of terrorism. could you say a little something about the media in germany and the extent to which you would say that there is a difference between how the word terrorism is used in germany as opposed to here? relating specifically to the conflict in israel maybe in iraq. and then to go back to your point that being ready to use -- to say anything about politicians. again, about the german media, is there a discussion about whether the term of terrorism can or should be used for states or is it only used for groups? >> it is a discussion within the united nations. a big discussion.

for me there is no reason to make a difference between it states and people. ..

>> how do you feel about these development in iran? stack i have been several times in iran. i have had opportunity to talk about this book in the iran in the diplomatic excluding of iran. i had the opportunity to attack the government, to attack ahmadinejad. it was not very easy, but i was allowed to do so. and i had discussions with grand ayatollah, he is the biggest

religious figure. and with the biggest one i said that ahmadinejad has damaged the image of islam as much as bin laden. and this grand ayatollah stop the discussion. he said to finish, i will talk to you anymore. he felt it was too hard. and it was hard, and i think ahmadinejad is an extremist. he is an extremist. he is a propagator. he doesn't represent this wonderful country with these wonderful people. wonderful people. we have an image of the muslim world that is so wrong. these people are so different from what we believe. we say they are fanatics. they are kind. they are nice to you. they give you hospitality when you go there. and that's also the case in iran. we think everybody has, it is

starting here. they have to be dressed with a special thing, i don't know, something like that. it goes over, it stops over the knees. and sometimes they are very dressed, dressed in a very sexy way that this has changed your and by the way, ahmadinejad is not religious figure but he is an extremist because he is playing with the fears of people. and obama is right to say i speak to iran, but he didn't say i speak to ahmadinejad. he said i speak to iran and the leader of iran is not ahmadinejad. the leader is the grand ayatollah and he is much more moderate. he is not moderate, but more moderate than ahmadinejad. and i hope that someone else

will win. i think it's in june, in two months. >> one more right here. >> thank you so much for your moving, eloquent and passionate expression of your desire of peace. i'm wondering, in germany you have at the street level and large muslim population from turkey and from other countries. and i'm wondering if there is any dialogue between the german people and these newer citizens, perhaps they are not full citizens, in terms of understanding these cultures and developing processes of understanding each other. i had a very interesting experience the other day where i went back to a neighborhood where i used to work and i used to eat lunch from a sidewalk stand, which was run by an afghan he got. i went back after three years.

i happen to be back in the neighborhood and i would like to be. i said where is the young guy? and he told me he's going to fight. and i said fight where, with whom? he tried to link to me, but those alliances are so shifting and so nebulous it wasn't clear to me. is he fighting against the americans or for the americans, etc. but i was thinking, understanding 50 paces from wall street is a channel of the total understanding of the afghan he situation because like you there is an entire afghanistan population in brooklyn. i remember in the kosovo situation took place. large numbers of albanians living in the bronx either way back or in groups of brothers at a time or one group of brothers to run a gas station or the auto repair stop. and they nominated the strongest brother were the most fearless brother or the brother who wasn't married to go home and fight and they did that. so they're all all these

channels of information and communication, but certainly in america we are not using that at all, in my own personal case this wasn't accident. but i'm wondering how it is in germany. thank you. >> in germany, and in europe, the integration of muslims is not as good as in the united states. and in the united states, statistics show that and prove that muslims are much more successful than in germany. the integration that we give to these people is not good, and now we have a nation of interior. you have a roundtable and you are discussing with all the muslim groups, and he said wonderful things. he said the muslims are a part of germany. and that's just the truth. he said you are here now. let's find solution for all problems, and not always the

germans, the older germans create the problems, also sometimes the muslims create the problems. and that's a good way, but there are many things i have to criticize. i criticize as far as america is concerned, but the integration of the form is much better in the united states as in germany, as in europe. you are from pakistan, i suppo suppose. >> recall these places different names, but i'm from india. >> okay. >> well, before we stop i just want to let you know about next month event since you're all here, i have your attention. we have our fanatics also in the united states. you raise the question of whether obama can negotiate with them. that's a good question. there is a considerable christian is movement here that

is in its way directly comparable. there is a lot in the u.s. military also. this is the first tuesday in may, we are going to have kathryn joyce, talk about her book, quiver full which is about christian is patriarchal etiology their views marriage and sort of old testament terms and so on. so that should be extremely interesting. you are all welcome to come to that as well. now getting back tonight, again you can get a copy of the book up in front. you'll be glad to sign up for your. let me thank you all for coming, and let's thank our esteemed guest. [applause] >> jurgen todenhofer was a member of the german parliament for 18 years and is currently an executive at a german media

firm. for more on the author and his book, why do you kill, visit his website. >> at next a history of the creation of the erie canal which expedited expansion of the united states and facilitated trade with the american west. author gerard koeppel recounts the canals and development and how it established new york city as america's economic center. this event hosted by borders bookstore in new york city is 40 minutes. >> i'm going to talk about 30 minutes and then we will have

time for a few minutes of q&a afterwards. it wasn't my idea to write this book. and editor asked my agent if he knew someone who could write a book about the erie canal. my agent suggests, the guy who had written a book about new york city's water history. and the editor said great, and my agent called me and i said why. what is there possibly due to write about the fabled but longer relevant kanell? can one make new history of the iconic folklore. dozens of books have been written about the theory, most recently in decades for children and indications that may be the subject is a really fertile ground anymore for adult readers. but my agent answer the question why by saying, when a major publisher wants to pay you a fair amount of money for what would be your second book, you just say yes. and so i did say yes, after resolving the issue of a

contract for a different book. but i begin to answer the why question myself. then i found out that there were new stories to tell about the erie, new ways to tell old stories about area up a little bit of myth busting to be done as well. the first thing i found out is that the famous erie canal song 50 miles on the erie canal, 50 miles on the erie canal, also known as low bridge, everybody down, was actually never sign on the erie canal. and that is because, in fact, and no erie canal boatman lunches you'll sow who was the main charter in the song, or at least he never sang about it. in fact, 50 miles on the erie canal is a 10 pin alley song written in 19 oh five the year the second enlargement on theory and the current canal for motorized barges that made barges pulled by mules history and very quickly folklore.

as i researched more deeply, i began to find me details about the erie canal that were just that, stores a long tradition unknown origin, that had erroneously become erie canal facts or that obscured true facts. so i'm going to talk about some of those in a few minutes, but i first want to set the stage by reading a couple of pages from the book's opening, if i could find it. and just to set the stage for the background that led to the erie canal. the morning came on cool and bright, a recent frost had just begun to color the surrounding forest autumn. the blue sky and chill air mingled the past with the future experience with expectation. in the frontier village of buffalo, it was no more expected time in wednesday, october 26, 18 wi-fi. the population of just over 2400 have been swelled by dozens of

the state's political and merchant leaders, and hundreds of settler families from the surrounding countryside, all the u2 celebrate the completion of a great project that would determine their fortunes and the fortunes of many others. gathered in the lake erie port of buffalo that 20 years earlier had been just a mark on a land developers map, the leaders of new york betrayed no uncertainties. their state had just surged past virginia and pennsylvania to become the most populous of the united states. new york namesake city, new york city, had recently displayed philadelphia as the nation's largest city and was taking control of the young american economy. infields drawing rooms and counting houses across the atlantic the words of new york were becoming equivalent to economic opportunity for laborers, speculators and proto- industrialist alike. and yet, and till this fine morning, until this fall morning new york was no more assured of becoming the empire state and was virginia, pennsylvania, or even ohio, south carolina or

illinois. nor was the nation assured of becoming a global empire it remains. in 1825, the united states were still plural in view, not a singular nationstate but sovereign state with the constitutional limited federal government. as late as 1855, walt whitman proclaimed with a verbal plurality, oh, the united states with vain to pull up political stuff, most in need but what. as opposed to the needs poets. abraham lincoln bearing the union at gettysburg finally change the grammar and the perception in the 18 '60s. in 1825 to see to shining sea continental nation a patriotic song will still a drink of the land was asked, access to and control of it was limited. the louisiana territory had been purchased two decades earlier that remained mostly on organized. mexico's north stretch from the sabine river on the gulf of mexico to the 42nd parallel on the pacific ocean encompassing

all of what are now texas, new mexico, arizona, utah, nevada and california as well as part of colorado, oklahoma, wyoming and kansas. the pacific northwest was open country. backbeat the appalachian mountain range guarding the interior from south carolina to what only recently have become main, threatened to confine the great american experiment to the atlantic seaboard. the allegiance of the several new trans- montaigne state was unproven, their settlers looked westbound rolling river valleys for the mighty mississippi, not over their shoulders at the mountains that separated them from their political creators. former vice president aaron burr's enigmatic conspiracy of 1805, 1806 to make a nation for himself and others in the region opened by the louisiana purchase had come apart but illustrated the limited control exerted by the east over the last. of the national government over

its unsettled territory. a continental nation was so uncertain that president thomas jefferson had deemed it optional quote whether we remain in one confederacy or form into atlantic and mississippi confederacies i believe not very important to the happiness of either part. but coming of the steamboat in 18078 hope for a connectedness but illustrated the lack of it. so they were both on the hudson and mississippi rivers but no true navigation between them. the war of 1812 proved over its psaltery for your course that the united states remained a shaky nation. the british burned washington. president james madison escaped on horseback separated from his dolly. the british also burned buffalo and neighboring blackrock. the pioneers of western new york fled east in terror. there was no defending the state western flank by the effective transportation of arms and supplies. the few roads were so abominable that the federal government spent a staggering $60 million

on wartime transport, including a dollar a pound for cannonballs that cost a fraction of that to produce. the cost-of-living artillery from artillery from albany to them major-label warfront on lake erie was more than double its purchase price. transportation of material from washington to the lake was up to five times the production cost. the british blockade of american for a trip port, one wagon of war supplies loaded in worchester massachusetts arrived in charleston, south carolina, two and a half months later. nothing had changed dramatically in the decade since peace was restored until the erie canal opened on a fine fall day in 1825. so that sets the stage for what the country was like until the erie canal got built. before trains, planes and automobiles boats and horses were the only way to travel significant distances. in the days before good roads,

the only way to transport numbers of people or things was by water. the natural water request from the hudson was overland from albany to schenectady bypassing the balls on the mohawk river at cohost. ended a backbreaking labor 120 miles of the east were flowing river in small boats pulled over rapids, small falls meandering shallows to the headwaters of the mohawk river at rome. been a portage of a mile or more depended on the season to the westward flowing and aptly named wood creek, filled with trees, and doubt a series of flood and drought afflicted waterways to eastern lake ontario. from there a trip by larger boat west on the lake on lake ontario, along portage around niagara falls and finally into lake erie and the other great lakes. it was a long circuitous, arduous voyage not easily or often taken. the erie canal did a direct

connection between albany and new york city by the navigable outs in. and began struggling frontier settlement of buffalo on lake erie. bacchanal, three under 63 miles, most of it across unbroken wilderness, 83 loss to deal with 700 feet of elevation change, and just 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. it was the first bond of union. the phrase that was used to describe it before it was finally approved. it was the first bond of union between the eastern seaboard states and the vast unsettled interior. it immediately became the conduit for people and manufactured goods headed west and raw materials and produce coming east. with new york city as the gateway for immigration from and commerce with europe. bacchanal was begun after much political popular and economic debate in 1817, completed 1825, cost $7 million, entirely funded

by new york state at a time when the total capital in new york state was about $20 million. this logic cost seven. but that $7 million was entirely recovered by tolls on the canal within eight years. when tolls were abolished in 1882, total revenues were $121 million. total construction and maintenance costs including an enlargement completed just before the civil war was $80 million. for a profit, and a static profit of $41 million on a $7 million project. now, an argument could be made here in new york city today because of the erie canal. without it we might be living in philadelphia or alexandria, charleston, savanna or maybe even new orleans. if the erie canal hadn't made new york city the center of the commercial world and establish habitual routes of trade and travel, the railroad which came along not much later might have made other coastal places greater. now a lot of the material in the

book is the traditional erie canal tale, but i have selected some of the myth busting in it or this brief talk. one, the irish did not go the erie canal. at least not any significant numbers until halfway through the ninth construction season. the early contractors were pioneer farmers and settlers, almost invariably refugees from bad forms in connecticut. the workers on the canal sections that these farmers contracted for were mostly their sons or their farmhands. it was only when the most dangerous work eventually needed to be done on the western portions of the line, malarial slumps and blasting of limestone ridges that the legendary gains of irish immigrant laborers found work on the erie canal. another little bit of myth busting, the father of american civil engineering, that's his

title. the title that he came to have, every chief engineer benjamin wright. it turns out has something of a question of paternity. wright like every so-called erie engineer was at best a skilled country survey are at a time when there were no trained or experienced engineers. but it was interesting to discover that before theory, wright had been fired by his land development company for failing to later wrote to their property. and more important, he was nearly fired from his erie job in the first months of construction. it seems that he was pursuing other surveying work, and on state time, and also avoiding hazardous deary fieldwork in unhealthy to rain were the first bits of the line were later he came very close to getting fired a couple of months after construction began. in 1839, the first attempt to create a professional society of

american engineers with wright at its head failed when a majority voted against the society's proposed constitution. it effectively a rejection of wright himself by his peers. the present american society of civil engineers, which is formed after wright's death proclaimed him the father of american civil engineering in 1969. a well-deserved honor for his ultimately successful erie days for the ultimately successful dairy project and his later canal and railroad work, but not an honor that his peers would have given a man who many perceived as a flatterer of his employers and a credit stealer from subordinates. another area, hydroxy meant. the true discovery of american waterproof cement and not a particularly sexy topic, but the masonry structures of the canal, the locks and waste weirs and various other components of the

canal maidstone and need to be sealed with hydroxy meant could not have been dealt without the cement of the right kind of burned and pulverized limestone mixed with sand that hardens and water. there is a false story that it was planted unwittingly in the theory bible, a 1906 state authorized two-volume history sort of the starting point for any research about the erie canal. and distort in that book has been repeated ever since. it turns out that the author of that book, a well-respected engineer, had picked up summit story from an unreliable, onondaga history published locally a half-century early, published a half-century earlier, in 30 years after the fact. when all the principals were dead. the hero of the false story is a young erie engineer named candace white did in fact get the patent in 1824 waterproof

cement and vigorously but unsuccessfully defended it in court. he lost a lot of money in the process, including the $2000 he had secretly paid to the true discover. bacchanal's agent for securing line and other majerus, a fellow named andrew bartel who had conducted painstaking extremist on limestone examples to find the right stone. a manuscript letters and other obscure documents revealed an arms length deal between the two men in which white gave the bartel $2000 for the privilege of pursuing a patent, and are so gave bartel a 25% silent interest in profits from the patent, of which there turned out to be none. patents were very hard to defend in those days, and the commissioners, the new york state commissioners in charge of building the canal who certainly knew at least part of the truth had no interest in any other

contractors paying any other contractors paying royalties on the cement. it would have made their job more expensive. the commissioners claimed that the discovery was made in the process of their employees duties. there is much more to the story. you really have to go to the book to get all the detail, but that's the basics of it. this true story that it was bartel and not white to discover hydroxy meant may not be especially important to the general reader, but the cement itself was very important. the formulation that he discovered and that the white family later successfully manufactured in competition with other manufacturers, and white as it turned out were actually the best manufacturers of the cement. the cement they made was used to build new york city's aqueduct, the first water supply for new york city, the puddings of the brooklyn bridge, the pedestal of the statue of liberty, and the

walls of the animal canal. another bit of new material in theory, what i call the mohawk crisscross the 18th way one, 1822. and the situation never written about in any other erie canal book as best i can tell david benjamin wright, the father of american civil engineering, against a fellow named john randel, a different spelling but an albany native, very prominent family in albany in new york. he was a skilled surveyor and the man who had just been a dozen years laying out an mapping the future street grid of manhattan. we are here on 57th street because 200 years ago john randel put markers for thousands of blocks and in a very rugged and rural landscape. so john randel.

here is the background. the path of the canal in the mohawk valley was supposed to be entirely along the southern bank of the river. using eaters from the mohawk to water the canal, to get water into the canal. between schenectady and albany, the mohawk makes a very big northwood park your bets and the most uterine section of the mohawk river. with coho falls finally spelling the mohawk into the hudson. doctrine by involving himself in the process. he had been invited, he had been asked to become an engineer on the erie canal. he had said no, probably because he was still continuing his work in manhattan and yet other projects that he was doing. but in any case at a certain point he inserts himself into this issue of the eastern end of the canal. and he thinks, and he publicizes his thoughts that the canal ought to leave the mohawk valley at schenectady and take