then became a magazine editor saved radically changed many literary magazines, music magazines.wg then became a promoter of very famous rock and roll musicians and then started writing these books. now, the first two books that he wrote, i read and was just stunned. i was amazed. i've got to say this third book i find extremely stimulating and extremely disturbing. because i'm one of those people who has many questions about capitalism and howard addresses and attacks people like me in a way, in a very provocative unsettling way which is a great thing to do. flight i'm totally open to the fact that all my ideas about life may be wrong. howard's ideas may be wrong, too. but there's nobody as stimulating as howard. and i would like to start because this book which is promoting the glories and the advantages of capitalism is, let's face it, nevertheless

titled "the genius of the beast." now, the beast is a term that different people have used. i remember years ago reading a book talking about the great beast of society. so, howard, capitalism is a redeemer in terms of your book. how come you called it "the genius of the beast"? >> it's a very good question. my publisher actually came up with that title. and the beast refers to western civilization. and the book was originally called "reinventing capitalism putting soul in the machine" and the basic idea of the book came from the fact that when 9/11 happened, people -- i was stuck in bed. as richard just explained. and people would come over to my house and they would say, with relish, western civilization is about to die. and it deserves to.

it is the worst civilization in the history of mankind. it is perpetrated more evil and more violence than any other civilization that exists. and something in me rebelled very powerfully against that message because richard and i share certain qualities and among those qualities are we question everything in life. what richard was saying that he appreciates the book because it questions some of his beliefs even though he still is going to stick with those beliefs. and as a consequence is not comfortable with the book. but one way or the other we're questioners. and this is a society that invites questioning. this is a society that supports questioning. this is a society that supports freedom of speech and diversity and pluralism and all of that kind of stuff. and there is no society on the face of the earth outside of western civilization of american civilization in particular that has invited people like you and me to exist. french civilization did that and

gave us both a terrific heritage so it's western civilization we're talking about. and why do we call it the beast? well, the beast as i said was not the title i chose. but it makes a certain amount of sense because you know that phrase we know not what we do from the bible well, we know not what we do. words once against a upon a team we waylay our power and he was so wrong it's ridiculous because over the course of the seven years in which i had to think out why in the world the civilization was a value and what we can do, what we can do -- i mean, richard, me, and you, to redeem this civilization to take it to the next stage, i realized that even our consumerism has extraordinary elements that we fail to take for granted. so first off this is a society that allows people like you and me to exist and that is rare. i have friends who spent time in china, years in china.

and they have been so anxious to get out that it's ridiculous. because the claustrophobia of not being able to speak. the claustrophobia of not being able to oppose those things that they felt were unadjust or incorrect stifle them. in the spirit we know not what we do when we are consuming things, when we are buying things like this -- this is a miracle-maker. this is a machine. and there's a great benefit of being 66 years old, which is my age, and that -- one of those benefits is being able to see change. over the course of decade after decade after decade. life was a very difference proposition when phones we had were nailed to the wall. were attached to a cord. when you walked out of the house and were supposed to meet somebody and you got confused about your directions or you couldn't find that person in a

crowd, you were stuck. you could not grab this device and call the person who's only 10 feet away from you to say, oh, that's you? there are things we take for granted. being able to talk to bangkok or shanghai -- a couple of weeks i set up a meeting between buzz aldrin and the former president of india. do you know how i did it? i did it on skype. i did it for free. i did it on my laptop. i made my assistant, j.p., who's in here someplace, my assistant and i worked entirely on our laptops putting this thing together. and i ran the meeting on my laptop. and most of the work that i did, the four months of preparation for this meeting was while i was sitting in a local cafe. the tea lounge in park slope in brooklyn sounded by people which made me infinitely happier in

days when i had to do work like this isolated in an office. there's a huge difference. little things like the cell phone and like being able to sit in the tea lounge with an entire computer in my laptop in the 1950s when i was a kid computers were the size of this building. and we got one that's more powerful than those in our laps? these are astonishing things and they're freeing messi antic because they give us powers 30 or 40 years ago we could have dreamed of that we could have known that they were powerful and materialized in our lifetimes and they have and many more will. now, china, which is out to take over as the hegemon of the central power of 20th century. china has been doing science for 2200 years. china has been churning out encyclopedias of things on like

for 2,000 years and medicine for 2,000 years. the major book on chinese science is 22 volumes long. needham's book on china. the chinese are very inventive and ingenious. and they will not cease to provide new goods like the cell phone or like this other device which i should never have in a bookstore -- the kindle. [laughter] >> but it's here. take my word for it. i've got it. there you go. but this makes books ubiquitous because this will read books out to me. once -- look, i'm a very depressive person. i had clinical depression for the first 40 or 50 years of my life. and that means when i wandered around in loneliness i was miserable. well, i'm no longer ever alone anymore because of the cell phone and because i have this reading books in my ear. reading books in my ear. i'm taking information in ways i

could not only i could conceive when i was a child. and there's another thing the western system does it encourages a protest and it has a standing protest industry. it's had a standing protest industry since 1760, getting my thing in this pouch is deadly. but at any rate -- and no other civilization in the history of the planet has had an existing protest industry. there was a slot for protest and one of the beginners of the western system in the biblical israel and they were called prophets but the number of people who were prophets was very, very small. and ever since i've been a kid we've been able to go to peace marches and march against the bomb or whatever we chose to march against at the time, march against the war in vietnam, there's been a slot for that. and it's an industrialized slot. it takes advantage of the printing press. it takes advantage of modern technologies. today protests are organized by people with cell phones. these are a few of the powers

that is unique of the simplization. -- civilization. it's not to say the civilization is devowed of problems. it does some horrendous, horrendous things but it give us the power to overturn those things. it give us the problems to solve those difficulties. to heal those wounds and we're capable not to gloat that western civilization can go that no human being has ever gone before. >> you know, howard, you say you're 66. i'm 72. you're speaking of the advantages of this current system in terms of of a -- and i know you're capable of doing something else but you're speaking in terms of a very short historical perspective. i mean, you're talking about how much things are better now than they were back 100 years ago, 200 years ago. now, you referred to china and the greatness of chinese civilization which, of course, is long precapitalisic civilization. >> right.

>> in addition, i'm a little unclear how the -- how you protect in capitalistic civilization what seems to be a tendency -- certain people would say it's a tendency for in order to sell, forwarding the lowest common denominator because certain kinds of books, certain kinds of music will sell. other kinds -- this isn't going to sell. it's too esoteric. there are a lot of people in the music industry today, which you know very well even. literature, and other fields that say, well, things that made it into the marketplace many years ago, you know, would james joyce get published today. people don't sit down and read a lot of james joyce but what is the contribution to civilization of all of these people who are

not trying to sell but are just doing their thing that not that many people pick up on but a few people pick up on and then it bleeds down to other people? you know, i would just add -- i was thinking about this this morning. it seems in the west today because we're talking a lot about artists and we talk about other things, too. there are three categories of artists. there's the category that we all know, artists who are successful. then there's the famous image of artists who starve to death. and are great artists and then there's a third hidden area of artists in the wests, never talked about, that's those famous important artists who are able to make their art because like proust and other people we can name they didn't need to make a living. now, how does that relate to your notion, which i seem to get from the book, that the

obligation of every artist is to find out what do people want and what should i sell that's coming truthfully inside me that will make me a successful if i go to that. >> for artists the message is very different. remember, okay, let me give a little bit of my background. >> uh-huh. >> at the age of 10 i discovered that i had no place among my fellow human beings because my fellow human beings didn't like me very much and that was an understatement. i wasn't popular. and i found a home in science. i found a home among people who were dead. it turned out the people i could hang out with were galileo and others. so i got involved in cosmology and microbiology at the age of 10. the age of 12 i helped design a computer that won some prizes and those were the days as i said when computers were the size of this entire building. and then i worked the world's leading cancer research facility when i was 16.

but in the meantime, i made a little discovery. the first two rules of science -- and these are in the book because these are very important to redeeming capitalism, for taking capitalism to the next giant leap. the next step came because at the age of 10 the thing that really grabbed me because the first two rules of science and i was told those rules are the truth at any price you go which the price of your life. and the example given was galileo and the example was given dead wrong. it said that galileo would have gone to the stake to save his truth. not true. he negotiated with his friend the pope and got himself a deal where he moved his truth and got ten years of house arrest. thank god the book i was reading didn't tell me. it told me galileo would have gone to the stake for his truth. and rule number two look at things under your noses if you haven't seen them before. look at things that you and everybody else take for granted and proceed from there. look for your hidden assumptions.

look for the things that you just always proceed on without ever questioning and question them. i mean, among other things, these are two of the rules of western civilization. when i was 13 years old and suddenly realized i was an atheist, i realized that the thing right under my nose that i should be looking at wasn't a physical object. everybody that i had ever read about and everybody i ever met believed in a god and i didn't. well, if the gods didn't exist up there or down there or even out here, then they existed in here. and the job was not to find the things right under my nose. it was to find the things right behind my nose. so when i was involved in -- because down to the question of the artist and what was the third category of artist again? >> well, there were people who had money like proust to do what they wanted. >> right, right. >> and there were starving artists like van gogh. >> right.

>> and there were people who were successful making their art. >> well, when i -- eventually, you know, i did science until i was 25 years old and then i jumped ship from science and i did my voyage to the beagle and i went out to something i knew something about pop culture. i hadn't listened to its music and i hadn't paid attention to it and i ended up being credited with founding a new magazine genre the heavy metal magazine. what? i listened to classical music. but, yes, i did that. and then i founded the biggest p.r. firm in the music industry and i work with prince, bet midler, kiss, and all kinds of people like that. and i never, richard, ever said make the music that will make you popular. i said the opposite. >> oh, i know that. >> i said make the music you have to make. because what makes the western system work is not its material goods. what makes the western system

work is the spirit -- these are tools of the human spirit. i'm pointing at these things because these are material goods allegedly right. but we don't buy these things because they're off the paper pull that. we don't buy the things because of the quantity of ink they contain. we buy these things because something -- something ephemeral that happens when we apply the tools of civilization to an interaction between us and this which represents the spirit of an author. and these are tools of the human spirit. they change us. they upgrade us. they elevate us. they do it it in strange ways. >> yeah, but certain artists do that and succeed. >> right. >> i can name other artists who do that and obviously don't succeed. >> right. >> now, you are also talking to corporate america. >> right. >> and you're sort of -- tell me if i'm wrong, it seems to me from my book that you are presenting this message to corporate america. >> right. >> in saying that you also have

to think and believe what will serve mankind not just how you'll make a bigger profit. >> that's right. >> now, what happens if a lot of people in corporate america say, oh, that sounds very nice, howard, but i want to make more money. and if i can make $20 with this, that's great. i'm making money. but if i can make $200 with this, i'm going to go for the $200 thing even if it is not as high of quality. how does capitalism itself rather than individuals -- how are you going to deal with that? >> well, again, i was up against this problem during the 20 years of field work in corporate america. because when you're involved with popular culture you're involved with corporate america. corporate america is selling popular culture. i tried to get across to the people in business, you do not operate on the basis of just the bottom line. you do not operate on just the basis of numbers. you're dealing with human beings. the first thing i used to say to my artists you are not selling pieces of plastic.

in those days we had things called record and lps and they were made of vinyl. you are selling the human soul. and i didn't mean they are degrading the human soul and turning it into the human soul. i was telling them turn your numbers into a sense of your fellow human beings. and ride with the tide of things that you feel are powerfully important. remember the first rule of science the truth at any price including the price of your life. but does that ever pan out in terms of money? absolutely. the greatest artists in corporate america today is steve jobs and he is not a part of a huge corporate machine. he's a part of a very new kind of company. not as new as it could be. he doesn't let his people work in a tea lounge with a laptop and a cell phone. he still has them in a central office which is a bit of a problem. you go much further. but this is a guy who follows his instincts. this is a guy who's instincts seem to go against the grain. i mean, why in the world would

you ever take music and put it into something that's this big and this thick? that's a ridiculous idea. why in the world would you start your own music operation selling your own music as downloads? i mean, i thought we were in the business of selling material things. you're not -- you're selling an electron flow here? why in the world turn out a cell phone that isn't a cell phone that doesn't do a great job as a phone but it's so freaking gorgeous aesthetic gorgeous that's ridiculous. what kind of artist do you think you are, steve? why don't you relate to the people? why don't you copycat the thing that sold yesterday. steve jobs knows better than to do that. he knows to go with his flow. and that's something that i think is an obligation of all of us. a normal worker, i was very disturbed at one point because people coming over to the house were giving me the impression that they were telling kids who work at mcdonald's when you go to mcdonald's realize you are being exploited.

every minute every day that you spend at mcdonald's resent the exploitations. first of all, hamburgers in the 1950s we couldn't afford, period. kids couldn't afford these things. and if you have 150 people walk into you during the day that's 150 opportunities for human interaction. and if you simply smile at those people and try to get a little bit of their life and make their life a little bit better, when you go home at the end of the day, when you go home at the end of the day if you spent the entire life feeling that you're exploited and oppressed, you spent the entire day scowling at 150 people. and you impoverished their lives limon. -- a little bit. in a tiny way you stole from them and it was theft. if you only opened up with warmth to them and recognized who they are for that brief instant of interaction, when you get home at the end of the day you won't feel empty. you won't feel alienation. you won't feel the void. you'll feel satisfied because you've done something of significance for other people's

lives. so capitalism isn't just a matter -- and the western system isn't just a matter of a system that's there that we can't affect. it can be effective very powerfully by the way we perceive by what we're doing and the quality of the human interactions that we perform. >> it is an age-old contrast and i know where you're going to come down on it. but the age-old contrast between do we make people feel good, they come in to -- i'm not going to put down mcdonald's. it's successful all around the world. >> right. >> but there's certainly those people who would claim yeah because they're selling products that are not very healthy. >> right. >> so there's the age-old system of making you feel good and smiling as opposed to another strong tradition that exists in the west also that feeling good is not the aim of life. the aim of life is perhaps being tested and feeling the problematic nature of life and perhaps evolving in some way

that is different. and i would combine that -- i'd like you to speak about the issue of trying to sell, trying to find out what you're going to sell to make people feel good as against that whole other western tradition and eastern tradition especially in the religious tradition which you do talk about to some extent where, well, you're not supposed to disseminate information too easily. you're not supposed to teach too easily. information should be coded. should be sort of hermetic and hidden. >> right. >> so that people have to go and search it out for themselves because they get a hint and then they are driven to learn. and just as in the greatest universities, you'll be told -- i was told at brown years ago, well, we don't teach you. we teach you how to learn. we teach you how to find out for yourself rather than just taking predigested information.

now to a certain extent i worry that you're promoting feel-good, pretty digested information as opposed to the strain and stress of a difficult life that stays difficult and certain people than rise to the top in a rather different way. >> well, richard, one of the things that we -- one of the reasons i love you, aside from the fact that you've been very, very good to me, is that you seek the areas of the greatest difficulty and you seek the areas of the greatest pain and you seek the areas of the greatest uncertainty and you invite those things to take you over, which is a difficult, very difficult thing to do. i mean, that's sacrificing yourself in a very major way. because you know that those are the areas that somehow produce your creativity and your art is based on finding a discomfort zone for your audience. finding some way of taking elements that they deal with every day -- letters of the alphabet --

>> which people are frightened of because there are a lot of factors in the society that say, oh, run away from that. >> right. and your art is based on creating a profound sense of discomfort. and it's based on something else. when i saw your opera with john zorn, i had been -- you know, once upon a time when i edited a literary magazine and i turned it into a experimental graphics magazine, one of the projects i wanted to do was a sort of photographically-based comic book which michael sullivan who's in the back of the room actually implemented and i wanted the script to be something that moved you extraordinarily powerfully in ways you could not articulate in words at all. so you had something had been powerfully affected inside of you. but it royaled you because you couldn't understand it. you didn't know where it was coming from. guess who managed to achieve that kind of art. i didn't in my literary magazine or at least i didn't feel like i did. you achieved it.

so when i saw you -- when i saw your work for the first time, i was stunned. and when i walked out of the john zorn opera that's what i felt. down below something in the diaphragm something had been very powerfully moved in me and this didn't know what it was. now, what does this have to do with the western civilization and the genius of the beast. >> not with western civilization but the capitalistic organizations that you are speaking to now and trying to sell this program to. >> no, i'm trying to sell the program but i'm also -- western civilization is a system. and no element works on its own. and without the protest industry, corporate america would not be able to achieve what it's achieving. without people like you and me, corporate america would have a more difficult time achieving what it's achieving. the western system encourages all of these elements. >> could you explain why they would have a more difficult time achieving it? what good do we do them? >> this is a very good question.

okay. i spent seven years after this experience of having people come over to the apartment and tell me western civilization was about to die and it deserved to die. i spent seven years figuring out what in the world western civilization is and how it does what it does. and what i realized and let's hope that it's useful realization and it grabs you. it certainly grabbed me is that this cosmos is a very curious place. and this cosmos is an enormously creative venture. i mean, it started with nothing. and then it had a pinprick so much smaller than the pinprick that the comparison isn't even possible. that came into existence from nothing and suddenly a massive manifold of space and time came from nowhere and then precipitating like raindrops from a cloud came the first quarks. these are incredible inventions.

how did something come from nothing and what the hell was space and time in time and where in the world did it come from? why in the world is quarks were matter coming from a sheet in space and time. what is this all about? it's a cosmos that's created more things and tens of the minus 36 second than eighteen of us human beings will create in all of our lives no matter how hard we will try and we really do. it is a strange place. and the one question is how does the cosmos create. and what does it use us for. i mean, you've seen me, i think, exercise in the bedroom where i made you -- here, try this. bear with me. just try poking your left finger through your right hand. did it go through? didn't go through. oh, my god than the experiment is a failure. no, no, no. the next question is, are you less than 100 years old?

anybody here over 100? no, i don't see any hands. okay. i saw one hand. from a person who's 32. at any rate, he was lying. but the point is, how old is the stuff that kept your finger from going through your palm? do you have any idea? it's protons. and how old are those protons? they're 13.73 billion years old. so you are the most ornate form of social experiment, protons have ever instrumented. you are protons -- you and i are protons way of dreaming because the cosmos never had dreams until roughly somewhere between 2.5 million -- well, dogs dream. so it could be as far as 200 million years ago. but we and dogs are the cosmos way of dreaming. we're the cosmos way of coming up with consciousness. we're the cosmos way of coming

up with a moral sensibility. we're the cosmos way of trying to transcend herself. but look at this cosmos? she's been transcending herself. she book straps herself from the first quarks. they had social rules built on them. and it told them who to flee and who to gang up. and they had an inherent need to gang up in groups of 3. how are inherent quarks this is ridiculous. coming from nowhere and these quarks ganged up in protons and neutrons. well, we are those protons and neutrons and we're sitting here thinking. and we're sitting here talking. and we're the very first way the cosmos has ever accident occurred to think and talk and come up with art. what's the point of all of this, right? the cosmos is a search engine is

constantly searching her possibilities. you know, we used to talk about in the 1960s about seeking your potential. well, the cosmos is constantly looking for her new possibilities and she's finding possibilities that would seem to any of the rest of us to be absolutely impossible. and she's doing it right now through everybody in this room. ...

designing this vertical fin for gliders that didn't exist. if you had in his mother, father, brother or his wife, but what you had said to george haley? george, you are crazy to be this is a ridiculous waste of your time to the account you wasted an entire life and all the money that you're father gave you. well, that turned out to be the vertical tail of the airplanes that we use today. in other words, 2800 years of dreaming, 2800 years of scheming, 2800 years of useless scheming like leonardo tiffin she's google's lead over the course of a multigenerational enterprise to our being able to fly to l.a. in five hours today for hours for somewhat more reasonable money than i have but

a somewhat reasonable price for most the spirit that's the kind of thing the civilization does. how does it do it? it does it through being a search engine and uses a combination like a beehive, it uses a combination of the worker bees to exploit the known and discover bees research the unknown. and you and i are along the searchers of the unknown. we deliberately court discomfort. >> yeah, my last question before we ask some people to produce pete -- because i was quick to ask about this issue of the bees. howard has an interesting chapter how bees work in the height and so forth, and i want to relate to something we talked about before the discussion began. the bees go out and some bees get lost and go wandering -- unable to find the paulen and so forth and they wander around randomly. and we hear this because they are covered with pollen. you are a great big bee.

but do bees have this ability that seem so important to me, to human beings, and is this outside of your scheme of things? when human beings make mistakes? and it is -- the bee is searching around randomly. it's not really a mistake. but you can do something and it's a mistake. and from the disaster, from the mistake you say wait a minute. maybe if i radicalize the mistake i can discover something. and i relate this somehow -- i'm not sure what the relation is -- but we were talking before the official session tonight about the handicapped principal. >> right. >> and maybe you can talk about that and the guy who invented it, because you seem to be talking about handicap principal this evening actually in terms of the stress and strain of the complication of life and the strangeness of life. >> right. well let me -- i might not understand the handicap principal of the same way you do

so correct me if i'm wrong. but this is really scientist is responsible for this thing, evolutionary biology, the handicapped principle. basically think of the peacock, favorite example of evolutionary biologists everywhere, and its tail. that tail is a huge handicap. it basically is a billboard saying "eat me, kuran bmp quote it makes it easy for a predator to zeroing in on you. so why in the world would creatures evolved something that is gaudy as hell and sets them up as a target for anybody who is hungry? is that an adequate summary? >> yes comegys peery islamic okay. now listen to this, you ready? we think consumerism is a sin. we think piling up material objects is a terrible thing, a curse. and we are wrong because nature provides for these things.

one thing to remember, anyone good thing an overdose is a poison. and that applies to consumers. you can be a compulsive spender and destroy your entire life, you compiled so many goods in your house you can't even walk through the house anymore and that is an illness. but in general, nature is hives -- hives. the peacocks's tail is a terrible waste. >> you are leaving the important thing out. >> okay, go ahead. >> you're leaving out the peacock who has this great tale is sending ennis to a potential mate i am so great i would be such a great and powerful husband that i can afford to take the risk of having a big tail. >> for every peacock that manages to get the girls there are 15 peacocks that go without. >> now -- we had a president, john f. kennedy would decided

let's go to the moon. what? spending all that money to go to the moon instead of a school, is that a handicap principal kind of thing, and excessive fishing that proved that we have all kinds of capabilities that people didn't imagine and i am just giving it to prove that and to give people great feelings. >> i'm beginning to see the connection here. surplice is one of the things the cosmos works with all the time. another -- she uses it to explore, she uses the surplus to create. what do i mean? you and i are both men have the last time i checked, and every man in this room is lined generate 18 trillion sperm during his lifetime. we will be satisfied if two, three, maybe four of those sperm find a home? what happens to the other 18 or 17,000,000,000,999.7 whatever it is sperm who don't make it? the universe doesn't care.

we do because human beings are thrown out there as fodder for the gods, for this great gamble of a social search engine, evolutionary search machine constantly searching the possibilities, looking into possible poor's that can become entire niches and your right. for every van gogh -- vincent van gogh's story is a nightmare. this guy never got any attention during his lifetime. his brother was an art dealer. you would think he could sell some art. his brother couldn't sell his work and then after he was dead his brother's wife and his brother died within six months of his own death. she died not knowing whether he would have an impact on anybody whatsoever but if he had come because some of his life experience to figure out of he was going to do anything of value the answer would have been no come to our donner eni uselessly, your life was useless and that's a tragedy.

well, his brother's sister was a terrific publicist, and she went out and got attention for his work. >> but -- but before we ask people to talk, i was thinking earlier today when i was a young man somebody had a big influence on me, henry miller. not so much the books about sex which were fine, exciting. but henry miller wrote of these books talking about all these independent artists that he knew, his friends he felt were wonderful. these painters, writers who enriched his life and made him want to live and made him a vibrant. none of these people ever made it. ceramica i will tell you one story about the bees before we open up to the audience, and that is okay, 95% of the bees in the b hive r negative conformist forger bees. they do with your suppose to do, they go out and the do their job every day and go to the flower patch everybody knows about the popular flower touch everybody

else is going to and they come back with paul when and if they're lucky the on loader bees, there is a little on loading dock in the highest and the onlookers bees are the ones that pulled the paulen that they've gotten out of them to feed to the inside of the highest and stick their tongues down the throat of you who are an incoming bee to see if you've got anything in the volatile liquids inside of you and a pack that stuff away. when you arrive at the lip of the hive and are carrying something that is urgently needed in the hive, pollen, the onlookers rushed over to you as if they are surrounding a rock star and you feel great. how do we know you feel great? because you operate with energy because you are alert and you go back out to the flower patch as quickly as you can and bumble for 100 flowers and pick up the pollen and come back with eagerness and if you don't get attention when you come back to the lip of the hive, if nobody pays attention to you

whatsoever, you going to the equivalent of clinical depression. how do we know? because you work more slowly and your body temperature goes down, and eventually if you've been doing this long enough, that is if you've been going out and coming back empty-handed or with something the hive doesn't meet and you get no attention over and over again you get the message. and you stop going out to the flower patches and to crawl with a very little energy you have beckon to the hive and you are there to corporate and listless except you need excitement, something to per queue up, you need entertainment. and there are entertainers. who are the entertainers? the entertainer's again, 95% of the bees are conformists. 5% are bohemians. the 5% who are bohemians have been going out and doing something that looks so ridiculously self indulgent, such a waste of time and energy

that it's ridiculous. they got on well 18-mile trips going nowhere and there are 5% of the hive, that is a lot of bees. that is 1,000 bees. and some of those 1,000 bees find something they think can be of value to the hive. and they come back and they dance their message. their message says this is what i found, this is where a day's, this is what i think it's value is but there are five competitors at least competing in the hives to read you and i have come back empty-handed. nobody has paid attention to you for a full day, a full workday. he finally called on to the hive and are ready to die, except you're still alive enough to look for something to per queue up, and it turns out there are five bees dancing their tails off with messages of what they found. so you crawl over to the bees who are dancing the messages.

now eventually is bee, if its message is powerful enough will begin to per queue up so much it will convince you that this might be something of value. that bee might be onto something and if the bee gets the message across to you, you go out and check what she says. you go out to the patch that she's advertising, and if you are excited about it, you come back and do a little dance, too. well, one of the five bees who gets the most backup dancers wins, and eventually the 95% of the bees who do what everybody else does all go off to the flower patch advertised by this useless pushing in wasting time and energy in the manner demonstrating this is a consumer costs los that wastes and waste in order to find what is next. and what's important? the big question is what happens to the four bees who lose? what happens to the 200 bees who

didn't even get to dance? without them, the search engine wouldn't work. and the hive would die in the middle of winter without having to 20 kilograms of honey, the 45 pounds of honey it needs to make it through the honey. is nature cruel and vicious? yes. does she use us and dispose of us the way she disposes of sperm -- and by the way, every woman in this room in embryonic phase has 6,000 sites, immature ova so if you have three kids, think of the waste. think of the waste. it's appalling and every one of those things is a life in its own way in its life is disposed of so casually it's ridiculous. because we are the cosmos with consciousness, because we are the cosmos with a moral sensibility, i think it is our job to stop that ridiculous waste and that agony, but you feel the value of the agony for

creativity, and we are both right. >> this is just a tiny little fragment of a myriad number of subjects in this book that howard is able to relate to his central exploratory team. i sure their must be some people out there who would love to ask howard some questions. >> well actually, we've been very clever and we planted somebody but we don't need to because there's a real human with questions. [laughter] >> i guess when we are loading br cui better make sure we bring some troubadours and comedians and artists. >> absolutely. >> let's get back to the kosmas real quick, howard. i heard you on the radio interview talk about things like mass extinction events, because the kosmas doesn't look at let's say creation destruction sustainability. it's just one big cycle a transformation. so, aren't we heading towards

one of those right now and it's really beyond our control? >> yes. the reason is a little on characteristic. we may or may not have a man made crisis on our hands. we may or may not have a crisis of carbon gas on our hands. we may or may not have a crisis of global warming on our hands. that is impossible for us to say because the issue is so politicized that it's not science any more. one thing we can say for certain is there's been 140 to mass extinctions since life has arisen on this planet and most of those mass extinctions have come because of maseth climate change a spriggs of the climate changes have been ice ages, some of those climate changes have been global warming. the 2.5 million years since we've been human there's been 60 global warming is, they're have been 20 global warming sand six deglaciation come 60 guice hs and those 20 global warming said most of them the temperature

went up ten to 18 degrees in ten years or less which makes the global warming that we think we are in the middle of look ridiculous by comparison. what is the interpretation of all of this information? one way or the other the temperature is going to change the time because that's the way that the cosmos operates, and the cosmos operates that way for a very simple reason. we will as we go a round the sun and they produce major changes in temperature every 23,000, 42,100,000 years plus the solar system itself is circling around the center of the galaxy every 226 million years and this is a treat that is worse than frito's trip and haul it. [laughter] it's got so many risks, dangers and appalling circumstances that it's ridiculous, and every one of those things changes the climate. what is nature doing. she is delivering as many species as possible to find as many matches as possible before the next great extension so that

she manages to keep not only life alive but keep it thriving and developing and new ways. so yes, we are in for it big time, the problem is we humans evolved in the middle of all of these ice ages and global warming and they were what made us clever. they gave us the challenge of overcoming them over and over and over again and inventing a way out of things. let's redefine something in biology. a niche isn't something that's there. a niche is an opportunity to invent something. if we invent metabolism, if we invent a way to get a vintage of something that previously goes to waste land of a sudden that the waste land is a niche so the images depend on our ability to create and our ability to get beyond this next climate challenge because there will be one with this fire or ice and it's a challenge to our ingenuity and ingenuity is what we are here for.

>> there is one back there. >> hi, howard. >> wheat, where are you? >> i'm right here. >> yes, good to see you. >> stepping back a few minutes to what you said about people being exploited or seeming to be exploited by capitalist system or whatever, you spoke of the fact that if we are in existence which seems to be nothing more than a daily grind if we were simply working in a restaurant for example, if only we could open up to the world around us and engage with the other human beings that we haven't seen the course of the day that is seemingly limitless possibility for interaction which is the whole point of existing in the first place, but how does that -- that seems to sidestep the issue of the fact that

exploitation some way or another injustice or something that we humans have also come up with, the concept of fairness and social justice is still going on. so it doesn't seem particularly advantageous to feel really great about your day even as you are being exploited. >> here is the trick. it's wise to avoid thinking. this is an idea opposite are joined at the hip and both of these things are necessary simultaneously. it's necessary to engage with the people that we run across on average daily lives in order to as you said it makes things rich, every person is different, every person is a new world to explore but the same time we have to struggle against the fact that a whole mess of ceos are walking away with 16 million to 60 million-dollar paychecks right now. a $60 million paycheck is enough money to buy two small cities, to small cities to buy all of the real-estate.

should played blank and fine or anybody else be making that kind of money? is outrageous that we find that we have to exploit the tools that we were given and create new ones. right now we have the tools and protest industry and that includes unions and peace margins and includes publishing articles against it and it includes overturning the government periodically and bringing in barack obama who talks about some sort of regulatory reform in the finance industry. so we need to do these two things simultaneously. get all of the richness we can out of our lives in order to enrich ourselves and like the bees to enrich the entire system because we are working and not just on behalf of ourselves, we are working as strange as it sounds on behalf of humanity. >> okay, two brief points. the first point was just a brief

aside when mr. foreman was dividing art and you seemed to like the on the pleasant part. >> not explicitly. >> that gives in sight of some other kind and then that on the pleasant part seems to me historic we would be very much tied to capitalism or individualism and it's not to be found much in the societies that don't have capitalism and individualism to think hitler's critique and all but was very much criticism against that kind of capitalism that he didn't like and so just to defend the brought capitalism there and the on a pleasant part. >> they may not be defense of that. there may not be defense because

there might be an explanation that one of the problems of capitalism is it makes on a pleasant part necessary. >> okay if you like him but capitalism might be the right system. in the ways of the question was about catastrophes i come from europe and there are some signs that some of the freedom of expression is being threatened by muslim minorities that have been imported. the cartoonist debacle, that man is still living in fear and someone just tried to murder him and that is the signal that if you don't want to have your family threatened etc. there are things you shouldn't mengin and talk about it severance of the demographic issue if there are a lot of those people who don't value individualism and capitalism and so on, what is going to happen? >> first of all if you go back

to the first rules of science the first rule is including the price of your life and in my case, i have been a critic of militant islam for something like 30 years and have been under threat from several islamic organizations. they got an entire radio show that had me as a guest taken off the air in the capitol of canada for example they had four days of sitdown strikes against me and the offices of the magazine a long time ago. and basically my attitude i don't know if it is fair to say this on c-span but in the spirit of science and spirit of what i think is a life philosophy for all of us, [laughter] [applause] was the sufficiently articulate? we have any other questions? >> i heard you say that it might be time for money to go away.

i'm paraphrasing it but i want to understand what you mean by that and get some thoughts about that. the whole idea. >> i.t. foot money is a totally -- money is like a hammer. money is like most tools. most tools are morally oblivious. a hammer can be used to build a house and to kill, and when i walk into my house until recently every time i have seen a hammer i've taken for granted as a tool not an instrument of death so whether it is a tool or instrument of death is a matter of perception. and money is an extremely useful way of shuffling my work to somebody in china in exchange for somebody's work in india and somebody else's work in poland in exchange for my work. it does astonishing an incredible amazing things. some of those things in science we call a merchant property or produces an emergent properties. you know, you take an electron

300,000 years into the universe existence, when the electrons were able to slow down and calmed down and see what the potential loss and put it near a proton which is 18,500 times or 50 times its size and you don't just get an electron and proton. to get something radically new called the atom and that adam has remarkable properties called hydrogen or helium so when two and two don't equals three in this universe, don't equal to the usually equals three or more, money has the property, the ability to the astonishing things happen so when people talk about a lot of people are talking about reforming, but resistance at having local currencies and all kind of stuff that the local currency will be just as morally oblivious as the money that we've got so why replace it? it is the perception that counts. it is bringing held we put this come full flame of the

possibility of human perception and introduction to every interaction we have during the course of the day and to everything you do and to look at the second will science and obey the second rule of science is to look at things under your nose as you've never seen them before and then proceed. richards are profoundly moves you in the direction and all i try to do that to the very best of my ability in the stuff that i write. there is a question back there. >> evolutionary strategy that you talk about in the book, is capitalism the only way to carry that out because that seems to be what you are seeing in the book. can't the evolutionary strategy carried out with other systems, socialism, communism, whenever any other system? and if it is only capitalism that can carry it out best what is it about capitalism were the

american or western system that makes it more possible than other countries that perhaps you don't feel could have the same potential western europe, germany, other, switzerland, and also is capitalism always the best way to go, like for example healthcare, the capitol system doesn't seem to work very well, there's so many people that can't afford it. second part of you have a chance. >> capitalism isn't the only system in every society that success it has been an attempt at a search engine it's just the capitalism -- remember we are searching possiblities base. that is with the cosmos is doing filling out possibilities that were invisible. feeling of possibilities that seemed absolutely impossible. the cosmos is constantly squeezing its way into the possibility and begin to bloom in ways that were utterly beyond belief, and of all of the systems on the planet, the search, the best search engine of impossibility, taking the and possibly in the thinking it into

the daily reality and making us do it for granted so we start dreaming of new in possiblities has been the capitalist system. that doesn't mean it's the only system and it doesn't mean that it has to states the way that is, it has to go far beyond where it is today for example the capitalist system is burdened with bureaucracy. every one of our major -- institutions, arms of government is controlled by bureaucracy and that includes the medical system, the justice system, it includes the governmental system, the financial system, and most important it includes the corporate system. and the bureaucracy tends to be very indifferent to human life and tends to impede some of this creativity. and we now have the tools to get beyond bureaucracy. bureaucracy is based on several inventions from the 19th century. it is based on roughly 1840 the invention of a central office, a whole bunch of people not working in their homes in need for debate, but working in one place. the invention of the telephone and the typewriter and 1876, and

then the most important invention of all the central filing cabinet in 1985. [laughter] but guess what, we don't need a central filing cabinets anymore because we have got google. we don't need the tools of the central office anymore because we have laptops. we don't need the telephone system in a complex of this because we've got our self loans, and that means it's time for a space revolution to use the marxian term the tools of production has changed dramatically. now it is a matter of reinterpreting them in new forms. so does barack causey have a long way to go -- i mean, this capitalism have a long way to go? yes, it has to invent its new form, and is the only system capable of inventing the new for? not at all. look at osama bin laden. he is a master of personal technology. are there in the pentagon's running al qaeda? or their central offices? no. this man has mastered the art of personal technology, tiahrt

beyond democracy. can we learn from him? you bet. >> i think this is very interesting because this highlights the problems that some people have with your books because they come to your books and think here is a book that says this book and my ideas will solve the problems and nobody solve some problems. all you do is explore stimulating ways to rethink the problem and get new insights. >> i operate first of all on the basis of the principle that if i change ways of seeing if i change your way of seeing the site to ensure we of operating and eventually help you find different solutions but you are right the day we stop having problems is the day that we are dead because it is our task to proceed problems and things as puzzle is to read it is our task

to take things that we don't even see and turn them into polis we can solve them because that is what evolution is about with or without us that is what evolution is about finding your way into the impossible and making it so real that it becomes every day we take for granted and then have to find new problems. >> i think the time is it not will somebody tell us? >> a couple more questions. >> okey we will do a couple more questions. >> appreciate you very much for attending 32 pin three stimulating >> thank you for coming. all of you, really. >> this is kind of my question. in 1993 the islamic terrorists drove a car bomb into the world trade center. eight years later the islamic terrorists and young men who are probably illiterate drove the planes into the world trade center. every day computers fail in business is in new york city.

the breakdown for whatever reason. communist china where there is no political freedom and no answering questions or challenging of government went from eighth third world country to a superpower within 20 years mostly because american corporations some the jobs over to communist china. i don't know if this is true but i understand that karl marx said that capitalism will sell the instruments of their own destruction to us. my question is is america becoming so sophisticated or scientific that we've lost our common sense and that they will be a will to defeat us in the coming years? >> there is a chapter in my book called who are the next barbarians and it demonstrates with 22 years of history that every culture that's become a

super power of its time the persians, the greeks, all of them has been overturned by people garnered as ridiculous barbarians because ridiculous barbarians willing to devote all of their time and energy to thinking about the war while the people who felt they were on top of the world and would be for ever thought only of peace and new ways of exploiting peace. it is a problem. i hate to say we need a defense industry because it is a rotten terrible gas lease system but we do need to defend ourselves if we believe in this system and one of the messages of this book is that if we believe in something it is our job to promote it, if we believe in something it's our job to sell it, and if we have an id with equal save humanity it is our job to sell our speed off to i don't do any of this language is

acceptable c-span. and even people like me los more and more against war. we have to prevent war by recognizing we do have enemies who are serious about getting rid of us and that in the course of history many civilizations have died because they failed to recognize the challenge of the barbarians. by the way the people who drove those planes who flew the planes into the world trade center were the opposite of illiterate, they were the sons of wealthy men. they had agreed fabulous educations. who remember us and our youth we were rebels and we tended to be on the left while these guys were the equivalent and there's another thing to recognize their some of the most ferocious idealists on the fleece of the planet because idealism is necessary. i wouldn't want to live a minute without the idealism can turn us into highly destructive human beings. >> last question.

>> hi, howard. i want to say first of your booklet if i remind when i first read it as an undergraduate and it led me on the really amazing intellectual journey that has led me to and lecture on your world view of the joseph campbell table of new york. >> thank you. >> wanted to ask you about the issue of consumerism and with regard to the maximum the ancient religions as above so below it seems like so much of what you're work is concerned with is the health of the super organism itself consciousness but with regard to capitalism it seems they're comes a time when the individual hold with the collective saddam is essentially flat and disassociated from the

participation in the whole as we see in the depression and recession so it seems like the challenge of our time has to be to some regard how do individuals who can't participate in the capitalist system find a way to experience that fulness and how at this point as capitalism reflect for the future a realistic solution to the problem of actually actualizing the full human potential? >> my answer to that tends to be do what you're doing, love the one you're with, and that is absolutely make the most of anything you are doing at the moment and the next thing will come to you. in my days of field work i ended

up in strange territory. how win the world -- somebody walked up one day and said she wanted a magazine, when i was a kid albert einstein in the introduction to his books at something simple to me, he said looker if you want to be a genius it's not enough to come up with a few read the world can understand, you have to come up with a fury only some men in the world can understand and then be able to explain it so clearly that anyone with a high school education and reasonable degree of intelligence can understand in other words albert einstein said you ought to be a scientist, kit? you have to be a writer so when somebody walked up to me when i was 26-years-old or something like that and said to you want to edit a magazine i said yes and i didn't ask what the magazine was about at the magazine turned out to be about this form of music i had never listened to before, rock and roll. well, somehow by putting all that i am in to what i was doing that that magazine, working

seven days a week without a vacation and regarding the dustin greatest mystery and opportunity i had ever been given in my life it can of life to me in ways that were utterly astonishing and it became exactly what i needed. so one answer, and there are many answers, one answer is put your whole phreaking heart and soul into everything you are doing because every day is the first day of the most important phase of your life. [applause] >> howard bloom, a visiting scholar at new york university is the founder of the international paleopsychology project. in his previous career as a music industry publicist mr. bloom worked with such artists as michael jackson, case, ac/dc and run d.m.c. and

founded music and action enterprise. for more information, visit howardbloom.net. >> we are here at the conference talking with david about his new book, silent cal's almanac. >> the book is about the silent president who is actually very quotable and he compressed the conservatism and americanism into a few well chosen words primarily talking about something of sycophant to this day the importance of low marginal tax rates for creating investment for creating prosperity, for making the american system work for the average american because when he was in vermont he saw how his father would go around to collect tax money from people and he replaced it came from ordinary key will by the sweat of their brow and should be collected wisely and no more than was absolutely necessary.

taxation he said in excess of what was necessary was theft. >> how long did it take you to easily gather all of this wisdom? >> well it was a full-time project was something i did in my spare time and collected over the years and read through the speeches. oddly enough his collections we would be surprised by this but people would buy collections of the speeches in the 1920's. they were issued one after another. they were very popular so doing the research was fairly easy and then assembling them and then publishing them in this book but also adding introductory essays like why calvin coolidge, the people would be mystified by this topic talking on biographical issues and then there were a lot of anecdotes about him which are pretty amusing so we threw that in and also as appendices to his inaugural address and have faith in massachusetts, so that people could get a full flavor of what the coolidge intellect and power

of persuasion were like because she rose all the way from aldermen to the mayor to the state senator, representative, lieutenant governor, governor, vice president, president. he held more elective offices than anyone else in american history. he worked his way up the wrong which is we were supposed to do it and you never do it. >> you seem to have passion about the subject. is there another project on the horizon for you? >> i'm working on a book about the 1948 presidential election. i done 1920 and 1960 previously, 1948 is that the publisher now. truman, do we call wallace and strom thurmond. most people would say that is the truman dewey election but it is a goal of long standing between henry wallace and the truman wings of the democratic party and about america in the cold war, about the communism,

about foreign policy abroad and it's also the year where the civil rights movement it's a big boost. truman is fighting against wallace. he has to get the black vote and you took the south recoiling with third party of breaking away from the democratic party so there's a lot happening that year. >> is coolidge your favorite president or politician to write about? >> to write about, certainly but also i'm a big fan of ronald reagan and kind of grew up loving him from 1964 and on and was there all the way at his inauguration, his funeral when he launched his campaign at liberty island in new jersey and by god i love that man. >> is there a reagan book on the horizon? >> somebody with greater qualifications, the field is pretty crowded, but i wouldn't mind doing it, i wouldn't mind at all, it would be enjoyable because along the way i've

written about a lot of skill and schools and would like to read about a man on admire a great deal. >> what are you reading these days? >> actually what i tend to read or not books about history but about the 1920's and 30's show business and entertainment because after a while a lot of the research and is your reading parts of books and articles and microfilm and so for fun you kind of turn it off and go back in your writing and reading a biography of moss hart or dw griffith or silent films and i find that fascinating. i don't know if there is a book there but maybe. you never know. you never know. >> thank you for a much for the time. we appreciate it. next, a portion of book tv's

monthly three our live program "in depth." >> i live in northwest washington near the walter reed army hospital. if i go for a room i can run to silver spring from here about a mile or so near a subway stop it's a not far from here is where there was a recent accident were nine people were killed so that gives you a sense where we are in washington. this used to be an area of the city that was reserved for people who were on vacation and when a blank and was president, his summer place was now on the grounds of the veterans hospital and that is about halfway

between here in downtown washington. it takes about 20 minutes to drive downtown so his summer cottage was here but people who wanted to come further up to get away from the small and the humidity all around foggy bottom and the potomac in the summer would come out here. this was considered the highlands, a little closer to heaven is what it literally means. i remember when my dad first came here -- i grew up in brooklyn, new york -- when my dad first came to visit this house, he said to me you didn't tell me you moved to the suburbs. i thought you lived in the city. i said i do live in the city this is washington, d.c.. but the idea that it was a single-family detached house with a little backyard and postage stamp in front of the yard durham suggested it looks pretty suburban the was a guy living at the time on the 22nd floor of a big building in brooklyn new york. that's where i grew up.

you know, because i am a working journalist, there is no typical day of working on a book for me. books have to fit into my other responsibilities to fox news to national public radio to the columns i am doing, the speeches i am giving. so, it has to fit into what is a very sort of heavily scheduled life and the difficulty is that all i need structure and consistency because i think there is nothing more intellectually vigorous than doing a book. so what it requires is i get up a little earlier or stay up a little later. sometimes it requires that i simply if i am traveling that day make a commitment to myself with my laptop in hand that i am going to learn something that

day that adds to the content of the book. so it could be that i am doing research. it could be that i am working on a paragraph that i think is key to the understanding of the subject or this larger chapter trying to refine it but i make a commitment to myself that no matter what is going on in my day that the book becomes the touchstone that i come back to it and i will spend time with that but no matter what it requires in terms of losing sleep or taking time away from another task whether it is radio, tv or newspaper work. to write to the client on a laptop and its saved to this desktop but a lot of it takes place because i am moving around and my wife also uses this space for her office for the business, family, bills and the like and

she plays games on the computer and has photos and things like that. this is the place i saved the material but it's also a place where if i am truly struggling with the concept and idea this is where i come, this becomes my sanctuary, this becomes the place i can feel most as if i am at work on the book. if you look around this room it tends to get clobbered with books because books become points of reference, so if i am working on a book the desk is even worse. i try to clean it up so that you guys can see the computers and keyboards and screens but my wife would just complain about how junky it is like how can anybody work in that environment? but for me, it suggests i'm in my element, i've got my books, i've got the things i love and

need and the intellectual sparks did get me going in terms of my own riding and that's just too high and. i guess that's the way i work. for example there's three computers, one is buried under a stack of newspapers but there is a third computer hidden away and then there's this one and the big one and i can have three programs running. i can be riding on the big computer for example over here and then here i could have something like when i was doing let's say the surrogate marshall biography i would have a chronology of his life every day of his life lead out so from the day that he was born in july of 1908 to the day that he died every day had notation and if i knew anything about that day it was in chrono, chronology.

this is a research technique to list every day in his life and then to list any event i knew about that took place on that day but in fact chronology starts before he's even born. flexible here is a dated july 23rd, 1867 and the reason i have this in chronologies to give people and me as the writer the sense of what came before his life and here you will see on this date july 231867 an ordinance providing for the education the children of colored parents in the city of baltimore and here is all part of what is written as the wall of period and you can understand the kind of civil rights movement that's taking place in the immediate aftermath of the civil war met in a city like baltimore maryland as black parents insist on some kind of public education for their children and of course this is

directly relevant to thurgood marshall's story because he is the maestro if you will of brown v. board of education which in 1954 so literally almost 100 years later is the child if you will of this moment that on july 23rd, this ordinance providing for the education of the colored people of baltimore. and it would help me in terms of trying to map out significant moments and transitions and make sure that i was always in touch as i am moving forward in the narrative telling and then on another computer i could have research material the would break out in larger sense for example speeches, documents, supreme court rulings, of fer work that had been done about him could be operating, interviews i did so that the

interviews if i pop up something on chrono and says he was in new orleans' louisiana on this date and i know that he was visiting with someone and then i go to that person's widow suddenly i can see the interview there and say that's the point of reference, that is what i'm looking for and then i can make the decision as to whether or not i want to reference it it's just background you pick up in passing or is it an actual quote i want to pull from her and use in the narrative that it helps the story along and then of course the big computer i would use for the actual writing of the book. the key i would say to any young person who came to me and said i'm ready to do my first book is this is not to be entered into lightly. you've got to really believe in the project and in your ability to do the project and so get

ready for those moments of doubt and anxiety, the sleepless nights, the i don't know, why in my sleeping when i should be working thoughts. the exist with book writing. i should try another hour and then you realize you're not getting anything done, then why can't i get up an hour earlier and why am i agreeing to have dinner with this person when i could be working. everything becomes competition for your jealous lover and george nellis lover is the book. >> mr. speaker on this historic day the house of representatives opened its proceedings for the first time to televised coverage. >> 31 years ago america's cable companies created c-span as a public service. today we have expanded your access to politics and public

affairs, nonfiction books and american history through multiple platforms, television, radio and on line and cable television's latest gift, an extensive free video archive. c-span video library. we are here at this year's cpac conference talking with anthony of threshold additions. anthony contel as your biggest selling author is. >> currently on sale right now, glenn beck is still on "the new york times" best-seller list. it's been there for several list. our arguing with idiots went on sale last september and we shipped over 1 million copies and it's still selling very well today. she has a very -- peacebuilding and vice empire for himself at the company. we have four books we publish with him and we have three more coming in 2010. we are very excited about just how he has really become a rock

star on fox tv and the way his radio show has grown and grown and he is a terrific writer and promoter and he just really reaches a wide audience and people have come to love his books and support him tremendously. we also published mark levin's terrific writer. we've published two books with him now. we have a book coming later this summer that his dad wrote and mark will be supporting it, he wrote an introduction of lincoln's gettysburg address so that will be coming this summer as well and of course the big book we are very excited about going on sale march 9th is karl rove's book this is carvel's memoir and as you know, karl is a brilliant strategist, campaign manager. he worked in bush's office as you know as chief of staff and he carries a tremendous amount

of respect. we are shifting half a million copies that will go on sale officially on march 9th. >> any other radio and television personalities? >> absolutely. jerry baliles we published earlier thir, big radio star, we are happy to have him on the list and trying to think of the top of my head. steve more who actually do a lot of radio and they are not ready personalities that they returned with prosperity but recently jerry doyle is the big radio guy that we just launched this year and are pleased with the book. it's a great read called have you seen my country lately. >> threshold is part of simon and schuster; correct? >> correct, we are part of the simon and schuster imprint. we've been in business with threshold just over three years now. it's been very successful for us. we have had several number-one "new york times" best selling authors. one of them, jerome, was the

best seller with obamanation which is out with mass peter bac and america for sale that went on sale in october. all "new york times" bestsellers. >> you also have authors that are part of threshold management; correct? >> correct. when you say threshold management, really authors that are not media personalities or radio personalities but just good quaty books with 30 is on policy, the economy for example george pullen was a former wall street journal columnist and he recently wrote a book for us on the great money binge and so we do a wide range of books not just radio and tv personalities but a wide range of authors, politicians, what have you. >> can you tell us who holds up threshold at the moment? >> leesburg is the publisher for the imprint. my responsibility under louise are to require for the in print

and how to market and promote and then of course mary matalin acts as the editor-at-large and she is brought in a lot of great projects including the vice president cheney's book we will be publishing next year. >> thank you very much for your time. in his book the watchers, the rise of america's surveillance state, shane harris traces the increased use of surveillance to stop terrorist attacks. as an example he cites the national security adviser admiral john poindexter who pushed for more surveillance of the 1983 bombing of a marine barracks in lebanon. this hourlong talk was hosted by the spy museum here in washington. >> it's my pleasure today to introduce shane harris and his book. today is the publication dates of this is the launch, appropriately enough at the international spy museum. i think you picked a fine place to do it. and just a comment or to as we

go into this. shane harris has written a very powerful book. i think we have all read privacy versus civil rights and these are issues that have been with us particularly since 9/11 as the whole issue of surveillance of folks both abroad and concern about enemies within. the concern is still there and we read even today with this latest hacking scandal that organized groups like criminals are gaining the same capability to do this as states have had in the past so we are dealing with some extraordinary threats. i think one of the things that struck me about this book plus shane particularly focuses on five people who have been part of creating what he is calling were referring to as the