>> there's been a few questions here about the auto industry, which we haven't touched on. it is a thorny issue. what happens if the auto industry fails? obviously, it would be quite a bit of economic devastation. what is the future for the automobile city for the unionized work force and retirees who are now living off that. anyone? >> it's a hard one. >> let me say that one of the issues here is that there's. to some extent the issue has been refrained the wrong way. :

>> and so the same thing in the auto sector. if the auto industry fails, what that means is that the bondholders become the new shareholders. the shareholders lose value. because of the current financial prices we might have to lend money to the industry to get it restarted, but we could lend with a certain amount of security that once we've restructured the financial restructuring we would have a very good chance of getting our money back with compensation,

with interest. the problem is that just like the administration has been trying to save the shareholders of the banks, there has really been a concern of savg the shareholders of the automobile industry. and one example where it is really, i think, outragous is in the case of chrysler. chrysler was bought from mercedes by a hedge fund that was interested in a gamble. i think it is pretty clear what the gamble was. it was not as if theynew how to manage cars better than mercedes. it was really that they thought they were engaged in what they call a play that they could force the u.s. government to take off their backs their obligations for health care and retirement. if they did that, the company would be viable.

they were really betting on a bailout. and for us now to give them that bailout would, i think, be wrong. you let them go into nkruptcy. you restructure it. other people would buy the assets. the company will continue to produce. and if you can't after you wipe out all the shareholders and bondholders, if it can't produce in a competitive way, then it should be shut down. and there will be a need for a transitional assistance of these workers to other jobs, but i don't think that is the case. i think that they will be a viable enterprise once you restructure the incentive structures and engage in financial reorganization. >> i sort of approach it in a different way. the auto industry has been in the process of restructuring roughly since 1980. and all you have to do is go to

detroit or los angeles, and you will see the results of the restructured. nobody has given a damn about the autoworker, and no one has cared about what happenso places in detroit. so the auto industry restructure is by stepping up plants you have this whole foreign transplant of companies moving into ruralreas, nonunion, a lot of white folks, ver few people of color, very conscious decisions. and i keep asking, what happens to flint, michigan? what happens in detroit? [alauding] so i feel like that is what we need to focus on, and we have got -- and see, what makes us -- i come o of -- i staed in the shipbuilding industry. that is how i get into the labor movement. and once upon a time there was a very robust shipbuilding industry in the united states, and it died over a period of a

couple of decades. but it is not that they did not need to build ships. in fact, there was a whole economic conversion movement that was discussing these ships that produced electric power using thermal in the ocean. there was decisions made not to produce ships like this. it's not that we didn't need to produce ships, but the shipbuilding companies decided, no, that is not where we get the money. let's get the money through military production. this goes back to the same thing. we have to think differently. our point of reference has got to be the auto worker in this case. and this is what i am very critical of the united autoworkers. they have put so much time and attention into this, rather than saying that theyre the advocate of the worker and that they need to be out there on the lines pushing the question. >> i would also like to make one -- [applauding]

>> we should get over this high paid auto industries, the autoworkers. about 10% of costs. retirement costs a pretty high, granted, but it is not the central issue. i believe that there is a case for big government in the auto history, and it i in subsidizing manufacturing research and subsidizing environmental research. one big reason we have our big pharmaceutical companies, and i'm sure a few people here don't necessarily like a big pharma. we subsidize a heck of a lot of scientists and research in those related fields. there is no reason why the federal government can't subsize serious research, so our auto companies can make better cars, make them more cheaply. japanese cars are still in some measures and terms.

but in many msured areas they are not. and the american cars are usually a little more expensive >> in the same factories. you know, there is no point in pouring more and more money into these companies when people are not buying their products. isn't that basic market principle? [laughter] >> catching on. >> so there is a number of questions about the two historical examples that have been in the news a lot, and those are sweden and japan in the '90's. yeah, big sweden fans here. and president obama recently in

an interview talked about why he thought that the examples, what he thought was germanebout them, and what he thought was not. and for anyone on the panel, what is similar about the u.s. situation now and the response to the situation in sweden and the 90's and japan's japan's situation? anyone? >> let me begin with japan. i'm beginning to understand a little bitetter japan's problem. japan had a bubble economy that was even a bigger bubble. they still haven't gotten back to the stock prices that they had before the crash, and they had of the real-estate crash and a stock-market crash. not surprisingly the banks wound up in bad shape. it is inevitable when you have a

crash that bad. the japanese people were very convinced that it was inappropriate to bail out the banks. they thought it was morally wrong to bail out these guys who had made so much money, very similar in a w that a lot of people in the united states did. and at the same time -- so what happened is the bank's crippled on. they gave them a b of help, but they weren't able to either bring them back to live or to let them go. and that wenton for a very long time until they finally decided to let some of the banks go and have temporary nationalization andgo forward. i think we are getting ourselves in the same kind of paralysis. the amount of money that would be required to get the banks

function is larger than, i think, americans are going to be willing to pay, especially given how bad they behaved. so what we have been doing is have our financial system on what you might call on an iv drip. just giving new enough to stay live. i think we have gottenurselves into that without realizing it. sweden is one of several countries. norway, probably even a better job. they said look at -- we really have to nationalize the banks temporarily.

the only -- one of the ideas you probably have heard about is the bad bank, good bank idea. did assets, sort of a metaphor year. the bad assets is kind of like a contagio disease. it is not true. it is a metaphor that has been very effective. well, sweden was very clear. i was talking the other day to the guy who manages. you can't do that unless you nationalize the banks. because otherwise you are going to be cheated. which assets are you going to get? what prices? you just can't do it. we only did this bad bank, good bank, after we have ownership. in the case of norway they didn't bother to have a good bank, bad bank. we can manage it without having

to separate out these two different institutions. so that is a management question, not of fundamental issue. the fundamental issue is the private sector is not going to be willing to supply money to the banks given all the lack of transparency. thereforthe government is going to have to do it. the question is, are we going to be able to have the appropriate say and return for the capitol we provide? it is really a very simple question. and if you don't do that you are going to get perverse behavior that is going to wind up the matter being good for our company nor our taxpayers. [applauding]

>> agreed. okay. question here about someone says that there is an emerging consensus for restoring the social safety net and regulating industry and wants to know about restoring the right of american workers to organize. how do we do that? and someone else asked about how important people feel the passage of the employee free choice act. if folks are not aware, it's a piece of legislati that is currently before the congress that would allow something called majority sign-up for workers to seek to join a union and how important. >> that is critical. i mean, employee free choice act is of very important piece of legislation, and i was very stressed last night to see a television commercial attacking employee free choice. and i was actually quite dismayed. and he was focusing on this issue about people allegedly

giving up. and the problem is several fold. but what a lot of people don't understand is that the elections that most workers go through, you have a secret ballot in some way that some elections in the height of the civil war in el salvador where the ruling elite knew quite well who was going to votehat way and there were penalties that people have to pay for that. and so i think that's we are going to have to organize labour, and our allies are trying to have to have a massive campaign around employee free choice. that said, i think that there is another battle that is central, and we should start it right now, which is the notion that an employer should have no rights and no involvement to be involved in any way in a worker's right to choose.

[applauding] collective bargaining. [applauding] and what happens is that this is blurred when people starto talk about freedom of speech. but the reality is that whenever employer because of the power and balance, any time an employer even hin at certain thin it has a repressive of fact. and we have to have a strong punitive damages against any employer involved. [applauding] [inaudible conversations] >> i wanted to say this. the employee free choice act. what bothers me so much about the campaign which is coming from employers now is that they have taken on the role of being

the protectors of workers' rights. they are protecting workers' rights. what they leave out is the workers have no rights. there are no rights. no freedom of speech. no feom of assembly. no basic privacy rights or anything in the workplace. and the fundamental issue is that the employer has the right to force people to assemble and listened tadd urs of propaganda about why you shouldn't join a union while the employees sometime don't even have the right to speak to each other without being fired for doing such a seditious thing. [applauding]

>> one quick word. the reason this is such an important fact, the proof that it is such an important act is employers across the country are mobilizing against this act to stunning degree, and i'm n sure the american people are entirely aware of it. i also want to point out one of the thing. bill, i think, was alluding to it. the violation of labor laws on the parts of businesses, corporations and other business, has risen to a stunning expense under the previous administration. these were not prosecud. the fines are ridiculously light. it makes no sense for a business not to violate the minimum wage laws, our laws, maximum our laws, safety laws, and s, and lr organizing laws. it is extraordinary in this country that this has happened with so little notice. [applauding] >> there is a question here about how does our $700 billion

in annual military spending figure into the crisis? i recently wrote a column for the magazine about the defense budget. one of the statistics that really absolutely stunned me. i'm not sure that people, even very informed people are aware. the base line pentagon budget between 2001 and 2009 not counting the worst, not counting the worst is up 77%. so $800 billion in direct costs and while everyone has been paying attention to that in has come all the weapons contractors. and they have exploded the size of the pentagon budget. i am curious what people banged. if we are talking about what is across the bridge for our next economy it seems like a slightly less militarized state might be a good idea.

[applauding] >> i just want to maybe emphasize one aspect of that which is that our economy really has suffered a very severe blow. you can think about this crisis will cost us, at the very least, something like the, $4 trillion in lost output. if you think about the problem of how do we make up for all of this and make up for the fact that even before that workers we not doing very well, it is very clear that we he to use our scarce resources more efficiently than we have. and that is why health care

reform is very important. it's my energy sector reform is ve important. but the other sector which is clearly representing probably the greatest waste, a single category of waste of our resources is our military buet. i really think that we can get -- [applauding] i think we can really get to much more secure defense with much less spending. one of the defining characteristics is that we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons systems that don't work ainst enemies that don't exist. [laughter] i suppose it is a good thing that the enemies aren't there because otherwise the failure of our weapons systems to work

would be more serious. still in the context we should be worried about using our scarce resources bette it is a great concern. we compared to be going into afanistan which is likely to be another quagmire. [inaudible comments] >> there has been a lot of questions that have come up here, probably about five or six or seven about consumerism. and the degree to which a certain kd of cultural ethos in american life built around the acquisition of consumer goods. and their pursuit has, a, led to the crisis. and, b, whether that is something that we can alter or should want t alter, will be able to alter in the future, what role did you think -- i

don't know, barbara, your thoughts on this? what role consumerism, consumer culture has played? >> what? >> consumerism. >> feature of consumerism. >> what role consumerism. >> not looking good. but you know, i do. has long represented other kinds of values and has talked about other sources of pleasure and satisfaction in life through solidarity, acting together. all of those, you know, revolutionary festivals that i was pushing and dancing in the streets and things like that. >> i think in the context of the challenge of global warming by the change from patterns of

living and consumerism is absolutely critical. seventy-five years ago there was an interesting piece that asked the question, for the first time in the history of mankind improvements in productivity have enabled us to meet our basic needs of food, shelter, clothi. and the question he posed was, what are we going to do with the surplus? and he was a little bit worried that lking at how the class in england spent the time that it wasn't a very pretty prospect for the future. so the point is that he did not fully grasp the ability o creative culture of consumerism where people could consume

desires. but there are pounds provided by our planet. and so it isn't a sustainable pattern. one of the things that is quite interesting, look at the data, beginning about 35 years ago, big divergence is opened up between patterns of living in europe they used a large fraction of increases in productivity to enjoy more leisure. we went from two week vacation to three, four, five, and six week vacations. actually the united states, the hours worked per household have actually gone up, which is necessary to sustain consumerism. to go back to what i said before, our pattern of living is not sustainable. it certainly can't be sustained

if everybodyn e world lives in that way. and so i think we will have to adapt our patterns of behavior. [applauding] >> bill, did you have? >> i think -- i agree. i would also add, this is a moment when we need to engage in a massive economic ucatio program. because one of the things that really struck me in the midst of the financial collapse of the housing crisis was a tremendous allusions that people had regarding asset inflation and that houses would continue to rise in value and as a result they could keep borrowing against them. they could buy houses that -- they were convinced they could buy houses that were way beyond their particular limits because of the certain notions that were

reticulated. and i feel that many progressive institutions, and committed to but not limited to the unions have done a very poor job of educating regular people about the way capitalism works. [applauding] for example, capitalism brings with it crises. every time we have an economic crises mainstream media treats that crisis as if it is a unusual event, something that can never have been expected and usually it rests on some greedy or misguided individus, rather than understanding it is the system. that is the way the system operates. >> i feel obliged to talk about what we now call consumerism. i actually really don't believe it for all but part of the population. i think we buy a lot of cheap goods. a lot of stuff at wal-mart. but this nation cannot afford health care and education.

it is not as if people on the the well. i see lots of evidence of taking home equity loafs in order to meet medical bills. people are in -- many people are in severe circumstances. people talk about the second car, they need that second car. these are no longer luxury's. and so i think placing our problems on the backs of the americans who are accused of being a super materialistic is just nther appropriate or true. [applauding] i think we have got to get off of this idea a little bit. the real -- the things you need to be middle class in america are not products you buy in wal-mart. they are health care and education. now, some sense of security. and americans j don't have

that. in fact, i think because health care and education are so darn expensive people often go out and buy a hundred dollar a piece of something to make up for the fact they can't afford that $8,000 or $12,000 family health insurance. [applauding] >> i think this is -- i think this is going to be the final question of the evening. and tn after that we are going to besigning books. yeah. right. yeah. roger is telling me to hold it up in case he did not see it. signing books here. yeah. okay. you'll find as. there are a number of questions here. echidna to leave it on is the n is the global dimensions of the crisis. and you know, to what degree is a global agenda part of any proposed solution? the broad policies, across the world in terms of the world

bank, the wto, the imf, and how much role. how much is that going to play in the solution of this? >> you know, i always say we have to fight thi on all guns all the time in this battle. the credit rescue and the recession and stimulus package. and i began adding a fourth got, and that was some kind of global coordination, both in the regulation and stimulus. china says they are stepping up. we are not so sure. the eu hasn't stepped up. eastern europe does not have the money. i think in global coordination has been serious for a long time. i think it is even more serious now. >> i strongly agree. one of the problems is that as

the world has gotten a more integrated the bang for the box, how much stimulus he did at home is much less because we have become a more -- more of our income we spend abroad. and that is true of every other country. so if they look at this each from their own point of view there will be a tendency not to have a very effective stimulus. the prime minister of one country, very small country, said why should we have any stimus package? all of our money gets spent. almost all of our money. we have no multiplier, as we say. so he announced that they were going to be a free rider. a moment of honesty. but there is an aempt in some sense of many countries to be

partially a free rider. one of the country's -- one of the interesting aspects of this very different view in europe than the united states is the recognition that among the innocent victims of this crisis are those in the developing countries. this crisis has a very strong level. and there is the irony that while we were the source of the global disturbance, money is actually flowing from developing countries back to the net states. and the reason for it is in part something that is called financial protectionism. we provided guarantees to our bank accounts. developing country that provides a guarantee to a bank account does not mean very much. so the citizens of their country, if they can, try to get their money out of their country and put it in an american bank

which is much more secure. that, of course, is leading to further weakness is in the developing countries. the results of this is that europe has committed itself to $250 billion of support for developing countries in the crisis. japan has committed itself to $100 billion to help developing countrs. and we have offered, so far, noing. and i think that global ramifications both to us in the short run and to the international community in the long run if we don't live up to our responsibilities will be very serious. [applauding] >> i think that for progressive people one of the things that is gog to be critical is really

to support regional economic development approaches. and to make sure that the u.s. it is not engaged in nonbusiness, trying to disrupt such efforts. this is a real time where countries in the global south have to experiment with alternative economic strategies that, you know, the last number of years have been suppressed and inhibited. so i think this is of very, very portant moment in latin america and in africa. countries are starting to look for regional economic development. we should be supporting this. that is part of our responsibility when it comes to glal justice. [applauding] >> so first time would like to thank our panel for their -- [applauding]

and the information load, the books are for sale in the lobby. finally i would like to thank all of you for your attendance hereonight and i hope you have a lovely evening. great job. >> editor and publisher of the nation magazine and frequt contributor to msnbc, cnn, and cbs. for more information on the editor please go to t henation.com. in 1959 in the heat of the cold war soviet premier nikita khrushchev to an unprecedented two week tour of the u.s. peter carlson recounts that trip

with khrushchev's son, sergei on after words. next a portion about tv's monthly three-hour live program, in depth. on the first sunday of each month we invite one author to discuss their entire body of work and take their calls. in depth also includes a visit with the author to see where and how they write their books. that is what you are about to see. >> a typical day for me begins with mass at my parish church, breakfast here at home, and then i spend the morning here. this is my bunker. this is where i study. this is where most of my working materials are in my library. my files, etc. i work from outlines. i think when you are doing

complicated things like the biography of john paul the second or trying to make a a serious argument on the public policy matter it is good to a think through the sequence of things before you actually start writing. and then the writing becomes the telling of the story within that outlined. i think that gives it some liveliness and some freshss. so it all happens right here around this test. i don't think anybody can really write. half-hour's, for macs. then you need a break. but my best writing times are in the morning. there ar other parts of my life that i have to attend to. i am a great believer in maps.

so i -- i write in two periods of the day, and eight hours is it. no one can really do more than that. otherwise you're putting out something that's not coherent. and i usually get 20-25 pages done in something approaching readable form. i had never taken on a huge project like biography of john paul the second before. i had spent a year and a half talking to people got talking to him at great length, gathering materials. and iteems to me that if i didn't sit down and did a really serious outline in place the beast was going to be writing me rather than the right and the beast. so i went to a friend in south carolina and spent a week locked

up in his church rectory and produced 165 page outline, what became "a witness to hope: the biography of pope john paul ii." that book began as a lecture. so i had 15 points i wanted to make. and that became the spine of the book. fill out the points in book form. i read a weekly column in the catholic press in the united states. that is primarily a jutting nose down and letting the of logo. only 740 words. but for logger thanks, and says, books, except from, i think an outline is a good discipline on an author. any kind of extended trading i find the book starts to fight back at certain points and takes on a life of its own.

and you're only going to be able to guide it in the direction that you want if you have got a track for it to follow. i am very old fashioned on organizing research, meaning i am of paper per person. i do it in electronic copies coming interviews and notes and what not. generally work with paper and on paper. and then actually when i was out to start writing my wife designed this wraparound desk so that i can have the materials i know i'm going to be needing right here. the outline this year. the computer is here. the printer is there. so everything is within an arm's span reach. you can lay it out at the beginning of the day and work on that all day.

>> your first book over 20 years ago, if you took of the get the way you wrote a book than versus now could you describe the differences? >> well, it is the difference between a k-pro 4 and, you know, wordperfect 10. the technology has moved multiple generations over that time. huge floppy disks that really were floppy. i am using the same word processor. tenth generation. but dealing with publishers is now an entirely electronic business, which i'm afraid has cut down even more on the amount of series of the team that goes on. i actually like to add it to my own staff. i am not an agonistic writer. i've write fairly easily.

but what i really enjoy is editing. i do that by hand. i don't do that electronically. i print out, copy, and at it. the crafof that is something i really enjoy. i have had good editors in the sense that people make a good suggestions to me over time. but most, i would say, of the nonfiction by reed which is most of what i read badly needs editing. editing is increasingly a lost art. >> when you are working on the revision and editing out the you know when the book is done? >> it is not a rational thing. i know i'm going to hit this. i know i'm going to hit this juncture. what i tend to do with big projects is to try to leave some

time for the book tough ferment, marinade. it is good to get away from a text to for a week or two because then whenou come back you will see it with a fresh eye. but most of what i write that sees the light of day in journals or newspapers or books, i have worked over it six or seven. so it is a constant process of cabinetry. writing is like blocking out a piece of furniture. the editing is making it beautiful. getting it to look exactly the way you wanted to look. >> a young, first-time author comes to you and says, what advice can you give me in a couple minutes of how to approach writing a book.

>> i don't think anyone should write a book without writing of the things first. i mean, i think you need to start in smaller medium, essays, articles, reviews. there is no way to learn how to write, except to write. that is the oldest cliche. one of the things about cliches is that they tend to be true. i was very fortunate early on in my writing career to have an editor at the seattle weekly who was very good. took a personal interest to me. and i wrote all the time. i had to be one or two columns a week. and that discipline of just having to get it done was of very good one. i also think when i've looked back on it that i developed a

voice by letter writing which is another tally lost art today. my wife and i moved to seattle right after we were married. we had met and grown up. we didn't have any money for a long distance phone calls. there were no such things as the males. so you wrote letters. and i think i'd develop something of a voice that appears in my occasional columns, reviews, essays in the course of learning. i've read for an international audience. in evening i do is likely to be translatednto two, three, four. so i am very conscious of not using imagery or turns of phrase that would be difficult to

transmit or will confuse a translator. believe me, the translators can get terribly confused. even the best of them. make a a real mess of things. so i think that is the difference. that obviously when you're writing -- when i am writing in newsweek i am writing in a somewhat different voice tn what i am writing in the first things. first things are ready for, it's not the choir, the community of conversation. everyone has a pretty good idea of what the reference points are and so forth. with newsweek i am writing for a general educated audience. in my weekly catholic prass column i am writing for particularly catholic audience in have very short 700 word format. when i read at thousand page biography of john paul the second i am writing for the world, literally. and i think you just have to kind of keep that in the back of

your mind when you are doing it. it is interesting to me that there have been inquiries about faith, reason, and the war against the jihadism which i wrote as an explicitly american book. i had no interest or desire having this book appear abroad. i wanted to talk to my fellow americans about a certain set of problems. yet by the time it's through that book will probably be in three or four different languages. >> finally you said in napping. what other ways to you recharge your batteries are unwind? >> to quote m friend joe epstei the great essayist, i have the disease. the disease is sports.

i spend an awful lot of time watching primarily men throw, kick, catch, hit objects in the fall. so that is, you know, one of my interests. but i must say, my life has fallen out in such a way that what i do professionally is what i'd love to do, which is to make arguments and tried to explain ideas in ways that people can wrestle with. have been fortunate enough to be able to do that through books as well as various media engagements. and so i have fun with what i do. this is the theological part of

my library. literature and the place, philosophy sophy another place. but these are the materials i work with most of the time. a lot of this is, obviously, has to do with john paul the second. including several things that he gave me or sign for me. >> could you show us something? >> let's see. i think this is the addressto the united nations. 1995. there is his dedication and signaturen that. this is a curious little thing over your. this orange at is part of an honorary doctorate from the university of barcelona in spain last november. if you have ever tried to give a

lecture with orange french fringe flopping in your eye, i assure you it was an experience not to be missed. the only book of my own than on display here are the various language editions of "witness to hope." so we have english, french, italian, polish, spanish, a czech, portuguese, slovak, slovenian, russian, german, and romanian. romanian is the most recent edition. i took a copy of this into my office and everyone said, it's a boy. looks like a birth announcement. there is o more coming. chinese will be done later this year. >> may i ask? >> this was harper collins very kindly did a special binding of

the first edition of "witness to hope" of which a copy was made for the editor, for the pope, and for me. so it is done by, i believe, a bookmaker on long island, and it simply is the hardback edition with the normal color stripped off. it is beautiful. so only three of those in the world. >> a lot of church history year, obviously. where do you turn most frequently for history of the catholic church? >> well, there are any number of forces. papal history material over year. there you have got everything from the expanded reference work to a study is of particular popes, particular historical

times in history of the vatican. church history is not as fluent in free fall of feel as it ought to be these days, i'm afraid. but there is good stuff, and i'm happy to be in contact with them. >< how about this matter over here? >> that is a map -- that is the medieval maps of jerusalem. jesalem is all over our house. jerusalem is the city very close to my heart. it is also a metaphor for the kingdom of god. so to have jerusalem looking over your shoulder keeps you with the sense of historical perspective. andretti

and right beside jerusalem have a beautiful baltimore oriole up on top of that bookcase. and right below it is a baseball autographed by robinson. so we have different forms of sanctity in my study here. >> that is a hand-painted icon of the black madonna, the great image mage in poland. and she keeps an eye on me as well. as does over here, this might be of interest. this is a representation of edith stein. martyr at auschwitz in 1942. that is a relic. that ia piece of the wedding dress she wore on the day of her final profession. so i have got edith's diner and

and the blessed mosser and john paul ii. the great theologian of religious freedom who appears to be tilting a bit here. >> can i ask you about all these metals? >> well, some of these are words that i have been given. some of them are just decorative. this is, perhaps, of intereqt. this is called the glowing artist gold medal. the republic of poland for contributions to polish culture. i am very proud of the fact that i am one of two non-poles to have received that since it was created. i think this is justne of the great photographs of that time.

prayer on the western wall of the temple. >> my theological library is a raised automatically by author. aquinas, balthazar except for an exception. and it just moves over year and laps abound. there is an enormous amount. much of which i had before, but since he was elecd pope there have been an extraordinary number of small books of his put out. predict the 16th. of remarkably small hand. that was his christmas present in the 1997. very concise handwriting. >> the bible. what version do you turn to? >> it is not easy these days.

most modern tnslations i find are flawed in one way or another. i generally use the revised standard version. if i don't like i will make my own translation. but generally i stick to the rsv which is owed for accuracy and and literary style still the gold standard. not the nrsv, the rsv, the rsv that came out in the '40's. >> the revised standard edition >> and that is the one -- that is my default position citation source. if that seems to me at clunky translation or misses something i will do one of my on. >> do you have one year?

>> i have multiple all over the place. actually, my wife has stolen. here is an interesting one. i mean, we have -- here are eight different translations side-by-side. so you can either compare riches or horrors' depending on your point of view. but my wife has got mine are as the upstairs. >> t new revised version, what is the problem with that when? >> it is too pc, it is politically correct. there is, you know, twisting of lauage to get he, him, is, etc. >> is it hard to find? >> it is hard.

because this one is the complete unopened. oxford university press has back issues. i must have bought about ten of these and give them away to various people. it is hard to find an rsv today, which is too bad. it is, as i said, not particularly good on the psalms, but for new testament stuff it is the best. that was 1995. my wife and i had been at mass in the pope's rivate chapel. we chat with him. it is about that time i get the idea of writing. he and i had known each other for some time before that.

at it was in the course of that visithat the idea ce. >> is this a picture b the vatican? >> our toh mari i got to know, the official photographer. must have taken the millions of photographs of john paul the second, of which one of the most moving is, of course, this one. they have turned the casket at the top of the stairs for one last display to this enormous throng at the pope's funeral. april 9th, 2005. >> in depth airs live at noon eastern o the first sunday of each month on book tv on c -span2. log onto booktv.org for

information about upcoming guests. >> in 1959 in t heat of the cold war soviet premier nikita khrushchev took an unprecedented two weeks tour of the u.s. peter carlson recounts tt trip with his son, sergei, on after words, part of t2 but book tv's weekend. >> held in chicago over the first weekend. the first event of the day features beryl satter. discussed her book "family properties: race, real estate, and the exploitation of black urban america". >> thank you and good morni, everyone. i would like to welcome you to our session at the 205th annual chicago