nonfiction category for cultures of war, pearl harbor from hiroshima, 9/11 and iraq. ..

>> i wasn't doing it for theatrics but i have a brand new fit. [applause] >> i loved it. but the rest of the body has caught up. we go slow. nobody is moderating us. we are just talking. >> we are talking about frederick douglass, libraries, literacy and liberation. >> absolutely. let me start with literacy. because a want other people to know about it what we did. i am interested obviously in literacy. i am impressed with what recently discovered which was that this country is unique in the world in terms of the distribution of libraries

throughout the country. you cannot go in rural areas in europe or in africa or in asia. rural areas the way you can hear which, a little town. not to speak of the huge university library that jumps out of nowhere in indiana or someplace. in pennsylvania you go 100 miles and there is this enormous university was more books than cambridge. it is an extraordinary thing. the other thing is about literacy, which i am interested in, is on the one hand the power of reading and of course understanding the meaning of what we read. and what i like to think of as visual literacy, the revision

will literacy which in addition to print or maybe without print, what do people who are literally illiterate do to negotiate around the world? aside from people who they depend on. i don't just mean on -- uneducated people but people like myself. in beijing, i don't read or understand how you negotiate, what are the visual signs that you need to travel, the colors and shapes and smells and all the other senses and it makes for if you have that plus the ability for this third dimension. an artist's true dimension about a regional world as well as how

you text. i wanted to begin because i wanted to described having the explosives, the perception of reading particularly certain kinds of novels. not just explosives in of a dangerous sense but explosive in a way that could be lethal. my documentation for this, angela, is this thing paul made me bring from my house. in my guest bathroom downstairs by the front door. that one. a over the sink is a letter asking me would i be willing to come and receive the nobel prize for literature and write a speech. on the opposite end over the

toilet, is this. >> i have seen this many times in your bathroom. >> what it is is it was sent to me by an editor. the title is the publication, denial notification. the title is a publication in paradise. by me. the above publication has been reviewed and denied in accordance with section 3.9 of the t d c rules and regulations for the reasons check below. there are five reasons why a book would be banned from the texas department of criminal justice. the first reason is the

publication contains contraband. the second one is publication contains information regarding the manufacture of explosives, weapons or drugs. the fourth one is a specific factual determination has been made that the publication is detrimental to prisoners's rehabilitation because it would encourage deviate criminal sexual behavior. and the last one, publication contains material on the operation of criminal schemes or how to avoid detection of criminal schemes by lawful authority's charged with the responsibility for detecting such illegal activity. i skipped the third one because that is one that paradise is accused of.

a publication contains material that a reasonable person would see through has written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve a breakdown. [laughter] >> not just your average breakdown but a breakdown in prisons. threw in made disruptions such as strikes or riots. this is february 20th, 1998. i was amused to get this but also thrilled. it seemed like an extraordinary compliment. [applause] that paradise could actually blow up into a riot in

a prison. so i thought in addition to my entry into expanding literacy to visual literacy as well as print i wanted to make some connection between prisons, their organization, and the prohibition is and what they understand to be lethal and dangerous like reading. like literacy. like understanding. >> i actually wanted to begin on that theme by talking a bit about the inaccessibility of libraries. i am thinking about my own childhood, when i saw this incredible building in birmingham, alabama, made out of

indiana limestone. it was a public library but of course it was only for white people. the one black library that existed was run down, very few books. i told this story because i first entered the doors of this library in 1969 and i can remember how it fell to actually walked into a real library. although i had used the library in birmingham, it was very lacking in resources. it was broken down. finally they built a new one. >> years later. >> many years later. as we talk about the democratic impulse of libraries and the accessibility of libraries, it is also important to talk about

those places where books have a hard time penetrating. your example of this, the texas state correctional system is one. just before the event, i had an opportunity to look at some of the items from the archival collection here. and i saw a wonderful collection of a periodical that was published by prisoners from 1939 to 1940 something. i was thinking, what was required in order to be able to do this. this is for those of you who don't remember a period when we

didn't have xeroxes. i looked at it and i said this is mimeographed. is that the word? and the prisoners who put this together and the books they had to read in order to put this literary publication together was quite astounding so i would really like to thank the librarians for allowing me to see these documents and i had a brief conversation with -- what is his name? head of the correctional -- what is his name? what is his name? >> him. >> nicholas. that is right. he was there too. nicholas, who coordinates relations between the new york

public library and the islands and women and men detention facility there. so i was actually telling him about my experience in the women's house of attention in new york. i am having all these new york memories. i was in jail in new york. did you mention i was in jail? okay. some people don't know. one of the first-places i was able to go in the jail was the library. i didn't see very many interesting books there. i had just finished my studies in philosophy and i went to the library expecting something very

cute. what i did was i had people send books to me. i wanted to share those books with all the other women. something like a thousand women. i was not allowed to do that. in the library there was a big cardboard box. i could receive the books and read the books myself. it was ok for me to read them. >> but don't share them. >> ted share them. and one of them was not a lot of all. also one of the things i learned when i was in jail was how to secrete a certain kind of thing. so we were able -- so we had these clandestine reading groups with books that were smuggled out of that box in the library. it kind of reminded me of

frederick douglass. frederick douglass's effort to get an education to learn how to read and and his ideas that education really was liberation. >> absolutely. that scene that i am sure people who read a biography of -- the mistress -- he uses an interesting phrase in describing her. which was irresponsible power. that is not just having the power, is the irresponsibility of how you manage it and his under was overwhelming because he knew as we all knew -- and the people who did not want in to read news that. that is why. if it was simple fairy stories

it would be different or not even that. if you can't read in a place like that, they can teach you. and the other route is extraordinary. the things people suffered in order to reid, i remember trying to figure this out, a novelette road on mercy, how would that child learn to read? she was in maryland which was a state as a haven for catholics who were being beaten up and killed and persecuted in the restoration in england. if the catholics have a different idea about the soul about being protestant. not that the consequences were

terribly thrilling but they shaped the definition of what was a cumin being. so the priest would frequently decide that virginians--and teach people to reid, slaves to reid, slave to read. not that they wanted them in to read the bible but so that they could have and implement to read some religious text. so there was that kind of priest. in addition to other kinds. there were exceptions in the way they interpreted enslaved people. i also wanted to emphasize in that book, wanted to separate race from slavery. it wasn't really the same fein. we assume slaves were black and

that is not true. they called white slaves indentured servants in order to give them -- they were not chattel slaves although they function that way. if you had an indentured servant you could extend their contract forever. any little in fraction you could add another seven years and if they dropped dead or happened to have children, you could use the child to pay off the debt. there were many instances in which one endangered european was right along side black slaves on plantations. i always remarked on this one incident in that book and what i learned was this thing called vacant rebellion wary group called the people's army, some indentured servants and black

slaves and native americans, people all got together and depose the governor of virginia. and they ran things for a month. i don't want you to -- they turned around and killed them all. the interesting thing is they established these laws. these laws were very interesting. they said they would like -- note black shall be allowed to carry a collection ever. second, any white can maim or kill any black for any reason without being charged. you see what that did to the indentured servants who were

white. now they are better, for your, more powerful. deron the same situation, they're still enslaved but they can carry weapons and they can beat up black slaves without punishment. they have this little margin -- nothing else. but that little margin. that little margin has worked its way through this country since then. that was in the seventeenth century. you know those southern strategy, all these things in which you flag race and racism as a cause or even a goal. racism is not a goal. is just a route. and money. that is what it is.

that is what it is for. segregation or what have you. the thing itself is just a manipulation. and its purpose is what i just described. how did i get there? >> as you were describing -- as you were describing the conditions when you were talking about mercy -- i was thinking about frederick douglass, another passage in the narrative where he kept hearing this word evolution and didn't know what it meant. then he heard about the abolitionists but had no idea what it meant and said at some point he realized it was

connected to something but really ought to be interested. hand then eventually he describes this painstaking process of learning how to write. learning how to write by looking at the markings that were placed on the boards to be used to build ships. one would say something forward, started, then he learned of those letters and as a result. and then he talks about bribing the white boys to teach him how to read and write and says at one point he dared a white boy who was around to prove he could write better than it frederick douglas himself could. he didn't know how to write that

much so the white boy could write a lot more and he learned what the white boy was riding. the point i was making about knowing, her was something about this word that was so important but he had no idea what it meant. it was like abolition -- and then of course he becomes the most powerful of the era. that kind of curiosity that was only possible through a process of education. which isn't to say people who don't know how to read and write to don't have that curiosity but learning how to read and write opens up a whole new universe. opens up a whole new dimension and this is why these texas

people -- exactly. exactly. >> why paradise really? >> when you consider there are 2.5 million people behind bars, what can they really do that is significant? reading and writing really allows for the possibility of in having a very different world. >> but the control of those two forces, five million people, i don't know about all but it is a profitmaking thing now. you have whole cities. in upstate new york, living off of the benefits of employment of the guards, everything that goes

with imprisonment. i read about somebody in texas, no money. [talking over each other] >> because they have to pay for their own room and board. [talking over each other] >> room and board. if you finally can't pay, that was the danger for whenever and of course the kinds of laws that are heavily weighted for minor offenses. was interested in your book because i am not sure i understand fully -- the

implication is there is a difference between vengeance and justice. but justice itself has some unpleasant consequences. we have to assume that if we want justice for bad activity. we want punishment, we want restraint. that is some other thing.

. i was thinking along those lines when i was trying to figure out another area of great interest to me but never had the patience or intelligence or research to follow it through which is what the impact of torture, slavery, enslavement, and violence has on the perpetrator. they don't seem to be terribly interested in that. but when i mention the other possibility it seems to me that when you destroy somebody threw

a vengeance and/or severe forms of justice that the real object of the pain really is the self. you don't have to go there with me but that is why it is so -- the menace is ordained in a way. i am thinking about these slave owners and thinking about women who were pregnant, lion on the ground, or any other response that even the one that frederick douglas speaks of when he finally confronts -- he is

destroying something that is in himself. it is not that that person is animal or inferior. if you are strong enough, is the fragile personality, the fragile personality, not a strong one, but the fragile, almost erasable personality that can do that. there is already the self contempt and self loathing. it is in that area that -- i couldn't say working but i am looking at these various forms. is so easy, racism is the easiest thing you can do. it is easy to block off these so-called criminals and they are away from us. we don't even have to be

tolerant because they are over there. but if they are us, if we are doing that in order to correll a certain kind of behavior, whether the scale is high or low, in order to redeem something in ourselves, that is a different operation. entirely different. a couple diaries, not these sort of -- tell my children -- interesting diaries of slave owners when they are not showing off. riding up and down and keeping with this thought. this is really interesting because they're not cruel. they do cruel things but they are not cruel people. but what they are obviously

doing is working out some relationship that is so damaging to them, really damaging, the busiest form of self destruction. it is a powerful form of self destruction. ..

>> his library systems and services that is taking over libraries in some communities. california, for example, who pays for that? >> well, okay -- >> they make money because they hire non-union staff. >> okay. >> they either don't allow the employees to continue to be

members of the union or else they hire entirely a new taffe, and they probably, also, cut back on services. the only reason for such a company existing is its profitability. >> what about the person who wants to go buy a book? do i have to pay a fee for joining the library? haven't brought that up yet. >> maybe not yet but who knows what will happen in the future? and it's very dangerous, the privatization of everything is is what we're in the process of. that's what i said i wanted to put in parentheses, the -- the other or comment i wanted to make was the fact that i, i've been looking at the work of this woman from new york, her name is faye honey knox.

she was a quaker and helped to publish a book in 1976 which was called "instead of prisons." so she was up with of of the key figures in the prison abolitionist movement in the '70s. she was a quaker who had also been involved in the anti-war movement, and i just saw, well, there's a film called mountains that take wing. some of my students are here -- [applause] they saw it. apparently, and uri, of course, was the -- is an amazing activist, japanese-american activist who was in an internment camp, and she lived in harlem for many years and met malcolm x and was responsible

for introducing the survivors of hiroshima to malcolm. and, as a matter of fact, she was in the audubon ballroom when malcolm was assassinated, and there's this incredible photograph of her leaning over malcolm's body. that's uri. the woman i'm talking about is faye honey knox whose daughter told me the other day that her mother worked with the same group of survivors of hiroshima that uri introduced to malcolm x. it's really interesting, you know, all of these -- knopp. >> oh, like knopp. >> yes. not like alfred. [laughter] well, the point that i want to make is that she came to the conclusion after doing all of this work on prison abolition

that the only way she would and the whole movement would be able l to move in a progressive direction would be to demonstrate that it was possible to address some of the horrendous problems that imprisonment presumes to address. so she started to work with child sex abusers. >> child -- >> sex abusers. >> oh, yes. yeah. >> and she spent the rest of her life, you know, working with these mostly men who had sexual abused -- sexually abused children because she felt she had to answer the hardest question. and she also felt that if we continue to be incapable of confronting those horrendous

acts of violence that human beings inflict on each other, that it would never be possible to get rid of the prison. because what we do now is is we say that when someone commits such a horrible act, put them in prison where we don't have to think about them anymore, and we don't have to think about the perpetrators, and we also don't have to think about the problems. >> or the problem, no, no. >> and it continues to replicate itself. so in a sense addressing it in that way has guaranteed that there would be this reproduction of the problem from one generation to the next. and you were talking about the diaries of slave holders and people committed horrendous acts who weren't necessarily -- somebody has a cell phone that's ringing.

okay, we'll wait. good. >> that's you. >> all right. [laughter] and so, yeah. and you were saying that they weren't necessarily evil people. they committed evil acts. i think this is something we have a hard time recognizing today. >> somebody calls it a case of mistaken identity. who said suicide was a case of mistaken identity. [laughter] suicide. [laughter] >> you don't recognize yourself. >> you don't know who you are. [laughter] so it may be the same -- it is

the same thing, you know. and it's not just a theatrical way when we think we've put that aside. we don't have to address the problem anymore. >> exactly. >> and it does not, the activity, whatever the behavior is, is somehow beyond the pale, it's not us, you know in. >> yeah. >> because, you know, i'm getting a little weary with that notion of the foreigner, you know? i did a whole thing at the louvre called the foreigner's home. the foreign is home? >> at the louvre in paris? >> or the foreigner is all, you know, this is his home, he owns his home. because a lot of foreigners, i mean, in africa they were treated like foreigners, right? >> absolutely. >> i mean, that's what colonization is, you become a foreigner in your own home.

>> yep. >> and certainly t true with african-americans who are perceived in many of the -- >> and native americans. >> not to speak of that, right. or the foreigner's own home or the foreigner is home. but the notion of the foreigner is not just linguistic or geographical or community. it really is a kind of severance, deliberate maybe for stasis, maybe just that it doesn't have the advantages you do. up with of the reasons, back o -- one of the reasons, back to this last completed work of mine was that i know, as everyone does, that no one in the world is born with those attitudes and prejudices. no one. you can learn them early so long

as you're taught, you're in an environment in which such ideas can flower. but it's not in your dna. it's not natural. it can become environmentally, you know, necessary or, you know, you live in a certain world in which there is none or there is. okay. that innocence of the, of a human being i wanted to compare with the, you know, this romantic notion of the innocent american. americans are always innocent, do you ever note that? [laughter] -- notice that? there are hundreds of book, innocent americans, innocent a broad. so i want to go back before the institutionalization to see whether, you know, these are people coming from europe for either money or resources, or they were scared to death. i mean, you have to have a lot of horrible going on to risk two

to three months in some raggedy ship? i mean, most of those things sank. you were do down there, you know, with the animals. that's who they were really shipping, cows and pigs and things. a few human beings next to them. and then you come to this country with probably nothing. and it was bountiful, certainly that. but what were they running from? usually religion or poverty. but the point was that they did not come over here, i mean, italians who came to this country were not italians after a while. they were white. >> but it took a long time. >> with it took a long time. you're right. >> it was a long process of becoming white. >> yes, it is a process. [laughter] i mean, you can't just

>> and poison now. to look at what it was like then when every country wanted a piece of this place. i mean, because they're speaking dutch now or spanish or swedish. did you know there was a swedish empire? i didn't. [laughter] i mean, they were all in here doing what they did, you know, obviously in africa taking little bits to claiming this towns' names changed every five years. somebody else was saying, no, no, it's not new york, it's this. it's not this, they changed names disoontly. but -- constantly. that was the big thing. but the people who were really settling here who were refugees came here with some other ideas. o what made this outrageous, the necessity for the level of

enslavement and racism in this country was what i said, money and profit. i mean, this country entered the industrial revolution like in, i don't know, three decades. other countries took a century. this country in three decades. why? because they had slave labor. instantly. you don't have to pay them, don't have to do anything. just feed them and corral them. and then you look at some place where they were making sugar in cuba, and they kept bringing slaves over, bringing slaves over. cuba's a little island. why did they need so many? you get, i don't know, a thousand slaves to cut sugar or 2,000, why are they -- then i learned that they were dropping dead. they died -- >> one dies, get another. >> that's right. you just replenish them. they'd come over and live a year. >> yeah. >> or two. they'd try to get younger and younger ones who might live four

years, so you're replenishing them like putting coal into a furnace. so that all of this is my trying to figure out not just the consequences of race which i did in the first book i wrote, but other things around it since it seems to, you know, have a hole. these have to be ferociously against it or apologetic about it or you are the victim of it or the perpetrator of it. and i just wanted to get rid of that discourse which doesn't go anywhere and find out what the origins are, what its purpose is. not just a scapegoat purpose, but it has a real function. which is power and control. >> uh-huh. >> and money which is pretty much the same thing. that's what it's for.

it's not something that, oh, yeah, this group of people are like this and, i mean, you know, we all know that -- and that's why the phrase what one of my best friends is. because we all know one who's not quite like that. [laughter] and that's part of a staple, you know? i'm not really. but there's something in the diet, yeah. the inte he intellectual diet ad the ignorance, you know, of well-meaning people in if even their own worth. and i was serious when i said i don't understand why therapists ignore it the way they do. that's a powerful thing, you know, in the mind. experience in the library and somebody else was talking about having difficulty going into the -- >> it was like alice walker. yeah. >> and she just could not because --

>> she said she finds it difficult to enter into libraries today. >> why is that? >> i was so hungry for the experience -- >> yeah. >> -- of the library that i never experienced that difficulty. >> right. >> and i haunted libraries all over the world for a very long time. but -- >> i thought they were my home. my, my first decent job other than scrubbing somebody's floors at 12 was to be a page in the library. which i got because my sister was secretary to the head rye brain. [laughter] librarian. but they brought me in, and they quickly -- they didn't fire me because i was very slow. i mean, you read the books, put them in the shelf. [laughter] so they just moved me to another department. [laughter] >> okay, toni, before you move on i have a response that i want to share. because this -- i always love listening to you talk, and i

could -- i realize that i'm also here to participate in the conversation. [laughter] so i can't just sit back like i usually do. [laughter] and i'm -- you know, all of your brilliance. this summer i was in colombia. >> colombia? >> colombia. and visited a community of people outside of cali who live in this mountainous area, afro-descendant people. people whose ancestors were enslaved 400 years ago who were brought to colombia to engage in gold mining. and they still live in the place where their ancestors settled when they escaped slavery.

so it was initially a fugitive slave settlement like a maroon settlement, and the people who live there now live on the same land and do the same work that their ancestors did 400 years ago. they still mined gold in this very different way. the women are miners, and the children are miners, and the women talk about mining in this incredibly passionate way concern. >> what do the guys do? >> the guys mine too. [laughter] they all mine. they all mine. but, i mean, it's interesting that the women say i've been a miner since i was in my i mother's womb. so the point that i'm making is that now even though they actually own the land, they have, they were able to get the title to the land but not to

what's in the land, the subsoil, the minerals. and there are a number of big mining concerns that are trying to evict them so that they can institute these new industrialized modes of mining, strip mining. and one of the mining companies, this kind of complicated notion of what counts as racism in this day of age and its relationship to power, one of the mining companies is called anglo gold ashanti. [laughter] and it is headquartered in south africa. the ceo of the mining company is a black south african. so -- >> there you go. >> yeah, there we go. there we go. and it's, it's also about the

way in which racism has it own dynamic and its own momentum regardless of what, who the people are or what the people think. i mean, the years of black -- here's a black south african who just how long ago experienced freedom from apartheid in south africa and who is now about to kick these people off their land, people who have lived on the same land for 400 years. so what kind of a story is that everybody should write the new president of colombia. >> we will. >> yes. that's one thing we can all do this evening. what is his name? he just got elected. >> we'll find it. we'll google it. >> what's his name? uribe was the last president and the new president was elected just a month or so ago. what's his namesome -- name?

santos? yes, that's right, santos. >> i'll remember that. >> but you can google it, you can get -- >> we'll write, don't worry. >> write a letter of protest. >> that's right. [laughter] ah, what time is it? [laughter] >> so do we want to take any questions from the audience? a few? it's about, wow, it's a little after 8 now. how long have we been talking? a little less than, yeah, about 55 minutes. we have about 20 more. >> we'll take a few questions. that'll be good. >> are we have a mic -- [inaudible] >> thank you. i want to apologize for that phone. it was from death row in pennsylvania. >> uh-oh.

if we're talking about prisons and talking of how inhuman it is and how we are being deprived of so many brilliant minds that are in prison that should be helping to lead the country, can we talk about mumia and all the political prisoners that are in prison who should be amongst us, please? >> well, first, i would say that, you know, speaking of lit as is i and -- litter as i and libraries, mumia has made such an amazing contribution to all three of those categories. and, yeah. this is something that we have, we have to save mumia's life. we have to save mumia's life. [applause]

and this is, it's also about the relationship between learning and freedom. it's about the uses to which we put our literacy. and because of the fact that there's been this mobilization against mumia by law enforcement all over the country, it has not been possible to build the kind of campaign that we see in other parts of the world. as a matter of fact, mumia is an honorary is citizen of paris. there are streets named after him all over europe. in germany everyone knows his name. and -- >> why? if he were, like, stupid and sought upon -- >> right. but what can we do here? yeah, that's a good question, what can we do?

>> be in philadelphia november 9th. >> where? >> in philadelphia november 9th. >> where in philadelphia? [laughter] what? >> fifth and market. >> fifth and market. >> big knob straight on -- demonstration on november 9th. >> we're leaving from new york. >> okay. also i think we have to do the work that needs to be done to build movements, that is to use all of your contacts to encourage people to think about this case. tell people about mumia. if you have kids who are in school, you know, ask the teachers to talk to the children about the meaning of living in a so-called democratic society and using capital punishment as a

routine mode of addressing a whole range of issues. this is the only industrialized democracy in the entire world that puts people to death in in this way. and mumia more than anyone has been the face of the campaign to expand democracy in this country, to abolish capital punishment and the death penalty. so thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> good evening. my name is kizembe, and first thing i want to say is that the women's health detention is now the justice market library which i think is really -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah, on sixth avenue. so it's awesome. my question is professor morrison, you mentioned yourself, and i'm wondering if that can also translate into the

current anger we see in terms of immigrants but specifically around the gay youth suicides and bullying as well. and i'm wondering if there's any thought between the connection between gender expression and the hatred of the self in terms of your research, also i know you've also done a ton of region on that as well, ms. davis, if you could comment on that. >> that's clear to me. the homophobia? it's is so o obviously -- obviously the violence connected with that. it's so obviouslily a destruction of the self. obviously a destruction of the self. you know, it's blatant to me. maybe people don't realize it so much, but calling people names and beating them up, hanging people off of fences. what -- i mean, it's just so self-destructive. you know? the more vicious it is toward the so-called homosexual person,

the more violence there is towards one's self, and i think that attributes itself in other kinds of of scapegoats and -- i don't know, mexicans? i mean, please. or some of these -- i read somewhere that when the berlin wall came down, my prognostication was, oh, the end of -- end theoretical, not really -- but the end of communism is also the end of raw capitalism. i mean, if one goes, the other goes also. and i have been proven right.but the other thing -- >> you said you've been proven -- >> correct. i mean, capitalism is not dead. [laughter] obviously. but it's crumbling. >> well -- >> yes, it is. >> but people --

>> i know it. >> it is, but most people don't know it. >> we're terrified by the notion of not having it. >> and i think that capitalism, capitalism penetrates into our very emotion if ways that it was never able to do -- >> that's true. that's true. >> the conversation of libraries. >> i know, everybody's mad. nonetheless, i'm telling you -- >> okay, tell me. >> it's decaying. >> okay. >> and it's a scramble. >> how do we speed up the demise of capitalism? [laughter] that's what i want to know. [applause] >> first thing you have to do is keep those republican, you have to keep those republicans out of office. [applause] because they hang it on tooth and nail. >> yeah. >> to, you know, capitalism in the its rawest form. not even this sort of civilized form, but the rawer the better. so that's one way.

but, you know, i may not live to see it, i'll be 80 next year, but you will, my dear. >> i'm not that far behind you. [laughter] >> so that's one thing. oh, the berlin wall. interesting is when the berlin wall fell -- this is how we talk all the time. [laughter] all sorts of other walls went up. the one between israel and the west bank and then the wall in the south mexico as a border, i mean, all these other walls jumped up. and then they're not physical walls, but there are other kinds of imprisonment walls. i mean, we're just constantly separating. many some instances the berlin wall was so some people couldn't get out. now we're building walls so they can't get in.

so it's a constant -- this shift looks, to me, long range like part and parcel of what i am certain is, you know, the disconnect. you know, it's really crumbling. when these people say i want my, i want the government out of my social security or -- >> yeah, i know. i know. yeah. >> it doesn't matter, it's all incoherent. [laughter] >> since you're talking about capitalism and communism, i want to acknowledge charlene mitchell over there. >> hey! [applause] it's good to see you. >> charlene was the first black woman to run for the office of the president of the united states of america. >> communist party. >> she was on the communist party ticket. [laughter] [applause] >> oh, yeah. yes, dear. >> hi, good evening. >> hi. >> you know, i was actually, my

first job was also a page in the library on 96th street, and i'm also a writer, so you've made me feel really good about my prospects for accomplishment. [laughter] my question is, actually i have two questions, and one is, it's about your ideas around visual literacy. i immediately thought about movies, particularly in the context of how movies now are being adapted from books and the type of literacy that we get from movies versus what we get from the book. i would hope the directer is walking a fine line, although even with something like "eat, pray, love" the general masses were outraged, and i think that become withs more complicated when you talk about black movies, about black women in black movies particularly like the color purple, and now we have for colored girls coming up, and i just wanted to know your thoughts on adaptation in film and also just if you could

flush out some more of your ideas in terms of visual literacy in the realm of film adapted from books. my second question is a lot easier. how did you two meet, and how did you end up writing her, editing her autobiography or was it the opposite way around? [laughter] [applause] .. be

there but the track to be cut traffic and you would fix breakfast for a sleeve and right and then when the book finally came out, i said i cannot believe this. you know, it was like magical. [applause] wonderful. >> but also i should say that i really appreciate what i learned about writing from toni when i wrote my autobiography. you know, i was somebody who was used to riding philosophy, and so i didn't think about writing in the same way, and rather than like writing it for me, toni would say well, you know, was the room like? what did it look like? what were the colors?

so she made me understand writing in such a different way and i am forever grateful for that. we also have fun. you remember when we went to the virgin islands, and i made you walk from one end of the island to the other. [laughter] >> [inaudible] so we went to the virgin islands. >> for a long time. it was like a month or something. [laughter] i remember we were going to stay at the holiday inn motel and it wasn't finished yet when we got there. >> it was incomplete. >> and we also went to -- remember we went to finland and sweden and denmark -- >> helsinki. the photographers came out and these women -- was that in helsinki? these women have formed a

circle, a huge circle, they held hands with angela in the middle and i was sort of their -- [laughter] to keep the photographers and the journalists or the cops or whoever. they just formed this tight circle -- it was amazing. i should have a camera, as you know. >> but this was a really wonderful question. how we met each other. [laughter] the question was visual literacy, too. >> well, i think -- >> [inaudible] >> movies and adaptations. >> and what do i think? i think that most of them are pretty awful. [applause] [laughter] there's some -- i don't know if it's fear of doing something. you know how creative say african-americans have been with

music? i mean, nobody told them how to do it. i was just reading about bach coming out. for that was going to shelters sitting at my daughter, this music changed right away into something that was odd notes, new language, just took off. anyway, back to the movie things. it's very -- so fearful of powerful in different creativity, how to do something wild and in different. or they follow certain patterns. and you know from the first scene everything. malae understand the business requires certain kinds of formulas and the order to get the money and to get them out. i understand that. it's such an expensive project.

i'm surprised anybody does anything. this has to do with the african-american films, but all i saw -- what's the -- "no country for old men"? my god, there was a movie with no score. they didn't tell me "da-da-da-da" [laughter] there were some mexicans on the guitar. that's all you heard. it was telling. it's like the trusted me. it's frightening, it was different, but i wasn't urged by the music, pushed. this is great to be scary, this is going to be happy, you know, and i thought is in that interesting. so, that's a little bit i know about the movies.

but what i'm saying is that i wish it were possible to do more inventive, creative, and on for nearly a call the what things -- hollywood films. it's possible in the movies. hey, think about "passing change," wasn't something? [applause] i had never seen anything on broadway that litter it and that musical the incentive and stage that way. that was a half leaped for the. i thought it was fantastic. so it is possible, and i just want to say that all i am happy. i'm happy but not excited or satisfied by a lot of the films and musicals mullen although they are well-intentioned. for me, well intentioned is like

happiness. that ain't good enough. don't rest of happiness. it's okay. i hope you're all have the but we have to do more than that. more than that. yes? >> hello. first of all let me say this is an incredible honor just to be in front of two of my eighth literary heroes. i'm about to have my own breakdown by have two questions as well. [laughter] the first you talk about writing a letter to colombia and talking about in protest to what's going on with the miners there. what do you think in this time will it seems like leather jeans in the system has risen so high it's almost choking us? how do you feel -- what do you think the role of written protest is? because it still have an affect?

the written a letter of protest? the other question i have is also in these times what do you think the rule or the importance of the storyteller is? >> i want you to answer both of those questions. [laughter] >> we live in this fast food nation. america is just on it now and a lot. and they sort of, like, deserve it publicly, everything, and if you don't handed to them right this minute, like at mcdonald's, you know, just drive by, tell the little machine when you want, pay the man the money, and it seems like that is the sort of constant, so sitting down and

writing a letter, mailing it, telling the other people to do the same thing and organize like actually get on the phone, call some people, takes too long. it may take awhile. that's my version. >> i totally agree with you because we have forgotten how to write letters. i was going to see for those of you who will have problems sitting down and doing a letter and putting its -- finding out how much it costs to mail a letter and all that, you could perhaps figure out how to e-mail him. [laughter] >> let me see if i can answer that question and in a slate of

the more complicated way, and it has to do with the previous discussion we were having about capitalism and the extent to which we assume that enzi deciduous we are powerless, which is in part the consequence of your liberal individualistic ideology that we only think of ourselves as individuals. we don't think about possible connections, broad connections with communities that are not only in the u.s., but or in other parts of the world as well. and it seems to me that this is the real challenge of this period. even for people who consider themselves progressive in a country like the united states of america. because we also imagine

ourselves as a somewhat different from the rest of the people in the world. american exceptional was a house its impact even on those who -- pretend to be most radical. exactly. so what would it take to create a connection with that community? i was speaking about 7,000 people, after descendants colombians, many of whom still have african names because they have created a history and a culture that goes back to -- goes back to resistance against slavery and they are still resisting. as a matter of fact the receive data eviction order from august 18th and they refuse to leave. so yeah, and writing, to answer

your question, is a written protest is a process that could perhaps help us feel as if we are making community. we are reaching out beyond ourselves and we have emotional connections with people who live on this mountain and this village. >> i have this mantra when i was young they called us citizens. we were american citizens, fighting for citizenship. >> first class or second class. >> we were second-class citizens. >> the word was citizen. citizen suggests some relationship with your neighbors, with the block, the town, the village. after world war ii they stopped using that word, and we were

consumers. american consumers this, and the american consumer that, and we got things and that is what we were supposed to do. now, what are we? we are taxpayers. [laughter] it's about my tax, my money. i don't want to give it to the -- those people who should not have it. and that -- you talk about capitalism sort of cp into the blood. they just change the language and we define it, and we go for it. yes, my job was about the texas. i said so what. you pay taxes. so what. [laughter] and but, you know, so all of a sudden we lose we are we are

redefined, and when the language changes, we change. the labels change. so was a sudden it's about taxes. but if we were still citizens, that is a different thing. we feel some obligation. >> citizenship not narrowly defined. estimated there are losers. i remember when hoboes were romantic. there were hemingway stories, and they were on these trains and they did stuff. [laughter] now they are homeless losers who by the way don't pay taxes. [laughter] >> actually there were some great blues players appear on the railroad police and some

fantastic music. ladies, this is an honor. [inaudible] a book i was looking for and ideals alive for the. >> i did? >> yes. >> there was a program. >> yes, she wrote the book. correct. >> can i just say something many people don't acknowledge how important toni morrison was to the emergence of what we now call a black feminist literature. >> that's true. [applause]

and i mean, i say this to my students, i don't know whether i have ever said it to you, but i remember when she was a publishing, right? [applause] and gail jones. so what we know as black women's writing that took shape in the 70's and 80's would not have been possible, would not toni morrison insisted as an editor at random house, publishing these works. [applause] she published paula gooding's first book. >> angela's first one.

>> she didn't realize it was really a historical. >> in the case there is a hiatus i was right in between myself. and then it like that at all. they didn't hire me to write books, the hundred me to edit them but what can i say. >> sorry. i interrupted you. >> no, you are exactly right. [laughter] speculative, literature, fiction, sci-fi. how does it relate to the third world women and the movement through literature has a student in anthropology always rooted into what is real? but i look for fictional ideas to look for what is real illicit, eliminating.

show me the reverse. where are we in the field world lighting the executive, soft sci-fi about what is going on socially? >> well, there's not much. sci-fi -- listen, you've got somebody coming here, this is a good story. edward -- [applause] and this book dangerously create or something like that. anyway, she gave a speech at princeton and was describing something that happened in haiti. i was overwhelmed by this and i hope it answers a part of your question. she said that during the the tough time in haiti when they are running around shopping for the off, the established a rule that if somebody died, your son,

your neighbor, a stranger, on the street, if they killed him you could not be cannot. you could not go and get the body. even if it was yours, a relative. at some point a few days later, a garbage truck would come along and pick it up and put it in the garbage and do whatever they did. so if you went out to pick up a body to bury it or whatever, you would get shot so everybody was afraid to biblical byman -- i know this is part of what she said. at some point in a neighborhood somebody organized a little theater in the ghosh and the local people came to participate in her this play, some to be in it and some to watch it and they

did it every night and the crew would come by and check to see what they were doing and what on by. but what they were doing, did this, the plate was antigone. [applause] that, to me, was the most extraordinary thing. it provided the solis, it was about the subject, the concept between the government in honor and so on, and so i was thinking not only about your, but also of to the visual, the many ways the letter is a beautiful thing, and important. it's there. it can't be erased, it can be burned but not erased. the same thing with the theater. the same thing with portraits. i mean, the same thing is just as we've were saying try to

think what it's like in the world if you can't read, what other kind of things jump out at you. use everything. everything. you know, to become the best human being you can be. [applause] >> i also just noticed the lights are on now, and i noticed that amir baraka is in the house. [applause] there he is right there. look, look. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] >> yes. good evening. i'm very honored to be standing in front of you. you are my idol. i represent the resistance in new york city, the black and

latino mothers who believe in public education, who use the library, who are so opposed to the control and the privatization [applause] and i want to give a shout out to the parents in chicago who have just sat in for a month in order to get a library for their children. [applause] a house was going to be torn down, and they sat in because they wanted a library. i am speaking to you because, as i said, you are my idol and i was greatly influenced in the 70's and 80's and the literature and been able to use now the internet to be able to hear you give speeches and to speak in front of the new york women's agenda or the new york women's foundation, where mothers like me, women in the community don't

have access, and so i asking now if you can give the women, the mothers agenda new york, the women that i represent, can you give more of the encouragement and inspiration so that we can take that back to the community and we continue our fight, our struggle for proper, quality, human rights based education, public education for our children. [applause] >> give me your e-mail. do you have e-mail clacks [applause] >> yeah, give me your e-mail. >> let me say that what you said in that minutes that took you to explain who you were, i'm sure it inspired so many of the people here on the work that

you're doing. [applause] to resist privatization. so the message that i would give to you to take back is the continue doing what you're doing and, you know, we need to follow your leadership. we need to all be involved in this campaign to prevent the children of privatization from taking over our lives, and especially from taking over the public educational system. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. >> you're welcome. don't forget. [laughter] >> hi, this is a question for angela. before we saw the shepherd image of obama, even, you know, in the context you have this iconic

image of angela davis. i'm wondering how did it feel when you see people using it on posters and putting it on t-shirts? does it feel like it is used, quote your image or spreading sort of what you were trying to say? >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> well, okay, i will tell you a story. because did begin to bother me somewhat now it is so easy to create the possibility of proliferating the image. anybody can do a t-shirt, and then it goes on the internet. and so i was a bit discerned by that, and i asked a young woman who was in high school student who had one of those t-shirts i said why are you wearing that? i thought they went out in the

70's because then there was a reason. the reason was to help to create this campaign to free me. but i said this is the 21st century. [laughter] and she said well, i wear this t-shirt because it makes me feel powerful. it makes me feel like i can do anything i want to do. i don't know whether she knew anything about me really, but that made me recognize people bring their own interpretations, and that image is an image not so much of me as an individual as it is of an era during which millions of people came to get their all over the world and demanded my freedom. as a matter of fact, charlene mitchell was the executive

director of the national united committee to free angela davis. [applause] so, yeah. i mean, i can't stop it. so, you know, why not see what is -- what might be a possible, productive and positive interpretation. so, who knows. i do get kind of upset when people think that i'm the only black woman who ever wore a natural. [laughter] i can't remember when i was a high school student in new york and i saw marion and odetta, and then of course leader toni had a beautiful natural. [laughter] so why do they keep picking on me? [laughter] that i don't understand.

but thank you for the question. [laughter] [applause] >> hi, i am here representing my classmates and professors and i want to ask -- >> what classmates? >> concordia college. i would like to ask you which is worse, being internally in prison or being in prison by society, and do you think it is possible to be internally free will being a prisoner with society? i'm referring to slavery and just being in prison recently and things like that. >> thank you. you're asking about freedom. internal, external i have a very small, short answer about internal freedom.

i'm from ohio -- [applause] [laughter] no kidding? phyllis tend to come to new york and make a good on lake erie, it's a working-class town that had steel mills, shipyards. so a lot of people came there. african-americans from the south, mexicans and europeans and so on. i mean, a real diverse as they say in the community, but again, we were citizens in some cases. and, you know, the polish lady next door would bring us how those little cabbage things with me -- meat in them and she

didn't have anything we would bring her -- i'm not trying to make it sound like it was thrilling but although we were too young to know, we were miserable. at any rate, my experiences about race are very different from many other black people. one is because a glut in a mixed neighborhood. it didn't mean people didn't call me names, but they were calling each other names, so what. i remember coming home with somebody, some little boy called me a wicked name and said you ethiopian you. [laughter] what is an ethiopian? [laughter] ethiopia is a continent in africa and this and that. in negative kafeel original human beings were born there or something and we all -- [laughter] and so i thought what is he

talking about? [laughter] so, but here's the thing. there was little minor things like that, and sometimes some adults, but i never felt -- and this is curious. i think i know why, but i never felt it the way that it was meant. and i think the reason is because i always thought that those people were deficient in some way. always, even as a little one. i thought they were deficient. had a big sort of racial moment when i was working for some white family just before i got my job as a page. i was working after school just doing housework at $2 a week, one of which went to my mother and the other like keep.

but she had some complicated for me complicated equipment like a vacuum cleaners. never saw one, and the stove. and i didn't know how to work it and she would curse me out every now and then. [laughter] , i have to quit my mother's to mean, so she said quit. but that 1 dollar. i said daddy, she is so mean. he said go to work, get your money and come on home. you don't live there. so i didn't have an employment problem -- [laughter] since it was not my life was not there, and also, i didn't have to disdain or be afraid of or neglect any person who had a

skin advantage over me whoever they were. i never felt that. and when i wrote the first book i wrote i really wanted to know how of that girl felt so bad, the one, the real life girl who said she wanted blue eyes. she was persuaded he did not and her proof is that she had prayed for blue eyes for two years and she didn't get them so obviously he wasn't up there but when i looked at her and thought about how all of she would look -- if [laughter] if she got them and then i thought the second thing was [laughter] how beautiful she was at that moment, you know, she was this

-- but i tisch even know whether she was beautiful or not until i thought about what she might think. then the third thing of course is why did she want that? what makes her think that's an improvement, and that kind of self closing which is real when you don't have any support made me think of that as the real subject for a book. not from a victim but really how it works. i lost the train of the question. >> it was about freedom, too >> so that internal sing. i had trouble when i first traveled south. not with white people -- i mean yeah, maybe. but my inability to perceive how southern blacks who were their

whole lives were oppressed like not being able to go into the library. just anything like that. not knowing is this place a for that place safe or knowing what the safe places are and what that might do, how to escapes from that, how does one internalize that or does one? and if you do, how does it -- how do you get rid of it? and i never -- i always thought that those people, whether they were adults or children -- like they called me ethiopian. that was so stupid. [laughter] it sort of compliment to me in a way that i could not feel the degradation the law was supposed few of the self loathing and i always felt that inside which i

suppose it's called arrogance. [laughter] but i think it was the way in which my family responded and they were both from the south. alabama and georgia. but the unskilled and not some other things. >> maybe i could just add a couple things. is this the last question? >> welcome and sexually on a different kind of registered. about freedom, internal freedom, external freedom, we mean by freedom. we've been talking a frederick douglass, and freedom have a certain historical meeting then. it was about abolishing slavery,

and as i thought about this new addition of the narrative of the life of frederick douglass, i thought it would be important to point out that in a sense as incredible and as brilliant as frederick douglass was, his imagination that freedom was historically constricted so that in a lot of ways it was about manhood and that fight proved his manhood, and in the process it provides a path to freedom, so the question is well, what about women? what about little girls? how could they imagine freedom. and so i want to say -- i want to say this in response to one of the earlier questions that i didn't get to answer about

homophobia and the suicides of young and gay people today, it's about how we think about freedom and the historical -- the deeply historical character of our own imaginings of what it means to be free, and what did mean to be free and frederick douglass's time and to struggle for freedom during the civil rights era? what does it mean to expand our notion of freedom today? we talked a lot about immigrants toni, you're talking abubble wall and in mexico you talked about how the palestinians, so how we bring palestinian freedom and to our frame, how do we bring the freedom of immigrants

into the way we imagine freedom today? how do we think about transgendered people? how do we think about gay, lesbian, bisexual is within the frame freedom? and what does that tell los about the extent to which our own framework of freedom is quite restricted? so i ask myself sometimes 100 years from now how are people going to be talking about the struggle for freedom? because i don't think we are ever going to get there. i don't think we will ever reach the point we can say we are free, we can rest. we can stop now. we've won.

so it seems in the very process of struggling for freedom, reflecting on freedom, writing about freedom, we constantly challenge the frame work within which we developed that imaginary freedom. >> i think it is powerfully imaginative in a certain period it's this, and another period it's something else. i've seen of freedom as, well, a major part of this for me is knowledge. maybe wisdom if you get there, but certainly knowledge. and then i'm reminded that the first genesis, the sin is knowledge. the acquisition of knowledge. it is where they get their own

out of that little kindergarten they ran. the little playpen. and the literal words at least it was a translation, they may become wise. so stop that. the new, and in many other religious forums, that is why faith and belief is so important, not knowledge, face, believe, instinct, which i'm not complaining i am just suggesting that there is something so powerful, so attractive, so what were leading -- lubber -- liberating, that you can have which is the same sort of thing we were talking about with the document from the texas correction carow, and what angela is talking about when she

talks about the necessity of reading literacy will all kinds under strange circumstances, and what frederick douglass did having an intellect in prison. all of this works into the same thinking they have led us to believe this knowledge. so that will set you free. >> on this note of knowledge -- [applause] i would like to fails him angela davis and toni morrison. thank you very much. >> this event was hosted by the new york public library in new york city. for more information, visit nypl.org. factiscovered several different wars and in fact he was a free lancer who worked for c-span, and in iraq and afghanistan.

david axe where have you worked? >> lebanon, chad, congo, off the somali coast, might be for getting a few -- nicaragua, here and there.>>ost: t the tit doesn't sound boring.t. >> right. somewha the title was supposed to be ety somewhat ironic but. notf entirely. war,e modern experience of low intensityaround. it's 99% waiting and tedium and bore dumb punctuated by 1% of sheer terror. i think that describes the experience of the typical soldier, but it's the same for reporters, too, between the red tape and the logistic and the distances you have to travel, the logistics of being a reporter, arranging interviews and negotiating languages and cultural differences. you spend a lot of time weeding and maneuvering for the golden nuggets of excitement or the

tiny little gems of a good story. >> host: and this is done much like, as a comic book -- >> guest: right. >> host: in a sense, a nonfiction comic book, and you write, i love how war made you appreciate the little things. you said coming home was like popping ec that si. what do you mean by that? >> guest: i've actually never done ecstasy, but i imagine it feels ecstatic. you spend time roaming around a place like somalia or chad, and it puts into perspective, i don't know, what we have here in the united states and what we call problems. so one reason i enjoy my job as a freelance war correspondent, or enjoy's not the right word, one of the reasons i find it fulfilling is it contextualizes the rest of my life. and i've come away from my work as appreciating being an american more than before i did

this kind of thing. >> host: when you read your book, it doesn't sound like you could stay in the states very long before you had to go back. >> guest: well, that's the irony. when you need that contrast between home life and life in some conflict zone in order to appreciate the home life, and you have to keep going back to the conflict zone in order to keep that and to maintain that contrast so that you can, i don't know, that's the only way i can find peace and satisfaction was to move between these two extremes. the one made the other make sense. >> host: david axe, what work did you do for c-span? this. >> guest: i shot video and have done voiceover and studio interviews from and about the iraq war and the afghanistan war, piracy, the conflict in central africa or conflicts in central africa, and that might be all. i think so, yeah. >> host: ptsd? this. >> guest: myself?

not formally diagnosed. i had a rather hairy experience in chad in the summer of 2008 and came home feeling not quite like myself. and managed to, you know, through the help of family and good friends and a lot of beer managed to right myself, i guess. i don't think that the trauma i've experienced compares to what an american soldier who spends 15 months on deployment in afghanistan or iraq, my experiences don't compare to that, but sure, sure, i've had some stress. >> host: we're going to put the numbers up on the screen in case you would like to talk with david axe about how journalists cover war and how it effected them. these are pictures here, these are drawings of when david axe went home to detroit. and what i noted on these is that you slept in quite late every morning, and you didn't look like you were terribly thrilled about anything.

>> guest: you mentioned ptsd. probably the worst i've had was in 2008. prior to that i was in somalia in late 2007 and also a very difficult place to work. and came away from that, i don't know, with a rather bleak outlook and crashed, i guess you could say. i needed, i needed some time. and i took that by moving back home, you know? a 30-year-old man moving back home with mom and dad, and i did nothing for as long as i could stand it. and i think had i not done that, things would have been a lot worse. so, yeah, i slept in. played video games. [laughter] >> host: what were some of the worst experiences you had? this. >> guest: i was briefly kidnapped twice in chad. actually not covered in the book. hinted at at the very end of the book. in somalia i spent some time in the after guy ya refugee camp with, among -- surrounded by one of the world's worst

humanitarian crises, made friends with somali reporters some of whom have since been seriously hurt or killed. that has been very trying. iraq and afghanistan there is always those bursts of extreme violence that rattle you. i think in the balance, though, somalia and chad have been my, the most difficult places to cover. personally and professionally. >> host: how did you get started in this line of work? >> guest: in 2004 and 2005 i was, i was a full-time political reporter in columbia, south carolina, for the local free times newspaper. and if war is boring, then peace is way worse. and it was driving me nuts sitting in on county council meetings and things like ordinances. so i had an opportunity to embed with the national guard in early 2005, took it, realized not only could i enjoy it, but i could do it.

so i quit my job and began freelancing from conflict zones full time. >> host: 202 is the area code, 585-3885 in the east and central time zones, 585-3886 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. where was the last place you've been? >> guest: i just got back from congo, and the artist on "war is boring," matt, he and i are going to collaborate on an entire graphic novel -- >> host: novel? >> guest: right. well, it's nonfiction, a nonfiction comic book about congress go. >> host: why? >> guest: congo's probably the worst war that most americans don't know anything about. no one is exactly sure about the numbers, but in the past 15 years at least 700,000 people have died in several overlapping conflicts. it's a gigantic country, lots of problems, and a country that really matters to the developed world. leaving aside humanitarian issues which, of course, matter

on their own, congo's the source of horse -- most of the earth's rare minerals. without congo, we wouldn't have this high-tech society that we have. so conflict in congo should matter a lot more to americans than it does. we want to draw some attention to that. >> host: in iraq and in afghanistan, were you embedded with the military? what was your experience working with the military? >> >> guest: i've had really good experiences, i've had really bad experiences. the u.s. military is a vast organization, and everything sort of turns over every three years so it's a different cast of characters. once i inadvertently reported on a secret technology in iraq and was detained and then booted out of the country by a very irate u.s. army. that was probably the low point, but there have been high points as well. i've witnessed incredible bravery and sacrifice even on my behalf by soldiers in iraq and

afghanistan. >> host: how did you find that secret technology? the u.s. army, and i was working as a freelancer for wired at the time. i said to this lieutenant, what's that? and he said, oh, that's a blah, blah, blah, and i said, oh, that's interesting, tell me more. so i was taking notes on this bit of technology, lo and behold, it was classified. i didn't think that, apparently the lieutenant didn't know that and, yeah, it got bad real fast. [laughter] >> host: david axe is our guest, "war is boring" is the book. fredericks burg, virginia, you're on the air. please go ahead. >> caller: hi, mr. axe. you commented on it -- >> host: fredericks berg, you with us? >> caller: yes, i'm here, can you hear me? >> host: yes, go ahead. >> caller: i wish you could expand a little bit, i've always been interested in how the unique military cultures of the marines, the army, and the special operating forces, what

differences you may have seen in the fact that there's three branches that are doing this kind of work. >> guest: i don't really have special forces, but i have worked with the marines and the army, the air force and the navy and even the coast guard. i guess it's cliche, but honestly working with the marines is the best experience. there's a kind of culture of accountability and sacrifice in the marine corps that, while present in the other branches, is amplified in the marines. i guess they're able to hone that in a better way than with a vast organization like the u.s. army. so the marines have always taken really, really good care of me, and i'm grateful for that. >> host: emporia, virginia, you're on with david axe. >> caller: good afternoon. my question was, basically, being a war correspondent do you have to go through any specialized training at all to be in conflict zones? >> guest: no, i didn't. in the beginning of the iraq

war, the pentagon rounded up some reporters and put them through a reporters' boot camp in anticipation of the invasion and having embedded reporters. but once the embed program had sort of found its footing -- because i didn't embed for the first time until early 2005 -- by then they weren't doing those boot camps. and i found that the military was, by that point, experienced enough in handling reporters that they were able to just accommodate me in the conflict zone and point out what i should and shouldn't do without putting me through a formal training program. >> host: who was or who is ahmed zia in afghanistan? >> guest: he's one of my fixers. as a reporter working in a conflict zone, you utterly rely on your local fixers to drive you around, to keep you safe, to interpret, and he was one of my better afghan fixers. there are good ones and there are bad ones. the bad ones will squeeze you for cash, the good ones will save your life. >> host: how do you find them?

>> guest: networking. i find other reporters who have done similar work and get referrals and check out these people, cross-reference and then cross my fingers. >> host: you start to tell a rather homophobic joke with ahmed. >> guest: well, that's afghan culture for you. [laughter] >> host: you write that you came back from afghanistan with, basically, a low-grade anger. why? >> guest: i came back from afghanistan the first time in the summer of 2007, so by then i'd been covering primarily american-led wars for nearly three years. and it was frustrating to come home to a society that didn't seem to realize it was at war. certainly, soldiers and airmen and marines, sailers deployed overseas, they know they're at war. reporters who cover the conflict, we know we're at war. our elected leaders probably sense that we're at war. but it's easy to get the feeling when you're just walking around small town america or in many detroit or d.c., wherever, a lot

of americas don't seem affected by these conflicts. i'm not sure who's to blame for that, but it's not healthy. >> host: "war is boring," is the book. cold spring, texas, please go ahead. >> caller: yes. i personally experienced post traumatic stress syndrome after my husband was district attorney in an eastern county, and what i found was i could not sleep for months and months and months, and i was just wondering since he refers to having post traumatic stress syndrome, did he have insomnia? ..

most terrifying thing psychological effect that i suffered so it would spring out of bed at 3:00 in the morning at utter darkness at home in columbia south carolina and began sprinting around my apartment because i had no idea, no idea where i was.a where that i think my brain hada adapted to doing this kind of work and i don't suffer thoseth kind of things anymore.re. >> you know they have someey really good posture in mogadishu, you quote yourself an the incoming and the expressionr on your parents face is rather priceless. why did you inicludece that?este >> i came home from somalia in 7 late, 2007, andand crashed moved in with my parents. i think they at first struggle to understand what it was i was dealing with. the memories, the experiences, the disillusionment being broke

and feeling under appreciated. just the sheer psychological effects of covering more. there were a few, i think, tends dinners as they tried to tease out of me what was troubling me. and it was not always pretty. >> here it is. "war is boring" by david axe. new american library is the publisher. a birdie you go next? >> guest: i have not decided yet. every time i come home from a war zone i announce that i've retired. i'm in retirement. give me about six wee ..