned for March 7th.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And those candidates include the man we'll meet next. He left a comfortable life in America to run for Iraq's parliament. He's running in the northern city of Kirkuk, which sits on a kind of political fault line, between rival ethnic groups. NPR's Quil Lawrence sent us this story.
QUIL LAWRENCE: On a tour of the hospital, Karim looks in on a young boy who is unconscious after a car crash. Across the room is a local judge nearly killed by a car bomb. The hospital sees 23,000 patients a month. Karim keeps shaking his head. There's no chemotherapy, no angioplasty, no CAT scan.
NAJMALDEEN KARIM: It's unfortunate, because Kirkuk is so much rich in oil and everything. And if you have a head injury and you are brought to this hospital, they wouldn't know what's wrong with you.
LAWRENCE: Unidentified Man #1: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: Kirkukis are fed up with the two main Kurdish parties. And that's probably why both have urged Dr. Karim to run. Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, has loaned him a bullet-proof car. As the driver races through the city, Karim gazes out the window.
KARIM: The U.S. has spent - what - hundreds of billions of dollars here in Iraq. Iraqi government doesn't know its priorities. It's so corrupt, so inept, it's almost hopeless. You would expect a little more from the U.S. putting all that money - how could you become loved in this country if you (unintelligible) by giving services, not just corrupting people.
LAWRENCE: At 60, Karim is well known to a certain generation of Kirkukis because his father was a famous imam here. He is also known by his first name, Najmaldeen, to doctors like Niaz Akhmed Amin(ph), the hospital director.
NIAZ AKHMED AMIN: When I was a student in medical college, I hear about his name. It's a honor to me to see Dr. Najmaldeen.
LAWRENCE: But like most Kirkukis, Amin has no time for politicians.
AKHMED AMIN: The people here in Kirkuk, they look for somebody to improve their life. I think that people in Kirkuk, they will be more happy if Dr. Najmaldeen come back to hospital work as a doctor and do his job.
LAWRENCE: Walking around Kirkuk's central market, the attitude towards politics mirrors the chilly, drizzling weather.
ABDUL HASEM SADUN: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: The election makes no difference, says Abdul Hasen Sadun(ph), a Turkoman shopkeeper. The candidates are only serving themselves, not people, he says. Ducking into the warmth of a tea shop, several Kurdish laborers are wolfing down steaming bowls of white beans and eggplant with rice. An older customer says he remembers Najmaldeen Karim's father, the famous imam.
AMIN JAFF: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: He is from a noble family, and there is no one more deserving of a seat in parliament, says Amin Jaff(ph).
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LAWRENCE: Unidentified Man #2: (Foreign language spoken)
LAWRENCE: Whether he is the son of a famous Imam or the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, says one barber, he'll still be a big thief like the rest of them. Dr. Karim says he is aware of the atmosphere, and he says he is not under any illusions about single handedly changing Iraq.
KARIM: Quil Lawrence, NPR News.
INSKEEP: And we have some more details on today's suicide bombing in Baghdad. This time it was a car bomber. The target was a police crime lab in the central part of the city. The explosion killed at least, 18 people. This is the latest in a string of attacks that have struck the capital since last August. And the bombings stand as a challenge to Iraqi officials who want to show they have made the country safer and who are running for reelection in about six weeks.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Good morning, Philip.
PHILIP REEVES: Good morning.
SHAPIRO: So is running in this election and what's the significance of the vote?
REEVES: As president, Rajapaksa ordered the army's successful offensive on the Tigers last May. As army chief, Fonseka carried it out.
SHAPIRO: Is there any indication of which of the two men is most likely to win?
REEVES: Sri Lankan's complain about rising prices and government corruption and also nepotism. Three of the president's brothers are highly placed in the government. General Fonseka's decision to run also changed the picture. He's expected to split the Sinhalese nationalist vote, which is interesting because it means, as you said earlier, rather ironically, that the vote by the Tamil minority now becomes very significant.
SHAPIRO: It's surprising to me that the Tamils are willing to vote at all for either of these men who were instrumental in suppressing the Tamils.
REEVES: On the other hand, they do have many grievances they want the government to address, such as rebuilding their shattered communities, rehabilitating the multitude of Tamils displaced by the war, some of whom who are still in camps, access to land, and the general need in Sri Lanka for some kind of reconciliation after so many years of conflict.
SHAPIRO: Well, this is the first peacetime vote Sri Lanka has had in nearly three decades. Give us a sense of what the scene is like Colombo. Has there been any violence? What do you see on the street?
REEVES: But security's extremely tight. There are 68,000 police out on the streets today, plus 25 army platoons. And all bars across Sri Lanka are closed for two days in a further effort to make sure that there's no unrest.
SHAPIRO: Thanks, Philip, and stay safe.
REEVES: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
R: Stern would have to agree to the limitations on profanity. It's MORNING EDITION.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Christopher Joyce reports.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE: It used to be that coal was king in the U.S. It's still royalty - half our electricity comes from it - but now coal is guo wang - that's king in Chinese.
RICHARD MORSE: Coal is 80 percent of all power generation in China. And the Chinese use of coal is really one of the largest drivers of global coal consumption and, hence, global emissions.
JOYCE: Coal is the biggest single source of greenhouse gases. China and India are now huge consumers of coal, and their appetite is growing.
MORSE: As long as economic development is a priority, I think climate takes a back seat, and in that situation, coal is going to win every time.
JOYCE: One energy expert who's watched this unfold is Trevor Houser, with the research firm RHG in New York. Houser advised the U.S. climate team in Copenhagen. He says China actually might like to get off the coal train.
TREVOR HOUSER: Two years ago, an epic snowstorm shut down that supply chain. Power went out for millions of Chinese. Even China's trains stood still, stranding tens of thousands of people - and a lot of coal. Houser says it's the lack of a reliable and cheap way to transport coal that is pushing China to look for alternatives fuels.
HOUSER: I think China has a strong incentive to move away from coal. I think there's going to be technical and economic challenges doing it, but there's certainly a policy push to go that direction.
JOYCE: As for the other big consumer of coal - the U.S. - the Obama administration has pledged to encourage more green energy from things like wind and solar power, and to subsidize more efficient use of energy. But as energy economist Henry Jacoby of MIT points out, displacing coal is politically risky.
HENRY JACOBY: There are something like 22 states in the United States that have some level of coal production. And, of course, that's not all the states that care about it, because there are a number of other states whose electric power systems are heavily dependent on coal.
JOYCE: Jacoby points out something that politicians are loath to admit: Switching away from coal, which is cheap so long as its negative environmental effects are not counted, will cost some consumers more on their utility bills.
JACOBY: If we don't have enough understanding of the climate issue for people to say, well, it's going to cost me a little bit more but I think it's important enough - if we can't get to that point in the Congress then we're not going to deal with a climate issue. It's a depressing thought.
JOYCE: Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY: The State of the Union speech is always an important milestone for any administration. But presidential scholar Fred Greenstein of Princeton says for President Obama tonight, the stakes are higher than usual.
FRED GREENSTEIN: The tide seems to be running against him suddenly, very forcefully, and it's important that he do what some presidents before him have done, which is to make a real correction and turn things around.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama badly needs to change the subject after last week's special election in Massachusetts. As he told a gathering of U.S. mayors last week, the subject he wants to start talking about is jobs.
BARACK OBAMA: You can expect a continued, sustained and relentless effort to create good jobs for the American people. I will not rest until we've gotten there.
HORSLEY: If Obama had his way, he would have been paying more public attention to jobs long ago, but events kept getting in the way. The opening days of the president's new year were consumed by questions about the failed terrorist attack on Christmas Day. And talks about health care, which Mr. Obama once hoped to finish last summer, instead dragged on and on. If last week's Massachusetts vote didn't sound the death knell for health care legislation, it did, at least, signal a time out. Delaware Governor Jack Markell, who chairs the Democratic Governors Association, says Mr. Obama now has no choice but to focus on the jobs message.
JACK MARKELL: Even before Massachusetts, everybody was on alert that the voters are looking for solutions. And that's exactly what we've got to provide. There's a burden of proof, particularly amongst independent voters. And that's why we've got to prove we've got the right ideas to put people back to work in our states.
HORSLEY: Markell believes the Obama administration deserves some credit for helping to arrest the economic freefall. But he says there's a lot more work to be done.
MARKELL: We're not out of the woods. Although we do get reports from economists and the like, the best information that I get is from businesspeople on the street here in Delaware. And there's a long way to go before businesses are more confident. But I think we're certainly moving in that direction, as opposed to where we were a year ago.
HORSLEY: Although the government's economic stimulus measure has helped cushion the recession, unemployment still hovers at 10 percent. Mr. Obama's proposed more road and bridge building, incentives for home energy retrofits and a jobs tax credit. Economic adviser Christina Romer says the tax credit's designed to encourage more small businesses to hire.
CHRISTINA ROMER: These are businesses that are probably saying I'm seeing demand start to come back. Maybe a year from now, I'll start doing some hiring. If we gave them some tax incentives, might they say, well, I was going to hire in 2011. Let me hire in 2010. We know that would be good for them, good for the economy, good for workers that get jobs.
HORSLEY: As Mr. Obama underscores the jobs message tonight, he'll also be talking fiscal discipline, and he'll try to explain how other initiatives such as financial reform or clean energy legislation fit into a broader economic picture. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says even the long-running health care battle was ultimately about protecting workers' economic security.
ROBERT GIBBS: I don't believe the president thinks that we should stop fighting for what's important to the middle class. No doubt, there will be calls to abandon financial reform. There will be calls by some to abandon wanting taxpayers to be paid back for their loans to Wall Street. I don't think the president would agree with those.
HORSLEY: Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood remains focused on distractions behind the wheel. LaHood has announced a ban on texting while driving. It applies to people who drive commercial trucks and buses. Many of those drivers support the ban, as NPR's Adam Hochberg reports.
ADAM HOCHBERG: But in the handful of cases where the link is known, the results often have been tragic. Kim Heard(ph) lost her 26-year-old daughter Heather two years ago, this month, in an accident near Orlando.
KIM HEARD: And just undescribable(ph), and we will never ever be the same.
HOCHBERG: Heather and her fiancé were on their way to meet a wedding planner when a semi smashed into a line of cars at a red light. Heather was one of two people killed - her fiancé was injured. The truck driver told police that just before the accident he was trying to send a text message to his company.
HEARD: He was cresting a hill and there were 10 vehicles stopped at a traffic signal and one witness that was on the road there, said that his head was down. So, he was playing with whatever device while he was traveling 65 miles an hour.
HOCHBERG: Aliza Ski(ph), whose 13-year-old daughter was killed by a distracted trucker, praised the Transportation Department action but said more must be done.
ALIZA SKI: I think it's a baby step in the right direction. People just really need to become educated on how dangerous this is and that it's hurting people and it's taking lives.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCKING MOVING)
HOCHBERG: Both the American Trucking Association and the American Bus Association say they support the federal ban, as do many rank and file drivers. At a rest area along Interstate 85 near Greensboro, North Carolina, trucker Ronnie Hampton was happy to hear about the ban, and about the $2,700 penalty for commercial drivers who violate it.
RONNIE HAMPTON: I ain't got nary problem with it. If you're out there and you see people with the phone up in their fingers and got both thumbs on it with their knees up against the steering wheel - you know, that's ridiculous.
HOCHBERG: Do you use one of those things?
HAMPTON: No, whenever I'm driving? No. I don't use my phone.
HOCHBERG: In downtown Washington, D.C. yesterday, motor coach driver Donna White was waiting for a group of tourists. She says she also won't text or talk on her phone while she's behind the wheel.
DONNA WHITE: I feel that any truck driver or bus driver that would text while they're carrying other people's lives in their hands - it's just not good. I would never do it, and God help the people who are doing it.
HOCHBERG: Adam Hochberg, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
NPR's Tamara Keith takes us to a restaurant where neighbors are helping neighbors.
TAMARA KEITH: Muncheez is open for business. But it's nothing like it was before the earthquake. The corner pizza place that was too expensive for most Haitians to enjoy is now serving rice and beans, chicken, spaghetti, anything the owners can get their hands on, and it's all free. Co-owner Gilbert Bailly says it started the day after the earthquake when he realized his ingredients would spoil before anyone would have the wherewithal to buy a pizza.
GILBERT BAILLY: So instead of losing the food, we said let's cook the food and give it away to people that needs it. And then two days after, we are running out of diesel, running out of gas, running out of food. We had people that has businesses and started to bring food to us. And we are doing that since.
KEITH: When donations from other businesses in the neighborhood ran out, Bailly's nephew gathered money from friends and brought in a truckload of food from the Dominican Republic. Now Bailly has a Facebook page and is trying to get additional help that way.
BAILLY: As long as I have stuff to give, I'm going to keep doing it. It keeps myself busy. It gives me hope.
KEITH: Muncheez is feeding 1,000 people a day. Around Port-au-Prince, in small ways people are doing the same thing, sharing food with their neighbors, trying to stretch every morsel. Lines are wrapped around the building when the restaurant finally opens its doors in the late afternoon. Some have been waiting for hours. Leonce Bell is 40-years-old and has just been handed a plate of spaghetti and a cup of water. When the earthquake hit, he lost his house and his job. Now his family is living in a public park with thousands of others where food is hard to come by.
LEONCE BELL: (Through translator) It's been a long time since I have eaten. The water, we find it easily. When they are giving out food to the people, they are fighting for it and sometimes it's not even enough.
KEITH: Bell hasn't eaten in three days, and he doesn't plan to touch the plate of food he's holding. He's saving it for his child.
BELL: (Through translator) It is amazing, because I can find food easily here, where in other places I cannot find any.
KEITH: Tamara Keith, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
SHAPIRO: Tamara just introduced us to a Haitian man saving a plate of a spaghetti for his child. But thousands of children lost their parents in the earthquake. Many are living in makeshift camps with no one to care for them.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
If you would like to donate to the charities involved in earthquake relief efforts, you'll find a list of some of them at npr.org.
: Unidentified Woman: (Singing in foreign language)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LOUISA LIM: Rise up, people who don't want to be slaves to their mortgages are the words to this satirical song. Its tune is the "Internationale," the anthem of international socialism. The lyrics say we should fight for houses, shatter the developers to pieces. Don't think we're obedient. The consequences will be serious if we get mad. This song, protesting against high house prices, was written just over three years ago by songwriter Liu Shuqiu.
LIU SHUQIU: (Through translator) At that time, nobody could afford to buy apartments. We thought prices were at their peak. We never could've known that over the years, it would get worse and worse.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LIM: James Zhuo is a property agent for Century 21, working in Lujiazui, one of Shanghai's most expensive areas. He describes the type of customer who was buying last year - in this case a coal-mine millionaire from the inland province of Shaanxi.
JAMES ZHOU: (Through translator) Last year, one of my customers arrived in a BMW, lugging two suitcases. Each suitcase contained the equivalent of about $70,000. He said, I've brought this money to buy a villa.
LIM: Even Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao admits that property prices have risen too quickly. The government is trying to stop speculation by re-imposing resale taxes and raising downpayments for second homes. Many fear China is in the grip of a property bubble. Experts say the problem isn't the same as the subprime mortgages in the U.S.
VICTOR SHIH: The entities that are doing the leveraging in China are not individual people, but instead local government entities which have borrowed trillions from the banking system to develop real estate projects in the first place.
LIM: Victor Shih, of Northwestern University, has been researching local governments' finances in China. He says, for example, about half of the Shanghai government's revenues come from land sales. And because local governments need this income, he fears cooling measures might not work.
SHIH: Local governments now are forming their own real estate developers and would actually buy land from itself. As this becomes more common - and it is becoming very, very common - then local governments have a high stakes in maintaining and increasing the value of real estate in their own jurisdiction. Therefore I think local governments may intentionally ignore a lot of measures that are meant to deflate real estate prices.
LIM: But not everyone is convinced there is a property bubble. Some analysts cite continuing housing demand, fueled in part by the millions of rural migrants moving to the city. Lu Zhengwei, the Industrial Bank's macroeconomic analyst, says prices are likely to continue going up in the medium term.
LU ZHENGWEI: Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DWELLING NARROWNESS")
LIM: Louisa Lim, NPR News, Shanghai.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson reports.
MARA LIASSON: In our poll there are plenty of danger signs for the Democrats. In one indicator, studied closely by both parties as they gear up for the midterm elections, likely voters, by five points, chose the generic Republican over the Democrat on a hypothetical congressional ballot. And Republican Glen Bolger points out that edge is more pronounced among people whose interest in the midterms is high.
GLEN BOLGER: So while it's a five-point lead overall, among the most interested voters, that lead doubles. And we saw that take effect in Virginia, we saw that take effect in New Jersey gubernatorial race, and we saw it take effect in the Massachusetts Senate race as well.
LIASSON: Our likely voters are evenly divided about the president's job performance. Forty nine percent approve, 48 percent disapprove and pollster Stan Greenberg's Democrats have to be worried by the fact that by two to one, voters think the country is on the wrong track.
STAN GREENBERG: I mean, it's not hard to understand Massachusetts when you get a poll back like this. That tells you a lot about the mood in the country. That measure captures the sense of presidential leadership, it captures gridlock, it captures missed priorities, you know, it captures what's going, you know, with health care.
LIASSON: Health care is the most immediate political problem for the president. He was just about to cross the finish line before Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts deprived the Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. In our poll, likely voters oppose the president's plan 55 to 39 percent. Jack Raffa(ph) is a bank examiner from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, who doesn't like how the health care bill was written.
JACK RAFFA: They seem to be making backroom deals and doing it behind closed doors. If it's such a good thing, everybody should know about it and be happy about it. If they have to hide it, there's a reason they're hiding things.
LIASSON: Roger Williams(ph), from Noble, Louisiana, describes himself as a not- so-strong Democrat. He objects to the fact that health care pushed everything else aside.
ROGER WILLIAMS: That's all you see on TV, health care, health care, health care. There's a lot on his plate, I understand that. The man inherited a good mess, but he's also made it even messier. Why they want this health care is so bad - but go ahead and do that, but also worry about other things. Don't just forget about the other problems that we've got.
LIASSON: Our survey suggests the Democrats are being punished for not getting health care done, as much for what's in the bill itself. Stan Greenberg.
GREENBERG: Had this passed before Christmas, we would be in a very different situation than we are now. And what people believe this bill is, is taxes on health benefits or special deals for Nebraska. What they don't see is the barring insurance companies from discriminating and everybody being guaranteed they can't lose health insurance. You're only going to get that if you pass health insurance.
LIASSON: And that is still a very big if, since the Democrats no longer appear to have the votes. There is one bright spot for the president in our poll. Of all the issue arguments we tested on the economy, health care, energy, national security, the only one that gives Democrats a sizable advantage is the president's proposed bank tax. Stan Greenberg.
GREENBERG: The problem with Wall Street bailouts, you know, is very much at the heart of problems plaguing incumbents and plaguing Democrats. And in our polling, more people think Democrats are responsible for, you know, bailouts than helping the middle class. So the fee on the banks wins a lot of support.
LIASSON: Most of President Obama's agenda has united the Republicans in opposition, but his position on taxing the banks is one of the few things that has the potential to drive a wedge through Republican ranks. Glen Bolger.
BOLGER: I think there is going to be a lot of pressure on them, because the push-back message, it's nowhere near as strong as the Democrat attack. The banks are in a tough spot on winning this policy fight.
LIASSON: And so are Republicans, if they take up the bankers' cause. Tonight, when he delivers his State of the Union address, President Obama will have an opportunity to press his new populist charge against Wall Street and to speak directly to the concerns of voters like Jackie Yoon(ph), a homemaker from Oklahoma City. This is what she wants to hear from the president.
JACKIE YOON: How to help Americans get back to work. I'm not so concerned about the rich, because they're not hurt. But it's the middle class, you know, the lower middle class that's hurting. And it seems like nobody cares about us, so I hope he concentrates on that.
LIASSON: Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington.
SHAPIRO: You can find more results from our poll of likely voters at npr.org.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Lynn Neary reports.
LYNN NEARY: It may not be the Second Coming, but as one wag already said, this is the most excitement a tablet has generated since Moses handed down the Ten Commandments.
YAIR REINAR: The Apple tablet seems to be making waves and changing business practices before it even gets announced.
NEARY: This news came as other rumors were running rampant about the Apple tablet. Imagine an iPhone with all its apps - well, that says Craig Teicher, editor of the blog eBookNewser, is what a tablet might look like, only bigger.
CRAIG TEICHER: The hope is that Apple will do with e- books what it did with iTunes, which is make this very kind of sexy and seamless and easy to use.
NEARY: Now, all this talk of a whiz-bang new device that can be used as a souped up e-reader and pits Apple against Amazon seems to be making Amazon a little skittish. It's been coming out with its own news, saying it too would offer better terms for publishers on e-books and authorizing the development of new apps for the Kindle, which is currently a single-purpose device.
MICHAEL HYATT: I love it.
NEARY: Michael Hyatt is CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers.
HYATT: When Apple came out with the iPod and with iTunes, there was really nobody that could match the technology and really compete. And what we have today is the clash of the titans.
NEARY: Until now, Hyatt says, Amazon's grip on the e-book market has been so complete that publishers had to accept their terms on everything, including the price of e-books.
HYATT: And what that's done for us is it's created an expectation on the part of the consumer that an e-book is only worth $9.99. And I think probably if all we're doing is delivering straight content as it appears in a physical book, that may be all it's worth. So it's going to call upon us as publishers to deliver more, but we want to be able to set the pricing.
NEARY: And that's what the Apple tablet potentially offers publishers, says Yair Reiner - the opportunity to give readers a richer e-book experience.
REINER: Author interviews, unlimited amount of additional material like photographs and videos. I think that's pretty exciting for publishers, not just in terms of being able to perhaps charge more but also in terms of being able to perhaps make more interesting content that brings aboard new and different kinds of audiences.
NEARY: In one example of how a tablet device might work as an e-book, a textbook company has created a video that shows how a student could not only highlight passages and take notes, but also listen to a lecture. Michael Hyatt, whose company, Thomas Nelson, is a leading Christian book publisher, says the tablet might even enhance one perennial bestseller, the Bible.
HYATT: The Bible is full of opportunities to explain, to go further, to get behind the story, to provide the archaeological background, the historical background. So I think of all the products that we produce, the Bible lends itself to this format more readily.
NEARY: One other thing to keep in mind, says Craig Teicher, is that unlike dedicated e-book readers like the Kindle, you can do a lot of different things with the tablet, and buy a lot of products other than books.
TEICHER: Maybe you have sort of an iTunes portal that you buy your music and your e-books and your podcasts and your movies all at the same time and just dump them on this device and then get on the train, you know.
NEARY: Yes, so Apple can provide a store the way Amazon can provide a store.
TEICHER: I think that they'll have to. Otherwise everyone's dreams will be crushed.
NEARY: Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
INSKEEP: If you're one of the people whose dreams could come true, or be crushed, you can follow Apple's announcement later today at npr.org. Live coverage of the event on our blog All Tech Considered begins at 1:00 Eastern time.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
But commentator Frank Deford says he can do without any grand predictions.
FRANK DEFORD: Worse only than guaranteeing, though, is the absolute penchant that misbehaving athletes have for confessing and apologizing, or at least making a stab at it. For like politicians and movie stars, our sporting role models tend to confess with their fingers crossed behind their backs. The latest in a long line of kinda-sorta confessing came, you will recall, compliments of the lugubrious Mark McGwire, who finally got around to saying he had used performance- enhancing drugs, only he couldn't remember what exactly they were and, of course, he took them only for medicinal purposes and not at all to help him hit home runs.
SHAPIRO: Ladies and gentlemen, I tee off at noon tomorrow, and I'll be happy to discuss my rounds afterwards. We don't need to hear anything else. But you watch, his handlers will make him apologize and confess. I guarantee it.
SHAPIRO: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
How is that goal likely to affect what can and can't done in Congress over the next few months?
JOHN BOEHNER: Well, the goal is a shared goal amongst House Republicans to try to win back the majority here in the Congress so that we can continue to put forward policies that we believe are more in line with the wishes of the American people. I don't expect that it'll affect our agenda here in Washington this year at all.
INSKEEP: I understand what you're saying when you say it won't affect your agenda at all. But I'm asking something a little different. I'm asking about how that will affect the likelihood of making some kind of deals with Democrats with reaching common ground on any major issue.
BOEHNER: We've reached out over the last year, and we're going to continue to reach out. But there has been no reaching back from the White House or from our Democrat colleagues. But that doesn't mean that we're going to give up. We believe that bipartisan solutions to the question that most Americans are asking - where are the jobs - is probably the most important thing we can be doing.
INSKEEP: Although is it in your interest, really, to find common ground on any given issue right now?
BOEHNER: I think it is, because if you look at what's happening around America, I think we're in the midst of a political rebellion. We saw it manifest itself last summer. And we saw it manifest itself last week in Massachusetts, of all places. But the American people are angry at all of us who are in office. And I think to the extent that we can come to a bipartisan agreement, I think it benefits all of us.
INSKEEP: Will you lose the support of the Tea Party Movement and other unhappy conservative voters if you're seen as being too accommodating or accommodating at all with Democrats?
BOEHNER: Just because you sit down and work with Democrats doesn't mean that you're going to throw your principles out the window. I think there's a way...
INSKEEP: But will your supporters throw you out the window? That's what I want to know.
BOEHNER: No. If we stick to our principles and work to find common ground, I think that we'll receive the support of a lot of Americans.
INSKEEP: What's an issue where you could realistically see Democrats and Republicans finding some of that common ground and moving forward in the next few months?
BOEHNER: Well, I think there are two areas that I would point to: one, the economy and jobs. Their trillion-dollar stimulus plan from a year ago clearly has not worked.
INSKEEP: So would you favor another stimulus?
BOEHNER: If you look at discretionary spending here in Washington over the last two years, it's increased over 20 percent. And in addition to discretionary spending, why don't we end TARP? Why don't we stop the stimulus money that hasn't been spent and put that money back in the bank to pay down the debt that's still over a trillion dollars?
INSKEEP: Just so I understand, you mentioned the stimulus. If there is a second stimulus that includes some tax cuts - which is, I think, what you said you want - and also includes some things that more liberal members of the House would want, it would require a compromise for you vote on it. Is that something that your members could support? Or will you absolutely oppose it, every single one?
BOEHNER: You know, when it comes to bipartisan legislation, you've got to look at the balance. If the balance leans in our direction and things that we believe in, I would think that we would support it. But if we're going to continue to bail out the states and continue to pour money into silly government programs that don't create jobs, I'm going to have a very difficult time supporting him.
INSKEEP: What will happen, if anything, if not very much is passed or accomplished by Congress this year?
BOEHNER: Well, I hope that's not the case. The president has a decision to make on Wednesday night: either listen to what the American people are saying, begin to work with Republicans in a bipartisan way and keep his campaign promises, or to ignore them and to continue to go down this very liberal path.
INSKEEP: Mr. Boehner, thanks very much.
BOEHNER: Thank you.
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INSKEEP: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
T: Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn. They were all committed Cold Warriors who helped shape America's nuclear arsenal. But the four have come to symbolize a shift in thinking about nuclear weapons. Today, a documentary about their efforts premieres in Hollywood, and NPR's Mike Shuster has more.
MIKE SHUSTER: Two decades after the end of the Cold War, the chance of nuclear war is almost zero. But the likelihood of a nuclear detonation in one of America's cities has risen substantially. This conviction has driven a quartet of former powerful officials - all firmly dedicated in the past to maintaining a large nuclear deterrent - now to seek a world free of nuclear weapons.
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SHUSTER: As nations like Iran and Pakistan and North Korea get nuclear bombs, then the probability increases that one or more of those bombs will fall into the hands of a terror group.
SHUSTER: Classical notion of deterrence was that there were some consequences before which aggressors and evildoers would recoil. In the world of suicide bombers, that calculation doesn't operate in any comparable way.
SHUSTER: And if you think of the people who are doing suicide attacks and people like that get a nuclear weapon, they are almost by definition not deterrable.
SHUSTER: William Perry was President Clinton's defense secretary. Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State to Presidents Nixon and Ford, and George Shultz held the same officer during the administration of President Reagan. Along with Sam Nunn, the former Democratic Senator from Georgia, they all appear in "Nuclear Tipping Point." The film is narrated by Michael Douglas.
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SHUSTER: More states are acquiring nuclear weapons or developing the technology to build them. As we have seen, a terrorist organization would need no more than one or two of those weapons or the material to make them to throw our planet into chaos. The danger is very, very real. We are at a nuclear tipping point, and the actions being taken are not adequate to the threat.
SHUSTER: The four began to discuss this problem seriously in 2006, 20 years after President Reagan and then Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik at a summit where President Reagan famously proposed eliminating all nuclear weapons. It was a proposal that found few takers among the world's leaders. But now the four believe its time has come - urgently, in Kissinger's view.
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SHUSTER: If the existing nuclear countries cannot develop some restraints among themselves - in other words, if nothing fundamental changes, then I would expect that the use of nuclear weapons in some 10-year period is very possible.
SHUSTER: The film was written and directed by Ben Goddard. It was produced with money from Warren Buffett and Ted Turner, supporters of Sam Nunn's group The Nuclear Threat Initiative. In a recent telephone interview, Nunn acknowledged that the threat is urgent, but the process of reducing nuclear weapons is painstakingly slow.
SHUSTER: We're in a race between cooperation and catastrophe, and unless we accelerate that cooperation now, obviously, the dangers are going to grow. We're talking about reducing risk. We're talking about reducing the odds and doing everything we can to reduce the dangers.
SHUSTER: The current number of U.S. and Russian-deployed nuclear warheads is much reduced from Cold War levels. But further reductions have been stymied by the expiration last month of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The phrase former Secretary of State George Shultz uses to describe the current moment is careful urgency.
SHUSTER: Time is not on our side. And there are a lot of things that have to go forward. And we shouldn't wait around for the U.S. and Russia to further reduce our arsenals. It's not a U.S. initiative. It's not even a U.S.-Russia initiative. It's got to take the aspect of a global enterprise.
SHUSTER: Kissinger and his colleagues borrowed a metaphor from the civil rights movement to describe just how daunting the challenge is.
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SHUSTER: We don't quite know what the mountaintop will look like. We don't quite know how to get to that mountaintop. And we won't make any proposals that we cannot justify, but we are determined to go up that mountaintop.
SHUSTER: Mike Shuster, NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
One of these attacks targeted the Hamra Hotel, home to a number of news organizations, including NPR. Now, to many people, of course, death tolls like these are simply grim statistics. We hear more of them all the time. But for NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, this was a bombing that took a colleague and close friend.
LOURDES GARCIA: Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Baghdad.
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INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Describe who the contenders are and what the standoff is about.
PHILIP REEVES: Well, the contenders are the current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, and the former army commander, a former friend and ally of Rajapaksa, a gentleman called Sarath Fonseka. The election commission has now come out with the result of this election, and Rajapaksa, according to the commission, has won with 57.8 percent of the vote, a full 17 percent - more than 17 percent ahead of Fonseka. But Fonseka is challenging this. He's rejected the results, he says. He says he's initiating proceedings to have the vote annulled. He accuses Rajapaksa's team of misusing the state media, of misappropriating public funds, and of preventing displaced members of the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka from voting.
SHAPIRO: Are his claims likely to have any impact on the outcome?
REEVES: It seems unlikely, because the scale of the vote - which has gone the way of Rajapaksa - is pretty significant. And it seems that most of the complaints that are being made are about what happened in the run-up to the pole rather than on election day itself. But alongside all of this, there is a second sort of parallel drama playing out outside the hotel in which the chief opposition candidate Fonseka is staying.
SHAPIRO: What's happening outside of the hotel? Why are soldiers there? What are they trying to do?
REEVES: Meanwhile, the army stationed outside the hotel, and also government officials, are saying that they don't have any plans to arrest Fonseka, and that they're actually interested in some army deserters inside the hotel. Fonseka has a security detail with him. He argues, as his aides argue, that these members of the armed forces are there with the approval of the election commission. But the army seems to be saying that that's their sort of concern.
SHAPIRO: Well, Phil, when we spoke with you yesterday, there was isolated violence as people voted. What's the mood like on the streets today?
REEVES: Well, it's been a very tense day in Colombo. There's no question about that, not least because of the fact that the chief opposition candidate was holed up in this manner in his hotel. And there was, in central Sri Lanka, a grenade attack against a Buddhist temple in which two people were killed. It is still tense. It slightly eased off towards the evening when we began to hear firecrackers, the celebrations of supporters of Rajapaksa, the newly elected president, out on the streets. But there is still a mood of acrimony - this has been a very acrimonious election throughout, and that is still the case, even thought the results are now officially announced.
SHAPIRO: Thanks, Phil.
REEVES: You're welcome.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Philip Reeves, covering the Sri Lankan election in the capital, Colombo.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Hi, Rob.
ROB GIFFORD: Morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: So why Yemen?
GIFFORD: So this conference is really to deal - address two things: security and development. Trying to deal with al-Qaida there, but also trying to aim to deal with economic and social and developmental issues which are fueling and feeding into the development of al-Qaida in this very, very poor Middle Eastern nation.
INSKEEP: Does that mean these diplomats will be trying, essentially, to raise more money to send to Yemen?
GIFFORD: The Yemeni prime minister, two deputy prime ministers and the foreign minister are all here. And I think this is about engaging with the Yemeni government and trying to help them and talk with them to deal with this problem themselves, but not just to throw money at it, which could actually cause more problems.
INSKEEP: Oh, because you've got a government here that even if money is offered, they don't seem to be organized enough to spend it in ways that are acceptable to the West. Is that what you're saying?
GIFFORD: And they just have not been able to deal with it, even though they've been offered the money. So this is all about coordinating that, but obviously, with the underlying issue of security concerns about al-Qaida there possibly training more bombers to come our way.
INSKEEP: Rob Gifford in London, are you hearing diplomats there describe Yemen, essentially, as - I don't want to say precisely the next Afghanistan, but the next failed state, in any case?
GIFFORD: And, of course, tomorrow everyone is talking about Afghanistan. So it's extremely topical. And what they're trying to do is get ahead of the curve here to engage with the Yemeni government so that it does not become the next Afghanistan.
INSKEEP: Rob, thanks very much.
GIFFORD: Thank you, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's business news starts with Toyota halting sales of many models.
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INSKEEP: We have more this morning from Jerome Vaughn of member station WDET.
JEROME VAUGHN: The company says it made the decision to stop sales for an indeterminate period to ensure the safety of its customers and restore confidence in the Toyota brand. The automaker has seen a string of quality problems emerge in recent months, including accidents and fatalities connected to accelerator problems. AutoPacific analyst Jim Hossack says news of this action will be painful.
JIM HOSSACK: There's a large number of high-volume cars involved. It affects sales, it affects production. It's a serious issue.
VAUGHN: For NPR News, I'm Jerome Vaughn in Detroit.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And another car company has finally found a buyer for one of its brands. Yesterday, General Motors announced that it has reached a deal to sell Saab to a Dutch company. The price is $500 million. As part of GM's restructuring process, the company wants to sell several brands, but attempts to sell Saturn and the European car unit Opel both fell through. A deal to sell the Hummer brand is still up in the air.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And all of this speculation prompted The Economist magazine to look at the odds on a critical question - this tablet's name.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
That leads to our last word in business today, iBets. An Irish bookmaker is giving odds on that name.
SHAPIRO: Most of the possibilities start with the letter I, like the iPod and the iPhone. There are four to five odds that the tablet will be called iSlate.
INSKEEP: iPad is another top possibility, and other good bets include iPaper, iPage, and iRead.
SHAPIRO: For some reason, the bookie is not yet offering odds on another possibility: iStrain.
INSKEEP: And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION from NPR News, I'm Steve Inskeep.
SHAPIRO: And I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And after you absorb all those numbers, let's look at one more number - a very large one - $1.35 trillion. That is the size of the federal budget deficit this year. It's a level that nobody thinks is sustainable in years to come, so now ideas are flying from all sides about how to get things back on track. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports.
ANDREA SEABROOK: One of the government's top economists made this announcement yesterday:
DOUG ELMENDORF: The outlook for the federal budget is bleak.
SEABROOK: A no-brainer maybe, but Doug Elmendorf of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office knows better than almost anyone just how bleak. Another $1.3 trillion on the credit card this year - close to a trillion again next year, pumping and pumping up the debt owed by the federal government.
ELMENDORF: So, we are pushing our way toward debt levels that we don't have experience with in this country and we can't observe experience with in other developed countries.
SEABROOK: And that's risky, says Elmendorf. At some point, the countries and investors that buy American debt will get uncomfortable and stop investing. We're not there yet - but we can't let it happen either, says Indiana Democratic Senator, Evan Bayh.
EVAN BAYH: It is impossible to be the world's largest debtor and still be the world's strongest country over an extended period of time. National economic and financial strength is a necessary component to military strength and respect abroad.
SEABROOK: Bayh, and Republican Senator John McCain, have a proposal to help the government chop down deficits.
JOHN MCCAIN: Americans are angry and they're worried. They're angry about the spending and they are worried about their children's futures.
SEABROOK: Kent Conrad, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, warned people not to blame Obama alone for the budget situation. Yes, he says, the stimulus package last spring did worsen the deficit, but...
KENT CONRAD: We already faced an unsustainable outlook. One judged to be unsustainable, by the head of the Congressional Budget Office, by the head of the Office of Management and Budget, by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, by the secretary of the Treasury - both in the previous administration and this one.
SEABROOK: And most economists, says Conrad, give some credit to the stimulus for the remarkable turnaround in the economy last year. No, the really big problem is more abstract, according to Elmendorf over at the Congressional Budget Office. It's a disconnect in the American psyche.
ELMENDORF: Between the services that people expect the government to provide, particularly in the form of benefits for older Americans, and the tax revenues they're prepared to send to the government to finance those services.
SEABROOK: Andrea Seabrook, NPR News, the Capitol.
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INSKEEP: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Good morning.
EILEEN FLEMING: Good morning, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Set the scene for us. How did these guys get caught?
FLEMING: They were referred to the general services administration office on another floor and they were asked for identification, but the men said they didn't have any and left. They were arrested outside the federal building and a fourth suspect was arrested for allegedly helping out with the plan, but exactly what the plan was isn't clear.
SHAPIRO: So if they're accused of entering a federal building with the intention of committing a felony, is the felony tapping phones?
FLEMING: Well, they didn't say that in the affidavit, and they didn't say that in the charges. They're not charged with wire tapping, which is a much more serious offense, but in the affidavit they are charged with manipulating - or accused by a witness, of manipulating the handset of a telephone and posing as telephone repairmen. But they are not charged with wiretapping.
SHAPIRO: So reading between the lines, if we're trying to figure out what this scheme was, a plan to wiretap sounds plausible?
FLEMING: Yes.
SHAPIRO: Why would Senator Landrieu be a target of conservative activists?
FLEMING: Well, she cast a key vote on the health care reform bill, and some people have dubbed it the Louisiana Purchase. She's not a favorite of the conservatives.
SHAPIRO: You're saying some people called it the Louisiana Purchase, because Louisiana got some financial benefits in the health bill?
FLEMING: Yes, more than $300 million.
SHAPIRO: Now, many people have heard of O'Keefe. He and a woman posed as a pimp and a prostitute and they videotaped ACORN employees giving tax advice on smuggling underage sex workers into the country. But tell us about the other three defendants, the men he's alleged to have cooperated with on this scheme.
FLEMING: And the Pelican Institute is located about a block away from the federal building, and that's where Mary Landrieu's office was. And it's believed that Flannigan works for the group, and Flannigan was one of the two who dressed as a repairman.
SHAPIRO: Have the men said anything?
FLEMING: Only a quick word as O'Keefe jumped into the taxi as he got out of jail. He was surrounded by reporters, but did not make any comments about the case. And as he got into the car, he just said veritas, which is Latin for truth - and then quickly adding, the truth shall set me free.
SHAPIRO: And I understand that ACORN expressed a bit of Schadenfreude when they heard news of this. Their Twitter feed said, couldn't have happened to a more deserving soul.
FLEMING: Yes. And there's no love lost, of course, between ACORN and O'Keefe.
SHAPIRO: Thanks very much.
FLEMING: You're welcome. You're most welcome.
SHAPIRO: This is NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
People in Haiti are struggling to meet one of the most needs of all. In addition to the lack of shelter, many have nothing to eat. International aid groups are passing out food, which is not reaching many of the people who need it most. We'll start our coverage this morning with NPR's John Burnett.
JOHN BURNETT: In St. Pierre Park in Petionville, the 15 members of Julienne Charles' family lounges under a bean pod tree while a daughter washes clothes. At this sprawling encampment the stench of dead bodies has been replaced with the stink of sewage.
CHARLES: (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: Back at St. Pierre Park, we met a tall Haitian American from Miramar, Florida named Hernandez Sicard. He was scoping out the camp to decide whether he should send for relief supplies from a charity he knows back home and he was shocked.
HERNANDEZ SICARD: I mean, look around you. People are scraping with the little that they have to sustain themselves. Nobody's helping. I think what you see on television right now is just propaganda.
BURNETT: Though his assessment may be harsh, we encountered a similar observation at the tent city at the Delmas catholic school. Dr. Robert Bristow has been in Haiti for two weeks with NYC Medics Disaster Relief Group. And he says he hasn't seen a single formal food distribution.
ROBERT BRISTOW: And even more telling, having been in post-disaster areas around the world, usually by this day, there are lots of children carrying high energy biscuits that are usually distributed by the WHO. You see children with them. You see wrappers. You actually see them being sold. And I haven't seen any of that yet.
BURNETT: What is that telling you?
BRISTOW: Well, it's telling me that there's not enough food aid getting here quick enough - just from my informal observation.
BURNETT: Unidentified Woman: (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: At the tent city at Le Mannois Catholic School in Petionville, food trucks from the Dominican Republic have visited this camp only three times in two weeks. An unemployed laborer named Mackenzie Destin sums it up this way.
MACKENZIE DESTIN: (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: John Burnett, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Eleanor Beardsley sends this report.
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ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: Unidentified Man #1: (Latin spoken)
BEARDSLEY: Unidentified Man #2: (French spoken)
BEARDSLEY: They came at night with their torches and clubs, he says, to carry out the most abominable of sacrileges. Harold Hyman, a long time journalist who takes a special interest in the French Royalists, says the group has no chance of bringing back the monarchy.
HAROLD HYMAN: So they take this weird political posture - a sort of anti-progress protest against the modern world and mass culture and television and American influence, and this is, I think, what unites them all.
BEARDSLEY: Royalists say the French Revolution was ruthless, not glorious, and that Louis XVI was a progressive king with vision. After all, he did send his general, the Marquis de Lafayette, to help some unruly colonists throw off their British oppressors. Retiree Marie-Noelle Erre(ph) explains why she's a monarchist.
MARIE: It's the monarchy that built the country. If it hadn't been for the revolution, there would have been an evolution with time. Beside that, King Louis XVI was a very good king.
BEARDSLEY: The Royalists are deeply divided over who is the legitimate successor to the French throne. But that question is not pertinent, for now anyway, says Dominique Emele(ph), the director of the Alliance Royale, the monarchist political party. The Royalists have practically no political support and no members in parliament, but Emele believes that one day the Party will be able to convince the French to restore a constitutional monarchy.
DOMINIQUE EMELE: (Through translator) One of the biggest problems in France today is that our president is the head of a political party. So he doesn't represent all the French. Only a king can truly represent the people, unify the nation, and solve the long-term problems of France.
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BEARDSLEY: Back at the Basilica of Saint Denis, the mass closes with a requiem. The church where Joan of Arc once prayed now lies in the middle of a gritty immigrant suburb. Sixty five-year-old Michel Simoneaux(ph) emerges from the 18th century atmosphere inside the Basilica and comes face to face with modern day France.
MICHEL SIMONEAUX: (French spoken)
BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
An exhibit of work in the style of Rembrandt attracted the curiosity of our special correspondent, Susan Stamberg. It's a show of drawings and sketches, some by Rembrandt himself and some by his students. The exhibit is called Telling the Difference.
SUSAN STAMBERG: I don't know about you, but when I'm at a museum, I walk right past sketches. I head for the color - the oils, big canvases. But this large and dimly lit Getty show - the lights are down to preserve these 400-year-old drawings and sketches - really makes visitors pay attention.
LEE HENDRIX: A sketch is putting your thoughts on paper.
STAMBERG: And Rembrandt van Rijn was the most brilliant artistic thinker of the 17th, or maybe any other century. Curator Lee Hendrix says he drew compulsively - Landscapes, people, their faces sketched to reveal expressive emotions.
HENDRIX: For Rembrandt it was an end in itself. Drawing was a way to work through subjects. I mean, he was one of the greatest dramatic artists who ever worked. I think of Rembrandt as a kind of Shakespeare.
STAMBERG: The most famous artist of his day, lots of people wanted to study with Rembrandt. But they had to be good to get into his Amsterdam studio. You do wonder why such a successful artist would take pupils.
HENDRIX: The students actually provided a fairly lucrative income, and Rembrandt charged - his prices were actually fairly expensive for that time, and of course he was so famous, that the pupils were willing to pay that, plus, he was able to get them to participate in paintings that he could then sell.
STAMBERG: Some 50 artists studied with Rembrandt over 40 years, and this exhibition presents a few of them whose work was once thought to have been made by the master. Sketches were rarely signed. Many of the pupils were really talented. Misattribution could occur. Now, 30 years of scholarship have sorted out the master from the boys. In some cases, it's easy to tell the difference.
HENDRIX: Here you have a very famous drawing by Rembrandt of his mistress, Hendrickje Stoffels, and she's sleeping - a drawing that was probably made really quickly - you can see these dynamic strokes on the paper.
STAMBERG: Okay, so next to it is a not-Rembrandt, and it's a man, and he's resting his head on his arm. He doesn't seem quite sleeping, but he's reclining.
HENDRIX: That's exactly right.
STAMBERG: A pupil's done this one, his brush and brown ink filling in all the spaces carefully, laboriously. It has none of the speed and confidence of the Rembrandt. It's worked over.
HENDRIX: Over and over again, in this show, one of the telltale signs of the student is that they are more finished, in conventional terms, than Rembrandt's drawing.
STAMBERG: Both of these sketches are done with brush and ink. Like the drawings, Rembrandt's materials were handmade. The ink...
HENDRIX: It was soot from your fireplace or iron shavings that are suspended in a liquid and just an animal-hair brush or a pen that was carved from the quill of a goose or from a reed. So these are all natural materials, absolutely simple, and these profound works of art emerge from them.
STAMBERG: Profound in Rembrandt's case, anyway, speed, the confidence, a minute stroke that carries information.
HENDRIX: You'll see these tiny squiggly dots that are smaller than a ballpoint pen, just touching the paper and they squiggle a little bit and they look like architecture that's just about to disappear on the horizon.
STAMBERG: A few of those students went on to have solid artistic careers. Some became more famous than their teacher - for a while. Rembrandt's career had its ups and downs, but through it all, for most of his 63 years, Rembrandt kept teaching and making art.
HENDRIX: He was one of these artists who just couldn't quit. He drew and painted up until his death. His drawings and prints slack off during the last decade of his life. Clearly his activity was dwindling, but he remained in there till the end, drawing and painting.
STAMBERG: In California, I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.
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INSKEEP: You hear Ms. Stamberg on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
We'll take a step away from the battles of Washington now, to the battles of France, where the writer and philosopher Albert Camus died 50 years ago this month. France has been celebrating his life and works throughout January. And like most things in France, the commemoration has been fraught with politics. It all started when President Nikolas Sarkozy suggested moving Camus's remains to Paris. Eleanor Beardsley sends this report.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY: A dusting of snow lies atop Albert Camus' tombstone in the tiny cemetery of the Provencal village of Lourmarin. Camus lived briefly here in the south of France before being killed in an automobile accident in January 1960 at the age of 46.
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BEARDSLEY: Soon after, during the Second World War, Camus joined the French Resistance. He risked his life editing its newspaper, "Combat." His biographer, Olivier Todd, says Camus is as well-remembered for his principles as he is for his writing.
OLIVIER TODD: He had his own stands on Marxism and communism. Long before anyone else, Camus said that the big mistake of left- wing intellectuals in Europe was to stand against Nazism, but to forget to stand against the other totalitarian movement - that is, communism. And it took him a long time to be forgiven for that.
BEARDSLEY: Like the heroes of his novels who confronted society, injustice and death, Camus said he, too, felt like an outsider.
ALBERT CAMUS: Unidentified Man: (French spoken)
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BEARDSLEY: The proposal has raised a storm of protest. Critics accuse Sarkozy of trying to co-opt Camus' image to give himself some intellectual sparkle. Biographer Olivier Todd says Sarkozy's idea is ridiculous.
TODD: Camus himself wanted to be buried in Lourmarin, by the football team, which he was. I think Sarkozy, by suggesting that Camus should be removed from this very pleasant provincial cemetery, made a political calculation. He wants to make his mark in the histories of literature. But people are rather embarrassed by the whole Pantheon business. Sarkozy may have felt that he needed Camus, but Camus certainly doesn't need Sarkozy.
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BEARDSLEY: In the village of Lourmarin, church bells ring out above the tiny streets and dollhouse facades. Mayor Blaise Diagne says people here are attached to Camus.
BLAISE DIAGNE: (Through translator) After all, he chose to come live here among us after leaving his native Algeria, and people are proud of that. Lourmarin sees itself as an open, tolerant place, and Camus is a part of that image.
BEARDSLEY: For NPR News, I'm Eleanor Beardsley.
SHAPIRO: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro.
INSKEEP: NPR's Scott Horsley begins our coverage.
SCOTT HORSLEY: President Obama says the worst of the economic storm has passed, thanks in part to the government stimulus bill he pushed through Congress a year ago. But Mr. Obama acknowledged many Americans are still struggling.
BARACK OBAMA: That is why jobs must be our number one focus in 2010...
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OBAMA: ...and that's why I'm calling for a new jobs bill tonight.
HORSLEY: The president reiterated some earlier ideas for spurring job growth, including a tax credit for businesses that hire new workers or raise wages. He also proposed using $30 billion from the bank bailout fund to help community banks make more loans to small businesses. Mr. Obama says those short-term moves aren't enough, though, to put the nation's economy on a solid footing. He also wants to rewrite financial regulations and invest more in clean energy. And as a first small step towards reducing budget deficits, he is proposing a partial freeze on federal spending in each of the next three years.
OBAMA: Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't. And if I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will.
HORSLEY: Mr. Obama also used the economy to frame the one issue that dominated much of last year in office: health care. He said fixing the system was a necessary step to controlling business costs and government spending. Congressional Democrats spent months piecing together a package that would extend health insurance to nearly all Americans, only to lose their filibuster- proof majority in the Senate just as the measure was nearing a vote. Public doubts about the plan contributed to that loss. Last night, Mr. Obama accepted a share of the blame for those doubts. He said he'd failed to explain the benefits of the health care plan.
OBAMA: By now, it should be fairly obvious that I didn't take on health care because it was good politics.
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HORSLEY: But Mr. Obama said the health care plan has come too far to simply walk away from it. While he didn't offer any specific ideas of how to win Congressional passage, he did urge lawmakers to take another look.
OBAMA: If anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.
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OBAMA: Let me know.
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HORSLEY: Elsewhere in his speech, Mr. Obama threw several bones to Republicans, promising more support for nuclear power, offshore oil drilling and expanded trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who delivered the GOP response, applauded the president for steps he's taken to improve schools and to beef up forces in Afghanistan, but the Republican also found plenty to criticize in Mr. Obama's approach.
BOB MCDONNELL: Top-down, one-size-fits-all decision making should not replace the personal choices of free people in a free market.
HORSLEY: McDonnell, who was sworn in less than two weeks ago, is one of several successful Republicans who've helped breathe new life into the GOP, along with Senator-elect Scott Brown of Massachusetts, whose upset win last week cost Democrats their super majority in the Senate. The revival of Republican fortunes has put much of the president's agenda in jeopardy. But harkening back to his own campaign language, Mr. Obama said he hasn't given up trying to change the way Washington works.
OBAMA: I know it's an election year, and after last week, it's clear that campaign fever has come even earlier than usual, but we still need to govern. To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.
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HORSLEY: And to Republican lawmakers, he said if they're going to insist on 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate, then they'll have to take responsibility as a governing party, as well.
OBAMA: Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership.
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OBAMA: We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.
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HORSLEY: Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
The people in the House chamber for the speech included NPR's Andrea Seabrook, who sampled the Congressional reaction.
ANDREA SEABROOK: The air is electric inside the House chamber during the State of the Union address. Looking down from the gallery, you can see the Senators and Representatives fanned out around the podium, every one of them carefully calculating a reaction to the president's words.
JOSEPH CROWLEY: Depending on who we are, we may do a half-clap, half-stand, stand-no-clap, sit-no-clap, sit-clap.
SEABROOK: Congressman Joseph Crowley, a Democrat from New York, poking fun at the theater of it all. This year, a few things stood out. There was no booing or hissing. Those who opposed any particular idea just sat clamped to their seats, quietly. And the groups that stood in applause seemed more varied than usual, as if Obama's speech were dicing up Congressional caucuses along finer lines than just Republican and Democrat. And what gave heart to Crowley?
CROWLEY: The real important issues, when he talked about, you know, moving forward with America, we - it was universal. It was Democrats, Republicans standing, I think. And that's the important part, to begin that dialogue.
SEABROOK: Michigan Democrat John Dingell has seen a few of these speeches.
JOHN DINGELL: The first one I went to, I was six, and my dad took me on the floor to hear President Roosevelt.
SEABROOK: Moderates in both parties heard things they liked in the speech, too. Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois took notes, pros and cons, on a big legal pad. The pros? A spending freeze, the reform of pork barrel politics, and especially the help for small businesses.
MARK KIRK: He is going to get very strong Republican support on that.
SEABROOK: So there are things that you think could be bipartisan going forward?
KIRK: Oh, yeah. When you talk about cutting capital gains, a small business tax credit and a college tax credit, you're going to get strong bipartisan support. I'm worried, though, he's going to increase taxes on banks, which means that we may have another credit crunch there.
SEABROOK: That and a few other bits made the president's call for bipartisanship sound hollow to House Republican Whip Eric Cantor.
ERIC CANTOR: If you listen to what the president said on energy, he said, sure. I am for offshore drilling. I am for new, clean, nuclear power plants. That's a great policy. I support that. But then in the next sentence he said, but I'm also for cap-and-trade.
SEABROOK: Which, says Cantor, is totally unacceptable. So it's hard to tell if President Obama's call for bipartisanship will make any difference. Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen said the president spoke clearly to Republicans.
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: You guys have a better idea for getting ourselves out of this mess, let me hear it. But if you're going to come to me with the same ideas that got us into this fix in the first place, I don't think it's going to fly.
SEABROOK: Andrea Seabrook, NPR News, the Capitol.
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INSKEEP: Now if you want to hear about the prospects for the health care overhaul, NPR's White House Correspondent Scott Horsley and our health policy correspondent Julie Rovner will take up the issue together in a live Web chat. It comes today at 1:00 Eastern Time. You can find it at npr.org.
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INSKEEP: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Hi, Renee.
RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
Hi, Steve, how you doing?
INSKEEP: I'm doing fine, thanks very much. Why Afghanistan, and why in London?
MONTAGNE: The last time a meeting of this size and scope was held was back in December of 2001, after the Taliban had been driven out of Afghanistan, and it was held in Bonn, Germany. And at that time, the international community and Afghan leaders - and those leaders include some of the most powerful warlords of Afghanistan - they more or less anointed Hamid Karzai president. And at the time, the foreign partners divvied up the various jobs of rebuilding Afghanistan's broken institutions. And so today they will, you might say, renew their vows.
INSKEEP: Although, of course, the very need for this conference suggests that the rebuilding hasn't necessarily taken. Are these countries as committed to Afghanistan this time around?
MONTAGNE: Some Taliban commanders, of course, have, over the years, quit the Taliban. They've joined in the political process. That's been an option for a long time. Not much going on there, although President Karzai has long spoken of reaching out to lower-level fighters and commanders. But now it's people like U.S. and NATO commanding General Stanley McChrystal who are speaking up for the need to communicate with the Taliban more formally, more openly. You know, he wants his own counter-insurgency strategy to work, and part of that, as he puts it, is giving Afghanistan back to the Afghans.
INSKEEP: Does talking more formally mean negotiating with someone like Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban?
MONTAGNE: No. That is not on the table. Talk of communicating specifically rules out Taliban leaders, those connected with al-Qaida and those who are considered - the word is unreconcilable. But, you know, one thing that is being proposed for those they think that can be brought around - which, of course, is a lot of lower level fighters - is a multi-million dollar fund to create jobs and other incentives to bring these guys off the battlefield and back into civil society. And Steve, Japan is actually expected to contribute much of the money for that fund.
INSKEEP: Okay. So some money is coming, and some troops, as well?
MONTAGNE: Yes. It was expected that this kind of meeting would give political cover to countries like Germany and France, where popular opinion has been opposed to the war in Afghanistan, and increasingly so. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy has already, in these last days, said no to more troops. But Germany, on the eve of the conference, did announce 850 additional troops, which is a sizable number.
INSKEEP: So that's what world leaders are doing. What about the man who's sovereign responsibility is supposed to be to govern Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai?
MONTAGNE: Karzai also this morning called on Saudi Arabia to play a more prominent role there. Saudi Arabia has hosted informal talks with the Taliban in the past. And Steve, these proposals come after a conference here in London held yesterday that was focused on another country the international community is concerned about, and that is Yemen.
RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
It's one of the Arab world's poorest nations, and it's now struggling to contain al-Qaida. NPR's Michele Kelemen is also here in London. She was at those talks on Yemen, and she has this report.
MICHELE KELEMEN: British Foreign Secretary David Miliband says the situation in Yemen has been on his radar for a while, but he decided to call an urgent meeting after an al-Qaida affiliate based in Yemen claimed to be behind an attempted airliner bombing in December. Miliband said everyone who came to his meeting on the issue agreed that counter-terrorism aid won't be enough to help Yemen contain this threat.
DAVID MILIBAND: The assault on Yemen's problems cannot begin and end with its security challenges and its counter-terrorism strategy. In tackling terrorism, it is vital to tackle the root - its root causes. In Yemen's case, these are many-fold: economic, social and political.
KELEMEN: Yemen is not only trying to contain al-Qaida, it's fighting a secessionist movement in the south and a rebellion in the north. And many experts say the civil strife is draining resources from an already impoverished country. Secretary Clinton said she heard a sobering report about the economic conditions in Yemen from the International Monetary Fund, and she urged Yemen to agree to an IMF reform plan.
HILLARY CLINTON: I personally believe that now is the moment for the Yemeni government to really step up and do what it has said it will do. It has an economic plan. It has a reform agenda. And it is time for them to implement that.
KELEMEN: Secretary Clinton came to London to discuss Yemen and Afghanistan, but she's also using her meetings here to talk with her counterparts about ways to break a deadlock in nuclear talks with Iran. A senior State Department official said that since the Iranians have not taken the U.S. up on an offer to improve relations, the U.S. made, as he put it, a reluctant decision to work on the pressure side. That means sanctions. The obvious targets, the official said, are members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Secretary Clinton has been trying to build up support for tougher sanctions step by step.
CLINTON: Diplomacy is often a very carefully constructed, constantly focused engagement, and it takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of information sharing, and I think that's what's going on now. And the P5 plus 1 has been unified up until now.
KELEMEN: That is the permanent 5 Security Council members plus Germany, the group that's been trying to encourage Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. China has been uneasy about new sanctions, but Clinton didn't sound too worried when she spoke to reporters traveling with her.
CLINTON: Well, on Iran, I don't think there is a mind to change. I think that there is an openness. I think there is an awareness of the importance of the international community standing together with respect to Iran.
KELEMEN: Michele Kelemen, NPR News, London.
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President Obama's treasury secretary took heat from both parties at a congressional hearing yesterday, and President Bush's last treasury secretary fared no better. Tim Geithner and Henry Paulson tried to defend the government's $180 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG. The company paid off its trading partners, including some of the world's biggest banks, with government money, and the House panel wasn't happy about it. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.
JIM ZARROLI: In September 2008, during the waning days of the waning days of the Bush administration, regulators were desperately trying to contain a financial crisis that was spiraling out of control. One of the biggest problems was AIG, which had underwritten an unfathomable number of derivatives contracts. Its tentacles spread throughout the global economy. Former Treasury Secretary Paulson.
HENRY PAULSON: If AIG collapsed, it would've buckled our financial system and wrought economic havoc on the lives of millions of our citizens.
ZARROLI: The problem was that AIG depended on the bond market for funding, and with the financial market seizing up, it was having trouble making good on its contracts. Treasury Secretary Geithner, who at the time headed the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said there was a real risk it would default on its debts.
TIMOTHY GEITHNER: The Federal Reserve faced a terrible choice: to support AIG, putting billions of dollars of taxpayer resources at risk, or to let AIG fail and accept potentially catastrophic damage to the economy. We were not willing to accept such a catastrophe.
ZARROLI: The answer, says Thomas Baxter, general counsel of the New York Fed, is that U.S. officials had little leverage over the banks. Baxter says normally, when a big company like AIG runs into trouble, its creditors are willing to negotiate over its debts, because they're worried it will go into bankruptcy if they don't. But Baxter says once U.S. officials agreed to backstop AIG, everyone knew the government wouldn't let that happen.
THOMAS BAXTER: First, that threat was not credible given the actions of September 2008. Second, that threat of bankruptcy was not true. We weren't prepared to put AIG into bankruptcy in November of 2008.
ZARROLI: But members of Congress remained angry, and they pointed to another issue: Emails released by the committee suggest that Fed officials put pressure on AIG not to publicly release details of the bailout. Geithner insisted that he had no role in the decision, but Florida Congressman John Mica was skeptical.
JOHN MICA: I'm telling you, I believe these are lame excuses. Either you were in charge and did the wrong thing, or you participated in the wrong thing.
ZARROLI: Another member of congress said this whole deal stinks to high heaven. Geithner bristled with anger as he defended himself.
GEITHNER: I have worked in public service all my life. I have never been a politician. I have served my country as carefully and ably as I can. And it is a great privilege to me for me to work with this president to help repair the damage that was here when we took office.
ZARROLI: Jim Zarroli, NPR News.
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SHAPIRO: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro. President Obama used his State of the Union speech to prod lawmakers to work together and to work with him.
BARACK O: Washington may think that saying anything about the other side, no matter how false, no matter how malicious, is just part of the game. But it's precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people.
SHAPIRO: He made sharp remarks about obstructionist Republicans and problems left behind by the last administration.
INSKEEP: So what did you think of the speech?
JON KYL: Well, you know, it's customary to say, well, the rhetoric was good, but maybe he needed more substance. That's the usual assessment of State of the Union speeches. I found this one to be A, too long, B, too political, and if he had an intention to reach out to Republicans, I can tell you it did not achieve the objective, nor did I think it was as much an assessment of the state of the nation or union as it was a political tirade.
INSKEEP: What do you mean too political?
KYL: You know, he has created a huge deficit as a result of his spending. Now, he said, well, it was necessary to get us out of the mess. It wasn't. The $800 billion stimulus bill has been shown not to have provided the benefits that he said it would. So there's just a lot of disingenuousness in this political speech tonight.
INSKEEP: We're talking with Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona. And senator, I want to play a little bit of the president's speech last night that seemed to be aimed quite directly at you and other Republican leaders.
OBAMA: And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town - a supermajority - then the responsibility to govern is now yours, as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership.
INSKEEP: Is the responsibility now on your shoulders, Senator Kyl?
KYL: The president blames Republicans for saying no to his bill, when if he listened to the American people, he would appreciate that they wanted us to say no to his bill. And that's precisely what the Massachusetts election results revealed.
INSKEEP: Can you give me an example? I mean, you've asserted that you're not saying not to everything. Is there a major issue in the last year where you've been able to work with the president?
KYL: But the really big things - like health care, for example - do take 60 votes. There has never been an example of something as big as this health care legislation getting through with a pure partisan vote. And that's something that a very moderate Republican senator has remarked upon. I'm talking about Olympia Snowe from Maine.
INSKEEP: Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, thanks very much.
KYL: You're very welcome.
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ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
The news comes as a leading rival, Japanese carmaker Toyota struggles with financial losses and a massive recall of its most popular cars.
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STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD: The latest numbers show a housing show a housing market that's starting to heal, but that's still fragile. Existing home sales in December fell by about 17 percent from the month before. That sounds like a lot, but the first-time homebuyer tax credit boosted sales in prior months so it's not too surprising that the pace of sales has cooled off a bit since then.
KARL CASE: It's down but it's still in a very good level relative to what it was before. That means we're selling a fair number of houses. The second thing is that prices seem to have stabilized.
ARNOLD: Karl Case is a housing economist at Wellesley College. He helped to create the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index that tracks home prices across 20 metro areas.
CASE: If you look at the numbers for the 20 cities they do seem to have reached what might be a bottom.
ARNOLD: Mark Zandi is chief economist of Moody's Economy.com.
MARK ZANDI: The housing crash has been ongoing now for four years. I suspect we've got another 6-12 months to go and that does require that policymakers continue to be aggressive in trying to support the housing market.
ARNOLD: Chris Arnold, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Good morning.
NARIMAN BEHRAVESH: Good morning.
SHAPIRO: Well, how does what you're hearing this year compare to last year, especially from the banking executives who are at Davos?
BEHRAVESH: What a difference a year makes, both to the banking industry and to the global economy. I think it's fair to say the panic that gripped this group last year has subsided, but there's still a lot of uncertainty and unease about the road ahead, both in terms of the economic recovery and what the, sort of, regulatory landscape is going to look like for banks, so banks are particularly worried about the kind of regulation that they're going to come under.
SHAPIRO: And more broadly, what do you hear from attendees about President Obama and what's the attitude towards the steps he's taken to try to help the economy recover?
BEHRAVESH: Well, I think there was a big difference before and after the State of the Union message. I think after the State of the Union message, there is a sense that the Obama administration sort of refocused on the key priorities, including jobs creation. I should say, maybe, especially jobs creation, so there is a sense that he's certainly hearing what the voters seem to be saying in the United States. There are questions around whether or not the U.S. will cooperate, globally, on things like climate change, on things like global financial regulations. There's still a lot of questions out there about sort of where this administration's gone with some of these more global issues.
SHAPIRO: I understand China has its biggest Davos delegation ever, with more than 50 people there. Why is that and what impact are they having?
BEHRAVESH: I think they're couple reasons. The first is, you know, China is playing an increasingly larger role in the global economy so that greater representation is certainly a byproduct, if you will, of China's bigger role. The other is, I think they're very worried about potential sort of protectionist measures that might be taken by the U.S. or Europe against them, and so they're hoping to convince the Americans and the Europeans not to put in place, sort of, protectionist measures.
SHAPIRO: Davos is such an unusual gathering of high level people from different parts of the world, different parts of industry. What's the most unique or surprising thing that you have seen in your time there this year?
BEHRAVESH: Well, I think the interesting discussions are in the private sessions, if you will, you know, where the press isn't present and you've got very small gatherings of very influential people who are trying to conduct a dialogue without the hype, without the rhetoric. And, you know, I attended a private session on energy and the environment and, you know, even though everybody views lack of agreement in terms of global warming, that frustrated everybody after the big Copenhagen summit on the environment, there was a sense that yes, we all need to kind of work in roughly the same direction, but, you know, domestic politics do get in the way sometimes.
SHAPIRO: There is so much middle class populist working class frustration at the way the economy has not recovered as quickly as people might've wanted. Do you see that reflected in Davos or are people there so wealthy and operating on such a different level that it's just a completely different perception of things?
BEHRAVESH: Not at all. I would say that here, everybody is very, very conscious of the fact that we're looking at a slow recovery in the industrial world - that is to say mostly U.S. and Europe - and that unemployment rates are high and that could become a major issue in terms of populism as you're saying, and so there is a great sensitivity and a sense of urgency about the unemployment problem, again, not just in the U.S., but Europe and many other parts of the world.
SHAPIRO: Thank a lot.
BEHRAVESH: My pleasure.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
That's the Business News on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Here's NPR's Frank Langfitt.
FRANK LANGFITT: For many years, Toyota was synonymous with quality. The cars developed such a loyalty with owners that Toyotas practically sold themselves. Jeremy Anwyl runs Edmunds.com, the car consumer Web site.
JEREMY ANWYL: Toyota for many people was sort of the epitome of durability and reliability. And in many cases people bought Toyotas because they didn't want to think about their vehicle. It just worked.
LANGFITT: But recently, Consumer Reports, a bible for car buyers, has found problems. David Champion runs the magazine's car testing division. He says two years ago Consumer Reports took a look at the Toyota Tundra four-wheel drive and the Lexus GS all-wheel drive. The magazine wasn't impressed.
DAVID CHAMPION: Both of those vehicles were below average, and it's the first time we've seen Toyota products to actually be below average.
LANGFITT: As you've watched Toyota in recent years, what do you think is behind that quality slippage?
CHAMPION: You know, Toyota and many of the Japanese manufacturers had a wonderful attention to detail. They looked at every single part extremely closely. They went through every single warranty claim. But in Toyota's case they've expanded so quickly into many, many different marketplaces.
LANGFITT: Like other industry observers, Champion says Toyota's expansion was driven in part by its ambition to replace General Motors as the world's largest automaker.
CHAMPION: You know, there is a certain ego with being number one, and I think they did chase that for a while. And, you know, the more you make, the more different models you make, it's more difficult to keep that attention to detail and that focus on producing reliable vehicles.
LANGFITT: Earlier this week, Toyota halted sales of eight models because of complaints that accelerators were sticking. Champion said it's not clear if the accelerator problem is connected to Toyota's earlier quality issues. Champion added, if Toyota fixes the problem, as it's pledged to, consumers should not be concerned about the safety of the company's vehicles.
CHAMPION: I think this is more of a one-off issue - you know, there's millions of Toyota vehicles out there. The number of vehicles that have experienced this unintentional acceleration is in the hundreds.
LANGFITT: In fact, Toyota did not actually build the accelerators associated with the safety problem. An Indiana-based firm named CTS did. Automakers like Toyota draw most of their parts from suppliers. The company also uses accelerators from a Japanese company named Denzo. Dealers say Toyota told them Denzo accelerators are fine. Rose Byad(ph) is vice president at Darcars, which has four Toyota dealerships in the Washington area. She says some of her employees spent part of yesterday under dashboards, checking the make of accelerators.
ROSE BYAD: It's stamped on the pedal. We have to crawl, so to speak, underneath to look at the accelerator. Actually, I even looked at a vehicle today. We were able to do that while the customer waits.
LANGFITT: Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Washington.
T: Frantic Steve Jobs Stays Up All Night Designing Apple Tablet.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
After supposedly forgetting about the announcement until the last minute, Jobs has described gluing nine iPhones onto a cafeteria tray and calling it Apple's new product.
: NPR's Laura Sydell samples some of the reaction.
LAURA SYDELL: Apple CEO Steve Jobs certainly didn't play down all the hype.
STEVE JOBS: We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary product today.
SYDELL: Jobs and a team of other presenters went on for over an hour and a half about the virtues of the new iPad. Here are some of the basics. It's got a 9.7- inch touch screen. It's got a big virtual keyboard. The iPad connects to iTunes. iTunes will now have a bookstore, and the iPad is a lovely color eReader. There was no major new technology. It got a big ho-hum from some analysts.
JAMES MCQUIVEY: The iPad had the opportunity to create a completely new consumer device category and it didn't.
SYDELL: He has this fantasy: Imagine you are in Paris with the family. You want to send photos to grandma back in New Jersey. McQuivey was hoping grandma could turn on her iPad and - voila, there would be pictures.
MCQUIVEY: So the people across multiple generations are going to say I want an iPad because it helps connect me to my family and my friends in a way that I can't right now. And this device does it.
SYDELL: Not everyone is quite as disappointed as McQuivey. Gartner analyst Michael McGuire points out no one was terribly excited about the first iPod.
MICHAEL MCGUIRE: It grew. They iterated it quickly. And I think we might be looking at that same kind of a cycle.
SYDELL: The first iPads won't hit the market for another two months; however, Apple has released a software development kit so that other companies can create new applications. In that time, McGuire things the right application could make a difference.
MCGUIRE: You could look at this as the first stake in the ground, if you will, as opposed to, well, it didn't meet all of the hype.
SYDELL: Laura Sydell, NPR News, San Francisco.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
One of the many things the iPad can do is function as an electronic book reader, like the Amazon Kindle. Steve Jobs acknowledged the Kindle's success yesterday, and now he wants his product to compete. Publishers are paying attention, as NPR's Lynn Neary reports.
LYNN NEARY: Publishers are happy to have their products on the iBookstore shelves, because partnering with a behemoth like Apple gives them the clout they need to counter Amazon's virtual monopoly on e-book sales. So it wasn't too surprising that most of the big publishing houses had struck a deal with Apple.
STEVE JOBS: And we've got five of the largest publishers in the world that are supporting us on this and are going to have all their books on the store. And we're going to open up the floodgates for the rest of the publishers in the world starting this afternoon.
NEARY: Unlike other e-book readers, iBooks can have full color illustrations and photographs, video embeds with author interviews, even lectures and links to other sites. David Young, the CEO of Hachette, says the technology is exciting.
DAVID YOUNG: Because of the technology being used, of course we can now show our color books, our illustrated books, our cookery titles, our photography titles, through this digital medium, which really is possible by the grayscales of any ink device.
NEARY: Like Amazon, Apple has a store where its books can be sold. But Amazon has set the price for e-books in its store at 9.99, which publishers felt was too low. Young says Hachette has worked out a deal with Apple that puts the pricing power back in the hands of the publishers. Under what is called the Agency Model, the publisher will set the price for a book and Apple will take a commission.
YOUNG: What we'll get back is a better equilibrium, I think. There was no future, as I saw it, at 9.99 other than ruin. So I'm very glad that this new device coming on the market has enabled us to do something that we've been contemplating for a number of months and indeed discussing with many of our existing e-book retailers.
NEARY: Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Throughout today's program we're reporting on President Obama's first State of the Union speech. The president urged his fellow Democrats to solve problems and pass a health care bill, not to, quote, "run for the hills." He also pressed Republicans to take responsibility.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
The Saudis recently took journalists to the border area, including Kelly McEvers.
(SOUNDBITE OF AIRPLANE)
KELLY MCEVERS: Our trucks head up a road that looks like it's been freshly cut into a steep mountain. Sniper nests have been carved out of the rock and each peak is manned by an armed lookout. Up top, standing under a battered Saudi flag, Major General Said al-Gamdi(ph) says the Houthis controlled this strategic mountain, known as Gebel Doud(ph), up to two weeks ago. But now the Saudis have retaken it.
SAID AL: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: Here's Gamdi's interpreter.
AL: (Through translator) Our forces, they have sealed the roads and they cut of the enemy supplies.
MCEVERS: Gamdi points down the mountain toward what's left of a village he says the Houthis had occupied.
AL: (Through translator) That area (unintelligible) they were buried in their places.
MCEVERS: Unidentified Man: They are justifying, they are justifying their weaknesses.
MCEVERS: But despite the claims on both sides that the Houthis are now gone from Saudi territory, Captain Ahmed Mohammed Aswani(ph) says he recently fired on a Houthi sniper on this side of the border. How recently, a reporter asks.
AHMED M: Unidentified Man #2: Night vision.
MCEVERS: Aswani says the Houthis operate almost exclusively on foot and hide out in caves.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS)
MCEVERS: Back down the mountain, Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan has arrived to inspect the troops. He says the Houthis will have to meet certain conditions before the Saudis agree to a full ceasefire.
PRINCE KHALED BIN SULTAN: If they want to prove what they say they have to draw even the snipers, because every sniper there is, that means an attack in the Saudi soil.
MCEVERS: And he said they have to return six Saudis who officials say are being held prisoner. Prince Khaled also offered a third condition, aimed not at the Houthis but the Yemeni government.
KHALED BIN SULTAN: I hope that, you know, the Yemeni armed forces would be as a buffer zone in the border.
MCEVERS: Prince Khaled said the issue is now an internal problem for the government of Yemen. He spoke in front of a parade formation of hundreds of infantry men and paratroopers ringed by heavy and light mobile artillery.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
MCEVERS: For NPR News, I'm Kelly McEvers.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And as the war along Yemen's northern border appears to be cooling off, the Yemeni government may shift its focus to fighting al-Qaida in the country. That's what the international community wants. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports from Yemen's capital, San'a.
PETER KENYON: Information from the front lines in Yemen's northern Saada(ph) province has been sketchy and often unreliable, particularly when Yemen claims to have killed or wounded the rebel leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. He showed up in an Internet posting recently in apparent good health, just before announcing that the Houthi rebels were seeking another truce. Previous postings were much more violent.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
KENYON: Yemeni analysts say the Saudi claims of victory should be treated with skepticism, although they welcome the cessation of hostilities.
M: Well, it has been, I mean, for them a defeat. But I think if they continue it, it will be even more dangerous.
KENYON: Analyst Abdullah al-Faqui at San'a University says the longer the Saudis fight - and fail to decisively defeat the rebels - the more they could be exposed to other security risks, such as uprisings among unhappy tribes living on the Saudi side of the border.
M: Because if the Saudis couldn't defeat the Houthis, which is like a small group, how about other (unintelligible) groups within Saudi Arabia? So basically for the Saudis, it's the least expensive, you know, move.
KENYON: But with the worldwide focus now on the growing threat of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, analyst Abdullah al-Faqui says it may now be time for Yemen to end hostilities in the north.
M: So basically what's happening is if you have a weak government like the Yemeni one and then, you know, it faces a lot of, you know, challenges at the same time, there's no place for al-Qaida and the government agenda. But now, I mean, you know, the only place that's (unintelligible) should be for al- Qaida because that's the priority.
KENYON: Peter Kenyon, NPR News, San'a.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
In California, both sides have now made their case in the federal trial challenging Proposition 8. That's the state's ban on same sex marriage. As Scott Shafer of member station KQED reports, the trial has explored much more than just the legality of a single ballot measure.
SCOTT SHAFER: As the trial got underway in San Francisco two and a half weeks ago, Paul Katami, one of four people hoping to get Proposition 8 overturned, summed up the case this way.
PAUL KATAMI: We want to be married. We have the right to be married. Why can't we be married?
SHAFER: This is the first trial challenging a state gay marriage ban in a federal court based on the U.S. Constitution. And to make their case, the plaintiffs have an all-star legal team, including nationally known conservative Republican lawyer Theodore Olson.
THEODORE OLSON: Being denied the right to marry the person of one's choice is being relegated to a second class citizenship in America.
SHAFER: But Andy Pugno with the legal team defending Prop 8 says all of that may be interesting but it's just not relevant to the case at hand.
ANDY PUGNO: It's not the role of the courts and it's not proper for judges to substitute their own views on these political questions for the judgment of the people. And that's really what this case boils down to, is who gets to decide.
SHAFER: Pugno says the voters had a rational reason for limiting marriage to one man and one woman.
PUGNO: The plaintiffs have a really tough burden. They need to prove that the people acted irrationally with no good reason when they voted to continue and preserve the traditional definition of marriage.
SHAFER: The trial also explored how conservative church groups spread messages warning voters that pedophiles and polygamists were hoping to defeat Prop 8. The Yes on 8 denied crafting those messages. But attorney David Boies says the campaign paid to disseminate them over the Internet.
DAVID BOIES: What was at work was a religious divide based on prejudice and stereotypes.
SHAFER: Attorneys hoping to have Prop 8 struck down called more than a dozen witnesses, including one of the official proponents of Prop 8, who was questioned about his warning that the gay agenda includes legalizing sex with children. Yes on 8 attorney Andy Pugno likened to a religious witch hunt.
PUGNO: And this is really a first. You are witnessing history, that somebody who supported an initiative is being put on the stand like the Inquisition and questioned about his political beliefs.
SHAFER: Opponents of Prop 8 are trying to convince District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that sexual orientation deserves the same level of protection given to race, gender and religion. But law professor David Levine of U.C. Hastings Law School in San Francisco says that would be a legal reach, one that could easily be overturned.
DAVID LEVINE: If instead Judge Walker were to write an opinion that was narrowly focused on the facts around Proposition 8, it's harder to get that overturned on appeal.
SHAFER: For NPR News, I'm Scott Shafer in San Francisco.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro. President Obama gave his first State of the Union address last night. We're hearing parts of his speech throughout today's program. And this is the time that as we do every year we check some of the president's facts.
INSKEEP: The president said he was, quote, just stating the facts, a premise we will test with a group of NPR correspondents. We start with this statement about a trillion dollars in spending that the president said the government has run up to fight the recession. The president says he wants to pay it back.
BARACK OBAMA: So tonight, I'm proposing specific steps to pay for the trillion dollars that it took to rescue the economy last year. Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.
INSKEEP: And, David, can you save a trillion dollars or anything close to it by freezing government spending in the way the president described?
DAVID WELNA: Now, right after he said that he said that he was going to keep in place tax cuts for the middle class that were passed during the Bush administration. And that is going to be very costly for the Treasury. Although he did say that he would not extend the tax cuts that are expiring for the wealthiest Americans.
INSKEEP: Now, let's ask another trillion dollar question here. The president said his health care bill would save $1 trillion.
OBAMA: And according to the Congressional Budget Office - the independent organization that both parties have cited as the official scorekeeper for Congress - our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades.
INSKEEP: And, Julie, does the Congressional Budget Office say that the president's health care bill will reduce the deficit by as much as a trillion dollars over two decades?
JULIE ROVNER: And the CBO and others have suggested that Congress might not actually have the stomach for some of the cuts that might be called for by this commission. So there's some doubt as to whether those cuts would happen and whether that money would actually be saved.
INSKEEP: I want to make sure I understand this. The - what the Congressional Budget Office actually says is that in the first 10 years after this bill is passed it might save a little money. In the second ten years it might save a bunch or it might not save very much at all.
ROVNER: That's right. Or it might save a lot, but it might do it in ways that Congress and the public really night not like, so Congress might end up reversing.
INSKEEP: Now, while we're talking about vast amounts of money, let's check what the president said about the bank bailout, which has caused massive anger across the country. He said the banks have paid back most of the money they were given to save them. NPR's John Ydstie covers economic policy. And, John, have the banks paid back most of the money?
JOHN YDSTIE: But remember, the president has proposed a fee for the biggest 50 banks to recoup any of the shortfall, so that the taxpayers are repaid every penny. So those banks could actually pay for losses caused by the car company.
INSKEEP: So that statement seems essentially true. Let's try another one. The president said his administration has given huge help to people struggling with their mortgages.
OBAMA: The steps we took last year to shore up the housing market have allowed millions of Americans to take out new loans and save an average of $1,500 on mortgage payments.
INSKEEP: John, is that the whole story?
YDSTIE: But many would say other homeowners have been let down by the administration's main program to help delinquent homeowners avoid foreclosure. Millions of homeowners face foreclosure, but only 110,000 have yet received permanent modifications. So I'd day a mixed record in helping homeowners.
INSKEEP: Now President Obama, in his State of The Union speech, also made this statement about his plan for clean energy.
OBAMA: We need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean, nuclear power plants in this country.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
INSKEEP: NPR's Christopher Joyce was listening to that statement, and Christopher are there safe, clean nuclear power plants ready to be built?
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE: It was for 20 years thought it would go to Yucca Mountain, this hole in Nevada. And $9 billion was spent, thousands of pages of research was produced, and one of the first things that the Obama administration did when it came in was say, uh uh, we don't like the science, we don't like the look of it. We're going to kill it. They've put the stake through it last year. So, now it's back to square one. No place to put the waste.
INSKEEP: So, when you look at that statement safe, yes, clean, maybe not.
JOYCE: Maybe not.
INSKEEP: Christopher, thanks very much. Later in his State of The Union address, the president turned to two wars including this one.
OBAMA: NPR's Jackie Northam has spent much time in Afghanistan, and Jackie, what did you hear in that statement?
JACKIE NORTHAM: Well, the president chose his words very, very carefully there. He said the Afghan Security Forces can begin to take the lead. And I don't think you would find many people who would expect a mass exodus of U.S. troops coming out in a year-and-a-half from now, in part because the numbers that they want to train are huge. They're looking - the tentative goal of 160,000 Afghan soldiers and about 125,000 Afghan Police. The most optimistic estimate to get these forces up and running is three to five years, and that's optimistic, most people think it's going to be about 10 years.
INSKEEP: Jackie, I want to move on to the other war in Iraq, which the president described as nearing an end.
OBAMA: We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August.
INSKEEP: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly covers the Pentagon. Mary Louise, he said all our combat troops...
MARY LOUISE KELLY: These are going to be U.S. military personnel. They will have the right to shoot in self-defense. Is that a combat troop? The Pentagon says no. If you're an Iraqi civilian, you may beg to differ.
INSKEEP: The president also said the U.S. has killed quote "far more al-Qaida fighters and their affiliates this past year, 2009, than in 2008." Is it true?
LOUISE KELLY: That's an awfully difficult one to fact check because it is so hard to independently verify these numbers. You're talking about strikes, primarily in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Strikes, that on the Pakistani side, the U.S. does not even officially acknowledge nor does Pakistan. What we know is the U.S. has stepped up those drone strikes significantly in the years since President Obama took office. They are clearly getting people, how many are civilians, how many are bad guys, difficult to say. And we do know the two biggest bad guys - Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri - still out there.
INSKEEP: Mary Louise, thanks very much.
LOUISE KELLY: You're welcome.
INSKEEP: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
If you've ever had a house guest break something valuable, I mean, really, really valuable, then you have some idea what the Metropolitan Museum of Art is going through.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
A few days ago, a visitor stumbled into a Picasso painting, gashing it and denting the canvas. The art world is asking if it will ever be the same and if it will ever be worth the same.
SHAPIRO: We called art writer Sarah Thornton to find out.
SARAH THORNTON: Well, damage is usually something that decreases the value of the work. Occasionally, if it's kind of exciting damage, it can add narrative and actually increase the value. That's quite rare but it does happen.
INSKEEP: Exciting damage?
THORNTON: It could have been a famous person like George Clooney falling through the painting. That might have increased value.
SHAPIRO: Unfortunately for the value of this painting, the woman who busted it is not famous or, at least, she wasn't before this incident.
INSKEEP: So let's run some numbers. News reports suggest that before the accident the painting might have been worth $130 million at the very most.
SHAPIRO: Now that value may well go down, even after the painting is restored and the damage is hidden. Eric Fischer brokers insurance policies for museum art.
ERIC FISCHER: So a tear in a painting, the range could be anywhere. So if it's a minor tear, you really couldn't see it, they may put a five percent loss in value on it. For something more significant, then certainly that percentage goes up.
INSKEEP: Okay, it maybe tacky to think about money when you're speaking of fine art, but being tacky has never stopped us before. And as a curiosity, this painting's value may go up.
SHAPIRO: After all, people are talking about the painting on the news. Visitors will want to come see it, even if they're not looking at a dent caused by George Clooney.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Here's proof, if it was needed, that the auto industry is a brutal business. Toyota suspended sales of many models over concerns about the cars' safety. When they heard that, the people at General Motors must have cried all night. In the morning, they put aside their sorrows to offer interest-free loans to Toyota owners who want to dump their cars and buy some product from General Motors. Presumably, GM hopes to recapture some of the sales that it lost back when it was bankrupt. It's MORNING EDITION.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
NPR's business news starts with a carmaker that's reporting some good news.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: Today, Ford Motor Company reported its first full year profit in four years. The company says it made 2.7 billion dollars in 2009, that's thanks to cost-cutting, debt reduction, and strong sales of its vehicles. Ford's earnings stand in contrast with its struggling American rivals, GM and Chrysler. This also comes as Toyota grapples with a massive recall involving faulty gas pedals. Although, today, Ford said it has also halted production of some vehicles it manufactures in China because those vehicles use gas pedals made by the same American manufacturer that supplied the faulty pedals to Toyota.
A: third-party debt collection. Third-party debt collectors take over the accounts of very, very delinquent credit card customers - people who haven't paid a bill in more than 200 days. Trying to recover money from them is not easy. Our Planet Money reporter Alex Blumberg talked with a third-party debt collector about what that job is like.
ALEX BLUMBERG: In the nearly three years that John Goebel has worked in debt collections, calling people on the phone to try to get them to pay their overdue bills, he says the responses break down into three categories - none of them good.
BLUMBERG: Maybe 60 percent anger - if not more, maybe 75; 10 or 20 percent, just complete apathy. And then you don't typically hear the sadness unless you stop and talk with somebody. And then you kind of watch them unfold and kind of break down, which may happen maybe, I would say, 10 percent of the time.
BLUMBERG: I mean, how often, when you're doing this, do you have people just break down and cry on the phone?
BLUMBERG: Oh, I mean, I would say at least once a week.
BLUMBERG: Keep in mind, John's part time now. When he was full time, it happened almost daily. John works in a cubicle, wearing a telephone headset attached to automated dialer, which weeds out busy signals and voice mail.
And he tries to avoid getting into the sad stuff with people, partially because if at the end of a long, 40-minute story the person still doesn't pay anything, well, John's not doing his job. But that's only one reason.
BLUMBERG: The emotional part of it, it drags you down. I mean, it's very hard to - if somebody breaks down and pours their life out to you, and then, you know, you work out something or you don't work out something, the second you hang up that call, you have maybe five seconds until the next call picks up, depending on how fast the dialer's moving. You might only have five seconds. Somebody else is there, and you've got to talk to them.
It's very hard to just flip that off and then start talking to the next person. So I think it's almost a defense mechanism. You know, you kind of turn off some - you have to turn off some part of you, that you can't put yourself in everybody's shoes.
BLUMBERG: John says there are cases where he feels bad, like the guy whose son committed suicide, his wife left him, his business failed. He says in situations like that, he just apologizes, hangs up the phone, doesn't try for any money.
But he says when you have people yelling at you all day long, it doesn't put you in a very charitable frame of mind. He's had people curse at him, lie to him.
BLUMBERG: Maybe they'll give their phone to their kid and have their kid talk to me.
BLUMBERG: Wait. Somebody gave the phone to their kid and had their kid...
BLUMBERG: It happens all the time. They'll have their kids answer the phone. And I've had people in the background say, say I'm not here, or tell him to go to hell. And I'll have what sounds like 6-year-olds saying this.
BLUMBERG: John works this job on top of his day job, to help pay off his student loans. He himself has a credit card with a balance. But these days, he hardly ever uses it, unlike some of his buddies from college.
John says he wouldn't be surprised if one of them turned up on his automated dialer one day. He sees debt a little like a drug. The benefits - a new flat- screen TV, say - happen immediately, but the consequences don't show up for months, or even years. Credit cards can be dangerous. And a lot of people he talks to don't really understand how they work.
BLUMBERG: There's such a knowledge gap. If you don't understand how compounding interest works or even just simple interest, if you don't understand how that works, should you have a credit card that, you know, uses the, you know, 60-day average balance and it's a revolving line of credit? I mean, that's a little bit more complicated than that.
BLUMBERG: Right now, explaining how this stuff actually works falls to people like John. By the time it gets to him, it's probably too late.
For NPR News, I'm Alex Blumberg.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
NPR's Jason Beaubien has now rotated out of Haiti, but Haiti has not left him. He sent us this reporter's notebook about some of the people he met.
JASON BEAUBIEN: For me, the hardest part is the living. There have been so many dead here, corpses are so common both on the street and oozing out of the wreckage, that it's the living who haunt me: The old man crumpled at the curb calling out faintly, mon blanc, mon blanc, and asking for water - the crush wounds, the children who've lost or are about to lose an arm, a leg or both, the bodies laid out at night like cordwood on the street, lines of people wrapped in sheets perpendicular to the curb, sleeping on the pavement because either their house is gone or they're too terrified to go inside.
BEAUBIEN: mother, father, sister, cousin. It's just me now, she says, 22 years old and alone. Another woman says there isn't a single family in Haiti that isn't crying right now. She's trying to dig her brother- in-law's body out of a pile of debris.
There's the fear of being inside. Walking with my translator through her old neighborhood, her nervousness that any teetering building might crash down on us at any moment. An aftershock shakes the rubble under our feet. She runs for solid ground.
What is it like to watch your entire city crumble around you? Walls, roofs meant to protect you become projectiles, blunt instruments, traps. How do you ever go back inside?
A huge challenge lies ahead just to feed and house the people of Haiti in the coming weeks. Then, block after city block needs to be bulldozed. But for Haiti to be reborn, and to avoid becoming a wasteland kept alive on international aid, the living need to heal. They need to dream of a new country and move forward.
Jason Beaubien, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: This is NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Our series on DVD recommendations, video you can watch at home, continues today with a pair of Hollywood insiders, the minds behind one of the most popular shows on television.
DAMON LINDELOF: I'm Damon Lindelof. I'm the co-creator and executive producer of "Lost."
CARLTON CUSE: And I am Carlton Cuse. And I'm a writer and executive producer of "Lost."
INSKEEP: So you have each sent us some films here. I'm must start with Carlton Cuse. You've got a film called "Children of Men" from 2006.
CUSE: "Children of Men" is a - it's a terrific movie with a terrible title. You know, "Blade Runner" - that's a good title for a science-fiction movie, and I think that that's one of the reasons it was sort of under appreciated. Basically, it stars Clive Owen as this sort of ex-activist who is drawn into a plan to transport an illegal who is eight months pregnant to the English coast. Now the thing about this futuristic world is that nobody can have children. The human species has lost the ability to reproduce. So this one pregnant woman sort of represents the future of all humanity.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CHILDREN OF MEN")
MISHAL HUSAIN: (As Newsreader) The world was stunned today by the death of Diego Ricardo, the youngest person on the planet. Baby Diego was stabbed outside a bar in Buenos Aires after refusing to sign an autograph.
ROB CURLING: (As Newsreader) Born in 2009, he struggled all his life with the celebrity status thrust upon him as the world's youngest person.
INSKEEP: Because you feel that the title alone may have prevented a great movie from getting the attention it deserved, I'm curious if you guys considered a bunch of other titles before you settled on "Lost."
LINDELOF: The provenance of the title was basically ABC had a script that they had been developing with Aaron Spelling, producer of all those great night time soaps and...
CUSE: "Charlie's Angels."
LINDELOF: ..."Melrose Place" and "90210." It was basically about people crashing on an island, and they took their shirts off and had copious sex with each other and - but the show kind of didn't go anywhere from there, and that show was called "Nowhere." And I think everybody basically agreed, at ABC, that "Nowhere" was sort of a very bad title but...
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
LINDELOF: ...that you're opening yourself up to the slings and arrows of the critics.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CUSE: Yes.
LINDELOF: So after slightly kicking around "Somewhere," we basically ended up with "Lost."
INSKEEP: Well, okay, so we're on one word titles here, maybe are better. What, Damon, caused you to list the film "Timecrimes" on your DVD recommendations here?
LINDELOF: This is a Spanish film made by a guy named Nacho Vigalondo. It's the kind of storytelling that we happen to love, which is you drop into the middle of the story and you have no idea what's going on until about midway through. There are only four characters in the entire movie. And it basically starts with a guy who is at home with his wife, and he sees this dude in the woods whose face is wrapped up in these very bloody bandages, and the guy basically goes in pursuit of this man and thus begins the story.
And the filmmaker actually plays sort of a key role in the movie. He plays the sort of Johnny the Explainer role. This is another phrase we used in "Lost" which is every once in a while Johnny the Explainer needs to sort of come strolling out of the jungle and tell you what the hell is going on.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
LINDELOF: But in this case, in "Timecrimes" - not to spoil it too much - what we love is when Johnny the Explainer is completely unreliable and this is something that is used in the "The Usual Suspects," another one of my favorite movies. But when the person who is narrating the movie is sometimes lying to you, it can make for a very interesting story.
INSKEEP: Another thing on your list here. This is Carlton Cuse's list - "The Prisoner." What's that about?
CUSE: "The Prisoner" is one of the great, kind of, classic television shows of all times. It was made in 1968. It's a British series, and it basically stars Patrick McGoohan as a spy who resigns his job with the British Intelligence Service. And he goes home and he's basically gassed and when he comes to, he is in this mysterious seaside village, just referred to as the village. And he's a prisoner there and everyone in this village is referred to by a number. And the village is led by Number Two and you don't know who Number One is.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE PRISONER")
PATRICK MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) Who are you?
PATRICK CARGILL: (As Number Two) The new Number Two.
MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) Who is number one?
CARGILL: (As Number Two) You are number six.
MCGOOHAN: (As Number Six) I am not a number. I'm a free man.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
CUSE: I saw this as a kid and it was so different from any other television shows. Because television shows, you know, that the, kind of, goal always is to make everything explicit - to make sure that you really understand everything. And this show was incredibly mysterious and very purposefully ambiguous.
INSKEEP: Now when you talk about a sprawling and complex mystery - that gets us to the final choice that we have on our list here - Damon's choice. "This is Spinal Tap."
LINDELOF: I think the movie came out in 1984 or 1985, because I was around 11 or 12 when it came out, and I went to go see it in the theater with my Dad. And when I saw it, I was like, this is a real band. They actually make music. I've never really heard of them, but they are very funny guys.
Then the second time that I saw it, you know, in college at NYU, when I was talking about this documentary that I had seen and really liked, and everyone was looking at me like I was the hugest idiot of all time.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
LINDELOF: They said, you know, that that's not real. Those guys were like on Saturday Night Live. That's Michael McKean and Harry Shearer and Rob Reiner directed it. And I go, oh yeah, I know he directed it. He's talking to the camera. But he said his name is Marty something. And the great thing about the "Spinal Tap" DVD is those guys do the commentary in character. They're so committed to the reality of this world...
INSKEEP: Let's listen to a little bit of "This is Spinal Tap." We hear here, Christopher Guest who is playing a rock musician, and he's showing his roomful of guitars to Rob Reiner who's playing the director of this film. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THIS IS SPINAL TAP")
CHRISTOPHER GUEST: (As Nigel Tufnel) This one is just - it's perfect, 1959, you know, just - you cannot - listen.
ROBERT REINER: (As Marty DiBergi) How much does this...
GUEST: (As Nigel Tufnel) Just listen for a minute.
REINER: (As Marty DiBergi) I'm not...
GUEST: (As Nigel Tufnel) This sustain.
REINER: (As Marty DiBergi) I'm not hearing anything.
GUEST: (As Nigel Tufnel) You would though if it were playing. Really it's famous for its sustain.
REINER: (As Marty DiBergi) Yeah.
GUEST: (As Nigel Tufnel) I mean you can just hold it - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh(ph).
And you could go and have a bite an' you'd still be hearin' that one.
REINER: (As Marty DiBergi) Yeah.
INSKEEP: You talked about them being really committed to the role in the commentary alongside. Isn't that the key to something like this? You can never wink at the audience or the film dies. You have to be totally sincere, seeming, all the way through.
LINDELOF: That's it and what's amazing about the movie is they don't always go for the joke. There's real emotion there and that only is derived from the fact that they're completely committed to the reality of their world. And again, to kind of bring it back around to "Lost," because we look at each other all the time and the writers, all the writers and go, this is the most ridiculous show in the history of television shows. What the hell do we think we're doing? But I think in our writing, we have to be so committed to the fact that it's not ridiculous.
CUSE: But thank God for a brilliant actors who basically takes these crazy premises and - premisi?
LINDELOF: Premises?
CUSE: Premises. And they're fully committed, and it is a lot like "Spinal Tap." I mean they actually give everything to every scene no matter how ridiculous the concept is behind it. And that's what sells it. And I think, if - you know, story telling is a lot about conviction, and we feel like if you're committed as a writer and the actors are committed, then the audience will go along for the ride.
INSKEEP: Well, Carlton and Damon thanks very much to both of you.
CUSE: Thank you.
LINDELOF: Thank you, sir.
INSKEEP: Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, executive producers of the TV series "Lost" which is about to sustain one more season. You can get clues about the finale by checking out the extended version of our conversation at npr.org.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
In Alabama, a woman was fired from her job because she would not remove a political bumper sticker from her car. A man in Indiana was fired for having a few beers after work, because his boss thought drinking was a sin. In New York, a teacher was fired by a school superintendent who believed the teacher's obesity was not conducive to learning.
These are all cases outlined in Lewis Maltby's new book called "Can They Do That?" And in each case, the answer is yes, they can. Maltby is the founder of the National Workrights Institute, and he's the former head of the ACLU's National Workplace Rights Office. Good morning.
M: Good morning.
SHAPIRO: So why can an employer, in most cases, fire a worker for a political bumper sticker? Isn't freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment?
M: Freedom of the speech is protected by the First Amendment, but only where the government is concerned. What most Americans generally don't know is that the Constitution doesn't apply to private corporations at all.
SHAPIRO: How many rights do workers have? When we look at privacy, how much can employers eavesdrop on their workers?
M: The only thing a private employer can't do, when it comes to eavesdropping, is deliberately eavesdrop on a personal, oral conversation that takes place at work. Anything else is open season.
SHAPIRO: If I use my home computer to post something publicly on Facebook or Twitter or my blog, could I be fired for that?
M: Absolutely, happens every day. What happens is, people think: I can say whatever I want on my blog; my boss is never going to read this. That's not true. Bosses read people's personal blogs and Web sites all the time, and sometimes for very legitimate business reasons. I used to run a fair-sized corporation, and if I thought somebody was getting ready to quit, I would have loved to have been able to find out in advance so I could start lining up the replacement.
I probably would have looked at their personal blog myself, to see if they were really planning to quit. And what happens is, the boss goes to your Web site because he thinks maybe you're moonlighting for a competitor or you're thinking about quitting and you're not. But your boss sees your blowing off steam about him, takes offense, and you get fired.
SHAPIRO: Well, speaking of Facebook and Twitter, I posted on Facebook and Twitter that I was going to be interviewing you about this book, and one of your former colleagues responded that one of the biggest challenges your Workplace Rights Project faced was that there wasn't much to litigate about, because no decent laws exist to protect workers. Do you agree with that assessment?
M: That's true. I've been getting phone calls from people for 20 years who have been abused in all sorts of ways. And when I tell them, I'm sorry, you don't have any legal rights, they literally don't believe me.
SHAPIRO: Do companies need some of these powers, for example, (unintelligible) more surveillance, I mean, just generally speaking, the ability to kind of invade the lives of their workers?
M: A company really ought to have the right, for many reasons, to make business decisions the way it thinks is best. If your boss thinks you're doing a lousy job and wants to fire you, well, too bad. It's his call, even if he's wrong.
But it's not a business decision when your boss tells you that you have to sleep with him to keep your job or to take the bumper sticker off your car or change your religion to keep your job. That's not a legitimate business decision. That's just abusing the power of the paycheck.
SHAPIRO: But if workers all agree on that, then these companies would be unable to hire anybody and would go out of business. Why doesn't the market work to just extinguish these practices?
M: If the market were perfect, maybe that would happen. But as any economist will tell you, all markets have imperfections, and the employment market is one of the least perfect markets that there is. It sounds perfect in theory to say, well, if you don't like what your boss did, quit and go someplace else.
But losing your job is pretty scary. What if you don't find another job? You could lose your house. How are you going to feed your kids? It sounds nice in theory to say, walk away and look for another job. But in practice, most people just can't take that risk. They just put up with it.
SHAPIRO: Lewis Maltby, thank you very much.
M: My pleasure, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Lewis Maltby is the president of the National Workrights Institute, and author of "Can They Do That?"
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
One of Haiti's most famous musicians is Lolo Beaubrun. He leads the band Boukman Eksperyans. The group plays a hybrid of rock, reggae and Voodoo trance music. After Haiti's catastrophic earthquake, NPR's John Burnett found Beaubrun at his home. He was in Port-au-Prince grieving for his shattered nation and his lost friends, but hoping for a reborn Haiti.
JOHN BURNETT: When we walked into Lolo's garden yesterday and sat down, he'd invited three young musicians from a group called All Four Stars.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LOLO BEAUBRUN: (Singing in foreign language)
BURNETT: They back him up on this song that they wrote in the days after, in Lolo's words, that thing that happened to us. In an hour-long interview, he never once said the word earthquake.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BEAUBRUN: (Singing in foreign language)
BURNETT: The song is about the suffering that Haiti is now enduring, about the importance of having faith amid despondency, and of reviving the connection to the spirit world.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BEAUBRUN: (Singing in foreign language)
We cry a lot. But after we see the country, we need to cross over that sadness.
BURNETT: Lolo and his wife, Mimerose, both 52, make a striking couple: He in an African shirt, tall with dreadlocks down to his waist, she with red-tinted hair, enormous earrings and a single ornamented dreadlock falling below her waist.
MIMEROSE BEAUBRUN: (Through Translator) We are Haitian. We are always joyful. And this joy that we have, even in our misery, even when we are poor, it's a strength for us - strength to rebuild the country.
BURNETT: Like most of traumatized residents of the Haitian capital, they're afraid of another quake. Though his house was not damaged, they live outside. They cook, eat, sleep and receive visitors here in the garden under the mango tree and coconut palms. A candle burns next to a Bible open to the 23rd Psalm.
Like every Haitian, Lolo and Mimerose lost people dear to them in that thing that happened to us. But the symbolism of an earthquake destroying all the seats of power in their benighted country was not lost on the musical couple.
BEAUBRUN: We see the symbol down, the palace, the palace of justice, everything down. We were already talking about a new society.
BURNETT: Lolo says the dramatic images of the collapsed National Palace, Supreme Court and ministry buildings that housed a corrupt and incompetent government raise hopes for him that a new society is coming.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BURNETT: Lolo has been challenging Haitians to demand more from their government ever since he formed Boukman Eksperyans with Mimerose 21 years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BOUKMAN EKSPERYANS: (Singing in foreign language)
BURNETT: Lolo sang protest music. His lyrics criticized rulers, and he stood squarely on the side of the beleaguered Haitian people. In 1991, his band had to leave the country because for its musical activism. He also made infectious social protest music.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EKSPERYANS: (Singing in foreign language)
BURNETT: Boukman Eksperyans amalgamated Voodoo ceremonial music with rock and reggae - placing trancelike drumming and chanting alongside screaming electric guitars. They played a central role in the Haitian misik rasin movement.
BEAUBRUN: Rasin means roots. Misik rasin, it's the roots music of Haiti - Voodoo music.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EKSPERYANS: (Singing in foreign language)
BURNETT: Beaubrun claims influences from Bob Marley, James Brown and Jimi Hendrix, among others. In fact, the name Boukman Eksperyans is a tribute to The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Boukman comes from Dutty Boukman, a Voodoo high priest and slave leader who led a Voodoo ceremony in 1791 that's considered the beginning of the Haitian Revolution against the French.
Even amid the chaos of the pulverized city, Beaubrun heard about Pat Robertson blaming the earthquake on Haitians' pact with the devil during their fight for independence.
BEAUBRUN: I don't believe in that God he's talking about, because God is love, is truth and justice. God doesn't accept people's power over other people.
BURNETT: In the universe of Lolo and Mimerose Beaubrun, the hope of love, truth and justice doesn't come from public figures, but it is found in music.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EKSPERYANS: (Singing in foreign language)
BURNETT: The lyrics say don't get discouraged. Go inside yourself, where you find the spirit. It'll give you the faith you need to cross over this difficulty.
John Burnett, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EKSPERYANS: (Singing in foreign language)
INSKEEP: Beautiful harmonies in a horrible situation.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Well, if you think the lack of broadband access is a problem, let's talk about the lack of something a little more basic. NPR's science correspondent Joe Palca tells us about a creature that has gone without for 30 million years.
JOE PALCA: Before we talk about no sex, let's talk about sex. From a biological perspective, sex requires a lot of work. It would be much easier if you could reproduce on your own.
INSKEEP: You don't have to find a mate. If you find a mate, you don't have to worry about things like venereal disease. You don't have to worry about getting attacked while you're in the process of having a sex act.
PALCA: That's evolutionary biologist John Logsdon, of the University of Iowa. In addition to avoiding the dangers Logsdon mentions, if you could reproduce on your own, then your offspring would be an identical genetic copy of you, and quite possibly just as wonderful - another reason to wonder about the advantages of sex.
INSKEEP: Why would you mix up your genes at every generation when, in fact, you can pass 100 percent of your genes on every single time?
PALCA: And yet, nearly all multicellular organisms, and even some single-celled organisms, choose sex. Christopher Wilson is an evolutionary biologist at Cornell University.
M: What we get is females voluntarily sort of submitting their genes to this random lottery that goes on, where only half of them end up in an offspring and half come from the sperm of some unrelated male - who really, in many species, contributes very little else.
PALCA: Very little else - I'm not going to touch that. Moving on - what's up here? What in the world is sex good for? Wilson admits there are some advantages to sex.
M: And the advantage that many scientists have focused on is an advantage against diseases - infectious diseases - parasites and pathogens.
PALCA: The disease advantage comes because sexual reproduction brings in new genes. And John Logsdon says that can make a species hardier and more resistant to microbes.
INSKEEP: Basically, you're shuffling the deck at every generation, and the good cards can come together by doing that shuffling.
PALCA: So sex allows the species to change, and the positive changes help the species survive. But if sex is so good, then what about organisms that can live without it? And now, we come to that creature that's had a really, really long dry spell.
M: No males required for 30 million years - and no sex.
PALCA: Chris Wilson is talking about microscopic, pond-dwelling, bdelloid rotifers.
M: They look like little worms about half a millimeter long with two - sort of rotating electric toothbrush heads on top that spin and filter food out of the water into their little - sort of vacuum-function mouth.
PALCA: And all female. There's a fungus that likes to feed on bdelloid rotifers, but as Wilson describes in the current issue of Science magazine, the rotifer has a remarkable defense.
M: They enter a state that's called anhydrobiosis; that's life without water. And they essentially become little, inanimate dust particles.
PALCA: They're so desiccated in this state that there's nothing for the fungus to eat. And because the bdelloids are now nothing but dust, they can blow away with the wind, with luck landing in a new, fungus-free pond.
M: By playing a game of hide and seek with the parasites, by constantly moving to new habitats, the rotifers can outrun their parasites without needing the variation that sex would provide.
PALCA: So there you have it: Reduce yourself to dust, and you can avoid sex. But wait. John Logsdon isn't totally convinced that bdelloid rotifers never have sex.
INSKEEP: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
PALCA: In other words, just because nobody's ever seen a male rotifer, that's not proof they don't exist. Maybe they show up so rarely researchers just haven't been patient enough. Or maybe they don't like being watched. Logsdon thinks that every creature that's evolved enough to have a cell with a nucleus should be capable of sex. And rotifers definitely have cells with nuclei.
INSKEEP: So I'm agnostic on sexuality or asexuality in bdelloid rotifers.
PALCA: A-ha. So there's some hope for the bdelloid rotifer.
INSKEEP: Well, you know, there's hope for sex, yes - yeah, if that's what you mean. That's funny.
PALCA: Maybe not so funny for the rotifers.
Joe Palca, NPR News, Washington.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me. But I don't feel like going into it if you want to know the truth.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Those are some of the opening words of "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. Of course, the reluctant young narrator does go into his story after all. The author of that classic has died at age 91.
And this morning we'll hear one more story about Salinger himself and the time he became a reluctant host.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It was first broadcast in 2007 as part of our series StoryCorps, which we hear each Friday. Jim Krawczyk grew up as a Salinger fan, and in the late 1960s he traveled to Salinger's home in New Hampshire, hoping to meet the famously reclusive writer.
JIM KRAWCZYK: I don't really recall a town or anything. It was like a building that was like the post office, the gas station and the general store, all wrapped into one. So, I went inside and I told them, I says, you know, my name's Jim Krawczyk. I'm from Wisconsin. I was wondering if you could tell me where J.D. Salinger lives. He says, oh, you're never going to see him. Even the delivery boy doesn't see him. He leaves the groceries in the garage and picks up the money in an envelope.
I goes, whoa, you know, I come a long way to meet this guy. So, I talk to a retired schoolteacher. She gave me direction further. Now, this is so far back into the mountains that it was a dirt road. Amazingly, I didn't get lost. So, I'm driving along and coming up on this house and I looked and it's his house.
I had a biography of him that described where he lived and everything. I goes, wow, I can't believe it. It's just like the book said. You know, it's really neat. I wasn't afraid, you know, like bashful or anything like that. I thought I'm going to be cool about it.
So, I parked the car and went up, knocked on the door. And this woman came out and it was his wife. And I says, hello, my name's Jim Krawczyk and I said I'm wondering if I could meet your husband. And she goes, anything he says, he says in his books. She slammed the door. I goes, whoa, I come a long way. Wow, this is something.
So, I turned around and started to go down the steps and she opened the door again. And she come out to the porch and she says, him and I are divorced and he lives across the road. So, I went down the road. I pulled in his driveway and I knocked on the door. He had a screen that was like a copper mesh, and I really couldn't see in and I'm straining to see him and everything.
And just then a crack of thunder came so loud it felt like it was just above my head. And it started to rain. He came to the door. He says you better come inside. You know, I goes, whoa. He didn't sit down or anything. He didn't offer me, you know, you want a cup of coffee or something or nothing. You know, I'm just, what do you want. And so I told him who I was.
And I asked him if he'd ever been in Wisconsin. And he said, yeah. He says he was there some time during the war. I asked, did you think "The Catcher in the Rye" would be such a popular book. And I don't remember exactly what he said, but I think it was it's been a nightmare. And why a nightmare, I don't know. Maybe because he gets so much fan mail or I don't know what.
And I really wanted to ask him, can I see where you work? But I didn't want to be one of his phonies that he writes about. You know, so I kind of held back, you know. And I says, well, okay. Thank you very much. I shook his hand and that was it.
This is somebody that nobody meets, nobody gets to see him, and I was in his kitchen. And I thought, man, this is the best vacation I ever had.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: Nothing phony about Jim Krawczyk speaking at StoryCorps in Milwaukee.
This story from 2007, like all the others in the StoryCorps project, is archived at the American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress. And you can subscribe to the StoryCorps Podcast at NPR.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And now we return to Haiti, where people are just beginning to put their lives back together after the catastrophic earthquake there. Some banks and stores have reopened. People are searching for jobs and there is food for sale in some markets. Medical needs are just beginning to move beyond broken bones and amputations to more long term health issues. NPR's Joanne Silberner reports that there is some hope and a lot of work ahead.
JOANNE SILBERNER: Ron Waldman has seen a lot of human misery following disasters, but says Haiti's the worst he's seen. Waldman worked in Indonesia after the tsunami in 2004. He's worked in numerous refugee camps in places like Somalia.
He's the medical coordinator of the relief effort for the U.S. government and he got to Port-au-Prince last Saturday. There is some good news. People with crush injuries, with terrible bone fractures are finally getting care. But now, two and a half weeks after the quake, they need post-op care. Speaking by phone from Port-au-Prince, Waldman says that's a problem.
WALDMAN: The problem is that the surgical wards can discharge people in 10 or 50 or 100 per day, each day - but the postoperative care takes much longer.
SILBERNER: And there's no space at the busy hospitals. An Emergency Field Hospital run by the U.S. government sent several patients out for post-op care at local hospitals, only to see the patients come back. Wendy Batson says some who suffered simple bone fractures that didn't break the skin have been told to come back later. Batson heads the U.S. division of a nonprofit called Handicap International. It helps people with physical disabilities.
WENDY BATSON: We're not out of the woods yet, and the mobile teams who are working the neighborhoods are still finding people who clearly have the kinds of infections that require getting them into the medical care system, such as it is, as soon as possible.
SILBERNER: And many of those infections will likely end in amputation, as many have already. That's because untreated gangrene can kill a person in a day. Batson's group estimates that there will be 4,000 amputees in Haiti.
BATSON: I think we can help all 4,000. But I think it's going to be an enormous piece of work. So, nor do I think it's going to be fast.
SILBERNER: Prosthetic devices can't be used right away - the stump has to heal. They've been helping people with stretching exercises to keep the muscles working for the month or so before a temporary prosthesis can be used. And they've begun plans for a factory in Haiti, to manufacture prosthetics. The challenge, says Batson, there's no local health care system to support them.
BATSON: That, of course, is what's been so absolutely cruel about where this earthquake hit. Even in poor countries like Pakistan, there are backup medical systems within reach, and that there's just not in Haiti.
SILBERNER: New problems are going to show up in Haiti because people are crowding together in parks, in makeshift, roofless tents, says Ron Waldman.
WALDMAN: Obviously, accompanying those things is the threat of communicable diseases, particularly diarrheal diseases. Lack of shelter raises the risk of pneumonia. The aggregation of the population raises the risk of outbreaks of measles and other communicable diseases.
SILBERNER: But even before the quake hit, Haiti was struggling with two major infectious diseases: HIV and tuberculosis.
WALDMAN: My understanding is that the tuberculosis sanatorium, where there was obviously high concentration of cases, was destroyed. And I know that the penitentiary was destroyed, and that was another area where there were quite a few tuberculosis patients as well.
SILBERNER: There are some programs aimed at helping TB patients, but the patients are hard to find. As for the second disease, HIV/AIDS, there's some hope here. A partially destroyed clinic that was distributing antiretroviral drugs to 12,000 patients has managed to hang on. Jean Marc DeMatteus is with Gheskio clinic. He says they've been able to reach 80 percent of their HIV patients. Last week, outside what remains of the clinic, DeMatteus said now is a key time for action - not just distributing the drugs, but raising money.
JEAN MARC DEMATTEUS: We are well aware that in two months, three months, these kind of things tend to fade from the headlines. And we want to see if we can raise as much money now, so that three to four months from now, we can be really tackling the massive issues that we're going to need to be tackling.
SILBERNER: That is creating a health system in Haiti where there wasn't much of one before.
Joanne Silberner, NPR News.
SHAPIRO: At npr.org you can see an audio slide show about an Haitian-American doctor who is interested in Haiti's long-term challenges.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
In London yesterday, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan touched on the dominant theme of an international conference on his country.
HAMID KARZAI: We must reach out to all of our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers who are not part of al-Qaida or other terrorist networks.
INSKEEP: That is the focus of delegates from more than 60 countries, bringing those who are now with the Taliban back into the fold, if possible. By the end of the day, the conference raised $140 million, with a promise of more, for a new fund designed to reintegrate former fighters into civilian society. Those millions could go toward creating jobs or building homes or simply replacing the money that the fighters made with the Taliban.
Our own Renee Montagne is in London, at this conference. Hi, Renee.
RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:
Hi, Steve. And, you know, yesterday's conference was held at Lancaster House, that's a gilded mansion near St. James Palace that's been the setting for a number of historic agreements. It's where I sat down with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask her why the talk among the international community has now turned so forcefully to reaching out to the Taliban.
HILLARY CLINTON: Military action is not enough alone. It has to be mixed with political and development work. And I think everyone has realized, as we did in Iraq, that you have to begin to go right at the insurgents and peel those off who are willing to renounce violence, renounce al-Qaida, agree to live by the laws and constitution of Afghanistan and reenter society.
MONTAGNE: Although, obviously, Afghanistan is not Iraq, and I think there might be those who are hearing this knowing that the American fighting forces are in Afghanistan beginning a surge for a big fight with the Taliban, and it will be a surprise and maybe even disturbing to you that there's now talk of talking to the Taliban.
CLINTON: You can't have one without the other. Only a surge of military forces alone without any effort on the political side is not likely to succeed. Only an effort to try to, you know, make peace with your enemies without the strength to back it up is not going to succeed. So, in fact, this is a combined strategy that makes a great deal of sense.
Now, I think underlying your question is a concern of people who say, well, you know, wait a minute. Those are the bad guys. Why are we talking to them? We're not going to talk to the really bad guys, because the really bad guys are not ever going to renounce al-Qaida and renounce violence and agree to reenter society. That is not going to happen with people like Mullah Omar and the like.
But there are so many fighters in the Taliban who are there because, frankly, it's a way of making a living in a very poor country where the Taliban pay them a lot more than they could make as a farmer or, you know, in some other line of work out in the countryside. So we're already seeing people coming off the battlefield. There was a big story in one of the papers today about, you know, the military working with a whole tribe, in effect, to give them an alternative to either being on the sidelines or siding with the Taliban.
MONTAGNE: Well, it's interesting you mentioned the article. It's in The New York Times. The tribe is the largest Pashtun tribe in Afghanistan, something like 400,000 members. And basically what they said was we are going to - the tribe has pledged, all its leaders have pledged to fight the Taliban. The money that came from the American commanders went directly to the tribe, bypassed the government. How do you work out, in a sense, the tension between going directly to the people who are trying to do something, the tribal groups - such as they are in Afghanistan - and also trying to support a government? I mean, in this case, the tribal group said they didn't trust the government to help them.
CLINTON: Well, there are two interconnected approaches. The story you're describing was a story of our American military making this decision, similarly to what they had done in Iraq, where individuals were given incentives to leave the battlefield. The second aspect of this is what's called the reintegration fund, set up and funded by international donors.
A number of countries have made some significant contribution commitments, and it will be used by President Karzai. And I think that's smart, because it has to be agile and fluid, depending upon the circumstances.
MONTAGNE: Secretary Clinton, you were the first secretary of state who has put a big focus on women's rights. When you look ahead to integrating the Taliban, even those who have renounced violence - which, of course, they would have to do for that to happen - back into society and into some sort of political empowerment, are you worried about the effect that this might have - the negative effect this might have on Afghan women?
CLINTON: I am concerned, and I've spoken about it with a number of Afghan women and advocates for Afghan women, if the ...
MONTAGNE: And are they worried about it?
CLINTON: They are. They're worried because they don't know quite what it means, and I think that's fair. I don't think there's cause for alarm that the current government or any foreseeable government will turn the clock back like that, so long as there is enough power in the state and through the new Afghan security forces to make sure that there's never a resurgence of the Taliban that could come close to taking over large parts of the country. That's what we're preventing.
So I don't want us to be so diverted into our military and security efforts that we forget this country still needs a lot of development. And the only way, in my opinion, that Afghanistan has a chance to develop is if women are given the opportunity to participate fully.
MONTAGNE: President Karzai said this week that he expects Western troops to be in Afghanistan for at least another decade. Is that a timeline that makes sense to you?
CLINTON: Well, I don't believe that most Western troops will be in a combat role, but there are, in many countries, Western troops who do training of national armies or police. There are Western troops that provide intelligence, logistics, et cetera. But it won't be as it is today, where we are putting in thousands more troops, 30,000 from our own country, 9,000 from other countries. But I would imagine there will be continuing military assistance and liaison, which is common around the world.
MONTAGNE: Could you give me - what would be an example of talking to, let's say, a mid-level Taliban? I mean, will American officials sit down with Taliban? Will they work through - what is the practicalities of that?
CLINTON: Well, Renee, I don't know that I can answer that, because I think that this is a very new effort. It's a case-by-case effort. There already have been Taliban who have left, and I think it is, for me, just the beginning. And how it goes will be a little bit like jazz. I mean, we're not sure. I can't lay it out completely, but there are a lot of, you know, so-called members of the Taliban who want out.
MONTAGNE: And, of course, Western troops, in a way, want to get out of Afghanistan. Is this an exit strategy?
CLINTON: It's not an exit strategy. It is part of our comprehensive strategy. You have to have a very tough-minded attitude about this. This is not, you know, sweetness and light. You're dealing with a very difficult, complex phenomenon. A lot of things are moving in the right direction, but most wars, most conflicts these days don't end with a victory on the battlefield. So you've got to go at it in different ways. We've found how to do it in Iraq. We've got some of the same people that worked on this in Iraq working with General McChrystal in Afghanistan, and I think we're headed in the right direction.
MONTAGNE: Secretary Clinton, thank you very much.
CLINTON: Thank you. Good to talk to you.
INSKEEP: That's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with our own Renee Montagne at the close of the international conference on Afghanistan being held in London.
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INSKEEP: You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro. Whether Apple's new tablet computer, the iPad, takes off or not, the fact is more people are using mobile devices. And they're downloading more and more video, more software, and other big chunks of data that are clogging up the bandwidth. We spoke with our technology commentator Mario Armstrong about how much of a problem this is for consumers and for wireless carriers.
Mario, welcome.
MARIO ARMSTRONG: Hi, Ari. Thanks so much for having me.
SHAPIRO: Well, right now, today, is the lack of bandwidth a problem?
ARMSTRONG: Absolutely, the lack of bandwidth is an issue. I mean, you could look at numerous reports or just look at some of the disgruntled consumers that are out there that are complaining about wanting to be able to do more with these devices but feel like they're a little hamstrung because the networks seem to be overwhelmed.
SHAPIRO: How much of a factor is that when Apple introduces a high- profile, new product like the iPad?
ARMSTRONG: You're absolutely right, when you start looking at how many more devices can we add to the mix? The Kindle is one, and then we have a netbook. We also have a Data Card from Verizon, a Droid, an iPhone. So all of these devices are consuming much more of the networks' capabilities than we would ever really imagined. One thing that may help to shift this a little bit is the idea of tiered data plans.
SHAPIRO: What is that?
ARMSTRONG: And so that means the idea of maybe you consume only a little bit of data on your smartphone or on a device.
SHAPIRO: I just check email. I'm not streaming video.
ARMSTRONG: That's correct. And maybe I'm just a hog. Maybe I just love broadcasting myself walking into the NPR studio - which, by the way, I did on my way in here; I'll send it to you.
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ARMSTRONG: I did that live on the iPhone, using an application. So the point is, maybe I should pay a little bit more for my service because of my usage of the network, versus you.
SHAPIRO: OK. Well, let's give this a try. You filmed yourself walking into the NPR studio?
ARMSTRONG: Yes. And in fact, I'm going to take it a step further, if that's OK with you. I'm going to start streaming us live. So...
SHAPIRO: All right. I'm going to straighten my tie. OK.
ARMSTRONG: ...I'm going to hand you the phone. I'm going to hand you the phone. You can actually see video. Right?
SHAPIRO: Yeah...
ARMSTRONG: On the phone.
SHAPIRO: ...there you are.
ARMSTRONG: Right now, we are broadcasting live on my Web site. If you were to go to my Web site and pull that up or go to Youtream.com, you would be seeing us in studio right here. And that's being handled from an iPhone.
SHAPIRO: And relatively speaking, this uses a lot of bandwidth.
ARMSTRONG: Relatively speaking, a lot of bandwidth. I mean, it's nowhere like near listening to an NPR podcast versus streaming live video - two totally different and significantly different uses of data.
SHAPIRO: Now, I've got to say this: I'm watching you in the iPhone; it's not a fluid, streaming image of you. It freezes for half a second, and then it jumps forward and it freezes for another half-second. Is that the problem we're talking about?
ARMSTRONG: That's exactly what some of the issue is in terms of streaming. I mean, it's still obvious, when I travel to California or to New York or to other places, I'm still dealing with dropped calls on multiple devices and not the best data connectivity at all times.
SHAPIRO: You know, we've been talking mostly about Apple products like the iPhone and the iPad. There are other competitors out there that use different networks created by BlackBerry, Palm, things like that. Could the problems with bandwidth make one of these competitors a front-runner just because people get faster service and they're able to do what they want to do?
ARMSTRONG: You're picking a great point right there. That is an absolute unique differentiator. I mean, we still see the advertisement for these companies, all talking about connectivity. Who has the largest coverage area? Who has the fastest speeds?
That's going to continue to evolve as a differentiating point for consumers, as the need becomes more prevalent for people to want to download larger files or stream broadcasts. And that's for all telecommunications companies.
A problem that they have to step into is, you know, how much are we going to allocate our network to Wi-Fi versus cellular versus other means of connectivity. And how fast can we get it done?
SHAPIRO: Well, Mario, I can see that your iPhone battery is almost dead, so I'm going to let you go.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: Thanks a lot.
ARMSTRONG: Been sucking up too much juice. Thanks for having me in.
SHAPIRO: Mario Armstrong is MORNING EDITION's regular technology commentator, and he also hosts the radio show "Digital Cafe" on Baltimore Public Radio station WYPR.
INSKEEP: Some pockets of the country have no real high-speed Internet access at all. Last year's stimulus package included more than $7 billion to increase broadband access to rural communities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is in charge of distributing some of the money.
SHAPIRO: And this week, they awarded more than $300 million in grants. The money funds 14 projects, from Alaska to Alabama. Not everyone is happy with the program. Yesterday, Alabama's Republican Senator Richard Shelby called it wasteful spending by the Obama administration.
STEVE INSKEEP, host:]
NPRs business news starts with some high tech profits.
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INSKEEP: Two leading technology companies reported big increases in sales and earnings for the most recent quarter. In fact, online retailer Amazon.com said yesterday it made record profits last quarter - thats the three-month period covering holiday shopping.
ARI SHAPIRO, host:
The company had $9.5 billion in sales. One big seller was the Kindle e-reader device. The companys CEO wouldnt give exact figures but said that millions of people now own Kindles.
INSKEEP: Not far from Amazons headquarters in Seattle, Washington is Microsoft, which is still the worlds biggest software maker. Microsoft said its profits jumped 60 percent in the last quarter of 2009 compared to the previous year. The company cited strong sales of its Windows 7 operating system and sold 60 million licenses in that one quarter. This follows poor reviews and sales of its previous operating system, called Windows Vista.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And today's last word in business is overexposure. It's the story of some workplace trouble caused by a photo posted on the Internet. A high school teacher in Pennsylvania was suspended for 30 days after a picture of her at a strip club was posted on a social networking site. The photo was taken at a bachelorette party.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
She was not the stripper in the photo. Someone else took and posted the picture of the teacher. She was in what school officials call a sexually suggestive pose with a male stripper. The teacher was fully clothed and no kids were present, but according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which ran the story last week, some students saw the photo and notified school officials. The ACLU is looking into the case.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
And I'm Ari Shapiro.
This week started on a bad note for Toyota, and it is ending on a worse one. Last night Congressional investigators asked for documents from the company. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is looking into the company's recall of millions of vehicles. The committee said, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, problems with sudden acceleration of Toyota vehicles have led to 19 deaths in the last decade. Hearings are set for next month.
And to discuss these latest developments, we have NPR's Frank Langfitt, who covers the auto industry. Good morning, Frank.
FRANK LANGFITT: Good morning, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What, specifically, is the committee looking at here?
LANGFITT: Well, they're asking for lots of documents. And what they've said, is they want to know when Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration first learned about these potential safety problems and what they did to investigate and try to resolve them. Now the committee said this in a statement, I'm kind of quoting here, our government figures show nearly twice as many people died in Toyotas from sudden acceleration problems in the last decade than in cars from all other automakers combined. So that's another thing they're really very interested in, is the number and the volume and how many of those are Toyotas.
SHAPIRO: Wow. And that's the fist time we've heard this number from the government. Has Toyota offered its own numbers?
LANGFITT: I talked to one of their spokesman yesterday, and he said the company is still going through data. In addition to government records, they're also looking at customer complaints. Toyota says the problem with sudden acceleration is rare. This fellow I talked to at Toyota, said it averages about 200 complaints a year over the last decade and says that's not out of line with the rest of the industry.
SHAPIRO: Now, we've been hearing that the problem is sudden acceleration, as you said. Can you describe specifically what's wrong with these cars?
LANGFITT: Well, it's really interesting. It's been very complicated and not, I think, easy for the public to understand. There are two main problems. Accelerators were getting stuck on floor mats. The other thing, though, is that the accelerators were sticking on their own, mechanically, so they weren't springing up when people took their feet off.
Now, Toyota says these are not related, but can, of course, have the same effect. A car accelerates, driver loses control. Now Toyota began issuing recalls for the floor mat problems back in December and issued recalls for stuck accelerators last week. Now all together, this is more than five million vehicles recalled for one problem, the other or both.
But what really caught peoples' attention this week, and certainly Congressional members, is Toyota stopped selling eight models for the faulty accelerator pedal concerns. And this was seen as a sign that Toyota was really taking this problem seriously and, you know, and very concerned.
SHAPIRO: What exactly is the problem with the accelerators?
LANGFITT: Well, the company says that it has to do with condensation effecting what seems to be kind of a plastic part in the accelerator assembly. What's happening is when it gets worn it starts to stick. Now, Toyota didn't actually make this accelerator assembly, it came from a supplier named CTS. They are based in Indiana. And CTS insists that they built these accelerator assemblies to Toyota's specs, so they certainly seem to be suggesting, you know, any problem here isn't their fault.
SHAPIRO: Well, what's Toyota's plan to deal with all of this?
LANGFITT: Well, they say they're already starting to. They switched from the plastic to some other materials that have better resistance to the condensation and wear, and CTS began shipping these new assemblies, last week, to factories. The problem is there are so many vehicles involved here. Now the plan is dealers will install a new accelerator to these recalled vehicles or make repairs to old ones. But the company hasn't decided exactly what's the best way to go about this, and it still needs to kind of share its plan with the government.
Toyota said to do this. It might just take an hour of labor but building all those accelerators and providing parts, it takes time. And given how many cars are involved, it's probably going to take months to fix them.
SHAPIRO: And I suppose it will also take time to recover from the damage to the reputation and the brand that Toyota has experienced from this?
LANGFITT: Well, I think that's still an ongoing issue. As we were talking, these recalls began several months ago. There's indication that certainly there were these problems earlier than the recalls, certainly people were noticing them. And so one of the questions going forward is, how does Toyota deal with this and also protect its reputation for quality, which has been so important to the brand?
SHAPIRO: Thanks a lot, Frank.
LANGFITT: You're very welcome, Ari.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Frank Langfitt covers the auto industry.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning. This morning's news of stronger growth in the economy comes right after news that the chief steward of our economy managed to keep his job. Ben Bernanke's first term as chairman of the Federal Reserve was set to expire over the weekend. Last night, the Senate did vote to give Bernanke a second term.
Unidentified Woman #1: The ayes are 70, the nays are 30. The nomination is confirmed.
INSKEEP: OK, 70 to 30, that's a comfortable-sounding vote, but it's actually the smallest margin ever given to a chairman in the history of the Fed. We're going to talk about this and more with David Wessel, the economics editor of the Wall Street Journal and a regular guest here. David, good morning once again.
DAVID WESSEL: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: I suppose we should remind people that not long ago, there was talk the Senate might even reject Bernanke as Fed chairman. What happened to him?
WESSEL: Right. A week ago, there was talk that he might not make it. There was an enormous amount of pressure from the White House, from the Treasury, even from some business executives. Senator Nelson of Nebraska got a call from Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, and that turned him around.
And I think there was a sense in the Senate that the markets, the world, would be shaken up if they rejected Bernanke, so they eventually got enough votes to get him through.
INSKEEP: And let's remember why 70-to-30 seems like a small margin for a Fed chairman. This is supposed to be the guy who is above politics, who is someone that everybody trusts, who is the guru of the economy. And so when you have any opposition to a Fed chairman, people feel troubled about it. Why has his stock fallen, so to speak?
WESSEL: Right. He got more no votes - 30 - than Paul Volcker did back in 1983, when interest rates were very high. Volcker got only 16 no votes.
But I think what happened here was that there's a great deal of anger now that the worst of the crisis has passed. And congressmen, senators and the public in general want to blame somebody for this. Mr. Bernanke is a convenient target. After all, he joined the Fed in 2002 in the Greenspan years, when some of the seeds of this crisis were sown.
I think that there's a sense out there in America that Wall Street got bailed out and Main Street didn't, and Bernanke is a target of that because he was one of the people that organized the rescue.
INSKEEP: You wrote a book, David, called "In Fed We Trust" that creates a different image of Ben Bernanke, though - more of a hero, making hard decisions in a crisis.
WESSEL: That's right. Well, I think that, you know, the crisis has passed, and people want somebody to take the blame, and he's one of the people taking the blame. I think also we saw yesterday in the Senate there's - unhappy with his current approach to things.
But there's a great deal of difference among the critics. People on the left say he's not doing enough, not doing enough about credit card rates, about home mortgage foreclosures and so forth; and people on the right saying just the opposite - he's done so much that inflation is inevitable.
So I think this is really a reflection of what a bad time he went through and how many extraordinary things the Fed did, exposing itself - exposing to the world, rather, how much power it has. And there's a lot of concerns that it's more power than an institution that's not very democratic should have in our society.
INSKEEP: Well, can Bernanke ignore Congress now that he's got his confirmation?
WESSEL: Absolutely not, and this is one of the things that's causing the most concern in markets. And it's going to make this a very interesting story for the next couple of years.
He's weakened politically as he tries to persuade Congress not to clip the Fed's wings on monetary policy or take away its power over banks. And it leaves markets - domestic and foreign - wondering whether the Fed still has the guts to raise interest rates to avoid inflation. Some people think it might prompt him to be even a little tougher on the economy than - they otherwise be to prove that they still have a spine.
INSKEEP: OK. Is he going to raise interest rates, or do something else here?
WESSEL: He'll definitely raise interest rates. The question is when. The betting is not until later this year.
INSKEEP: And did Ben Bernanke celebrate his confirmation in some way last night, as far as you know, David?
WESSEL: We offered, at the Wall Street Journal, to send over a bucket of Gatorade and pour it over his head, and take pictures.
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WESSEL: The Fed told us that he was going home to spend a quiet night with his wife, Anna.
INSKEEP: Oh, that's what he told you, but you know that there was a bucket of Gatorade waiting for him at home, actually. That's why he declined; he already had that covered.
David, thanks very much.
WESSEL: You're welcome, Steve.
INSKEEP: David Wessel is economics editor of the Wall Street Journal. And again, Ben Bernanke has been confirmed as head of the Fed for another four years. The Senate vote was closer than normal for a Fed chairman, 70-30.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Let's follow up, now, on a dramatic moment from this week's State of the Union address. President Obama criticized a recent Supreme Court ruling. One of the justices in the audience, Samuel Alito, was visibly annoyed. The two men disagree over what role corporations, including foreign ones, will now play in elections.
NPR's Peter Overby reports.
PETER OVERBY: In the long run, the prospect of corporate politicking is bad news for Democrats. But in the here and now, they're using the Citizens United case to rally their base. That was the context as President Obama came to that section of the speech.
BARACK OBAMA: With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.
OVERBY: Justice Alito sat with five other justices in front of some democratic lawmakers. As the president hit the line, including foreign corporations, the Democrats all started a standing ovation. Alito shook his head and seemed to say, not true.
Alito was one of the five conservatives in the majority on Citizens United. It's not clear if he spoke out loud. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was sitting beside him. She gave no sign that she heard what he said.
Yesterday, MoveOn.org said that 10,000 of its members rated that passage of the speech their second favorite, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy gave a floor speech on Citizens United.
PATRICK LEAHY: And the Chinese come in and decide and affect American elections. It's hard to envision that this is what the founding fathers meant to enshrine in the Constitution.
OVERBY: There's already a law against foreign money in American politics, and the justices didn't touch it in Citizens United. And yet...
FRED WERTHEIMER: They have opened a loophole here that did not exist prior to the decision.
OVERBY: That's Fred Wertheimer of the group Democracy 21. He and other advocates of regulating political money say that foreign investors can get into American politics by buying into American companies. Their analysis says the legal language preventing such political activity exists only in the enforcement regulations, and without language specifically in the statute itself, Wertheimer says that even the sovereign funds of other countries' governments could invest here and start playing politics.
WERTHEIMER: That's the worst case scenario and that door is open now, by this decision.
OVERBY: But it doesn't look that way to some of Washington's top campaign finance lawyers. Robert Lenhard is a former Democratic chairman of the Federal Election Commission. He says if there's a legal loophole now, it was always there.
ROBERT LENHARD: What Citizens United has done has created the potential that the volume of money that could travel through these rivers could grow.
OVERBY: Ken Gross mainly represents corporations. He says the critics have simply misread Citizens United.
KEN GROSS: That is not what this case says and the law prohibiting foreign involvement stands untouched.
OVERBY: But whatever legal limits are untouched or carved with loopholes, Democrats on Capitol Hill are drafting legislation to fix them.
Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This week, Park City, Utah has been swarming with Hollywood stars, independent film producers and movie critics, including our own Kenneth Turan. The Sundance Film Festival wraps up this weekend and Ken is cramming in as many moves as he possibly can before the curtain falls.
Morning, Ken. Thanks for taking a few minutes to talk with us.
KENNETH TURAN: It's good to be here.
SHAPIRO: Okay. Well, it seems as though documentaries always shine at Sundance. What are some of the best you've seen this year?
TURAN: Well, it's really true. I think this year has been even a better year than usual. It's like I feel like I'm getting a postgraduate education in the world by going to documentaries here. One of my favorites was called "Secrets of the Tribe." It's a look at a tribe in South America, the Yanomami, that for hundreds of years were unknown to civilization. And once they were discovered, waves of cultural anthropologists went in. And it's about the interaction between the anthropologists and tribe and what it did to the tribe. It's quite fascinating.
SHAPIRO: What about a documentary I've heard about from Australia that sounds a bit irreverent - on cane toads? Is that right?
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TURAN: It's called "Cane Toads: The Conquest."
SHAPIRO: "The Conquest."
TURAN: And not only is it about cane toads, it's in 3D. If you've never seen a cane toad, seeing one in 3D is quite a momentous way to be introduced. This is an Australian documentary filmmaker named Mark Lewis who does wonderful films involving animals.
The cane toad is kind of a love it or hate it beast in Australia. And this film really examines how it got to Australia and why people have such passionate feelings about it. It's quite droll.
SHAPIRO: And then there is another irreverent movie I just have to ask you about that's not a documentary, but it combines jihadis with slapstick humor?
TURAN: Yes. This is kind of in the category of a film you never thought you'd see. But, I mean, if there's a film you never thought you'd see, you'll see it at Sundance. It's called "Four Lions." It's a British film made by a man named Chris Morris who's quite well-known in Britain as a comedian. And it is exactly as you describe it.
It's jihadists who are bumbling, shall we say. And, you know, you laugh at moments, because it's so kind of insane a concept, but finally it doesn't sustain for feature length. But it certainly is something to talk about.
SHAPIRO: All right. Well, tell about some of the dramatic films you've seen.
TURAN: Well, the one that really made the biggest impact on me was a film actually also from Australia called "Animal Kingdom." It's by a first time director called David Michod. And it's kind of an operatic gangster film.
It's about a young 17-year-old boy who goes to live with his trio of really frightening criminal uncles and their even more frightening criminal mother. And it's quite a film. For a first film it's very, very impressive. The guy's name is David Michaud. And I think we'll be seeing a lot more of him.
SHAPIRO: And just to be clear, when you say an operatic gangster film, this is not a movie musical?
TURAN: No, they're not singing. They're not singing. It's just very kind of deeply emotional and you really feel the passions.
SHAPIRO: Well, a lot of huge movies have come out of Sundance. Last year, the movie "Precious" was a breakout hit. Any this year that look like they're going to be big winners?
TURAN: Nothing that big this year. You know, besides "Precious," also "An Education" came out - debuted here last year. And, you know, it's very unusual to have a year when two really big Oscar contending films come out at Sundance. I think we get a little spoiled. We expect this every year. There'll be sales. There'll be films that do okay, but films like that are just not here this year.
SHAPIRO: Well, Ken, is there one movie that you've seen that you home or expect we will all be talking about year from now?
TURAN: Well, one of the films that I think will probably win something this year is in the dramatic competition, which is kind of a Sundance centerpiece. It's a film called "Winter's Bone." It's kind of a mystery story, a quest of a young woman who has to find her father.
And it's set in a very vivid culture. It's set in a mountain culture of the Ozarks. And the film goes to great pains to make itself feel authentic. And that really helps the story, helps us become involved.
SHAPIRO: Thanks and enjoy the rest of the festival.
TURAN: Thank you, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Kenneth Turan reviews movies for MORNING EDITION and the Los Angeles Times. And you can find continuing coverage of Sundance at NPR's pop culture blog, Monkey See. It's at npr.org.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep.
C: (Chanting) Tony Blair (unintelligible)
INSKEEP: That's the sound of protestors today calling for Tony Blair to be tried for war crimes. It's not clear if that will ever happen, but the former British prime minister is facing six hours of questioning today. It's an inquiry in London examining the Iraq war. Blair and other key players are facing scrutiny about the decision to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
M: I never regarded September the 11th as an attack on America. I regarded it as an attack on us. And I said we would stand shoulder to shoulder with them. We did in Afghanistan, and I was determined to do that again.
INSKEEP: That's Tony Blair testifying today. He is talking for hours. And NPR's Rob Gifford is listening from London.
Hi, Rob.
ROB GIFFORD: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: Whose inquiry is this?
GIFFORD: Well, it's been ordered by the government, the government of Gordon Brown, Tony Blair's successor, because I think there've been so many rumblings that there never was a full inquiry into the Iraq war. There've been a few smaller ones into intelligence failures.
But I think they've been trying to put this whole thing to rest, to get all the major players out in a public inquiry to be questioned by a former civil servant. It should be said that civil servant was appointed by the government. Some fears that it won't be full independent.
But he has really tried to say I will be independent. He's got other experts with him and they're grilling all the lead players in the lead up to the Iraq war in 2003.
INSKEEP: Does he have legal power to investigate this or to punish anybody?
GIFFORD: Not at all. This is not a trial. He emphasized that this morning. Sir John Chilcot, this retired civil servant. It is purely, as some have said, it's to sort of learn the lessons, if you like, from what happened in the run up to the Iraq war, to lay it all out, to hear about the mistakes.
Everyone admits, even Tony Blair admits, so that future generations can learn about it. And that's why there is so much attention on Tony Blair today, because obviously he was the key player in the whole thing that played out.
INSKEEP: Well, I'm interested, Rob Gifford, because this is a former prime minister who spoke endlessly about the decision to go to war. He had to go through a reelection campaign and decided he was going to take endless numbers of skeptical questions about this and get to the point where people were almost tired of hearing from him. I'm curious if now that he's talking about it all over again if you're hearing anything new.
GIFFORD: Well, it's very interesting what he has been focusing on. As you just heard he's talking a lot about 9/11 this morning actually. How 9/11 changed everything. That's been the focus of this morning's questioning. And how after 9/11 - before 9/11 they knew Saddam was a menace. They knew he was a monster, a dictator. But he was in a box, if you like.
The revelation of al-Qaida, the existence of al-Qaida prepared to do something like 9/11 made it so much more dangerous, the risk was so much greater of WMD falling into the hands of a group like al-Qaida. And Tony Blair has been saying that basically that is what changed everything.
Interestingly, one other thing. He's mentioned Kosovo a lot. Very, very interesting. In the last '90s, of course, he was instrumental in the preemptive strikes against Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. And I think many people here see that as though he saw the success of Kosovo and he wanted to translate that somehow with the impetus of 9/11 into a preemptive successful strike against Saddam.
INSKEEP: So he's arguing that he's like people to remember the context at the time of that decision. And just of seconds, though, Rob. What about this time now? Is this still a big issue for the British people?
GIFFORD: It is. There's lots of demonstrators, as you heard, outside. The general public, they want to hear what Tony Blair says. I think generally, though, a lot of people have moved on. Many of them opposed it, but I think they want to hear this and draw a line under it. And I think that's what for many people this Iraq inquiry will allow them to do.
INSKEEP: Ok. Thanks very much. That's NPR's Rob Gifford in London.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
Good morning. I'm Ari Shapiro.
It's opening day for the World Chocolate Wonderland in Beijing, China's first chocolate theme park. The event started with a fashion show. Models walked down the runway wearing chocolate wigs and dresses. One woman was draped in a dragon made of gold chocolate coins. There is a Great Wall of Chocolate. The BBC reports that 500 lucky winners will eat it when the show is over. If you go, dress warmly. The show is temperature-controlled so the exhibits don't melt. It's MORNING EDITION.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Think of this as Houston's battle with King Kong. The city fought for years against those giant inflatable gorillas placed on rooftops for advertising. The city passed a law banning them, which was overturned in federal court. So gorilla lovers won. But you should be careful what you wish for. Yesterday, an inflatable gorilla deflated on the roof of a Houston shopping center. It landed on some lights and set the shopping center on fire.
You are listening to MORNING EDITION.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
NPR's business news starts with a spike in economic growth.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: The economy grew last quarter at its fastest pace in six years. Today the government said in the final months of 2009, gross domestic product grew at an annual pace of 5.7 percent. GDP is the broadest measure of the economy. Much of this increase was due to business replenishing its inventories. Economists see consumer spending, another important component of GDP, as a better indicator of sustainable recovery, and in this latest report, consumer spending grew at a rate of two percent.
Also in the news today - Honda. As Toyota struggles with a giant worldwide recall of its top vehicle, another big Japanese carmaker, Honda, has announced a global recall. Honda's recall is much smaller than Toyota's. It's voluntary, and in the U.S. it affects about 140,000 Fit hatchbacks. The problem involves a defective master switch.
ARI SHAPIRO, Host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Ari Shapiro.
STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
And I'm Steve Inskeep. Good morning.
We're going to ask, this morning, what the latest big economic number really tells us about the economy. It's the measurement of the Gross Domestic Product; the output of goods and services. Today, the government reported the GDP expanded at an annual rate of 5.7 percent. Now, as with any economic news of the last few years, this number's certainly to prompt a lot of political, as well as economic discussions, so we're going to sort out the basics at the beginning, here, with NPR's economics correspondent, John Ydstie, he joins us live. John, good morning.
JOHN YDSTIE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: Five point seven percent sounds really good after some of the economic disasters of the last couple of years. How good is it?
YDSTIE: Well, it's good news. It's good news, but I think saying the economy is healthy again would be going too far. The biggest contributor to the growth was inventory replenishment. You know, during a recession, businesses - businesses used up their inventories in their warehouses. They were too nervous to order - particularly in this deep recession - and their warehouse levels got way down, inventories got too low. So now they're ordering more, which means manufacturing lines are running again - that's good news.
But this is typically what happens after a recession, you get a big growth number like this, but it doesn't necessarily mean we've got a self-sustaining recovery. You've got to have a corresponding increase in consumer demand to get that cycle going.
INSKEEP: Just so I understand what's happening here, some of the stores that I've been in the last year or so, where it seems you can hardly find anything on the shelves - that's 'cause they were too nervous, they were afraid customers weren't going to come. Now they're confident customers will be coming, so they're ordering more stuff.
YDSTIE: Well, they've just got inventory so low...
INSKEEP: They can't help but...
YDSTIE: They can't stay in business if they don't have something on the shelf. So they have to have something.
INSKEEP: Okay, they're ordering something, which means manufacturers can go back to work. But you mentioned consumer spending, where's that at in here?
YDSTIE: Well, there's a bit of good new in this report on that, too. Consumer spending rose at an annual rate of two percent during the last three quarters of last year. That's actually not as fast as in the third quarter, when the Cash for Clunkers program artificially boosted consumer spending. But it's a heartening increase.
INSKEEP: more jobs, more money in the pockets of consumers, a growth in spending, and then more hiring, and you've got a sustainable recovery.
INSKEEP: Let's remember that the unemployment rate officially is around 10 percent. Do economists expect that improve anytime soon?
YDSTIE: Well, the most recent numbers - the numbers on initial claims for unemployment benefits this week were a bit disappointing. And in the most recent employment report for December, the government said the economy had lost 85,000 jobs. So we'll see what happens when we get a new report in about a week.
Most economists will - feel it will take a long time for unemployment to come back, and so that the recovery will settle down after this big inventory replenishment and grow in the range of two percent or so.
INSKEEP: We already have a this morning from the White House on the economic news. It comes from one of their top people on the economic team, Christina Romer, who calls this the most positive news to date on the economy, but also says it's important not to read too much into a single report, positive or negative. Are both of those statements basically true?
YDSTIE: I think they are true. And, you know, I don't think we're quite out of the woods yet. We've had two quarters of consecutive growth after four straight quarters of the economy declining. Most people might say that's a recovery, and I think most economists would say we're in a recovery. Now, in fact, some are saying today that it is a self-sustaining recovery, but the official arbiters of these things have not made a pronouncement yet. So it's not official.
SHAPIRO: still lots of foreclosures happening, banks still not lending a lot, businesses still very cautious. So I think, you know, Christina Romer said also - the White House economic advisor - that there will surely be bumps in the road ahead. And I think that's true.
INSKEEP: And a reminder that even if some people did prosper as the economy plunged, many people are going suffer, even as the economy improves. It's just the way that it works.
YDSTIE: Absolutely. It's going to take time.
INSKEEP: NPR's John Ydstie, thanks very much. And again, the news this morning: The economy, according to the government, grew at a rate of 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter.
(Soundbite of song, "Sumthin' Sumthin')
MAXWELL (Singer): (Singing) All I wanna know is, if it's cool, we can do a little sumthin' sumthin'. Do a little sumthin'...
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Crooner Maxwell was one of the breakthrough artists of the early '90s genre dubbed neo-soul. Songs like "Sumthin' Sumthin'" from his debut album, "Urban Hang Suite," back in 1996 made him a heartthrob. His 2001 album titled "Now" made his a platinum-selling chart topper. And he was riding the success of that album when he decided to take a little break from music - a break that lasted nearly a decade.
And then last summer he came back in a big way.
(Soundbite of song, "Help Somebody")
CORNISH: Maxwell released the album "BLACKsummers'night," the first of a trilogy, and it's earned six nominations at tomorrow night's Grammy Awards. Maxwell joins me now from our New York bureau. Maxwell, welcome.
MAXWELL: Hello, how are you?
CORNISH: It's great to hear you. Nice smooth voice.
MAXWELL: Oh, thank you so much.
CORNISH: I remember the BET Music Awards, I think it was 2008...
MAXWELL: Right, yeah.
CORNISH: ...and there was a tribute to Al Green. And out of nowhere, a gentleman took the stage, sans afro, still with the sunglasses. And there was a moment where, you know, it took us all a minute to say, is that Maxwell?
(Soundbite of BET broadcast)
(Soundbite of song)
MAXWELL: (Singing) If I gave you my love, tell you what I do. I'd expect a whole lot of love by you. You want to give me some love, BET?
CORNISH: It was an Al Green tribute - I mean, I think an artist, a quintessential soul artist.
MAXWELL: Yes.
CORNISH: Who are the other, I guess, influences in your music?
MAXWELL: I could definitely say for sure, you know, Marvin Gaye, the Isley Brothers, Prince, I love David Bowie, of course Sade, you know. But then interestingly enough, as I was getting inspired, you know, I was kind of really into more of the alternative rock scene - MGMT, Grizzly Bear - just things that were more live sounding. Because a lot of the music that is in my genre wasn't as live sounding as I wanted it to be. So I grabbed onto that a lot.
CORNISH: So some unexpected sounds had you dancing in your living room.
MAXWELL: Yeah.
CORNISH: It's not just you and Prince.
MAXWELL: No.
CORNISH: Or you and Marvin Gaye. That's what I imagine. Maxwell dancing to Marvin Gaye in his living room.
MAXWELL: Well, with Marvin Gaye you do other things. You don't just dance by yourself.
CORNISH: All right. All right.
MAXWELL: They were really, really great experiences of just listening to other music and having other music sort of, like, play a part in getting a certain sound. I'm pleased. I mean, I wish I could listen to a lot of what I do more. But because I always can hear what I could make better, I sort of - it's tough to listen to myself. It's funny but it is.
CORNISH: In that time you're away, what did you learn about Maxwell, regular guy?
MAXWELL: I think more than anything, I learned that I could cultivate a relationship that, you know, that I was more than just the image that had been created and that had happened through the music. I didn't have to be perfect or a picture or a video or a song or something. I could be a guy, you know?
CORNISH: What did that time away do for your writing but also your music style?
MAXWELL: You know, actually I got grittier, I think. When I listen to, you know, "Urban Hang Suite" and then I listen to "BLACKsummers'night" - the first part of it...
CORNISH: And "Urban Hang Suite" is your first album from 1996.
MAXWELL: Yes, from 1996 - way back when in those golden years of mine.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MAXWELL: Yeah, and when I listen to those two records, I hear...the first record, I mean, come on, you know, you only get to make your first record once, so it's always going to feel really sweet to me to know that I got through that and that it actually worked out a little bit. But apart from that, hearing this new record, I feel like there's growth. The way it's recorded, it's not so precious. I'm not trying to prove to you that I can make a record 'cause I've never made one, kind of.
CORNISH: Yeah.
MAXWELL: I feel a bit courageous in how it all worked out. You know, there are no real features. I'm not teaming up with another person who can help record sales. Not that I'm like faulting anybody else for doing that.
CORNISH: No, but I was about to ask: in returning to the business and looking at the state of R&B, what pressures did you feel to, you know, start dancing, start doing some of the things that are expected of an artist?
MAXWELL: Yeah. I mean, I got to tell you, I'd be lying if I told you that it didn't cross my mind every time I went into the studio: is this going to work, is this a disaster, do I fit in? I mean, I was stepping into a world that was virtually auto-tuned all the way up. Everybody was kind of doing that initially around last year. So, it's, I dont know, it's just kind of incredible that something so organic can still mean something to people.
CORNISH: Another song I want to listen to is called "Cold," and gives us that sort of ride throughout the album.
MAXWELL: Right, right, yeah.
(Soundbite of song, "Cold")
MAXWELL: (Singing) (Unintelligible)
CORNISH: I love that beat and I love the trumpets. And it just gives you that -that pow. And it sounded - I was reading - it was pretty complicated getting the sound together for what that is.
MAXWELL: Right, yeah.
CORNISH: It isn't just a drum beat. I was hearing a story about dropping a microphone outside a window?
MAXWELL: Yeah. We recorded at Chung King, which is in New York. Actually, I think we may have been on the 12th floor, so we were way up on the top. It was raining that night. I was in a car driving over to meet a friend and then I heard the windshield go back and forth a certain way and then I was like, yo, this sounds kind of cool.
So Jesse Gladstone was our assistant engineer and he kind of got a mic down. And Glen Markese(ph), who's the engineer and the mixing engineer on the song, actually recorded this windshield wiper going back and forth.
CORNISH: So you've got a microphone connected to what must be, I guess, 11 stories of cabling going all the way down to a vehicle in the rain.
MAXWELL: In the rain, so there was a lot of...
CORNISH: Just to get this sound in the back of this album.
MAXWELL: Just to get the sound. You know, anything for the sound, you know, anything for the sound - even possible death.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Or electrocution.
MAXWELL: Electro - right.
(Soundbite of song, "Cold")
MAXWELL: (Singing) Tell me, baby, why I can't believe...
CORNISH: That's such a strong soul sound, and I know that once upon a time you said by hook or by crook you're going to break free of the label of neo-soul. And I got to say, you know, why? A lot of the artists who also were marketed in that same way as neo-soul have all shown staying power. I mean, what do you feel about that label today and what that music is today?
MAXWELL: I love where I came from. I love what neo-soul is and what it did for my career and all the other people who have brought great music to the world because of it. But you know, my responsibility is to my own individuality, you know, in the end. And I think that's just, you know, that's just my new challenge, my new hurdle, to ultimately in the end not surpass the people who have, you know, I came up with but to just individualize myself and not be lumped into one.
CORNISH: Into one market.
MAXWELL: Into one market.
CORNISH: One marketing label.
MAXWELL: Yeah, because I...
CORNISH: That's fair.
MAXWELL: Yeah. I think that's really what I'm striving for...
CORNISH: Is longevity, it sounds like, and...
MAXWELL: Yeah.
CORNISH: Well, after all this time, here you are - six Grammy nominations. What would winning mean to you, especially in a year where we've got country music, pop stars and Beyonce - that sort of very glittering pop. And to have your name in that list as well, what are you feeling?
MAXWELL: It's great to win. You know, I've been nominated in the past and I've always felt a great joy just from that alone. I'm supposed to love what I do. I'm supposed to have meaning behind it. I'm grateful that that's what gets me up in the morning. But it would be nice to kind of put something on that mantle - for sure, you know?
CORNISH: Yes. Maxwell, thank you so much for speaking with us.
MAXWELL: I'm really happy to have spoken to you. Thank you so much for knowing the music.
CORNISH: Maxwell, he joined us from our New York bureau. His latest album is the Grammy-nominated "BLACKsummers'night," and this song, "Pretty Wings," is up for Song of the Year.
(Soundbite of song, "Pretty Wings")
MAXWELL: (Singing) Time will bring the real end of our trial, one day they'll be no remnants, no trace, no residual feelings within ya, one day you won't remember me.
CORNISH: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Well, one small silver lining of the recession may be that it underscored just how little some Americans understand personal finance. That presents a golden opportunity to change the way young people learn about money. And some credit unions want to play an increasing role in teaching that curriculum.
From member station WFAE in Charlotte, North Carolina, Scott Graf reports.
SCOTT GRAF: A recent 10-year survey conducted by Finesse Financial found that 86 percent of Americans don't know if they're on track to retire comfortably. And 43 percent said they spend more than they make each month. People like Glenda Head are working to change those kind of stats.
(Soundbite of conversation)
GRAF: It's 11:30 a.m. and Head, a business teacher, is walking to the lunchroom at R.B. Glenn High School near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Once there, she helps two of her students open the school's branch of Allegacy Federal Credit Union. It's one of four the nonprofit has started at area high schools.
Ms. GLENDA HEAD (Teacher): They have to sign into a safe log where we sign in and out every day. So the beginning balance and the ending balance is confirmed.
GRAF: Soon the day's first customer, Jasmine(ph), approaches the counter.
JASMINE: Im withdrawing money from my account - $10 to be exact.
Unidentified Woman: (Unintelligible) checking.
JASMINE: Make that 15.
GRAF: One of the two tellers working today is 17-year-old Austin Dodd(ph). He says the class that goes along with this hands-on experience is already paying off for him.
Mr. AUSTIN DODD: I'm actually saving up money now. And if I wouldn't have got into this, I'd probably still be spending my money as soon as I get it.
GRAF: Dodd and his classmates are introduced to things like credit scores, the stock market and mortgages. Students are taught about arms versus fixed mortgages, why a 15-year is better than a 30, and the importance of making extra payments. Getting young people involved with credit unions is not a new idea. According to the Credit Union National Association, there were more than 700 branches in schools and youth clubs in 34 states last year. What has changed is the pace of growth. Since 2007, the number of these has increased by one-third.
Ms. LAURA LEVINE (Jumpstart Coalition): Oh, student-run credit unions are fabulous.
GRAF: Thats Laura Levine, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Jumpstart Coalition. Its mission is to get kids thinking about money matters as early as kindergarten. And her job is getting easier. She says the recession has sparked a dialogue about the importance of teaching kids a very basic life skill, one she says was once routinely taught.
Ms. LEVINE: We got away from some of the practical matters. I think we now realize that maybe we swung the pendulum a little too far away from the practical stuff.
GRAF: While just about everyone who learns of the student-run credit unions seems to like them. Sandy Wheat says they won't solve financial illiteracy. She is with the North Carolina Council on Economic Education and says the reality is that theyre used by only a tiny fraction of high school students. And she says implementing such programs nationwide poses big challenges.
Ms. SANDY WHEAT (Executive Director, North Carolina Council on Economic Education): The idea of bringing in banking services to them is a little bit of a far-fetched notion when they're not even performing to grade-level expectations in their reading and math skills.
GRAF: Wheat says funding the programs may be unrealistic at a time when school budgets are so tight. But she says the more young people can learn about money in school, the better their chances of avoiding the financial pitfalls facing so many adults today.
For NPR News, Im Scott Graf in Charlotte.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Tonight, Russell Peters takes his bold brand of cultural comedy to Radio City Music Hall.
(Soundbite of comedy show)
Mr. RUSSELL PETERS (Comedian): That's who can't do business together. Chinese people and Indian people can not give do business together.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: 'Cause Indians cannot live without a bargain and Chinese people cannot give you a bargain.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: Their objective is to get every penny from you and ours is to keep every penny.
CORNISH: Peters was born in Canada to South Asian parents. After more than 20 years in the comedy business, Forbes magazine last year named him one of the 10 top-earning comedians in the U.S.
He is currently on the road with his Green Card Tour. He joins us now from New York City.
Russell Peters, welcome.
Mr. PETERS: Thank you host, Audie Cornish.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: What kind of name is that anyway? Tell me about that?
CORNISH: Oh. Well, I know I'm going to open the door for some jokes here. But my parents are Jamaican. And...
Mr. PETERS: Aw, shoot.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: ...my dad insists that he got the name from...
Mr. PETERS: A car?
CORNISH: ...a beauty queen.
Mr. PETERS: Now, he was like darling, this is my favorite car: Two cars in one, a Cornish and a Audi.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: What is your favorite accent to do?
Mr. PETERS: It depends. I get into moods. Sometimes I'll just speak like a Jamaican all day. I'll just get on the phone with my best friend Marlon and I'll - he's Jamaican, so I'll just speak to him Jamaican the whole conversation. And even he'll just answer me in normal English. And I'm sure he's sitting going, why is he doing this?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: I just get stuck in it. And sometimes I get stuck in a Chinese accent and just want to talk to everybody like a Chinese person there. Trinidadians are always fun because its so, you know, relaxed and I'll just end up talking to people, Hey boy, I just, yeah, I'm just catching the lamb on the beach or something. You know, whatever it is, I just I get stuck in these zones. And then sometimes I might even just talk like myself.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: But that's on a crazy day.
CORNISH: Just for fun.
Mr. PETERS: Yeah.
(Soundbite of comedy show)
Mr. PETERS: So just so you guys know, Indian people are fully aware of what their accent sounds like.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: We dont actually need you.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: We know exactly what it sounds like. We know it's not the coolest accent in the world, you know? Youre never going to see two Indian guys in a club standing there and going, hey man, aren't we cool?
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Now, where do you come up with these kinds of skits?
Mr. PETERS: Generally, my stuff comes from real life. In my current act, Im talking about how in December of 2009, I was performing in Jordan and the King of Jordan, King Abdullah called and invited me over to the palace, and he cooked dinner for me.
(Soundbite of comedy show)
Mr. PETERS: And he got me drunk, and then he made us go fire guns in his private range. And the king is like, hes like a normal dude. Hes not like how you think a king is going to be, you know. How they make it in movies and how they make them all so stuffy and uptight and boring. He was a really cool, interesting guy who does not have an Arab accent at all. He went to school in Boston.
CORNISH: This makes me think of a very funny bit from your show where you talk about the depiction of Muslim or Arab people in the news as like always yelling.
(Soundbite of comedy show)
Mr. PETERS: And whenever they show you like Arabic being spoken on TV it sounds like these crazy people and these protests in the Arab world and all speaking this really harsh Arabic. And sounds like (unintelligible) (Beep) America.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: Because thats what they think is going on over there.
Yeah, they just keep showing you the same - the same three lunatics, but because we can't tell the difference, every one thinks everyone looks like that.
CORNISH: So much of your comedy, though, does sort of take race and culture and class and sort of puts it through a fun-house mirror. And Im wondering how you developed that style. What drew you to that area of life?
Mr. PETERS: Well, I think thats something that came to me as a child, because I was a very small kid and granted I probably had a big mouth on me. I was a victim of a lot of racial bullying. Because I was so small and didnt know how to fight or couldnt fight back, I would try to flip the situation, so that the bully would end up laughing, and theyre thinking that Im making fun of myself. But really at the end of the day I was getting myself out of an ass whooping.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: And its interesting, because often in a lot of comedy acts, Ive at times felt as though people of color are the butt of the joke in this very - in this age of being un-PC. You know, its sort of cool, and Im wondering how you walk that line, how what youre doing is different.
Mr. PETERS: I dont look at it as PC. I think its all about motive. Whats your motivation when you say these things, you know. Its - its almost like talking to an old person or a kid those are the two most honest people you'll meet. They'll tell you exactly what they think and exactly what they see, and they're not saying it to hurt your feelings, and they're not saying it to get a rise out of you, they're just saying what they see. When I go to do my act, I go with the same sort of earnest honesty. And people can see that. And people generally see through BS, you know.
CORNISH: But it sounds like you really found an audience, I mean, not just a general audience, but an audience of people who felt as, though, you were really describing their experience.
Mr. PETERS: You know, growing up my whole life I almost felt I was the only one like this and then, you know, throughout the years of doing comedy and people connecting with it that way, you realize this is a lot of peoples experiences.
CORNISH: Well, comedian Russell Peters joining us from New York City. Russell, thank you so much for talking with us.
Mr. PETERS: Well, big up yourself, Audie.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Thank you, thank you for joining us.
Mr. PETERS: Thank you.
(Soundbite of comedy show)
Mr. PETERS: Arrangement is a big problem in my community man. I mean, not so much of a problem. Its a problem if you want it to be a problem. I mean, its a problem for me, you know what I mean.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: My parents tried that on me last year. They came up to me like. My mom goes, Russell, youre getting older now.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: And youre not married.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: What if I bring some nice girls home for you?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: I go mom, I bring nice girls home all the time.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: They just leave in the morning.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: Thats a nice girl, right there.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. PETERS: Said no, no, I will pick some girls and you can choose the one you like. Okay are you out of your mind? My mom wants to pick my wife. I wouldnt let my mom pick my clothes.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
Coming up, international comedy star Russell Peters on his Green Card Tour.
But first: flying pandas. The star resident of the National Zoo is leaving Washington next week. Four-year-old panda, Tai Shan, will board the FedEx Panda Express to Chengdu, China. Today, the National Zoo is throwing him a going away party.
Donald Moore is the associate director at the zoo's Department of Animal Care, and he joins us by phone from his office.
Donald, thank you for joining us.
Dr. DONALD MOORE (Associate Director, Animal Care, National Zoo): Hi. How are you?
CORNISH: So tell me a little bit more about Tai Shan's trip. Where does he fly from? Is it first class? Is this a solo trip?
Dr. MOORE: Well, let's start at the zoo. Tai Shan will go into his holding crate, which he's been trained to go into, on command and be very comfortable in there. It's a large steel crate. And then he'll go from there to Dulles Airport, where FedEx will have a 777 on the ground and Tai will go from Dulles to Chengdu, China direct, in about a 14 1/2-hour journey.
CORNISH: And did you just say FedEx? The panda is flying FedEx?
Dr. MOORE: The panda is flying FedEx Express. You bet.
CORNISH: How did that come about?
Dr. MOORE: FedEx heard we were shipping pandas and weve had a good cooperative relationship with FedEx. They often ship animals safely for us and they decided to fly the National Zoo panda back to Chengdu for free.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Well, that's the operative word there.
Dr. MOORE: That's right.
CORNISH: Now, I was also reading that giant pandas are actually the national symbol of China. And I've read that China actually maintains ownership of all giant pandas. So, like most, Tia Shan is actually on loan. What happens to him when he gets back to Chengdu?
Dr. MOORE: That's right. Just like all bald eagles in the United States that are in captivity are on loan from the U.S. government, the giant pandas are on loan from the Chinese government. And when he goes back to Chengdu, he'll be managed by the Chinese giant panda breeding centers. And he'll help to save his own species by being a breeder.
CORNISH: Donald Moore is the National Zoo's associate director for Animal Care.
Donald Moore, thank you for talking with us.
Dr. MOORE: Youre so welcome.
CORNISH: And there's another panda party going on in Atlanta today for Mei Lan, a three-year-old giant panda. Some of her biggest fans will get the chance to make farewell cards and celebrate her time at Zoo Atlanta, where she's lived where she was born there in September 2006. She will join Tai Shan on the FedEx flight to Chengdu.
Zoo Atlanta plans to pack Mei Lan some snacks for the flight, including more than a hundred pounds of bamboo, sweet potatoes, fruits, and nutritional cookies.
For more on giant pandas, visit NPR.org.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
In much of Port-au-Prince, the focus is now on helping the tens of thousands of people in survivors camps. But there are still many pockets of the city that have seen no relief. One is a hilltop neighborhood called Fort National, one of the worst-hit districts in the Haitian capital.
NPRs Corey Flintoff has this portrait of a place where people are living among their dead and with their grief.
COREY FLINTOFF: Fort National is named for the historic fortress that crowned the hill rising from the center of the old town. Its slopes are white with the debris of hundreds of houses that crumbled and slid when the earthquake struck.
Suffrin Eddy is an undertaker and a political activist whos lived in the neighborhood all his life. He leads the way up a rubble strewn road where every single house has fallen.
(Soundbite of fire)
FLINTOFF: A cluster of people is gathered near a fire crackling in a pit dug into the buckled concrete of a fallen roof. A small man in a floppy hat waves toward the blaze.
Unidentified Man: This is my mother. This is my - my mother is being burned here.
FLINTOFF: Can you tell me, did you just find her body?
Mr. DEVARIEU STANLEY: (Through translator) I have found my child. My mother I have burned him. But I havent found my nephew.
FLINTOFF: So, how did you found your mother?
Mr. STANLEY: (Through translator) I was making space, trying to get in and then I saw her leaning on the fridge like this. Leaning on the fridge like this. And then she died there.
FLINTOFF: His name is Devarieu Stanley(ph), and like many in this neighborhood he has had to find and destroy the bodies of his loved ones by himself.
Mr. STANLEY: (Through translator) My child right here. I put fire on my child here.
FLINTOFF: A dozen or so people gather around to tell similar stories. My son, he was 25. My two daughters, my girls they're gone. A fallen school building is thought to cover the bodies of nearly 20 children and their teacher, but nobody knows for sure. Many people here sleep in the camp at the foot of the hill (unintelligible) but spend their days next to their fallen houses, looking for loved ones and any possessions they can retrieve.
(Soundbite of crowd)
FLINTOFF: Others come here to a sloping yard just a block from the top of the hill. This camp seems packed with a few hundred men, women and children, but Suffrin Eddy says that more than 1,000 people come here to sleep at night. He says theyve gotten some water delivered but have seen no food aid.
A man with graying hair sits at the upper end of the camp. His name is Max Paul(ph), and hes one of the pastors at the big Church of God in the Poste Marchant area down the hill. His eyes are swollen with fatigue and grief. His wife was killed, he says, along with six other people in his house.
You know, you are a man of God and a pastor; what do youll tell people when they ask you why such things happen?
Pastor MAX PAUL (Church of God, Poste Marchant): (Through translator) Its the will of God. Its the will of God.
FLINTOFF: Why do you think that happened, why do you think God chose to do this now?
Pastor PAUL: (Through translator) If God allows this to happen, it is because that we human beings are too wicked.
FLINTOFF: Pastor Paul says his faith is stronger than ever.
Do you think this is a little bit like the story of Job?
Pastor PAUL: (Through translator) Yes, God has given. God has taken away. May the name of the Lord be blessed.
FLINTOFF: The top of the hill at Fort National stays light while lower parts of the city are falling into dusk. During the daylight, when they are searching the debris, people dont have much time to speculate on why this happened.
People havent even had a chance to mourn for their loved ones, who died. When do you think anybody is going to get a chance to really grieve for the people that they lost?
Unidentified Group: (Through translator) We cry a lot. Every day, every single day.
FLINTOFF: Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: NPR photographers David Gilkey and John Poole have been covering the recovery efforts in Haiti. You can see their images on our Web site, npr.org.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
In the novel "The Catcher in the Rye," author J.D. Salinger's protagonist says, what really knocks me out is a book that when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.
But you couldn't do that with Salinger himself. He was a famous recluse and a pillar of American fiction who detested the attention that came with literary fame. He probably would've hated the flowery obituaries that followed his death at the age of 91 this week in Cornish, New Hampshire.
In our celebrity-soaked culture, where people dream of fame for the sake of fame alone, J.D. Salinger was the anti-celebrity. He walked away from autograph seekers, he had his fan mail burned, he took refuge from the phonies he wrote about.
He lived on the other side of the world from Brangelina and from Octomom. While celebrity wannabes aspire to barge onto center stage through the gates of the White House, Salinger wanted nothing more than to slip out the back door.
Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" hero, Holden Caulfield, made a deep impression on me. I was flunking out of my junior year high school English class. He was flunking out of prep school. And boy, did I relate to his too smart for his own good attitude when I was 16.
And I admired the way Salinger was unapologetic about his decision to no longer have his work published. In one of the rare moments he did speak to the press back in 1974, he told a New York Times reporter, quote, "I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."
I don't expect to hear anything like that from anyone in my generation today. We spill our private lives across the Internet in blogs, Twitter and Facebook. And we expect our favorite actors and writers to do the same. We throw the door open wide, while Salinger wanted to just pull it more tightly shut.
This week, Salinger's literary agent issued a statement saying that in keeping with his lifelong, uncompromising desire to protect and defend his privacy, there will be no service.
At last, Jerome David Salinger, you've found the privacy that you wanted in life.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
Abortion rights groups are relieved this morning and anti-abortion activists feel cheated. Both sides in the debate are reacting to yesterday's murder conviction in the death of Dr. George Tiller. Fifty-one-year-old Scott Roeder was found guilty in the killing of Tiller, one of the few doctors in the U.S. to perform abortions late in pregnancy. NPR's Kathy Lohr covered the trial and she joins us this morning from Wichita. Hello, Kathy.
KATHY LOHR: Good morning, Audie.
CORNISH: So, talk about why this trial was so closely watched by activists for and against abortion.
LOHR: The defense tried to get the judge to allow the jury to consider this lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. And that would have meant a lesser sentence for Roeder. So, what some who oppose abortion wanted to see was that lesser sentence because they say Roeder has an honest belief that what he was doing was justified, because Roeder believes abortion is murder.
Now, the judge ruled this week that the voluntary manslaughter defense did not apply for a number of reasons. At the same time, a abortion rights activists feared that if the judge allowed the jury to consider that lesser charge it would definitely send the wrong message to others across the country who oppose abortion, because they feared that some might harm or even kill doctors or staff at clinics and then claim they shouldn't be prosecuted for murder but instead try to use that voluntary manslaughter defense.
CORNISH: Since the murder last May, Tiller's clinic in Wichita has closed. Are anti-abortion groups still protesting there?
LOHR: You might know that Operation Rescue moved its headquarters to Wichita, specifically to target Tiller. And since the murder, the group has shifted its attention to other doctors who perform late abortions, including Warren Hern in Colorado and especially Dr. LeRoy Carhart in Nebraska. Now, Carhart had originally said he would open another clinic here in Wichita. But since then he has said he's likely to continue performing abortions in Nebraska.
He was one of the doctors who regularly worked with Tiller. So, now much of Operation Rescue is directed towards trying to shut down Carhart's clinic. As for others in the pro-life movement, in a statement yesterday, national Right to Life said it opposes abortion and also opposes any violence used to fight it.
But some other activists that were attending the trial signed a petition saying Roeder should be able to use a justifiable homicide defense. They said that Roeder did not get a fair trial because abortion did not end up being the central issue in this case.
CORNISH: And my understanding, Kathy, abortion rights activists are calling for the Department of Justice to investigate and possibly file additional charges against Roeder who's going to be sentenced in March.
LOHR: That's right; because they want the federal government to crackdown on what they say is a network of extremists. Some fear more violence against abortion providers. These are folks that have also asked for federal help since back in the '90s after there were murders of two doctors and a clinic escort in Pensacola, Florida.
Now, the Justice Department has said its case related to the murder of Tiller is still open, but that officials have not yet decided whether to file any charges.
CORNISH: All right. And, Kathy, can you tell us a little bit more about the sentencing of Mr. Roeder?
LOHR: Sentencing is set for March 9th in this case, and Roeder faces life with the possibility of parole in 25 years. Although the prosecutor has said she will now make the argument for what she called a hard 50. And that means that Roeder would not have the possibility of parole for at least 50 years.
CORNISH: NPR's Kathy Lohr in Wichita. Kathy, thanks for talking with us.
LOHR: My pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
It may not have felt like it, but it turns out that the U.S. economy grew at a much faster pace during the last three months of 2009. The Commerce Department said yesterday that the nation's growth rate hit 5.7 percent - the fastest increase in six years. As NPR's Jim Zarroli reports, part of the surge was due to what economists call an inventory correction.
JIM ZARROLI: Last year turned out to be the worst year for the U.S. economy since 1946. It shrank by 2.4 percent. But here's the good news: the downturn occurred in the first half of the year. Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute says growth was up sharply by the second half of the year, and he says the 5.7 percent growth rate during the last quarter means the economy entered this year on a pretty strong rebound.
Mr. LAKSHMAN ACHUTHAN (Economic Cycle Research Institute): Clearly it's a good number. It shows that the recovery has been gaining speed as we have been debating whether or not it even exists.
ZARROLI: There was an important qualification in yesterday's number. U.S. companies had cut back production so fast earlier in the year that by the fall they no longer had enough goods to sell, so they had to start churning out more products just to restock their shelves. Much of the increase in production was simply an effort to play catch-up, says Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at Global Insight.
Mr. BRIAN BETHUNE (Chief U.S. Financial Economist, Global Insight): Basically, they're producing at a higher rate than what they're selling so that some of the product goes into inventories.
ZARROLI: The problem is that companies won't keep producing at that same fast rate unless consumers and businesses increase their buying as well.
There's some evidence that's already happening. Consumer spending was up at an annual rate of 2 percent during the fourth quarter. Business investment and exports was up. Achuthan says that's good but he says it won't make up for the damage that's been done not the economy over the past two years.
Mr. ACHUTHAN: The problem is that we lost so much during this recession. We lost over seven million jobs, a lot of GDP loss, a lot of wealth loss. And the amount of time it will take to recover that is going to be years.
ZARROLI: There's also the worry that growth will slow down once federal government stimulus programs end. Still, Achuthan says yesterday's report is clear evidence that the economy is mending. He describes the economy right now this way: It's like falling into the deep end of a swimming pool and kicking off from the bottom. You're traveling very quickly, he says, but there's that moment of anxiety about whether you'll reach the surface.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
We turn now to news from the Middle East. Israel has long had a vibrant left-wing peace movement. Activists stage frequent rallies for peace with the Palestinians, sometimes joining Palestinian protestors. But this Israeli movement has been threatened lately by the arrest of many of its leaders, and the activists believe a lack of political backing in Israel has left them vulnerable.
Sheera Frenkel has more from Jerusalem.
SHEERA FRENKEL: The Friday protests in Nashaif Jerafni Road(ph) of East Jerusalem has become a rallying point for the Israeli left wing.
(Soundbite of protesting)
FRENKEL: What began as a march by a handful of activists has swelled into a weekly gathering of hundreds. Old men lean on canes next to mohawked teenagers from an anarchist group. In a small park just minutes away from the 1967 green line, they wage their fight against Jewish settlers, who were increasingly moving into neighborhoods like Shistra(ph), that Palestinians see as part of their future state.
The protestors say it is the first time in years that the Israeli left has been galvanized to this degree. Dede Ramez(ph) is a well known peace activist and blogger.
Mr. DEDE RAMEZ (Activist, Blogger): The reason so many people are here because there's a juncture here of basic justice, human rights, peace and civil liberties. It's accessible. It's people's hometown.
FRENKEL: But recently, a police crackdown has targeted organizers off the protest and police are threatening to band groups from holding similar rallies. Nearly 50 activists have been arrested, including figureheads of the left-wing movement, such as Hagai El-Ad, director of the Israeli Association for Civil Rights.
An Israeli police spokesman said the protest was illegal and those arrested had refused calls to disperse. Avnew Imbar(ph), one of the protest organizers, says the crackdown is part of a larger movement to stifle left-wing Israeli groups. He says the lack of political backing from any of the major left-wing parties has left them vulnerable to arrests and police intimidation.
Mr. AVNEW IMBAR: The police have been increasingly telling us that one of the reasons why they are so confident about their ability to keep arresting dozens of people, and sometimes even violently so, is that they feel that we have no backing. When they're there to arrest settlers or right-wing activists, there is entire array of (unintelligible) members and political leaders who are immediately getting to action and support their activists. When we are being arrested, sometimes they release a press release.
FRENKEL: For weeks, Israel's main left-wing parties, Merits and Labor, declined to send representatives to the rallies, due to the presence of what they called radical elements. Recently, some lower ranking left-wing parliamentarians have put in a brief appearance at the demonstrations in Jaif Jarah(ph). The left-wing protestors, says Imbar, are on their own.
Mr. IMBAR: (Unintelligible) is not officially backing. Things are deserting the activists in the camps themselves they are supposedly leaving. And I think that that's a very strong feeling that people here have, that we have been abandoned by the leadership. They're either tired or apathetic and they are simply no-shows.
FRENKEL: Meanwhile, the Israeli right-wing scored a long sought after victory this week, convincing Israeli lawmakers to expunge the criminal records of settlers who were arrested after protesting Israel's 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip. The left-wing activists have fought their own arrests in court, where they've twice won victories allowing them to continue their protests, as long as they do not disrupt traffic.
Dede Ramez says he'll keep coming to the rallies despite his arrest law week. He sees it as part of a bigger struggle - for the right of the left wing to continue voicing dissent.
Mr. RAMEZ: There's a whole generation of Israel, which is moving its belief and basic democratic values. I'm going to be arrested for as long as it takes.
(Soundbite of protesting)
FRENKEL: That's Ramez just before his arrest at last week's rally. He's singing to police that he won't be silenced.
But this Friday, few of the organizers, including Ramez, attended the protest. The new organizers are keeping a low profile, lest they be targeted. But for now, they say, the protests will go on.
For NPR News, I'm Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
And for the past few months the Palestinian Authority has made it illegal for shops in the Palestinian territory to stock items produced in West Bank Jewish settlements. The program has had mixed success.
In an interview with NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, the Palestinian economy minister says the policy will soon be taken a step further. Here's her report.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's just before dawn. A Palestinian man illuminated by the staring headlights of a van kneels down to pray. Around him are dozens of other Palestinians waiting to be picked up for work in the Jewish settlements. They huddle in coats around a kiosk dispensing cups of thick bitter coffee.
Unidentified Man: Coffee?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Most of them up for hours, traveling from their villages to the nearby Israeli checkpoint, where the waits are often long. Many have similar stories of struggling to find work opportunities within the Palestinian economy. Trace al-Ayan(ph) is 30 and works in the factory in the settlement of Mevo Horon.
Mr. TRACE AL AYAN (Factory Worker): (Through translator) I graduated from university. I found no work, so I went to work in the settlement. There was no other way.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Mohammed Abu Sosia(ph) is 26 and also travels daily to Mevo Horon where he works as a construction worker.
Mr. MOHAMMED ABU SOSIA (Construction Worker): (Through translator) I think it is fine to work in settlements. What else can I do? I just want to bring food to the table for my children.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He says in the Palestinian territories he has to fight to make 150 shekels a day - about $40. In the settlements, he makes about $110 a day.
Palestinian Economy Minister Hassan Abu-Libdeh says the Palestinian Authority is focusing its attention on settlements, because they are built on land Palestinians want for a future state. But he acknowledges it will take time to move Palestinians away from the wages the settlements bring them.
Mr. HASSAN ABU-LIBDEH (Economy Minister, Palestine): The number of Palestinians working in settlements is in the thousands. You know, this economy is a stagnated economy so it will not be easy for us to find jobs for many thousands of Palestinians overnight. But at least it should be known to every Palestinian, and as a certain date, no new Palestinian workers will be allowed to go into settlements to work.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Abu-Libdeh says that when the deadline passes Palestinians who work within the settlements will face jail time and/or fines.
Mr. ABU-LIBDEH: Why not? Settlements are illegally built on Palestinian soil.
(Soundbite of vehicles)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Back on the hard shoulder of the highway in the West Bank, 19-year-old Osama Mahmoud(ph) says he doubts the Palestinian government will be able to find him something that pays as well as settlement work.
Mr. OSAMA MAHMOUD (Construction Worker): (Through translator) I'm happy to stay on the Palestinian side and not work in the settlement. But will they provide me with an alternative? Will they provide me with a job? I need a job. I want to get married. I need to prepare for my future, and now the only way is to get a job inside Israel or the settlements.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: He says he's badly treated by the settlers and feels humiliated working there, but he defends his right to do it.
Mr. MAHMOUD: (Through translator) The decision to build settlements is not connected to Arab workers. Arab workers are not the cause of the settlements expanding. If we dont do the work, others will.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Like many of the Palestinian workers here, 28-year-old Imad Abdul Raoul(ph), who has a masters in mathematics but works in construction, says he despairs if ever seeing an independent Palestinian state.
Mr. IMAD ABDUL RAOUL (Construction Worker): (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm extremely upset when I think of the settlements, because settlements are an impediment to the establishment of an independent Palestine. But I dont think anyone is serious about us getting a state, he says. They are laughing at us, he says. The Israelis are laughing at us.
Mr. RAOUL: (Foreign language spoken)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But still, he says, he will continue to work in the settlements for as long as he can.
Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Time now for your letters.
Last week, we brought you a profile of Barry Black, chaplain of the United States Senate. The chaplain told us about his daily opening prayer, his Bible Studies session with senators, and how he uses his faith to help counsel lawmakers. The story drew lots of e-mail and even more comments on NPR.org.
Joan Sophie(ph) of Chicago writes, I'm outraged. Shouldnt separation of church and state mean that senators can seek their spiritual inspiration in the outside world, just as everyone else does? I dont want someone quoting an ancient book to decide any aspect of my health care or preparation for death.
Robert Fewl(ph) of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin asked, are religions other than Christianity represented in Chaplain Black's words to the Senate? Does he use those words to open the Senate doors to Muslims, Buddhist, Jews, and people of other religions of the world?
And Alaina Pipas(ph) of O'Fallon, Illinois says, it kind of shocks me how many people complain about politicians having no morals and then turn around and complain about them seeking moral and spiritual guidance. I'm glad that many of our representatives take one day a week to look at their jobs from a moral perspective instead of just what the polls say.
Last week, our math guru, Keith Devlin and I took a new equation for a spin: a full-proof mathematical method for parallel parking. Many of you wrote in to share your own pro parking techniques. Some even said youve used similar geometric equations, others, not so much.
Peter Davis of Champagne, Illinois writes, by the time I did all those calculations and measurements, I could've simply found a better place to park. And Jerry Braden pleads, as a resident of Philadelphia, I would like to know how to forward this story to all the drivers of New Jersey. Thank you.
Finally, our interview with pianist Yuja Wang hit all the right notes among our music-loving listeners. Alex Greenberg of Durham, North Carolina writes, this may be the first time I've heard the music of Jerje(ph) Lickety played on the radio. What a great surprise.
(Soundbite of piano music)
CORNISH: We want to hear from you. You can email us by going to NPR.org and clicking the link that says Contact Us. Or share your thoughts in the comments section of each story. And you can jump in the discussion on Facebook at facebook.com/nprweekend, or send us a tweet at nprweekend - all one word.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
At a swanky Beltway cocktail party last week, journalists, politicians and Washington insiders gathered to mark a milestone for 89-year-old journalist Helen Thomas - her fiftieth year covering the White House. On this night, Thomas held court from a plush sofa where she scribbled her autograph on copies of her most recent book, Listen Up, Mr. President.
Ms. HELEN THOMAS (Journalist): I should sign it (unintelligible). You know Im the mad, mad woman.
CORNISH: Mad in the proper sense.
Its smiles all around now, but over the years, Thomas has inspired equal parts respect, fear and loathing from the other side of the lectern in the White House briefing room. Just ask B. Jay Cooper. He worked for President Reagan and the first President Bush.
Mr. B. JAY COOPER (Former Press Secretary): I used to be deputy press secretary at the White House. And when I started in 1989, Marlin Fitzwater who was the press secretary at the time said to me, now B. Jay when you come in, Helens going to be sitting on the bureau outside my office. I said yes, sir. He said shes going to ask you questions. So I said yeah. He says dont answer them. Dont say anything because anything you say will be the top of her story.
CORNISH: Thomas has tangled with dozens of press secretaries since the 1960s when she first started out. And her reputation for relentless questioning didnt change when she stepped down from her post at the Newswire United Press International in 2000 and became a columnist for the Hearst News Service.
In her 50 years in the White House Press Corps, shes covered 10 presidents and countless crises and scandals. The faces of those presidents actually greet Thomas in a giant mural painted on the side of her favorite Washington dinner haunt. Its a Middle Eastern restaurant called Mama Ayeshas where theres a salad on the menu that bears her name. Thomas told me about her special connection to the spot when we settled down at a table there to talk.
Ms. THOMAS: I put the key in the door with Mama Ayesha. That was 1960. We came in together when she was buying the place and taking over. Its kind of a one man operation at the time - one woman.
CORNISH: That was also back when Thomas was first reporting on presidential politics for UPI. President Eisenhower was still in office. John F. Kennedy was on the campaign trail, and Thomas was reporting features on the future first family.
Ms. THOMAS: But as soon as the president Kennedy was inaugurated, I was covering men, women, children, animals, everything at the White House.
CORNISH: Was it difficult to convince your editors to move you on to a campaign or to do more policy focus things at the time?
Ms. THOMAS: No, I was - sort of assigned myself. I was the man who came to dinner.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. THOMAS: I went a couple of times and they said, you know, I just indicated this is my beat and they took it.
CORNISH: Which presidents did you have the most difficulty covering?
Ms. THOMAS: All of them.
Ms. THOMAS: They hate the press really. They need the press during a campaign and they really work to get their attention. But after, once theyre in the White House the iron curtain comes down.
CORNISH: And what does that mean for your coverage? How do you shift gears, especially since theres instances in the past where youve been iced out by certain administrations?
Ms. THOMAS: Means that you have to struggle harder to convince them that this is the country with freedom of the press and every public official is very accountable. Everything they do is accountable to the American people and thats why were there. Were the watchdogs. And I think everything belongs to the public domain practically, except for where the atomic arsenal is.
CORNISH: Now, I also want to ask you about your 2006 book Watchdogs of Democracy, because in that book you do talk about the White House Press Corps failures. And for a group that youd run with and been the Dean of for so long, what were the things that were disappointing you at that time and how do you feel today?
Ms. THOMAS: A lack of guts when President Bush knew and announced that he was going to war. Nobody asked him why. I thought that was a great failing and we let the country down.
CORNISH: So what lessons do you think the reporters have learned from that period? Do you see a difference today?
Ms. THOMAS: Theyre getting tougher, a lot tougher. The questioning is much more penetrating. Theyre putting press secretaries on the spot. I think theyre tougher on the president, but he hasnt had many news conferences. Presidents dont like to have news conferences. Theyre president. How dare you question them or their motives?
CORNISH: Her questioning also draws fire from media critics and sometimes even fellow journalists who have complained of long and often combative questions. But reporters like Chip Reid with CBS say they appreciate her style.
Mr. CHIP REID (CBS News): I know that if its a day when we really need to be asking tough questions, she is going to have my back. That if Im asking a tough question and Gibbs is being evasive or smug, shes going to jump in, and shes going to help me. Because she is great with the one, two punch and she doesnt leave us out there hanging.
CORNISH: And some of her biggest admirers in the Press Corps are women, because when Helen Thomas began covering the White House, women journalists were nowhere near the front row. Thomas became the first woman to head a White House Bureau for a wire service, and she helped break down other barriers, including memberships and leadership positions in everything from the exclusive Gridiron Club and White House Corps Correspondents Association to the National Press Club.
At the party celebrating Thomass 50th year covering the White House, NPRs Cokie Roberts said access to those clubs is something women today take for granted.
COKIE ROBERTS: And, you know, sometimes you can laugh at those organizations, because they dont mean much today to people trying to get ahead in the business, but in that era, if you werent in that room, you couldnt get a story, you couldnt get ahead. And so for the women who fought to do that, it was a very, very important thing for them, and for all the women who came after them.
CORNISH: Thomas wouldnt be kept out of those rooms or any other, but she says women like the late Frances Lewine, her good friend and an AP wire reporter helped beat those doors down.
Ms. THOMAS: I didnt feel like I was, you know, Mother Teresa in any way, but I did resent the discrimination against women. And I fought against that, but we were, you know, it wasnt a one-person operation. I was very lucky to be with a lot of women who felt the same way.
CORNISH: Well, Helen Thomas, thank you so much for your patience. It was an honor to talk to you.
Ms. THOMAS: Thank you. Now well have drinks.
(Soundbite of laughter)
CORNISH: Well, depends whats your favorite drink?
Ms. THOMAS: Whatever you like.
CORNISH: Okay, gin and tonics all around.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. THOMAS: Good girl.
CORNISH: Really?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. THOMAS: Thats a great idea.
CORNISH: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Audie Cornish.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Audie Cornish in for Scott Simon.
For a review of the week in the news, Im joined by NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr. Hi, Dan.
DANIEL SCHORR: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: Now, President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address this week.
SCHORR: Mm-hmm.
CORNISH: What did you think?
SCHORR: Well, I find it interesting in several respects. First of all, he has raised the priority on jobs to a much higher level than it was before, making clear that that is the most important thing he has to do, having learned that, I guess, from the voters out there. Secondly, I liked the way he positioned himself as being the representative of the people and the protector of the people. He seemed to be talking over the heads of the assembled legislators in that.
CORNISH: Now, since then hes gone on to give two more speeches. Now one was in Tampa to voters but the other was in Baltimore to House Republicans at their their retreat.
SCHORR: Yes, that was very interesting. For the House Republicans to invite the Democratic president to come and speak to them I thought was unusual, although Im told that they have been working on that for several weeks. I thought the position he took with them - I mean, if you talk about bipartisanship, this was the quintessential bipartisan. He appealed to Republicans to work with him. He never even said very much about the Democrats. It was he was there with Republicans, and he really wanted so much to work with them.
I dont know what effect it will have among the - previously he had been calling Republicans the party of no. And if there with the party of no, they certainly didnt seem that way to him as he stood there and practically appealed to them to join with him to get things done for the country.
CORNISH: Dan, you mentioned the presidents focus on jobs. Where does that lead health care?
.TEXT: SCHORR: Thats number two. And its hard to know whats going to happen now. There is a question, though, they dont have having lost the Senate seat in Massachusetts, they no longer have the necessary 60 to get a filibuster-proof vote. And the question is what they would do now.
There is some talk that they will try to use whats called a reconciliation process. On the other hand, what they lose there is that you cant put the whole bill in direct reconciliation. You can only reconcile those things directly connected with the budget. And so some of the other features of the bill like anti-abortion and things like that cant be put into that. That will require a separate handling. Its very complicated. I dont know if they finally will do it. But at the moment it seems to be their best chance of getting some kind of health bill.
CORNISH: I actually want to go back to talk about the State of the Union speech for a moment because there was an incident during that speech
SCHORR: Mm-hmm.
CORNISH: that got quite a bit of attention.
SCHORR: Oh, yes
CORNISH: And in his speech President Obama was chastising the Supreme Court for a recent ruling that would allow corporate funding of campaigns.
SCHORR: Right.
CORNISH: The president said it would allow foreign corporations to spend money on U.S. elections. And Justice Samuel Alito appeared to make a face and appeared to mouth the words not true. Youve seen a lot of these State of the Union addresses and covered a lot them. Have you ever seen a reaction like this?
SCHORR: Well, there is a certain decline in civility that we see in government which now has extended itself to the Supreme Court. Reminds me a little bit of Representative Joe Wilson, who last September audibly said you lie to the president when he was speaking about health care before a joint meeting of Congress.
CORNISH: I want to turn now to some international news. There was a major conference on Afghanistan in London this week. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was among the attendees and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He announced that hes working to include the Taliban in peace talks.
SCHORR: Yes.
CORNISH: And at the same time the U.S. supports the plan that would lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency with jobs and cash.
SCHORR: Right.
CORNISH: Do you think these efforts will be successful?
SCHORR: Well, I dont know. The representatives of the Taliban when they are asked say we havent made up our minds about it, indicate that its being considered by them. Perhaps they also have factions, as they have in democratic countries, I dont know.
One thing is quite sure; the very fact that President Karzai and Secretary Clinton are trying so hard to draw the Taliban into some peace negotiation and discussion must be a big thing for them. They must say, gee, we must have them on the run, these Western if they are all making this kind of offer to us. As to whether it will work, who knows.
CORNISH: And, of course, Haiti. International aid groups and foreign governments are struggling to distribute aid and medical care.
SCHORR: Yes. Thats right. And they are doing a good job of it. And, although, they do have a problem that there are about a million Haitians who have no cover over their head and need tents or something, especially since we are approaching the hurricane and rainy season in Haiti. And we could have another great crisis on top of a crisis if they dont find someway of getting shelter for them soon.
CORNISH: But also, Dan, this week there were some amazing stories of survival out of Haiti.
SCHORR: Yes, there were, you know. I recall having read a long time ago that if you dont have water for seven days you cant make it. That has been disproved by these unbelievable cases of rescue of people, up to 14 and 15 days after saying there isnt any more. Then they go in, a French rescue team, Israeli rescue team goes and picks up one more and one more and one more, not in very good shape, but the idea, the resilience of human beings that has shown in these rescues is quite amazing.
CORNISH: NPR senior news analyst Dan Schorr. Thanks, Dan.
SCHORR: My pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Audie Cornish.
President Barack Obama has renewed his pledge this morning to make job creation his number one focus in 2010. He again outlined his job creation package, which includes tax credits and eliminating all capital gains taxes on small business investment. But he stressed that economic recovery is not possible without trimming a record budget deficit.
President BARACK OBAMA: As we work to create jobs, it is critical that we rein in the budget deficits weve been accumulating for far too long, deficits that wont just burden our children and grandchildren but could damage our markets, drive up our interest rates and jeopardize our recovery right now.
CORNISH: Thats the president in his weekly radio and Internet address. Mr. Obama is set to release his budget proposal for 2011 on Monday and says it will include a three year spending freeze on some domestic programs. That wont include cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. The president also pledged to create a panel of Democrats and Republicans to come up with ideas to reduce the deficit. And he praised the Senate for restoring pay-as-you-go rules that he says led to the surplus is in the 1990s.
President OBAMA: But then we did away with PAYGO and we ended the next decade with a $1.3 trillion deficit. Reinstating this law will help us get back on track, ensuring that every time we spend, we find somewhere else to cut.
CORNISH: Were joined now by New York Times economic columnist David Leonhardt, here in the studio. Hello, David.
Mr. DAVID LEONHARDT (Economic Columnist, New York Times): Good morning, Audie.
CORNISH: So, what are these latest economic numbers mean? How would you characterize the countrys economy?
Mr. LEONHARDT: The economy is clearly in recovery now, which is good news. And these numbers we got this week were a little bit better than we expected. But the thing to keep in mind is there such a long way to go. The bust from financial crises wreak terrible havoc on an economy, leave huge number of people out of work. And so were going to have to be growing at a long time, at a pretty good clip, to get everyone who is out of work employed again.
CORNISH: And President Obama says that he is actually made job creation the top priority of his administration. But is this jobs bill that they have been describing a sequel to the stimulus package we saw last year?
Mr. LEONHARDT: It really is a sequel. This notion that they have made jobs the top priority is in part description of policy. But its also in large part political. They want to seem really engaged on the economy. The stimulus bill that they passed last year has actually had an enormous impact. If you look at private estimates of how many jobs it saved or created, and its hard to distinguish between those two, its somewhere up 1.5, 1.8 million. Its a huge number of jobs.
But its still not that popular, because its not that easy to go out and say it saved this job and it saved that job and created this job. And so they have decided that stimulus is something of a dirty word, and they want to call it a jobs bill instead of a stimulus bill. Really they have the same idea behind them. This is a much smaller bill than the first one. They hope that they can target it just a little bit better, so that even though it will be smaller, it will have pretty good bang for the buck, but we dont know yet.
CORNISH: So it sounds like it's still a tough sell.
Mr. LEONHARDT: It is still a tough sell, and its kind of funny. Stimulus works, I mean we saw in the Depression, when the Hoover administration didnt stimulate the economy, it didnt work. And typically when economies are stimulated, it works, but its not that easy a sell politically.
CORNISH: At the same time, the president is calling for a spending freeze, but many economists point out that jumpstarting the economy requires spending billions of dollars. How to balance that?
Mr. LEONHARDT: Yeah, this spending freeze is pretty controversial among economists. Its not again, it looks like its in part really political here, that they want to seem like theyre focused on the deficit. What we need now is we need more spending in the short term to get people employed again. And then we really need deficit reduction in the long term.
The most sensible way to do that is to have health reform that really reduces the costs of Medicare, which is the big long-term problem here. The bill that stalled would do some of it. It would actually make some progress. It wouldnt go as far as we need to, but because of the politics of that, what they want to do is they want to seem like theyre engaged on the deficit with this notion of a spending freeze, but they say thats for 2011. And in 2010 theyre going to try to keep stimulating the economy. Its a little bit of a tricky two step
CORNISH: Yeah, theyre trying to have both at the same time, it sounds like.
Mr. LEONHARDT: Yeah.
CORNISH: Now, this week after much debate, the Senate actually confirmed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for another four-year term. And at the same time Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner endured a tough round of Congressional hearings. I mean whats your read in all the criticisms that theyve been facing?
Mr. LEONHARDT: There are two types of criticisms about Bernanke and Geithner. The first has to do with what they did during the crisis. And I think a lot of that criticism is misplaced. Im not saying that their record is perfect by any means. I think some of the criticism this week about Geithner, that maybe they should have been tougher on the banks, was fair.
But by and large, when you have a financial crisis, you need to come to the rescue of the financial industry. Its just the way it works. And so this notion that they bailed out these banks and that was a mistake I think is mostly misplaced. The criticism that they didnt do a very good job preventing this crisis I think is totally fair. If you go back and look at some of the things that particularly Bernanke said in 2005 and 2006, they look really bad in retrospect.
He didnt simply say its hard to know whether we had a bubble. He said we dont have a housing bubble. And so I think Bernanke and to some extent Geithners performance was not that impressive in 2005 and 2006. In fact, it was unimpressive. But in 2007 and 2008 especially, it was pretty close to heroic. I mean they really brought this economy back from the brink, and its sort of hard to parse through those two different things when you see everything going up on the Hill.
CORNISH: So senators are sort of half right?
Mr. LEONHARDT: Senators are half right, and I actually think their emphasis is in the wrong place. Its a lot easier to pound the table about bailouts than it is to sort of have a nuanced discussion of what part of this bubble they should have caught in time.
CORNISH: David Leonhardt is an economics columnist for the New York Times. He joined me here in the studio.
Mr. LEONHARDT: Thanks, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
After more than seven years, the state takeover of Camden, New Jersey has ended. State lawmakers directed hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to New Jerseys poorest city. But the critics say little of that money found its way to the citys neighborhoods, as Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE: The state takeover was supposed to be a new start for Camden. After decades of corruption in City Hall, state lawmakers installed their own chief operating officer to run Camden. They set aside $175 million in special state aid. Many residents hoped the money would repair crumbling streets and sewers, improve schools, and put more cops on the beat, but thats not exactly how it worked out.
Ms. ROSA RAMIREZ(ph): The neighborhoods did not get a fair share. That I have to say because I live in Camden and my neighborhood looks just as it did seven years ago.
ROSE: Rosa Ramirez lives in East Camden, a neighborhood of weathered row houses and empty lots. Ramirez sat on a board that helped distribute money from the state takeover. She found it frustrating that the biggest institutions in town, including Campbell's Soup and Cooper University Hospital, seemed to get the most.
Ms. RAMIREZ: When I came to the board, I came to the board with the idea that I was going to represent the people of this city. Okay? Thats what I thought. Well, it doesnt work that way. They had to take care of the colleges, the hospitals, the waterfront, okay, and thats (unintelligible).
ROSE: Its about three miles from Rosa Ramirezs neighborhood to the most visible result of the state takeover. Camdens Adventure Aquarium draws roughly a million visitors a year here to the Delaware River waterfront just across from Philadelphia. The $25 million project is one of several big ticket items financed with the states money.
Mr. JOE ROBERTS (Former Speaker, New Jersey Assembly): With $175 million that was to be spent, was the money spent wisely? Were there results for the money that was spent? The answer has to be yes to all of them.
ROSE: Joe Roberts is a former speaker of the New Jersey assembly who helped to write the takeover legislation eight years ago. He doesnt apologize for the way the money was spent.
Mr. ROBERTS: If Camden is going to have any chance of survival long term, we have to grow the tax base. And thats only going to occur by building up the downtown and creating an environment where companies can come in and invest in the cities.
ROSE: But local businesses say they never had much chance to compete for the money.
(Soundbite of telephone)
Ms. CORRINE BRADLEY POWERS(ph): Hello (unintelligible)
ROSE: Corrine Bradley Powers runs a soul food restaurant in Camden. She is well known in the neighborhood for hiring people that no one else will.
Ms. BRADLEY POWERS (Restaurant Owner): Everybody knows thats what Im doing. My business has been here for 20 years and they know me for dealing with kids and even grown-ups that the unhirables, you know, people that - incarcerated and just giving people a chance, and this is what I was trying to do.
ROSE: Bradley Powers applied for a grant to open a culinary school in a vacant storefront next to her restaurant but she was turned down. If you ask Bradley Powers what she thinks of the state takeover, she doesnt hesitate.
Ms. POWERS: Well I dont think it was a success. No, I really dont.
ROSE: Camdens poverty rate remains near 40 percent and it still ranks among the most dangerous cities in America. With most of the bailout funds spent, state lawmakers voted earlier this month to turn power back over to city government.
Professor RICHARD HARRIS (Rutgers Camden): I dont think anyone who authored the legislation thought by putting a $175 million in play youre going to flip a switch and Camdens problems were going to be fixed.
ROSE: Richard Harris teaches political science at Rutgers Camden. He says New Jerseys takeover had more modest goals, to spur private investment while also rebuilding city government.
Prof. HARRIS: There's actually been a significant amount of progress on revitalizing the downtown and the city, but in terms of revitalizing or making more robust government, that you'd have to mark down as not being a success.
ROSE: But its that local government that is now running Camden for the first time in eight years. Newly elected Mayor Dana Redd declined requests for an interview, but in her inaugural address she pledged to use her power to make Camden cleaner and safer.
Mayor DANA REDD (Camden): Because united we will change Camden. Camden - are you with me?
(Soundbite of applause)
ROSE: Now its up to the mayor to do what generations of local and state leaders could not.
For NPR News, Im Joel Rose.
AUDIE CORNISH host:
(Soundbite of song, Rock N' Roll All Nite)
KISS (Band): (Singing) I wanna Rock N Roll all night and party every day.
CORNISH: The band KISS has come a long way from selling T-shirts and albums. Now when you go to one of their concerts, you can leave with a recording of the show on a thumb drive, a tiny pocket memory stick. This kind of marketing has become a necessity, not an option, for a lot of acts. With record sales on the decline, musicians are searching for more creative ways to peddle their tunes. Among industry insiders the strategy is called monetization, and its a hot topic these days.
Mr. MARK SUTHERLAND (Editor, Billboard): Well, monetization in the music business at least consists of looking at some of the ways that people are using music around the world and essentially trying to turn those into genuine revenue streams.
CORNISH: Thats Mark Sutherland. Hes the global editor for Billboard. He just attended MIDEM, a conference in Southern France that focuses solely on the business of music. The annual gathering has become something of an incubator for marketing ideas.
Mr. SUTHERLAND: Theres an awful lots of new things happening in the music business and it kind of changes from week to week, really, what the hot things are.
(Soundbite of song, Take Your Shirt Off)
Mr. T PAIN (Singer): (Singing) (Unintelligible)
CORNISH: These days its all about phone apps; look no further than rapper T. Pain. Hes made a load of money from selling a mobile program that automatically tunes your voice as you sing his songs.
Mr. SUTHERLAND: (Unintelligible) there are people to give them away for free, like, say, Lady Gaga did, use it to A) strengthen that relationship between fan and artist, and B) you know, drive them to other places where they can spend money on product, be that recorded musical or other things.
(Soundbite of song, Bad Romance)
Ms. LADY GAGA (Singer): (Singing) Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah, Roma, Roma-ma, GaGa, ooh la la, (unintelligible)
CORNISH: And Sutherland says online streaming has made a comeback.
Mr. SUTHERLAND: It was a buzz business a few years ago but never really took off. But now certainly in Europe were seeing services like Sportsfly and We Seven become increasingly popular with the public.
CORNISH: So the bottom line is gone are the days in which a band could play a big show and then head backstage.
Mr. SUTHERLAND: In the '70s you had to make a decent album every now and then and go out and tour and really you could spent rest of the time taking drugs and not have to worry. Whereas now, you know, you have to be on Twitter, you have to be on Facebook, you have to be doing your blog. Its a different world, really, and what impact that ultimately has on the music being produced I think we dont know yet, but its going to interesting to see how things develop in the next few years.
(Soundbite of song, Beast of Burden)
ROLLING STONES (Band): (Singing) I'll never be your beast of burden, my back is broad, but it's a-hurting, all I want is for you to make love to me, I'll never be your beast of burden.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Im Audie Cornish.
A conversation with R&B singer Maxwell is coming up. But time now for sports.
(Soundbite of music)
CORNISH: Super Sunday is coming up and even if you dont have a team root for, you will probably find a favorite among the Super Bowel commercials. But one ad is already causing controversy before its even aired. Joining us now is Howard Bryant, senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine. Howard, welcome.
Mr. HOWARD BRYANT (ESPN): Good morning.
CORNISH: Now, this controversial TV ad features Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow of the Florida Gators. Its an anti-abortion ad from the advocacy group Focus On the Family. What are people saying about it?
Mr. BRYANT: Well, people arent saying a whole lot about it because nobody has seen it. The controversy so far stems from two things. The first is that CBS had previously refused to run these types of advocacy ads in either direction, whether they were pro or against, whatever subject, simply to avoid offending half of their fan base. But now because of the economy being what it is, or whatever other reason is, that this ad is supposed to run. Nobody knows what it is, nobody knows what it looks like.
The only that they know is that it cost $2.8 million. One thing that I find very interesting about it is that in this day and age when athletes dont want to offend any constituency, that Tim Tebow is choosing to air his beliefs in the biggest television audience of the year. So I think it says something about him and it also says something about the modern athlete.
Today remember, when Michael Jordan was castigated for not doing more with Nike and their labor practices in China, I remember one of his famous quotes was that Republicans buy shoes, everybody buy shoes.
CORNISH: All right, now this is far more contentious an issue than that.
Mr. BRYANT: (Unintelligible) right.
CORNISH: Now, lets turn to basketball, actually. We're halfway through the NBA season. What teams are making a showing so far?
Mr. BRYANT: Well, you got the All Star break coming up in the NBA and its a very interesting year. The Boston Celtics were supposed to be the favorite, going back against the Orlando Magic and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Celtics have stumbled against a surprise team, the Atlanta Hawks, who beat them last night, and those two have a nice budding rivalry. Atlanta has also beat Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Orlando Magic also seemed to have the Celtics' number.
So, in the East I think you've got Cleveland, you've got Atlanta, and you have Orlando and then Boston's fourth. And in the West the Lakers are by far the best team. The Lakers are what they've always been in the Western Conference for the last 25, 30 years, is that they've always been pretty much the favorite. San Antonio is also very good. They'd like to get their championship back. But right now it looks like the Lakers are the best in the West.
CORNISH: Well, as a Celts fan, I'm just going to disclose here thats where my allegiances lie.
Mr. BRYANT: (Unintelligible) and it hurts to say that (unintelligible).
CORNISH: Now, it also looks like the Ivy League is stepping up its game when it comes to college ball. Two teams, Harvard and Cornell, look like they have a good chance of making it to the NCAA tournament.
Mr. BRYANT: Well, sure, and in effect it shouldnt be considered that much of a surprise. For Cornell its a bit of a surprise because their strength is usually hockey. But Harvard, lets face it, James Brown, the announcer, one of the broadcasters in CBS, he played basketball at Harvard and the perennial power in the Ivy league had always been, had always been Penn, and University of Pennsylvania lost their coach, Fran Duphy to my Temple Owls a couple of years ago, but basketball and the Ivy League has very long tradition. There have always been good teams.
They're not competitive once they get past the first round of the NCAA, although Penn did make a run in 1980, but the tradition of Ivy League basketball goes very far back. Its nice to see that in this day and age of great teams with their players playing one year and then going to the NBA, that an Ivy League school can still compete.
CORNISH: And lastly, Howard, very quickly, the Pro Bowl, worth watching?
Mr. BRYANT: Well, they're going to do something different this year. They're not doing it in Honolulu anymore and they're trying to get a fan base the week before the Super Bowl. What else do you have to do? I'm not going to watch it because I've got a long-standing tradition of not watching it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BRYANT: (Unintelligible) this year, but may be next year.
CORNISH: Howard Bryant, senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine. Thanks for joining us.
Mr. BRYANT: My pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
And now, to the sport of hunting. To some, deer are a beautiful symbol of nature. To others, they are a nuisance, and a hazard to public health and the ecosystem. Some towns, particularly in the suburbs, are so fed up they're opening up their parks to hunters. Craig LeMoult, from member station WSHU in Connecticut, reports.
CRAIG LEMOULT: The path is still lit by the early morning moonlight as Howard Kilpatrick(ph) starts his hike.
Mr. HOWARD KILPATRICK: We're going to head down this trail. We want to lift our feet up and put them down gently, try to walk on the part of the trail - there's not many leaves so we can get out there as quietly as possible.
LEMOULT: Kilpatrick hikes up a hill on some private property and settles in next to a tree overlooking a valley. He stands silent and still for about 15 minutes. And then from below, the faint sound of hooves. He raises his .30-06 caliber rifle, looks through the scope, and holds it perfectly still.
(Soundbite of gunshot)
LEMOULT: He sets off down the hill, where he finds a dead deer. It's average-sized, with short antlers. While Kilpatrick will feed his family with the deer meat he brings home, he also has a professional interest in it.
Dr. KILPATRICK: I'm a wildlife biologist, and I'm responsible for Connecticut's Deer Management Program.
LEMOULT: The U.S. Department of Agriculture says 20 years ago, there were fewer than a half a million deer in the country. That's ballooned to more than 17 million deer. Officials in Connecticut and nearby states say they're seeing more towns turning to deer management programs. Kilpatrick estimates there are around 60 deer per square mile in some Connecticut counties. He'd like to bring that number down to a more management eight to 15 deer per square mile.
Mr. KILPATRICK: They cause a lot of deer-vehicle accidents; they cause damage to agricultural crops; they play an important role in the spread of Lyme Disease; and they can impact, you know, our natural ecosystems by over-browsing and basically eliminating some plants species.
Ms. NANCY RICE (Friends of Animals): If you really want to solve those problems, there's a lot of other places you need to be looking.
LEMOULT: That's Nancy Rice. She works for the group Friends of Animals, which is based in Connecticut. Rice lives in the town of Fairfield, which recently changed regulations to allow hunting in the town's parks and woods. Some nearby towns are hiring sharpshooters or archers, or allowing limited numbers of hunters on specific days. Rice argues that there are better ways than hunting to reduce the number of deer-car collisions.
Ms. RICE: Fencing, lighting, street signs telling people, you know, you're in a deer zone; slow down. These are the places we should be looking.
LEMOULT: Deer contraception programs are used to control the population in some places. But wildlife management experts say that works best in small areas and can be prohibitively expensive.
(Soundbite of traffic)
LEMOULT: Carolyn Eberhardt lives across the street from a park in Fairfield. Hunting scares her, and she says if it's allowed here, she'll sell her house.
Ms. CAROLYN EBERHARDT: You know, I don't think any parent would feel comfortable with their kid wandering around doing something as innocent as walking through a park on a snowy day, and then getting a bullet in their head or an arrow in their back.
LEMOULT: Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection says it's had no reports of accidents during controlled hunts, and argues that hunting is the only efficient and economical way to manage the deer population. But not everyone agrees the population needs managing. And even if they did, there'd still be debate about whether or not hunting is the answer.
For NPR News, I'm Craig LeMoult in Fairfield, Connecticut.
AUDIE CORNISH, host:
Before meeting with House Republicans this week, President Obama made a few overtures to the GOP in the State of the Union address. Mr. Obama said he will appoint a bipartisan commission tasked with tackling the nation's deficit. It's modeled on a bill cosponsored by New Hampshire's Republican Senator Judd Gregg. And Senator Gregg joins us now from the Capitol. Senator, welcome.
Senator JUDD GREGG (Republican, New Hampshire): Thank you, Audie. Great to be here.
CORNISH: Now, the Senate defeated your proposal this week. Do you think the president's commission will add the same oversight?
Sen. GREGG: Well, you know, obviously you can discuss the issues and you can have a report. There's been a lot of commissions over the years that have done this. I've served on two of them. Unfortunately, in both instances, there was no follow-up. Because when you put policy on the table, which effects virtually every American you end up with a lot of people attacking that policy right out of the gate. People on the right attack it or people on the left attack it -make it virtually impossible to move the policy forward.
CORNISH: Now, the president held up this commission as an effort of bipartisanship. But in his address, he also admonished Republicans for being obstructionist. Senator Gregg, what's your response to that?
Sen. GREGG: You've got to say no when they're wrong. When they're right, you join with them. This health care bill was not balanced and bipartisan. We weren't even allowed in the room when they were negotiating it and then they brought it to the floor and forced to vote in 72 hours on Christmas Eve. To do it in that matter was totally irresponsible and was extraordinarily partisan on their part.
CORNISH: So, what's the sense among your colleagues now for the fate of those kinds of proposals, like health care, like climate change, or for that matter, like financial industry reforms?
Sen. GREGG: Well, you've named three issues. Let's take them one at a time. I think we'll get a balanced package on financial reform out of the Senate and it will be bipartisan. On the issue of health care, there were 20 of us - 10 Republicans, 10 Democrats - who cosponsored a major reform program called the Wyden-Bennett Bill. I mean, that's a good starting place if you want to do something in a bipartisan way.
On the issue of climate, we've got proposals in this area but it's a very fluid situation. I dont know where it's going to end up.
CORNISH: And lastly, Senator Gregg, I want to ask you about this idea of people being disillusioned with both parties or losing faith in both parties in the face of these battles over all of these issues.
Sen. GREGG: There is a legitimate concern out there by the American people right now, and they have a right to be concerned. There is this ingrained spirit of America which says that we always give to our kids a better, stronger and more prosperous nation and people are worried that we're not going to do that. And the reason we're not doing it is because of the Congress. The Congress refuses to stand up and take the tough decisions it has to take on the issues of spending specifically.
And remember, this is primarily a spending driven event, and we need to control the rate of growth of this government so that our children get a nation that they can prosper in.
CORNISH: Judd Gregg, Republican senator from New Hampshire. Thank you for joining us.
Sen. GREGG: Thanks for your time.
CORNISH: And we head across the aisle now to Senator Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota. Senator Dorgan, welcome.
Senator BYRON DORGAN (Democrat, North Dakota): Thank you very much.
CORNISH: Now, we actually just spoke to Senator Judd Gregg, and he was criticizing Senate Democrats for what he says is a partisan attempt to push through a health care bill. Now, after all the energy expended on health care, is there still a will among your colleagues, among Democrats to continue with it?
Sen. DORGAN: Well, there's more criticism than there is health care legislation actually. We are spending more than anyone else in the world, by far, and we have close to 40-plus million people who don't have health care coverage. So, we need to address health care.
And with respect to my colleague, Judd Gregg - I certainly respect him - but we need some cooperation and some help to get the best of the ideas that both parties have to offer instead of the worst of each. I just wish we'd get a little help, find the right solution and move forward and try to solve these problems.
CORNISH: The White House is also renewing its focus on job creation. And you're the one who's taking the lead in crafting the new jobs package. I think it's supposed to be worth up to $80 billion. Can you talk about how it'd work?
Sen. DORGAN: Well, at this point we are working through our caucus to evaluate what are the things that we could do to best stimulate new jobs, get small- and medium-size businesses to create new jobs and put people back on payrolls. One idea that the president has talked about, and I've talked about and others, is a wage tax credit. Provide wage tax credits for small- to medium-size businesses that hire new people and are ready to expand. It'll give them that extra incentive to put people back on payrolls.
And so that's one of the items that I think will be in a proposed jobs package. There are many others, of course, as well.
CORNISH: So many Americans are saying that they are disillusioned with the bickering and presumed lack of action in Congress. And you've announced that you will not be seeking reelection. So, can you talk about - you know, be frank - about what Americans can actually expect in the way of bipartisanship.
Sen. DORGAN: Well, they should expect, and they deserve, much, much more than we've seen. I mean, the fact is there's been precious little bipartisanship these days and I regret that. I mean, that's not why I'm leaving the Congress at the end of this year. I've served here 30 years. I personally think, you know, Id sooner leave when people wonder why I'm leaving so early than why I stayed so late.
But, you know, the American people deserve a political system that is not necessarily free of controversy because I think the noise of democracy is people having and engaging in great debates. But at the end of the day what the American people should get is the best of what both parties have to offer this country, and that's not been the case unfortunately. So, I hope that both parties could find ways to come together and say, you know what, we work for the same people, we all want the same better future for America, and we need to do more things on a bipartisan basis.
CORNISH: Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, thank you for talking with us.
Sen. DORGAN: Thank you very much. Good to be with you.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
A private school in Northern Virginia's Fairfax County wants to expand to serve more students and it needs the county's approval, not a big deal - usually. But this school is Islamic and funded by the government of Saudi Arabia. So what began as a local land-use issue has grown into a broader discussion of the school, its teachings and the relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims in this country.
NPR's Jamie Tarabay has the story.
JAMIE TARABAY: This story begins last summer, and to hear Pat Herrity tell it, this is a story about traffic.
Mr. PAT HERRITY (Supervisor, Springfield District): You can't drive Popes Head Road. You can't look at Pope's Head Road. I couldn't imagine putting another car per six seconds on the Popes Head Road.
TARABAY: We're standing at the front of the driveway with a white picket gate. Beyond the driveway, up a hill, past the security guard, shaded by tall trees is the ISA, the Islamic Saudi Academy.
In August, the county's Board of Supervisors approved the academy's bid to expand its campus and double the number of students who come here, to about 500. This gate is the only entry and exit point.
Mr. HERRITY: They say they want them to use this exit up here, come down this way, but they have to make a left-hand turn into here. Guess which way the commuters are coming in the morning?
TARABAY: Herrity is the supervisor for the Springfield District. He voted against the bid. This is his area. He graduated from a local high school, and the people who live here are his constituents.
As we're talking, Beth Parker, who's lived next door for 33 years, is driving by. But she pulls over when she spots Herrity. She complains that since the academy got its approval, no one's cut the grass.
Ms. BETH PARKER: Look at the maintenance of the place. I cannot tell you what we've gone through ever since they've owned it to try to get them to maintain the fence to where it's relevant to the neighborhood, keeping the land mowed and neat looking. And they did it all during this process and once they got it, you can see what it looks like now.
TARABAY: She's mad that politics got in the way of what she says is strictly a land use issue. But scratch the surface and it becomes very clear very quickly that this is about more than traffic.
Mr. JOHN COSGROVE: Wahhabist Sharia compliant institution...
TARABAY: This is what happened when the board met to discuss the academy's application. People lined up for hours to speak at public hearings.
Mr. COSGROVE: And what are the results of the health department's action item from the last planning commission about an assessment in the septic system?
TARABAY: That's John Cosgrove who began his speaking time asking about the septic system at the campus. He ended it with this.
Mr. COSGROVE: 'Cause I submit no Catholic textbook has anything near the venom and demonstrated incitement to murder as these Islamic Saudi textbooks. Rather than rushing to congratulate them for what they've removed, why don't we ask them the fundamental question of what was it doing there for 20 years in the first place?
Unidentified Woman: Thank you, Mr. Cosgrove.
(Soundbite of applause)
TARABAY: This went on for hours, people first bringing up traffic issues, then invariably turning the talk towards religion. People traveled from other states to speak. Conservative Christian groups got involved - and to put the people who send their kids to the school on the defensive. People like Rezan Fayez, whose seven-year-old son goes there.
Ms. REZAN FAYEZ: He can speak, read and write Arabic almost as well as he can English. He's learning Islamic studies, understanding of respect between Muslims and non-Muslims. If we were breeding terrorists, if there was any little tinge of truth to anything that these people have been saying before, you would be hearing about it because of the students.
TARABAY: Iman Kandeel, a former ISA student and MIT graduate also spoke up.
Ms. IMAN KANDEEL: In addition to the strong background in math and science that I got at ISA, the greatest lessons that I've learned at ISA are those of community service and giving back. We are not taught to enforce Shariah law. We are not taught to destroy the Constitution.
TARABAY: But there are issues. A former valedictorian is serving a life sentence, convicted of plotting to assassinate President Bush. A former principal was arrested because instead of reporting a complaint from one of his students about sexual abuse at home, he deleted the report and returned the child to her father. And there are the textbooks.
Mr. ALI AHMED (Gulf Institute): These are ideological materials and that are indoctrinating young students in hatred.
TARABAY: Ali Ahmed, a Saudi dissident works for the Gulf Institute. He's been studying the ISA's curriculum for nearly 10 years. He flips through one of the Islamic studies textbooks.
Mr. AHMED: This is 10th grade. If you are not a believer in their interpretation of the religion, you are not protected. Your blood, your honor, your property is up for grabs and that explains the suicide bombing a lot. Because how do you convince somebody to walk into a crowded market and blow themselves up? Because these people, their life worth is zero.
TARABAY: In 2007, a bipartisan federal commission on international religious freedom called for the school to be shut while the government examined its textbooks. It was concerned the school promoted religious intolerance and violence against people who aren't Muslim. The school responded by erasing paragraphs from textbooks.
The ISA had initially agreed to let NPR visit its campus, but cancelled at the last minute. An email said the school administrators were tired of all the media coverage and didn't want any more, especially since they got the approval to expand.
So, for now, the controversy continues and so does the pressure on local politicians. Michael Frey is on the Board of Supervisors. He voted yes and says he still cops heat for that. One man came up to him at a local supermarket on a Sunday morning after Frey had taken his dog for a walk.
Mr. MICHAEL FREY (Supervisor, Sully District): He said I can't believe that you voted that way and you call yourself a conservative. He tried to get a little aggressive. And I said, first of all, let me just say I don't believe that anybody who wants local government to be reading texts and making decisions on schools based on what they teach is a conservative. I said, to me that is one of the biggest intrusions you could possibly imagine.
TARABAY: The State Department agrees. Conservative Christian groups who've lobbied for the school to be closed say because it's funded by the Saudi government, the State Department should intervene. But the State Department says it's a private school, not a foreign mission and it has no role in accrediting or managing the ISA.
Frey points out that two Christian schools also filed applications to expand last year. No one questioned their textbooks.
Mr. FREY: How do I know that this Christian school isn't teaching hatred against non-Christians? I said, I didn't read their texts, but if you want me to start to base land-use decisions on those - terribly, terribly slippery slope.
TARABAY: For now, Fairfax County's waiting for the school to submit its site plans. Before expansion can even begin at the academy, the county will have to install left and right turns into the driveway from Popes Head Road, so that two-lane, winding country road will get a little wider.
Jamie Tarabay, NPR News.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Across the upper Midwest, fishing shanties are a common sight on frozen lakes every winter, but in at least one northern Wisconsin community, the number of shanties has increased dramatically this year. As Glen Moberg of Wisconsin Public Radio reports, that might be considered something of an economic indicator.
GLEN MOBERG: I'm standing on the McCleary Bridge, which connects the city of Wausau to the prosperous commercial strip of nearby Rib Mountain. But as I look east from the highway onto Lake Wausau, with temperatures barely above zero, it's a different world. Instead of the usual handful of fishing shanties, as you walk onto the frozen lake, you can see well over 100 of them more than three times the usual number clustered together on the ice.
Mr. DAVID NIEWOLNY: Money's tight. People aren't going up north and taking their shanties up north. They're staying close to home. I think the money's the situation this year.
MOBERG: Sixty-four-year old David Niewolny of Rib Mountain fishes from the cab of his truck in the midst of the Lake Wausau shantytown. He says there's a big difference between this winter and other winters - the economy and Niewolny says many of the fishermen are out of work.
Mr. NIEWOLNY: I've talked to quite a few out here that have been laid off for three, four months already and that's all they do is come out here all day, you know, see if he can catch a meal of fish.
MOBERG: Gordon Berna of Wausau is looking out the door of his shanty and reaching pretty much the same conclusion.
Mr. GORDON BERNA: There are a lot of people laid off, I imagine. Nothing to do, so you've got a lot of time to fish.
(Soundbite of banging)
MOBERG: Berna opens a hatch on the plywood floor.
Mr. BERNA: Froze a little bit, so I just have to open them up.
(Soundbite of scraping)
MOBERG: And using a hand auger, clears the ice off the top of three fishing holes that let him drop a line deep into Lake Wausau.
What are you catching right now?
Mr. BERNA: Oh, nothing.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. BERNA: I was out here yesterday, I didn't get anything. But they're catching bluegills and crappies.
MOBERG: Berna is retired and says he's seen his share of local businesses come and go in this area.
Mr. BERNA: The last place was Fisker's(ph). And I worked at Murrays on Third Street. I worked for Kraft Foods on Scott Street for 18 years. They moved out of town; Murrays closed; I worked for Bard, they moved to Mexico.
MOBERG: And Fisker's?
Mr. BERNA: And Fisker's, I retired.
(Soundbite of crunchy footsteps)
MOBERG: As we walk across the frozen lake, just 100 feet or so behind Gordon Berna's shanty, we encounter 28-year-old Josh Hitz of Antigo, who sits on a bucket, a line dangling into a hole in the ice. A black dog and a young boy are sitting inside his warm SUV, which is parked on the ice.
Mr. JOSH HITZ: I was a certified nursing assistant.
MOBERG: When did you get laid off?
Mr. HITZ: About three months ago. It's just lack of work, you know what I mean? Like I said, I'm out right here. That's just how I catch my meals a lot of it, so we get by as much as we can, you know.
MOBERG: And Hitz is not optimistic about the short-term prospects for the economy.
Mr. HITZ: I think it's going to go down yet, I really do. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
MOBERG: That pessimism is shared by a number of ice fishermen here, including David Niewolny.
Mr. NIEWOLNY: No, we haven't turned the corner yet. I think we're going to look at another year yet.
MOBERG: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says interest in fishing and the sale of licenses traditionally goes up as the economy goes down. And in today's economy, it appears there are more people than usual on the ice fishing in shantytowns like the one on Lake Wausau.
For NPR News, I'm Glen Moberg in Wausau, Wisconsin.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Caves are some of the last places on the planet left to explore. Though caving is relatively safe, if something goes wrong deep inside the earth, a rescue can take days in part because cell phones and walkie-talkies don't work underground. But now a remarkable teenager in New Mexico has invented a device that may significantly speed the rescue process by allowing cavers to text from deep underground.
As Brad Horn reports from Carlsbad, New Mexico, the young man's invention may have other applications as well.
BRAD HORN: The kid is smart - so smart, he says stuff like this...
Mr. ALEXANDER KENDRICK (Winner, 2009 International Science Fair): I rewrote my receive program (unintelligible) noise projection system that can throw out Navy beacon pulses that could intermix with my signal. And so that way...
HORN: Sixteen-year-old Alexander Kendrick won the 2009 International Science Fair for inventing this cave texting device. The award got the teen from Los Alamos, New Mexico a new computer, a trip to Switzerland and $12,000 in checks.
I wanted to find out why this thing was such a big deal. And the next thing I knew, I was hanging from a rope in the bowels of the earth and groaning under my breath.
God help me.
I was with a team of cavers in Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico heading 1,000 feet underground to test Kendrick's invention, which is something like a computer attached to a ham radio. It transmits data using low-frequency radio waves that can penetrate rock more easily than high-frequency transmissions like those in FM broadcasts.
If this test succeeded, it would be the deepest known underground digital communication ever to take place in the United States. Why would anyone want to text from nearly 1,000 feet underground? Here's why: In a 1991 New Mexico cave rescue, it took 170 people four days to save a woman with a broken leg. The rescue team had to lay miles of telephone line in order to stay in touch with the surface. If they'd had Alex's radio, the rescue time may have been cut in half. That could make the difference between life or death.
The other reason this thing's a pretty big deal.
Dr. DIANA NORTHUP (Microbiologist, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque): Come on, I'll show you the lab.
HORN: Science. This is Diana Northup, a microbiologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Dr. NORTHUP: There are some nasty chemicals here in the lab, so don't touch stuff.
HORN: Her research lab is full of cave bacteria in Petri dishes. Northup tells me that scientists find microorganisms in these deep caves that might have the potential to kill superbugs.
Dr. NORTHUP: Microorganisms that live in such a low-nutrient environment actually put out antibiotics, they produce them.
HORN: But scientists think one of the biggest threats to this emerging source of antibiotics is actually the scientists themselves. People contaminate the sensitive cave environment just by being there. In fact, researchers believe the more they visit the cave, the less likely they are to find antibiotics there. Northup thinks that by connecting data recorders to Alex's radio, scientists could remotely transmit information about the cave environment.
Dr. NORTHUP: So a cave radio that allows you to beam data to the surface rather than visiting it in person can be extremely valuable. It could save the cave.
(Soundbite of cave)
HORN: Back in the cave, we arrived at the test spot exactly 946 feet underground. The radio is being set up on the edge of a big pool of blue-green water pocked with stalagmite islands. It was 68 degrees, but incredibly humid.
Alex and the team pulled pieces of white PVC tubing from their backpacks and assembled the radio's antenna, which looks like a six-foot-wide tick-tack-toe frame with wire wrapped around it. His dad, Brian, was about to hike to an identical unit sitting directly above us on the surface.
Mr. BRIAN KENDRICK: So, now we have two hours to get it in place.
Mr. A. KENDRICK: One hour and 59 minutes, actually.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. A. KENDRICK: Are you getting nervous?
Mr. B. KENDRICK: No. You're making me nervous.
HORN: They synchronize their watches, and Brian and another caver climb the steep, dusty slope above us. And then we waited. Two hours later, after calibrating the devices, Alex typed the word happy on a rubber keyboard and pushed send. Up above on the surface, his father stared at a small screen hoping to see the word.
Mr. B. KENDRICK: Four, three, two, one. Here it comes, let's hope. Any second now he should send us something. Let's hope. So, we missed the H, but I got appy. That's excellent. We got it. That's digital data coming through at 950 feet, roughly.
HORN: Now, Alex has to fine tune the radio to make it smaller and tougher and easier for rescue crews to get down into caves. That will have to wait, though, because he's busy working on his 2010 science fair project a device that finds underground rivers by measuring their electromagnetic currents. I don't know what problem he'll solve next, but I hear there's this thing called global warming.
For NPR News, I'm Brad Horn.
HANSEN: And if you want to see photos of Alexander Kendrick's cave radio test, go to npr.org.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Here's a disturbing fact: Studies show that only about 40 percent of health care workers in this country wash their hand as often as they should. So some hospitals are testing new surveillance technologies to monitor their employees' hand-washing habits. From Birmingham, Alabama, Gigi Douban has more.
GIGI DOUBAN: The standard protocol in hospitals is for doctors and nurses to wash their hands on the way in to see a patient and on the way out. But that doesn't always happen they get busy; they forget. Happens to everyone, even Lindsey Ann Stone, a nurse at Princeton Baptist Hospital in Birmingham.
Ms. LINDSEY ANN STONE (Nurse, Princeton Baptist Hospital): How are you doing?
Unidentified Woman: I'm doing good.
Ms. STONE: How are you feeling today?
Unidentified Woman: Well, it's still pretty severe, but...
Ms. STONE: Yes, ma'am. You let us know if you need anything, but we'll be back, okay?
Unidentified Woman: All right.
DOUBAN: Wash your hands is a message Stone and her colleagues have heard over and over again.
Ms. STONE: Through orientation and bulletins that they put up and hand hygiene pamphlets and posters and everything that you can imagine. It's all over.
DOUBAN: Stone says she washes her hands a lot. She guesses at least 100 times a day. But hand washing is kind of like exercise - you don't do it nearly as much as you think you do.
So, hospital administrators installed new devices to track her hand hygiene. With information transmitted wirelessly through a special badge that she wears, they can tell when she entered a patient's room, whether she washed her hands and whether she washed again on the way out. That information is then recorded and sent to hospital officials. When she first heard about the new system, Lindsey Ann Stone says she had mixed feelings.
Ms. STONE: I was excited, but to be honest, I was a little nervous wondering how it was going to directly affect me as an RN.
DOUBAN: For one thing, she and her colleagues wondered how this information a sort of nice and naughty list on hand washing would ultimately be used.
Harvey Nix is the CEO of Proventix, the company that developed the monitoring system at Princeton Baptist. He says it's meant to be more a gentle prod than punitive.
Mr. HARVEY NIX (CEO, Proventix): If they're habitually not complying, we could actually send them an email or send them a text message, something that goes to them personally.
DOUBAN: Still, most people aren't thrilled about being monitored.
So the Centers for Disease Control is trying to gauge health care workers feel about these new devices. CDC epidemiologist Kate Ellingson says they're using focus groups to help tweak the technology. She says they're asking a number of questions.
Dr. KATE ELLINGSON (Epidemiologist, CDC): Not just how do you like it, what do you think of it, but do you see this as something that you would pay attention to, that would change your behavior?
DOUBAN: Ellingson says improving hand hygiene among health care workers has been a real challenge and that's come at a cost. According to the CDC, health care associated infections kill about 100,000 Americans a year, and costs billions of dollars.
For NPR News, I'm Gigi Douban in Birmingham.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
And joining us is puzzlemaster Will Shortz. Hey, Will.
WILL SHORTZ: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: How are you?
SHORTZ: I'm doing fine. What's new?
HANSEN: Not much, not much. Waiting for the Grammy Awards tonight. Always like to see what the show is going to be like. But the problem is I have to go home, take a quick power nap to make sure that I'm up for the entire broadcast. So, but your challenge wasn't record related, it was name related, right? Remind us of it.
SHORTZ: Yeah. I said think of a common first name for a boy, starting with the letter E and two syllables. I said rearrange all the letters to name a common first name for a girl also in two syllables. What names are these?
HANSEN: What's your answer?
SHORTZ: Well, the only answer involving both common names are Ernie to Irene. We also received Edwin to Wendi, W-E-N-D-I, and Evan to Neva, N-E-V-A, so we accepted those as well.
HANSEN: Excellent. I should've known this. My uncle's name is Ernie. It didn't come to me. My father's name is Edwin, so I stuck with that, that's why. Well, we had actually more than 1,500 entries this week. Our randomly selected winner from those entries is Eleanor Carlson of Corvallis, Oregon. Hi, Eleanor.
Ms. ELEANOR CARLSON: Hi, Liane. Hi, Will.
SHORTZ: Hi.
HANSEN: How long did it take you to solve the puzzle, Eleanor?
Ms. CARLSON: Well, that came to me pretty quickly, within about 10 minutes.
HANSEN: Oh.
Ms. CARLSON: Because I don't know that many men's name that start with E.
HANSEN: Well, there you go. How long have you been playing our puzzle?
Ms. CARLSON: On and off for over 10 years.
HANSEN: So, are you ready to play?
Ms. CARLSON: I am.
HANSEN: All right, Will, you've met Eleanor. Now it's time to play.
SHORTZ: All right, Eleanor, every answer today is the name of a college or university. I'm going to give you an anagram, you name the school. For example, if I said lay, L-A-Y, plus E, you would say Yale.
Ms. CARLSON: Okay.
SHORTZ: Number one is worn, W-O-R-N, plus B, as in boy.
Ms. CARLSON: Brown.
SHORTZ: Brown is right. Number two is royal, R-O-Y-A-L, plus B, as in boy. I'll give you a hint - it starts with the letter B.
Ms. CARLSON: Liane, I'm stuck.
HANSEN: You're stuck, maybe you don't know this - Baylor?
SHORTZ: Baylor is it, good. All right, try this one: alloy, A-L-L-O-Y, plus O.
Ms. CARLSON: Loyola.
SHORTZ: Loyola, good. Prude, P-R-U-D-E, plus U.
Ms. CARLSON: Oh, my husband's alma mater.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. CARLSON: Purdue.
SHORTZ: Purdue, no delay on that one. Rhoda, R-H-O-D-A, plus W. Rhoda plus W.
Ms. CARLSON: Okay. It's Howard.
SHORTZ: Howard, nice job. Enroll, E-N-R-O-L-L, plus C, as in Charles.
Ms. CARLSON: I'm thinking. I'm still here.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SHORTZ: It's an Ivy League school.
Ms. CARLSON: Cornell, Cornell.
SHORTZ: Cornell, good. How about boiler, B-O-I-L-E-R, plus N, as in Nancy. Give you a hint - the first letter is O.
Ms. CARLSON: Oh, Oberlin.
SHORTZ: Oberlin is it.
Ms. CARLSON: Okay.
SHORTZ: All right, now we're getting with longer ones. Biventral, B-I-V-E-N-T-R-A-L, plus D, as in dog. Biventral plus D.
Ms. CARLSON: Okay.
SHORTZ: Give you a hint - the first letter is V as in Victor.
Ms. CARLSON: I'm not, no, I'm not getting it.
SHORTZ: I'll tell you that one, it's Vanderbilt.
HANSEN: Of course.
SHORTZ: All right, here's your last one: enamored, E-N-A-M-O-R-E-D, plus T as in Thomas. It's a two-word answer. Enamored plus T. And it's a powerhouse in football. Think of a school in the Midwest.
Ms. CARLSON: You have it, Liane?
HANSEN: I think so.
Ms. CARLSON: Oh, go ahead. I don't.
HANSEN: Notre Dame.
SHORTZ: Notre Dame, nice job.
HANSEN: Notre Dame. I kept thinking...
Ms. CARLSON: That's good.
HANSEN: It is good. I'm just glad Rensselaer did not show up or...
Ms. CARLSON: I would've gotten that.
HANSEN: Yeah, you did really well. You were on a roll there. Well, as I mentioned, the Grammy Awards will be handed out tonight and we have one of the Grammy presenters to tell you what you'll get for playing our puzzle today. Her music's been described as ridiculously catchy, and her debut album "Animal" is storming the charts. This is Ke$ha with today's prizes, but first, let's hear a bit of her massive hit song "Tik Tok."
(Soundbite of song, "Tik Tok")
KE$HA (Musician): (Singing) Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy.
P. DIDDY (Musician): Hey, what up, girl?
KE$HA: (Singing) Grab my glasses, I'm out the door, I'm gonna hit this city.
P. DIDDY: Let's go.
KE$HA: (Singing) Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack 'cause when I leave for the night I ain't coming back. I'm talking...
For playing our puzzle today, you'll get a WEEKEND EDITION lapel pin, the "Scrabble Deluxe Edition" from Parker Brothers, the book series "Will Shortz Presents KenKen" Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from St. Martin's Press, one of Will Shortz's "Puzzlemaster Decks of Riddles and Challenges" from Chronicle Books and a CD compilation of NPR's Sunday puzzles.
HANSEN: Eleanor, what do you think? I'm not sure she's in your demographic there.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Ms. CARLSON: Well, I think it's very exciting.
HANSEN: Yeah. Yeah. She's a very interesting woman. I mean, she has her public self and then she has her private self, so it's sort of interesting. Scott Simon did an interview with her, so we got to know her a little bit better. And to let you go, there's one piece of information missing. What member station do you listen to?
Ms. CARLSON: I listen to KLCC 89.7 FM. It's the Lane Community College station from Eugene, Oregon.
HANSEN: Give it a shout out, Eleanor. We really appreciate that. I know KLCC will. Eleanor Carlson from Corvallis, Oregon, thanks a lot for playing on the puzzle today and being on my team. I needed you.
Ms. CARLSON: Oh, it's been great fun.
HANSEN: Okay. Thanks again. Bye-bye.
Ms. CARLSON: Bye-bye.
HANSEN: And Will, what's our challenge for next week?
SHORTZ: Yes. Write down these four words: Croquet as in the game; Lunette, L-U-N-E-T-T-E; Renoir, as in the artist; and Turnstile. They're all two-syllable words, but besides that they all have something unusual in common: A property that virtually no other word has. What property is it? And here's a hint: Think phonetically. So again: Croquet, Lunette, Renoir and Turnstile. These words have something unusual in common that virtually no other word has. What property is it?
HANSEN: If you know the answer, go to our Web site NPR.org/puzzle and click on the Submit Your Answer link. Only one entry per person, please. Our deadline is Thursday, 3 P.M. Eastern Time. Please include a phone number where we can reach you at about that time. We'll call you if you are the winner and you'll get to play puzzle on the air with the puzzle editor of The New York Times and WEEKEND EDITION's puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
Will, thanks a lot.
SHORTZ: Thanks, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
As tonight's 52nd Annual Grammy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles gets underway, members of the Quartet San Francisco will be crossing their fingers and hoping for good news. Their CD "QSF Plays Brubeck" received nominations in two categories - Best Classical Crossover Album and Best Engineered Classical Album.
The CD celebrates the 50th anniversary of Dave Brubeck's cool classic "Time Out" with string quartet renditions of his tunes. It also contains the composition by saxophonist Paul Desmond that was a big hit for Brubeck, "Take Five."
(Soundbite of song, "Take Five")
HANSEN: Quartet San Francisco joins us in NPR Studio 4A. Welcome to violinist Jeremy Cohen.
Mr. JEREMY COHEN (Violinist, Quartet San Francisco): Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: And to Alisa Rose, also a violinist.
Ms. ALISA ROSE (Violinist, Quartet San Francisco): Hello.
HANSEN: And violist Keith Lawrence.
Mr. KEITH LAWRENCE (Violist, Quartet San Francisco): Hi.
HANSEN: And cellist Michelle Djokic.
Ms. MICHELLE DJOKIC (Cellist, Quartet San Francisco): Hey, Liane.
HANSEN: Hey. I'm looking at your repertoire and I've seen in the past that you've done work by Jazz men Raymond Scott, Chick Corea, Duke Ellington. Jeremy, this is a question probably best for you 'cause you've done arrangements and you've played jazz. Why does jazz work for a classical string quartet?
Mr. COHEN: Well, for us, any of the music that we really resonate with, the music that we grew up with, the music of Brubeck, Chick Corea and Raymond Scott - all the people you mentioned - I've always felt if I can walk down the street and sing these things to myself that we should be able to respell them in strings.
HANSEN: You're going to play "Blue Rondo a la Turk," and Jeremy, you did the arrangement. And this arrangement dates back to the year 2000, if I'm not mistaken.
Mr. COHEN: Yes. This is one of the pieces that actually gave birth to Quartet San Francisco.
HANSEN: Well, you write in the notes that this is QSF's first venture into Brubeckistan.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. COHEN: Well, I've been listening to Brubeck since I was a child. Since "Time Out" came out I was a Brubeck fan.
HANSEN: So, you were well-prepared to enter that foreign country.
Mr. COHEN: Yeah, we were told about the four Bs - you know, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Brubeck - in my family.
HANSEN: Excellent. Well, let's hear Quartet San Francisco with "Blue Rondo a la Turk."
(Soundbite of song, "Blue Rondo a la Turk")
HANSEN: That's QSF, or Quartet San Francisco playing Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk." They played it live for us in NPR's Studio 4A, and you can also find it on their CD "QSF Plays Brubeck."
Do I assume all of you have had classical music training?
Ms. ROSE: Yes.
Mr. COHEN: Indeed.
HANSEN: You have, you have. I wonder, do you need different techniques to play jazz on these old instruments?
Mr. COHEN: Well, we do employ some different techniques in these pieces. Alisa, you can show us a little bit of chop, you know, to emulate the sound of drums.
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. COHEN: And also, you know, we'll do idiomatically things that exist in jazz that are maybe perhaps considered no-nos in classical music. You know, big...
(Soundbite of music)
Mr. COHEN: ...big grinding slides and speaking in the jazz language. We want to sort of, in crossing over, we want to employ the vocabulary of both idioms.
HANSEN: Cellist Michelle Djokic, you've spent a lot of time with symphony orchestras, how did you develop the techniques that you needed to play jazz?
Ms. DJOKIC: Well, Liane, I've spent a lot of time in the classical music world, in chamber music and symphonic playing. And I've always actually approached music always from my heart. Either way, it's definitely an honest and beautiful experience for me every time I take on any music regardless of the genre.
But in jazz it's very liberating in many ways, because as Jeremy was saying, there are these slides that we can do, and actually need to find a way to do them with fingerings that are completely unorthodox to the way we were trained - classically, that is. And, you know, I remember listening to Elvis Presley when I was a little girl saying, oh my gosh, that's so beautiful, and then also listening to (unintelligible) and saying, wow, there's something there. The two of them are sharing, you know.
And thinking, well, (unintelligible) can get away with it, but anybody else couldn't get away with it because we'd be accused of copying something. But now this is such a kind of fusion of many worlds coming together now and the ability to express oneself very vocally. For me, it's much more like a wind instrument and a voice.
HANSEN: Ah, interesting. Keith, was viola your first choice of instrument?
Mr. LAWRENCE: Actually, I started on clarinet.
HANSEN: You didn't.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. LAWRENCE: I played clarinet and my friends could cut jokes while they were playing the string instruments and they would tell me a joke and I would get in trouble for squeaking. So, then I switched instruments, and I didn't want to be the kid on the school bus carrying the bass or the cello, and the violin, to me, was not okay.
HANSEN: But I can imagine you, though, hearing some clarinet riffs on some old jazz tunes, thinking...
Mr. LAWRENCE: Oh yeah.
HANSEN: ...ah, can I do that on my viola? Maybe I can.
Mr. LAWRENCE: Yeah.
HANSEN: Next month, you all are going to be participating in the American String Teachers Association National Conference. And, Alisa, I guess I'm going to direct this question to you because you are in the schools program in San Francisco. You've been working with fifth graders, second graders. And right now so many schools in this country are cutting back on their music education programs, especially string programs. And I wonder what your hopes are, realistic hopes are for music education and, you know, how it can be made a priority.
Ms. ROSE: Well, I think it's so important for kids to have the opportunity to learn how to play an instrument if they want or be immersed in music. When I've taught kids, I'm always really impressed by how innately many kids want to play music and how they're driven to do it, no matter if they've had it in their home communities or not.
HANSEN: Well, we want you to play us out with another tune that appears on your CD "QSF Plays Brubeck." And I'll remind everybody that it's nominated for two Grammy Awards - Best Classical Crossover Album and Best Engineered Classical Album. And this is another tune you're going to play from the CD. This is a tune called "Kathy's Waltz." Jeremy, you want to tell us something about it?
Mr. COHEN: Well, yes. "Kathy's Waltz" is from Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" album, which I used to listen to on the family hi-fi. And he wrote this for his daughter Katherine, and translated by Quartet San Francisco.
HANSEN: All right, well, this is Quartet San Francisco in NPR Studio 4A. Before we hear it, let me just say thanks to all of you for coming in. Jeremy Cohen, Alisa Rose, Keith Lawrence and Michelle Djokic. Together they're Quartet San Francisco, QSF. Again, thanks and best of luck at the Grammys to you.
Ms. ROSE: Thanks.
Mr. LAWRENCE: Thanks a lot.
Mr. COHEN: Fingers crossed.
(Soundbite of song, "Kathy's Waltz")
HANSEN: Our Studio 4A recording with Quartet San Francisco was engineered by Neil Tevault. And you can hear full performances from this session on our Web site nprmusic.org.
(Soundbite of music)
LIANE HANSEN, host:
If you're listening to us today with a pair of earbuds, go ahead and take one of them out. The cover of jazz guitarist and composer Charlie Hunter's new CD proclaims that it's recorded "In Glorious Mono."
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: No overdubs, mixed live to old-fashioned analog audio tape. The studio performance was captured by the finest 1950s technology. Charlie Hunter joins us from the studios of WHYY in Philadelphia. Hi, Charlie.
Mr. CHARLIE HUNTER (Musician): Hi.
HANSEN: I'm going to ask you about the recording process in a minute, but I have to ask you first about the title of your CD. It's awfully curious. It's called "Gentlemen, I Neglected To Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid." What's all that about?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HUNTER: Well, it's a quote from a real older curmudgeonly musician that people have worked for and I cannot name names. But...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HUNTER: ...it really did happen.
HANSEN: Really?
Mr. HUNTER: It really does happen. Let me put it that way.
HANSEN: It still does, but it's not something that you would do to any of your session people.
Mr. HUNTER: No way. No way. No way.
HANSEN: No. No.
Mr. HUNTER: I tell them exactly how little money they'll be getting paid up front.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: Good for you. All right, the technical question now: Why mono and why audio tape instead of digital recording?
Mr. HUNTER: Well, I mean, you know, it's something that I should've done years ago, I realize. You know, I mean, analog tape just - it just sounds better to me, you know. And what I do is a live medium. I never have overdubbed on any of my records. I mean, maybe a tambourine here or something like that, but more or less what you hear is what you get.
So, you know, for years, you know, we had been recording into Pro Tools. Before that we recorded multi-track tape and we would spend a week mixing and doing all of these things. And then it just dawned on me, well, I make my own records now and I have to pay for them. And, you know, I was, like, I only have $5,000 to make this next record, so what am I going to do?
You know, live to tape, of course, because you get the most bang for your buck that way. And then I thought, well, most of the music that I like and I listen to is in mono, so why don't I try something in mono, you know? And then I also realized that, well, you know, the stereo separation you get also gives you some, I guess what they say latency and time delay between the two different sides. So if you're hearing some really grooving music, it always grooves harder in mono because everything is in the same time. At least that's my opinion on the matter.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: Tell us about the band you're playing with.
Mr. HUNTER: Well, I have Eric Kalb on the drums, who's a fantastic drummer. He really gets that kind of '60s kind of R&B drumming mixed with the jazz drumming, which I really love that aesthetic. And some old, you know, Rolodex friends: Curtis Fowlkes on trombone, and Alan Ferber on trombone and Eric Biondo on trumpet.
HANSEN: And they have quite a bit of experience behind them. I mean, Eric was John Scofield's drummer.
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah.
HANSEN: And Curtis was with The Lounge Lizards.
Mr. HUNTER: Uh-huh.
HANSEN: And so forth. So, you know, these people have cred with the...
Mr. HUNTER: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
HANSEN: Yeah. But, you know, there's no bass player.
Mr. HUNTER: Oh, well, that's...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HUNTER: That's me.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HUNTER: There's no guitar player either, thank god.
HANSEN: Well, that's you.
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: So you're playing on a - well, tell us about the guitar you're playing on.
Mr. HUNTER: Well, it's the guitar I play now is made by a guy name Jeff Traugott in Santa Cruz, California. And it's - I call it a seven-string guitar. I mean, it's a pretty arbitrary name. But it's got three bass strings tuned G-C-F and four guitar strings tuned C-F-D flat-D.
HANSEN: Yeah. You came to play for us back in 2003 in Studio 4A, and you had an eight-string guitar.
Mr. HUNTER: Mm-hmm.
HANSEN: But now you're down to seven. Is it, what, a recession? What?
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HUNTER: No. You know, the highest string, the highest guitar kind of side string just, you know, ultimately was getting in my way. And I realized I took it off for a gig and just realized that I like this better. I can actually play more music without having to manipulate this extra string. And it makes it more of an individualized instrument and distances it even, you know, farther from the, you know, basic, you know, American guitar concept.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: We put out the word on Twitter and Facebook that we were going to be talking to you, and we received a question from Whip Nelson(ph) who gives his location as Fogtown, Left Coast. So you can figure out whatever city that might be.
Mr. HUNTER: Oh. Okay.
HANSEN: But, he wants to know what your practice regimen is.
Mr. HUNTER: Well, you know, that's a great question. And, I mean, practice regimen is - it changes all the time as it should. I mean, when you're younger you can practice eight hours a day because you're just trying to figure out how to practice, you know. Years go by and you find different things you want to work on. And at the moment, I've been playing, but try to play about an hour of drum set a day, and that's not so that I can go out and, like, impress people with my drumming.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HUNTER: It's more so that I can bring that concept to my instrument. And then I'll play my instrument for a couple hours and do some writing and, you know, stuff like that. And it's not necessarily how many hours you spend. It's how you spend those hours.
HANSEN: How does the drumming inform how you play the guitar?
Mr. HUNTER: Well, because it's totally predicated on how the parts work together. The - not as much the independence of the parts, but the interdependence - how these different parts work together to form a whole. And that's really where I feel like what I do on my instrument is - can be its own kind of unique thing. And so, it's important for me to feel that at its most basic element with, like, a real simple drum beat. And it's just, you know, I guess it's, you know, cross referencing or some kind of research, but that's essentially how it works.
HANSEN: Well, it does make sense because bass lines can often be percussive in the way that they work in music.
Mr. HUNTER: Oh, they have to be.
HANSEN: Yeah.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: You're currently on tour. You're playing tonight in Baltimore. You're working your way down to Fort Lauderdale, which means I must ask you about the cut on the new CD, "Ode to my Honda Odyssey."
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: A lot of miles, right?
Mr. HUNTER: Yeah, lots of miles - almost 150,000 miles. I couldn't believe it that that car is just as, I mean, I'm knocking on wood right now because I'm out with it. But I can't believe that thing is as bomb-proof as it is because all I've done is change the oil. And maybe it's just a shameless attempt at getting some type of a promotional vehicle from Honda for my next tour.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. HUNTER: But, you know, I don't know, it's my favorite car I've ever had. And I've had a lot of really cool cars in my youth, you know. So I figured I'd have to at least come correct and write a tune for it.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: Well, Charlie Hunter, keep the oil changed on that thing.
(Soundbite of laughter)
HANSEN: And have a good tour.
Mr. HUNTER: Thank you.
HANSEN: Charlie Hunter's new CD is called "Gentlemen, I Neglected to Inform You You Will Not Be Getting Paid." You can see a video of Charlie Hunter playing his unusual guitar and hear full cuts from the CD at nprmusic.org.
(Soundbite of music)
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
President Obama laid out his goals for this year and the years to come in his State of the Union address last week. Now he's preparing to lay out how to pay for his agenda. The president will submit his budget request to Congress tomorrow, and with us to talk about it is NPR News analyst Juan Williams. Good morning, Juan.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Liane.
HANSEN: What do you see as the contentious issues in the budget? In other words, which proposals do you think he'll get the most pushback on from either party?
WILLIAMS: Well, the big argument is about the spending freeze. The spending freeze would affect about 17 percent of this budget. But, you know, 17 percent, that's about $450 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget. And so the impact really falls on what the president calls discretionary spending. So that's everything that's not military, everything that's not Medicare or Medicaid -the entitlements.
And there's lots of pushback, surprisingly, coming from the left that says in a time of economic difficulty the government needs to invest in spending and that President Obama is simply echoing a Republican point of view that would have it said that the problem is discretionary spending as opposed to some of these entitlements and military spending, which have been, of course, the primary source of budget increases over the years.
HANSEN: Are both sides of the aisle on board with the president's proposed three-year federal spending freeze on these domestic programs?
WILLIAMS: You know what? If you talk to the Republicans right now, they are debating whether or not they want to join in. Although a member, Senator John McCain, formerly President Obama's rival for the presidency, had proposed just this idea, and President Bush had enforced it during the last few years of his presidency.
But Republicans right now are wondering if things such as - included in the budget - a small business tax cut really are effective at this point in terms of advancing hiring. And so they have to take a very careful position there, but it's fully articulated yet.
HANSEN: President Obama's reportedly factoring in cap and trade revenue into his budget, but the members of the Senate say it's unlikely that a comprehensive cap and trade climate law will pass this year, so the president must be aware of this. So, what's his strategy?
WILLIAMS: Put pressure on the Republicans. Put pressure on the Senate. Make it clear that part of restraining not only federal budget costs, but also in terms of business costs in the United States. That having an effective cap and trade program in place would help to limit spending in this country. And so that's part of a political argument that's going to be quite clear when you look at the budget, because the budget just doesn't add up if you take out that cap and trade proposal.
HANSEN: There was an opinion piece on The Wall Street Journal's Web site Thursday. Vice President Biden said the president's budget proposal will include $7 billion to maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, and that's a $600 million increase over last year. How's that going to play out among members of his own party, and do you think the White House is pushing defense in hopes of getting something in exchange from the Republicans?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that's exactly right, Liane. I think that's the right analysis there. That, you see, not only it's interesting, it's not only nuclear weapons stockpiles, but even in the State of the Union talking about advancing nuclear energy production in this country.
President Obama taxed right at times. And the hope there is that he will, one, impress the American people with his dedication to defense, that he's not weak on defense - the common complaint about left-leaning democratic senators and presidents, but that also that he will make it clear that what he intends to do here is to boost the notion of U.S. independent energy sources. So that's another part of the calculus.
HANSEN: Well, President Obama went to the House Republican retreat on Friday, which is pretty unusual. But do you think he managed to advance his cause at all?
WILLIAMS: Well, no. Coming out of it, I think what he managed to do was to advance the cause in terms of independent voters believing that he is doing outreach to Republicans, that he is making an effort to be bipartisan. If you're asking did he advance his cause with Republicans? That's where I think I don't know that he made much in the way of inroads.
He had some very spirited arguments. It got on TV, all over NPR. But the question is, do I think that he, for example, got any more votes for health care, do I think he got any more votes for his budget? No.
HANSEN: NPR News analyst Juan Williams. Juan, thank you very much.
WILLIAMS: You're welcome, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Toyota recalled millions of its vehicles in the U.S. and Europe last week to fix sticky gas pedals. The problem led to at least 19 fatalities and accidents over the last 10 years. Toyota says it's shipping new parts to factories and dealers to fix the problem. And while they've temporarily suspended sales in the U.S., they haven't suspended advertising. In fact, they've bought full-page ads in 20 major newspapers this morning.
John Neff is the editor-in-chief of AutoBlog.com. He joins us from member station WCPN in Cleveland, Ohio to talk about the week's auto news. Welcome to the program.
Mr. JOHN NEFF (Editor-in-Chief, AutoBlog.com): Hi. Thank you.
HANSEN: So, this situation with Toyota, how did this happen?
Mr. NEFF: Well, that's a really good question, Liane, and there's actually going to be two congressional hearings in February to try and get to those answers because no one really has the answer right now on how it came to be. There were reports of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles for a long time going back at least a few years.
And just late last year, Toyota acknowledged that it could be caused by floor mats, and there was a recall for over four million vehicles to fix their floor mats. And then as you mentioned, just last week, there was another recall for sticky accelerator pedals. So now we have two recalls that can both cause the same thing. And we don't know how we got there and we don't know how far we're going to go with it, but hopefully there'll be answers within the next month or so.
HANSEN: What will Congress be looking for during those hearings to learn more about this?
Mr. NEFF: Well, I think specifically they're going to want to know when Toyota first learned of these problems and if they had identified the cause of them. 'Cause right now we have reports of sudden acceleration in vehicles that aren't in either recall, which means that, you know, the scope of this may not be a known.
HANSEN: What kind of financial effect is this having on Toyota or will have?
Mr. NEFF: Well, it's already having a financial effect. In the last week or so, Toyota stock has gone down about 16.7 percent. And as you mentioned, when the last recall for the sticky gas pedals happened, Toyota suspended production of the eight models in the recall and instructed their dealers to stop selling those vehicles until a fix could be found and implemented. So, that's lost sales and lost production.
Aside from that, we just also found out that Consumer Reports temporarily yanked their recommendation for the eight Toyota models that are in the recall. As you know, Consumer Reports has huge influence over car buyers, so that's definitely going to hurt Toyota in the long run as well.
HANSEN: Have there been any layoffs? Are you hearing news of layoffs?
Mr. NEFF: We haven't heard any news of layoffs yet. You know, Toyota is a very big company and has been very successful in the last 20 years, so I think they have enough cash in the bank to kind of weather this out for a little while. Kind of all depends on how long this stretches out.
HANSEN: There was good automotive news this past week. Ford Motor Company essentially wowed everybody by announcing a $2.7 billion profit for 2009 and that's its first profit in four years. How did Ford manage to do that? And do you think it might happen again this year?
Mr. NEFF: Credit has to go to Ford's CEO Alan Mulally, who has kind of quietly and subtly positioned Ford in a good place and made very good decisions since he took the helm over there. You know, it comes down to developing good products and promoting them well, and Ford has done that.
Its Ford Fusion won the Motor Trend Car of the Year and also the North American International Car of the Year. So, they're out in front of people's faces with good products. And basically, you know, nothing has gone wrong for Ford in the past year or so and they're kind of riding a wave. And, yes, I think they'll definitely turn a profit again in 2010.
They have another new small car coming out called the Ford Fiesta. They're poised, if gas prices rise, to have a very good product in that segment that'll become popular.
HANSEN: Ford Fiesta, that's not a new line, is it?
Mr. NEFF: There was a Ford Fiesta a long time ago, and they've actually been selling the Ford Fiesta in Europe continually, and we're actually going to be getting the Ford Fiesta the Europeans have. So, we've kind of been waiting for some of Ford's really cool European cars to come over to the U.S. and that's going to be the first one that we share with European customers.
HANSEN: Finally, this week, General Motors reached a deal with Dutch sports carmaker Spyker. Spyker's going to buy Saab. Do you think Spyker will be able to turn Saab around and make it profitable? What sort of challenges does it face?
Mr. NEFF: Well, they have a huge uphill climb. Probably the biggest is that Spyker is a small company itself. It makes very high-end exotic super cars. So, it's overtaking another small niche company in Saab that's very intertwined with General Motors. So it's going to take three or four years for Spyker to kind of detach itself from General Motors and all of the parts and manufacturing that Saab relies on General Motors for.
The real question is: What happens when General Motors isn't there to supply all of the parts and the manufacturing that Saab has to have now to keep going?
HANSEN: And since it's literally about a block away from NPR headquarters, any exciting news coming out of the D.C. Auto Show this weekend?
Mr. NEFF: Well, you know, the D.C. Auto Show has kind of become the green auto show in the country. So, while there aren't many big concept cars that are debuted there or new vehicles, there's a lot of green news that happens. Probably the biggest piece of news is the Department of Energy secretary announcing that Nissan is getting a $1.4 billion loan to help it build an all-electric vehicle called the Leaf in its plant in Tennessee, which will also add 1,300 jobs to the region. So that's good news for people in that area and, also, this is going to be one of the first all-electric vehicles on the market.
HANSEN: John Neff is editor-in-chief of AutoBlog.com, and he joined us from member station WCPN in Cleveland. Thank you very much.
Mr. NEFF: Thank you, Liane.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
In the State of the Union speech, President Obama said that the United States needs to encourage American innovation, particularly in fields like clean energy and the time to do it is now.
President BARACK OBAMA: China's not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany's not waiting. India's not waiting. These nations, they're not standing still. These nations aren't playing for second place. They're putting more emphasis on math and science. They're rebuilding their infrastructure. They're making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs. Well, I do not accept second place for the United States of America.
(Soundbite of cheering)
HANSEN: Robert Atkinson agrees with Mr. Obama's stance that there's no time to be lost. Dr. Atkinson is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based technology policy think tank, and he's in our studio. Thanks so much for coming in.
Dr. ROBERT ATKINSON (President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation): Thank you for having me.
HANSEN: The president referred to innovation several times in his speech. What did you think? Was there anything new there?
Dr. ATKINSON: There wasn't a lot new there. I think what I was most impressed with was when he said we can't be second to none. And it's really time that we get that attitude back in the country, where we say we are not going to be second to none from any country when it comes to innovation and competitiveness. And unfortunately we are second, in fact, we're below second.
HANSEN: I'd like to know, how do you define innovation?
Dr. ATKINSON: Well, we define innovation as the development of a new product, a new process. So, in other words, we're figuring how to make something better, a new service, a new business model. Innovation is so much more than simply a semiconductor or the new Apple device. It's, you know, that's what people think of it but it's really about a small manufacturer or figuring out a way to make something different or make something better. It's about an insurance company going and selling insurance on the Internet.
It's a wide variety of things. But the key reason innovation is so important is we can't compete with the Japanese or the Mexicans or the Indians if we don't innovate. 'Cause they can do the things that are easy to do; they have low-wage labor. They can't do the things that are harder and more complex and require more skills, more knowledge, more technology, more brain power.
That's what we can and should be good at. And if we don't do that, then we are in real trouble.
HANSEN: Haven't States, though, been pretty innovative? I mean, when you think about the ways all technology and innovation are funded?
Dr. ATKINSON: Absolutely. And what's really striking, when you listen to State of the Unions in Washington, no matter who the president is, compare them to State of the States. State of the States you'll find governors talking about, whatever party, Republican or Democrat, talking about innovation, how they're going to drive technology, how they're going to get universities to work more closely with industry, how they're going to help venture capital - all of these things to create jobs. 'Cause governors are responsible at the end of the day for their economy.
HANSEN: Americans, though, are faced with, you know, double-digit unemployment. So many Americans are unemployed now. Is it not difficult to sell investment in the future?
Dr. ATKINSON: I don't think it is. I think most Americans who think about this realize that, number one, one of the reasons we got in this problem that we're in today is frankly because the U.S. economy's been losing innovation and competitiveness in this decade. So, a lot of money that could've gone into semiconductor factories or new manufacturing plants that weren't being invested here in the U.S. went into housing, which was unproductive and, as we've learned, unfortunately, ultimately led to the collapse.
Secondly, we can and we should do things in the short run to create jobs. But if that's all we do, in another year or two we'll be back to where we were. We have to put in place the foundations now that are going to lead to sustained prosperity - both for us and for our kids. So, I think Americans definitely get that and are willing to make those sacrifices.
HANSEN: Robert Atkinson is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Thanks so much for coming in.
Dr. ATKINSON: Thank you.
(Soundbite of bagpipes)
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Hey, know where we can score some haggis? It's still illegal to import haggis from Scotland, despite reports saying otherwise. There's been a ban on British beef and lamb since 1989, when mad cow disease was in the news. If you don't already know, haggis is made from sheep innards - heart, liver, lungs and fat -which are mixed with spices and oatmeal and cooked in the sheep's stomach.
American haggis lovers were elated last week when word spread that the ban might be lifted. Haggis producers in Edinburgh were pretty excited too. They were already salivating over potential sales to a U.S. market. But when the BBC contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they said not so fast. Recently, several news articles have incorrectly stated that the U.S. will be relaxing or lifting its ban on Scottish haggis, a spokeswoman wrote the news organization.
And while a review of the ban on beef and lamb is underway, there is no timeframe for its completion. And there may be another barrier to importing haggis. Since 1971, the U.S. has banned all food made with lungs. So, until the day when real Scottish haggis comes to the U.S., we'll have to make do with scrapple.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Heavy rain has soaked many areas in California this winter, but the precipitation hasn't alleviated the state's long-term drought. Many districts still have federally mandated water cutbacks so they've raised rates and are trying to create incentives for better water conservation. Reporter Jennifer Bauman visited one water district in Southern California to check out a billing system that encourages people to use less water and penalizes them for wasting it.
Mr. PETER BRETZKER(ph): This is getting to be a bit much.
JENNIFER BAUMAN: Irvine homeowner Peter Bretzker is like most of us, paying his water bill without much question. Then one month he got a big shock - a bill that suddenly more than doubled. The Irvine Ranch Water District charged Bretzker eight times more than his base rate for the portion of his water use labeled wasteful.
Mr. BRETZKER: I mean, you can see it in the bill you guys sent us, which is really good. It's scary.
BAUMAN: So, Bretzker was motivated to get some free help.
Ms. NATALIE PAVLOVSKI (Water Conservation Analyst): I'm with the conservation department, so I'll be conducting the audit.
BAUMAN: Water conservation analyst Natalie Pavlovski is examining Bretzker's upscale home to check for any potential leaks. The first stop is the toilet in the downstairs bathroom where she drops a blue dye tablet into the holding tank.
Ms. PAVLOVSKI: If there's any leaks, this water will leak into the bowl and that water will turn blue.
BAUMAN: Turns out, two of Bretzker's three toilets have minor leaks. But that's not enough to explain the recent wasteful water use. So the next stop is the timer for the outdoor sprinklers.
Ms. PAVLOVSKI: So it's seven minutes for the first station. Ten minutes for the second station. These are all very high.
BAUMAN: During the drought of the early '90s, the Irvine Ranch Water District abandoned one-size-fits-all flat-rate pricing and started using a system based not just on how much water you use, but on how much you ought to use. Conservation Manager Fiona Sanchez describes it as allocation based billing designed to discourage waste.
Ms. FIONA SANCHEZ (Conservation Manager, Irvine Ranch Water District): And what it does is it rewards conservation with very low rates, but if you use more than your allocation, then you will get a very strong financial signal to tell you that you need to conserve.
BAUMAN: Each customer's water allocation is based on the number of residents, lot size and climate. Users who exceed their customized allocation face three levels of penalty charges for inefficient, excessive or wasteful water use. A wasteful water user will see their base rate jump from just over a dollar to more than $9 per 100 cubic feet.
Ms. SANCHEZ: Well, we were - shocking bill - but the good news is that when they call in when they get the shock, we're able to really help them.
Ms. PAVLOVSKI: Okay. So, we found a few more things.
BAUMAN: Pavlovski conducts two or three residential audits a day.
Ms. PAVLOVSKI: And then I'll leave you with this packet. It's our conservation information. There's a key to tighten sprinklers.
BAUMAN: Since the system's been I place, personal water consumption in the district has been reduced by 40 percent and landscaping water use by 60 percent.
Drew Beckwith, water policy analyst with Western Resource Advocates, says these kinds of penalties are a powerful tool for water districts to push people to conserve.
Mr. DREW BECKWITH (Water Policy Analyst, Western Resource Advocates): From our perspective, it's certainly one of the number one things that they should be looking at.
BAUMAN: Despite higher startup cost, allocation-based billing systems are expanding throughout the West and even gaining favor in some drought-parched states in the Southeast.
For NPR News, I'm Jennifer Bauman.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
Ten Americans have been arrested in Haiti as they attempted to take 33 orphaned children out of the earthquake-ravaged nation. Members of two Baptist churches from Idaho said they were on a preapproved rescue mission to take the children from a severely damaged orphanage in Haiti to the Dominican Republic. But Haitians officials have suspended all international adoptions amid fears of child trafficking and detained the church members along the border Friday night.
Sean Lankford of Meridian, Idaho, whose wife and daughter were among the church members, said in a telephone interview with NPR that confusion about paperwork needed to take the children out of the country, led to the arrests.
Mr. SEAN LANKFORD: When they got to the border, they were told, hey, you don't have this right documentation. A colonel there at the border said, you know, no big deal, we'll go with - we'll send one of the group - we'll go with one of the group back to Port-au-Prince in the morning, and we'll gain that documentation - help you gain the right documentation and you guys can be on your way. But obviously that's not what happened.
HANSEN: The church members remain in police custody this morning. There has been no comment so far from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti.
Earlier this week, the State Department issued a press release warning of, quote, "great risk and higher vulnerability to human trafficking," close quote, in Haiti where uncounted thousands of children have been separated from their parents.
NPR's Tamara Keith introduces us to some of Haiti's quake orphans.
(Soundbite of children)
TAMARA KEITH: At the Eben Ezer children's village in the countryside east of Port-au-Prince, new children arrive every day - more than 100 since the earthquake.
Ms. BETH FOX (Co-Founder, Global Orphan Project): (Foreign language spoken)
ESAN(ph): Esan.
Ms. FOX: Esan?
ESAN: (unintelligible)
Ms. FOX: It's so nice to meet you.
There's so many I haven't met yet.
KEITH: Beth Fox is co-founder of the Missouri-based Global Orphan Project, which runs this orphanage and 18 others around Haiti. They provide the children with food, education, health care and a Christian upbringing.
A four-year-old named Stanley(ph) clings to her. Both of his parents were killed in the earthquake.
Rogelean Fourgaeste is 15 and glistens with sweat after a game of soccer with some of the other kids.
Mr. ROGELEAN FOURGAESTE: (Through Translator) My dad borrowed $200 from someone and I was out trying to give it back when the earthquake happened. And when I got back to my house, I saw that it collapsed.
KEITH: His parents didn't make it.
Mr. FOURGAESTE: (Through Translator) Since then I've been searching for help because I was wondering what I should do, because my family all died. I was sleeping on the streets crying all the time. I went to the general hospital to find some help.
KEITH: A doctor there reached out to the Global Orphan Project. I asked Rogelean what he would've done if they hadn't found him.
Mr. FOURGAESTE: (Through Translator) If I didn't find those people, maybe I would ask some people to get me into their house so that I could be like their slave or helping them.
KEITH: In Haiti, even before the earthquake, life was hard for many children. UNICEF estimates tens of thousands were in some form of domestic servitude and nearly 400,000 were orphans. Now Rogelean's future is much brighter. He has an older sister who lives and works in Miami and was just able to speak with her on the phone. He said she had assumed he was dead and is now trying to bring him to Miami with her.
The Global Orphan Project is trying to reunite kids with their families as best they can. Ten-year-old Johnny Bushico is on his way to see his mom after the earthquake tore them apart.
Mr. JOHNNY BUSHICO: (Through Translator) I was on the street close to the national bank and a building collapsed on my legs.
KEITH: His mom wasn't there. He ended up at a hospital far from home, only to be moved again to a hospital in the Dominican Republic where he could get better treatment.
Mr. BUSHICO: (Through Translator) I thought that I would die this day, but I did not because of God.
KEITH: As the green pickup truck he's riding in pulls up to Johnny's neighborhood, children run alongside yelling, Johnny. Johnny.
Unidentified Child #1: (Foreign language spoken)
Unidentified Child #2: (Foreign language spoken)
KEITH: A crowd forms around him as we wait for his mom to walk up from their house. Kids and adults alike have this look of amazement, like they can't really believe he's here and he's okay.
His mom, Rosette LaTouche, says she's happy he's finally back.
Ms. ROSETTE LATOUCHE: (Through Translator) I had problems. I couldn't sleep. I was just thinking: Where is he?
KEITH: Beth Fox says she hopes for more happy endings like this one.
Ms. FOX: There's 100 heartbreaking stories. And it's awesome when you have victory, when you're able to reunite a child with his parents. That's the greatest gift of what we get to do.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KEITH: In the mountains above Port-au-Prince, an orphanage called God's Littlest Angels is nearly empty. In the last week and a half, more than 150 kids from here left on chartered planes for the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands. Those children were already in the adoption process. Since then the Haitian government has put the brakes on international adoptions. They've been looking for people at the airports and borders who might be attempting to move children.
Laurie Bickel helps run the orphanage and gave this interview before the U.S. citizens were arrested.
Ms. LAURIE BICKEL (God's Littlest Angels): We're kind of viewing adoptions as finished at this point, until we hear otherwise. So now our goals are changing into just helping these children.
KEITH: She's expecting the orphanage will be full of kids again soon; this time children whose lives were turned upside down by the quake. Bickel says she's gotten hundreds of emails from prospective parents hoping to adopt a quake orphan.
Ms. BICKEL: They just don't understand. They see this on TV and they say, oh, let us help. We'll take them. We'll take them. And we're, like, no, these are not orphans. These are displaced children. They have families. We just have to find them.
KEITH: There's no official count on how many children there are, like Rogelean and Johnny. It will likely be months or years before it's all sorted out. Some of the displaced children are so young, they can't talk yet or say where they live.
Tamara Keith, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
The United States is already home to roughly half a million Haitian immigrants, according to census estimates. The U.S. government issued Temporary Protected Status to Haitians who arrived before the earthquake hit earlier this month. And the West African nation of Senegal has offered land to Haitian refugees.
Nicole Lee is president of the advocacy group TransAfrica Forum. She also lived and worked in Haiti. And she joins us in our Washington studio. Nice to meet you.
Ms. NICOLE LEE (President, TransAfrica Forum): Thank you.
HANSEN: At the moment, attention is focused still largely on earthquake relief and the rebuilding effort. But you and other policy experts say the idea of relocation should be considered as well. Why?
Ms. LEE: Well, I certainly think that most Haitians want to stay in Haiti if they can - if they can stay and lead reasonably comfortable lives. But certainly we will see migration and relocation as a factor in the Haitian history and current situation in Haiti.
HANSEN: So where would Haitians likely go?
Ms. LEE: Well, I mean, there are several places where they probably won't go. There's been efforts by some African governments to provide land to Haitians. And most likely the African option is not something that Haitians will take up. But certainly the United States, Haitians have a long, long history of migrating to Canada. And certainly the Caribbean would be another option.
HANSEN: The Caribbean, that seems like a logical choice because the island nations are in closer proximity.
Ms. LEE: Well, yes. But one of the challenges that they face in the Caribbean is a bit of xenophobia. And we have seen that in recent years, that many Caribbean nations have discouraged Haitians from coming because of xenophobic acts of violence within their countries. And so that is also a concern and a challenge.
HANSEN: And then there's language barriers. And there's even, I mean, there's tension between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. And they pretty much occupy the same island.
Ms. LEE: Yeah. In some ways it's unfortunate for Haiti because they're in the middle of an English-speaking Caribbean and certainly in a Spanish-speaking Latin American world. And so language is always an issue. Skin color also has been a problem and an issue. And so it's important for governments in the Caribbean, governments in Latin America, as they're making offers for Haitians to come to their country, it's also important that they ensure that they prep their citizenry. And they put the expectations pretty high in terms of how Haitians should be welcomed within those communities.
HANSEN: The Obama administration has already suspended Haitian deportations, extended the temporary legal status of Haitians who were here before the earthquake. Do you consider that response sufficient?
Ms. LEE: No. No, I don't. And I think it's important for people to know that Temporary Protected Status is not actually a migration option. It is merely just a stay. It does not allow for others to come after the earthquake. So it's important to note that it does not allow people to really make lives here in the United States. And what we really need to be talking about is comprehensive immigration reform that actually includes Haiti as a special case.
HANSEN: You're headed back to Haiti...
Ms. LEE: I am.
HANSEN: ...next week. What do you expect to find?
Ms. LEE: You know, I'm not sure, frankly. Certainly I'm trying to prepare myself. Port-au-Prince is no longer my Port-au-Prince. Most of the buildings that I remember are no longer standing. And so, certainly visually that's going to be pretty shocking.
HANSEN: Do you have family there?
Ms. LEE: You know, I actually married into a Haitian family. So I have a Haitian-American husband and I have now a Haitian-American child. I do have in-laws that are still there and I am certainly going to be looking for them and hopefully providing something for them while I'm there. Although, you know, what one person can do or one family can do in the midst of the devastation is kind of hard to really comprehend. But certainly I'm looking forward to hugging them and seeing for myself that they're all right.
HANSEN: Nicole Lee is the president of TransAfrica Forum. She joined us here in the studio. Thanks very much.
Ms. LEE: Thank you.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen.
On January 24th, 1984, Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh computer to the world.
Mr. STEVE JOBS (Co-Founder/CEO, Apple): You've just seen some pictures of Macintosh. Now I'd like to show you Macintosh in person.
(Soundbite of electronic voice)
Unidentified Man: Hello, I am Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag.
(Soundbite of cheering)
HANSEN: This past week, 26 years later, Mr. Jobs had a new product to unveil: the much anticipated iPad. Jobs introduced it as a device that would revolutionize the industry. The one-and-a-half pound slate computer will bring you books, movies, music and even word processing all on a 9.7-inch screen.
NPR's Laura Sydell was there at the unveiling, and she joins us now to talk about the reaction that this iPad is getting. Hi, Laura.
LAURA SYDELL: Hi, Liane.
HANSEN: So, you got your hands one. What did you think?
SYDELL: It's nice. The touch screen is beautiful and it has - you can use both a real and a virtual keypad. You can play games on it, watch movies. And, of course, it has books in color and that is the addition to the - what was, you know, the iTunes store - is they're going to start to have books. And the books will be interactive and that will be great.
And a lot of people are excited about the idea of textbooks. So you could have a textbook and maybe have a quiz at the end of a chapter. And wouldn't that be great? And, also, think of all those students who've been lugging around big, heavy textbooks. Oh, my goodness. They'd be so much lighter if you had it in this little - it's one-and-a-half pounds. That's it.
HANSEN: And, I mean, the price? Is that the price?
SYDELL: Oh, yes. Yes. The price is important on this.
HANSEN: Yeah.
SYDELL: The lowest priced one is $499, basically $500. That comes with WiFi. That's coming out in about two months. And then three months later, the higher-end ones, which will have 3G, and they're going up to $829. So, not cheap, but not, you know, as expensive as some thought.
HANSEN: No. No. But it's still lots of money. And I hear that people have been criticizing the iPad for what it doesn't have.
SYDELL: I'll give you the Zen answer: No camera, no phone, no Flash.
(Soundbite of laughter)
SYDELL: You know, and in some ways, you know, Flash - for people who don't know - is what animates a lot of things on the Web. So people are not happy about that.
HANSEN: So are there people who are finding it so lacking in certain ways, are they getting mad about it? Are they protesting?
SYDELL: Yeah, actually there was a small protest, believe it or not, outside of this announcement. That's how big a deal it was. The protest was about a couple of things. One is concern that they're going to put encryption on books. Now, people may remember when the iPod came out, you would download a song and you could only share it within your own system. You couldn't share it with other people; only make so many copies. Well, there's the fear right now, and it's not clear, but that they may do that with books as well. As for right now, finally Apple got rid of that encryption, that lock on the music.
So, but one thing people are particularly upset about is the apps store. So you have all these cool applications, right? That you're going to be able to put on your iPad, and the concern is that it has to be approved by Apple, right? Every single application. Problem is, if this is really like a computer on which you're going to do work and enterprise, would you want a laptop where you could only buy all of your software from one company? So, people are a little uneasy about that.
HANSEN: Big question, one that was asked before the unveiling and one that gets asked now. Is it a revolutionary device?
SYDELL: I'm not making any predictions yet, but so far I'm not sure. There could be an application that comes out between now and when they finally release it two months from now, maybe a newspaper, something that really makes it great. We don't know yet because it was like that with the iPod - it took a little while for it to catch on. Once the iTunes store got the record companies on board, it took off. So, we'll see.
HANSEN: NPR's Laura Sydell in San Francisco. Thank you, Laura.
SYDELL: You're welcome.
HANSEN: And if you'd like to see Steve Jobs' full Macintosh presentation from 1984, you can go to our blog npr.org/soapbox.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
Time now for your letters. There were many notes of appreciation for John Burnett's report last week about the hundreds of Cuban doctors who are providing medical aid in Haiti.
From Elizabeth Atley(ph) of Newport, Oregon: Thank you for finally acknowledging the Cuban doctors who are already on the scene at the time of the earthquake and have added to their numbers and effectiveness in the days following. For normalization of relations between Cuba and the U.S. to ever occur, it is so important to present occasional positive stories about Cuba without the usual negative caveats.
Bill Sell(ph) from Milwaukee, Wisconsin wrote: What a refreshing report from our neighbor Cuba after three generations of paranoia and news reports that always would demean Cuba's motives as merely political, nothing else. Cuban work in medicine deserves our attention and respect.
Last week we talked to plus-size supermodel Emme and Christopher Bartley, features editor of the high-fashion magazine V about the magazine's current issue which includes models of all sizes.
Emily Wingard(ph) of Kent, Washington weighed in.
Ms. EMILY WINGARD: It is nice that V magazine is doing this. And the women look amazing in it, but every magazine does this now. They have their token plus-size issue, then they just go right back to featuring models who are a size two. This isn't that much progress for seeing a wide range of women in modeling. It's almost insulting.
HANSEN: Finally, many of you also enjoyed our performance chat last week with the a cappella group Sonos. Michael Reed(ph) of Osborne, Kansas wrote: Wonderful voices, creative choices in music and arrangements, makes a classic style and method fresh, new and fun.
SONOS (Music Group): (Singing) What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way.
HANSEN: We want to hear from you. To send an email, go to npr.org and click on Contact Us. And you can send me a tweet at nprliane, all one word. And Liane is spelled L-I-A-N-E.
LIANE HANSEN, host:
It's the year 1660. The harpsichord is hot.
(Soundbite of music)
HANSEN: New York is still New Amsterdam and Charles II is restored to the British throne. To mark that occasion, King Charles was presented with a huge gift - the Klencke Atlas. It was and remains the largest book in the world. In April, it will be publicly displayed with its pages open for the first time in 350 years.
Joining us is the curator of Antiquarian Mapping at the British Library in London, Tom Harper. Welcome to the program.
Mr. TOM HARPER (Curator of Antiquarian Mapping, British Library): Hello. Thank you for inviting me.
HANSEN: I feel like I'm doing stand-up comedy. So, how big is the Klencke Atlas?
Mr. HARPER: Well, it's big. It's big. The Klencke Atlas was said by John Evelyn, upon seeing it in 1660, to be near four-yards tall. That translates today as something like nine-feet tall. It's certainly a very heavy book, as well, as I found out when I tried to move it with some colleagues the other day. It took six of us in total. We only traveled a short distance, but we were rather tired at the end of it all.
HANSEN: I bet you were. And I bet you were feeling a little small standing next to it.
Mr. HARPER: It really is quite frightening when you stand next to this atlas. The atlas contains 39 maps. These maps were not originally intended for a book. They were intended to be placed on walls. And so it gives you some sort of idea of the grand gesture that Johannes Klencke had in giving it to Charles II in 1660.
HANSEN: So, was it meant as a work of art because its pages were meant to hang on a wall?
Mr. HARPER: Well, yes. These were marvelous maps, which were created with lots of decorative flourishes around them and engraved in copper plates to an exquisite style. And to put these things all together in a book was really to show that works of art were fit for a king.
HANSEN: Do you think it's possible to put a price, a value on the Klencke Atlas?
Mr. HARPER: I'd be very reluctant to do so, but I could certainly try and get out of your question if you like.
HANSEN: It's priceless, in other words.
Mr. HARPER: Well, it is, yes, yes. It's from the collection: The Kings and Queens of England. The exhibition is a great opportunity to get out the crown jewels.
HANSEN: The geographical crown jewels.
Mr. HARPER: The geographical crown jewels - I like that. I might use that again, Liane.
HANSEN: It's yours.
Mr. HARPER: Thank you.
HANSEN: Tom Harper is curator of Antiquarian Mapping at the British Library in London. In April, the giant Klencke Atlas goes on display there. Thank you very much.
Mr. HARPER: You're welcome.