>> well, i could tell you but then i'd have to kill you. >> james reston, jr., is the author of "defenders of the faith," thank you. >> thank you. >>

>> howard zinn was an american historian, political scientist and activist who's an active supporter of the student nonviolent coordinator committee during the civil rights movement and wrote several books. his book "the people's history of the united states" has sold over a million copies since it was published in 1980. howard zinn died of a heart attack in santa monica, california, wednesday, january 27th. he was 87 years old. today at 10:45 am eastern on book tv, a program from 2007 with howard zinn. he discusses his book "a power government cannot suppress: a question of writings on the bush administration's response to 9/11." howard zinn was also a gef in september of 2002. you can watch it online at book tv oregon.

-- booktv.org. but let's see some of the sights and sounds as we get ready for the festival today. >> here's a look at some upcoming book fares and festivals over the next few months.

>> please let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we'll add them to our list. email us at book tv@c-span.org. >> in their book "carjacked," authors katherine lutz and anne lutz fernandez argue that gasoline are not the only problems with america's love cars. ms. lutz fernandez speaks for 50 minutes in the new canon library in new canaan, connecticut. >> welcome. first of all, i'd like to thank al street books and the new canaan library for inviting me to speak tonight and thank you for coming to listen. my name is anne lutz fernandez. i wanted to share with you initially just our decision to

write the book. where that came from. and it really all happened just a few miles from my home in norwalk over thanksgiving weekend. about four years ago. our family had gathered. and from various points driven, of course, to norwalk and my driveway was filled with cars. and spent a beautiful weekend together but invariably as had happened in the past prior few years the conversation turned to the loss of our cousin christie in a car crash. and shortly after we lost christie, i lost a good friend in a highway crash. and these two losses had a profound effect on our lives. and we started chewing on the contradictions that the car presents particularly that contradiction between the intense pleasure that the car

brings to us. and the profound losses and tragedies that it also can bring. and on a daily basis the contradictions between the convenience that the car brings and the frustrations that it also brings. so broadly speaking we wanted to explore the impact that this single object, this powerful piece of technology has on our lives. and we thought we could bring to bear our respective experiences. my sister katherine lutz is a professor of anthropology. she's brings an ethnographic approach and i spent many years as a banker and as a marketer of consumer products and we thought if we tackled this together we could bring some insight. some insight that hadn't really been brought to the subject. and we embarked on our research which took us across the country from housing developments that were being carved out of rural countryside in tennessee to detroit to visit gm and go to its proving grounds in milford.

we traveled to seedy used car lots in the inner cities. we traveled to auto shows and auto museums. and we spoke to a variety of people with expertise around the car and around the ancillary services that are provided. and those who work to mitigate against some of the negative effects of the car but mostly we talked to ordinary people. the owners the buyers, the drivers of the 244 million cars that ply our roadways. and really, of course, our research started earlier. as all of ours do, with the family car. and this is the lutz family. [laughter] >> and it's not the bob lutz family. we've actually been asked a few times already whether we're related to the detroit legend, the outspoken bob lutz who's

worked at the big three automakers and the answer's no. if it was yes, i suppose, we already would have been cut out of the will. no. this is the george lutz family. this is a family that like many grew up in the suburbs. and grew up around cars. and we both -- my sister and i had tremendous, positive memories surrounding the vehicles that we grew up in. trips to grandma's, day trips to the beach. most of our memories were positive. and as we started talking to american, we came to realize how powerful nostalgia is in re-enforcing intensely positive ideas around the automobile. at the auto museums they understand this and we went to a few and one we met a gentleman named dave who was there for his saturday morning drive in his beloved ford mustang. and he was wearing a watkins glenn jacket over his car print shirt. and we asked dave -- we said

when did you become interested in cars? and he said when i opened my eyes and realized i was born. [laughter] >> and in many ways that's true for all of us.wdmñ and my sister, the anthropologist likes to put it that to humans culture is like water is to fish. because it surrounds us, it's often quite invisible even though we're in it. and the ideology that supports our car culture is something that is largely invisible to us. and that we started to explore fairly early in our research. the images that bombard us daily from the media are quite different than those family snapshots. not quite so comforting, but much more exciting, much more glamorous. this poster from 2008's ironman starring robert downey, jr., provides the kind of car excitement we come to expect not just from car advertising but

from much of the entertainment that we indulge in that is car centric..fy and american car ideology like the messages that come to us in many hollywood films is supported by a series of core american values. individualism, freedom are two of the key but also family. the very american dream. the automakers have tapped into these core american values in their advertising. and year in and year out, we are exposed to tens of billions of messages from them just in the advertising let alone the marketing, the promotion, the publicity. because we're exposed to this year in and year out from the moment we open your eyes and realize we are born, we come to intensely associate these ideas that we already have about what the car can provide us. we associate those as values even more intensely with the car. freedom is one of the key values

that the car taps into. and the iconic image of the lone car traveling wickedly, wildly and freely down this empty roadway, no other cars in sight, is really an exhilarating image of freedom that we've imbibed. in daily conversations we tend to talk more modestly about the convenience that the car provides. but over and over when we talk to people about the car, one of the things they said to us was, i just really like the idea that i can get into this vehicle anytime i want, whenever i want and go wherever i want. it makes me free. and we truly do believe that the car makes us free. it can provide liberating adventures in the wilderness as car advertising so often represents it. if you think of the dozens of model names, the escape, the

explorer, the quest, on the si we are being sent out on this grand adventure that is often to the supermarket. [laughter] >> because the breathtaking view is the one we tend to see out your window, much more likely to see the break because of all of the values that the car taps into it subverts those very same values. we are hardly free when you think we spend 18 hours on average a week in our vehicles as drivers or passengers. and if you calculate that as part of our waking lives, that's nearly two months of every year. that we are sitting in our cars. that's the average. as a nation, in terms of

mileage, 4 trillion miles are traveled by us is year. and that is quite an increase. it's about double what it was 25 years ago. >> but with the 2244 million cars out road we are alone driving and there are few spots on the landscape that are without roads. even the national parks are crisscrossed to roads and play host to traffic jams in the summer. trapped in our cars we are finding ourselves to be less free than we wished to be. and traffic is getting worse and we're noticing it and it's starting to make us not like driving quite like we had. one of the auto executives that we spoke to said americans really like the idea of driving better than driving itself. and the real driving that we do with we set aside our idea is

actually quite frustrating and the lack of control we feel is the antithesis is the freedom that we hope the car will provide us. so -- sorry, why are we doing all of this driving? suburban sprawl is a big part of it. obviously as the corporations moved out and took their jobs out to the suburbs and some of us decided to get further away and go to the suburbs for a bigger yard, we find ourselves more to get to work and a lot of people that we spoke to felt kind of helpless about this and said, you know, what choice do i have? i have to get to work? but quite a bit of that is our choice. so if we are choosing where to live and often our choices somewhere to live are based on our perceived value of our housing in relation to our jobs, we're creating our own lengthened commute. and many of the trips that we're taking are not commuting trips. when we look at where is all of

this traffic coming from, well, it's coming from increased trips to school, to run errands, to shop. and, in fact, the busiest hour on our nation's roadways is no longer what you would expect 5:00 pm on a friday, 7:00 am on a monday but 1:00 pm on a sunday. we are choosing to a certain extent to trap ourselves in traffic. and again to drive there and to drive there alone. and we avoid car pooling. and we avoid public transit because as one retired auto executive said, we're cowboys. and we like to get on our horse and go where we want to go and cowboys don't take the bus. [laughter] zmr >> that individualist streak that says we prefer the collectism of public transit also translates into another form of individualism that the automakers tap into.

which is our sense of self-identity and self-expression. they've convinced us that the car can say something about who we are. and a significant minority of americans do believe that their car communicates something about who they are or that if they had just the right car, one that really is them, that really is them, they would be in that car that express their true identity. this notion that the car can say something about us is not new. but the upsurge in car customizing that's happened over the last few years is evidence that it's growing. and that we're increasingly using cars as our social skin. as terence turner has put it. individualism sells so well that numerous automakers sell their models this way. the honda element, the scion, the vw beetle, the mini cooper.

there's so many rebels and icon oclasses out there they all need a rebelist icon oclast. the campaign urged buyers a couple of years ago to separate from the herd and buy the honda ridge line. but even this scion ad -- the tag line of which is united by individuality points out the irony in trying to express yourself through a mass-marketed vehicle. out of these 100 or so vehicles championships are supposed to look different -- and there's some colors and slightly different styling here, actually kind of look alike. they all have four wheels and a windshield and either a trunk or a hatch back. they all -- all of these drive by a gas-powered engine.

and one of the things a nissan marketing manager said to us is that when that company introduced their altima a few years ago, in the first year of their sale they sold 100,000 cars and they were very excited. this was the first big model for them in a while. and those 100,000 altima owners told nissan this car was built just for me. and so they had convinced 100,000 people just in that first year that they were buying the right car, a car for their individualistic self. still most of us would have a hard time picking out an altima out of a lineup because a car is a car is a car. and it seems innocent enough to express yourself through your car but what it's done over the last few years is truly forced us into a conformity of overspending on our cars. we're spending more to get the newest and the best in order to distinguish ourselves. we're loading on pricey options

and accessories to distinguish ourselves. and even environmentally minded people who want to express their socially conscious identity and now we're talking about me. have been convinced to pie a new car that they didn't need because you had to buy the hybrid, didn't you? yes. even though most of the carbon footprint or at least a third of the carbon footprint -- most of you will produce if you don't own a car that long is in the production of that vehicle. so a few of us are immune from this. this overspending has led to the average price of an american car -- not made in america but sold to us americans $26,000, which is about 25% higher in inflation control dollars than it was a few decades ago when i got my license.

this stunning car parked in front of this beautiful home is emblematic of how central the car or -- i should say cars because many of us have multiple vehicles have become to the american dream. and americans do believe still that the car can drive us toward opportunity and help us show it off when we get there. we were mystified initially by how -- when you buy a new car people tend towvr almost involuntary say to you congratulations. and at first we couldn't quite figure out why that was worthy of congratulations but once upon a time, it was. you earned. you saved. you bought a car. and it was representative of an achievement. and in those days gm works to set the stage for us and first you bought the chevy and then you moved up the corporate and social ladder. you got the buick. and if you got the full american

dream, the cadillac. but the american car buyer, like the american homeowner, over the past decade has overextended themselves. and this has happened for a variety of reasons some of which as a result of the housing bubble because a lot of people drew on home ec. to buy expensive cars. buying on credit. not understanding the true costs of ownership. because we rarely total up the depreciation, the repairs, the maintenance, the insurance, the gasoline on a monthly basis and see how much it's truly costing us. on average $14,000 a year to own our two cars. and being pushed by dealers and financing sources to buy based on low monthly payments so that we become payment shoppers has led us to overspend on our vehicles and get ourselves into financial trouble.

congratulations on your debt would now be a more appropriate response. if somebody tells to you buy a new car, try that on. cars consume about one-fifth of our household budget now. and not far behind housing, it's our second biggest household expense but we rarely see it that way 'cause it's all divided up in little bits and pieces. for the poor, we often focus on carlessness as a problem but car ownership is a big problem for the working poor, who are working hard just to keep themselves in their car to get to work, to get the paycheck to buy the car. or to continue to own the car. so car ownership is impoverishing many families. that one-fifth is average. so if you're lower down on the income scale, your car portion of your budget is much bigger. and the poor are paying more for

cars. they are being charged more. they are paying more for vehicles because they are subject to higher rates of dealer fraud, higher loan rates. often higher insurance rates simply because of the zip code where they live even if they're great drivers and they tend to own older cars that cost more to maintain. sadly, there's plenty of outfits eager to take advantage of folks who are trying -- struggling to stay in their car. and rent a tire is one of these. a chain that will rent to you if you, for example, need a new set of tires to pass inspection. and you can't afford the $450, say, for a set of four tires at wal-mart, the cheapest set you can get. you can't afford that month and you got to pass the inspection. by the end of the year you will have paid perhaps over $2,000 for that set of four tires. family values, back to the happy -- happy talk.

family values are another american ideal that the automakers tap into. often with visions of family fun. although a surprising few number of our trips are to actually have fun. commuting, shopping, yes, errand-running, schools, yes. less than 3% of miles driven are on vacation. less than 1% of trips taken on vacation suggesting perhaps this image should be used by hertz to rent us is car for those occasions rather than being sold to us. and we are buying based on these peak needs. automakers messages around safety also tap into our intense desire to be good parents, to be good heads of family. and parents meticulously pick out the best car seat. they talk safety.

they often even buy based on safety data. if we can afford it, we buy new cars for our teens because we think they will be safer in them. when we were at the gm proving grounds we were invited to test-drive a new car that was introduced called a chevy traverse and we were along with the journalists. and the test-drive involved a series of little exercises in the traverse such as driving with a giant motor boat attached to the back. as you drive with this giant motor boat on the back, do you feel in control, we were asked. as you zip around these cones a little too fast, do you feel in control? when you speed up really fast and break to kick in the electronic stability control, do you feel in control? the question was asked over and over again and we realized we were really being asked, are you safe.

cars are marketing with the illusion of safety as much as marketed with any safety benefits tangibly at our disposal. the car is no friend to any family on a lot of levels and roughly half of air pollution being responsible from -- coming from automobiles is a big part of that. so we can credit asthma rates. we can credit lung disease, cancer, heart disease, stroke many cases each year to the car. obviously if we think about we're sitting in the car for 18.5 hours a week is a major contributor to our obesity crisis. and the reality is that there's nothing more dangerous to children than cars. the number one killer of americans aged 1 to 34. and these are the images that we rarely see. the roughly 40,000 fatalities a year.

the roughly 2 1/2 million injuries a year which like in war we tend to focus on fatalities and to ignore the injured. but there's a hidden community each year -- year in, year out 2 1/2 million are injured ways that recover in a couple days, others with a lifelong debilitating injury. and the numbers have remained fairly steady year after year despite safety improvements in roads and despite safety equipment being added to cars. we can be thankful for the activists who have pushed for each innovation that the car companies have tended to resist in terms of adding safety equipment to our cars, from seatbelts to air bags to electronic stability control to antilock brakes. all of these things have made cars safer but because we're driving more miles, we are putting ourselves at risk. and up until last year, those numbers have been fairly steady. last year we saw the first dip

in fatalities. and that was to the fact that americans were driving less. it's a hopeful sign because it means that we can drop the rate. but it also means that safe driving means less driving. the final value i want to talk quickly today is progress. america's belief in technology as the salvation that is going to give us hope that car technology itself will solve many of the problems of the car. so we expect and hope that car engineers will make cars safer. and that road engineers will make roads safer. we hope and expect that alternative fuels will soon eliminate the need for fossil fuels. and that we'll be driving spectacularly streamlined vehicles that will hover above the road. or maybe something a little less

glamorous but still -- even if we could convert our fleet today, if the 244 million vehicles that were on the road today suddenly could be fueled from your garden hose with water, many of the problems that i talked about tonight would remain. the obesity problem would remain. the overspending problem would remain. the traffic problem would remain. the inequity problem would remain. the crash problem would remain. and so while we want to encourage development of alternative fuels and it will mitigate many of the problems of the car when we get there, one of the problems with looking ahead is that we don't look at what we can do now. and one of the things that we write about in the book is what we can do now. what can we realistically do now in terms of behavioral changes and in terms of policy changes to improve our lifestyles? we're not going to get rid of cars.

some of you are happy to hear that. we will not get rid of cars but there are some very practical small steps that families can take and there are bigger steps we need to push our government to take to make that happen. and the first thing is we recommend people take a family snapshot in front of the car. by that we mean look at how you're using your car. look at how often you're driving and to where and what trips can be removed or eliminated or combined. look at your car budget. really add it up. what are you spending? after you do those two things you will not find it difficult to think about downsizing. about moving to smaller vehicles next time you buy a car or trading in your larger vehicles or downsizing your fleet. removing one vehicle from your fleet could save the average american family tens of thousands of dollars over the

course of the decade. buying smart. understanding the schemes of the dealer. understanding how to finance in an intelligent and careful way. stepping back from the car. trying to drive less. finding ways to drive less and there are innumerable ones that don't require sacrifice that actually can improve your life. many people who are -- have been forced to public transit in this recession are finding it to be actually a very positive change. and don't plan to go back when they can afford to go back to the car. changing your personal culture of driving, driving not just less but more safely. more sanely. finding the sweet spot when you're making major life changes. really thinking about that commute. deciding where to live. deciding where to work. looking as more people are now for bikable, walkable places to live. they are there. they are out there and people are moving to them. and then finally we recommend

that people get political both on the local level where it can be as simple as looking to add sidewalks so that kids can walk to school. so that you can add pathways that will encourage bicycles. at the state level and at the federal level pushing for policy changes. understanding which of your leaders are receiving contributions from the oil and capacity industry and from the car industry and pushing perhaps for a different choice. if they do. there are a lot of things that the government can do to shift spending from subsidies for oil and gas companies, from, for example, auto bailouts toward public transit. so we recommend a shift in spending. not necessarily more spending. but with that being said, i want to open the floor to questions. and we have a young gentleman here with a mic.

so if you do have a question -- and i call on you, if you could just wait for the mic to ask the question. and so we have someone here in the back row. >> first of all, i want to say -- [inaudible] >> i have. >> it's very interesting. but what i really want to ask is i always hear people talking about the fact that americans are cowboys. and they're independent. and we like our freedom. but there was a time -- and i've read about it, i don't know -- the turn of the last century when people really did enjoy jumping on a trolley car or getting on a train and socializing with people and traveling to where they were going. but then something happened. gm, firestone, all the companies interested in the car industry bought up the trolley companies. and proceeded to destroy them, rip up the tracks, destroy the cars and push their own product.

in other words we were sort of manipulated as a country and we lost the culture of actually meeting people on a train or going out on a trolley and talking to people. and being part of our culture. we sort of isolated ourselves in these boxes. and so -- i mean, i don't want to assume -- i don't think i want to assume that the american populist is just so fixated on this business of independence and freedom. yes, we are in a sense but i think we want to be with our fellow human beings, too, in a public transit setting. so i think the last one get political is a really very important point. i think we need to get public transportation funded and get it back on track. >> there's a couple of points there. and first of all to your point about the trolley being ripped up. the system that we have is a result of year after year decisions by government under the influence of corporations. and we've gotten to where we are

that we have 244 million cars for a variety of reasons. why do -- as a whole the majority of americans prefer and support spending on roads and infrastructure rather than public transit, well, we've invested a lot of money in niece cars that we're driving. and so we do have to do a little bit of work to convince people that spending on public transit is something that benefits them. and again the recession has been positive to the extent that more people have been trying public transit and discovering it and realizing that human element of interaction that's missing on the roads. so one thing we recommend is that people -- particularly if you haven't tried it in a while look around and see what public transit is available to you. try it. you might like it. the more people at all socioeconomic levels that are using public transit and pushing for more of it the better off we're going to be.

and there's a question here. >> i have a question. your talk tonight is basically marketing. it has nothing to do with the advancement of technology in the auto industry, lack of investment. when i was a kid, they were making 15 miles a gallon. today they are making 50 miles a gallon. more horsepower. everything is power-driven so people think their cars are weightless. they follow you within a car length. it's impossible they could avoid an accident because you're going 44 feet a second at 30 miles an hour but they think that's safe. so the very advancements in safety have caused accidents. >> absolutely. >> because people think they're safe. they think they don't weigh anything. they don't know what inertia is. could you talk a little bit about the lack of the lack of advancement of technology in the auto industry. >> on your last point in

particular, i mentioned fatality rates have remained relatively stable despite safety improvements in cars and a lot of that is due to the fact that we're driving more but some of it is what you referred to, which is known in the industry as risk compensation. where because i feel safer, because i have that air bag and i have those brakes, i'm taking more risks. so that's absolutely been a factor and even some of the engineering improvements that have gone in to making our cars to make it safer. and it makes it feel luxious in our little capsule. i didn't like that i couldn't feel that giant motor boat that was behind me. i felt in control. of a giant boat. and so to your point, yes, many of the improvements in cars have made us feel too safe. and have worked at cross-purposes to safety. and the fact that we still have

a gas-burning engine is shocking. and you're absolutely correct that technology advancements and the fact that we're spending more money on our vehicles. we are spending more for more horsepower and more luxury, more electronics. there's a question here. >> with regards it off safety, what the gentleman said i think also brings a point to driver education. and these days i think -- progressively we're seeing less and less driver education. so, therefore, people are operating these vehicles and they are not as good. but i take a little issue with what you're saying about the number of accidents going up. it may be. but as a percentage of -- for the driven mile i think the fatalities and injuries have actually decreased as a result of these things. and, yes, the car is heavier because it has the air bags and

has all the do-dahs on it to be stronger and survive crashes everything and it doesn't get as good gas mileage and that's this vicious cycle. >> cars are safer than they are. 40,000 people dying is 40,000 people dying. it's still something that's worth thinking about. and when we see that dip, though, when we see that actually a lot of our driving is discretionary. so if we can reduce our driving by a significant percentage as we did last year, just because we kind of had to, but i don't have that was trips that people were realizing, i didn't need to hop in the car at that point. if we can reduce the number of &o improve those numbers. &o and there's a question right here. >> i have a sense that in other countries, perhaps particularl in europe, the people are less carjacked than we are here in

america. do you share that sense? and if so, can we learn something from these other countries? >> absolutely. unfortunately, we do -- we do have some fortunately we have some good domestic models. but generally speaking to look at models to follow, we do have to look to europe. and often americans don't like to look to europe. as an example of how we should run our country. but in terms of public transit and in terms of consumer behavior, consumers are more practical in europe. they do buy based on needs than wants at least from the industry experts that we talked to. and we talked from one representative from volvo who spent quite amount of time talking about how shocked he was how americans like to load up on

the options and the accessories. so we can look to them as a model as a consumer to say, do we need to spend so much?w8y even if we have a car. and we can also look to europe as a model for directing spending towards public transit. and that may involve light rail. it may involve high-speed trains. people like to say, well, the countries are smaller. and we're a big country. but connecticut is not a big state. so if we do these things, you know, locally and state-by-state, they're doable. a question here. >> technologically i agree with you that it is a wonderful idea to have a reduced size of car. it's not only environmentally friendly and so then, but i was shocked recently by a picture that i saw in the "new york times" of a family that had to live in their car because they

were dispose -- dispossessed from their house and the bank, of course, who hold the mortgage of people in that position are not really ready to relent and give up the fact that these people are really desolated. and disadvantaged by the fact that they couldn't pay their mortgage. in such cases they're glad to have a large car if the entire family has to move in. [laughter] that i hope is a temporary condition. the real issue that i wanted to ask you about is the distractio÷ that drivers have first due to cell phones. even the fact that they have the ability to converse by virtue of a microphone rather than

directly in the phone itself does not necessarily mean that they're driving more safely. and we have a lot of accidents because one can be extremely emotionally involved while driving and the cell phone is not a device that should be used under those circumstances. the "new york times" also published today the fact that computers are not just in laptops and desktops. they are going to be on dash boards. can you imagine how -- what would the driver be doing if he has a computer on the dashboard? do you think that makes him a safer driver? do you think he should be driving a car while he's messing about with his computer? we have some problems in this entire business because innovation is driving the

american public frentic in terms of lack of safety. >> when we first started talking to the auto companies and we were asking about technology. and they kept coming back to in-car technologies. we're at the forefront of technology and what they meant is the technology you were talking about. putting computers in the car and the mp3 jack in the car. it's emblematic again trying to cram our vehicles with all this extra stuff. for somebody who's a spokesman who travels, you know, tens of thousands of miles a month perhaps for their job and who actually work out of their car, realtors come to mind is another example, there might be a practical use to have a computer in your car. i don't know that it needs to be built into it. and all of these devices -- the cell phones -- you know, even the simple radio can provide a distraction. you lookq0; down for a minute t

turn the nobody. -- knob. we feel comfortable with these distractions in these cars because we year and year and day in and day out and become immune to their danger. we forget that we're doing this incredibly complicated task that requires a tremendous amount of concentration. and attention. and we take it for granted. and we try to do too many things at one time. and we endanger ourselves and others. one more here. >> hi, my name is richard. the few things that you might have -- i'm sure you're aware of that are probably worth mentioning in the context of your presentation. one is length of miles traveled by american. 26% of our trips are one mile or less. >> yes. >> 40% are 2 miles or less.

80% of those trips are by car. another area is, you know, our rail infrastructure. we've had like a decimation of rail -- rail infrastructure in the last 80 years. i think it's down by two-thirds. and of that one-third that remains, much of it -- very little of it is used for commuter rail or frequent service. here from new haven to new york we have the busiest line in the country. we carry twice as many people every day. as amtrak does nationwide. certainly people are more than willing especially -- you know, either to go to work or recreationally to go to new york on the weekends to take a car. and why is that?

well, people usually talk about the price of parking in new york. so that's an issue that this country faces or the adverse consequences of impervious service related obviously to the roads but to the especially to the automobiles. and those in cities other than new york, those parking spaces take a greater and greater percentage of the land area. hartford, connecticut, for example, has had a declining population over the last 30 years. but but since 1970, the number of parking spaces has risen by 30%.

i would say also that -- the country has to set goals and where we're going. the rest of the world is having an increase in the number of car ownership, increased rate in car ownership compared to the u.s. we're leveling off. we should really set a goals of like reducing car ownership. you alluded to that. so i guess i'll wrap up and just saying -- you know, just to get a few comments with regard to that and mention also to anyone in the audience who's interested and that is donald shup who wrote the high cost of free parking is going to be speaking at yale at 7:00 on tuesday january 19th. so it's kind of related to what we're speaking with. >> to your first point about how many trips we're taking that are quite short and why do we do that -- it's habit. we hop in the car. we don't think twice about it. and once you start driving and

become sedentary in that way, what seems like a short walk becomes long because we're not used to walking anymore. one of the things we recommend that people do is keep a trip diary in their car. and that can be as simple as having a pad of yellow paper to keep rack of where you're going and how long it takes you to get there and how far away it is. so that people can really see how many trips that they're taking they could walk or bike. and it is -- it is a high percentage. and those are not necessary trips. we can consider the irony of driving to the memorandum. -- gym. and luckily my husband is not here because he would say the reason i don't drive to the gym is because i don't go to the gym. so i don't have a lot of authority on that. but there are a lot of shorter trips that we could be more healthifully and cutting down on our driving quite a bit. your second point on the need for greater public transit.

our public transit system is thin. it's better in some places than others. but we should be pushing for more of it. there's no reason why we shouldn't have a world class public transit system. it's just that the spending has been directed towards the roads. and that policy shift should happen. there were some stimulus funds devoted to public transit. but they pale in comparison to the auto bailouts. and i think we can take one or two more questions. and there's one right here. >> my -- >> and if you could just wait for the mic. thanks. >> my grandchildren came from maine for christmas and there were these little exhausted from the car ride. little sprites falling out of the car and walking up to grandma.

and when i suggested that we take right away a walk downtown, there was this instant transformation. they ran out into the woods and they dragged out sticks to make into walking sticks. they stamped them apart and it was just a really, wonderful liberating experience for them and for me. and my daughter. you know, i would just love to have that example thought about and actualized. we all have these experiences. and if we could just -- >> well, even though walk to school -- >> the walk to school which used to be a respite or an

adventure -- very few children walk to school and they are being driven. i would argue that, you know -- so many people we talked to sadly said look the only time i see my kids is when i'm driving to school. and the only time i see my kid is when they're trapped in the car. that's a sad reflection to spend time with your children. healthier ways to spend time with your children. and our children would be healthier if we encouraged them to get out you and walk or bike. we have a false sense of danger with respect to children because they're much safer, for example, walking or biking to school. and much safer taking the school bus than they are being driven by their own parent. we like that feeling of control so we want to take them ourselves. and certainly they are much safer taking the school bus, walking or driving or driving themselves once they're in high school. and i think i'm going to take one last question right up front. if you could wait for the mic, though.

>> thank you. >> sure. >> for your talk. you mentioned certain values of freedom and individuality and family values. none of which seem to really pertain to our use of the car. so i'm wondering if then this might somehow correspond to -- if we're not doing these things, that the car itself is a false symbol of these values. even a dead symbol of these values. and i'm wondering if you could comment then if since it does work if that might also -- well, i'm curious how you might

comment on the possibility that we ourselves are living our lives as a kind of symbol -- yeah, just that. values, some of the aspects are real. i mean, yes, the car does make us free particularly in a car-based society you need the car to be free. so it's created its own sense of providing the freedom that it actually can prevent us from having. so it embodies a whole host of contradictions. we can take our family on vacations. we want to. we just devoted too much of our energy to thinking that that's why we're buying a certain vehicle when you're uses are very different or typically different. we would do better to think of the car as a tool. and when we talk to the auto marketers, you know, they say

there are the appliance people, the people who treat them that way and buy them and there's some people who buy on emotion and unfortunately most of us are buying on emotion and should think of it as buying as a washing machine although they are getting pretty fancy. thank you very much for your good questions and i thank once again elm street books and new today. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> anne lutz fernandez is an english teacher in westport, connecticut. she's a former investment banker with 15 years experience working for corporations. katherine lutz is an anthropology professor at brown university. she's written or edited nine books.

howard zinn was a political scientists who was an active supporter of the student nonviolent coordinating committee during the civil rights movement and wrote "vietnam the logic for withdrawal" and disobesiieien - disobedience and democracy. howard zinn died of a heart attack in santa monica, california, wednesday, january 27th. he was 87 years old.

today at 10:45 am eastern on book tv, a program from 2007 with howard zinn. he discusses his book, a power government cannot suppress, a question of writings on the bush administration's response to 9/11. howard zinn was also a guest on book tv's in depth program in september of 2002. you can watch it online at booktv.org. >> here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals over the next few months.

>> please let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we'll add them to our list. email us at book tv@c-span.org. >> a discussion now on the merits of withdrawing from iraq the independent institute here in washington is the host of this event. it's about 90 minutes. >> welcome to the independent institute's policy forum on iraq and afghanistan. you will undoubtedly hear a different point of view from the democratic administration or the republican opposition here today. our panel today consists of peter galbraith a former deputy special representative of the