the return of democracy to honduras, and your return to democracy. i would like as a token kf our [alause] ..

and she me many times to the prison and new billy so when we knew this book was coming we asked if she would write to the foreword, and she did i think cause obviously looking for arguments against the death penalty, and whenrosecutors

arrive at the sentencing phase many of them will say this person must be put to death because this person cannot be rescued. this person will be an ongoing threat to society and billy's life of course refutes that absolutely. and by thank sister helen for doing that. i will tell you in the book in as much as we can do so puts you inside the death house and tells you the authorities do not want you to know. executions are gruesome. even when the authorities say they are flawlessly executed, which means everything from their standpoint when correctly. but those are the accounts of the people that actually do the killing. and this book tells you the other side of the story and it is written by two journalis, former journalists now, one behind bars and one outside and that is billy sinclair and me to read this book actually took 42

years to write because billy got the death sentence 42 years ago and the age of 21 became intensely focused on the death penalty. when i began my career as a reporter one of the things i had the opportunity to do is a five part series on the death penalty when it appeared louisiana was going to execute the first inmate in the post for an gura so i went to death row and did the five part series and in doing so of course met billy. in 199 witness and execution at huntsville, an inmate named michael lee lockhart and his crimes were terrible but i will never forget the experience of being in the death hou watching the execution took place and i will talk to you just a little bit about that leer. but this book does come from

personal and professional experience over a period of many years and a lot of refined and reflective thought. >> thank you, jodie. my name is billy sinclair, and as jodie said, this book is really 42 years in theaking because it was 1966i was convicted of capital murder and some seven or eight months later sentencedo death in the electrichair and the louisiana state penitentiary. so naturally, i have an increased interest in the death penalty and half for many years. it was a subject of interest while i was on death r because studied all of the methods of execution. wanted to become familia with how people are put to death by the state and had a particular interest in the electric chair because that is the motivdef i

faced. so capal punishment has been an ongoing interest of mine. i was released from death row in 1972 and later years while in prison i became celebrated prison journalist and was the recipient of a number of prestigious journalism ards including the george pope robert f. kennedy awards and i found it a common theme in the awas and the ab civil gavel award, those are for death penalty related issues, stories. so i've written extensively about the death penalty. and when i was released on parole in 2006, in ril o 2006, going to work as a paralegal for aaw firm, once again on encountered the dth

penalty as a paralegal for criminal defense. so it has been a sort of life interest, and i guess it will be until the day i die. as the gentleman introducing me awhile ago said ofife without parole because i was in 72 resistance toife without parole in 1990 to the governor of louisiana commuted am i sentence to 90 years, and after six failed oral attempts i was finally paroled on a seventh attempt in april in 2006, moved to houston where jodie lived and went to school, got my skills, brought up on the texas law as a jailhouse lawyer in the system the louisianan wall, so i had to bring my skills up to learn about the texas law and the criminalists procedure to function as a paralegal and i

did that and went to work in 2007 for the john floyd law firm in houston and that is what i have been doing since. in addition to working as a paralegal i also post with john to blogs every week on s web site, and a number of these blogs once again deal with the death penalty and some issues related to the death penalty. and and 2008 supreme court dealt with the death penalty in two ways first of all that said the three protol was constitutional not cruel and unusual punishment and he also said the death penalty could not be imposed for open first convicted of child rapes of the publishers dealt the death penalty was a topical issue in the country and barack obama, partf his campaig presidential campaign was based upon his having reform were work

towa reform of the illinois deat penty system some sort of natural this book would come to be. and we put together collections of essays and material we had both been working on for a number of years and together that is how t book came to pass and i would make one final note about the book. we tried in this book much like in the previous life to tell a story through human drama we didn't want to write a book to simply analyze the death penalty but statistics andacts and figures. we wanted to tell the death penalty through human stories, the human drama we hope we achie that objective. >> i think when it comes to the death penalty became otherwise fascinated because of the victims and my husband's case were s intensely devoted over the years making certain he was never reased from prison and

he suffered a maximum punishment he could suffer and they felt terribly cheated because he had not been put to death and so for 25 years, over and over again, my hopes -- i married billy by proxy and waited 25 years for him to come home. i began to wonder where does the death penalty come from? why are we so devoted to it? why do people feeso cheated when the is? why is there such a push for the death penalty and i finally decided and that is why i call the first chapter the justice jean i finally decided in the genes. it would almost have to be and the jns. so i will briefly read from this because i subsequently found in "the nework times" and other articles and the literature about the way the brain works

afte the decade of the 1990 said to be the decade of the brain because with an mri could look at the brae without cracking it open and see what was goingn as people were thinking. so, millions of years before record history our small apelike ancestors stodieck on their hind legs and began to struggle to survive on the african built virtually fenseless in a vicious place for ich they had abandoned the safety of the trees. in the fossil record over the long evolutionary march toward jose behan's -- how wait begins revealed the changes the resulted in a rosk of print creatures with bigg frames, longer bones and larger planes. but the fossil record reveals little about t tughts and emotns that coursed through their brain as our aestors made the long gradual trend toward modern man so we must wonder then once comes the

common mind set that governs our bevior. science suggests devolved in a setting that demanded social cooperation for survival. imagine a group of comments. one of its members has eaten more than its fair share o the group's food. now watch the group as a whole. brutally assaulting the offender. possibly beating it to death in a place in time to bliss scarce and life itself was risked the entire group might die of starvation if the behavior of the offender went unchecked. such a scene resonatesith a loss, and we easily understand the need for this punishment and so as i began to read over time i began to understand and the social science seemed to back it up that punishment or the desire for revenge which ever way justice is rooted in altruism

which is a strange thing for me to think about but that is why it is so strong and it' also been noted by the mri sdies of the brain engaging in altruistic behavior that thpleasure centers of the brainight up whene engage in altruistic behavior that benefits the group but those are the same brain centers that light up when you take drugs so i began to think you could become addicd to the desire to punish, and therefore that becomes strongly rooted in fice and out of that arises torture and some of the of their behavior that we see. so, that is why the first chapter of this book, and there are other issues in the first chapter that have to deal with the moods and methods of execution, some of which are exceedingly grew some.

and i also ve t smile to myself because this has been a topic of public debate forome years now. as americans to be tortured? of course that is with respect to abu ghrb and so rth in the bushdministration and now we have a new president and perspecte on that potentily but i would always think to myse because of the death penalty yes, we torture, we do torture other human beings. but people don't think of it in that regard. but quite frankly, and this is just very brief on page 228. and 2004, abama executed a 74-year-old man who suffered from dementia and colon and prostate cancer and was so weak the fellow inmates had to walk into the shower and comb his hair. attorneys for an 89 year old condemned inmate debilitated by deafness, arthritis and heart

disease asked federal court to declare unconstitutional the execution of inmates suffering from alzheimer's disease, dementia and other aids-related infirmities and then i would submit to you that we do, yes, we do torture if you inst on putting individuals like that to death. billy of course can deal with some ofhe terrible botched executions, death by hanging which results in decapitation, death by guillotine which means there is a horrifying prospect that the brain, because it is still oxygenated and the decapitation is so quick the head walls of the body and then contemplates the body as the blood gushes out, death in the electric chair sits people on fire and i would say to you that i do absolutely believe capital punishment is torture and one nf

little quick note here on page 15, because i think it is important and i will turn the floor over to billy. and that is if you're thinking of altruism punishment being in altruism and pleasure centers of the brain, i had to conclude ultitely that human beings are more than the sum of their parts. we are not bound by survival behavior. anthe pleasure centers of our brain into an unholy aiance with sadism. we know capital punishment is a crime. >> thank you, jodie. we've tried at any point in time while we are making our presentation at any pnt in time if anyone has a questionf we have touched on an issue that has personal interest tyo that you would like for uso elaborate or deal with please feel free to ask because that is

what we are here for, to take questis, too, not just to make a presentation. obviously we are here to try to sell books. [laughter] >> if there's enough interest in the subject. >> but we are also he to intect with the audience. so at any point in time ifou have questions please, feel free to raise your hand a we will be glad to take those questions. but jodie mentioned the issue of torture. everyone knows that in california, particularly in california, they have people that have been on the process for so long you have people on death row been there 20 or 25 years. you now have in florida five people on florida's death row that have been there more than 25 years, and i think you have to that have been on death row

over 30 years. it is a sad commentary when you have a justice system that takes people and places them in a cage like environment in a vy controlled structure witry few privileges and in fact in the state of texas on the death row they have no privileges at all. they are very much look down almost 24 hours a day except for a shower and exercise. but you keep people in these kind of environient for extended periods of time for decades, and i will illustrate the torturous aspect you have of a guy in 2006 who was executed by ttate of ohio, and it took them an hour and a half to locate to try to get a vn and which they could insert the needle. they even l him get up off the gurney and use theestroom and

at one point he came backnd said could you all just give me something or we oral so we can get this over with? here is a man trying to cooperate with his own death and speaking of cooperating with your own demise, the gas chamber to me is the worst form of execution. i am not a proponent of the, certainly not of the protocol i think ther are two methods of execution that are quick and as humane as you can get that is one that they called the soldiers punishmen which is a ring squad, very quick and effective and efficient means of putting someone to dth as a is the electric chair and most states the process in the electric chair takes five to seven minutes to complete whereas in these other mod of methods of execution for emple

the gas chamber the individual when he is placed in theas chamber is actually encouraged to cooperate with his own execution. they say silicon, and health of human and it will be quick don't fit it because if y fight it you will go through the contortions and a very horrible kind of death s it is a process and the gas chamber that once it starts, once the cyanide pellets are dropped into the acid is irreversible. there ic no stopping it. and the famous execution in 1960 in san quentin, that is exactly what happened. he was escorted to the gas chamber. he was in the gas chamber and they had dropped the pellets and the chamber already started filling up with the ddly fumes. when the phone rang and he had receed a stay from a federal judg and the board and had to

tell the judge it's too late we have already started the execution process. so it is irreversible. and another execution the evans executio in alabama that was so gruesome they tried to stop it so they called the governor after three attempts to kill a man, to attempt had failed before they started the third attempt the board and said can we call -- can we call the governor to try to stop this? is too late to stop it at that point the execution is in process. he's not physically dead but is certainly brain dead after to charges of electricity into the brain. so if you examine the botched executions and even if you ate salmon a monday and execution particularly with letha injection protocol where inmates are exported to the chamber when an hour ahead of the execution

andlaced the gurney and made a mobile because they are strapped down to the gurney and they insert the needles into their veins and weight the point of time to actually carry out the execution by starting t administration othe drugs. so if you look at that process is a very slow process which can be torturous. not to mention the studies it has found that the first drug they introduced is a drug that is supposedly as a sedate that puts the inmate asleep and makes himnconscious and i will lead the pronunciation of these drugs to jodie. [lghter] the second drug is a paralytic and drug, it paralyzes all of the muscles of the body and the third job stops the heart from beating and has been described as it suffocates the life out of the human heart and stops it

from beating so if you don't get enough of the sedative, then the second drug by the time the third drug if you are in any in you cannot cry out because the second drug has paralyzed you so is an impossible to say i'm in pain. it is impossible to say on a and hurting. it is the same drug they give people when they operate th don't want them to have involuntary muscle reaction so they give them a paralytic drug while they engage in the surger so, we know post execution autgpsies by lethal injection have shown in many of these cases inmates were not given enough of e tranquilizer, the sedative to prevent pain from the third drug so when you start examining the monday and executions it is a process of torture no matter how you look at it.

>> and that three drug cocktail i think the most striking thing about it is veterinarn's don't use it any more to put animals downecause they clearly recognize it is a process that is potentially painful. when i look at the death penalty i wondered to myse what would you have a sentence on the books you can now take back if you discover a person isnnocent, if you have someone in prison and find out they did not rob the bank or they did not commit that assault you can release that person. if you find out after the fact an individual is innocent there is no way to take it back. you have killed that person. and i think tha is one of the things that kind of bothers me in the extreme about the death penalty and you know if you look at the dna accelerations most likely w probably have executed

innocent individuals and of course they got rid of the death penay in england when the clearly established that yes, they had on an innocent man. i think also we would like to touch on the crime victims' movement and in fact on page 160 in the book is what i call my husband's confession. he talks about the crime he committed d he talks about realizing that ultimately the terror of thatight after the crime was committed and then learning years later t effect that bullet had on the victim's family, because he realized after being allowed to see the victim's father at age 80 protesting his release at a

pardon board hearing that what he had done was he hadn't killed a man, he had destroyed family because they never got over it, never, and the old man at age 82 isbviously his grief was fresh so it's not that we would shy away from doing that or say that crimvictims do not have rights and should not be considered, bute do -- i do question certain elements involved in the crime victims' movemt. one of them being the way that all of that was typed by the media to the point that it's very interesting to note while the cri rate in this country was dropping bisect the can percentages by the 1990's we were walking up more and more and more peoe. and from what i bead in criminal justice bks there is no correlation necessarily between the two. if you are incarceration

increase is 1000% as one author on no claims during that tire period there is no connection between the two. but the crime victims' movement of course was aided by the media. the media discovered during that period of time thatit bleeds it leads and that what they did with crime and that ishe way they hyped it through that period of time. i will never forget as long as i live trying to cover one night while i was still in the news business what really was still the lead story about was the national ups strike had settled. it was over. and that story that i had that i had been covering for weeks didn't go on the air first. what went onheir first? if reporter had discovered a drop of dried blood on the

sidewalk to days after a drive-by shooting and that is what went on the air first and of course there's a very dramatic went to her life, panned down the sidewalk, showed thone spot of blood. then the ups strike went on the air and i had to do to more live shots because it was an important story but it stuck in my mind. i thought this is what happens, if it bleeds it leads and diebold going to the statistics now but you can clearly show everyone in the country believed that they were living through an era of unprecedented crime. there had never been a crime like that in the country we had to have these prisons and execute people in the lock everybody up who ran afoul of law in any way shape or form and the media is to a great extent responsible for that and once politicians figure out how we could get elected then you had

the double whammy going on and thatas a hard push for the crime victims' movement because that is legitimately a heart renderin tory. >> let me make this point,he's talking about the correlation between locking people up and out that time during the nineties we had a growing economy. everybody was doing good. we know during the clinton years with the economy was like. it was bustling. so it was easy to lock people up and build more prisons. it was easy to hand out the death seence. in fact in 1997 was the peak year of the public support for the death penalty which was 78%. now today with the economy having tanked we've got eight republican state senator in kansas introducing the law which

has been covered by "the new york times" and a number of other national media outlets saying we should do away with the death penalty now because it is too expensive and costly. so we have made a comple turnaroundrom a time when the society could afford to kill with liberty now that we don't have the money we want to spare these lis cause we have found out the cost of prosecuting a capital case and keeping an inmate confined on ath row up to decade is far more expensive than puttg them in prison in life without parole so now we have produced the issue down to the bear point. it costs too much. some years ago in the early 1980's when prison instry first came to pass and you had all these dramatic incrses in prison populations the former

corrections secrety and the corrections secretary, a gentleman named paul phelps and louisiana was the co-editor of the magazine annually at the time and he told myself and the co-editor there will come a time in this country, i may not be here to see it and you when the math wil catch up with society. the numbers will overwhelm society. and what do we see now as the ecomy is tanking? states are passing measures the can releashundreds of iates to save costs. you have states saying let's not execute them. it costs too much. the price is too costly in the stock your economic straits. >> you know what, i think this was a sort of huge shock to me. i am not a lawyer. billy is a very good paralegal after all those years p.a.

jailhouse lawyer and working for the firm he works with but i was enormously shocked to find out that innocence may not keep you out of the death chamber because due process y not protect you. you can say supreme court justices ruled that you can't execute mentally retarded. they've changed the age you can execute kids. now the cry has to be committed when someone is oldr and the age of 17 so i don't know what to do with offenders that murder at the age of 15 but the bottom line is there have been prosecutors in this country that have all argued that you got a fair trial even if it turns out later you are innocent that's too bad. >> there was a texas case years ago in the 90's i wan to say it

was handed out by the united states supreme court in which they did notirectly confront what is called the issue of actual innocence in other wds, if a death row inmate can show to the court that he is actually innocent is he entitled to habeas corpus relief? because that the only vehicle, the only remedy availableto a condemned inmate is hideous corps and federal courts ting to seek a new trial with his release based upon constitutional violation or error that occurred during his trial. and you can'tust some years ago and the assistant attorney general for the state of missouri argued before the missouri supreme court it makes no dference if a person is actually innocent that the state has the right to execute that person and one of the justices let -- said about me get this

straight if you know this man is innocent but he got a fair trial procedurally a fair trial he can be ecuted and the general said that is precisely what i am saying. so you have a number of prosecutors who subscribe to that principal notion that due process doesn't protect what is known as the actual innocence. if a person goes in and show us the dna exonerated and he he was in the person doing it and he did the cme, then he goes in and files a motion because some of these statutes have procedures set aside so the guy can go in and file because dna evidence but if he can gin and otherwise make the claim he is actual innocent and the state failed to prove his guilt and he can show through alibi evidence and what have you that he is innocent. but if he got a fair trial and

that is what the courts determined he is not entitled to rid of habeas corpus. and you've got a couple of case working their way through the system right now that they hope to put thessue squarely before the supreme court. does the due process protect those individuals determined to be actually innocent and to show that there are actually innocent people on death row since 1973 according to the death penalty information center, 130 inmates as of today in our book we use the number 126 but the number is now 130. 130 innocent people have been exonerated who previously had the dth sentence. are you going to tell me if you made 130 mistakes since 1933 you didn't execute an innocent man? but until we can show through the dna, the dna evidence is now

exonerated we can show an innocent man has actually been executed through some kind of dna evidence we will never accept prosecutors and the sesto will never accept that an innocent man has been execud. >> and i think phat one of the cases that fascinated me and i called it a case of cold-blooded murder on the part of the prosecutor, and that is one fatal shot with two killers and that hs a houston -- that is a harris county case. involving the o-called law of parties. willie ray williamsonfesses to guys go in to hold up and there's a fatal shot. >> al the kitties and in houston. >> so willie ray williams confesses i did it and he's tried and convicted and ultimatelyxecuted. then joseph nichols, he is tried

but ends up with a hun jury. sohen the harris county prosecutors go back and say guess what, the first confession was defective, it wasn't real. no they had been in court saying i the first trial the man was absolutely guilty. he absoluty confessed. there was absoluty no issue. now they come back and say that was a false confession. then they convict the second guy , and he ends up being executed under the distortion of the law of parties. so y say the joseph nichols case is a social and moral tragedy because the organized religious community in harris county black and white did not havehe moral coqrage to take a public sta against the execution. this was not a death penalty case in which the pro and con

arguments about capital punishment were debated. the nichols case is about the social obligation and moral duty owed to the community by its religious leaders to step forward and condemn the district attorney's tot disregard for the rule of law. the issue in the joseph nichols case there for was not so much whether he deserved to live or die. the issue is whether the rule of law, t spirit and letter should have been respected and honored by the courts don't to upld it. the execution of joseph nichols shows how callous prosecutors in texas can be by executing inmates whose cases raise probable claims of annocence, deplorable instances of ineffective assistance of counsel and proven examples of egregious prosecutorial misconduct. the sta's death machine marches relentlessly on and its determination to be the death penalty capital of the united

ates and a lot of texans seem to relis that. that case to me, on a e-mail to the dtrict attorney of harris coty and i wish i had brought with me protesting the case. rosenthal e-mail feedback about business on usual. he mailed me bac 14 e-mails i finally quit e-mail in him because he was claiming absolutely that thehad the right to execute this man and that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the district attorney. so my nal e-mail said prosecutors, you can become indicted and procuted in harris county if your presenting this to a grand jury is as easy inviting a ham sandwich, period. the final e-mail i got back from him was all caps, we have never

invited a ham sandwich and harris county. [laughter] that w how they handle that. >> and that is the truth. >> ithe nichols case it wa the first ti or the only time that i know of. i have never read or heard of any case where the state executed to inmates based upon the same prosecutorial theories each one of them fed the fatal shot. you had urtates have executed on numers occasions inmates that have been coconspirators or defendants' who went in and participated in a crime and under the party's you don't have to fire e fatal shot in order to be convicted and sentenced to death and executed. but for a prosecution to say that willie williams fired the fatal shot and carried out the

execution he fired theatal shot because the first trial ended in mistrial and wanted to comeack and make sure they secured the conviction to then turn around and repudiate the williams confession and say you didn't actually do it. nichols is the one that fired the fatal shot and to turnaround and convict him and execute him on that theory i don't know of any state that ever managed that. it is a very unique thing. but there's a couple of points. 1. i would like to make before it escapes my attention is jody was talng about the crime victims' movement and having taken a human life i would be less remiss if i didn't say something about it. and i had as jodie pointed out the crime victim family in my case for a number of years in fact all the way up on til the

day i was paroled, vigorously and my release from prison in fact they demanded the death sentence be imposed and when i was not carried out and i received a life sentence they felt cheated and when my life sentence was committed to 90 yearsnce again they felt the process failed them. when i was paroled they felt the process was made i was not meant to die. the victims' moveme from that perspective by understand their dend for revenge and feelings they have not had justice d one of the things jod poind out was 1990i was watching the local news and my hearing attracted local media attention on the local evening news. and i saw the victim's father. it was the first time i had seen

him since 1966 when i was convicted and he was in the courtroom during my trial and he and to the camera and was one of the most devastating comments i've heard in my life because when he looked into the camera he said that man killed my boy and to him it came down to that was the only issue that was important to him in this whole ocess. nothing else mattered to this particular individual accept i had killed his son. and that is when you learn when youommit a crime of violence you are not just hurting and you are not just destroying an individual. but you are a real way destroy a family and destroying

the very fabric of society. you've taken something away from our society. and while i spent four decades in prison, while i spent 40 years, 40 plus years in prison, it was a mercy i was released. the state of louisiana could have easily said we want him to die in pso we do notant him to be free again. they could have said that is a fair measure of punishment. that is justice and i cannot delete that issue and in fact in most instances when we are in public appearances talking abo that the death penalty i always refer to her to address the crime victims issue because anything i say comes across as self-serving but i did wt to make the point that to this day i will never forget that the

gentleman is pain and suffering and i will always know th act on december 5th, 1965 for ever separated me in a very real way from humanity that you are never the same, you never truly become part of man against clectively if there will always be something that separates me from you and i understand that and that is a tragedy that i will carry to my grave and it's a shame because it was something that i did. >> the final thing i would like to say in terms of coping that one day we can be rid of the death penalty in thi country is we have bee obsessed with it and ambivalent about it sce the founding of the cntry. and as we light on page 18

american history in the essays collected in the federalist papers alice alexander hamilton argues for ratifying the american constitution, which was not a foregone conclusion in 1788. he warned american law would be harsh unless theresident had the power to pardon criminals. amana see dictate that pardoni should be as littles possible fettered or in paris he reasoned the criminal country texas much necessary to the to severity without easy access to exhibition in favor of unfortunate guilt justice what we're accountants to sanguinary and cruel. so hamiltons argue reflected the constitutional need f reason and mercy and if you don't have that you have contempt.

the last thing i would say and think you foreing patient the two arguments against the death penalty that resonate with me, one is secular and o is religious. how do you show killing is wrong by killing someone? i would call that the secular argument. and the other is the religious argumef christ died to win forgiveness for sens who are we not to forget and those are the two argumts that stay with me. so if anybody has any questions we are happy to certainly answer the questions or if you would ke to get some wine we did bring som cookies because i understood there will be children although i love cookies myself. [laughter] i do know that other people have

enjoyed cookies so please, feel free. these are really heavy and disturbing issues d i think in writing the book probly the worst moment i have is discovering there are some people that actually believed theyzantine leaves condemned allied tonderstand a horrifying way what has taken place. i have a 99-year-oldousin, bless her heart, graduated from louisiana, and she stays up with everything. she is still very much mentally with us. who was so disturbed by that that i basically have not discussed anything else from this book with her because it was horrifying. >> not only are we taking questions butf anybody would like to ma a point. >> pro or c.

>> you tal about something of was th soaiological aspect and things have been written but i still have a question when you consider the extraordinary number of people on death row, people are poor an minorities do you feel that there is an element in the death penalty in this country? >> this book deals with -- there were so many issues we couldn't go into, definitely racism in the death penalty. and there is a case billy can talk about, theouarec, charles brooks, colin clark. >> charles brooks was the first person executed in this country in '82 by lethal injection by the state of texas. and in his case there were both these gentlemen talking about the parties will go, both of these gentlemen committed a robbery in which a victim w

killed and the prosecutorsever knew wch one of them actually fired the fatal shot that killed the victim. and so, brooks, who was black gold the death sentence. his partn, woody, received a life sentence. he was white. we would later say and so many people believe he actually fired the fatal shot and in fact the district attorney who prosecuted brooks went before the texas board of pardons and a gentleman named jack strickland i believe from karen county in fort worth went before the ard of pardons d said to this day they don't know who actually fired the fatal shot. brooks had an appeal before the fih circuit of appeals the issue in that case was thait was never established which one

of them actually fired the fatal shot until this issue could be resolved in his execution should not be carried out. and the urt of appeals rejected that issue and said it had little constitutional merit and they allowed tha execution to be carried out. in the meantime in louisiana, colin clark was seeking to be by his own reqst the first person executed in the state of louisiana. he ad askedis execution be rried out and h mother on his own behalf red an appeal and the federal courts seeking to stay the execution saying he wasn't mentally stable. well as this appea process worked its way through clark finally changed his mind. in that case ao this was to

gentlemen went into a red lobstein baton rouge and killed t manager of the red loter. no one knew who actuay fired the fal shot and stabbed the man to death. they knew that one of them did but they didn't know which one. clark was white. michael glover his defendant was white so in this case the white guy got the death sentence and the black guy got a life sentence, so clark appealed to the fifth circuit's, his attorneys, and raised the same identical issue raised by charles brooks on the morning of december 7th, shortly after midnight, 1982, charles propes was put to death in a texas death chamber. the same morni while on death row colin clark turned on his televisionlearn the same court of appeals on the same

issue ty had let brooks go to the death chamber to give gouarec a new trial so on the same day in america you have a black man that was executed and a white man was given a new trial. to be there are thousands of other instances but those two cases of execution carried out in one state to boarding states and one being given the new trial underscores and ilstrates the issue of raci as far as i am concerned. >> if you actually look at the death penalty is almost a regional sentence because it is the southern states that most often carry out the death penalty if you look at the statistics and certainly they e in this book i won't look th up at the moment by far the number of people that get executed are black people if you

look at the lynching that take place, southf flinching, clearly it stands out that racism is definitely in has been a feature of the death sentence. for example a black person can kill an entire black family and white district attorney will let him bleed out to reduce charges but another black person can kill one white victim and the district will demand the death penalty. so that is an issue we covered extensively in this book who gets the death sentence and what circumstans do they get and it's being carried out. so it is the same shameful history in this part of the

countr >> anything el? >> people feel like they have been hit with all these terrible facts. but i think it is important, and i truly do believe this no matter how people feel about the death penalty it should never -- it should always be a topic of discussion, always because you can't take the sentence back. so any new development and any all of the cases should be topic of discussion and we should never ever let ourselves let this becom monday and -- monday in. it'sne of the most important issues we face. >> of the 1100 executions carried out through november 30th, 2008 in this countr which was the cutoff datee've used in our book that

1135 executions more than 900 of them were carried out in the south. during the era when they have the deathenal for rape in this country of the 468 people put to death in this country, for rape, 405 of them were black. the people from 1930 throughp to 1977 who were executed in this coury for murder more than half of them were black so i think when he looked at the death penalty the first thing you have tonderstand the number one factor that plays in the decision making process who received the death penalty is the race not only of the offender but the race of the victim as well. the second thing is i believe it

is the social status of the victim. if you look at buddy roemer to the time he was governor and bless his heart because he commuted the life sentence and i will always be debted to him and respectful of him for doing that, but during his administration, the only inmate who received executives clemency at had a condemned inmate was a black inmate who killed a won in a housing project. nowwhen victims of crime or more often black people eight times more likely to be victims ofiolent crime in our society the vast majority of violent crime that occurs in the society occurs in the nation's 16

largest cities and mostly this violent crime is predonantly in our mority cmunities and as long as it is confined to the lowest socl order as long as it is blacks killing blacks or hispanics telling hispanics or even crossing those social and racial lines it becomes socially acceptable behavior prosutors will try them and put them in prison. the prisons are full of african-americs and hispanics who hav committed violent crimes but when it comes to handing out the death penalty, the only african-american or hispanic people that are going to receive the death penalty are those that cross over their counitieand went outside of their communities to kill white victs and particularly white

victims of social status. that is reality woven through all the statistics, and all you have to dos go down the list of people executed and look and see who the victims were. if you go back a look at where went down the list of thes, i victims that wepe executed in this country and when you look at the blacks killed with black victims and there was something as like to hundred sometng, around 246 if i am not mistaken, don't take me to bank onhat but it was over 200 black inmates put to death most of those casesnvolved multiple victims. more than one victim. the only reason they were executed was because they killed multiple victims. and you have only had a relatively smallumber, in my

memory right now you only have a small number of people, white paople who fed executed for killing black victims in this country. so when you start looking at the statistics, the coldblooded reality behind the system and see the kind of the rule that race has played in the administration of capital punishment in the society. >> thank you for coming. the history of capital punishment and as gracia as we can compress into these 14 essays. it stated upntil the book actually went to print this fall. this is as concise else you are going to get on the death penalty in this country and e way that it has been handled since literally since we became a country, and i certainly hope we all getut of this recession before it turns in a depression. but the one argument that i can

think of that would favor a continued state of recsion is that states may recent the death penalty because it co $3 million to execute somebody versus $0 million to lea them locked up. thank you very much. >> one final note before we close. jodie and i were talking about the cost factor but i do believe inhat i am afraid is that as the economy titans, and right now we kno dollars hour precious and the competition for those dollars and circulation is becoming more and more intense. people w make crime a way of life depend upon those flow of dollars ands the flow of dollars shrink they become more desperate and more violent i their effort to get their share no matter how criminal it may be

to get what they feel is their share of the capitol. and so, you know, you see in mexico what's happeni. mexico you almost had a total collapse of organized society. because the violent gangs do not want to give up control of the wealth that they have. in this country i think that we may see as our economy forces cutbacks in the law enforcement and oth community services that you are going to see an increa in our crime rate, and i think it will be a more violent increase and i hope that doesn't -- hope that doesn't happen. [applause] ..

>> welcome. tonight we have t writers. one is a novelist ask one is a memoir writer but they actually both work very similar terrain. th first reader is matthew goodman and he's written a book called "hold love strong" b touchstone books and it said in a fictional housing project in queens and it is a retelling of the biblicaltory of abraham and it's just out. matthew grewp near ghite plains and lives now in brooklyn and spent six years or so working with prisoners who have just been released from prison. and look forward to hearing

him read. here'satthew goodman. [applause] >> how's everyone? >> good, good. >> so this is the second time i guess i've read from th. the first time it was my parents and friends. so you always get a good response from them because they have to love you. so hopefully you don't have to love me but maybe for five minutes you just listen. so this is a story about a young man named aabraham and his family they live in fictional housing projects called ever park and he lives there with his grandmother his two cousins, his aunts, his uncle and himself. and i'll begin basically the beginning of the book. e scene he's born. his mother is 13 years old. and she's going to give birth to him in the bathroom of their apartmentnd his

grandma who i 30 is going deliver the child so this is where it begin in the bathroom my grandma and my aunt rhonda hemimother take off her clothes my shirt too asked my mother? shirt too ordered any grandma unless you've got the money to pay for a new one if it gets bloody. so off came my mother's shirt and for a moment my grandma and aunt and my mother just stood there three proximatehades of brown women. hughes in a small plain bathroom with white calls walls a white porcelain sink a white bathtub and a white toilet with a broken black plastic seat my grand ma and aunt rhonda looked a it my mother who looking in the bathroom mirror lked at herself as well. in addition to the disposition and body type of my grandma my mother was the color of an old penny at the bottom of a wishing well equally she reflected and absorbed sunshine, street lights and the hopes of those who wished upon her and then cast her off.

her eyes and lips her nose shoulders and breasts even her thighs and hips were shaped like new leas full yet still timid still approaching their eventual lustrous peak. my granda snatched a red ba towel from the back of the bathroom door and put it on the floor here she decided lay down on this and rhonda get behind her and hold her that baby's coming. i can feel it. we ain't got much time. my mother laid down. the bathroom was so small her head krolsed the threshold of its doorway. behind my mother on her knees wrapping her arms arounder and wedging her thighs against my mothes back my aunt rhonda neiled on the coarse gray carpet of the living room my grandma stepped into the bathtub. she hiked her skirt up over her knees squatted and put my mother's ankles on her shlders. lord have mercy she said. lord have some -- mercy on me. my mother sweated and

writhed from the paint. another contraction came and went and then she curse and screamed and told my grandma she didn't want to live no more. jelly shut your mouth demanded my grandma. stop thinking about yourself. you're about to be mother. onhe couch donell asked question after question and eric awoke and hollered for my automobile rhonda. he reached for her. heought to get out of my uncle roosevelt's arms my uncle tried to keep them calm. he hushed them. he softly sangerses of spontaneously composed lull la buys. tried to remine my cousins about the movie they just saw h e.t. had a magic finger and loved reeses pieces candy. my mother quaked with anher contraction and she moaned and rolled her head from side to side as if her neck and spine were suddenly severed and then she developed looked down at the round mound of her belly her eyes so wide it seemed she was surprised by theight. she put her hands-on it and with her fingers spread as

wide as they could stret my mother began to woep but it was not woeping caused by physical pain or by ignorance or even a e weeing causedded by fear my mother wept because although she was still a child she had enough sense to understand she was not prepared to shape my life. she couldn't multimy or divide. she didn't know north, south, east or west. she couldn't tell time on a regur ock. this is not to say she was dumb. in fact my mher was brilliant so smart she could remember all of the words in a song after hearing it just once. when my mother washen was the product of low pectations. she had been failed so she had failed. ajd yet social promotion she had just completed t 7th grade. but when she felt weak. en sheelt hopeless and useless and begged my grandma to makehe pain stop t let her quit. my grandma said no. my mother couldn't stop not even if great god almighty

himself said she could quit an so because my grandma was not the type of woman anyone could disregard my mother pushed with her life. she clenched the air in her first ifs she gritted her teeth. she closed her eyes so together aly she saw erything she'd ever wished to see. efery mountain and ocean. every sandy beach, tropical waterfall. elephants lions and giraffes in africa. she s jesus. she shook president ri gan's -- reagan's hand. she saw the statue of liberty whers a car ark fur coat a collie like lassie. she saw herself as a movie star. her toes curled her cal fs clamped her headecame a volcano burstinglood she saw her dreams sheelt their temperature she smelled them my grandma saw my head. she took it in he hands and pulled gently then holding one hand up as if halting a train she shouted stop. every muscle in my mother's

body went limpy up bill cal cord was wrapped twice around my neck my mother's pushing combined with my twisting and turning was killing me. i was being lynched and i was hanging myself. my face was the color of an electric blue. one more push or pull, one more twist and i was dead. my mother begged to understand what was happening. momma she said propping herself on her elbows momma please, what's wrong asked rhonda. ma, what is it? my grandma breathed deep. shhh both of you. let me think. outside of the bathroom eric stopped hollering darnell stopped asking questions and my uncle roosevelt stopped hushing and singing lull la buys. all of everett park all of queens went silent. th in through the door burst sherry our neighbor. they coming she shouted. an ambulance is on the way my aunt rhonda looked over

her shoulder at sure ri. her eyes demanding silence. sherry stopped in the middle of the livg room. what's going on she said. her voice a fraction of its eceding size. in the bathroom my grandma looked up at the ceiling god she whispered, jesus somebody please help me save this child. my grandma took one deep breath, closed her eyes and made is same prayer say silently tn she opened her eyes gently held my head and slowly dre my shoulders free. she paused to think what next? what could she possibly do? the umbilical cord was taught. she cupped herand beneath me breathed and then cautiously guiding me in an unhurried sommer salt she turned me upside-down, freed my legs and unwound the umbilical cord from my neck. my grandma saved me from that which fed and kept me for first nine months of my life. she clear my nos rils and

u -- nos tir rils andith her pinkie and wiped the blood with a head roosevelt she call out get me a knife a sha one, one of the once the wooden handles but it wasn't my uncle who brought my grandmahe knife it was darnell like a miniature mercury he burst into the bathroom and held the knife out to her then stood on his tip toes and look at the new life my gndma cradled to her chest. this yr baby cousin she said. she pushed me into his arms. now love strong. darnell held me against h chest like a ball of loose yarn and my grandma cut my umbilical cord and left me the ugliest outty the world has ever seen. she washed me in the sink and handed me to my mother and as my mother held me on the floor in the bathroom as she wept and dealt with the awe of my making rhonda asked what my name should be because my mother had not yet been abl to settle on e. abra ma'am -- abraham my

grand ma announced like the president rhonda ask? no, said my gndma like the old man in the bible who god said was going to be the father of a great people as numerous as the stars. so that's h birth. i'm going to jump ahead 8 years. so his cousin darnell is now, he was 4 years old at his birth and is 8 years later so he's now 12. and dar just got beat up really bad and in his decision to defend himself he's decided to work out a the time. and so he's just come back. it's like the late spring or it's june. abraham is 8 and darnell is like 14 -- or 12. sore i'm bad at math. he's 12 and just come back into the apartment after running up and down the stairs with bricks in his handso sort of build up his strength an@ the electricity is out in the apartment and abraham has been sitting in the kich within his mother doing his homework in the dark except

for when the electricity is out in the apartmenthe grandma has, you know, those candles you c get at the corner store the 99 cent candles with all the patron saint on them. he's sitti at the kitchen doing his homework by that candlelight and darnell has just come home and told him at someone put one of those plastic kid pools on the roof and he's talked abraham, his mother and his mother to come up and go swimming in this pool. its also this is the same time in new york city's story when we had our first plaque major -- black mayor which was david den kins if anyone knows the histor of that when david den kins became president it was also a prey bad recession in the city and there were tons of job cuts and abraham's grandma wked at the hospital doing laundry and she lost her job. so this is eight years later and they're onhe roof of the building.

so it's abraham was 8, his mother which -- who is now i guess 21 his cousin darnell who is 12 and his grama who is i guess about 38 now. and they're all getting into this kid pool. >> we squatted and sat down in the water and our legs touched in the middle of the pool. the kid pool was the first pool i'd ever been in tt wasn't packed with peopl on a hot summer day. brimming with children splashing and ping and seeing who hold their breath longer with teenagers wrestling each other with mothers holding infants i was conditioned to be one of ny. to be of the masses to be crammed in and to call such conditions relief. to know crowds as home. my mother, grandma and darnell whispered and cursed everett. how strange it was when the heat was broken t elevator ran smoothly. darnell talked like an adult like he was husband and they

were his wives. he cotld do at. he had an ability to speak in the manner and on the terms of those he was with. i half listened and looked up at the sky. watched the lights of airplanes blink through the blackness. wondering who went where. you all right asked darndll. flicking water ony face and shifting the conversation to me. yeah, i said meeting his eyes. why? he shied his eyeso my mother and laughed a tumble of breath. abraham can be so quiet. can't he. he's always been tt way my grabbed ma said said my mother reached over to me pressed and slid her wet hand down my ear and cheek and along the line of my jaw. she said calling me by the name she used or the for me when when she wished to tell me how much she loved me or chose not to or could not say the words. darnell s himself around in the pool. hooked his legs over its plastic wall and leaned backwards into the water he floated on his back his arms at his sides.

his head in the middle of the pool. the only sound was the waves made by darnell's movement. the water lapping agast r bodies and the walls of the pool. look at the moon he said talking louder than necessary because his ears were submerged in the water. the moon wasearly full. ke someone had punched a hole in the black night and there was white on the other side. my mother laid her arms along the edge of t pool leaned back and looked up. sometimes don't it look so close. you can touch it she asked. darnell turned to his side ansplashed water at me. lay on your bad he said. it's nice. there' nothing to be scared of. who sai i'm scared i snapped. darnell lifted his legs from the edge turned and quickly sat on his news. here he said laying his hands on the surface of t water lean back. i got you. lean back and put your feet up. you going to pull your hands away i said. i got you h said. trust me. i turned around bent my

knees over the lip of the pool and looked over my shoulder at darnell. come on he said. sometime before i'm dead. i leaned and lowered myself until i felt the tip of darnell's fingers and then the flat of his hands against my back. slly he lowered me. abraham my grandma laughed open your eyes. they're open i said. then open them wider darnell order. i opened my eyes as wide as i cou and bathe he said. i breathed. the surface of the water hovered an inch from the corner of my eyes. twoncs from the sides of my nostrils and half an inch from the cner of my lifes -- of my lips. my ears were underwater all sound was muffleed. it was wonderful. peace. all right darnell said i'm ing to let go. i felt his hands leave my body and then water rippled against my skin when he rerned to lying on his back. imagine doing this in the ocean he announced making sure to speak loud enough for me to hear. what if you got tired i

shoulded back- shouted back. then you climb onto your boat he answered. what's got a boat laughed my grandma. in the ocean darnell said you can have whatever you want. abraham, what do you want? i thought far moment. i wanted whateve he wanted. whatever he needed. i don't know i said. what you want? who he said. you scolding my mother unless you see someone else in this pool. all i see is the sky darnell said. there could be thousands of people in this water for all i know. so what you want i asked again. a boat for one thing said darnell and then after a brief pause he added and a trumpet. >> a trumpet m grandma said? if i had a trumpet darnell began. if you had a trumpet what my grandma interrupted. siddenly police sirens burned the night. broke us from below. jesus why mother sighed why they always got to be -- everything up. never have i been so still

so weighless never have i been in the pool of rost roof of ever. i look at the pool one last time and then i closed my eyes ias surroun. floating in darkness the t whale of the sirens faded and disappeared and i waid for someone to speak to say anything to overcome the silence to speak before police sirens arrived again. so my grandma fally said what are you going to do with your trumpet? if i had a trumpet darnell answered his voice soft and longing, if i had a trumpet, i don't know. thank you. [applause] >>. >> that was great. august in new york a doing -- a dangerous time for one's

menpal health just like most months actually and it was one fest erg august 6 or 7 years ago when i first met cadillac. i was taking a srtcut through the alley that ran below the via duct that cups across history ya on my way back to my apartment having just returned to the city from twoeek at the beach down south with m friends and family. i was in one of those just back in the city and what am i doing with my life states of mind heading back through the rancid air to my unair-conditioned apartment which was gng to look exactly like it had when i left becase i lived alone. which met i was sort of returning to a tomb of my own making an airless museum that featured teetering stacks of magazines, books and newapers and dust balls as big as tumbleweeds rolling down the hall. i rekilled the wisdom of some fellow --rue solitude is when no one anywhere is waiting for you and that was my state. so true i thought.

so true. i figured that an ice cold bath and an ice cold ginnd tonic was going to be necessary for me to successfully accomplish new york reentry. it was in the midst of such y us -- joyous reflection that i rounded the corner where a homeless man under the via duct greeted me like a long st relative. did you have a good vacation he asked. you've been gone for, what two weeks? i stopped in my tracks. wow. maybe this guy was homeless, maybe all his possessions were in a lear shopping cart that he had borrowed from costco but he sure was friendly. in fact, he seemed to be a one manuel come wagon with direct access the my subconscious. how i lovenew york. those of you who already know cadillac understand that in another life he must have been a great politician a truman of the people. -- true man of the people. maybe from the days of boss

tweed and hallre the irish still ruled. aprently cadillac is one of those great old irish names. he canell you exactly how he inherited i and that even no he could probably beat our local councilman peter without having to change any electoral laws in the process. he shakes hands, he kisses bies he consoles the sad and he comforts the lonel i've seen him do it many of times. and that august day six or seven years ago he began to work his magic on me. we struck up an acquaintance that developed into a friendship. it seems tha homeless guys and freelance writers which is what i was haveore than a little bit in common. cadillac probably made more money than i did through his canning whicn a good day could bring in about $100. but neither of us was exactly rolling in the dough. and isften the case with freelance writers that i know cadillac and always had time in the middle of

the day to shoot the breeze for hours solving the world's problems if not our own. one morning when we met under the via duct i noticed he as opposed to me actually writing damnim the one of those old-fashioned spiral notebooks. what's that you're doing i asked? and he told me. he was writing the story of his lif as a homeless man. by that point he'd been on the seets for close to a decade and as i was eventually to discover he believed that he was faded to die out there. and as a result he wanted to leave a record of his time on the streets to his three daughters. he hopedhen the authorities discovered his bodi before they had shifted out for burial to the poters field on an island "the land of the lost" "the land of the st" souls title of the book. which is where he believed he was going to be buried in a plywood coffin laid into a long trenched -- trench dug

by prisoners from. before that happened cadillac hoped somne might find the notebooks on his body and instead of throwing them in the garbage deliver them miraculously to his daughters. but i didn't know that then. then i just knew he was one more aspiring writer on the block. everybody in norng -- in new york it seems has a manuscript. even the homeless guys. but for some reason i said to him words that as a former editor i try never to say to anyone if youver want me to take a look at it i'd be happyo. and i said this as softly as could. i actually mumbled it. but he apparently heard because a few months later cadillac handled me a notebook and i took it home toead. my deal with myself that night was that i would read only until got bored and so i sat down and started to read what turned out to be the story of his relationship with penny a runaway with whom he fell in

love during his early days on the street. and this long before carol his current live -- love. and it's now one of the final chapters of the "land of the lost souls". i read it with increasing excitement. enough so to send it eventually to mark at "esquire" who would eventually run an excerpt and the to nick at blooms bury who gloriously saw fit to make at it book. the handwriting was a little gnarled as befits a hand that has delivered a punch or two in its time but there was a story there wh dialogue with whit and had the sensibility of an older no,. -- new york.ñr it was courtly and slangy at the same time. like somhing out ofamien runnion. if damon runnion had been a homeless guy in love with a runaway. the next day i went back to cadillac and asked if he had any more to readnd he did lots more it turns out. hundreds of pages as it turned out. pages about strilth straigh fights about wizards and

lost old men who talk to themselves who drank and lived alone about street walkers and pumps about how much you can come to hate christmas music whenou're homeless. about how to find a safe place to sleep at night and about how to liv with loneliness a how to make friends wherever life takes you. it's not allad times o on the street either. there's also frae don't anded a venn -- freedom and adventure and ka rousing which is one reason why i think cadillacas soft spot for life out there to this day. his colleague on the street include such characters as old crow, rubber man, chocolate milk, bones, shaky detroit and twinkie among others. and sr all there as large as myth in the "land of the lost souls" which cadillac imposed outside under the via duct in all weathers in between shaking hands and kissing babies and joking withnd comforting and

consoling those of us who walked past him. "the land of the lost" souls a hard and magnificent book shows that the line between home and homelessness is as thin as a few bad weeks and as long as a letime. but also a this is maybe more important that home can be made anywhere a man or a woman is brave and intrepid and curious enough to make one. so tonht i give you man who was brave and intrepid and curious enough to do just that my friend cadillac man. [applause] >> gosh, how can i compete with that? i love you my broth, i really do thanks so much everybody for being here.

wow, how can i top him. i mean, wow. the book, yeah. just in case if you didn't see it when you came in there is. the cover. anyway, i'm going to be talking about the very beginning with my life out on the streets starting in 1994 and then slowly go into the later years. if i get a little nervous just bear with me maybe it's my teeth that's a little loose. i don't know. i was 44hen i came out on the strts. before then i had a whole life. maybe a lot like yours. childhood growing up, sometime in the army, jobs, sometimes and three beautiful kids. one way too early when i was 14 and two others fromy

previous marriages. .. desota is hard to describe him

now. he had believed sixd, in his 30s with red hair, receding. he will put the lampert delhi served in world war ii. aloha i know because one tony tactileldone to the brooklyn navy yard. i wanted to golden, but he justifheld me up in the distance. everybodyas afraid of him. but when he was sober he was a real nice guy. linney hattie fueling him, he would mumble and crumble in scare people off. but that did not bother me. he got stopped by the police one night, a filthy dirty and everyone said that he was a bum. but, i never looked at a person that way in my mind. he is an alcoholic. when dey he told me, i am going to show you how to make some money and we went to the garbage cans and picked up the bottles. the little bottles were 2 cents, in the greatig bottles were 5 cents. oberoi, i thought, this is money

here. back in 1960 fugate me quarter, i was in seventh hean. do you know, candy i can get for a quarter? candy was two for a penny a a soda was in a cult. what happened all these years? everybody was a drinker bac th and there was a haiti party, so there was always models around. some days we would make a dollar easy. we usually didn't have to go that far. there werelaces in the neighborhood that we would cash in the bottles. i knew a lot of people and they liked me because i was equ little boyith red hair and freckles and i looked like how do you duty. i hope nobody remembers how do you duty here. but i am still queued anyway. joe would wait outside. joe would get his beehrs, he would go to theiquor store and get a bottle of wild iri rose.

they still that-- that was one of his favorit40 cents a pint, real, cheat stuff. and then, whatever money was left over was for me. although once in a while he would say, get your cigarettes too, joe. so i would just be happy number one, just having the company and number two, get whatever moy and made after he got his whine and smokes. eating was out o the equation. i had never seen him he anything. so he actually taught me about recycling. 34ears later i would be glad for the things that he taught me. the first morning i was on the streets, on the upper eastide, the security "me up and told me to get out of here. i must have had mbe $2. i remember getting peanut butter

cracrs that were 25 cents a pack and that helped. for cigarettes, i was picking the bugs off the seets. i did that for many years. mita even had, with cigarettes going up to $10 a pack. that first morning i was saying, wait a minute, i need some money to survive. i know i couldn't panhandle. to me that was th s down to go over and ask somebody, can you spare a quarter or a dime and i still can't, and i never will. i am proud of it. but they knew about county. during a walbout in the flood ioticed a beer distributor that there was a gro of homeless and they were putting allhese cans into one of these cardboard containers and they were going inside the store hank coming out vith cash. with when i was living at home, it never really occurred to me to do somhing like that. whenever i had an empty can or

bottle i would put it in the trash. but when i hit the streets i was saying to myself, this is an excellent source of income. so the first time in 34 years i stard canning. after while, homelessness becomes way of life. in the very beginning, i was content with making five, $10 a day but as te went on, i had a lot of time to kill, so i would spend more of it out there canning. it was something to do. so i easily make $50 a day minimum. most people don't have any idea how much money you can mak out there. i called it nickel have the income of 5 centa can. there were times when i could easily make 80 to 100. i found myself a nice big cardin, sitting by its onesome

on the corner, near the anp on ninth avenue. i used it for cning. on any given day i did at least 15 or 20 miles, walk, walk, walk, just load up the card. i would can find mccain's in front the residents. you can get bs right outf the trash ans from people at the redeemer, after they were done cashing in. later i would sometimes find some restaurants that would give me hands but that wa very rare. for the mt part i would stop in front of a residence, looking the recycled barrel and also at the wastepaper baskets where people wou be dumping. it is all tax free. and but it takes time and energy. you wa to make 50 bucks a day, you are going to have to work, meaning what. i wi give you an example. later on i had a map of queens when t department of sanitation.

this map told you what days everybody puts out the cans and bottles in any given location so every so often i would walk and from story to flushing, a little over three hours collecting cans along the way. there were times where i couldn't even get to flushing. i had so much stuff that i had to turn back. iould go to the redeemer, unload some of it and then go right back to another area. sometimes i would work 24 hours straight because canning ge me something to do. yoknow one of your worst enemies out there is boredom and bill lonely ms. too. and it hit me hard in the first couple of months out there. nobody was talking t me, i mean nobody. when y are homeless who would talk to you? ople don't even want to see you. so sometimes youay not realize it, you will be talking out loud

to nobody. you ar just getting it out of your system. it was just like this guy at the meat market that i used to work get named bernie. he used to work in the freezer and nobody wanted to go down there. it was too cold, below is the ro down there. whenever somebody needed some think they would go and call bernie, put this on the evator. but i would go down the on occasion and he would be having conversations. i would be looking in there and saying, who is he tking to? the same thing on the streets. it gets lonely out here. the closest i ever got to a conversation with anyone was when somebody was going by and they took a look at me and started laughing, laughing at me. my first week of tribe gnat my bortz-- i was sleeping in front of this bank on park avenue between 47 and 48. every night this guy would come

over with a sandwih. he would sa, here you go you bump, here you go. nice, nice sandwich, and then one day i decided i am going to see what this guy looks like. i opened up my eyes would and i freaked out. i am a been shaking right now. he looke like something out of a quorum of the, lipstick, tattoos all over his face. this guy look like a complete psychopath and i said to myself, that is that. i have to get out of here because this gus goin to kill me in my sleep one day. still it was good to have some kind of human contact. and i didn't have much bad it really helps that i kept a journal for my day to day activities, but mostly i went canning. filly, by word of mouth, and observing other homeless i found the places i could get myself a hot meal so i couldave money

there. it is hard out here in queens where i live now. there are no places to eat a hot meal unless you go way out into jamaica. there is nothing in historic, long island city, koranic, jackson heights, nothing but in manhattan and parts of the bronx mike-it was every third or fourth block you can get something deet, paradise. maybe that is why i gain smuch weight. so it was impossible r you to start. there were times that would go into a restaurant, som places would serve me, others wldn't. i must admit i did look like a maniac with my beard and everything else. but i was trying to keep myself clean. the main thing that worri me, gosh, that was so hard. butven after two weeks i consider myself street. i lik the lifestyle e first couplof days i was sleeping on a piece of cardboard and thereter my travels i came

across a dilapidated beach c and i said, i could use this for a bed. that same day i came acro these banners that macy's throughout. it w in macy's clearance day i was looking at tm and, i could use these forlankets. so now i have goa dilapidated beach chair and i have got blankets. so what the heck, what else do i need? everything was falling into place for me. i found it very enjoyable that i could adapt to it. there were a few inconveniences but other than that everything was fine. watching was the biggest inconvenience going. i would go in the fast food places, for five minute rob doug were you take off your shirt and wash your armpits and wah between your legs and that is that. it madehe situation more bearable.

alright, mike closer dreeben at least i have got a somewhat clean body even though it is between my legs underneath my armpits. ther were even places along sih avenue where they used to have these outdoor water displays. i think they still have them. it was 2:00 in the morning and i figured, iwas going to be around? go right in there and that is all. boy, that water was cold b during the summertime it feels good. i had a bar of soap with me. i could be and therefore a good te minutes, wash behind my earssh my hair and everything, even don't underneath the water. great. ere were times when they-- would come out and act rough and tough and they would come out and say what in the heck do you think you are doing? in fact one time they call the cops on me. the cops came in the security was proud of themselves in the cops told them, don't worry, we will take care of this.

then they would look at me and sa you have got to minutes. get the heck out of here. t it was a convenience. little by little, i figured out how to do everything. i feelo free. nobody riding my back saying, do this, to this, do that, o that. i did whenever i wanted to do and th didn't have to answer to anybody. i was free. you had so much freedom, so much time. out in the streets i could basically come and go as they please today i will be going tqueens and maybe tomorrow i will be going to brooklyn and eaybe the next day i will be going to staten island. this last section found home at last.

from 99 to 2002 i moved around a lot before a really settled down. i went back to ll's kitchen for a while and then i went to brooklyn. i was out there for a couple o months, in coney island for a while, and i was even in new york, east new york too wehrey stuck out le an oreo cookie but i got along good with the people over there. and manhatten i wentto look fo some old friends but no luck. we were like nomads for t most part but i was sghtly disappointed when i got over there and nobody was around. of course i went to central park and there were new street people over there. i really didn't want to make their acquaintae. so i went to brooklyn and hung out atrospect pk. from brooklyn i went up to the bronx over to-- and i was therefore little while and then i went back to he's kitchen again, then from there i came

not to a story of. in those years, i would just be free. one place one day and another place the next. i slept everywhere. the were tim where i would be sleeping underneath travelers, behind the big wheels and nobody would notice me there because i wore dark clothi and dark blankets. anything n to bring to much attention to myself. i slept in garages for code you could hide in people's backyard provided you conceal yourself very well. i spena couple of nights in old maintenance rans underneath the triborough bridge. if anything else was opened i wod be over at the cemeteries. i think i visited every cemetery there is. i like the calry cemetery in woodside or st. mike's and has story. theroux several flights places in brooklyn, like greenwood.

who was ing to bother you? the dead are not going to bother you. in some cemeteries they have security guards but it might they don't want to go out there and check the grounds. i wonder why? they are staying in their shapes so cemetery is the perfect place to hide in you can get plenty of rest. at st. mike's, i slept in the mausoleums. one night i slept betwe the two coffins. it was a husband and wife, but no big deal. they didn't mind. alright, there was a little bit of a musky odor in there, but other than that no problem. then the we times in brooklyn that i was just so tired i even slept in open graves. it was just likwhen you were in the army. they may do dig a fox hole and he slept in it, so what the heck is the difference, a fox hole, a great. a whole is a poll. [laughter] beh you know they are going to

put somebody in there the next day so in the meantime i may as well go in there. believe it or not it is warm, not warm, warm. you still need a blanket in the and it is not draftee cemeteries are a good place to stay. park stu. centralark is ideal because it is so big and decreasing over there doesn't have enough manpower to cover the whole area and the parks department does not have that many people. in fact, i don't think they even were it not, just meiners but in you can hide in t shadows. prospect park was not a great one. the bigger the part, the better. is dori apart is t good. in fact the remember when used to go canning bear the cops used to yell at me for going down therefter midnight. they said, what are you, crazy? coming down here canning with all the tuble that don-- goes on over he?

>> duguid a good job at the 114 patrolling it but you still hear what goes on the when the cops leave, t like little get together is and the drugs then maybe on occasion in muddying. central park back in the '70s and '80s, forget about it, in your life wasn't worth a nickel. if you went through there after dark. now it is like little house on the prairie over there. but still a lot of people won't go in tre at night, so that is a plus for the seet people because they know they want the hale by one of the outsiders going jogging. you know, i just saw a street person sleeping behind those bushes over there. it never fails, it never fails. there were so nyubbyholes and places to hide. i settled here the to the underneath the viaduct were live

now. before that i was going to months here, three months there but when i hit the streets had no particular destination in mind. you know, i would go to one place and i would say well, this is a good place to plop down. al was focused on was getting some sleep, but now with the wintertime here, i had several places i could stay where i am away from the elements. i feel safe there. that is the key, to feel safe. the viaduct on 33rd street and 23rd avenue, is painted yellow with murals on both sides. on one side is a big be and white greek painting with some statues and the word athens. there are lots ofreat people that live in the neighborhood. on the other se were parked my wagon it used to have a beautiful mural of a firemen and policemen holding up american flags. last year some kids painted over

it wit some political thing where bush and hillary were fighting it out. i don't like it as much. but still, this is my place. this is where people come and see me in the evenings, all the birds in the railway trestle start to sing as they are gettinready to go to sleep ago you wouldn't believe the noise in the mornings too. the story is myomfort zone. we areery territorialmy people, absolutely territorial. when it plant myself down underneath the viaduct, i say that is it, im staying right here. no way am i leaving. especially theay i am treated by the people. you know something? i like you hear. saying these people, how concerned they are, and that is no b.s.. it is genuine concern. a while back i finally cemented the back of my wheels of my car in place. i am not gng anywhe.

thank you.

spiezidawood we are doing is one of our final days of shooting her documentary on the supreme court. we have been therfor about two months in different oms and spaces of the court as well as talking with folly talked with nine of the justis about their job to give us an inside one of the and dukhov accord operates fa the processes of the core dhumanizing it and what we are doing as if describing aouple of final shots and we are going to add to the documentary. supreme court week starting october 4th on c-span. >> coming up next, booktv presentsfter words, an

hourlong interview program where we invite guest host to interview the author of a new book. this week from bookexpo america in w york city ben mezrich recounts the creion of a social networking sit the fabook in the accidental billionaires'. mr. mezrich details the ascendancy of the web site from its beginnings as the members only service for harva university students to its current international status and profile several of the principal players including facebook's transea, marks tucker burt. ben mezrich discuss his book with a.j. and author of the year of living biblically in the know-it-all. >> host: hello, my name is a.j. jacobs. welcome to booktv's after words. i am the author of the year of living biblilly and the upcoming dan fig diaries in here today wh ben mezch was with a very interesting book about the founding of facebook.

it is called the accidenta billionaires'. lcome. >> guest: thank you very much. >> host: as our viewers may know you have pretty much created your o litary genre of the financial thriller, these books about the young men who beat t system somehow, make a ton of cash, get drunk elock, data lot of supermodels. >> guest: i write about young kids doing wild things on that gray area between legal and illegal but their yemeni-- yoon usually geniuses and i am interested in people who make fortunes because it is more fun to hang out with grady which friends anfal them in their joneys as they do crazy things but i like to think of it as my own genre, sort of like, it is action thrillers but they are all true, nonfiction narrative, andome people have called it-- but i think it is more--

>> host: can we say that on c-span? >> guest: it is what guys like to read because young guys to make fortunes do wild things but it is hofully oaderhan that. >> host: your most famous is probably-- a. >> guest "bringing down the house" about the mit kids wh pulled off the biggest scheme. it came out of nowhere. i s hanging out in a bar for these kids came out and there they kiki mit kids who does ted tons of money. i couldn't figure out why and it was always 100-dollar bills and a boston you never see 100-dollar bills and in new york or washington d.c. 100-dollar bills. in boston you never see them, and i went over to this kids house and he had to enter the $50,00 in bandit stacks of hundreds sting above his laundry and i followed them today is. ey made about $6 million aying blackjack and i joined the team for six months and then go into it and that is where the story came from. >> host: this new book, where

did this come from? >> guest: i got an e-il it 2 in the morning and i was sitting home on my web site, get bizarre e-mails and this kid, a senior at harvard and i've got a great story for you. you hear that all the time so you are not that excited but i met this kid for a drink any shows up with this gawky kid it was the cofounder of facebook but no one had ever ard of him because everyone knows mark zuckerberg nobody knows the other kid. he was there in the beginning and he told me this wild story. i love facebook and i was a big fan of it and used it so once i heard how it happened i justas pulled into it. >> host: and that was eduardo? >> guest: guys ste.msre eduardo severin and he was the brazilian kit to it move to miami and he and mark mad in an underground jewish fraternity. they were trying to make it harvard and being cooler people than thewere and edwards nted to get into one of the final club and that is one of the themes throughout the book.

>> host: i want to get to eduardo but i want to start with mark zuckerberg who everyone knows, and the story abo the first nig when the seeds of facebook or planted. it is really an astoun@ing story. can you talk about that? >> guest: it basically started with a colge prank in rk zuckerberg, who is a brilliant couter guy, there had been rumors whe he was in high school he was on the fbi hackers less than that kind of thing >> host: in turn down $1 million. guest: he came up with software for an mp3 player and microsoft offered him a million dollars ford and he just turned it down and gave it away for free. and no one really knew why but it kind of feeds into the marks. he is not really into money. he is not a money die, so at harvard he basically hacke into, it was 2:00 in the morning, ande was kind of truck and the hacked into all of the computers at harvard inct

all of the pictures of the girls anmade a hot or not web site, and this was like a prank. you could go on and go for which girl was hotter. he didn't mean to e-mail it out to everybody. e-mailed it to a couple of friends but it ended up spreading all over campus and by the end of the nightt had 20,000 hits. if it closed down, shut down harvard's computer system because there we so many hit so he basically freaked out and turned it off but he ended up almost being kicked out of school. that was the feed thphase but because after that he thought, one of curls the but their own pictures of and that was essentially how facebook started. >> guest >> host: one of the most amazing things to me as we hav this blog is he is creating this sort of pre-facebook facebook. talking about how he is have a few beers, and this woman had spurred him. >> guest: while he was programming he was blogging.

it is a twitter. you always put why do you are doing at all times on mind. while he was creating this hacky was writing about it on the block in the blog that exist today, i was able to get i it is a court document. what is great about this book, there has been a lot of court documents becau in the end they all and that selling each other so there is a million depositions that you are, i was able to find a lot of information. >> host: rights come and then a lot of it is about, sort of the battles as you say between mark zuckerberg and the other founders. i thoht we would start with a couple. onwas eduardo, who was one of your main sources. what was, what is his belief? >> guest: that is the big questi. eduardo it's a great kid, and he met merck when they were very young, and basically together, mark came up with facebook and eduardout $1,000 into it. th is a big part of where the story starts.

.. they're very quiet about it. nobody really knows. everything has a -- everybody has a good point. these guys are both brilliant and they both have their own point o view about what really happened and so in the book i try to lay it ouds -- out as fairly as possible as to what really hapned in the end i'm not sure how it will all be adjudicated. >> another group that has a beef with him it's like a

cinematic name. the twins. >> they're awesome like right out of a hollywood movie they're 6'5 identical twin olympic rowers they rowed together in beijing and they look like robots if you see them. really good-looking guys. th look like ben after flak i interviewed them and she was like can you guys take your shirts off they're line matinee idols great guys when you meet the it's funny very self-aware. you're going to look at us and think we're the bad guys in this story. if this was an0s movie we would be dressed as skeletons chasing the karate kid around the dance. they look like that and theye the jocks and members, ask talk about the final clubs later but they were at the top of the social hierarchy at harvard and had this idea to make a website called the harvard connect which ended upeing connectu which was a dating site. this's basically what it was in my opinion and they needed a geek to do their

computer coding. and so after mark had done that hack that had gotten him in a lot of trouble he had ended up in all of the college newspapers so they had read about this geeky kid who had done this incrible hack. so they said that's our kid. hired is a strong word. they went and sd ptner with us and help us make our website. mark never helped them make their website but shortly afterwds he launched facebook so the twins decided mark had stolen their idea and that's, it went from there and it's a difference of opinion swim not one to judge whose idea it really was. they all had ideas. there were a lot of social twork ideas going around. friendster was already in existence and was quite big backhen. who remembers friendster. but at the time it had 20 million members or something like that and myspace was just getting started. >>ost: tt's one of the things that struck me. when i first heard about-facebook i thought oh, well, myspace has already got that. >> golf swing. >>uest: facebook isay

bitter in my opinion. it is interconnectiveness. your real frids are your iend. s myspace is look at me, look at me you throw your ge out dr. there and it's brand thing. it is a very different animal. friester was much more like facebook. just didn't do well. it wasn't as ey and it had some problems. >> host: tell me a little more about the research so you talked to t twins. >> guest: most of my sources i have a lot of sources for the book and most of them didn't want to talk -- they don' want peoe to know who i talked to and who i didn't. so most of the people you know i got to people around e people or got to the people themselves but i'm not really going into specifics about who i talked to just because you know, everyone has their privacy issues and this is a big company with a lot of lawsuits iolved so everyone kind of ver careful but i think they are amazing people and i'm big fans of them. i think ed -- eduardo is great. >> mark zuckerber --

>> mark did not talk to me. as is his right. he's a brilliant kid did something amazing. i'm a big fan of what he's done. he doesn't know me and didn't want to sit down with me and he's protecting a multibillion dollar corporation. so i think he sort of saw me as an evil in his life in a way. even though i'm not evil. if you read my books you know that i don't attack people. i love these kids i want to hang out with these kids but mark as his right decided not to speak to me and so s. so i worked around mark. >> host: and you were saying beforehand that facebook they haven't seen the book yet. >> guest: no, facebook really wants to see the book. last few days i've gotten hundreds of e-mails asking me what's going on. you know wt they're terrified in for a lot of reasons but they shouldn't be i don't think. i don't know what's going to happen when this book comes out. the reality this book is so locked down a end -- i don't even have a copy. >> i can show it. >> you have a copy i don't

have. they're being very careful with it because facebook is a billion dollar company run by computer guys and they don't want everyone to know what's in the book yet and it has some controversial stuff in it. no question about it. >> host: what do you think ey will be most -- >> want me to tel you tt. >> yeah. >> i think nobody really nos w it all started the hack is one thing a computer hack gone bad but the story behind these kids trying to meet girls and seeing mark in tht lying i think a lot of people haven't -- light i think lot of people haven't seen it that way. when i was in college i wasn't getting a lot o girls i wish i had come up with facebook. but they were trying to come up with ways to be the cool guys and that's story that's never been told and crazier stuff that goes on as it explodes. eating koala on lot that was a story that ended up getting the blogohe excite aud. >> victoria's secret model that supsedly one of them went home with yes. although who would be upset about that story. but anyways yeah. i don't know. there's some controversy.

we'll see, we'll see. >> i'm very interested to see the reaction. theubtitle i fort the exact wording. >> guest: ion't remember either. it ss sex, money, genius and betrayal. >> there you go. >> and the facebook people got very upset aut the word bethey yam. a lot of twa word betrayal could be used in the story. i got a lot of e-mails asking who is betrayed. >> you talk about peoe who have beefs with help. >> eduardo and mark's relaonship fell apart. theyere best friends and now they're not. so how than -- that happened you have to read the book to see b there was a lot of difference of opinion. >> host: right and sex you start off with the sex. >> guest: there's deaf fetely sex. these are college kids. a lot like super bad in a lot of ways but with geniuses. these were kids trying to make girls when facebook took off they became stars on campus there is a scene where they end up in the bathroom of the dorm. >> i read that one mention

of lacy bras. >> yeah. >> for ausiness book --. >> i woun't call it a business book. publishing everything is about pigeon holing. i'm very, they pigeon hole me but i'm not pigeon holeable. yes, i do write stories that take place in the finance or the worldf gambling or whatever but i don't write gambling bks and ion't write finance books. i think i write books about young people doing wild things. so i don't think i would call this book a business book. >> right. >> it's no more a business book than "bringing down the house" was a big book which it dinitely wasn't although they were raunl -- run a business just happened to be taking casinos for millions of dollars. so this one did create a business buteally about a couple college kids who changed the world. >> one of the interesting things i found was the difference between "bringing down the house" and this is that this he views the real names mark zuckerberg is mark zuckerberg. >> there would have been no way to write this book without the real names everyone knows facebook and

ma zuckerberg and these are public figures. it's a very big story about real people. so where i use public figures yes the real names are used, yeah. >> and do you have a sort of long arthur's note >> i'm very proud of the author's note. i'm very clear about my process. it is a big fun topic. evyone likes to talk about noiction and what it is. but i'm very clear in the opening of my books of what i do. w i write my books. how princess diana log and how i create the story and yes, i interviewed many m people and there are a lot of court documents and i feel very strongly about this story. it's the story. but there's differences of opinion and there's different people who see the scenes differently and so that wl be part of the fun. >> well, i wish you fun in that. i hope it's fu yeah, because you did talk about how you condensed dialogue. >> yes and necessary. a lot of scene took place over numerous amounts of time and it would have been impossle to tell the story i wanted t tell without

doing some of that with the dialogue. >> host: right and i know u got a little bit of heat for "bringing down the house". >>gite heat. goes with the territory nonfiction. i amreating my own genre and there are people who want to make a name for themselves and go in certain directions with the articles but but i don't mi it. it is a fun discussion and i love "bringing down the house". i loved the process of writing that story and i had a blast. you know, listen anybody who has problem with the nonfiction of that story try to go to las vegas we can't go near a table. if the story isn't true why weren't we allowed to gamble can ask the casinos that. it's part of the fun of what i do. >> and bringing down to house was made into a movie with kevin spacey. >> it was. twenty wun -- "21". this one is going to be a big movie we we have kevin spacey coproducing with scott and mike and dana and it's the same crew that did "21" except fb for the addition of scott which is a

nice addition and aaron is doing the screenplay. been a fun process because he's been adapting while i write the book. no normally how it is done. ually you hand i the book but he's a genius and you can't do better than sorokin and it is going to be awesome. >> right any casting yet in. >> no, i have some people i'd love to see in it but it is way too earlq i think they're going to try t go into production later this year which would be amazing if they move that quickly. the social network world changes so quickly that you' got to -- this is the time rht now. >> host: o of the interesting thing i thought was you tk about how mark zuckerberg had the hacker's code which is an information should be free. everything should be free. >> guest: i'm disrobing my microphone right now so you know. >> hos i'll pause. and sort of but only certain information. they don't want the information about the founding of facebook. >> gue: right. it's ironic.

it is all about the open ideas andverybody sharing everything but theyon't want to sha their story hs their right but t is an interesting kind of you know, irony i guess is the word. there's a lot of ironys in the boo that the biggest social net work in the world was createed by the most socially awkward -- auk wark t -- awkward people in the world but the sto i have there and i think people are really going to like it. >> you're a fan of facebook if you had facebook page before. >> it's really my wife who is on sesed with facebook brings the camera every where just the put pictures on facebook. every event we go to pictures end up on facebook the next day. we have the book it's been growing pretty fast. i'm a big facebook guy. >> what do you do on it i find the status updes stressful. >> don't do the status updates iovedr the twitter for that. i think the number one thing about-facebook for me and a lot of people are the pictures. you can sort of see what's

going on in your social rld by seeing everybody's pictures. >> one of the lijs i thought was interesting by mark zuckerberg he said in his blog, we are not let in to harvard based on our looks butwill be judged on our looks. >> right. when he was doing the hot or not site. that was his thing >> right. which is interesting i think heealizes what a visual culture, what aoyeur ris tick and visual churl this is. >> i think that's one of the thing they got right with facebook people really want to seeveryone and everyone wants to live vicariously through everybody they know. part of facebook i a big vie care yus tlul thrill you ca see what your friend is doing and go inside their world through the pictures. facebook is a brilliantly designed site and when you look at other social network nothing like facebook. >> it is an amazing site. i'm fearful it is going to put me out of job. in terms of writing books? >> well, just younow, if you've got a 20 year old who is spending five days day on

facebook when is heoing to read? >> well, reading cnges. i agree. you have to write in status reports. i think that people read have much less -- it's the seam thing what mtv did to television. mtv did have large effect on television in terms of people's attention spans i think reading does change as more and more people go on line. i don't know its necessarily negative. i think the writers have to adapt to it. writing changes and there will always be people po who will aet rea t kind of stuff we write but there will be others who read much shorter. it changes and thereill be a wholeeneration of people who want it now andast and want to see it in 140 characters. >> right, right which is great because you only have to write 140 characters at a time. >> but you're not getting paid f it. >> pant is a big problem but who goes into writing to make money. >> you're right about that. but facebook that i one of their big challenges. how are they going to monotize this? >> t interesting thing about the story like i was saying about mark jong yul suker burg turning down a

million dollars he doesn't care about money and that's one of the things i should say it a different way. he as a person is not about making himself wealthy which i truly respect and ver few peop out there who build these masse companiesnd aren't just trying to sell it. he really has no interest in building facebook to sell it. and so more power to himor that. so the question about how to monotize it they are monotize right now. they do make a lot of money in terms of ads and things like that. they'r n necessaly worth billions of dollars which they're valued at but they eventually will be as they grow and grow and grow. i think he's less concerned about how much money they can make as how much they're changing the worldnd i think that's, it's revolution. it is really revolutionizing. i've said at it few times but feel likee've gone from the village to the city to face book. face book is the next level of social interaction and that's how mark seeing it -- sees it. so i don't think selling it is as big of a issue to mark as it is to the people maybe under mark who wld like to sell their stock and

become billionaires i think mark doesn't care about that. >> it is interesting he turned down so many times. >> and they've turned down they had a huge offer at some point theve h a few offers and they turned them down and turned them down and turned them down. eventually becausef the nature of venture capital you think they have to venn cully sell or go public some day. i'm not a business pson so i don't really know how that work. but i would think at som pot someone has to monotize this sucker. but as of right now i don't think that that'sheir concern. d twitter how does that? >> twitter, lten, twit ser an interesting thin and i'm on it and i like it and i have fun with it. whether i has the longevity or it can live like facebook does it's too early to see it's fun and growing s quickly but i d't see it the same way i see facebook. people who go on facebook on average spend hours. 3-5 hours a day on it. 67% of people who go on facebook once go on it every day and you don't have those numbers with twitter.

most people sta twitter and a week later they're like all right. come on. do people lal care what i'm eating for l. -- lunch. facebook is different you're showing your world to your friends. i don't know. twit ser definitely making a lot of moves and the celebries are all over twitter which has been driving it in a big way. >> and facebook the redesign -- >> facbook was terrified of twitter. they know how quickly the soci space changes and nobody knows if a year from now twi ser the next facebook so everyone is terrifi so facebook made changes to its site because of twitter and personally i liked facebook the way it was but i also feel like yes, facebook can change and a lot of people got terrified but it's a revolution. it caneep change. >> host: where does mark zuckerberg's how does he compare to bil gates or jobs? >> think there's a lot of similarities between bill gales and zuckerber genius. turning an idea into a massive company.

mark is definitely a closed person and i'm not just saying that because he wouldn't talk to me. but he's definitely one of these people who really controls his ersonal environment doesn't want strangers and is vrbl -- very socially awkward. he's his own person. but i think there are definitely a lot of similarities with gates and think gates is one of his idols there's a scene in the book where he goes to see gates speak and it's a big moment for him. so owe, i think that comparison is fair. >> and steve jobs? >> you know, steveobs i don't know as much about as i kw about bill gates in terms starting a company from nowhere in a garage that kind of idea i think at were much is mark zuckerberg. i think he still sees himself as that kind of garage inventor nis dormroom ing his thing. so i think in that rm and he does have a -- respect and he does have a world view he's building through facebook so there is that. >> and do you think in the sort of hindsight historical

hindsight where will mark zucker be, up there? >> i personally think zung zuckerberg will be a huge me in the four chm i see facebook growing and growing. there will be hiccups but i see iteaching a billion members one d and site of the next generation i believe and as the phone becomes everything i think you'll see interfaces peaces with facebook that will get more and more smooth and quick and see facebook be something that's pt of your life all the time. you're going to wear your facebook page one day. it is going to be a part of who you are. it's your business card ims your conversation piece it is how you talk to people. it is the future of communation. it is more akin to e-mail than it is to say friendster. it is how people -- the young generation communicates almost entirely through facbook. the idea o writing a let ser gone. but now the idea of writing an e-mail is going. >> i can't imagine that this won't happen in the future you go t a party and instead of saying where are you from you check the facebook

page and see who your friends are. cuts out the first 15 minutes of conversation. >> cuts out all conversation hopefully. it realhy i. it's the future i think. >> host: did you read the new york magazine article about-facebook? >> guest: i did read that. >> talked a lot about privacy and how this was, you know we're basically giving away our intellectual poperty. yes, i think when you go on facebook and put pictures up you're handing your pictures away to somebody and something. u there are privacy lines you can create your own privacy bubble in facebook but reality you have to be careful you don't know who is looking and whoan look and that's one of the issues. but the new generation doesn't care. that's what's kind of amazing. if you talk to kids who are 13, 14 and 15 the next generation of people they want it all out there. the idea of bng private is insane to them. why wouldn't you want everyone to see your pictures. why wouldn't you want

everyone to know everything about you and that's the way they think. i think it is a generation flal thing. i sll believe in some level of pry is ashy but i know -- privacy but i know the next level of kids coming up don't. they don'tant that privacy. look at "american ido. you want to get on tv. that's your goal in lie. the idea you have a facebook page and everyone can look at your pictures that's fantastic and what they want. i think the e next generation won't care so much about privacy for good or for ill. >> well we will continue this. we have to take short break. but we'll continue this talk after thereak. >> host: welcome back to "booktv"'s after words. we're here with ben mezch

talk about his book the accidental billionaires. i wanted to ask you about "the accidental billionaires". >> first of all i never come up with my own titles because i' really bad at titles i wanted to call "bringing down the house" the system which everyone said sounded like a prison movie so we swimed it to "bringing down the house" ich is also kind of a funny story too. because "bringing down the house" came out the same time tha queen latifah movi "bringing down the house" came out so i got all of these phone calls from people saying i dove the billboard for your book but whooes queen latifah play? fit of all i don't even understand the question. queen latifah is not if the book. accidental billionaires themlves kids stumbled into a billion dollar company. it happened so fast and they were college kids. still kids. 25, whatever. it happene so quickly in a lot of ways it was an accident. in their head they wanted to kre -- cree a aomny but the idea it could be this billion dollar ma company was never part of the idea.

>> right. although mark zuckerberg did turn down a lot of these airs. >> h turned down money along the way and he still turns downoney what from what i understand. who knows what the future is. he's in t youngest billionairen the world i think that's the statistic. a lot of it is on paper but he's the youngest billionaire in existence. >> host: you talk a lot in the book about land grab idea. like you have to be first one out there with this idea. did you ever hav any fears yourself about the land grab for a facebook book? guest: it's funny because like i saad i stumbled into this story as well never sat out. wasn't sitting in myoom saying i want to write a book about-facebook. i don't consider myself a topical guy like. that don't look for the next story. the nexttory kind of falling -- falls on me. it's happened a lit of times. there is that idea facebo is such a huge thing going to be plenty of facebook books. what i write are these their tef thrillers about -- narrative there it thrillers

about these young kids. it will be the only book like this the way i write it. and i don't really tnk of it that way. i definitely wanted this book to come out before facebook became whatever happens next becaus you never know where it ising going to be 2-3 years from now the reason this book is coming out this summer right now because facebook is the bgest thing in the world right now. but yeah, there is that issue. but in terms of companies the land grab is very much a big part of it. i mean, the twins believe that the reason their company connectu never took off is because facebook w ere first and whoever is there first usually has ts huge advange and i think that's fair with books as well. we'll see if there's another fa book that comes out next year that's 10 times bigger. who knows. >> you mentioned the thriller becausehe book does read like a thriller. sort of the actual sentences are in the thriller genre and you started out as a

thriller writer. >> i didn't know what my voice w going to be and i always wanted to be a writer. my dad had a rule when we were little we had to read two books a week before we were allowed to watch tv and i was obssion -- on sesed with television to be able to watch tv i had to become a speed reader by the age of 12 i could speed read anything. i was on sesed with bookq and i decided i wanted to be a writer and when i graduated from college i locked myself in a room and i wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote nine novels in about a year and a half. and they were deepark stories that took place in bars in new york city. because i was read ag lot and that's -- reading a lot and that's why thought writers write and i got 190 rejection slips and and had them tapeed to all the walls and i was the most rejected writer. everyone i've worked with since then i hav a rejection slip from. it's really fny i'll meet new agents oh, yeah, you rejected me in 1998. it w who i was. rejection, rejek, rejection, rejectinn. and tn i made an editor at

random house and he said i'm not going to buy any of the crap you've written. but go read john grisham. go read michael crayton and come back in a career. -- in a year. winlt back and read john grisham and michael craig on the an i decided i could write thriller so wrote a med thriller and it was a book called threshold. don't worry you'll never find it. it is out there. it was a horble little book and i wrote a book called reaper a or the i have -- a story about a computer virus that makes the jump to the biological world and peopletart getting sick from their television sets. itas a kind of weird plot and it ended up becoming a tv movie. i'melling you the whole histori know this is along way to a short answer. but it bame a tv movie called fatal error which starred antonio the underwear model who is a great guy. fun guy. i was on set with him for a month and in between takes he w do crunchs the whole time. in ftastic rhape. and he played a surgeon which was really great and

my dad's a doctor and i remember watching the tv movie with my dad and there's a scene where he is leanin over t patient's chest and he goes we've got a subdural hematoma and my dad turned to me and goes you know that's in the head. that was the kind of stuff i was writing i was writing these thrillers that were ry pop and i was in a bar and met these m.i.t. kids and that kind of changed my life. i had nev set out to be a nonfiction writer. it wasn't what i had ever done. i never wrote for magazines. i wasn't like you. we aus pop thriller writer -- i was a pop thriller writer and then i found the ultimate story in what "bringing down the house" was until now i think facebook is now the ultimate story. but that's how everything changed and i joined the team and then i wrote that book. >> and you immertz- imrsed yourself. >> i did. i became a part of it for me that's what writing is i more interested in become part of what i'm writing

about tha writing about it. i think the writing is horrible. i hateitting in my room and writing it is like having stomach flu trying to get out when you finally get it out you feel great. but the actual writing. >> dwroeshgs writing is my leastavorite part too. i likeersing myself in the situation. >> exactly and boming a part of it and that's for me what "bringing dowthe house" was the ultimate experience of becoming this kid this vegas. taking vegasor millions. for facebook it was really getting to know this world. i had gone to harvard. was a geek at harvard. i wasn't wasn't smart enough to come up with facebook but i was the kind of kid these guys were. so i rmmersed myself in that world hiding out in nal clubs that are kind of cretive and hanging out with these kids and becoming a part of it. is different because the facebook guys did not want you the write this book. >> most of them rit. very different in "bringing down the house" these kids we were buddies and we became very close friends over therocess of doing the book. with the facebook it almost

we believe the other way around. -- went the other way around. we started off knowing eachover other and slowly teriorated just as their own friendships deteriorated. they're scared not because there is anything to be scared abou necessarily but because even though they have this public site they're private people and i'm telling the story. i came in not as sbun someone who already knew them but as someone from the outside telling their story and i think that's what terrifd them the most. but yeah, it was tricky. it is always hard to get a subject to tell you their story. everyo wants to tell their ory. that's what i found. everyone wants to be on tv. everyone wants to be famous. >> especially that generation. >> else spshl athat generation. but then as they start to tell their story and realize they really are going to be on t and might be famous they saturdayo get really nervous. wait a minute. maybe i didn't wantoo this. that's with this process i definily ran into that. with "bringing down the house" there was a moment afterty broke the book before i came out the main character came to me and said let's not do this. oh, it's way too late for

that this book is coming out this ship has sailed. comes that moment where everyone gets nervous. like cold feet at your wedding. that moment before it comes out you have to reali is real. this story, it was difficult it was definitely difficult. and they're all billionaires. that's the other thing. not just kids who don't want to talk to but it is a billionaire 25-year-old who doesn't wan to talk to you. >> has anyone seen the book? >> i haven't seen the book. nobody's seen the book. it's going to be one of those things that's going to come out and god only knows who is going to happen. it is going to hopefully explode d be huge and they'll love it. hopefully they'll love it. >> are you still friendly with any of the main charters? >> i like them. i lik them. i don't know if they like me. i'm a big fan of wha they've done. i'm a big fan of mark zuckerberg. i think he is genius. the twins are great guys two of the best guys i've medallion met. sean parker someone we haven't talked about yet.

sean parker is an absolute genius. like the tasmanian devil from those little cartoons. >> sean parker just to give some context he was guy who founded, cofounded napster. >> he cofounded napster at like 17. high school kid didn't even go to college. founded plaxico. got kicked out of that and was the founding president of facebook. he was basically looking for his next billion dollar idea and when you meet sean parker he is this crazy kid the bad boy of silicon valley dresss in amani with beautiful women. he waunls -- he walk into a restrant everybody loves sean. he's in a whole other world of smart and he was looki for anoth idea and he basically opened up a laptop and saw facebook the original facebook which was very kind of just a page basically and already reached 20,000-30,000 people when he saw it. he deced this was the idea. he flew out researched it met rk and eduardo at a

reece raunl in new york. great scene where this takes place. they were at a restaurant and it was like a dog and pony show and he showed what i could do forou and showed himnd just kind of love fest between him and mark but not so much between him and eduardo and it was the beginning end of their relationship but sean became that next step. >>e med in with mark. >> mark moved out to california and sean moved in with him because sean had nowhereo live at the time. he was in bweenouses and happened to be down the street and sar -- ran into them on the street and moved in and he really brought facebook to the next level from the dormroom company to this real company. he brought in the first funding. >> and thene was forced out according to your book. >> forced out is a strong word. sean was founding preside of facebook. there an incident he was at a house party that got busted by cops and supposedly there was cocaine there. supposedly he was there with an undergrad who worked for facebook and after that he no longer was with facebook.

but he's stillery good friends with them and still involved and still owns a percentage of it. so you have to read the book to see exactly what happened there. i'm being careful right now. it's an amazing kind o tale and part of the sean parker store story him and himself could be a book. amazing. i'm a huge fan but deaf fli an incident facebook needed to deal with and that's part of the story this all by the way is very secret the reason we don't have a book right now or i don't have a book right now these store royce have never been told before that's what's amazing to he gotten access to it. >>here's another publi official in the book larry summers. >> larryummers was president of harvard when this all went down the twins when they decidedhey had been stolen from theirdea had been stolen they were these guys who believed very strongly inustice and the hire -- hierarchy because

the hierarchy served them very well. members and on the will o lim pick team. they're believers in the american system so ty decided the president of harvard should make this decision who really came up with facebook. so they used all their connects and got a aience with the predent larry summers and they brought in their well documented piece of paper and they handed it to larry summers and said you need to do something about mark suj zuckerberg and larry summers held up their piece of paper like it was a piece of crap and threw it on the ground and said you deal with it. it's not my problem. and this is a very larry summers kind of thing from what i understand. he's a blliant guy but he doesn't suffer frl fols lightly. he basically threw them out of the office. it wasn't his problem and maybe it wasn'tis problem. don't know what the president of harvard has to do with two kids in dormrooms coming up with an idea. so he threw them out of the office. >> and toldhem to take legal action. >> he didn't say it exactly t that was where the desk --

the decision to sue basicall came from. if harvard is not going to do anying about it then beer going to hav to go another route and they didn't want to sue. nobody wants to sue anybody. it's not fun. especially when you're 25 or 21. they were 21 at the time to get into a lawit with another kid but you know, in the end that's what they felt they had to do. >> yeah, unless the heartbreakg. you have that scene in england where they're in a rowing race. >> they rowed at henley on the tense they are out after the thing and basically everyone's talking about-facebook and it's something that they felt they had done. which they did it or not is upo you know, other people to decide but in their minds they had done thi wonderful thing and they were not getting any credit for it and so that' really what led themo sue >> host: it does seem to happen a lot in history. i read the encyclopea for my first book andhere's all these heartbreaking

stories of guys who -- a g who filed for the pa tenl to e telephone -- patent to the telephone like 8 hours after alexander gram bell. >> you know what, who gets there first number one and who really has the ability to take ownership of whatever the idea is and in this case it's not clear thgh. it is ver murky and i think people should read the book to make a decision ask not make a decision based on just what they think. mark zuckerberg the twins eduardo and even other people. they all kind of have different reasons for believing that they did what they did. >> ro we'll see after the book comes out how the reaction is. whether you'll be able to be friends with these guys. >> guest: i hope so. i'd like the hang out with thes guys. mark and i will probably nevehang out. i'd love to. whatever. but i think the others are the type of people tha i would definitely get along with. >> host: whatbout the "bringing down the house" guys? >> i'm still close to them. i was in veg two weeks ago. we're not allowed to walk up

to a blackjack table but af in the he hit vegas a lot. really funny to watch. jeff was the main guy in the book i called him jeff lewis now that it's a big book and movie he wts eryone to know his name. jeff can't go within 20eet of a blackjack table and they will literally come up and say you're too close. any casino we go to he has to stand 25 feet from a black table. >> you spent 6 months immersed. >> i did i was like a donkey boy strapping the money to my body going true the airports with 25 million. we would sit by the pool with a million dollars in a duffle bg. -- bag. i got kicked of the czar. didn't get back roomed. that's the place you don't want to end up. ion't know if you saw the movie casino. but they don't really put your hd in a vice but definitely make you stand against a wall. very terrifying experience. >> enhanced interrogation. >> basically enhced interrogation. basically want to know wha team you're working with and --

turn out plenty of teams hitting vegas m.i.t. was most successful. >> i knowouort of lay out how do ts in the book and then in your other book you talk about the system is it busting. >> busting yeah. there's whole other system in that. >> host: so didou, wha kind of feedback did you get from readers? did they go out. >> and try it? so many kids tried it. i got so many calls from kids trying to find the m.i.t. team and other teams kids who put teaming to and wanted lessons but the kids in those books teach people. they see it as this robin hood thing where the casinos are these big bad evil organizations and it's up to us to take them for their money i don't really believe i love casinos deaf it -- definitely whole robin hood feeling. i go to vegas all the time and see people doing it very poor lim i don't know if you saw the movie wentty one. kate bos swort one of the people. the way she signals in peo@le. she crosses her arms behind her back which isn really

a signal they use because it is so obvio but they wanted to show kate bos worth leaning back in a chair because it looks really hot. i go t vas now and see kids doing that all over the place and i know they'veut these teams together and doing the most ridiculous signals to each other and the problem is that if you're not perfect you shouldn't try i at all. you've got to practice. these kids would practice three hours a day for month before they were allow to join the team and these were m.i.t. guys. you see the teams hastily put together on the flight over. they read my book. we're going beat bckjack and it is horrible. you ca lose a lot of money. >> so your book has cost a lot of money. >> i think it has. whenever i see people reing it on the flight to vegas i feel bad because i know there going to all hit the blackjack table i gant them to read it on the way home. >> host: right. in the new book you talk about how their life explodes. they move out to the silicon valley mark. >> guest: mark does. mark and a couple other guys

move out to silicon valley and their life changes. they g into the social scene number one. mark is not a social guy. that's a part of the life is that is not interesting to him. but there does end up being a scene with a victory -- victia's secret model in the book and thisorld changes for them. they end up being wooed by all of t vcs in the world. also actually areat scene while they're still at harvard they're in class and there's a vc in the back of the classro. people just started coming at them and trying to get i on the ground floor of facebook. yeah, their lives changed pretty dramatically. there's a scend on a yacht that got a lot of attention in the blog fear they ended up eating koala on somebody's lot i guess it is illegal to serve koa. >> whose yacht? >> wind founder of sun micro system. >> able to say his name? >> i don't know his name. i don't know which person it was. i don't know who exactlyt

was but thas the story th was he re -- relayed to me. part of this wholeild world they started live in. silicon valley is not really the fast track but there is this scene there as companies explode. you become the hot kid on the block and sean parker was already the hot kid on the block and mark became the hot kid on the block. >> do you get a sense of how mark zuckerberg and the people within facebook actually use facebook themselves? >> good question actually. i know that they are very -- they're looking at facebook al the time to see how to improve it. they see it as this evolving revolution thas change as the world changes like the change they made because of twitter. they are reacting to the world around him. mark himself is that a good question. does he go on facebook every day and use it? i don't know. >> try to befriend him? >> i haven't but i'm pretty sure -- he's a very private guy. i do have a fan page only on facebook so if mark wants to get involved that would be greet. i think he's a very private

guy. i don't know what he does on facebook. i know he has site. they all have sites they just bck -- they're not public sites. >> right is there going to be another facebook? do you think -- >> personally think facebook is the next facebook. i think facebook will keep anging and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. time a -- i'm a huge fan i think facebook is the next generation and it will grow and grow. it will have a billion mbers one day. a quarter of the world will be on facebook one day. i do think theres always somethilg like twitter that will come. there will always be other things but i don't think facebook will go the way of friendster. i reay think facebo is a brilliantly desned site and the new generation really loves it. but who knows right in this world tomorrow some kid all caltech could like playing around and realize that he's g the new thing and then that's the next story. >> host: right and do you think, i mean, i'm very conflicted about-facebook. sometimes i love it. sometimes i hate it.

there's a friend of mine told me a story about how she calls her friend and the friend didn't call back and she's like oh, the friend must be busy and then she sees on her face page i jt watched a 12 hour marathon oflaw & order" like you can't la canada lie. >> i know people who have been dumbed beause of facebook. people see on their threads where were you last night and they can see where you were. you have to be careful about your status. i've seen people go pr single to maried in a day because they didn't realize their wives were on face book so their status was single until they realized their wife was on facebook and suddenly ty're married. >> i did that. when i joined up i didn't fill out that part and so i anged i to married and i got all of these congratulations. >> coon grachlationings you - congtulations you just got married. it's very funny. i've heard stories about people who thought their boyfriend was in one place and next tng they know they're sing pictures at a party and realize their boyfriend was somewhere else. facebook is very public. even if the person you're

with isn't on it their friends might be. it goes very quickly. >> i see it is revolutionary and it is -- it does. to me it has drawbacks as well as do you think what are the drawbacks for you? >> the whole public notion of it. you have to be ready to have the whole world see what you're doing is a big drawback and evething happens so quickly now. you're at party and ten minutes later the picture from the party are on facebook and the whole idea of the evil government taking over and getting all of your information. but that a whole other story. lrng there -- listen, there is a masve amount of information on facebook and if you think about it mark and the people at facebook have an enormous amount of information but in terms of what use that information is, who knows. >> i'mctually more afraid of it will brother than big brother. -- little brother tha big brother. i'm not afraid of the government knowing thing. i think that facebook and her thing on thenternet have turned us into like a "smallville" large again where -- small village again where everyone knows

everyone's business. so you i think it will make us more moral in sense because you can know what the other person i doing. >> you can't cheat on your wife. you can't like take a vacation without telling your boss because everyone's going to know. >> it will be on facebook. >> ptures o you. >> it does. it shrinks our community in a lot of ways. >> right. it just it's like a "smallville" large whe -- small village where everyone's gossiping aut everyone else. >> so if you want to cheat you have to use twitter. >> okay. that's a good thing to know. well, i was interest i read the "time" magazine recently had their most influenti people and the twitter guys we on them. ashton kutcher wrote an essay. >> ashton loves twitter that's what's driving twitter is the celeb the thing. i think twitter has a lot going for it in tha world. much moren my mind like myspace than facebook.

more of brand thing. where you talk to your fans or people who are interested in what you're doing as opposed to your actual friends. >>o you think you could have written a book about the foung of twiter? >> don't know the story. maybe they're running around with victoria's secret models and ferraris. i don't know those guys. who know. give it a couple of years. >> what are you working on next? >> i'm definitely working on the movies right now. this movie is going to be big and fun and hopefully i will benvolved ugly americans was one of my earlier book and we're making that with 29, 29 with mark coogan -- cuban's company. my book rigged. doing with guyho did twilight. nothing like twight. but i'm definitely involved this tho projects. and i don't really know what the next book is. i'm waiting the tr e-mail come to my website. >> you menoned before we started taping that joe tran sis i believe his name is. >> no, no. i'm not doing that book. interesting guy. i think he's doing a memoir. >> so he called you asking you. >> there was some phone

calls. yes's got an amazing story. i don't know who is going to end up writing it, but yeah. >> so he's not a writer himself. >> not that i know of. i think they're searching for somebody. >> right, right. now the book talks a lot. you went to harvard. >> i did. >> and stlaes a lot of talk in the book about -- there's loft talk in the book about the weird social ccene. >> har regard is san odd place everyone who i the best at something in their high school and gets to harvardnd thrown into this world where everyone's the best at one thing. has nothing to do with anybody else. all these geeks who are thrown into this world and tlens this social hierarchy. where there's an old boys network among these final clubs secret societies they're not really secret. more like a mix between a skull and bones and a fraternity but only 10% of people are in them. and then the wider kind of world not like a normal college where you have geeks and athlete because everybody at har regard the geek. you have this wired weirdly stratified world and trying

to find your place in it can be difficult. the other thing is the harvard guy don't kw how to par at all. we would go to m.i.t. to go to parties which says a lot. we weren't the cool kids in high school. we weren't going to kegers in high school. >> how is the social life at harvard changed since facebook >> it's all on facebook. that's how you meet girls that's how you mt people is you go on facebook. so that's been the big change i think in terms of the social world there. >> and did you go back to harvad to research thi i imagine? >> did. i spent lot of time being the old guy at the arty i think i still look kind of young so i can get away with it. got sb in with the final club they were trying to get into. i got toang up in the upper secre rooms of the phoenix and watch the goings on. yeah, i spent a lot of time. when i was at school there i didn't end up doing one of the finals clubs. i didn't know the people in it. i did get a punch letter in the phoenix. it wasn't a group of peopl i newell but i did go to their parties a lot which

was fun. >> host: did you get a sense the ople at harvard are proud of mark zuckeerg or jealous? >> guest: very proud at facebook larry summers the following year and this isn the book talks about a freshman orientation about-facebook and i think that it' one of those things that cam out of harva in a lot of ways could only have come out of harvard because you needed that kind of special kid to make it. i think that they're very proud of what came out of there. >> host: you don't think they're speci kids? >> they are. they're coming out with their own things. in terms of what face started as. it was a very exclusive site when it started the idea was it was like a finals club. you had to have a harvard idu to join. >> part of the allure private secret thing the harvard kids are doing and then it moved from university to university. i think tt's something that cam out harvard social hierarchy. >> right. still a part. you have to ask one to be

their frien >> you have to bid youray in. apply to be someone's friend on facebook. >> it's bn a lively conversation. >> i has been i think this is awesome. pefully we're going to hang out now. i love your work as well. >> thank you very much. >> we' go to a casino. >> we'll go to a casino and make some money. >> all right. thank you very much.

ousted honduran president manuel zelaya meets with secretary of state hillary clinton thursy to discuss

the political situation in his country. he spoke earlier at an event hosted by george washington university this is about an hour and 20 minutes. >> wcome. welcome is this working? welcome everyone. i'm cynthia mcclintock and i'm the director of latin american studies here at george washington university and i'm delichingted to -- delighted to welcome you to a presentation by his excellency. president manuel zelaya. this is the first time that president zelaya is speakin at a university here in washington and we're absolutely thrilled to welcome help.

-- him. we would also like to welcome others in the government of honduras who are here with the president. the minister of foreign affairs the am brass dore -- ambassador of honduras to the united states. carlos is the ambassador of honduras to the organizion of american states. and enriques the minisr to the president. rebecca santos is the finance minister. edwin is theresident of the central bank and milton jimenez is the president of the bank commission of honduras. so we would like to welcome all of these representatives of the honduran government with us today. at 5:00 a.m. on june 28th soldier burst into president

zelaya's bedroom. they manhandled him at gunpoint and then put him on a out of the country in his pajamas those factsre well known. i think less well known here in the united states is that at the same time as those even were going on eight cabinet members were rested as was the mayor of the country's second largest city. a kurr few was -- curfew was declared that sunday night. aubsequent emeency decree suspended fundamental rights and scores of demonstrators were detained. tvtations were closed. the line of succession was not followed. the vi president was not pu inla of the presiden accordiny this was the first coup to occur during latin america's third wave to last more than a dew days.

accordingly it is very urgent that democracy be restored in honduras and i am honored thatresident zelaya is with us here today to prehis thoughts and -- present his thoughts and his recommendations for a return to democracy in honduras. as i mentioned, this is a university, we're respectful of diverse view points at a university so i would ask for a tone of respect here. in the case of any disruption i sorry to have to mention this, but this is university policy that in the case of disruption that could result in removal and potential sanctions. i would also ask y to turn off yor cell phones. every where now. turn off your cellhones

and few recording -- any recording dices please. we will be taking questions. i believe most of you have note cards and staffers will be coming around to pick up note cards for your zelaya.ns to president introdg the president will beur co-host mar weisbrot. he was wonderf in helping to make this event happen. and i'm absolutely delighted that hwill be introducing the president. mark woods brot is the senl -- mark weisbrot is the codirector for the center of economic and policy resrch here in washington. he holdshe ph.d. from the university of michigan. he is the author of a 2000 book from university of chicago press entitled social security the phony crisis. he has written extensively on economic issues in latin america in particular the international monetary fund.

the debt crisis and most recently h has been very, verynsightful in his publications about the coup in honduras. so mark? mark? >> tha you. thank you very much cynthia. for that introduction and thank you for helping to organize and moderate this event. i want to thank everybody who came here today is the mike working okay? okay. and i want to also thank dan and my colleagues at the center for economic policy and research for their help as wl and also the embassy of honduras and especially for president zelaya for taking the time to come here and speak with us. i just want to provide some background information. cynthia already mentioned the details ofhe coup itself. but the world reaction to

the overthrow of honduran democracy was swift and determined. the organization of the american states, the general assembly of the united nations and other international bodies unanimously called for the immediate and unconditional return of president zelaya. the response from washington has been more am bif lenl and -- ambivalent and ambiguous characterized by consistency andixed messages. first statement from the white house d not sides between the coup government and the democratically elected president. later statements did reject the coup but on more than one occasion our secretary of state hillary clinton was asked if restoring the constitutional order meant bringing back the elected president and she declined to say yes. on august 4th the state departmentent a letter to republican senator richard lugar that was widely seen

as retreatingrom some of the prior statements in support of the elect president. today more than t months after the coup quite astonishingly the u.s. state department has yet to determine that the honduran military's overthrow of president zelaya was actually a military coup. under u.s. law if our government make that determinion it would be required to cut off aid to e de facto government of honduras. and so although a very small fraction of u.s. aid, about 18.5 millionas been cut tens of millions of dollars more continue to flow to the dictatorship. but most disturbing of all to me has been t administration's deafening silence about the human ghts abuses committed since june 28tby the honduran dictatorship. the shootings the arbitrary

arrests and detention of thousands of people. the police beatings and brutality against peaceful protesters the closing down of independent radio and tv stations. all of this has been investigated, documented and denounced by human rights organizations from throughout theorld. the organization of amerin ates, inter-american human rights commission, amnesty international. human rights watch as well as honduran and european rights organizions. yet the obama administration has so far remained silent. i say these things n to criticiz the administration but to appeal for your help. i voted for president obama and was one of the first people out in the streets on the night of t election celebrating his victory. we all look forward to a new foreign policy and a new reign poly