that's it for me. hand it over to my good friend, ali velshi. all yours, buddy. >> t.j., have a great afternoon. i'm ali velshi for the next two hours today. every weekday i'll guide you through the maize of information coming your way. together we'll learn what's going on at home and around the world. access to the folks who can explain what it means today and tim pact beyond today. we'll showcase the best ideas in philanthropy and public education. my mission is to help you understand what's going on and how it fits into your life. on the rundown, millions of toys are being recalled by the one of the biggest names in the toy business because they could be danger to your kids. what you need to know. courage in the face of illness. our own dr. sanjay gupta gives us a taste of his new series. "the human factor."

an interview with michael j. fox. two former top chef contestants join me here to teach you how to be a top cook in your home. first, big story for you now. two young men with very different outcomes from cyber bullying. no one -- one is not commenting right now. the other one committed suicide. meet tyler clementi, a freshman at rutgers university in new jersey. his family says he died after jumping off the george washington bridge into the hudson river. two fellow students, dharun ravi and molly wei are charged with invasion of privacy after allegedly putting a camera into the 18-year-old's dorm room without his knowledge and broadcasting elements of -- broadcasting his sexual encounters. ravi, the one student who's been charged, was tyler's roommate. he's believed to have sent out this twitter post, reading, quote, roommate asked for the

room till midnight. i went into molly's room and turned on my web cam. i saw him making out with a dude. yay. now meet chris armstrong, the other subject of the conversation we're talking about. he's the first openly gay student body president at the university of michigan. and the target of a venomous blog by an assistant state attorney general named andrew shirvel. armstrong isn't been smeared for a suspected crime. instead he claims armstrong is pushing a, quote, radical homosexual agenda. he calls him a racist liar. a pervert. in a memorable appearance with my colleague, anderson cooper, shirvel not only didn't back down from the slurs, he defended them and kept up the attack on armstrong. >> i am doing this as a private citizen off work time as a university of michigan alum. we're quibbling over tactics. we're not quibbling over substan substance.

the substance is chris armstrong is a radical homosexual activist who got elected partly funded by the gay and lesbian victory fund to promote a very deeply radical agenda at the university of michigan. >> his biggest issues were extending the hours of the cafeteria and lowering tuition as well as some gender housing issues. >> no, that's not correct. no, that's not correct, anderson. his biggest issue is gender neutral housing. what we're talking about is anybody, any man or woman wanting to choose to live together. that's a radical redefinition of gender norms. >> now, for his part, the student body leader chris armstrong is not giving any interviews. but he isn't running scared either. the news and information site is now reporting armstrong is seeking a personal protection order against andrew shirvell. journalist david jesse broke that story. he joins me now on the phone from ann arbor. tell us what the latest is. >> the latest is, chris, as you

said, has filed for a restraining order against mr. shirvell. he asked the judge to implement it immediately. the judge denied that and set a hearing for 1:30 p.m. on october 4th. we'll hear from both sides on whether or not a personal protection order should be entered. >> david, i want to just play you more from and erson cooper' show last night. mike cox, attorney general of michigan, was on the show. he has earlier said that the -- his assistant, shirvell, has a right to say what he's had to say. he was pressed a little further. let's listen to exactly what he said. >> certainly, it's -- it's unbecoming of civil discourse. it's unbecoming of common courtesy. and, you know, i -- quite frankly, i feel embarrassed for mr. armstrong. you know, that he has this unwanted attention. but, again, anderson, this is speech put on a blog. now, if there's conduct that's

verified, for instance, if a personal protection order was sought by mr. armstrong and granted in the michigan civil service or disciplinary code, we could start looking at things in terms of, perhaps, sending to an employee assistant program. >> david, it is remarkably frustrating to hear the double speak that continues to go on. i don't really understand what mike cox said. i'll read it to you. he said, now, if there's a personal protection order was sought by mr. armstrong and granted in the michigan civil service or disciplinary code, we could start looking at things in terms of, perhaps, sending to an employee assistance program. i kind of think that means that if armstrong filed and was granted a personal protection order the attorney general could do something more. can you make more sense of the somewhat unintelligible comment by mike cox? >> sure. my understanding there is that under the civil service rules that if there was a ppo, then that would open up some other

options for a wide variety of things. as mr. cox referenced, even, you know, employee assistance. which i would assume to generally be some sort of counseling, you know, kind of help him a bit. you know, so we'll see next week if that's the case. >> is there much discussion here about whether by engaging in this, cox can't just fire shirvell? >> there's a lot of discussion. we're seeing it in the comments left on our site, on the e-mails i'm getting. even in the last, you know, half hour, 45 minutes since we broke this story, lots of people want to see him -- want to see him gone. like he told anderson cooper last night, shirvell and his boss feel this is a free speech type of a thing. if you read the -- in that ppo, chris armstrong, student body president, wrote about how he feels, you know, how he feels threatened by him. that he believes, you know, this

action -- quoting here, have been an outright attack on my ability to live my life. certainly mr. armstrong feels threatened by this. >> let me tell you what armstrong has said, a statement he read at a student meeting. he says, quote, i will not back down. ly not flinch. i will not falter. i will not succumb to any unwarranted attacks. ly carry on with the utmost pride and vindication. a little later we'll get into how damaging statements put out on the internet can actually be to people. one thing i want to ask you about, david, let's talk a little bit about the political fallout right now. shirvell is not an elected official as an assistant attorney general. mike cox is an elected official. what's going on in the politics of this? >> what's interesting in this case is mr. cox's term is up at the end of the year. he is not running for re-election. you have a democrat and republican facing off for that. last night the democratic candidate called for mr.

shirvell to be fired. so it's starting to raise itself as an issue in the attorney general's race. certainly, you know, around campus here is a huge topic. >> we'll continue to follow it. david jesse is a reporter at annarbor.com. to the white house right now. we've been listening in. white house press secretary robert gibbs has been talking about the president making a personnel announcement tomorrow morning at 11:05 a.m. we expect that to be about rahm emanuel leaving his job at chief of staff at the white house. let's listen in for a moment and see if there's more on that. >> -- he also possibly have two announcements, somebody coming, somebody going? >> i would be -- i would bet on having two announcements, yes. >> will we hear from the personnel? >> some of them, yes. >> if he were to leave, what effect would that have? >> i won't answer hypotheticals. >> a lot of people are living.

larry's leaving. rahm is leaving. there are reports about general jones, secretary gates has said 2011 is a good time for him to leave. there are a lot of people, key members of the national security team, key members of the economic team. could you just comment on that? >> yeah. and i've said this in a number of times. look, i think -- i think two years in -- if you look back historically is a time in which people have come into government service at the beginning of an administration and leave to go back to academia, business, retire or go on to other pursuits. i think it is in many ways the normal rhythm of an administration to do. we have -- i think i've said this to a number of you all. folks that have worked in here for the last two years have managed to pack four or six or eight or ten years' worth of

work into those two. the economic team has dealt with the type of series of crisis from housing to financial stability to the recovery act to unemployment. i would point out done so in a way, if you look at the news today on aig, we are -- if the common stock that the american government holds in aig were sold today, that investment would net the federal government $20 billion. as -- probably as late as a year ago, most people presumed that aig would be $180 billion loss. the financial sector would cost the government a great deal of money. the financial sector as a portion of t.a.r.p. is likely to

provide a profit for -- for the government in terms of its investment. think, jake, many many ways it is the natural course of the way this town works. and that administrations work. people have given of their time and of their lives. they've been away from their loved ones, their families. a number of people that you mentioned, i know larry moved here while his family stayed in massachusetts. and i think in many ways, again, it's the normal cycle and course of doing business. >> is it abnormal to stay longer than two years? >> look, i mean, everybody has -- look, in larry's case, there are tenure issues. which is not something that can just be waived. so i think in many ways, you know, look, some people stay longer. some people will leave. again, i think it's largely -- i think it is much more of the

normal course and the rhythm. you look at -- you mentioned secretary gates who has -- you know, who's served the last part -- i think it was, what, the last two years of the previous administration. i hope secretary gates doesn't get mad at me for telling this story. but i remember being backstage during the transition when president-elect obama saw mrs. gates and shook his new defense secretary's hand and looked at his wife and said, i'm sorry. so, look, there's a sacrifice that is borne by people like that that is -- that just comes to fruition. >> what about press secretaries? what you have been watching is white house press secretary robert gibbs and the white house press corps engaged in the biggest nondiscussion we've seen in a long time. this is all about rahm emanuel leaving the white house, leaving

his position as chief of staff. most likely tomorrow morning to run for mayor of chicago. now, none of that has been announced. rahm emanuel is not announcing that he's running for the mayor of chicago. the mayor of chicago, the long-time mayor of chicago, daley, has announced he's not run geng. rahm emanuel has made no secret historically of the fact he wants to be the mayor of chicago. the announcement about him leaving was shrouded in his message by robert gibbs that tomorrow at 11:05 a.m. the president will be making an announcement about personnel. and they will be announcing -- there'll be two announcements. which means someone will be leaving. that is most likely rahm emanuel. and someone will be coming in to replace him either on an interim or permanent basis. that is what that discussion was all about. you wouldn't have known it from listening to it, i'll tell you that much. before that we were involved in a discussion about cyber bullying. not just something kids at school do. it's something that the assistant attorney general of michigan is involved in right now. there's a much broader discussion to be had here.

it goes far beyond dorm rooms and college campuses and the internet. we're going to have that discussion straight ahead. on t. and asked frequent heartburn sufferers, like carl, to put prilosec otc's 24 hour heartburn protection to the test for two weeks. the results? i can concentrate on everything i'm doing, not even think about it anymore. since i've been taking it, i've been heartburn free, which is a big relief for me. [ male announcer ] take your 14-day challenge. ♪ prilosec otc. heartburn gone. power on.

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to get the answers you need. call now. before the break we told you about tyler clementi, the rutgers student who committed suicide after allegedly having a sexual encounter broadcast over the internet. also we told you about chris armstrong, the young man at the university of michigan who's being blasted online by that state's assistant attorney general. but just as these young men were attacked using the internet, there's a huge outpouring of support on the internet for them. tyler has several facebook pages in his honor with tens of thousands of supporters. people are sending words of

encouragement and support to his family and loved ones. chris armstrong in michigan also has several facebook support pages with thousands of supporters. people all over the country and the world are encouraging him to keep his head up and stay strong. both men handled cyber bullying in very different ways. dr. patricia agaston, the author of "cyber bullying." thank you for joining us. we've got two very different situations going on right now. they have two things in common. both of them have something to do with the victim's sexuality. both of them are being spread online. they don't all fit the traditional measure of what we call bullying. one of them is an assistant attorney general in michigan targeting a student leader. something he calls a political act. tell me how you look at these situations and whether these are, in fact, cyber bullying instances. >> well, these may be more

extreme cases. i think what we have to look at is someone is using their power over someone else. that is a form of bullying behavior. and we do know that traditional traditionally, kids are more likely to be targeted by bullying. i think we're still learning about all the particulars about these cases. however, what we do know is that technology is incredibly powerful. and when we use that power over others, it can really accelerate and amplify the negative behavior and the hurt that someone experiences. >> there's a couple of issues there. one is you said -- typically bullying is somebody using their power over someone else. when i was a little kid, bullies were the bigger kids or the most popular kids. that's how they exercise their power over someone else. the internet blurs that line. you don't actually have to be in a position of power. you don't have to be popular. >> right. >> you don't have to be physically large or intimidating

to be able to bully someone and cause them harm. >> correct. because what you have is the power of technology. and that's what allows you to engage in this. so it's -- what we're looking at is it's hard to defend yourself against this bullying behavior. certainly if someone has a vast, wide audience they're reaching and you're the person being targeted, it's very hard to defend yourself when the reach is so vast. >> tell me about this. the other thing that i recall from my childhood is if somebody's bullying someone, they sometimes take great gratification in seeing the response they're getting. sometimes that response causes the bully to back off. maybe it's somebody crying. maybe it's somebody looking hurt. maybe it's the fact there's been physical injury so they know to step back. whereas the online bullying, it's unclear to the bully what the outcome is going to be. >> well, certainly there is the issue of the disinhi bags thbit occurs when we don't see the

person face to face. it may be for some individuals easier to engage in malicious or cruel behavior. and when you don't see the impact of your behavior on others, you're less likely to back off. so you don't -- you miss out on the reactions. you don't realize in some cases how hurtful your behavior could be. and that's why it's so important, i think, for us all to be talking about that there's a real person on the other end of the screen and it really does cause harm. >> dr. agatston, thank you for joining me. author of "cyber bullying: bullying in the digital age." we also want to clarify, by the way, obviously bullying is not just an online problem. there's still some good old-fashioned bully going on. meet asher brown. he was 13 years old when he shot himself last thursday in his closet in texas. his parents told our anderson cooper asher shot himself because he was bullied. he was allegedly picked on by four kids at school for being

gay. pu bullying in our schools and now online. what can be done to put an end to it? an "ac360" report. don't miss this. wh you can do as a member of society. on cnn beginning monday night at 10:00 eastern. fisher-price is recalling millions of toys, saying they could be dangerous to babies and toddlers. millions of toys. i've got the details on this when i come back.

fisher-price is announcing a massive recall. we're talking about millions of toys and almost a million highchairs. christine romans is in new york. i've heard you talking about this today. this seems to have gotten your attention more than a lot of the other recalls we've seen out there. >> the sheer size of it, ali.

it's 7 million tricycles. about a million highchairs. a lot of other toys here. different products altogether. i think what it shows you is it shows you a consumer product safety commission that is clearly taking these sort of matters very seriously. over the past couple of years, it's been two years we've been talking about toy recalls. first of all, these trikes. take a look at this one. an ignition key. the position of this ignition key can cut and hurt a child where it is. it's right in the groin area where a little kid would sit. little kids don't have the best motor skills. that's why they're using this little trike, to learn, right? this has caused some children to be hurt. some children had to seek medical attention because of this. the other thing we're looking at, these infant toys with inflatable balls. so like a play yard or a play station, they have these inflatable balls. there's a valve on that inflatable ball that can come loose. some children have actually been found to have it in their mouth and in the beginning stages of

smoking. choke ing. on the back of the highchairs, there's a clip that holds the tray of a highchair when it's not in use. that clip has actually cut some children so badly some have required stitches to close the wound. that's on the back of the chair. that's been a problem. all of these products, you're supposed to stop using immediately and contact the company for a fix-it kit to try to figure out how to fix it. there's also these little people. i don't know if you know this. did you play with these when you were a little kid? little people. small sort of i would say rotund little toys you play with. there's some cars with those. there's a couple of those cars that have been recalled. the green and the purple ones in particular because of a choking hazard. the wheels can come off of those. ali, you've heard me say this for two or three years now as we've been covering toy recalls. >> yeah. >> if you have small parts on a toy or parts on a toy that are starting to come loose, don't let your toddlers be close to them. take them away. because those are choking hazards. consumer reports says anything

that can fit through, like, the tube of a paper towel -- a paper towel tube, that's too big to have around a toddler. take it away. >> christine, it is interesting, though, that there's -- that there are so many more of these things. remember, we went through the lead paint stuff with toys a couple of years ago. >> yep. >> any issue here that the regulation is -- >> magnets. remember the magnets? >> that's right. is this because of regulation or is this people were complaining and the system working the way it's supposed to to? >> don thinks manufacturers are starting to get it. if there's a problem, they do a recall. it is fisher-price that's pulling the products. it is interesting, though. because, ali, there are some -- there are some manufacturers who are fighting some of these new, tougher rules in the wake of the chinese toy scandals in the past couple years. because they don't want to be considered a children's toy company. you know, because some of these rules are very tough that are coming out. stay tuned. we'll keep you posted on that. >> good to see you, christine,

as always. if you want more of things to do with your money, tune in saturdays at 1:00 p.m. eastern, sundays at 3:00 p.m. eastern with christine and me right here on cnn. let me bring you up to speed with some of the top stories we're following, particularly as they relate to your money. ireland central bank is giving more cash to two struggling big banks. that'll boost ireland's fiscal deficit to as high as 32% of its entire economy. like a lot of the world, banks there loan money to people who couldn't pay it back. ireland is part of the european union. the largest economy in the world, by the way. the european union is bigger than the u.s. economy. its fate could affect the rest of us. the number of americans full-timing for first-time unemployment benefits went down last week, but not by much. 453,000 people filed new claims. that is fewer than economists had expected, but still pretty high. florida had the biggest drop in claims. nearly 1,800. california had the biggest rise, over 15,000. the east coast is getting hammered right now by some severe weather. heavy rains, flash floods and, once again, the threat of tornadoes. tornado watches and warnings have been in effect from south

carolina to maryland. airport delays have already reached more than two hours in much of the northeast. all right. they did atlanta proud on top chef. they're going to help us get a little more innovative with our own food. our eatocracy coverage continues next. ♪ [ upbeat instrumental ] [ rattling ] [ gasps ] [ rattling ] [ laughing ] [ announcer ] close enough just isn't good enough. - if your car is in an accident, - [ laughing continues ]

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all week we're looking at food from every angle in our special eatocracy coverage. hector santiago and richard blais, i'm going to pick their brains on innovation in food. hector, you are the lead chef and owner at a restaurant here

in atlanta. richard you are the concept chef at flip burger boutique here in atlanta. i'm relatively new here. i haven't had a good chance to sample either of your -- your cooking. but have you eaten at each other's places. >> oh, yeah. >> absolutely. hector is a big inspiration for me. i think he's one of the most forward thinking chefs in the city, if not the country. so yeah. >> this is a big eating city. atlanta has got a lot of restaurants, a lot of great restaurants. what we're doing on eatocracy, we're covering all sorts of things. food safety, health, making good choices. what we don't talk enough about is just enjoying and eating well. what are the influences that have worked with both of you? what's going on out there in the world with respect to people and the things we're talking about, about whether it's health or whether it's locally grown, what are the things that are influencing what you're doing? >> you know, to me, i do -- i do traveling around to see what they're doing in other countries. and at the same time, i try to keep my food very local.

also i do have a latin american restaurant. so i try to incorporate things that i saw in those travels and try to get all, let's say, my pork, my beef, all those kind of products i can get locally, they're going to be amazing. >> what about you? >> to me it's a balance of the same thing. local, farm to table food sort of combined with cutting edge technology and innovation. i like to think that, you know, i'm inspired by both. sort of modernness and modern food, but also sourcing great ingredients and, of course, local food is a big thing. >> what is molecular gastronomy? >> i'm not sure. it sounds like a weird word. it's a little cold. who says you want to go italian? chinese? how about molecular gras tronas. it's the science of deliciousness. that sounds a lot better. >> what can people do at home that can kick up normal cooking?

>> i think that a lot of cooking is easy to do nowadays. i work with a company that has a slow cooker for home. that's a great way to keep a great taste, a lot of minerals and vitamins right on the food. >> like an old-fashioned slow cooker? >> it's the world's first -- it means cooking under vacuum. it's like a modern slow cooker is what hector is saying. it's like taking that technology we're using in our restaurants, whether it's making ice cream with liquid nitrogen and combining that as a home cook by going to your local farmer's market. buying amazing fresh ingredients. take them home. don't be afraid to screw things up. experiment. >> we do that all the time. even on tv. >> this is true. >> i want to ask you one question, hector. what is food tourism to you? >> food tourism to me is going to another country and just eating in a restaurant. getting out there. seeing the market.

seeing what people eat every day. and in somebody's house. when i travel, i try to go to -- i actually got into a little -- i want to see it. i want to see how they prepare it. so i can come here and imitate that. and have the flavor that is very reminiscent of that area. >> that's excellent. guy, thank you very much. great to meet you both. i will make it a point to get out to both of your establishments and enjoy some of the stuff we've all learned about you. hector santiago and richard blais of flip burger boutique. not such a great story. extreme rains, threat of floods, tornadoes all hammering the east coast. the severe weather center straight ahead. one who can stay in sync with their moves. my job at ge capital is to get bobcat all the financial and business support they need. we provide financing for every bobcat dealer in north america. together, we've rolled out over 100,000 machines

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all right. i'm here at the severe weather center with chad. right now the east coast is facing extreme rain, floods, very real threat of tornadoes in some major cities. let's go right over here and tell us what's going on. >> i just popped this up. we have these bars, buttons at the bottom of our screen. when they pop up and i'm live on tv, i can see this. this little tornado warning just popped up here from state college, pennsylvania. the tornado could be near lloydsville or icksburg. even mccallisterville. get rid of that. pennsylvania. then the triangle right there. state college. >> that's where penn state is. >> penn state would be right in this state college, right. it is south of there in toward lockhaven. that area, we're just going to keep watching those things. it's all part of what was nicole. >> yep. >> the satellite, we're going to lose a frame at the very end.

nothing i can do about that. the satellite shows an awful lot more moisture down to the south here. look at this. look just -- look how much rainfall is coming down from new york state. i can bring you down there. from new york state all the way down through virginia beach and into north carolina. and then think about that big blob of cloud cover that's still to come. that could be another 6 inches of rainfall on top of these areas. >> what's going on at airports in the northeast? >> at least two hours. >> wow. >> about 20% to 30% of the planes not e even making it. just being canceled. if there's an 80 seat maximum on a plane, 50 seats full, you can get two planes into one plane. >> just be patient. how long does this go on for? >> 24 more hours. >> chad, thanks very much. shocking numbers to tell you about. they involve our fighting men and women. but they are not based on the battlefield. i'll tell you when i come back.

let me bring you up to date with some of the top stories we're following here at cnn. the army says four soldiers who died over the week apparently took their own lives. all four were from ft. hood, texas. all were decorated veterans from the war in iraq or afghanistan. if confirmed as suicides, it would be in addition to 14 other suicides on the base this year. the commercial department says the economy grew at a slightly faster pace in the second quarter. that's the second two months of this year than previously reported. the bad news, the growth of the nation's gross domestic product, which is the biggest measure of our economy, remains very slow. the gdp is, of course, the

broadest measure. tony curtis, movie heartthrob in the 1950s who developed himself into a respected actor has died. curtis died yesterday of cardiac arrest at his home outside of las vegas. he was 85 years old. president carter has been discharged from metro health medical center in cleveland today just about half an hour ago. 1:15 p.m. eastern time. after recovering from a gastric viral infection. he will resume his schedule with a meeting this week in washington, d.c. this long-planned event is related to his carter center work. he thanked his medical team at metro health for the attentive and comprehensive care and treatment he received during his stay. he also, again, expressed his appreciation to all the members of the public who sent greetings and good wishes to him. congress is getting some last minute work done. i'll tell you what effect it'll have. your cnn politics.com update is up next.

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it's time now for a cnn politics.com update. mark preston and paul ste steinhaweser watching developments.

what's crossing the line right now, guys? >> here's what we got, ali. let's talk about sarah palin. she's been very influential in the republican primaries. peter hamby and i, we confirmed earlier today sarah palin is going to be teaming up with michael steele, chairman of the republican national committee later next month, october 23rd and october 16th out in orlando, florida, and in anaheim, california. zoom in here on the cnn political ticker. brand-new up here. palin is going to help the republican party raise some big bucks in those final weeks before the mid-term elections. ali, this is interesting. remember, last year and even into a good part of this year, palin and the republican national committee really didn't see eye to eye over a lot of things. looks like they've made up. looks like she's going to be teaming up with michael steele. that's what i got. mark, what do you got? >> hey, ali. this is just in. it literally just came into my e-mail box. we haven't written it up for the political ticker right now. service employees international union is going to launch a $5 million campaign against meg whitman. it's going to include radio,

television, internet advertising, mailers. the television ad is going to run on spanish television stations in california. it's actually going to reference that undocumented domestic worker meg whitman has had to answer a lot of questions about just in the last 24 hours. unions are starting to put millions of dollars into this california governors race. our cnn poll yesterday had jerry brown, the democrat, leading meg whitman 52% to 43%. we'll follow developments of that race as they continue throughout the day. also, ali, for all those viewers out there who are so frustrated by the fact that when television programming turns to commercials and the volume seems to get jacked up and you have to grab the clicker and turn it down, relief might be on the way. congress has passed legislation now that will make that illegal. when it comes back for the lame duck session, it will all be wrapped up. ali. >> nice they're dealing with that. it strikes me there are bigger issues to deal with. i suppose congress can do more than one thing at a time. good to see you both.

we'll check in with you consistently. stay with cnn for key races and key issues as we head into elections. all right. there's a movie coming out there's already getting rave reviews across the board. it's about america's beloved facebook and the guys behind it. but our resident movie critic has a bit of a different take in our odds & ends. ♪

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new movie out tomorrow, "the social network" that focuses on the early years of facebook. now the most prolific networking site in the world. founded just six years ago, it reached over half a billion users this year. that's one in 12 people

worldwide. graham flannigan is our friend and resident movie guy here at cnn. graham, what did you think, your thoughts on the movie? >> i thought it was great, ali. it's definitely in my top five of the year. it did not beat out "inception" for best of the year, but it really lived up to the book. terrific book. but i tell you what it didn't live up to was its trailer. >> which has gone viral. everybody has seen this trailer. >> right. people watch this trailer like it's its own short film. it's got the song and this montage of photos and this haunting emotional quality that, unfortunately, i think the movie is lacking. the movie itself is more of a procedural. now, it's like how did facebook happen. from a to z. >> so it's not about facebook and facebook users, it's about the guys who set this up and focuses fairly heavily on mark

zuckerberg, the founder and head of facebook right now. the idea is a drama tiesed version of how this all started back in the days at harvard. do you think it's fair, there's been some question as to whether this is fair as to mark zuckerberg. >> well, mark zuckerberg didn't get a chance to contribute. he refused to cooperate with the movie, so they kind of had to go by what was in the book. it kind of paints mark zuckerberg as a citizen kaneesque character, a guy that has a rosebud in a way. something is driving him. obviously he hasn't been quoted about this but the movie suggests that some force, some thing or some person is out there that is making him want to succeed and create this empire. >> this is going to go down in some people's minds as the history of the biggest social media move or movement that

we've ever seen. is this history or is it drama? >> the movie itself, this is a history lesson. you know, what calls were made, what -- who screwed who over, what e-mails were sent. this is about how it happened, who was involved, who was at the keyboard. it's a procedural, ali, but it's very entertaining and i think they'll win the oscar for best adapted screenplay. >> graham, good to see you as always. graham flannigan, our resident movie critic joining us from new york. movie comes out tomorrow. coming out next, actor and activist michael j. fox talks about his parkinson's disease and more importantly his attitude. dr. sanjay gupta fills us in straight ahead. fight back fast with tums. calcium rich tums goes to work in seconds. nothing works faster. ♪ tum ta tum tum tums

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it's hard to believe, but actor michael j. fox has been living with parkinson's disease for nearly two decades now. my good friend, dr. sanjay gupta, had the rare opportunity to spend some time with him recently and he joins us now from new york. sanjay. >> reporter: it is hard to believe it's been 20 years. this started as a sort of twitching in his pinky finger when he was 29 years old and he's become a well-known face of parkinson's disease. he started this foundation. i sat down and talked to him about what we still don't know about this disease. for example, what causes it. why would it occur in a 29-year-old and we also talked about what his life has been like over the last 29 years. take a look. >> there was a real clear period around 1993-94, two years after diagnosis where i just got it, i just accepted it, and i realized

that there's an old saying that my happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance and my expectation. it's about this is what it is and so now what. >> so once you were not in denial, you were you were happier. >> yeah, absolutely. because when you can look at the truth of something, then every -- i mean that's what it is. it is what it is. now you have options. the only thing i don't have a choice about is whether i have parkinson's. everything else is my choice and that's incredibly liberating. that's much more liberating than the physical constraints of this disease are limiting. >> are the things that you particularly miss that you can't do, things that you say, god, i really just wish i could do this still. >> actually no. i do everything i ever did before. yeah, i know. i play hockey, i play golf, i

play guitar, i hang out with my kids. if it seriously limited or restricted or adversely affected my ability to interact with my kids, i think that would be something that would be hard to deal with. i go back to my reasons for starting this foundation. if you -- i use this analogy a lot but i think it's really apt. if you step off a curb and get hit by a bus, the impact on your life is immediate and catastrophic and you have no options. you just are affected by whatever happens there. with parkinson's, it's like you're crossing the road and you get stuck in the middle. you know the bus is coming and you can't get out of the way. so you can kind of freak out and go the bus is going to hit me at some point, even though you don't know how fast or how big or whatever, but you can be stuck in that result, this bus is going to hit you, or you can

i don't say the time you have before the bus gets there to try to change the route. and that's what we try to do. methodically but with a degree of urgency try to connect the dots and get this done. >> reporter: such a remarkable guy, ali, i tell you. obviously for 20 years he's been living with this and really turned it into a cause and is getting a lot done. they raised over $200 million in this foundation. he has the obvious sort of diskinetic movement there, good days and bad days. when he sleeps he has none of the tremors. when he plays the guitar, he doesn't have the tremors. when he ice skates, so there's certain things that he can do and he talks a lot about some of that as welch i just find fascinating as a doctor and as a reporter. >> that is remarkable. the statement that he made the one thing he has no control over is the park enson's but has control over everything else in

his life. for those of us not afflicted, that means the rest of us have control over every decision we make. i thought that was enlightening. i don't understand why we're never in the same place -- >> reporter: how does that happen? >> i don't understand it. >> reporter: are you around at 8:00 tonight? if you're around at 8:00, ali, give that a watch. >> i will, tonight on cnn the rest of that interview is definitely worth watching. thanks very much. it's a new rundown, a new hour, and he is back. my buddy/rival richard quest. we've been apart for a while but that means another exciting round of q & a. we're talking airline mergers and whether they translate into lower fares or a better experience for us, the travelers. plus, you might be too nice to your doctor. being a good patient might be bad for your health and we've got some stunning stories to prove it. it's a different take on secondary education. you'll meet a woman who takes high school kids not into college but into the kitchen. the results are extraordinary. that's in our chalk talk. but our first story, it's a sad

one. two young men, two very different outcomes from cyber bullying. one committed suicide, the other is fighting back. meet tyler clementi, a freshman at rutgers in new jersey. his family says he died after he jumped off the george washington bridge which connects new jersey and new york over the hudson river. two fellow stumts, today ruin raufy and molly wei broadcast the sexual enkourn. ravi was tyler's roommate. he was believed to have sent out this tweet reading, quote, roommate asked for the room till midnight. i went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. i saw him making out with a dude. yay. now meet chris armstrong. we've talked about him before, the first openly gay student body president at the university of michigan and the target of a venomous blog by an assistant state attorney general named andrew. armstrong isn't being smeared

for any suspected crime. instead he claims that armstrong is pushing a radical homosexual agenda. he calls the student a racist elitist liar, a privileged pervert. in a memorable appearance tuesday night with my colleague anderson cooper, he didn't only not back down from those slurs he defended them and kept up the attack on armstrong. >> i am doing this as a private citizen off work time as a university of michigan alum. we're quibbling over tactics, not over substance. the substance of the matter is, anderson, chris armstrong is a radical homosexual activist who got elected partly funded by the gay and lesbian victory fund to promote a very deeply radical agenda at the university of michigan. and he wants to do that by -- >> his biggest issues were extending the hours of the cafeteria and lowering tuition as well as some gender housing issues. >> no, that's not correct. no, that's not correct,

anderson. his biggest issue is gender neutral housing. what we're talking about anybody, any man or woman wanting to choose to live together. that's a radical redefinition of gender norm. >> wow, radical redefinition of gender norms, any man or woman choosing to live together. chris armstrong isn't giving interviews but isn't running scared either. armstrong is asking a judge for a personal protection order against andrew shirvell. that's important because last night on "ac 360" mike cox the attorney general for michigan said there's not much he can do but that might change if the court grants the personal protection order. maybe mike cox will do the right thing and act on this. there's a much wider discussion to be had here. we're going to have that discussion straight ahead. only one a day women's 50+ advantage has gingko for memory and concentration plus support for bone and breast health. a great addition to my routine. [ female announcer ] one a day women's.

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before the break we told you about tyler clementi, the rutgers student who committed suicide after allegedly having a sexual encounter broadcast over the internet. we also told you about chris armstrong, the young man at the university of michigan who's being blasted online by the assistant attorney general. there's a huge outpouring of support on the internet. tyler has several facebook pages in his honor with tens of thousands of supporters. people are sending words of encourage maenlt ament to his f loved ones. chris armstrong also has several facebook support pages. people are encouraging him to keep his head up and stray strong. both young men facing cyber bullying in different base.

patricia joins us right now live in the studio. thank you for being with us. i think the internet is the greatest tool ever invented by hu humanity and so much good comes out of it. why is this acceptable to be able to spread things about people that are that hurtful, and it doesn't seem like old-fashioned bullying, it doesn't seem as mean. >> well, i think we just aren't having enough conversations about how we are going to use this incredibly powerful tool that is technology. i completely agree with you that technology is a wonderful thing and the internet is a wonderful thing, but we've got to think about how we use it and recognize that, you know, just as it can be used to destroy people, it can also be used to lift people up, as you're seeing from the support. >> which is great. but in the case of the student at rutgers, and we don't know all the details, but his family says he committed suicide. he jumped off the george washington bridge, which is a particularly horrifying way to do it. i used to think cyberbullying

was just bullying in the cyber world. what's different, what are the characteristics of cyberbullying that we need to know about and we who are not bullies or victims can do something about? >> there are some differences. of course it is intentionally generated harm towards another person and it's usually repeated in nature. but the differences are that people who might not typically engage in bullying will sometimes engage in cyberbullying because they can be anonymous. it's easier to be anonymous. >> you don't have to be the big kid. you don't have to be the popular kid. >> right. >> you don't have to be encountering whoever you're bullying on a regular basis. you can do this separately. >> exactly. and you can do the get back at revenge if you want, where you might be afraid to face that person directly, you can do it online. >> what makes it acceptable and what makes it unacceptable? what can we do to make cyberbullying like drunk driving. by the way, i say that because in both of the cases that we're talking about right now, in the case of rutgers situation, these are allegations but two people

have been charged, and in the case of michigan, we're talking about a grown man who holds office and is paid by the state of michigan. these aren't kids in a school. >> no, they're not. i think we really do have to have a campaign about online civility and i think we all have to realize we all have a role to play. >> but it seems milk toast to talk about online civility when in fact people die. >> sure. >> people's lives are shattered. >> and with traditional bullying people are also at greater risk so it's not surprising that we would see this would occur with cyberbullying as well. but we really need to be talking about how to be good to one another and the bystander role, just as we talk about it with kids or adults who witness bullying behavior. we've got to step up when we see this online and we need to start having the conversations about -- >> what is that conversation when you step up and see it online. i this know either side but this doesn't seem like good human behavior. >> right.

support the person who's being targeted so we can offer support, we can let the person know who's engaging in it that we don't find it acceptable. and then we all need to, again, model civility, whether it's how we're using our own cell phones, how we're communicating with others and just look for teachable moments. and i know these were adults, but parents have got to look at the teachable moments with their kids as well. >> thank you for joining me. it's a very, very important issue. we also want to clarify this is not just an online problem, as the doctor said. meet asher brown. he was a 13-year-old boy when he shot himself last thursday in his closet in texas. his parents told our anderson cooper that asher killed himself because he was bullied. he was allegedly picked on by four kids at school for being gay. bullying in our schools and now online. why do kids do it and what can be done to put an end to it. a special report beginning monday night at 10:00 eastern.

getting kids to stay in school and stay in the kitchen. who would think that that makes sense? it's happening right now at one of the largest high schools in pennsylvania. the results are truly amazing. [ woman ] alright, so this tylenol 8 hour lasts 8 hours. but aleve can last 12 hours. and aleve was proven to work better on pain than tylenol 8 hour.

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cnn is taking a cross country food journey all this week. we sent reporting teams to every corner of america and beyond. actually i'm quite certain that's an exaggeration but our mission is to get fresh answers about how our food is growing, our state of mind, our budgets and once in a while i want to get some news about the pure joy of eating or for that matter

cooking. so we are taking our chalk talk into a culinary arts classroom. if you are in miss wilma stephenson's class in philadelphia, you will work. >> how many people heard of me? whatever you heard, 500 times worse. i don't care if you like it or not, just taste it. and don't say ooh and all that because that's very ghetto-minded. >> joining me now is wilma stephenson. thank you for being with us. you're the culinary arts teacher in philadelphia. listen, do you teach cooking to kids so it makes them better people, better cooks or they might have a future in cooking? what's the aim of that class? >> all three. everything that you just asked me, all three of those things, that's exactly what i do. >> and how is that working out? how are they responding to this? you had a lot of boys in that class too. >> quite a few, quite a few young men are in my class.

i have one this year that transferred to the school just for the class. >> what's the effect that it has on them generally? >> a positive effect on them. after they get adjusted to me, which takes a while, it does, because it has a wonderful positive attitude because it is something that i try to offer them that they may not be getting, and they're not getting outside the home, inside the home or in their environment. i try to give them a type of a hope that things can be better and that they can make something positive of themselves and be successful. >> are you teaching them sort of an advanced stage of cooking or practical cooking for day-to-day stuff? what kind of stuff to you teach them? >> we start off with the basic knife skills. you know, and then we go into the different cuisines.

the competition that they go into for these scholarships are based on -- is based on french cooking and sea cap, an organization ccap from new york allows us to compete and helps us with scholarships. >> you've had some success stories, we have a bit of a delay on the line so i can't tell when you're done talking. you have success stories about kids who weren't going to finish high school who have gone on to do so or go into the world of cooking? >> oh, i have several magnificent stories and successes of students who are coming from let's just call it as it is, terrible environments. you know, maybe the father is not there or the mother is not there or neither one are there and they're bringing up their brothers and sisters and working 40 hours a day and still

maintaining their grade point average and not giving up hope. many of them -- i see it that they use what they're in their environment to help them, to give them the motivation to go on, because they know that this is not what they want, but they know there is something else. >> that's also getting them some money. in some cases these competitions are getting money to go on to school or scholarships to carry on with their education. >> oh, my, yes, yes, yes. my students, through careers through the culinary arts program, they are receiving very large scholarships to johnson & wells, the culinary institute of america, international schools, new england culinary institute, they're doing very well. because otherwise these students have nothing. >> that's incredible. what a great story. you're helping them and you're helping them to enjoy food and enjoy making food for other people. wilma stephenson thank you for

being with us. you are the culinary arts teacher at frankfurt high school. continue with that fantastic work you're doing. >> thank you. thank you. >> if your home energy bills are skyrocketing, listen up, you can do some simple things to cut your energy use and your energy costs. as a matter of fact, one guy took it to the point where he's actually producing more energy in his home than he's using. here's jim spellman. >> reporter: it's the holy grail of green living, a net zero house. >> net zero means that we're producing more energy in this house than we are using. >> reporter: that's jeff in the foothills of the rocky mountains. he's turned his home from a power user into a power producer. >> the houses that most of us live in and work in and learn and play in are about as efficient as hummers. they waste a lot of energy. >> reporter: so how did he convert his house from a hummer to a prius? >> you know, the first thing we did was get a caulk gun out and we just started caulking all air

leaks. >> reporter: next came insulating the attic, new doors, windows and appliances, plus a few lifestyle changes. >> this is a solar clothes drier. put our clothes on it in the sun. >> reporter: it's no joke. those simple measures alone cut his energy usage by 80%. >> it's not very sexy, it's not very fun and it's very easy to make fun of, but it makes a huge difference. >> reporter: but to get to net zero he needed his house to start making some energy. >> yep, this is solar panels. a lot more sexy than insulation. >> reporter: solar panels heat his hot water and create electricity. so far he says it's working. >> so this is our electrical meter. the meter is going backwards. we mutt more energy back onto the grid than we've used. >> reporter: a few miles away in boulder, colorado, david johnston has been chasing the net zero dream for 30 years. he's a green building consultant and wrote the book toward a green energy home. >> really a function of good design and great materials, that's the key.

>> reporter: he estimates that there are only about 100 net zero homes in america. but new building materials and technologies plus growing demand from homeowners will make the net zero dream widely accessible. jeff says after tapping into several government incentives and rebates, he spent about $50,000 getting to net zero. he hopes to break even in eight years. >> electricity and gas have been cheap. it's becoming less and less cheap and so i think we're paying attention. >> reporter: one simple thing that starts at home, use less energy than you make, and make a difference. jim spellman, cnn. major mergers in the airline industry. what's the effect on consumers? richard quest is back. that means q & a is back as well. we'll go head-to-head next. ♪

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we are, the rock you can rely on. prudential. personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. quest means business and so do i. we're here together in the cnn newsroom around the entire world, richard. hello and good to have you back. >> good for you to be back. good for us both to be doing this. ali, each thursday, once again around the world, around the united states, it's business, travel, innovation. nothing is off limits.

and today it's the travel side of our brief the airlines. >> a lot of airline news this week. we've had major merger news. this week southwest airlines announced it's buying up air tran and tomorrow united airlines and continental complete their merger, forming the world's largest airline. you'll be reporting on that with a conversation with the chairman of the new airline tomorrow morning, richard. but is all of this, it might be good for the airlines, is it good for consumers? richard, you are the travel expert at this network so i'm going to let you go first. you have 60 seconds. >> which starts now. look, ali, forget the idea about mergers being new. mergers have been around. here is a list of the mergers and acquisitions in the aviation industry in just the last 10 or 20 years. for example, pan am, which bought national. pan am then went of course -- went out of business. we had american which bought twa. where it gets interesting, of course, is when it's national,

across borders. air france bought' -- lufthansa ha has swallowed several. british airway, iberia and of course american airlines. ali, the airlines are making money at the moment but fares have gone up by 8% in an economy. you wouldn't know that because your fare, ali, in business class has gone up 10%. expect more fares to go up in the weeks and months ahead. capacity is down, but fares will be up. >> i'm surprised you ever walk far enough into a plane to find the economy section. richard, sit pack and relax and enjoy my argument. the last time there was any real good news in the airline industry is when the wright brothers had a successful flight. the fact is that airlines have been wildly unprofitable, as you know, for years, losing about $50 billion in the last decade just here in the united states. and that's the airlines that exist. that's starting to change, as you just mentioned, though. while anything that potentially

reduces competition, like mergers, seems bad, airlines need these mergers as a way to cut costs and make more money. now, ultimately making money allows the airlines to expand and buy new planes and fly new routes. whether we're talking the legacy airlines here in the states, for instance, like delta, continental, united, u.s. airways and american or the newer, smaller, generally more nimble discount carriers like jetblue and southwest, almost all airlines at some point or another will resort to the same tricks that we passengers despise. extra fees, richard. they know it makes us mad, they do it because they can and in some cases because they have to to make money. bottom line, richard, it's tough for airlines to have a positive bottom line and until the industry is truly profitable, you and i are going to pay the price and they'll find a way to make us do it. richard. >> that was a few extra seconds there, ali, which i will give you for the moment. but now, of course, it's time for the voice.

and for that it's time for you and i to go head-to-head. the voice, the questions this week. >> welcome back, gentlemen. you've had a few weeks off from the quiz to get your heads together and to practice with your bells. plus, you two might be the most frequent fliers i know, so we'll start with a tough one. since 2002, how many non-charter commercial passenger airlines have filed for bankruptcy? a, 29, b 24, c 20 or d 17? richard, that was you. >> i'm going to say 17. >> richard, you are exactly right! 17 is the correct answer and you're on the board early. the most recent was mexicana airlines which suspended operations in august. now, many of these airlines like united and delta have emerged from bankruptcy, but only after major restructuring. richard on the board 1-0. here's number two. according to airports council

international, which region saw the largest number of airline passengers last year? a, europe. b, north america, c, asia pacific or d the middle east. ali, that's you. >> asia pacific region. >> oh, that's wrong. richard, care to make it 2-0. >> the most airline travelers last year has to be north america. >> richard, you're proving yourself to be a frequent flier. that's exactly right. north america barely finished ahead of europe with just over 1.46 billion passengers in 2009. richard, you might make it a perfect 3-0. ali it's time for you to save face. time to stretch your legs a bit, gentlemen, or maybe not. what is the average amount of leg room in the economy class on most major airlines. a, 32 inches. b, 28.

c, 35. or d, 24. ali. >> i'm just ringing it because there's no chance richard would ever know what the average economy leg room is on a plane. i don't think he knows where economy is on a plane. i'm going to go with 28 sglinchz and i'm going to say you're wrong, ali. >> this is rigged. >> richard, care to make it 3-2? >> 32 inches. >> richard has made it 3-0 to convincingly win. leg room is measured by seat pitch. that's the distance from your back to the seat in front of you. and i want to thank you both for flying voice airlines. >> wow, richard. for a guy who never makes it to the back of a plane, i'm impressed with how much you know on this. you do have an edge on me in traveling so we'll try a different topic next week and i'll see if i can do a little better. >> but for the moment that will do it for this week. remember we're here each week. tomorrow, of course, around this time on your program, and on mine, ali, we'll have that

interview with the chief exec, the new chief exec of united airlines. >> that is the new joint airline, united and continental. the merger goes through tomorrow. and catch us in the cnn newsroom at 2:00 p.m. eastern. keep the topics coming on our blog. tell us each week what you want us to debate. richard, see you next week. >> see you next week. i'm going to need a minute to recover from that beating. the smackdown i just took from richard quest. but i will be back in a minute. there's a smartphone app for everything else so why not one to make you healthier and maybe get me or you into a skinnier vest. that's part of our continuing eatocracy special series.

all right. i've recovered from the whole quest situation. i don't have to deal with that for another week. all this week we are looking at different aspects of food in our lives in our special eatocracy series. there's an app for tracking protein, for tracking your carbohydrates, for tracking your raw food diet. it's called salud and it's being developed right down the street at georgia tech. a doctoral student is with me with the details. thank you very much for this. this is neat. for a guy like me this is perfect because i don't keep track of what i eat to start with. but this goes beyond just listing what you eat. >> exactly. at georgia tech we're trying to build an application that can help you track your health on your own terms. so whatever it is that's important for you to track, you can do it using our iphone applications. we have an application for the android as well that supports a

lot of different phones. what you can do here is say, for example, you're tracking what you eat because you try to lose weight or exercise more. you can snap photos of what you eat and as you come down here, it will keep a history so you can track whatever it is about that. >> and the point of snapping the photo is i can sit and go this is what i ate and make notes and figure out -- this will help me figure out the calories in my meal? >> exactly. it's so much easier to snap a photo than to keep a food diary or text in what you're doing. using the photo triggers your memory. >> here's something interesting. you made a point. you said let's try you're trying to control migraines and there are some foods that are triggers for migraines. explain to me how this works. >> we allow you to track pretty much anything you want as long as you tell our system what you want to track. this user is tracking their my glans with these big dots. >> these are the migraines. >> exactly. so you can see a pattern emerging and then go back and

say what is it that i ate right before then because sometimes you or your doctor may think that food is a trigger for the migraines. you can go around and see what is it that i had for lunch that day or what did i have for dinner that day. maybe it's the caffeine or cheese. >> but you might be able to track that and see a pattern there. you can do this with diabetes or anything. >> that's right, exactly. we provide a couple of different templates to use so you can track exercise, how much your sleep, your weight, food, but then you can come in and tell the system what it is that you want to track and the system will allow you to track that easily. >> you have ruined it for me, man. there is no more excuse for me to eat the way i do. thanks for the great work you're doing over there at georgia tech. eugene is a fifth year ph.d. candidate. what a great application. listen, when you're sitting across from your doctor, don't be shy about expressing your opinion. i know it can be intimidating at times, but it might actually save your life. i'll explain this to you when we come back. medicare card, i realized i needed an aarp... medicare supplement insurance card, too. medicare is one of the great things about turning 65,

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checking some top stories we're following here at cnn, ireland's central bank is giving more cash to two struggling big banks. that will boost the fiscal deficit to as high as 32% of its economy. like a lot of the world, banks there loan money to people that couldn't pay it back. ireland is the part of the european economy, so its fate to affect the rest of us. the number of americans filing for unemployment benefits went down last week. 450,000 people filed new claims. florida had the biggest drop in claims, nearly 1800. california had the biggest jump, more than 15,000. the commerce department says the economy grew at a slightly faster pace in the second quarter of this year. the second three months of this year than previously reported. the bad news, the growth of the nation's gross domestic product remains very slow. the gdp is the broadest measure of economic activity in the

country. this has probably happened to a lot of you. you tell your doctor you don't feel well. the response is to slow down, get more rest, don't worry about it. that approach could cost you your life. joining me is elizabeth cohen. that seems extreme. >> sometimes you really do need to rest. but if you go to the doctor and you feel like something is really wrong with you and the doctor kid of blows it off and says take two aspirin, call me in the morning, you need to question that. we learned that in my family. with the help of turner animation studios, we bring you my mother's story. my mother, sheila schwartz, is a firecracker. mother of four, grandmother of 11, wife, lawyer and social worker, she's been active and healthy her whole life. but around the time she turned 60, something changed. she began feeling achy and dizzy. her blood pressure went up and she was so tired. my mom's family doctor told her don't worry about it. so they told you, look, lady, if you just stop working so hard your blood pressure will come

down. >> don't get excited, don't enjoy life so much. don't be quite so busy. >> if mom's doctor had only ordered a simple blood test instead of blaming her, he would have seen my mom's kidneys were in trouble. caught early enough, a simple treatment could have fixed it. but now it's come to this. she needs a kidney transplant to save her life. >> goodbye, darling. thank you. >> when my mom first got sick, i should i could have introduced her to evan handler. >> charlotte york, will you marry me? >> evan plays harry goldenblat, on "sex and the city." here's what you might not know. >> i was 24 years old when i was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. >> in the hospital he had to get pushy with the doctors and nurses. >> you have that squeezy thing to ring the nurses station.

evan, we're on a dinner break, we can come to you in 20 minutes. i said well, okay, the drug that's been running into my vein the last 20 minutes is labeled with another patient's name. there was a stunned silence and then someone said we'll be right there. i don't completely trust anyone and it makes me difficult to deal with but it's also saved my neck. >> my mother didn't challenge things like evan did and it cost her her kidney. >> what advice would you give someone who's not feeling well but whose doctor says don't worry about it. >> don't take the first answer and don't take an answer that says there's nothing we can do. >> how do you know when you're being too nice or when you might be feeling -- maybe you're a -- something is not wrong. >> i think you have to do a gut check. do i feel differently. if i've never felt like this before, maybe something is wrong. also take another gut check. if you're more worried about your pleasing your doctor than you are about your health, that's a problem.

>> that is a big deal. in your book, you talk about -- you almost talk about patients being a little bad. >> right. i want patients to be a little bit bad. i say bad with quotes around it. what i mean by that is don't worry about pleasing the daocto, that's not your job. you need to make sure that you have the best possible health so i have three tips for being a bad patient. number one, ask lots of questions. even if it annoys the doctor, keep asking them. don't worry whether your doctor likes you. again, not your job. and also remember in a way that this is a business transaction. you're going to the doctor for a service. you should be getting that service and a good service in return. it's not about making each other -- >> they're not friends. >> that's not what they're there for isn't as we learned, the bank is not your friend and your doctor is not your friend. >> exactly. >> elizabeth's special report airs this saturday and sunday at 7:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn, "the empowered patient." it's also the name of her book. it's excellent, an easy read and something everybody needs to

read. elizabeth, thank you for the great advice, i'm even going to take some of it. ed henry is in chicago today on the stakeout. he's got some new developments to report on rahm emanuel's future. i'll talk to him right after this. ...authentic... ...pure... and also delicious. ♪ like nature valley. granola bars made with crunchy oats and pure honey. because natural is not only good, it also tastes good. nature valley -- 100% natural. 100% delicious.

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he's in one of my favorite cities in the entire world. hees in chicago for the stakeout today. is it something he knew the rest of us didn't know because we hear that there's going to be a personnel announcement made tomorrow at 11:00 by the president, 11:00 in the morning eastern time. i imagine the president doesn't get involved in a lot of personnel announcements so the speculation is it has to do with rahm emanuel who wants to, by the way, run for the mayor of chicago. what do you know that we don't know? >> reporter: that's right. remember we were on the stakeout last week where we reported this and we knew several days ago this was going to happen. the president will make it official tomorrow. it's pretty rare for the president to get involved in a personnel announcement unless it's a senior staffer or cabinet secretary. what's fascinating and the reason we decided to come to chicago the next couple of days, everyone will be covering it from washington and inside washington there's all this buzz about how rahm is so powerful. it's going to be maybe a slam dunk, it's obvious he'll become mayor. it's not so obvious here because there are a lot of candidates running for the democratic

nomination. and while he's a big player back there, it doesn't necessarily translate into this being a slam dunk. in fact in talking to some of rahm emanuel's advisers, he realizes that and that's why he's getting out of the white house so quickly and not sticking around. he realizes he needs to get here and do hard work to build this support, ali. >> you went to his house. were you there as an invited guest or staking it out, as we like to say? >> reporter: i wasn't exactly invited. the reason why we went a little earlier is because rahm emanuel has a house here in chicago on the north side of town. he was a congressman who was going back and forth. when he went to the white house, he moved his family to d.c., rented his house out here. there's an interesting behind-the-scenes story the chicago sun-times has been reporting on. in recent days apparently some of rahm's friends reached out to the guy who's renting the house and said, look, he may want to move back in because he wants to run for mayor. the guy said i've got a lease for another year. he signed that lease about six

days before mayor daley announced his retirement. rahm wanted to run for mayor but he assumed mayor daley was running for re-election and he was going to stay on until the spring of 2011. now the mayor surprises him right after he signed this lease and the guy who has the house says a deal's a deal. chicago pols know better than anybody a deal's a deal. >> any residency issues? >> reporter: no. you know, his advisers basically say he's going to end up renting some sort of other house. he's been here in chicago a long time. they think legally it will be fine. take a listen, i just went over to city hall and we were trying to scour some people. there's a farmers market there. we were basically saying, look, is he a washington insider or do you think he could be a good mayor. take a listen to what this woman had to say. >> so what do you think about rahm emanuel? >> i think he's very handsome. >> what about him as a politician? >> he's got experience. he got ability.

i think he should be an awesome mayor for us. >> reporter: really? >> yes. >> reporter: but there's a lot of other democrats who want to run. do you think it's going to be easy for him or a hard battle? >> it will be easy for him. he has all the connection, all the night work, all the money, all the power. he should be fine. >> reporter: so she thinks he's handsome, that's among the qualities she thinks that rahm emanuel brings to the table but in all seriousness she says he brings a lot of clout to the table. there was another woman i spoke to outside city hall and i was pressing her on the notion that maybe sometimes he throws his elbows around is rahm emanuel the guy who can bring this city today. the woman said sometimes you've got to be nice and other times not so nice. >> they're not shy about -- throwing your elbows around may not hurt as much in chicago as it hurts in other places. ed, good to see you. give my best to one of my favorite cities and i will see you soon, ed henry joins me every day. a write-in candidate is

drawing the ire of the tea party express. your cnn equals politics update coming up on the other side of the break. [ man ] save $523. save $345. 16 minutes could save you 16%. come on. isn't it time an auto insurer gave it to you straight? that's why you should talk to state farm. but not yet. first, talk to any one of the 40 million drivers who already have state farm. 40 million. yeah, that's more than geico and progressive combined. by a lot. 40 million drivers, more savings, and discounts up to 40%. where else are you gonna get discounts like that? but first, talk to your neighbors. chances are, they're one of the 40 million. then call a state farm agent or go online for a free discount double-check. they'll find you discounts you didn't even know you deserved.

like discounts for having a safe car. so go ahead. check with your neighbors. then call a state farm agent at 1-800-state-farm or go to discountdoublecheck.com. ♪ it is time now for a cnn politics.com update. candy crowley watching dededede from the cnn politics.com desk in washington. candy, what a treat and a pleasure to have you on the show. what's crossing the desk? >> well, you know, i was trying

to think back as to whether we have had any kind of political day in the past couple of months where we haven't mention ed the tea party so that's pretty much where we're going to start here because the tea party is going back to alaska. you may remember that senator lisa murkowski, who was the sitting republican from alaska, got tossed out in the primary from a guy named joe miller. she's now running as a write-in. the tea party is going to come back to help joe miller. they're going to have two hours on the radio entitled "no means no" so they are going after her and probably with good reason because we had a poll a couple of days ago that shows they're basically tied. so that is a great race up in alaska. i also want to tell you a little bit about -- this is sort of sop for congress, but they're going to leave town without actually having passed the appropriations bills so they do what they call a stopgap measure. a cr in congressional tellers, continuing resolution.

if they left without passing this, the government wouldn't be funded so they give it this short-term bill that will take them through december because frankly if they went home without having kept the government in funds, it probably wouldn't play all that well back in peoria, as we say. finally this guy behind me, you may recognize him, he is the president's top political adviser, was with him all the way through the campaign, a chicagoann and lives back there, he's blasted out some e-mail to some of the president's supporters and here's a real surprise for you. in it he said that the president has been really good to the middle class and that the republicans are holding the middle class tax cut hostage to help the rich. so you can tell this is an election season. why? because this isn't aimed so much at trying to convince people, because his mailing list is pretty much those already convinced democrats, but because it's important to get out to vote so you say to the faithful, remember this, remember that,

the president did that for the middle class and it drives them out. i'm going to cheat a little and give you a fourth one and that is joe biden is going back to ohio to campaign for ted strickland. he's running for the governor there. the fact of the matter is this is joe biden's fourth trip to ohio in two months. really huge, big state there, ali. >> and it's a microcosm of the entire nation and economic problems the nation faces. candy crowley, thanks. be sure to stay with cnn for the key races and key issues heading into the midterm elections. your next update is an hour a y away. we have talked about cyberbullying and how the internet age has taken old-fashioned bullying to an all new and tragic level. i've got more to say about it coming up. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 absolutely. i mean, these financial services companies

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time now for the xyz. i've been exploring the power of the internet and its potential for abuse. i brought up the case of chris armstrong, an openly gay university of michigan student elected to lead his school student assembly and how that set off an internet smear campaign by one blogger, andrew shirvell, a conservative alum who happens to be an assistant attorney general for the state. that a public official charged with upholding the law would bully an 18-year-old student in his off hours is disturbing to say the least. shirvell's blog charged armstrong with, quote, engaging in flagrant sexual promiscuity

and blasted him as satan's representative on the student assembly. shirvell's boss agrees that shirvell is a bully but defends his right to blog during his off hours citing freedom of speech. cox is missing a valuable point. bullying and harassment can be more sinister when done online. unlike a play ground bully, cyber bullies don't have to see the harm or damage they inflict for their victims. while a playground pulley may show remorse when the victim sheds tears or experience pain, the online bully doesn't experience any of that but the damage is very real. consider tyler clementi. his dorm roommate and another student are charged with invasion of privacy for allegedly placing a camera in his dorm room without his knowledge and broadcasting him engaging in an intimate encounter on the internet. he is said to be so distraught that he committed suicide by