tv Fareed Zakaria GPS CNN December 25, 2011 10:00am-11:00am EST
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that's a look at the headlines this hour. don't miss my holiday special at 4:00 called "big stars, big giving." find out what jennifer lopez, tony bennett, will ferrell, and the president have in common. i'm alina cho. up next, "fareed zakaria gps." this is "gps," the "global public square." welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we have a wonderful show for you today. some of our best interviews of the year. we'll start off with one of the great historyonsiaians of our a. david mccullough will talk about the present and the past. why in the world is a not tooey isla -- a tiny nation about to skip over a date entirely? i'll explain. next up, a fascinating look inside spy games. both the fictional and nonfictional varieties with columnist and novelist david
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ignatius. then a look at innovation with the master architect frank gehry. finally, why president bush might have offended some italians onnationrati inaugurat. first here's my take. many talk about the absence of leadership, especially those who oppose president obama. many democrats believe that president obama head doneas bee leader. the conventional wisdom is that he doesn't have the leadership he needs to be the leader that we need, the leader that we have had in the past. such as bill clinton, a gifted leader, a legendary player. now, i have a huge admiration for clinton. i think he was a very good president, and he's almost prenaturally a politician. let's recall what his first few years looked like.
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he began his presidency with the fiasco of gays in the military and moved to two failed nominees for attorney general. remember zoe baird? then went on to try and failed spectacularly to pass universal health care. two years into his presidency, the republican party won both the senate and house of representatives, gaining control of the latter for the first time since 1952. in his second term, of course, the impeachment scandal. i'm not picking on clinton. as i said, i greatly admire him. but we forget what people thought of leaders at the time. on the murepublican side, the a is so thick with ronald reagan nostalgia, you can barely see through it to the actual past. the reality was that reagan was a seclude politician with some strong convictions who pursued a tough, smart foreign policy -- >> tear down this wall! >> but he was also a president who ran through six national security advisers in his eight years, with a lax enough management style that it produced a major scandal -- the
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iran contra affair, in which perhaps the most startling fact was that the president didn't seem to be about a major foreign policy project of questionable legality being run by his own national security council. for all the hero worshipping these days, reagan was often derided on the right for his many tax increases, and especially for his dealings with the soviet union. conservative leaders called reagan a "useful idiot," commentators like norman podharetz called him the republican on the road to detante. jimmy carter wanted to revenue ted kennedy against him in the primaries. some called bush and nixon as sellouts and closet liberals. i could go on. my point is, we cannot really tell the quality of a leader judged from the noise of the present. we need time and perspective, which is why one reads history and listens to men like david mccullough. so let's get started. ♪
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one way to get some insight into the current mess in washington is to step back and get some perspective. i tried to do some of that at the top of this show. but i wanted to get some deeper historical perspective on the performance of the president and of congress, and few today understand the past and present of this nation better than david mccullough. he's one of the world's most decorated historians, having won two pulitzer prizes for his biographies of harry truman and john adams. welcome. >> thank you very much. >> we have in the white house a president who is clearly interested in history, a writer himself. how do you think about him? >> i admire him very much, and i think that his -- his time in office presented him with
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problems such as very few presidents have ever had to address. and given the complexity and the gravity of those problems, i think he's handled himself very well. my hat goes off to him, my heart goes out to him. who -- who could possibly do that job? no human being is sufficient for that role. it's beyond human capacity. we all ought to want to help him, we all want to want to help everybody in elective office to do the job the way it ought to be done, to live up to the responsibility. in the old house of representatives chamber in the capitol, what's now statuary hall, over the doorway, there is a figure of clio, the goddess of history. and she's riding in her chariot. and on the side of the chariot is a clock put there way back in
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the 1830s or earlier, still run perfectly. she's writing in her book of history, and the idea was that the representatives would look up to see what time it is now, but they should be reminded that that's just present daytime. what really matters is what's being written in the book of history. i've known to a greater or lesser degree, i think, seven presidents. and i guess what's impressed me most is how different they have been one from another as men, as human beings. and some of those that i've liked best as people weren't necessarily the best presidents. and my understanding, i think, of what weighs on their minds is
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pretty close. i don't think i could sleep at night if i knew what they know and had all of that on my shoulders. i don't know how many people could sleep at night. >> when you look at it, mr. mccollough, what makes a great president? >> the capacity to move the country to do better than it thinks it can with the use of the english language. >> communication is that important? >> the power of the written word, the spoken word, very, very important. an ability to stick to your principl principles. an ability to work with people with whom you disagree and may dislike. i try to stress that exceptional presidents are the exception. we can't expect every president
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to be a great president. it doesn't happen that way. life isn't like that. and you can't predict -- there isn't a type. they come in all shapes and sizes. who would have ever thought that harry truman would be one of our greatest presidents? there's no question he was. he said, i never forgot where i came -- who i was, where i came from, and where i would go back to. now, that's a man who knows exactly who he is. he's not craving this adration and limelight in order to feel good about himself. he didn't want the job. it was thrust upon him. he did not have the gift of moving the country with words the way fdr did or lincoln did. and he did not have the physical presence that washington -- i think washington is our greatest president. >> why? >> he set the standards for behavior, integrity, and patriotism of the best kind. not the flag-waving kind, but
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true love of country. all of our best presidents without exception have had a sense of history. and i don't think that's coincidental. and one of the things that -- a sense of history gives to a person is not just an pressure iation and understanding of -- appreciation and understanding of what happened before we came along, but the realization that we, too, are parts of history, and we, too, are going to be judged by history. and that's extremely important. that today's polls, tomorrow's headlines, are not going matter. what matters -- how will you look, how will this time look in time to come. what are -- what cathedrals are we going to build? we don't ask ourselves that much. >> but you're optimistic at the end of the day. >> yes, i am. i'm optimistic in the long run principally because of what i see in the generation of my own children and grandchildren and in the students that i meet when
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i'm lecturing at colleges and universities. i'm distressed, i'm sometimes stunned by how much they don't know about the history of our country. but i know how bright they are, how well meaning they, that they want to do the right thing. i agree with you that we're making a grievous error in not accepting able, talented people who come here for our education opportunities. a big mistake. that is the natural resource of all natural resources, the most important of all, what's up here, ideas, ingenuity, foresight, all of that, training. we ought to be -- as canada is being, we ought to be a place they all want to be. and come on over.
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we need you. what would we be without immigration? think of who never would have become an american without immigration. that's who we are. thank goodness. >> powerful words. david mccullough, thank you. we will be right back to talk about a time when america and americans were fascinated by france. david mccullough's new book when we come back. -3 dha is a complete multivitamin for adults. plus an excellent source of omega-3 dha in a great tasting gummy. one a day, gummies for grown-ups.
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we are back with the historian, david mccullough, whose latest book, "the greater journey," is about a wave of 19th century americans who migrated to paris. we think of americans as famously uninterested in the world. we think of america today and don't care what's going on with the rest of the world, we don't want to borrow anything from the rest of the world. the americans you're describing seem fascinated by france. why? >> they craved -- craved france, and they weren't anxious to go
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there because they were disenchanted with our country. they went to find out if the talent they had was really as strong as people were telling them. and in order to get the training, experience, they could not get here, there were no museums with paintings hanging in them then. there was not one world of architecture in the used -- this was in the 1830s, and no way to train as an artist. to work in an -- to get the kind of training that one would need to be a sculptor or a painter. and paris was the medical capital of the world. so they went for a multitude of professions and artistic careers. if you were a foreign student in france, in paris, you could go to the sorbonne, you could go to the lecole for nothing, for free. imagine students coming to
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harvard or yale or stanford were coming here and going free. part of the policy of france at the time. >> wow. >> so if they could afford to support themselves, room and board, then they could go to these greatest of institutions. but american medical training was woefully behind. most medical doctors in the 1930s, '40s, '50s, through the civil war, had never been to medical school. >> the paris that you describe is a place that is clearly the center of the world in a sense. we forget now because the industrial revolution had just begun. so you're describing the last gasp of the great agriculture revolutions, and france was probably the richest country in the world and paris the center. >> most people don't realize that paris was the cultural center of the world. and this city of new york became the cultural center of the world after world war ii. but paris was also the center
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for medical education, medical science, science itself, technology. the brooklyn bridge for example, stands on an underwater foundation system called caissons which was developed by french engineers in paris. so the engineer of the bridge, washington robely, went to paris to find out how they do it. and most american don't realize that. how much we toe france. >> he talked about the brooklyn and what he borrowed from france. how does that stand in your mind? >> particularly a powerful experience, you never forget it. and some subject, one i'm finished with them, i -- that's it. sort of gotten it out of my system. with the brooklyn bridge, there's something about -- i'm still involved. we walk over the bridge every
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year and walk over it whether we were first married. and i think it's one of the great accomplishments of our civilization. it's both the work of technology and a work of art. and it stands -- it stands the test of time, both visually and technically. it's a magnificent production. and it also rises up out of what was really a very corrupt time. much like our own. and the idea of this emblem of afirmation can rise up out of that swamp of the guilded age is to me reassuring and particularly in our time. >> our times, though, seem more parochial. the people you discuss in the book, they seem so interested in the world and in -- intellectual
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currents in france and elsewhere, as well. the people -- >> it wasn't cool to be cynical then. it wasn't cool to be filled with self-pity. people often ask when i'm starting a book, what's your theme? particularly some of our academic friends. i have no idea what my theme is. i make up something to calm them down, but i have no idea. it's one of the reasons i wrote the book. one of the things i realized was a theme -- as i was about halfway through this project -- is work. we hear such ballyhoo constantly about ease and happiness being synonymous. again and again, people were saying on paper in their diaries and letters, i've never worked harder in my life. and this is the happiest time of my life.
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and they're struggling as -- as st. august us, the sculptor, said they're struggling with the realities of life, the mundane, every day chores of life, struggling to soar into the blue as he says. andy think that's emblematic of that generation. >> do you think that we've lost some of the optimism and energy that you saw in the 19th century when -- >> yes. temporarily. i'm a short-range pessimist, long-range optimist. i think we'll get through these troubles. we've been through worse. when 9/11 happened, people said, oh, this is the worst thing we've ever been through. yes, it was terrible, but by no means was it the worst we've ever been through. the revolutionary war, the civil war, imagine 600,000 people
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killed. the influenza epidemic, the great depression. these were terrible times. the -- i think maybe the darkest time was right after pearl harbor. we had no army, half our navy had been destroyed. the germans were nearly to moscow. britain was about finished. and churchill came across the atlantic, and he gave a speech and said, "we haven't gone this far because we're made of sugar candy." that's the message we need now. >> and that's the kind of historical perspective we all need. david mccullough, thank you very much. we will be right back. [ male announcer ] this is the network. a network of possibilities... ♪ in here, pets never get lost. ♪ in here, every continent fits in one room. it was fun. we played football outside. why are you sitting in the dark? [ male announcer ] in here, you're never away from home.
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welcome back. come with me now a long journey to a far-off island nation about halfway between hawaii and new zealand, samoa. its lush volcanic valleys make it a mostly agricultural nation. has no military whatsoever, and shouldn't be confused with its neighbor, american samoa. now if you're tempted to visit, do not plan a celebration there on december 30. why? because that day will simply not exist there. the calendar will jump from the 29th of december to the 31st.
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what in the world, right? why? it's actually a smart economic decision. you see, samoa is just 20 miles away from the international dateline. as the name suggests, it's an imaginary longitude that mark a change in date when we fly over sail or steam over it. that line was created more than a century ago when it was decided samoa would be 11 hours behind greenwich mean time outside of london. that's three hours behind pacific time in los angeles. the theory went that being on a similar time zone to the americas would benefit trade and commerce for samoa. but the times quite literally are changing. samoa now does most of its business with its neighbors. but sydney in australia is ten hours ahead of london, and bear with me on the math here, that means samoa has been conducting most of its trade with a country that is 21 hours ahead of it. so when it's friday morning at a
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samoan factory, australian clients are already at the beach on a sunny saturday. when the aussies go to work on sunday, the samoans are at church. whatever they do on sundays. then samoa will leap forward a day and be just three hours ahead of sydney. samoans already made one historic change to align itself with australia in 2009. switched from driving on the right side of the road as we do to the left side of the road. now samoans can import cheaper cars from next door. on the one hand, samoa's shift is a story about how economics dictates policy. but it's also a larger narrative about the quiet success of australia. australia's growth rate has averaged nearly 4% for the last two decades. higher than almost every other rich country. it may be on the bottom of the map, but it's on top of almost
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every livability index. the unemployment rate is low. the deficit is almost negligible. it has strong education, universal health care. one could go on. so how did it get there? self-deprecating aussies may put it down to good luck. they had good weather, abundant natural resources, and a billion chinese hungry to mine australia's metals and minerals. but that's not the whole story. australia's real economic rise dates back to the 1918 and a series of forward-thinking reforms. the government floated its dollar and made the central bank independent. it maintained a budget surplus and kept inflation in check. state-owned firms were privatized, industries deregulated. when the global financial crisis hit in 2008, australia's banks benefited from a more conservative regulated approach. they were not overleveraged, so they weathered the storm, and robust trade with china soaked up a potential drop in australian consumer demand.
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australia's been smart on another issue that plagues american lawmakers these days -- immigration. it has gone from 98% anglo celtic population after the second world war to having a quarter of its current population born abroad. asians make up 10% of the population. much of the real growth in australia's gdp can be attributed to immigration and population growth. there's much speculation about a lost decade for the united states economy. all somewhat had to do to rev up its economy is lose a day. i wish we had that option. we'll be right pack. it's been the case that most cia officers sought what was called official coverers, embassy representatives, and other official international organizations. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of a pain free holiday.
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i'm alina cho at the cnn world headquarter in atlanta. merry christmas. here are your headlines -- deadly bombings at two christian church in nigeria during christmas worship services. state tv reports four people have been arrested in connection with the attacks. authorities have recovered four devices that did not detonate. an eyewitness to the second explosion said he counted 19 people dead, many other injured. earlier, a journalist told us what he saw.
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>> yeah, it's been a terrible event this morning. we have from my count 19 dead as of the time of this report. we do not know yet how many in the capital this morning, it's about 8:00 a.m. but the one in jos was 10:30 where a police officer was injured in the multiple bomb blasts inside a church. >> these bombing deaths are reminiscent of last christmas when islamic extremist launched attacks in a church in nigeria. dozens were killed in those bombings. [ gunfire ] a city under siege. activists say syrian security forces have surrounded a neighborhood in the western city of homs. there's been relentless shelling and heavy gunfire there.
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one activist said forces were shooting directly at houses, and people are being targeted if they walk in the streets. there are said to be shortages of medical supplies, fuel, and oil, as well. now to russia where the biggest public protests in decades continued today, some 30,000 people in the streets. two thing are bringing russians out in large numbers this weekend. they are furious at the current leadership. vladimir putin's decision to run again for president. protesters are also angry at the results of parliamentary elections seen this month, widely seen as rigged. the democratic process is still relatively young in russia. today marks 20 years since the fall of the ussr. pope benedict prayed for peace in his annual christmas day message. the 84-year-old pontiff prided over his seventh -- presided over his seventh christmas mass as pope. he urged to focus on the reason
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for the holiday and the need for harmony in an increasingly violent world. the vatican celebrated midnight midnight at ten clm last night to accommodate the aging pontiff. to politics, the newt gingrich campaign is evaluating its options after failing to get on the virginia primary ballot. the team announced late saturday they'd launch an aggressive write-in campaign. problem here is virginia law specifically prohibits write-ins for a primary. that's a look at the headlines this hour. don't miss my holiday special today. it's at 4:00 p.m. eastern time. it's called "big stars, big giving." one o one interviews with jennifer lopez, tony bennett, will ferrell, and president clinton. that's at 4:00 p.m. eastern. i'm alina cho, "fareed zakaria gps" continues next. spy agencies are the stuff of fantasy and fiction. so it is fitting that one of our best journalists on the spooky world of foreign affairs has used his vast travels and
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knowledge to write a novel. "washington post" columnist david ignatius has followed up his book "body of lies," which was turned into a hollywood blockbuster, with a new offering. this one is called "bloodmoney." it spans the cia's operations here and the murky world of pakistan's powerful interservices intelligence. the key really is figuring out where the facts end and where the fiction begins. david ignatius joins me now. so i loved this book. i did, by the way, the other book, which was the increment, which was about iran's nuclear program. you really choose these topics that jump off the front pages. and when one's reading it because i know how much you know about the cia and how much time you spent talking to people, i have to believe lots of it is true. >> well, i don't want to play games with you, my friend, or the reader. i am painting on a canvas of fiction with the colors of life. i have spent lots of time with the isi.
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i've traveled with them to south waziristan, i met with their director general, general pasha. as i said in "time" magazine the other week, i even have an e-mail correspondence with isi officers. so i do know the real-life subject. and i've tried in "bloodmoney" to tell a story that gets at the crazy relationship between the isi and the cia, this absolutely fascinating, often mutually destructive two scorpions in a bottle kind of relationship that they have. that said, i do have to say, this is a novel. it wouldn't be fun to read if it wasn't reinvented -- if it wasn't real life reinvented in the mind of the author. >> let's start with the cia. so you have a cia operation, and you have these guys often on their own, often in businesses as fronts. i was told that the cia offices were at the u.s. embassy. while you didn't know who they
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were, you could make some guesses about them. is it in fact true that there are lots of cia officers around fwleeg have covers in private business and trading companies and things like that all over the world? >> it's increasingly true. when you and i were getting started as journalists and for the past decades, it's been the case that most cia officers sought what was called official coverers, embassy representativ representatives, other international organizations. that was acceptable when the target you were facing was soviet diplomats. you'd meet them at cocktail parties, spot them, try to develop them. but the targets are so different now. and so there's a feeling that you need genuinely clandestine platforms. so there's been a lot of experimentation in the areas that i'm imagining in my book, in the book. i invent this goofy entertainment company based in studio city california, called the hit parade. a platform for cia officers to do completely secret operations overseas.
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are they doing that kind of thing? not to the extent that i write in my book, but i'm sure that they're experimenting with what they call nonofficial cover or noc. they're expensive, and there are a big cadre of naysayers at langley who say "don't do this." >> now pakistan, you paint a picture of the interservices intelligence direction trat t-- directorate that as i can tell true to life. in this sense, they have lots of connections with all these militant groups. they've always had them. at some level, they don't even deny that they have them. they say these are elements of pakistani society. and yet, they are quite reluctant to do anything about them, to shut them off in any way. do you think that that part of the book that you described is true to life? >> yes. i think the tragedy of the isi and arguably of pakistan as a
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whole is that it's caught in a web that it's spun, with our help it must be said. that it now can't escape from. it's a web first of connections with jihadi organizations. the isi is above all a paramilitary organization. it doesn't do all that much, collection of intelligence. it's not a very good spy agency. but it's good at running covert action. >> the general framework of the book is that the cia and isi are cooperating, but the cia is running effectively code ops against the isi. and the isi is at least allowing these jihadi groups to attack and infiltrate the cia. and that spider's web seems very real. >> that is -- that is drawn from life. i mean, the truth is that these intelligence services operate against each other. that happens more in real life, not just with pakistan, but we have a complicated intelligence
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relationship with france. we have a complicated intelligence with other allies. but there's a way in which the cia and isi both absolutely need each other. and absolutely don't trust each other. it's been a particularly volatile combination because they're always marching in tandem. can imagine the situation where one guy is trying to trip the guy or nudging him, up to some horseplay. that's what it's like. and i used to think, you know, that these two should get a marriage counsellor and figure it out. i've kind of given occupy that. the reality is intelligence services lie. that's what their job is. these guys are going to keep lying to each other. they need political control to get them going in the same direction for the national interests of both countries. and if they can do that, i'd have some hope this story will turn out acceptably. >> david ignatius, thank you very much. great book. i thoroughly enjoyed it. >> thank you. thank you, fareed.
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the arts, literature, music, painting, design, architecture. the finest artists are often the most innovative. think of jackson pollock's paintings. ♪ >> charlie parker's beehi boop. one of the finest architects fit that model. he is frank gehry, known for his undulating waves at the guggenheim museum among others. thank you for joining me. >> thank you. >> how do you come up with an idea because so much of what you have done was not conventional, was not the way buildings were built, was not the way people conceived of things. where doesid stuff come to you? >> well, i'm very thorough, which people probably don't realize. i spend a lot of research, i spend a lot of time with the clients, with the site, with the program. and invent as i go along ideas
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that respond to those. and in that process with the client involved and a clear understanding of budget and, you know, engineering and what can go on, we vet some directions together. and they're complicit which i love, because at the end they've been part of it. >> the strangeness comes -- >> why -- to me it's not strange. it looks like everything else is strange. and so stuff starts to unfold in little models and ideas and sketches. a lot of -- there are about 50 to 100 models made in that process. >> and it's very deliberative, because -- >> yes. and then when i understand it completely, when i think i know,
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then i kind of put it away. and then i call out the candy store. i call out when i know the problem, everything about it that i can imagine. and then i start to make the real design and the ideas. and so the language comes from -- of the curves comes from history. it's not just invented. if you look at faddeus' marbles and the old marbles in britain, they express motion in the marbles. you see the soldiers pushing their shields, and it's palpable, you feel. if you look at the indian shiva figures moving, and studied those. and there's movement within their material. so it's from history, it's possible. >> so does the famous story that you took a piece of paper and
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crumpled it and looked at and t and that was the disney hall in l.a. -- >> that's a famous story because "the simpsons" had me do it. >> we asked frank gehry to build us a concert hall. >> and that's the bane of my existence -- everybody thinks i'm going to crumple people. clients say crumple parngs we'll give you $100 and build it. >> frank gehry, you're a genius. >> in fact it was a long -- >> no, no, no, that was just a fun thing. but it has haunted me. people do -- have seen "the simpsons," believe it. >> when you design a building, is your principal concern to make something dazzling beautiful, or is your principal concern to have it so that it functions exactly the way that it's meant to be, an apartment building with all the apartments? >> yes. to function is first, and to get
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it build it has to be on budget, and you deal with the technology and culture of construction, and that's complicated. and i think it's very important. and then to bring something to it other than just -- and it doesn't cost extra. that's the interesting thing. we've proven that over and over again. so a building should engender some kind of emotional response. if you if go to disney hall, the key issue was the relationship between performer and audience. i worked my butt off to make that special. i think it helps the psychologically, it's psycho acoustic we call it. if the orchestra feels the audience and you've experienced this when you give talks, you speak better. you feel it. and that happens in a performance. and i think it happens in everything. >> what about this new building in new york? it's a big apartment building. what did you see as the crucial thing to get right? >> the pro forma for the
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apartment was a t-shaped building. a given in new york. it's a new york model. we made it a little bit higher so that -- and added the stair steps, lengthy historic buildings in new york. we didn't have to do that, we could have been straight up. so that was the decoration if you will. it was my trying to fit a building into new york. and then i added the folds. folds are like when your mother holds you in your arms, very basic, i think. it's primitive, that people respond to folds. and i think that's why great artists in history focus so much on it. and so i wanted to have that warmth, that feeling in the city, that this building was accessible. and that it -- by adding the folds it was somehow timeless. it wasn't exactly a modernist slab. it had some kind of thing to it. >> do you think that when you look at american art,
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architecture, creativity, right now, does it feel like we're still at the top of the world? does it feel like in the 1950s, abstract expressionism taking the world by storm? where is north america today's kind of landscape? >> well, i think we've just been -- in architecture, we've been through an area of expressionist period where there's a lot of money, people are doing thing. and it's coming to a screeching halt. by the culture around architecture -- there's kind of a backlash. and they're saying focus on sustainability. focus on the social issues, and the architecture should become secondary. and it seems like so thoughtless to eliminate the baby with the bath water kind of -- use those other things. it becomes a mantra for less
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talented people to get their way probably. >> frank gehry, thank you. we will be right back. with the capital one venture card we get double miles on every purchase. so we earned a holiday trip to the big apple twice as fast! dinner! [ garth ] we get double miles every time we use our card. and since double miles add up fast, we can bring the whole gang! it's hard to beat double miles! i want a mace, a sword, a... oww! [ male announcer ] get the venture card from capital one
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it is christmas day. merry christmas to those of you celebrating. and that inspired my question of the week. it is what percentage of the world's population is christian? is it a, 11%, b, 22%, c, 33%, or d, 44%? stay tuned, we'll tell you the correct answer. go to cnn.com/gps for ten more questions. and while you're there, make sure you check out our web site, the global public square. there's fresh content every day about world affairs, economics, innovation, and much more. now our book of the week happens to be a picture book. we're going to give you a combo book of the week and "last look," two for the price of one which is actually zero. the book is called "don't get me wrong: the global gestures guide." and if you're a citizen of the world which you presumably are if you're watching this show, you might want to take notes here. the book is all about how different hand gestures mean different things in different places. for example, here in the utsds, if you want two sugars in your
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coffee, you might make this gesture at the barista. but in many northern european nations, instead of doing that, you would do this this to signify two. and that same gesture means eight in china. and the same hand signal with a little movement added means not good in italy. put those finger on your forehead, and it means loser in many parts of the world. but let's go back to italy for a second. i would suggest being very careful with your gestures there. president george w. bush and his wife laura may very well have made enemies out of married italian men on inauguration day in 2005. why? well, they flashed the cameras with the symbol of the texas longhorns. the hook 'em horns. in some parts of the world, it's the symbol for rock on. unfortunately, in it italy it means your wife is cheating on you. the correct answer to our "dpps" challenge question was c, approximately 33% of the
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