authors who have made extraordinary contributions to bringing literature to a wide-reading public. the event is an hour and 35 minutes. [applause] >> good evening. i'm congressman jerry connolly, and i represent the 11th district of virginia where you are right now. thank you. [cheers and applause] gosh. remember to vote november 2nd. [laughter] it's great to be with you. the last time i was here doing this was for a book called "the kite runner." [applause] the first time you share tea with -- [inaudible] , you are a stranger. the second time you take tea, you're an honored guest. the third time you share a cup of tea, you become family.

this is the 12th annual fall for the book festival here at george mason university. what started as a two-day literary event in 1999 has since grown into a regional celebration spanning weeks instead of days, and it's all about wonderful things called books. [applause] ..

>> there's a thought, isn't there? [applause] >> greg's work focuses on a grassroots approach to a system of developing nations one team unity at a time. and it's essential to ensuring democracy abroad. equally important in his work is a fancy eight equality for women. gender equity is a multidimensional issue that influences all, social, economic, medical and legal. my work and afford affairs committee makes me particularly appreciative of mister mortensen's work. in order to achieve peace and promote equality, it is necessary to capture the hearts of people in cultures from around the world. beyond promoting literature greg's work has influenced foreign policy. in afghanistan his books are required reading fo for a mility in the field. positive engagement is the key

to success. i think of nothing more positive than bringing education to children in need. that ought to be. and lasting legacy in afghanistan. [applause] >> i want to thank george mason university for the fall book festival. they've done a great job hosting this event. and i want to take the chaptered amnesty international, the pakistani student association and the afghan student union for cosponsoring mr. mortensen's appearance here tonight. and now, please give a warm welcome to sarah faragalla for george mason's chapter of amnesty international. come on up, sarah. thanks, everybody. [applause] >> thank you, congressman connolly your good evening. on behalf of the amnesty

international chapter a george mason university i would like to welcome you to the mason award's presentation. my name is sarah faragalla and i'm the copresident of amnesty international. last wednesday i started reading "stones into schools." been a huge human rights activist as a pleasure reading choice for me. part of the money executive board at amnesty, each of the officers is great to plan an event of their choice that has human rights education awareness component. halfway through the book i decided to try to bring greg mortenson to george mason. seemingly impossible task, this organization has such limited resources, i decided hey, at least it's worth a try. and here we are six months later getting ready for the mason award for mr. greg mortenson. [applause] >> this event wouldn't have been possible without the support of many students, faculty and

staff. first and foremost i would like to thank the author of the book for cosponsoring the event, all of their amazing support in having such a wonderful message in promoting reading. a special thank you to the center for the arts -- i'm sorry, for the senate and for the arts as well as the center for leadership and community management, for being able to come up with the last bit of funding that is additionally needed. i would like to thank the college of humanities and social sciences and the author -- for supporting the fundraiser that we held last monday which were able to raise around $300 for pennies for peace. [applause] >> thank you to balance valley, the dance studio that work out for helping me raise money for pennies for peace as well. thank you to the pakistani students association and the afghan student union for helping me advertising the event, and thank you to everyone else whose name i might have missed.

and last but not least, thank you to all the students of all the amnesty international campus where dedication to human rights and enthusiasm for activism. greg's story is inspiring for many reasons, but there is one that trumps all the rest. recent newspaper headlines revealed those of religious and ethnic, however greg's work is carried out in a manner that is respectful to the culture that surrounds him, which is why i have realized the best ways to battle intolerance is not merely with intolerance but with mutual respect. it is my pleasure and honor to introduce the 2010 was a bit of the mason award, and my personal hero, please join me in welcoming greg mortenson. [applause] [applause]

[cheers and applause] >> thank you very much. peace be with you. and thank you so much for having me here. there's also a lot of -- there some family and friends, i would like to send a welcome our thank you from my family. i would also like to thank the george mason university and sarah for a great introduction. i've got to spend some time with students today, and really spent a wonderful day today here on the campus. i would also like to thank the mason chapter of amnesty international. and as i like to thank congressman connolly, and also he mentioned the pakistani student association and the afghan student union. i both had the chance to meet them and doing some really great stuff. they have some upcoming fundraisers to help build.

they want to set up some schools in afghanistan. so it's exciting to see that. and to the fall, for the book festival, and it's a great honor to be here. i thought i would, everybody wants to talk about current affairs, politics and all that stuff, so i thought i would get all that stuff out of the way really first so we can talk bout the real important issues, about education and about tolerance and peace and everything. so, there is a very devastating flood in pakistan recently, or 20 million people displaced, about 38 million homes destroyed, 6000 schools, and it goes on and on. it's very catastrophic. and the concerns that bothered me a bit is that the u.s. aid appropriate to pakistan was first based on how it relates to

our security. you know, the crisis is so devastating and so catastrophic, i think sometimes we need to rise above that. what really about is about compassion, about helping millions of people are suffering. you know, not just trying to justify it, or say terms of helping or the amount of money in how it's going to relate to our security or terrorism or other things. in afghanistan, i was going to talk a little bit about the issues of pulling the troops and the surges and all that stuff. last year president obama doubled in the last 18 months can he is double the amount of troops in afghanistan from 50, 2,100,000 troops that the operation enduring freedom budget for afghanistan, this is a military dod budget was $72 billion easily conquers appropriate 30 billion more dollars. about $100 billion, about

$1 million per soldier per year. there is -- i spoke recently to minister farouk, the minister for higher education in afghanistan. and i asked him what would be your dream budget to fund the entire higher education in afghanistan. how much do need to fund these 24 universities in your country. so he said about $274 million he told he was only going to get about $50 million. got to figure how to do this with $50 million so an idea i had is to pull 274 troops and have a big press conference and give him a 274 million-dollar check. [applause] >> also, there is $1 trillion of resources discovered in afghanistan, lithium, copper, lithium. so why doesn't the u.s. spent $5 billion instead of this

school of technology in afghanistan talks about how the state in this country have a school of mines technology. we could help train afghans mining engineers so that in 20 years they would be exploited by iran, russia, and the soviet -- russia and china, even the u.s. they would have their own mining engineers that it would cost about i've million dollars. the other thing that in trenton, those of you who have read it, i, after 9/11 i went to the pentagon a couple of times and i was actually fairly critical of the military. i'm a veteran that i was in the army. i said all a solid laptop worse. there are no groups passionate boots on the ground. i can tell you today in many ways the u.s. military really gets it. many of our soldiers have been in afghanistan, iraq, three, four, even five times.

i was at fort drum, the 50 plus since 9/11. with the understand is about building relationships, it's about empowering the shuras and the elders. it's also about really working with the people. and the example i would like to share with you is, last year because of the surge, we want something to happen. you double troops in the country, you expect nothing should happen. right? so there was a massive military operation planned in southern afghanistan from kandahar all the way to pakistan, to certain areas of pakistan and rat out the shadow taliban government, and bring more government there. this operation called operation -- it means hope. there was a lot of planning involved and it was a time for the the mcchrystal report, et cetera. but when general mcchrystal

first became the commander in afghanistan, he asked me and another person to set up meetings between the shura, the elders, and himself. he would like -- just explain this. in afghanistan the 34 provinces. in every province has 50 to 200 shuras. these are elders, leaders, poets or warriors, businessmen, even a few women there. to our shura. and over the course of the year we facilitate about three dozen meetings. and shura were sometimes very emphatic about issues about bombing, killing civilians that some of them said we what weapons. some of them said we don't want weapons. but the other thing they really insisted on they be involved in decision-making. they told general mcchrystal if you do this operation, you will take high amount of casualties. it's not going to succeed because you don't have relationships, you don't have

networking, have not consolidated support of the people before you do this. so we think this is really not a good idea. so general mcchrystal contacted somebody in d.c., you know, up here in capitol hill. and he said we need to delay this operation. and i really think it's wonderful that general petraeus, when he came into power, after general mcchrystal was released, he decided to cancel operation hope. it was the first time in the last nine years that the elder and the shura have been involved in a decision about that proportion government is really great that they're being listened to. in june president obama summit meeting in the white house for a couple of hours anyone to know what are the elder saint in afghanistan? but the irony, he asked the military to advise him with the elders were saying. i would have suggested skype the

elders than do that. [laughter] >> so they had a meeting, and then president karzai decided i better do the same thing. so july 2-fifth, 1400 elders came to kabul and they had a meeting. i think there is an important lesson about that we really work the people we entrust, the elders and lead from the. i can also study having spent many, having several meetings with many of our military commanders, admiral mike mullen, chairman joint chiefs of staff, general petraeus, general mcchrystal, admiral eric olson, commander of forces, they will all take you that there is no military solution in afghanistan. now, they are not admitting victory or defeat. what they are saying is the solution is a much broader solution. and i think the general public, we are putting far too much emphasis and pressure on our military to solve all our

problems. and it's really unrealistic to expect a soldier today to be a diplomat. a humanitarian, a warrior. i get a humanitarian, a little bit diplomat and i can't even handle my own job. and madison 18 year old kid who has to be all these, sadly in culture and sat in everything. and then what i will get into later on, there's a lot of good things happening. i really like to highlight that. we read about all the negative things, the casualties. so i will amplify that they prefer a starter i would like to share a 10 minute dvd with you. and it's called "stones into schools." and we just got done but it's about kind of the complicated role, but also how, what is the difference between from a villages perspective of a difference between security and

education. and this story, education won out over security and a little village in afghanistan. >> c-span is here today. let's give a big welcome to c-span. [applause] ♪ ♪

♪ >> afghanistan is different in pakistan. it's more of a warrior culture. for 2000 years, the mongols, genghis khan, ottoman, british, the u.s., so the people have tended the warriors for long time. even in a warrior culture, they are sick and tired and worn out. what they want is peace and they wanted to education. -- they want it through education.

>> march 12, kabul, afghanistan. we're going to a village, south of kabul to see the school project. >> you are about 30 kilometers from kabul. that is really a poor village. mr. gregg wants to construct a school. >> they went into afghanistan with his commitment to seeking out the most remote communities that were far away from you know capital city. they raise the idea with greg in building a school. great imagery kind of rejected, simply based on the notion that

anything within 30 kilometers of kabul was not by definition remote. >> as we were driving along, saw several, about eight truck containers. and inside each of them was 60 to 80 boys with a teacher doing school lessons. i walked up to this armored personnel carrier that was painted green, soviet era, and white lettering on the outside and it said approved projects. and i stuck my head inside the abc, and there were 129th graders with a teacher learning english -- they were 12 -- ninth raiders with a teacher learning english. so we turned around and they're up on health or another 300

doing school outdoors in the dirt. i told them, we will help you build a school. and it wasn't until 2009 that we build the girls high school. we are going, going there i realized this is quite a remote area. this is an isolated valley. it's also the alternative path that they used to fight the russians and later the taliban. when you get to it, you can see it was bombed by the russians time and time again, even after there was nothing left to bomb. >> and then getting there and seeing the repercussions of a war that ended 20 years ago, you

know, with the soviets and all the landmines. >> so that as we're were driving there, where do these kids go to school? he quickly said, well, we are going to let the community decide. so i realized he knew things i was a proponent of. >> i think they should make an education committee. we ask what do you want. >> the important thing what we need, is schools. we need schools for our children. we need the education for our children. >> different shura need control for education committees. education committee.

[speakin[speaking in native ton] but this other place education committee, know me, know, not, only education. >> once we started on the land with what he'll who manage anything along with the elders and the shura, they work very hard, fastidiously. they work every day 12, 14 hours. also, i was a little bit surprised at how beefy or strong wakil make a school. he said if this is going to be bombed from the taliban or american bombs, nobody can bomb our schools. >> land mines all over the area. and anywhere you would build a school in the village, you wouldn't be far from that. >> go up to the hill, you see all these small white marks. these are all the places where

landmines have been or have been removed. there you have, you know, two of the most powerful values in afghanistan juxtaposed against one another, the desire for education and the desire for security. education won out. you know, there were kids all looking forward to attending this new school. no one's enthusiasm for the idea of being able to attend classes and learn how to read and write accede the enthusiasm of this one little boy. i met him in 2003. what i remember about him is a very bright citizen. he is very intelligent. >> he was so excited about the possibility of going to the school that he would hurt his goes up to the construction site every day to kind of monitor what was going on.

>> i want to come to read with a teacher. i told him, yes, maybe in six months the building of the school will finish, and then you and friends will be in school. >> i was in mosque when i heard the sound of, really big explosion. >> just less than 100 meters or yards from the school, he was walking and there was a loud bang, boom that resonated through the valley, the sounds ricochet, had come through the area. they race down there and there he was. he had blown up his legs. he was in severe shock. he wasn't killed or dead yet. there was no functioning vehicle at the time, so they wrapped up

in a tourniquet and they tried to take him, kept walking and by bicycle. he died a few hours later. [speaking in native tongue] >> when you meet gul sedan, the first thing you notice anything that really stays with you is his eyes. they are deep, they are sad.

he pulls himself through an intense personal tragedy having lost his son. what he did with his life was going to learn how to remove those of mind to other children and of the fathers and others would not have to go through that same thing. but there's something about his face where it's all like that whole story is there, that the beauty and the pain. >> when gul was killed in 2006, he was buried and they had a big pile of stones around his grave, which we have now turned into a memorial tribute with a grave, big flags. we build the memorial trail but it goes about 60 meters all the way through the land to school. >> things are improving because

these children and the next generation, but never forget that it's important to remember the people who pay the ultimate sacrifice. and that's part of their education. >> it's part of their history. rebuild it for two reasons. for safety and to honor gul's death. >> the title of the school comes from the experience i had with a comment at who is a militia commander. we were sitting on the roof, and he looked up at the mound and he said do you see those stones in the mountain and boulder that everyone of those as a martyr who died fighting their enemies, the taliban or the russians. we will turn everyone of those

stones into a school. we now have women's literacy centers and even a computer center. we continue to build schools and afghanistan, but they need never seems to end. [applause] [applause] >> i visit a lot of schools a year, every year i go to about 120, to 150 schools a year in

u.s., canada, and also overseas. this is kindergarten all the way to the air force academy, also go to public schools and private schools and urban schools and rural schools. the first question that i always ask students is how many of you have spent a lot of time, you know, in this day of nanoseconds and twittering and taxing, it's like 10 hours, a longtime. so i ask students how many of you spend more than 10 hours talking to your elders, or your grandparents about the question or world war ii or vietnam war for the civil rights movement? do you know what the average it is in the u.s. very consistently? do you want to guess? five to 10%. doesn't matter whether it's a public school or private school, urban or rural school. although i was down in the mississippi yesterday, the deep south, 40% of the students in mississippi, the real poor areas

that they spent sometimes with a grant that. so i'm going back down to mississippi to see what's going on down there. they spend much more time with their elders. now if i ask the same exact question felt in rural pakistan or afghanistan, 90 or 100% of the hands come up. i think it was the greatest tragedies of our country that we have lost that beautiful tradition where we can learn from our elders. what do we learn from our second generation elders? we learn about our heritage, our culture, our traditions, our folklore, our faith, our many important lessons we've learned in history. so one of the things that we do in our schools in afghanistan and pakistan, and also in many of the 5000 schools here in the u.s. in our pennies for peace program, is we encourage them to spend more time with their elders. it's been exciting to see when kids are actually spending time with her elders, learning from them about even important lessons that we've learned in

history. perhaps, one of the greatest challenges we have at least i think in the next generation is the fact there are about 118 million children in the world today who are you private education. and about 78 million of those are girls. are hundreds of thousands of kids in west africa who have to harvest cocoa. coco grows on a pot in a tree. you hit with a stick and falls down. you crack it open with a machete and very gingerly have to open up the pot to get the cocoa extract a. about 3 million pounds of cocoa have to be harvested every year to manufacture all the chocolate that everybody needs. and as kids, kids fingers are much more dexterous than adults, so kids do a lot of manual labor. in congo, just briefly, i'm not sure that you how many of you are aware of this but the last five to six years, 3 million people have been killed in congo in the conflict. let me just ask him how many of you are aware of that?

that's pretty good. five to 10%. you know, to me it's amazing that the most, one of the most violent conflicts in history and nobody isn't even aware of it. so we are producing also in sierra leone and also prolonged and liberia. tens of thousands of children are forced at a very young age to become child soldiers. their top to do very horrific things. if you teach a child how to kill before they are conscious, before they mature, their conscious doesn't understand the difference between death and life. the next time you pick up a soccer ball or a football, look at it will probably say made in pakistan. if you look at it very closely, you'll see small leather felt patches shown together by very small stitches. to guess who makes most of the soccer balls? its children there's an area in pakistan just south where tens of thousands of children are forced to work all day for these

very tiny stitches to make football the soccer balls. and kids had to harvest rice. harvesting rice is very difficult. your feet are in 12 to 15 inches underwater. they work 10 to 12 hours a day, and their workers don't want to buy them a $4 pair of rubber boots so they get foot rot and fungus. so what happened, about, i don't even know the word for it, the most tragic thing is more than anytime in history there are more modern day slaves, and especially children, child slaves that god like to introduce you to a modern-day slave. his name is abdul. abdul is in afghanistan. i met him in 2005. we were driving down the road, the radio blue ups we pulled into a local garage or gas station. as for a mechanic and outjumped abdul. into our secret quickly fixed

the radio. i start talking to abdul and i asked him, how come you're not in school. in the spleen to me that he was an orphan and he was a slave. he got bought and sold and forced into this life. he doesn't get paid that only gets for all his work, he gets some food and he gets to sleep under a truck at night unmolested or disturbed for his labor. so i told abdul, we will be back in about a month. love to help you out. we came back a month later, abdullah disappeared. we spent two days with our staff looking for abdul, but he had vanished off the radar screen. so every time i go through the, another for abdul, but we haven't had any success. so i had his picture on my laptop to remind me that, you know, today is a huge challenge of slavery. there's actually no reason why this should not be any child slaves today in the world.

since i'm on a roll of that i would like to talk about landmines. every day in afghanistan, three, 10 kids die from landmines. there was a treaty signed in ottawa to banish the usage and production of landmines that most countries in the world have signed this treaty. the u.s. is one of very few countries that has not signed this treaty. last year president obama refused to sign the anti-mining treaty because of the clarification over a cluster bomb. a cluster bomb, about 200, are put in a big bomb, called bomblets. when it fall on the ground data, landmines? we don't agree that a cluster bomb is a landmine. my son who has been in pakistan he has seen kids maimed by landmines. you start a campaign. is the twitter site ban landmines. he thinks that adults can't do

this but kids can get together. we can actually banned landmines to other -- forever from this planet. [applause] >> and also i talked to some military commanders. they told we don't need landmines anymore. with many other ways to do surveillance. motion detectors and satellite imagery, lasers. so really, landmines in some ways they are obsolete. i wrote this book called "three cups of tea," and the title is in honor of a village leader that he told me about what three cups of tea mean that my 14 year-old daughter, she does a very good rap about three cups of tea means, but i'm not going to embarrass myself. so three cups of tea means the first cup you're a stranger, second cup a friend, the third cup you become family. for a family we are prepared to do anything, even die. some of you might not know about the subtitle of three cups of tea, when i first did the original manuscript to new york,

viking penguin told me the subtitle would be one man's vision to fight terrorism one school at a time. although i'm a military veteran i was very opposed to that because i said reason i do this is to promote peace. they disagreed with me, and they said greg, you need to be aware of the fact that only one out of eight nonfiction books makes a profit. and two-thirds of our best sales are pre-chosen by the publisher. so we like to promote your book, but you need to be fighting terrorism so it hits me an e-book can do well. finally, i can see there's. axa, i went to new york my first time in manhattan. jerk it is like a tribal conference. there was a whole leaders of the penguin putnam publishing empire. co had a marketing effort. and i said explain what i want the subcommittee said no, you have fighting terrorism one school at a time. sci-fi struck a deal with but i said if the subtitle doesn't do

very well after a year, please change the subtitle of the book to train nine -- "one man's mission to promote peace... once school at a time." the harbor came out in 2006 for your it didn't do very well. so penguin change the subtitle in january 2072 "one man's mission to promote peace... once school at a time." and now for 190 weeks in a row it's been a "new york times" bestseller, currently at number two. [applause] >> fighting terrorism or even those who promote terrorism, that is based in fear. but promoting peace is based in hope. and the real enemy we all face in america, afghanistan, pakistan, africa, the real enemy is ignorance.

ignorance breeds hatred. and to overcome ignorance we need compassion that we need courage. we need tolerance. but most of all i think it is based in education. "three cups of tea" has also become the military's their interest in "three cups of tea." again, i had never planned this. my wife said i had to write a book because i was leaving home a lot to talk about it, and so i wrote a book, now i am gone even more. [laughter] >> it didn't quite work. this is general david petraeus, the commander in afghanistan. he previously, he was the commander. two years ago he red "three cups of tea." what they didn't tell me what i found out recently their wives read the book first answer you want to check this out. let's give a big round to all the book clubs and the women who are the real readers your. [applause] >> so, holly petraeus had red

"three cups of tea" and then she put on his desk and said, this is the next book you're going to read. so he red "three cups of tea." he asked me to come to fort mcdill and talked to the commanders. and general petraeus told me that he has gleaned three important lessons from the book that he wants to impart with the truth. been a military general he summarized it in three ball points. make it easy for us. number one, listen. by listening, general petraeus meant that we look at a situation from the other person's perspective, not from our own myopic lens. number two, respect. and as a general petraeus what do you mean by respect? he said it means humility. we are there to serve the good people of the country. and number three, we have to build relationships. so today, per admiral mike mullen, chairman joint chiefs of staff, "three cups of tea" is mandatory for all military senior commanders for the

special forces before going to afghanistan. it's also -- [applause] >> senator lugar and kerry have made it mandatory reading for the foreign relations committee on capitol hill. [applause] >> i was born in minnesota in 57, but when i freed myself, my parents decided to get africa to teach in a girls school. that's where i grew up for 15 years. my father soon after decide to start a hospital on the slopes of mount kilimanjaro. my father worked very hard in mount kilimanjaro to get the medical center set up it is very difficult, if of setbacks. one thing my father always insisted on was to of local people in charge, africans run the show. sometimes it didn't go very well with the american leaders, they said in a qualified leader to get his hospital working. my father always had an african

in charge. in 1971 the hospital opened up. my father, along with others, they the opening talk. my father said, first, he gradually people and then he said, i predict that in one decade, 10 years, all the department heads of the hospital will be from tanzania. basically, my father got fired, laid off within two months for saying that and having the audacity to believe that this hospital to be run by africans in 10 years. we came back to the state, and, unfortunately, my father died from cancer in his mid '40s. but 10 years later in 1981, we got the annual report from the hospital, and all the department heads were trained and from tanzania. even today, 40 years later, all of the department heads of the hospital are from tanzania. [applause] >> and the lesson is there, you

know, all of us, we have an innate desire to help people. sometimes it's because of our conscious or intuition, or sometimes out of killed or whatever it is. but if we really want to help people we have to do another thing, called in power. we have to empower people. there's a big difference between helping and in powering. that's kind of what the essence of what i tried to do, having learned this from a father with people in africa. in africa i learned proverb. if the gentleman can bear with me for one second here, it's as we educate a boy, we educate an individual. but an educated girl, we educate the community. so how does the gentleman feel about this? how do women feel about it? [cheers and applause] >> gentlemen, we are a little bit outnumbered here. "three cups of tea" starts out with my younger sister, christy, very special who had excellent

sea dashing epilepsy. she saw the baseball movie field of dreams. for her 23rd birthday she was going to go to dyersville i want to see where the movie was done. she packed her bags, when my mother went to wake her up on july 24, 1992, she died in her sleep from a very massive seizure. we are very devastated by that. at the time i was in graduate school. i was studying about epilepsy. i was working as a common years. i decided to climb k2 world's second highest mountain put her necklace on top of k2 to honor her memory. in 93 that went to pakistan to the mountain range. and in ancient turkey, it means black rubble. 64 peaks above 20,000 feet high. this is k2, the world's second highest mountain. 84 that horse can be put inside a to to fill the. just to get it the scale of the

mountain, here's an avalanche that if you look way down to the right foreground, you can see for little blue tents. if you had a magnifying glass you can see for spanish men in their underwear running out of their tents. for joint no one was killed. here we are going up take you there finally 78 days later, didn't quite make the top, my two partners did, but i felt very disappointed because i hadn't made it quite to the top of k2. anybody here who red "three cups of tea," i have talked to some student earlier, so keep your hands down, can anybody remember what the first chapter is called? [inaudible] >> very good. who said that? stand up, give them a very big round. failure, good job that a good reader. [applause] >> failure. when i submit the original manuscript in your, they said, greg in u.s. you never start a book with the word failure. [laughter]

>> you know what, we all make mistakes. we all fail. some of us fail in our relationships. some of us fail in our jobs. some of us hopefully at george mason won't fail. [laughter] i was on wall street last year and said some of us fail in our investments but no one laughed. [laughter] >> take this beautiful province of when it is dark, you can see the stars. we left take you him had to walk five days, about 80 miles. went to a village, and i got there, there was a very elderly stout, stern squad man with a silver beard. you can see them on the left hand side. the village chief. first, he met me and he greeted me, with pc with you. and he looked at me and he shook his head and he said, passionate being from the midwest of the best translation i can think of is what the heck it i was weatherbeaten, i hadn't taken aback and 84 days.

so he said if you want to, come to my village, you do need to wash up. [laughter] >> that's what i get. i went to his village. i have now spent 17 years, about 75, 80 months in the field, working in rural afghanistan, pakistan. i have learned several things. one at a three to four children die before the age of one. the maternal mortality rate, women who died in child birth is staggering. 1900 deaths per 100,000 live births. in the u.s. it is 70. educated average woman has 10 kids, one out of six to eight women is going to die in childbirth after she gets married. the men leave the village. there's a lot of problems in the village. one day does include hospitality wind at what kind of village, so about 80 kids sitting in the dirt doing a school lesson. some of the right with a stake

in the sand. i looked around. there was no teacher there. can you imagine, kids going to your schools 80 kids outside in the dirt, no teacher because they couldn't afford the teacher. so a young girl came up to me and she said can you help build a school? i said i promise i'll help get a school built. that changed my life forever. today we are trying to solve and grapple something called poverty. now, we haven't done a proper bailout yet that we haven't passionate we're still waiting for that one. you know the only way we can solve poverty is that we have to touch poverty. and we have to taste poverty. and we have to smell poverty. we have to hear poverty. and we have to be with poverty. we can never solve poverty from a think tank in washington, d.c.. and to me -- [applause]

>> that is also the essence of -- there is kind of a revolution going on in this country the last two decades. some of your probably quite aware of it, but i read a "u.s. news & world report" study four years ago that said in 1990, 18% of college graduates say i want to go and make the world a better place. that was the me generation that everybody want to go out and make a buck. today, 20 years later, one generation later, 50% of college graduates say, i want to go out and make the world a better place. if you go down into the high schools and junior high schools and elementary, even much higher than that. i was at mississippi state university yesterday, talk to kids, i asked how many are you involved in any kind of community service? nearly all the hands came up. then ask the elders, the old people, how many of your involved in community service, about 5%. so i think, you know, we can think of ourselves not as

individuals but as part of a collective community. so i came back to the states. i had to raise $12,000. i had no clue how to fund raise, and i got a lot of flack for it. but what i did was i went to the local library. my dad said if you need some help, go to the library. [applause] >> are there any librarians in here? let's give them all a big round. all right. [applause] >> so the librarians said, well, let's get some names and you write some letters. we looked at the name of celebrities and movie stars. i do know how to the computer yet so i hand tied 500 letters over 10 weeks. dear michael jordan. [laughter] >> dear sebastian "salon." [laughter] >> dear oprah. anyways, nothing happened. than about 16 grants and they all got turned down. my typewriter. and then i get a check during

the holidays from tom brokaw for 100 bucks. the only check they came back. tom israeli move to montana and we've got to get a couple times. tom foley, i'm really embarrassed because i wrote you a $100 check into it about it in the book. [laughter] >> i didn't quite have the guts to say to him, tom, you can still write another check and i'll stick it in the next book. [laughter] >> you inspired lots of people, so thank you. finally, i sold my car and i sold my book. i love the books so it was very painful to sell all my books. by spring tide raise about $3400. my mother, an element a school principal in wisconsin invited me to come talk to kids. it was the first time i've spoken to anybody about my dream to build a school. heaven forbid you go to an atom entry school to get any help. when i got done, a fourth grader came up to me and said, i have a

piggy bank at home and i'm going to help you. i thought, what can a fourth grader to? six weeks later website school raised 62340 pennies. [applause] >> think about it, it wasn't adults, it wasn't celebrities, it wasn't wealthy or poor people. it was kids reaching out for children halfway around the world for kids in pakistan who they had no clue who they were. so today from that program we have, from the passionate we have a program called pennies for peace. for lack of better words, it's kind of going bananas libbey. three years ago with this 280 schools, right now it is in 5400 schools around the u.s. when i go to -- [applause] >> when i go to business schools they say was your strategic marketing plan. [laughter] >> we don't have any. is totally run by kids and just one person. but sadly though, we work for the nea national education for two years and we came up with a

ocracoke that has been approved this year to be integrated into the element to junior high and high school cricket. and that curriculum, children learn about books, libraries, we. they l earn about culture. they learn about math but they also learn about philanthropy. they also know that they can do, they can decided what do they want to support on their own. the thing that most exciting, it's not a part of the curriculum, that inspires kids to go out and do their own thing. site is going to give you one example. this young man is named zach. he is from cattle florida. so zach started pennies for peace about four or five years ago. after a couple of years, he was inspired by the fact that he saw homeless kids in the cab area. he was also bothered because his best friend had trouble learning how to read and write. and kids taunted and made fun of his friend to so zach decided to start, do something that he said a foundation called little red wagon foundation.

last year's act walked, he walked from tampa to washington, d.c., and he raised $74,000 to bring awareness to let her see the homeless kids in the u.s. [applause] >> i'm not done yet. this year, this summer that's walked from tampa to los angeles. he just got into santa monica last week, and i think he said he has raised, he will be raising about $1 million to bring awareness to literacy to homeless kids in the u.s. [cheers and applause] >> gives out a big round. [applause] >> i have hundreds of examples. this is just one of them. i could go on all night about this. 's act setup is nonprofit and he called me up because he was concerned about boards of directors that are these like board people or adults? [laughter] >> i said it's a moral compass, possibility and zach said, could

i put some kids on my board? i said check the law in florida. there's no law against florida, all zach's board of directors have to be under 18 years of age to be on the red wagon board of directors. [applause] >> so if anybody here loves stores? september 95 i was 38 years old, i was a bachelor come i was a grad student, i was a communist i'm also trying to get to pakistan. i was at a fund-raising dinner in the bay area, getting really late and i walked to the back. there was a very beautiful woman. she had on a dress and black combat boots. that's the key. [laughter] i started talking to her and six days later we got married. we are living happily ever after with her two kids in montana. now, people get concerned and u.s., in pakistan and afghanistan so they called a fixed marriage. both our fathers had died so we said they were up there and they got together and this was a marriage made in heaven. really the reason i can do this is because of my wife, my family

and our extended family and friends, the community, has been so pivotal in everything i do. i get a lot of criticism, people say how can you get married, had kids and you're off traipsing around the world? well, my response to that is, my daughter is 14, she has a black belt in tae kwon do. she says how dare you say my father committed to his family and that we support him. she says there's hundreds of thousands of kids whose parents are serving in the military and serving in aid work, serving in managing work, and how dare they say that to his kids and family. we are paying the greatest sacrifice, you do, make the grade sacrifice. if any of you have a problem with that you will have to go talk to her, she has a black belt. well, i kept working, working. you can see we had a lot of setbacks. three years later we have gotten very far. one day the village chief said

if you want to get a school bill, you have to sit down and be quiet. then he took my receipt, took my records, he locked them up and came back and said, there, don't you were, everything will be fun. i was fortified. guess what happened six weeks later? the school got built. [laughter] there was a very important lesson about letting go and empowering the community. and that is the essence of all our schools today. first of all, we provide the teacher support and training. and really, educators and teachers are the heartbeat of education that i would just like to, let's get a big round to all the educators and teachers. [cheers and applause] >> some of the most underrecognized, underappreciated profession in a country. we got to get that changed. [applause] >> and then we provided the

skilled labor, basically we provide the materials like cement. the community has, the committee has to give free land, free would come and free manual labor. so we match that. together, that's how we can get a school bill. i think that's one of the reasons when the communities is invested and they are committed to it they will protect the school. that's one of the reasons also none of our schools have been shut down by militant groups. also, care, the same thing that also local groups. when they involve the community, participation. this on a micro scale, you can also apply on a macro scale. one of my criticisms after 9/11 when two dozen countries got together in bonn germany december 2001, called the bonn conference. they decided how to rebuild afghanistan and the committed pledges. only 32% of the pledge money actually was ever given. but they set up as a very

centralized the provincial type. some of you here, actually a few of you, you are around after world war ii. you remove something called the marshall plan? i history the marshall plan. the marshall plan was a brilliant plan. the architects who designed it were genius. the main component of the marshall plan was that was provincial lies in a decentralized. in afghanistan we completely flip that around. the elders have worked more of a bottom-up type developer. the more i do this, i am convinced education has to be our top international and national priority. and special education for girls. we can drop bombs, they said before we can put interests, build roads, and less girls are educated, the society will never, never change. so why is educating girls so important? whether it's academic reasons, one, it reduces the infant

mortality rates, number two, a population explosion. three, the quality of health and life is so. also girls learn how to read and write, they tend to teach their mother have to learn to write. boys, we don't do that as much. ..

the number one way to reduce population without doing anything else, nothing controversial, nothing political is simply female literacy, and the best example is a country of bangladesh, saw the station. 1970 after pakistan civil war, bangladesh decided to put six to 8% of gdp in to education. until last your list and only 2% of gdp of education. in bangladesh, 1970, 40 years ago, the female literacy was less than 20%, and today it's triple. the average woman in bangladesh 40 years ago had naim live births, the average woman today has 2.8 live births in bangladesh. if you look of the population is just now reaching an apex. unlike pakistan, pakistan the female literature rate is about 38%. the government says it 60, but if you ask what is literacy.

pakistan is going to double in population the next 27 years from 175 million to 350 million people. we think there's problems there now in the country that is grovelling, just think of one generation where it could have been. the only thing pakistan has never really done until recently is to make that has guaranteed in their constitution that every single child should be able to go to school and put more funds into accomplishing that path. so i've got some really unfortunate bad news. in the last three and a half years, the taliban and other groups have bombed the were shot down over 2400 schools in afghanistan and pakistan. what's interesting though is about two-thirds or three-quarters of the schools are girls schools and they are not boys schools. so why are a group of big bad men, why are they so terrified

of a little girl going to school? what's the big deal about a little girl walking to school? why is she plays and? why does she have battery acid thrown in her face and stone thrown at her for taunted and cursed or denied that privilege? because i think the greatest fear some of the militant groups it's not a bullet, but a pen. they fear that coral grows up, it's an education, becomes a mother, education will the one in the community and the will of ideological ways to control society. it's part of the teaching of islam it says that income of a scholar that is holier than greater or the blood of a martyr. that means the pen is more powerful than the sword and this comes treacly from the teaching of islam. here's the good news you saw earlier in the video. ten years ago -- and 2,000 --

there were about 800,000 children going to school and afghanistan, mostly boys age five to 15. today, there are nearly 8.6 million including 2.8 female. how many of you knew about this before i told you to fight? where did you read about it? >> i have 83 copies of your book i want everyone to know you can to rotary international and were the keynote speaker and he were awesome. [applause] >> thank you. >> offices adderall mike mahlon, chief to become chief of staff. his wife, deborah mullen read the book and put it on top of his night stand and said you have to read this book before all the other military manuals, he did that and he asked me to come -- he invited me to the pentagon for some cups of teas and we talked and he said i would like to visit one of your

schools. if the alders agree you are more than welcome, and they were thrilled to have admiral mullen as a guest. he came to the girls school last year. i have great respect for admiral mullen because of his understanding about tolerance and the scope of what global peace is about. he gave a speech to the american international convention in louisville kentucky in august and this is an excerpt from the beginning of the speech. he says historical the the united states have been far too arrogant in the world and we need to go out and serve with humility. the muslim community, which we don't fully or always attempt to understand, only appreciation of the people's cultures, need and ho can we ourselves hope to supplant the extremist narrative. and then he says we cannot capture hearts and minds we must engage them and listen to them

one heart, one mind at this time, adderall like mullen, -- admiral mullen, chairman and chief of staff. [applause] this is christopher from nebraska, history major. he's also got four kids. some of you or maybe all of you. he's serving in the u.s. military and he was the commander of the operating base in kunar province in eastern afghanistan. it's not the most difficult place is the time and several men who died. he said to be an e-mail in 2008 and have been in touch of persons than. he was the chief adviser to general mcchrystal and is now working with general petraeus. he said in the e-mail almost three years ago i am convinced the long-term solution to terrorism as education. this is a concept that will not be won with bombs and bullets but with books and ideas and pencils that excited imagination

towards peace, tolerance and prosperity. the first for education as possible and it is education limited difference whether the next generation grows up to be educated patriots or deliver it fighters. the stakes could not be higher. and these are afghan militia commanders. to see this scare white guy without the beard? [laughter] the pretty much say the same thing during 1979, soviet union invaded their country and they are forced at a young age to become mujahideen at 12 or 14 and defend their communities and their families. and they regret the fact that they were never able to get their education. sometimes if you sit with them, they will take you to the roof and serve you green tea with a sprig of mint or something in it, and lament as they look up at the mountains and say to you see those stones up their? every one of those stones is a

martyr who died fighting our enemies. now, we must turn those stones and schools and make the sacrifice as well. even on behalf of the, the outcome of the they want most is education. i learned from my father that it's important to listen, so i asked women in rural afghanistan or pakistan what do you want? i would love to help you, but what do you want. i am your servant, i want to help you. you think most of them would say well, i want a big house, i want a good husband, want prosperity. but you know what most women tell me? simply to things. they say we don't want our babies to die, and we want our children to school. if i could bring those women here, first i would make them sit in a big circle, take their shoes off and have tea but then i would say that is what they would say what we want most of

our our children to go to school and our kids don't die. i think the women here, especially the mothers, can really to that. women bring life into the world and it is women that nurtured life and are the education in any society. welcome in 2001 in the spring, his wife died. we very painfully walked to her grave and she was buried in a simple grave facing the west towards mecca toward the west where she always said her prayers. which way is west here? i need an elder. [laughter] it looks like that way. okay. thank you. [laughter] maybe the skirting in the back. as we stood by her grief he said something that is rare for a meal to say. without her, i am nothing.

then he said something i will never forget. he said soon you'll be standing here and i will be in the ground and he kind of shop chuckled. i didn't think it was funny because i lost my father three and my sister. all of us have lost somebody dear to us. we never get over the loss of a family or friend or someone else. and he said in that moment happens, as you stand here looking at me in the ground, just do one thing. listen to the wind. and so, in october, 2001, after 9/11, he passed away. so we walked up to his grave, very simple grief facing the west, toward the sunset, towards mecca, and i thought how can i go on? this man had become my mentor, mr. degette father, he taught me many things. sit down, because it and drink your tea. and then i remember what he said, listen to the wind. so i listened to the wind and

heard the voices of the children at school and i realized his legacy and vision had come true, education of his children. and i fought back and stood there to the time in the evening when he left to sit down on a rickety bed and read. he had a little lamb term and fickle glasses that he only read two books. he read the holy koran and poetry. one day i asked him why are you sad when you read? and he said actually i don't know how to read. i am aliterate. and he showed me how he would flip pages and put in twigs. my life's greatest sadness never learn how to read and write. and he said it is my life's greatest hope that my children and grand children can learn to read and write. and then in his exact words he

said these words in fees' books make the stories that make why wise the fools and he meant illiteracy and ignorance. in his entire 85 years he only left his village wants to go on a pilgrimage. he didn't have a phone, didn't have a newspaper, didn't have a post office, didn't have a tv, didn't have twixting, text and woodring. [laughter] he knew that the hope for all people with education, and that is his legacy of message to the universe, that through education there is hope. life goes on today we're in pakistan we are focusing on education, temporary schools and refugee camps for the flood, teacher trading land for new schools. in afghanistan we are still primarily focused on getting children in school and establishing schools for kids

and education. well, we are in a very serendipitous away one of our gross schools got established in a province. our staff met two years ago and they were kind of joking, but they said and 20 years we are going to put a gross school in mullah omar's home village and north granda. i thought 20 years, that may be realistic. only a few months later the elders contacted us and said we want to put a cruel school in our community. and i thought they were kind of pulling our leg, so we invite them to come where we have a girls school and check it out first. well, in july last year, elders kim. these are pretty scary guys except you see, the white guy without a beard, third guy in

the back. [laughter] the of big beards and turbans. they saw the john and playground so they threw down their weapons and for an hour and half they'd jump on the swings and the slides, turbans fleeing all over the place. [laughter] [applause] alike an hour later i said the headmaster is sitting over their waiting for you. and they said no, no, we are totally satisfied. we want a girls school in our village. [laughter] and so they said but first you have to come and have tea with us, so in september i went, and this is not the place where normally you would go, what we had wonderful meetings the shura and they said we are going to get free land, free labor. now, the schools started running but my only worry is they are

going to use the playground and the girls won't continue to use the playground. [laughter] i have spent a lot of time talking to the elders. on the right is the leader of the shura, and he told me as a child he grew up in refugee camps. he grew up in war, learning to hate and fight and kill the russian invaders. he never had a chance to play, and he told me when he saw that the ground he became a child again. i think it's ironic that of the millions of dollars that have gone into that province, dozens of people killed, soldiers killed, bomb threats and everything, there is the girls school now because of the playground. there is an effort in this country all the way down into first grade to get kids on the internet. i don't think kids need to do that. the need to go out and play.

[applause] i also think every single child in this country should be bilingual. we do live in a global society and i think that's imperative. [applause] and the last thing is when i'm home and take my kids every saturday to the library and i make my son read at least 30 minutes, sometimes read a story telling but i think every child should be encouraged or sometimes pushed and prodded to read. i think that's so important to anything we are going to try and do. [applause] well, i would like to close with a quote from martin luther king, jr.. my mother is a good loser. she said martin luther said this [laughter] i met the chinese consulate recently who said no, no, this is ancient chinese. [laughter] then somebody told me know no

come so i don't know who said this first, but what it said is even if the world ends tomorrow i will plant my seat today. and i think that in essence is the hope for the future. if we can glean from our elders and respect them and learn from them and many of the wise lessons, and then parted with the children and the next generation, i do know that this world will be a better place. we, as a society, we come as a community, we come as a global, we have gone through wars, crisis, with depression, we've gone through many other things, but we really i think if we can make that connection with the elders and the u.s. i think we can live in peace. so i just want to thank all of you to the great honor to be here, especially festival and what it means to literacy and books and education and to all

of you just thank you so much and god bless all of you. thank you. [applause] greg mortenson is the co-founder and executive director of the central asia institute and the founder of pennies for peace. his first book, three cups of tea has sold over 3.5 million copies. for more information, visit gregmortenson.com. political satirist p.j. o'rourke presents his politics in america. he questions the government's fiscal discipline and we is among numerous other political issues including health care reform, the recent financial crisis, climate change, no child

left behind and campaign finance reform. this event hosted by the cato institute in washington, d.c. is 50 minutes. frie >> my good friend at cato, patrick jake o'rourke. [applause] co >> thank you for coming ofiate . i know that some of you probably felt like you should be home laying down with a cold compress on your head after president obama's 1 p.m. press conference. certainly left me with a headache. we lost that election last night. you know? and i don't say that just because republicans didn't take the senate, you know, or -- we lost that election because almost every political contest yesterday was won by a politician.

[laughter] a couple of cases angry nuts won which is an improvement over politicians. [laughter] but it's really, t just not good enough -- it's just not good enough. i will not be satisfied until every seat in the house and senate is filled by a regular person. a regular person who, quite reasonably, hates being there. i want government to be like jury duty. and not jury duty for some exciting crime like the o.j. simpson murder, you know? [laughter] i want government to be like jury duty for a long, boring, complex, confusing trial concerning tax law. in fact, let me suggest indicting our federal tack code just -- tax code just for starts which is nothing but fraud. i want government to be dull, a

dull and onerous responsibility like attending a parent/teacher conference, you know? something that to be undertaken with weary reluctance because good citizenship requires it, you know? i want every congressman, every senator, every president, every supreme court justice to be wishing, longing, begging to go back to his or her real job in real life. i want them hoping and pleading to be allowed to return to their private interests and personal avocations. i want them yearning to be sitting in front of the tv with a beer watching ed crane lose money on his world series bets. [laughter] i want our elected officials to say that they intend to spend more time with their families and mean it. [laughter] mean it, you know? we will know when we have won an election. we will know when we've won an

election. when every single candidate who's voted into office begins his or her victory speech by saying, oh, shit. [laughter] no. now, i'm working on a -- in this new book on a new theory of political science, and instead of basing my theory on the work of deep political thinkers such as john locke, tom payne, john stewart mill and ed crane, i'm basing my theory on a dumb game played at all night giggle sessions in girls' boarding schools. my wife told me about this. game's called, "screw mary." what happens is that the girls pick three men, and they go around the room, and every girl has to decide which one of the three she would kill, which one she'd screw and which one she

would settle down for life and raise a family, right? now, i think the example my wife gave when she was telling me about this, her example was conan o'brien, david letterman, jay leno. you know, the girls could kill conan, screw letterman -- all the other interns did -- and marry jay leno, right? and i'm laughing. but then it struck me, kill screw mary, that's how we pick the president of the united states. take as example the 1992 presidential election. george h.w. bush, bill clinton, ross perot. kill ross perot, avoid the screw from bill clinton and marry kindly old george h.w. bush. now, of course, the outcome of the game is not always a foregone conclusion. in case of the 2000 presidential election, america was pretty much evenly divided about whether to screw george w. or get screwed by al gore, although

i think we all agreed on killing ralph nader. [laughter] i won't venture any examples from more recent elections fear of attracting attention from the secret service, hard as that sometimes seems to be in the obama white house. but anyway. kill/screw mary, it just got me thinking. it works on types of government, kill the postal service, get in bed with housing. screw agricultural subsidies, marry social security and health care reform kills us. i mean, kill/screw mary. great tool of political analysis because in a free and democratic country, politics is sort of a three-legged stool. politics is balanced upon a tripod of power, freedom and responsibility. can kill/screw mary. and we live in a free and democratic country, a little less democratic than it was before last night which was fine with me.

also kill/screw mary is a great tool of political analysis because we're so passionate about our politics. and how do passionate affairs end? in a passion, usually, in a crime of passion sometimes. and occasionally they turn into stable, permanent legal arrangements which is to say the endless peevish quarrel known as marriage. so how do we approach the political institutions of our free and democratic country? do we overthrow them with violence? do we screw around cheating on them while they screw around cheating on us, or do we try to build something that is lasting and boring, worthy and annoying, marvelously virtuous and be at the same time dreadfully stifling? a marriage, huh? power, freedom, responsibility, kill/screw mary. now, when i first began to think about politics when mast donses and nixon roamed the earth --

[laughter] i was obsessed with freedom, the screw part of kill/screw mary. i had a messy idea of freedom back in those days drinking bong water, but i had a tidy idea that freedom was the central issue of politics. now, i loved politics. many young people do. kids can spot a means of gain without merit, you know? this may be the reason that professional politicians retain a certain youthful zest. ted kennedy was the boyo right down to his last aged-disease wracked moment. i was sure i was right about the preeminent place freedom should have in a political system. but there are lots of definitions of free. thirty-six definitions of free in webster's third international dictionary. plenty of people are

theoretically in favor of freedom. we are all but overrun with theoretical allies in freedom's cause. we have got collaborators in the fight for freedom that we don't even want. i mean, the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. it's the second to the last sentence of the communist manifesto, and there's a creepy echo of it in the refrain of chris kristofferson's me and bobby mcgee. half a million people died in that definition of freedom, and we should probably keep in mind that the original definition of the word "free" in english is not in bondage. the most meaningful thing about freedom is that mankind has a sickening history of slavery. now, here in america we have freedom because we have righted. the same way we can get mixed up

about freedom we can get mixed up about our rights. there are two kinds of rights, political scientists call them positive rights and negative rights. sometimes we call them opportunities and prejudices. privileges. i call them get out of here rights and gimme rights. politicians are always telling us about our gimme rights, especially the politician we've got in the white house right now. as in gimme some health care insurance, you know? in but, you know, our bill of rights doesn't mention any dimmy rights -- gimme rights. our bill of rights is all about our right to say i have got god, guns and a big damn mouth, and if judge finds me guilty, there'll go my bail. our freedom from interference, usually from goth, but also from our fellow citizens when they want us to sober up, put the gun down and go back in the trailer.

[laughter] politicians don't like gimme -- they only like gimme rights. they do not like get out of here rights. they don't like get out of here rights because for one thing all legislators are being invited to get out of here, you know if and for another thing, strict adherence would leave little scope for legislation, something that legislators dearly love to do. gimme rights, much more politically alluring. and this is how we find ourselves tempted with the right to education, the right to housing, right to a living wage, to oil spill beach clean-up, high-speed internet access, three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. politicians show no signs in even knowing the difference. and blinded by the dazzle of anything that makes them popular, they honestly may not be able to tell. but there is evidence that a confusion about these right t

was originally -- rights was originally presented to the public with malice aforethought. president franklin roosevelt's four freedoms appear to be at first glance as natural, as well-matched, as tidy of composition as those norman rockwell pictures of them, freedom from religion, freedom from fear. but notice how the beggar, number three -- freedom from want -- has slipped in among the more respectable members of the freedom family. want what? saying, as roosevelt did, that we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms and one of these freedoms is freedom from want, this was not an an expression of generosity from roosevelt. declarations like freedom from want are never expression of generosity. there were six million jewish in

germany that wanted some place to go. wrong rights are the source of abusive political power. it was years before i realized, years after i first got interested in politics before i realized the central issue of politics is power, not freedom. kill, not screw. only an idiot wouldn't have seen this, and i was one. i wasn't alone. liberals, moderates, even some conservatives considered the sweeping gimme rights created by half a century of social welfare programs to be extensions of freedom in the opportunity right sense. people were being given the opportunity to, you know, not starve to death. and that's not a purely evil way of looking at things. and not all the social welfare programs were bad. but the electorate, the candidates and me failed to properly scrutinize social

welfare programs. it's not that we failed to examine whether the programs were needed or unneeded or well or poorly run. what we failed to look at was the enormous power being taken from people and given to politics. we let freedom be turned into power. f off and die, the politicians told us. politicians are careful about promising gimme rights, they are cynical about delivering them. and gimme rights, in turn, are absurdly expandable. the government gives me the right to get married. this indicates i have a right to a good marriage, otherwise why bother giving that right to me. now, my marriage is made a lot better by my children's right to daycare so the brats aren't in my face all day, you know? being deprived of their right to a nurturing developmental environment. every child has the right to a happy childhood, so i have the right to happy children.

richer children are happier. give me some of angelina jolie's. the expense of all these rights makes politicians happy. they get to do the spending. even get out of here rights aren't free. they entail a mill care, a constabulary, a judiciary and a considerable expenditure by our neighbors when they want us to sober up and go back in the trail. but gimme rights require no money. every one of such rights means the transfer of goods and services from one group of citizens to another. now, the first group of citizens loses those goods and services, but all citizens lose the power that must be given to a political authority to enforce that transfer. and we didn't, we didn't want to understand that power. and this is particularly true of people my age, of the baby boom.

it was obvious in the way we reacted when politicians attempted to use their power to limit our freedom by drafting us into the war in vietnam. we fought the establishment by growing our hair long and dressing like circus clowns, you know? we're a pathetic bunch. we're a pathetic punch, and it didn't start with the beatles, marijuana and the pill. recall the coonskin cap? [laughter] i wore mine to school. children of previous eras may have worn coonskin caps, but they had to eat the raccoons first. [laughter] baby boom's reluctance to pay attention to the real issues of power resulted from the fact that we had some. freedom is power, you know? and when it came to freedom, we were full of it. we were the first middle class majority generation in history. we had all the varieties of freedom that affluence provides, plus we had the other varieties of freedom provided by the

relaxation of religious conviction, sexual morality, etiquette and good taste. the institutions that enforce prudence and restraint, they had been through a world war, prohibition, depression, another world war and elvis. they were tired. and we were allowed to fall under the power of our freedoms, and we powered through them. sixty years on we are still at it letting not age, tedium or erectile dysfunction stand in our way, you know? and yet always at our pack we hear this nagging -- back we hear this nagging thought that with power comes responsibility. kill/screw/marriage. and we don't want that. has there ever been a generation, civilization more determined to evade responsibility? well, yes, probably there has. the ancient romans sliced open animals and be rummaged in their kidneys and livers trying to

avoid up to the consequences of empire and toga parties. the greeks were forever running off to hear the irresponsible babble of the oracle of delphi, the larry king of rage. [laughter] maybe the egyptians had an oprah barge on the nile where deceased pharoahs could fall to pieces and promise to become better mummies, you know what i mean? this nonetheless, the baby boom has an impressive record of blame-shifting, duty-shirking unaccountability and refusal to admit guilt or, better, to readily confess to every kind of guilt and then announce that we have moved on. a gigantic national not-my-fault project has been undertaken with heroic amounts of time, effort and money devoted to psychology, psychotherapy, sociology, sociopaths, social work, social sciences, scientology, science, chemistry, the brain, brain chemistry, inhibitions, sex, sex

therapy, talk therapy, talk radio, talk radio personalities, personality disorders, drugs, drug-free school zones, economics, the feds, pms, dna, evolution, divorce, no-fault car insurance, the democratic party and diagnosis of attention deficit disorder in small boys. [laughter] when i started thinking about politics 40 some years ago, i shouldn't have been thinking mainly about freedom and power, about screwing and killing. i should have been thinking about that march down the church aisle responsibility. it is, of course, too late now. i'm a child of my era. and speaking of that era, here are three slogans from three 1960s posters that never, ever existed. sisterhood is responsible. black responsibility. responsibility to the people. i'm trying to imagine me and my bratty little friends out there on the barricades with our fists raised yelling, "responsibility

to the people" you know? now, it is our great good fortune that we as libertarians have a way out of that kill/screw/marry game of politics because we have realized that true freedom, true power and true responsibility are individual matters. we know that the greatest source of our freedom, our power and our responsibility is, quite simply, the free market. economic freedom is the freedom we exercise most often and to the greatest extent. freedom of speech is important. if you have anything to say, i check the internet. nobody does. a freedom of belief is important if you believe in anything. i've watched reality tv, i can't believe it. freedom of assembly is important. if you have an assembly to go to the way we do. but most people go to the mall, and at the mall they exercise economic freedom. we have the cow of economic

freedom. do we take the cow to market and trade her for the magic beans of bailout and stimulus? when we climb that magic bean stalk, we're going to find a giant government at the top, you know? are we going to be as lucky as jack and the beanstalk was? i'm not sure jack himself was that lucky with his giant killing, you know? jack the giant killer, that's jack's version, you know? my guess is that jack spent years being investigated by giant subcommittees, you know? [laughter] and now jack's paying a giant tax on his beanstalk bonus with his salary being determined by a compensation committee that is 40 feet tall, you know? this free market, it's not a creed or an ideology that we libertarians want americans to take on faith. no. the free market is simply a measurement. the free market tells us what people are willing to pay for a given thing at a given moment. that's all the free market does.

the free market is a bathroom scale. we may not like what we see when we step on the bathroom scale, but we cannot pass a law making ourselves weigh 145 and president obama thinks we can. you know? free market gives us only one piece of information, but it is important information. we ignore it at our peril the way the leaders of the old soviet bloc did. they lost the cold war not because of troops or tanks or star wars missile shields. they lost the cold war because of bulgarian blue jeanses. the free market was attempting to inform the kremlin that bulgarian blue jeans didn't fit. they were ugly and ill-made. nobody wanted them at any price. people wouldn't wear bulgarian blue jeans, literally not to save their lives. but the kremlin didn't listen, and the berlin wall came down. there is, however, just one problem.

with escaping from the kill/screw/marry of politics. if our nation becomes a libertarian nation, this will deprive politics of all of its tools and instruments. if we succeed in getting people to quit killing, stop screwing around and start taking the troughs they've plighted in life seriously, there will be no room left for politics. so how will politics be able to give us our rights to three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree? how will politics be able to make things fair? now, this may be a valid concern, but i am immune to it. i am immune to it because i have a 12-year-old daughter, and that is all i hear. that's not fair. [laughter] that's not fair. it's not fair, it's not fair. all my friends have an ipad, it's not fair. you let my little sister do such

and such, it's not fair. it's not fair. one day i just snapped, and i said to her, honey, you're cute. that's not fair. you're smart. that's not fair. your family is pretty well off. that's not fair. you were born in the united states of america. that's not fair. darling, you had better get down on your knees and pray to god that things don't start getting fair for you. [laughter] anyway, that's everything i know. [laughter] but if anybody has a question, i'll make up some other stuff. i see a question right back there. >> i've seen you a few times. >> thank you. >> and there's a microphone for, with which you can ask your question. >> it's good to see you again here, and i wanted to thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you on your last book that came out about the cars. >> you're very welcome. >> i see some of the central

themes repeated here tonight. were you, in any way, involved in the civil rights movement when, obviously, you were too young to to be fully involved in it, but in retrospect how do you feel about what happened during the '60s versus what we have now. >> oh, yeah. i mean, you know, i wasn't involved in the, in the civil rights movement like being a freedom rider or anything like that. of course, i was an avid supporter. i was a leftist at the time, and i do think it's one like little red badge of courage that the left can present us with, they were out front. maybe not for the best of motives always, but nonetheless, they were out front on the civil rights question. and it is always to be born in mind, you know, that one thing that sets us apart from some people in the conservative movement is our belief in the rule of law and our belief in the equality of people, more

precisely our belief in the equality of everyone before the law. i mean, everyone must be equal before the law. that's actually even more important than whether the law is good. is that we all be -- most important thing is that we be equal before the law and that we have some measure of input as to what that law can be. what it is. and that existence of law, the equality before the law, the input into the law, these are the things that actually create the necessity, the logical necessity for democracy. and this is really at the core of our beliefs. and there are, you know, there are people who are on our side on many issues who are not as firm, alas, as i think we are ant -- about that. sir. >> mr. o'rourke, i remember you spoke in this auditorium at the beginning of the iraq war, and

you said you were in favor of it. do you still feel the same way about it? >> no. my, my, you know, to use what cain said, you know, when my information changes, my opinion changes. what do you do? [laughter] i have considerable more reservations about the iraq war now than i had then. we only knew what we knew. and, you know, people right up the food chain to mohamedal barty, you know, over at the u.n. believed that there were weapons of mass destruction. that really wasn't why i was in favor of the iraq war. i had been in the gulf war, i had covered the gulf war. i had seen what saddam hussein did to kuwait and the people of kuwait, and i felt this was a very, very bad man, and i felt that the fundamental question was, is he a bad man, does he do bad things, does he have the resources to do bad things, and that was three yeses and you're out, you know?

so i was in favor of the iraq war. however, i was also in baghdad. about two days after baghdad fell. i arrived in baghdad, and, you know, we violated the power rule. we broke it. but we failed to buy it. there was no water. the water system was not operating, there was no electricity. but, i mean, no water, i mean, that says it all. this is a desert country. there was no water in the baghdad. millions of people, and no water. the sewage system was going to pieces, there was no food, there was no provision for medical care. we had just, we had taken large chunks out of this city, done a lot of damage in taking over this city, and we were providing no aid whatsoever to the people of the city. they were not initially that unhappy to see us. i walked around without a guard, without a weapon. i walked around baghdad by

myself. you know, i got a few ugly looks, i got some waves and smiles, i got some, you know, like, you know, i'm not sure looks. but i never felt myself to be in danger. and it wasn't until the people of iraq fully realized that these, these weird alien creatures who had arrived in their country all dressed up like, you know, like the soldiers in if star warses, you know, hadn't brought anything with them, you know? hadn't brought any alternative. they were, they were plenty glad to be rid of saddam hussein and of the pair sittic and vicious members of the baath party. so, you know, that aftermath to the iraq war modified my feeling -- in retro spect, modified my feeling of respect for the iraq war. probably if i'd done due diligence as they say in business, i would have realized we were going into iraq so

poorly prepared. not so poorly prepared from our point of view, but so poorly prepared from the point of view of the iraqi people. so -- sir. >> just to follow up on your response to that. how do you reconcile -- [inaudible] just to follow up on what you just said, how do you reconcile that with your analysis previously about the gimme rights versus the get out of here rights? it seems like providing the iraqis with electricity, providing them with water, all that nation-building infrastructure stuff seems to fall on the side of gimme rights rather than get out of here. >> well, you're right, you're correct. that certainly does. and if we had invaded america -- but we didn't, you know? [laughter] you know. if our government had invaded us, and i suppose some would say they had in a way. they would be under a certain obligation to provide for our welfare. i speak of it only really, i mean, i speak of it partly from

a humanitarian point of view. i mean, i simply, you know, i didn't like the suffering that i saw. but i also speak of it as a pragmatic point of view. you know, if you're going to invade another country, you know, no matter how good your reasons may be, and let's say for argument's sake that the reasons were much better than they, in fact, were. let's say that they were, like, nazi germany invasion level every reasons. you still if you want that, that invasion and that occupation to be a success, if you want to have your way, you want the germans to quit being nazis, you know, you want the baathists to be out of power and stay out of power and don't want anything, anybody bad to come in and fill that power vacuum, then it is incumbent upon you just from a pact practical point of view to bring some goodies in your easter basket. sir.

>> i was struck in your presentation that, obviously, the day after an election it's fun to think about our elected officials. but as i recalled in your book "parliament offer whos" when you goat to the end the parliament of whorew were us, and everything that we thought now had become our right. and it seems to me that there's sort of a question of, okay, if you have a house of, quote, representatives and we're all out trying to hang on to what we like, what would you expect the house of representatives to do? >> will -- yeah! no, the fault of bad government from the president right on down is squarely on our shoulders as american citizens. we elected these people, you know? and we elected these people because gimme rights are quite enticing. they really are. that was why, and that's why the final sentence of "parliament of whores" is the whores are us.

this is a democracy, we do control this country, and we have been willing to give away a lot of our freedoms in return for what we perceived as being benefits. one of the things that fascinates me about the tea party movement is that this is a grassroots movement going around asking for less from government, you know? this has come up -- this is not come down from the elites, this has come up from the bottom. we're being our own sarkozys with this. we are going to ourselves and saying, no, no, you can't, you can't retire at 28. you can't have the government pay 165% of your college tuition. you can't, you cannot have all of these benefits without their being enormous costs to our individual freedom and, of course, costs to our economy, all sorts of blowback from this. and so that's why, you know, is the, is the, is the tea party movement a perfect thing? of course not. it's a big tree. big trees attract squirrels.

i mean, there are some people out there. you know, i mean, christine o'donnell. i am not a witch, you know? i was a little amazed at that. on the other hand, i thought to myself has hillary clinton ever cleared that up? [laughter] come on, let's be fair. but, no, i think, you know, i think it's quite extraordinary. i was talking to a group a couple months back answering a question about the tea party movement, and i said when in the history of american pop you list movements has there been a movement that wanted less from the government? they always want some positive benefit from the government. now, sometimes they are more than entitled to that positive benefit. civil rights movement was a populist movement. the benefit that they wanted from government was equality before the law. they wanted the law to be enforced. but it was, nonetheless, they were asking the government to do something, and the fact that they were right, it was good, you know? many we've also had plenty of populist movements where we have

had xenophobic populist movements, the agrarian populists who, you know, wanted, basically, free mortgages. they wanted the bubble that we just went through, you know? they were agitating for a sort of mortgage bubble back in the 19th century. so we've got all kinds of populist movements, they've always been asking the government for something. and here for the first time we have a populist 3450u6789 that's -- movement that's asking the government for less. now, are they perfectly cogent about that? are they always sure about what just less they want? are they completely clear about how we would roll back the size and scope of government? this well, no, they're not because they're amateurs. they're regular people, and this is a new thing, you know? this is only, like, about 22 months old. but i'm still impressed. so i was talking to this group about that ask saying, you know, show me in the history of america a populist movement that

hasn't wanted something from government, and somebody in the back of the room said the whiskey rebellion. [laughter] and i said, well, i was in favor of that too. [laughter] back there. >> hello. thanks for being here. >> you're welcome. >> i perceive rightly or wrongly that there's kind of this hole in libertarian thought in that for all this freedom that libertarians kind of want there to be for me as an individual that there's no room for the responsibility that you talk about, and there's no grounding or reference point in the social contract. i think some social conservatives would like it to be religion, and the establishment clause or lack thereof. you know, kind of puts limits on that. where's the morality -- >> i actually think that most people who are serious in their libertarian thinking are pretty good on the responsibility issue. which has been summed up as you

have the right to do anything you want, and you also have the obligation to take the consequences, you know? i mean, i think we're pretty square on that. if i had an argument with libertarianism, my argument with libertarianism would not be ab negation of responsibility, it would be a sometimes relentless application of logic to politics. and politics, you know, michael oakshot made this argument, i think, very forcefully if you can get through his poise which is very difficult, but he made this argument quite forcefully back at the end of the '40s, beginning of the '50s that politics is not a fully rational endeavor. i mean, politics is simply how we get along with each other in a group that has, that either we've landed in or we have selected to be in. it is simply a way of people

getting along with each other. and we tend to think especially because we have that wonderful example of our founding fathers and the founding documents and so on, we have a tendency as americans to think that politics has a beginning and that -- and oakshot pointed out that, no, politics does not have a beginning, that the social contract is a kind of intellectual construct that we've made. when was it exactly that man apes, you know, came down from the trees before they could talk and agreed on how many grunts you get and how many grunts i get on the social contract? no, this has evolved organically, and oakshot also made the point that there's no tellology, and politics does not have an object. it does not have a purpose. i mean, it's up to us to give it its object and purpose. it as an organic matter of human behavior, politics has neither a

beginning, nor an end, nor a purpose. it's simply the way that people get along, manage to get -- arrange their affairs with other people. and sometimes we as libertarians have a tendency to ask for a more logical construction of politics than humans are probably actually capable of, you know? let's see, sir. trying to -- trying to predict where the microphone will go. let's send it down here next, okay? >> my name's terence, i'm unafailuated. -- unaffiliated. mr. o'rourke, my question is what would you hope for and what would you expect from a president sarah palinsome. >> ooh. what would i hope for and what would i expect from a president sarah palin? you know, i would hope that she wouldn't try and think things through. [laughter]

talk about applications of reason. because i don't think she's real strong in that department. i'm not sure i, that i am, you know, greatly at variance with sarah palin's, with most of her values, you know? but i think that she is, you know, it's politics as showmanship. i mean, as a politician i think she's got a great career coming in talk radio, you know? and i hope not in the white house, you know? it is -- you know, it really takes a -- the view that i think is probably, you know, the views of politics and the views of economics that are represented in this room are demanding views of politics, demanding views of economics. they, they're fact-based, they're not fanciful. we're not people who are creating fairy castles,

political fairy castles in the air. none the less -- nonetheless, the political position that we want to sell to people is not an easy sale. it means standing up in front of people and saying, i can give you less. i can give you -- it means telling the truth to people. imagine a politician who told the truth to people. imagine a politician who stood up and can said, no, i can't fix public education. because the problem isn't lack of funding, the problem isn't overcrowding in the clads rooms, it's not -- classrooms, it's not lack of computer equipment, the problem is your damn kids, you know? [laughter] imagine a politician who said something like that, you know? and we tend to go to the people and tell them the truth, and it's uncomfortable, you know? it's easier to tell a lie. a needome .. and skilled, and that was what we prized about ronald reagan. were we behind ronald reagan

100% on everything? was ronald reagan never wrong? were there times when ronald reagan was not as active as he could have been or lazy or even political and cynical? sure. but he had that capacity to explain to people why we had to face facts, why we had to do things, you know, why we couldn't have pie in the sky, why he couldn't promise ridiculous things that couldn't be delivered. and i just don't see sarah palin having that kind of intellectual throw weight. we used to make fun of ronald reagan for not being very smart. it turns out the guy was quite smart, and, of course, he had a tremendous gift for explanation, and he had the kind of good humor and good grace to make this work. and i'm not seeing any of that stuff from sarah palin, you know? i'd love to be proved wrong. you know, i mean, maybe she is a hidden genius, you know? i'm not seeing it so far, you know? sir.

>> thanks. i'm fascinated by the use of humor to actually make a difference, and like you i went to miami university in this oxford, ohio. >> oh! how's your liver? [laughter] liver transplants, it's big in the alumni news. there's a whole section devoted -- [laughter] >> the example i ask of you is political correctness has run amok there, and you were a redskin -- >> i was a redskin. >> something like that was a losing battle, never, never really to be fought by anyone. can humor make a difference in that, and can it make a difference in advancing libertarian ideas really? >> sometimes i think it can, you know? i mean, it depends upon the situation. there are some things you're, obviously, going to get in trouble making fun of. katrina, you know? i mean, that's not going to work, you know? [laughter] i gave in to it myself a couple times, you know? and you really don't get very far with that. you know, they said, you know -- we won't go there. [laughter]

yeah. i was going to give an example, and i just decided i'd get myself in more trouble. but, yeah, of course you can do it. as a matter of fact, we were doing it with the miami, miami university named after the miami indian tribe has been called time out of mind, the teams have been called the redskins. and that back beginning in the '60s when i was there and for, like, 20 years that argument went on, people began to take umbrage. so the miami tribe who through no doing of their own live in oklahoma now and not in ohio, but nonetheless, the miami tribe maintains a relationship with miami university, and any kid from the miami tribe who wants to go to college has a free ride at miami university. at any rate, we went to the chief of the miami tribe and said, well, how do you feel about this? he said, he could care less. [laughter] what does he care what the football team is called? anyway, on the argument went.

and it wasn't effective, but at the time i remember putting forward, my friends and i putting forward that, look, if we're not going to be the redskins, we've got to go the whole way and be, like, the dust bunnies or, like, you know, the fluffy little flower petals or something truly -- but, you know, reagan, reagan really, you know, just had this -- and i will go back to katrina for one moment because when katrina happened, i remember the words from reagan saying the ten most frightening words in the english language are i'm from the federal government, and i'm here to help. [laughter] now it's say no more. so, yes, you know, i think that it has to be used with some caution, but i think it is -- i hope it's a useful tool. otherwise i'm out of work. >> two more questions. >> two more questions. man in the blue shirt, suspenders. right on the corner there. >> thank you, sir. your wit does make politics

light for the rest of us, but after 40 years of fighting this fight on behalf of your ideals, do you get frustrated? does a humorist like yourself get grumpy? this. >> oh, yeah. no, i hate politics. i hate politics. forty some years of writing about politics, and i realized that, you know, i'm having about as much fun as a grizzly bear getting a bikini wax. no, i do not like politics. and i don't just hate bad politics, i hate good politics too. i even hate democracy. i know we have to have it, you know, it's a lodge -- logical outgrowth of equality on laws, but think about applying politics to every aspect of your life. think about deciding what's for dinner by family secret ballot, you know? i've got three kids and three dogs. we would be having flute l -- fruit loops and spoiled meat. think if our clothing were selected by the voting process, you know, by the majority of

shoppers, and that would be teenage girls, right, would be the majority of shoppers. dick cheney would have spent two terms as vice president with his midriff exposed, you know? if clothing were chosen by the democratic process. [laughter] i do think that one of the roles of libertarianism is to act as a sort of room decorrode riser to keep thestick of politics occupant of home, school and office, you know? including the doctor's office. one more. sir. >> hello. what prospects do you see for the future of libertarianism in the younger generations like millennials like me? >> well, you know, i think that libertarianism has always had a sort of proposition 19 appeal to the young, you know? and it was interesting to me that proposition 19 didn't pass in california, and i think it was a case of they're toking up before they went in the voting booth, you know?

[laughter] getting in there all ready to pass proposition 19 and going, wow, did you ever really look at a ballot? [laughter] writing on it and little boxes. yeah. so i always thought, you know, when you're voting on that, wait until after you vote, you know? no, i think that, you know, that libertarianism -- i think like me when i was young i think the main consideration of kids is freedom. and one of the things we have to realize about kids is the extent to which they have lived, grown up in, in a collective environment. i mean, kids in a weird sort of way are natural little marxists, you know? there's that from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. where's the one place that actually happens, that actually works? this family, right?

so, i mean, kids come out of this sort of commie family thing, you know? [laughter] and they go to these often very left-wing teachers at school. but even if a school weren't left wing, it is regimented, you know, it is a collective enterprise. and they're given all sorts of bologna, they do sorts of mandatory volunteer work that they have to do, you know, and there's a lot of talk about, you know, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game, but it's obviously whether you win or lose. and all sorts of bologna, you know? and then they go off to college, and they get this freedom, you know, to get naked and responsibility? yeah, turn the music down after 3 a.m., you know? and they're living this life where their only possessions are, like, their, like, computer, you know? and stereo speakers, you know? and maybe a car. so it's very, very easy to be a leftist when you're in your late teens and your early 20s.

and i think that, you know, the libertarian ideas about freedom, let's maybe hold off in explaining to them the responsibility part. [laughter] they'll find out soon enough. but libertarian ideas about freedom can be the kind of wedge in. it certainly was one of the things that when the left with whom i identified in the 1960s because the left was anti-war, because the left was anti-racism, because the left was for free water beds and bongs for everybody, of course i identified with it, you know? but when they started to get scary, when the weather underground came in and started blowing stuff up, when bill ayers, our president's friend, you know, began really acting up, i started to go, wait, i didn't sign on for this. i signed on for the bongs and the waterbeds. what's this about, you know, blowing people up? and i began to see this totalitarian side to the left, and i think that was the beginning of my journey away from that was -- and so, yes, i

think libertarianism has a great potential appeal, has a great appeal now and even larger potential appeal. [applause] thank you.

>> thanks, clay, for introducing us, and welcome everybody. this session is called "back to life: humanizing medical bac mysteries," and the authors are molly caldwell crosby and rebecca skloot.hors i want to remind you thatlute. following this session, about 50 minutes after it, the authors yt will sign the book at the book signing tent on congress avenue between 10th and 11th streets. l sign their books between tenth, and eleventh street. have been involved for many years and ten years ago by was taking an author to the airport and mentioned by was a scientist and the author was a history rider and he said who are your favorite science writers and i'm struck dumbfounded and i said

carl sagan, i really didn't -- nothing came to me. the truth was i wasn't gripped by science and writing at that time. but since then, writers like mali and rebecca have not called got my attention but the attention of the world and this is in large part because they're so skilled at bringing difficult and complex subject to a life. if i were back in that car today i would have molly caldwell coming off of my tongue. it is an honor to introduce them to you. molly is a master of arts degree in nonfiction and science writing at johns hopkins university who spent several years working for national geographic and her writing has been in newsweek and u.s. aid today among others. molly also served as a disease professor in nonfiction at the university of memphis. and forgotten epidemics remain

one of medicine's greatest mysteries. second book--her first is american plagues, the untold story of yellow favor, the epidemic that shaped our history. rebecca is a science writer who has written over 200 articles that have been in the new york times, discover and many others. she spent eight years on the board of directors of the national book critics her circles. she has a bs in biological science and creative nonfiction. henry and that is her first book and has become a new york times best-seller. i wanted to kind of get started with what resonated with me so much, science writing is so gripping now. in large part that is because

writers like you use narratives to pull the reader in. i wonder if you could talk about a roll of narrative as a means for communicating science. >> can everybody hear in the back? thank you. wonderful. i have had the same reaction. i'm constantly being asked to my favorite science writers are and i have a few answers i give. narrative science writing is pretty rare. i have to say how cool it is that you have to treat the women talking about it. [applause] the one thing that is more rare than narrative science writing is women narrative science writing. it is great we are here to talk about this. i think in some ways it is everything in the kind of writing that we do. science is something that affects everybody's life.

is so important for the general public to understand science and to see the way science interact with daily life and it is important for scientists to learn the stories of the people behind the science that they are doing and to think of science in a narrative way. a lot of people don't. what you get in science writing is the facts and those facts are often intimidating to the general public. one thing i hear over and over again from people when you hear about my book is, tactically it is the story of the first human cells are grown in culture and when you say that to people they go you wrote a book about cells? but it is not. it is a story about a family and what happens -- about ethics in science and the use of people in research without their consent. it is about class and race and so many things and science is that. science does not exist in a vacuum and i hear over and over

again from readers to send me e-mails saying i hit science. last time i took a science class was in middle school and avoided the rest of my educational career. i almost didn't read your book because there were cells on the cover but then i did and i couldn't put it down and i got to the end and realize accidentally learned a lot about cells. i don't exactly remember when i'd did it. that is the highest compliment i could get. it is like giving the medicine when it tastes really good. i think is really important to use these stories to put the science in and telling human stories about science and let them learn about science and a way that isn't here is the science part you are learning now. take out your highlighters and get the text books so narrative let you do that. it lets people go through science because they want to see what happens next. >> i agree. i am proud to be one of the

women sitting on the panel today. i had very little interest in science at school. i was not drawn to it because it is so impersonal. my first real interest was in college. i went to a liberal arts school and english riding major. i was forced to take a science course and so i took the chemistry of aids. it was the first time i had seen -- learned science applied to a particular disease. to a virus. from that point on i was hooked. i loved it. i do think science can be intimidating. is very impersonal and a lot of ways so as a science writer your dog is to make the impersonal personal. illness is one of the universal things we all have in common. it connects us all and transcends time periods. my books take place in different time periods. whether 1870s or 1920s.

we can still understand and relate with epidemics. also a future lesson as well. the role of narrative in science as you said, it is absolutely important to get the story across and i like the point you made that it is important that the doctors and researchers understand the personal stories of the patients because especially with my second book, that is about being a really important element of the book. this was an epidemic that spans 20 research the years with long-term effects and the doctors develop long-term relationships with the patients. they exchanged letters and christmas cards and visited one another and vacation homes. that was interesting for me because i don't think we have relationships like that today. that was part of bringing the impersonal story to life. >> we blurred the lines between

science writing and medical writing. i wonder if we want to address that a little bit. what do you see as the goals and responsibilities of medical riding compared to science writing or in general? >> responsibility is getting the information correct. the fact. i always try to have experts whether it be microbiology or epidemiology read parts of the book or the old look and make sure i am translating it correctly. i try to take the scientific information and make it more readable and bridge that gap. i want to make sure it is done correctly. >> accuracy and the writing is important but in science writing is so easy to make a little tiny mistake and state something as definitive instead of possibly definitive. there are a lot of subtleties.

for me, i thought a lot about my responsibility and my role as a writer. a lot of what i read about our places where every day life in science intersects. often that can get messy sometimes so i write about this story, my book is so much about cells taken from this woman without her knowledge in the 50s and went on to become one of the most important things that happened to madison. she never knew about it and died very young and her family lived in poverty. to this day they can't afford to go to the doctor because they don't have enough money yet their mother's cells contributed to all medicine out there. there is not a person here who didn't benefit medically in some way from these cells. the scientists were white and the -- there are a lot of loaded issues in this book. i come at science writing as a scientist. i became a writer later.

for me one of the big responsibilities is asking tough questions. one of the things that is true about science writing is it is cheerleading. there are not a lot of journalists who has a lot of tough questions. a lot of headlines are about this science advance and that is not usually in a much later that people start asking questions about things that happened long ago. is important to ask the questions about ethics and how science is impacting people's lives and also not demonize science. this was important to me, the people behind the science showing human beings behind scientists and sometimes very well intentioned scientists accidentally have negative affect on people. it was important to present these issues but not scare people away from the science. in my case so much of the story is about african-americans who have a history of being afraid

to go to the doctor because there is a long history of research. i don't want to make that problem worse. you have to think about the responsibility in any science. science scares people whether you talk about nanotechnology, little molecule you can see being created a use for things, we don't know what is going on with them. we are cloning. it is easy to sensationalize scientists and scare people. i think a lot about that when i write. how to well-balanced these things? i am asking tough questions but making it clear the science is good and i don't want to scare people from going to the doctor. that is a big personal responsibility. people often say i went to the doctor. i'm supposed to go next week. should i be worried? we spend a lot of time talking about no, you should not be worried. you should go to the doctor.

read the forms they said you. i spent a lot of time translating that for people. >> the deck about demonizing is a great one. that is something i had to deal with, human experimentation. you look at that and think how can you experiment on humans with or without their consent? as a writer my responsibility is to recreate what was like in those epidemics that would make people so desperate when you are losing tens of your population. doctors would in fact that patients, knowingly or unknowingly. looking at it from a different perspective in history. there's a lot of responsibility there cannot demonize. >> context is everything. putting people in the mindset of this is what it was like in the 1910s 1850s and why people were doing what they were doing and here's how it was different from today.

when people pick up a book and start reading about some research that was done on people without consent they are reading it from today's perspective that you can get in trouble when you look at the far past or even the near past for the eyes of what we know today. context is important. >> one thing we all share is ellis and that is another thing. but another thing, collateral damage is the effect on our families. both of you write about those affecting your books and not wonder if you can talk about it? collateral damage to families. >> my second book deals with the sleeping sickness epidemic from the 1920s. it was a very personal story for me. it is known as the forgotten epidemic. i could not find one book on the subject when i began researching it. my grandmother had been a survivor. she was living in dallas, texas.

she came down with a case of sleeping sickness and slept for 180 days. she was never able to finish school. she had a slow recovery. she had a relatively normal life, but i knew all my childhood something was not quite right. any time asked the family about it she said she had been that way since the sleeping epidemic. that made me want to cover this and even more so when i realized nothing had been written on this and surprisingly as much as it has been forgotten, when i talk in my interviews i am often contacted by people who say my great-grandmother had that or my great grandparents. we always wondered there are a lot of elements involved in this disease. people wary that it was genetic and now they know that it is related to this or the epidemic

percolating at the time. it was sternly a personal story for me that inspired me to write it. >> that is one of the things. science is personal for everybody. affect everyone's live. that is something you don't think about. it is personal for the scientists. and this is how it is personal for you. it is interesting, my book is about many things. it is about the effect that losing a mother, on the family. they dealt with so many things.

and five kids, the youngest kid, the oldest was 16. and read the story and connect on that level. people almost lost a parent, the most emotional e-mails, my mother or father or great-grandmother or someone important my life got cancer when i was young or recently and they are still here. a didn't go through that. they were used to develop a drug. that is an incredible personal connection. a lot of what brings us to our stories is some sort of personal connection. i learned about these cells when i was 16 in a basic biology class. the story that is in the book my

teacher said what most biology teachers say which is there are these incredible cells that have been around since 1951 even though the woman they came from god. she never knew they were taken but they became incredibly important. i became completely obsessed with these cells. it took me however long it is, a decade to write this book. a lot of the reason i latched onto the story, my father was very sick and he had gotten a viral infection that caused severe brain damage. he went from being my marathon running dad to being this guy who couldn't get off the couch. he had lost a lot of his money. he couldn't drive.

one of my jobs as a teenager was drive dad to the hospital for a drug infusion and sit while he got treated. i was in a big room with lots of other patients who were being treated. i did my homework there and hung out in this room. a lot of fear comes with that. they didn't know if it was going to help or hurt. we really hoped this would help fix him and bring him back and there was a lot of disappointment that it didn't help. i was wrestling with a range of the motion that come with research subjects or family member of a research subject when i heard about these cells which is why my first question was what did they think of it? going to something that felt similar to what her family -- what i imagine her family went through. john mcphee, incredible narrative, he has written a

zillion books. they have a very personal connection and that is true for all science writers. i often tell students if they go back to earlier and think what you have been obsess with your whole life related to science and where are the stories? >> you talked about this a little bit but there are mysteries surrounding both of your topics. nobody knows why and rihanna cells grow the way they do and no one knows what caused encephalitis of the delmack encephalitis to this day, how frustrating is it to write a book review can't give the

answers? >> it literally means selling your brain that makes use leave the. what caused that remains a mystery. one of the physicians i interviewed in writing this was a pediatric neurologist. he has seen 25 cases among kids. it is a horrible experience for children. it is a disease of the brain that alters their mind. some of these kids become extremely obsessive compulsive. some become violently ill. many are institutionalized. also for the physicians, they are still working on it today. they can't answer why this occurred. it is not a contagious disease. like the 1918 flow, what about the cases today? will we see this come back. this is connected to the flu. are we likely to see another

sleeping sickness epidemic? some physicians are doing research to make that connection between the flu and sleeping sickness. i go on line. doctors are trying to connect sleeping sickness with stress. they overreact to infection and sleeping sickness results. for me is interesting to keep watching. i didn't know how it was going to an end. i came to see if it was going in. >> that is one of those things about nonfiction. i could have kept researching this story forever. the family is still alive and doing things. at some point you have to say the story is over and we will see about a follow-up.

there are so many things you can't answer and in a lot of ways and rihanna herself who died in 1951 didn't read or write so there were no letters, i had to recreate a person from other people's memories and little documentation and that was one of the most challenging and frustrating experiences of answering the question of who she was. there's also the mystery that no one can explain why her cells grew and no other cells had. that is just the fact. i often talk in front of groups of scientists and that will come up and we say why don't we know that? we know everything else. there is now a group of scientists trying to get me a better answer to that question but it is not so frustrating to me. it is frustrating for readers sometimes. i get people to say one thing i didn't get from your book that

you didn't explain clearly was y. the cells grow. that is because no one knows. i said no one knows but that part of a book, people wanted me to have figured out by the end. no one knows. the other big thing is there are a lot of unanswered questions. one of my goals was to not advocate for one position or one stance on this very large issue of who should be using biological material or profiting off of them, should you be told your tissues are used in research? most people in the united states, how do we deal with getting consent for research without inhibiting science? we end with a lot of big questions. i often get people who stand up at my events and say what do we do? how do we fix it? scientists say what should our consent forms say? this is not my job actually.

i feel my job as a journalist is to put this out there and say this is why this story is important and hear the issues that are real and present today. so starting a conversation is important. to meet the lack of answers is part of the story. if there were answers that would mean all the issues had been solved and they haven't been. there's a tendency to want to tie that up and meet these ends and make it seem there is a nice end. >> you write in such narrative form we get a little diluted to thinking it is a story. it is reality. i want to talk about the structure of your books a little bit. one of the things you both have talked about that you covered so many things. there is ethical, historical, medical, personal stories. how did you come up the structured to wrap those things

up? those many difficult topics? >> pounding by head against the wall for year. there are three separate narratives that are rated together. you jump around in time and between these stories and some were toward the end they all come together in one story. it took me so long to come up with the structure of the book, what took be the longest in writing the book, i knew that if i told the story chronologically one of the things their writers have to do, it is one of the things that make narrative. i hard on my students about structural time. anyone who has been in class with me, structure structure structure. it is the thing that makes or breaks the narrative. a new if i started the story and told the chronologically, she was born in 19 -- why should we care? we would be going along and two

thirds of the way for her family would take over and be the main characters and i was here and it wouldn't really work. all so that structure and chronology allows you to empathize certain things about the story. i felt like it was really important to learn the story of what happened to her family. at the same time you were learning the story of amazing things that happen with these cells. so you sort of flip-flop back and forth. in one chapter, this is so great and the next half, this happened to the family and that amazing science created hard effect. the weight of the story is heavier when you know what happened to the family. so figuring out how to do that was a lot of index cards on big walls and moving around and i would stare at them for hours and move one card and said back down. for me, there aren't a lot of -- there are some models that you

can read to look at this, but i read a lot of fiction. i collected -- went to the local bookseller, independent bookseller, little tiny store in west virginia where i would go to right and told her what i was trying to do and said will you find me any novel you can find set in multiple time periods, greatest chronology and have lots of characters? she would find these books and i read them all and i would take little fingers from each book. fried green tomatoes was a very useful to me. and movies. lot of movies are structured like that. we don't think about it but so many movies jump around in time and do that sort of thing. i started watching any movie i could find that was structured in the same way. i was watching hurricane about resler hurricane carter. it is very annoying to everyone because i kept saying that is my

book. i actually storyboarded it and map of the structure of the movie by playing and pausing. to look at how they did that. one thing i got was it is jerry fast. part of what wasn't working about my structure was it had the long chapters and another long chapter and i realize they have to jump around quickly to keep people moving or you lose them. narrative has a lot to learn from these other areas. >> i find that to be one of the creative aspects of science writing. you have to apply a lot of creativity to make it interesting and readable. so structure will make or break a story like that. when i was writing my first book the american play about yellow fever i was sitting down to tackle a 100 year time frame with an ensemble cast and make a character who is an insect.

trying to make that readable and personal was a challenge. i would write things out and focus on the people. with my second book it was completely different problem. this is a huge spectrum of a disease with everything from people with mild symptoms who recovered to those who became violently in sane and institutionalized. how do you find one character or two that can represent that spectrum? so i divided the book into case studies. their eight case studies book ended by my grandmother's story and each case study deals with the part of the book where you going to the person, try to recreate your life as you photograph whatever you can and recreate what that patient experienced and woven throughout the case study, those same

doctors who are treating these patientss and working with them. that was organizing a lot of very different material. and a creative enough atmosphere would make people read it. >> that is something those riders underestimate. i never tackled a large project like this. by the time i got to the point that it was time to matching the been riding of, i had this mound of material and eventually had to stop the process and go back and catalog everything i had and start over again with my research material so make it so you could find the things you wanted to organize. one things, what suggestions do you have riders just starting out? organize everything, label, and come up with color coding system is because when you sit down to put that structure into place not only are you trying to organize on page but with raw

material all over your office. >> i will ask you each the one question i have been dying to ask. your case studies are so fascinating but maybe things is not the one that most people got but jumped at me, the story of bruce. i will read a couple lines from the book. the doctor on this case was frederick killme. he quietly pulls the girl here and says there's nothing else to be done. he reported every test. there were simply no answers. this followed from reach deeper and deeper into her own world like a wave disappearing due in beneath the surface of water. he apologized and told the parents she would never recover. when he looked at the sleeping girl, this girl is frozen, can't

move but still hears the doctor say she is never going to recover. i was so struck. this was the case -- was there when you found the most moving? does one come back more than any other? >> that was one of the most moving. one of the first cases in new york in 1980 and they are realizing this is spreading around the world rapidly. up until that point they did not realize these sleeping patients were trapped in their bodies and aware of everything happening around them. this is one of the first cases. he had no idea she could hear anything so when he turned around and saw the tears it is such a humanizing moment. and humbling for the doctor. at that point they realized this much work for the patients than they ever imagined and the

family members. hers was one of the most touching cases from the book. a girl who went insane enough that her own teeth and eyes, that is what most people bring up and have questions about. the only thing that made that tolerable was the doctor said the pain mechanism in her brain had been damaged. she felt no pain. the compulsive behavior that drew her to do this, in that case that was the only thing that i could get my mind around was writing about her, that i could sit down, it is like something you couldn't even imagine. that gets the most attention. but for me, the most humanizing moment in that was probably my

favorite. >> this is one of those things that is difficult about narrative writing, when you have a story really emotional or really painful. you live it when you are recreating it on the page. this is true for fiction writers too but there's something about this actually happened. the chapter about the decline of henry adams and her death, never experienced anything more traumatizing than writing that because i had to live that moment over and over again to really get into her head and body and imagine what it felt like and talked to another writer who wrote about difficult stuff. a lot of writers talk about it. the impact that has, the need to embody your material when your material is traumatizing. war reporters deal with this all the time. they get a post-traumatic stress disorder after reliving the experience they wrote about. there is something cathartic about having it on the page and moving on.

the other difficult things that i would have to go laydown to recover. >> your characters in the book becomes so real. they are real people you completely visualize and imagine. when we brought up the responsibility of writing that is a huge responsibility. writing about real people. you want to represent them, to know that if they came back today and read this they would say this is similar to what was happening. that is a daunting prospect. >> especially when they are still alive. they sent a box of 30 manuscripts to any scientist still alive before it went to press. that was a very long week. the scene from your book i want to talk to you about takes place a few days after her daughter debra sees her mother's sells for the first time with

christopher -- sorry. and researcher at johns hopkins. when he projected herself on the monitor a few days later debra said they are beautiful. she was right. beautiful and other worldly. growing green and moving like water. small and is the real. looking like heavenly bodies might look. they could even flits through the air. i remember reading that. no way did she do this. you made something scientific slightly spiritual. i feel like that is a big risk. did you realize it was a risk and were you nervous about including that? >> context of where that happens is the day before deborah stout saw her mother's cells was a very incredible experience for her and various other things happened that were traumatizing and she was spiraling into a dangerous place. i was talking to her cousin who

is a pastor and he was holding the bottle in front of me and explaining to me why the family believed she was chosen as an angel and brought to life in these cells and as a scientist coming they this sells ourselves with a nucleus and rebozos and sells structures. is she'll live in these cells? for her family she very much is and continues to be and her soul is in there. this is part of the theme, reading sections of the bible to me things like if the lord will grant immortal life to his believers and you never know what form people will come back in when they are chosen. she was brought back to do good in the world. this was on moment where it was very clear to me that it was much easier and clearer to think of these cells in spiritual terms than scientific terms particularly for the family.

when you put biblical explanations next to the scientific explanation it is no contest. was much clearer and easier to relate to. i came to the point where the scientist in me was able to open up and understand where that came from. i was jealous. people often ask did they convert you? the answer is no. i came into this without any religious background and not a person who practices religion but i got a completely different and more nuanced understanding of the role faith plays in people's lives and how important and healthy it can be. that is not something i often think about. i also saw the ways people talk about science versus religion and to be a lot of the book is about moments that science and religion can actually work together and lead to deeper understanding of things.

hy thought was important to include it. i was never nervous about that but scientists often stand up and ask questions like did you ever strain out the family on her spirit is in there thing or do they still think she is in there? my answer is can you prove she is not? that is part of the story, that whether you or anybody is alive in their cells depends on how you define life, how you define spirit and soul and what your dna means to you, your dna is in there. it is a sort of existential question that nobody can answer. you can save her family is wrong. a lot of scientists have said it is helpful to read that and held them connect to patients they always felt were far away from them in terms of understanding science. >> given that back and forth between science and religion that was fascinating. that neurologist you mentioned in the 1920s wrote the

definitive book on evolution, one of the greatest -- since darwin. he called the brain the mechanism of salvation. to me it was fascinating to sees that at that time period, he much more had to gather this idea of science through spirituality. >> this is a question everyone wants to know. how do you right? what is your writing style? >> i have always been drawn to creative writing. [talking over each other] >> definitely on the laptop. i find internet to be a huge source of information and research that makes my job embodies year. i have two small kids. i don't have the ability to do research for weeks at a time. that has been a great thing for

me. people ask how do you not get writer's block? i don't have time for writer's block. i have four hours of quiet to sit down and write. i don't slow down at all but are also had a professor in college who gave me one of the greatest pieces of advice. there is no such thing as writers balk, just a lack of research. i spend half my time going back and forth to the library. that gives the story its texture. >> i was going to say the same thing about writer's block. it doesn't exist. you just don't have enough material yet. you don't know your story. my writing process has a lot of writers, i struggled for a long time with figuring out went to right. i find the internet useful and incredibly distracting. i tend to -- i can sit down and write until i have my material to work with so i do my research. i take a lot of notes and i do

brain dumps after i research a few things i am writing about supply get in on paper but i don't sit down with my writing until late in the game after the research is done and i have digested it. at that point have to unplug. i spent a lot of time in coffee shops. when i go somewhere to write you feel like an idiot if you have gone there to write and you don't write. i would struggle. i had a teacher in grand school who would always say 8 to be a writer you have to write every day. wake up at 5:00 in the morning and right for four five hours and you really bother me when you say that. that is not my style. than he actually is a good friend and came to visit me and said -- what about 5:00 in the morning and i heard a rustling around and i will try this 5:00 in the morning thing. i wrote more than morning and i

have written -- i hate you for this. i started waking up at 5:00 in the morning every day, rolling out of bed into my car and going to a nearby coffee shop where i would write and to like goodness it anymore and then do as long as i could. usually about 5:00 until 10:00 or 11:00 and that creative jews is gone and then the e-mail and online thing that whenever other work i have to do but i only do that when i'm writing mode. am not a morning person. i go back and forth. i have to have it be at a time when nothing else is going on but also a great merit of nonfiction writer once said she does the same thing and a lot of it is because it tricked her brain. she is not really awake yet. she starts writing it eventually wakes up and she is writing. i might as well keep going. i definitely -- there is something to that. my brain has not kick in that

early in the morning and it is easier to be creative. >> i would like to open it up to the audience for questions. there is a microphone. if you wouldn't mind coming. thank you. >> it might not be on. is that on? in the back. there you go. we will repeat your question. [inaudible]

>> can i stop you? we are going to run all of time. his question was the book was framed as it was a mortal sin that scientists didn't get consent and the family didn't get money and actually it is not. my -- consent didn't exist. it was standard practice. i make it clear in the book that was standard practice.

[inaudible] >> question is, is this a really -- seems to meet the same structure that keeps you from getting health care has no problem getting consent, the price of everything goes up a little bit and it turns into the story turns into a question of monetizing everything. if i am an organ donor should i insist i be paid for my organs? >> this offer comes up. a lot of their story, people made money off of these cells. where is our cut? these cells led to so much important medicine, why can't we go to the doctor? the question of what you monetize and who should profit off of biological materials is a big one and the discussion we are having as a culture is not just a question of should patients profit but should researchers profit and who is profiting and how do you deal with that and tell people people are profiting. there are a lot of big questions

and it is the commercial of science in a bidding war moving science forward and i honestly think a lot of it in terms of other people who are very concerned about this. a lot comes down to the debate about health care. the lack of ability to go to the doctor has nothing to do with those cells. it highlights this irony that sometimes people behind the -- can't get access to care. that is part of this discussion. should you commercialize science? the idea has always been everyone benefits from science, we owe it to do things like that. not everyone benefits. off in these samples are turned into products that go back to people that not everyone can afford. science is depending on people,

should not everyone have access to that? that is part of the health-care debate. the story is about so much more than money. it is about privacy and the fact that people want to stay with their bodies. money is the center focus because it is so -- >> if any of your books by going to be made into films. >> are any of us going to be made into films and the answer is yes. it is being made into an hbo money being produced by oprah. we are in the process of doing that right now. >> i agree narrative science writing makes it come alive. it is a great way to do it but i often wondered how you deal with the accuracy of the dialogue? you weren't there, there were no