san fransisco where i live. it's hard to manage that in the american context. you start talking about the diversity of levels of development and cultures and everything else that exists in the world, i think it's not a reasonable prospect. what i -- this is something i wrote about in my last book, america at the cross roads, what i think you can hope for is a much denser system of partial organizations that overlap, and, you know, some are regional, functional, and they provide global governments, but not through a single, not through a single world government. >> thank you. ..

especially with russia justifying georgia by the norman example of the west intervening in kosovo. do you thing we are moving into a -- >> i don't think we were ever that deeply -- the 19th century you may have had that but if you think about the 20th century we have all these marxists running around trying to undermine other states in the name of the communist revolution. you have the united states trying to do the same thing except an anticommunist directions to in the 20th century a don't think anybody is

respected poverty and does an ethical matter think that there's an important argument we can make that if you really believe in the system that produces a certain moderation in international relations because it means you're not going to try to get involved in the internal politics of your neighbors and destabilize them and this sort of thing but unfortunately i don't think we live in that kind of moral. globalization is ideas, people, influences are just traveling across borders all the time and this idea that we can yield countries of and say we are not touching them i don't think is realistic. >> i took your class back and head 1999. i read the book. i think i wrote an e-mail but he didn't get back to me. [laughter] i read the book and you wrote

about plutocracy added to this grand reputation historic of libertarian audiology what was the continued emphasis on institutional decay or civilizations' kind of live and die on their ability to tax. interestingly when you don't mention i think that was a, one of putin's -- >> the ability to tax legitimately. >> legitimately, yes, as opposed to the current system we have right now. so i was wondering about that, and also generally, since you no longer live in d.c. has that changed your opinion about things? >> it's made me much more comfortable in the summer. [laughter]

the issue of taxation is important because i feel that it is a hallmark of a serious government that it's able to tax and people are willing to pay taxes in order to support public services and so i think one of the unfortunate elements thrown into our is the logical next as a result of reagan is this view that in some quarters all taxation is a legitimate or that you can never under any circumstances raise taxes. i don't think you're ever going to have a serious country if that is your starting assumption i am not a libertarian. [laughter]

>> you described trial societies as a precursor to the state. what relevance does that appear to a country like libya where the tribes are important? >> we discovered to our dismay there are many societies in the middle east that are organized tribally and we stumbled onto on our province we simply didn't realize we have to go to the sheik and get him to agree rhetoric and organize elections and all this other stuff that americans want to do. i think one of the big tunisia and egypt have had national identities and much more modern political systems and let's say yemen and libya and even jordan and is strong and one of the things we do not know about libya is the degree to which the current conflict represents

authoritarianism versus democracy or whether it is a fight between gadhafi's try boreman of the others and that is one of the risks. we still have to do it because if you had been able to crush bin zazi it would have been terrible, but that being said, we just don't know enough about the society and how it is actually organized. >> come to the microphone because you are on c-span. [laughter] >> you eluted to charles, and understanding and agree with much of what you say about that, but what you have been diluted

to and i am not offering another generalization is part of the phenomenon of the war and interstate war in particular affect the evolution of the systems as you see it or said something -- >> dr. state building. -- you look at this city there is a big five sided building sitting next to the potomac river. where did that come from? the big federal government before the civil war the population of the city was something like 50,000 people, a tiny -- of 07 after the civil war several hundred thousand drove the increases and the need for civilian bureaucracies of the various sorts so i think that is a process that continues to operate. one of the unfortunate things is a lot of times reform can only be brought about by military

threat and competition because people are kind of muleheaded in a lot of times they're stuck in certain ways and hit on the head by a to buy for meeting the threat of the real military danger they're just not going to do the things necessary. thank you. [applause] the author of the ditch daughters recalls the efforts providing their six daughters for the opportunity to become successful women prevents the professional life as a double board certified specialist in

gynecology, obstetrics and maternal medicine. at the time she began her studies began 1970's 5% of the specialists in the field were women. today 70% are women. >> it is once said there's nothing like a dream to create the future. as i stand here today, i am the daughter of the ditch digger. my father was born in new jersey and basically he was one of ten kids. before i go into what my father did being a ditch digger many of you in the audience may not know what obstetrics or maternal fetal medicine is or gynecology. obstetrics is a field in medicine in which to deliver

babies and i've delivered 5,542 babies to date and i've overseen about 12,000 deliveries. thank you. [applause] now what i do in obstetrics is a very special tie votes obstetrics and that they call people like me maternal fetal medicine specialists or. it lists or high risk obstetricians, and what are we? we are the obstetricians who deal with patients who may dhaka or their babies may die during pregnancy. the women who have diabetes, epilepsy, kidney failure, quadruplets were in those pregnancies are very complicated -- ayman obstetricians obstetricians. you seem taxicab drivers, police

officers deliver babies and there's an echelon with delivering babies from the taxicab drivers all the way to basically a police officer and then you have midwives you have midwives trained to be nurses and they go to the next step is general practitioners who deliver babies but as far as they are concerned i met the top of the food chain being a high risk of such russian. before i was in maternal fetal medicine as i said, i was the daughter of a ditch digger my father was a child and the great depression and probably be on your understanding just historical perspective now the depression was an 25% of the country was out of work. my father was a family of ten and by the age of 15 he dropped out of high school. he dropped out and came from long branch to new york city to meet my mom. they met and they married at age

18 and basically they found a little tannin went house up the street at 103rd street while when i was born my mom and dad lived at 75 east 119th street say yes i am a kid of the hood. the fact of the matter is they had two children and three children being me. 18 years of age having been a high school dropout, world war ii was waging. and my father was drafted into the navy. he became a second-class in the united states navy and before he left my mom said okay that's the end of the. he had one child, donna, my oldest sister. my father's name is donald and in those days you need to have a son to carry on the name and having a girl is like a consolation prize. but the first one was dhaka my and my father said that's great but let's keep trying to get that boy.

the cinema and the movie stars of power say let's get tyrone. let's try a second time. we've got to go and get that some. the third one, me. i was one of the first quintuplet sisters in the world from canada and the likelihood of having a spontaneous quintuplets is one in 65 million so that was the odd that we had, my family had having daughters that would amount to anything my father said if this is another girl, the third one, i'm going to drown it, and that's when i learned how to swim. [laughter] of the rhythm of my father said we've got to get that baby.

fourth child comes, rita. [laughter] and the fifth one is linda. so by the time my father was 27 years of age he had five kids, all the girls and mobilized i'm tired of all this. the only son you're going to see is the one in the morning because i've had it. my father and mother were wonderful people, young lady was molested outside of 19th street and we moved to another housing project. there were pregnant by the time they're 16 and 17 years of age on public assistance and they were not wet. that was just the fact, the statistics of the neighborhood. we have to go back 50 years ago

before the action, title ix, and basically if you were not a boy you were a deadbeat, and my father was ridiculed. he was ostracized. he was basically taunted for not having us on and the whole neighborhood kind of laughed at him. you can't have a son what good are you? my father would say that's okay my kids are going to be doctors and he planned to defend that. the more that they stuck it to him he said my kids are going to be doctors, and they would laugh even harder because of this preposterous that five little dark skinned girls would ever be anything but what poverty would allow us to be. my sisters and i didn't look like the nussle williams, we looked like mariah carey. i look more like the sisters of buckley. we didn't have any role models when i was growing up, other

than a black woman with a big bag of laundry. we had basically people on one knee singing and then butterfly mcqueen saying i don't know nothing about babies from book on with the wind. that was our role model. there were no other role models for women. there were distinct gender roles when i was growing up. you never saw a man pushing a baby carriage. was the fifth gender roles. women stayed at home and men would bring home the bacon and women were expected to be cheerleaders, not business leaders. if they were allowed out of the house to expect it to the secretaries in the office and not secretaries of state and expected to marry a doctor might not be a doctor so all of this in the 1930's was preposterous that my father who was a ditch digger, who was a janitor and said mi dark skinned girls are

going to be doctors. my dad of course without an education had to do meaningful work and he worked in the slaughterhouses of new york. he pumped home heating oil, he was a janitor, he laid bricks and that was my dad. now my mom, she was from west virginia from the town of east virginia and a call mining town when she came she met my dad. she had three years of college but couldn't afford the last year because you have to pay the tuition if you were a senior but she didn't have the money and she had to leave college with a straight a average. can you imagine that? so basically what happens to the dream deferred? my mother wanted education for us and so on mom and dad, having lived in the project with their kids said no, our kids are not going to grow up and be unwed mothers so they built the house on the other side of town. they build a house brick by

brick it took them for years my mother served as my dad's carrier and there was better education, better teachers, and was from that time the teachers expect us to do well and my dad would always say i want straight a's coming home, pointy letters and the only point he letter in the grading system is an an a. i don't want any bees, sees comegys. so pointy letters, all a's and i was my mom and dad and they said to have to strive to do your best. now and new jersey, we had wonderful, wonderful, and added to the great community but basically sometimes my relatives pretend we didn't exist. all of us can you imagine six girls and it eight people coming over to say hello to the there would pretend we were not

home. my father would say don't worry, girls when they when you were a doctor racket have these hanging around your neck they will want you and say come on and. but you see being a woman and being a black woman, my father knew we were born to be hurt so what do you do about that? he said education. education is the leading the will allow you to rise and stand on equal terms with anybody be a black, white, male, female, rich or poor and that is what my parents wanted for us to be, well-educated women. now there was the dream. the dream hardened into a determination that fuelled our lives for many years to come. but on a parallel track was music. my sister donna said she found something in a box of cracker jacks. and sure everybody remembers when i was growing up the head

little whistles and a box of cracker jacks my sister from this little plastic saxophone and said daddy, what is this? he said it's a sector saxophone, darling. can i have a real one. but often destroying to pay more deutsch, put food on the table, clothes on our back and my sister wanted a saxophone. you know how much it costs? i can honestly tell you having five girls and eventually raising six daughters my parents raised a foster child. she became our sister so he raised six girls in our family but he would say if it's good for you to help you learn, it's going to expand your horizons i will find a way to get it and he found a way. he went to one of his old military guys and said can i have that saxophone i know you have it in the attic. my daughter wants to play saxophone but i will give it back. they are interested in the after a while they lose interest and i can give the saxophone back in about two weeks.

well, to my sister's credit, she played the saxophone all without lessons. the screeching was unbelievable but she slept with it, eight with it, went to school with it with the sounds were horrible. my parents said we need to find somebody to teach this trial. so in middle school there was an elementary teacher who said sure i will treat your daughter. so she was on the alto saxophone and my mother went with her and sat in the back of the lessons and did her crochet. those of you in the 12th grade probably a tale of two cities, do you remember that? she kept knitting and nobody mentioned in the she was listening and my mother was listening in the back and was very good because when my sister was pulled something when she got home didn't go through the elevation to go through that

scale and my sister learned very well in a rapidly with regard to the saxophone a few years went by. we were born one or two years apart. my sister said well, playing saxophone and my other sisters playing guitar well, you know, let me play something and my sister wanted a larger saxophone, a tenor sax. my father said i can on the altar in getting enough money for the tenor saxophone but i said no because i wanted to be involved. i said i can do it, i can play the alto saxophone, and my father bent down and said cookie, you can't even breathe much less play the saxophone. i can do it, i can do it. so he braced the saxophone on a chair and i approached it with scientific progress. i blew off the air out of my body into that saxophone. next thing you know your picking

me off the floor. i just fainted. so my mother said if she wants to play the saxophone that much. so now there were three of us playing the altar saxophone, the tenor saxophone and guitar. what do you do with three girls trying to play instruments? luckily my father worked as a janitor and the 389 united states army was stationed and then he remembers trained at juilliard some of the best musicals in the country and he asked them to come by and teach us so we were taught by some of the great musicians. there's two saxophones and a guitar and one said it would be nice if you have some rhythm, somebody to play the and drums. get linda. so we played at the pta meetings

and the social event in town. my father said agreed a one to be with my daughters so he tried to play the aprendo base. he had an instructor and my mother just like with us sat quietly in the back and did her crochet and my father tried to learn and the teacher said you've got to practice you can't just come in here and try to learn the song but mommy sits back and listens to read next thing you know she's on bass and dad is out so we had to change our name because it was kind of like a baby mcslarrow -- beebee naim swain in the rest of the thornton sisters. i know a lot of you know american vital. before that was store search. all of these are amateur shows the basically give the amateur a chance to be a star.

in the 1950's there is the same kind of amateur show and by then my father says we should apply for that in addition and see what we can do. we said okay, daddy so we went and believe it or not we were on the areas i want to show this wonderful audience this is historical just have to go back over 50 years ago this is 1959. what of the thornton sisters look and sound like back in 1959 if i can do this right i will be okay. if not, in big trouble. ♪

[inaudible] ♪ [inaudible] >> that's my mother.

[inaudible] ♪ this is donna, 14 on the tenor sax. i'm the one and clapping my hands. stage presence kuran yellmac 11 years of age on alto. this is janet, 13-years-old, guitar. and the next person you are going to see is linda, 9-years-old on the drums.

[inaudible] ♪ [applause] thank you. well, you know, my father said you kids are pretty good so let's try the next step. the next step was the apollo theater. some of you are too young but

showtime at the apollo is famous and in those days it was the best and for black entertainment. anybody have to go through the policy and on wednesday night they had the amateur night. if you want for weeks a row at the amateur night you could win a paid week with the stars. we went through four weeks of the apollo and the fourth week the manager says the rules have been changed. you have to go six weeks. my father got upset and said you have to do six weeks. so the thornton sisters won six consecutive weeks of the apollo theater in harlem and we said forget about this dr. dream. and he's a the girls, sit down. people love you today, some deals tomorrow the you've got to

eat every day and we are here for the reason, not the season. the fact of the matter is if he were educated and have those are around your neck you can do something the rest to cut that you like. what if you are hay midsession -- magician put your doctor indigent qaeda they will come to you and that's when your mother and i want for you so go back to 33 the several years later the sisters were cut in records and we said this is fabulous on the marquee. i said we are famous. he said would i tell you before? again a few years have elapsed and we were 15, 16 years of age. he said sit down, you're looking good, nice figures, everybody loves you the you've got to look down the road, down the road

when you're 50, 60 years of age, the gray hair, rankled trillion to blow a saxophone it's not a good sight to see but if you have script scraps hanging around your neck that is what your mother and i want from you so we went back to study it in the audience when we were at the gentleman from the princeton university he said mr. thornton we would love to have your lubber plea of the club. so from 1963 to 76, 13 years, my sister in law and my mom were unable than up and down the east coast forming everything we could to generate money to pay for the tuition to go to college. now that's 13 years every friday night, every saturday afternoon, every saturday night, every sunday afternoon the sisters were on the road but my mother said we have the money now think goodness but you're still going to have to be smart.

so on the weekend we are performing and that's the way it is. i performed with my family straight through until i was a resident, ob/gyn. now we all went to college and west palm branch new jersey because the other college was five minutes away from the long branch new jersey. my father said that is as far as i want my daughters to go. we planned to go to harvard. that's too far to keep the band together. you can go to college and do well but the dream still to be realized. now i went to a very small college but my professors working dedicated and i went to the physician of surgeons which is a quantum leap from a small teachers college to an ivy league universities there was the school to become first

medical school to award the degree in the colony. so here i am a physician and that brings me to the point of player with the second book, something to prove. i want to read excerpts out of the second book because you think you've got the brass ring. i'm a doctor. i have an m.d. from columbia. so what do you do? again, just wanted to read to you what doctors do and this is from the first chapter, first page of something to prove. chapter one, the bases and the glass ceiling. cornell medical center early 1980's, quote, i know medicine, right? its always respected. when a man is sick he doesn't smoke to see what color you are, he is to be made well. end of quote. come to the hospital if your water breaks or anything else goes on i always told my

patience or take good care of you even if you're not in labor. not all of them listened. mary hadn't listened, mary, pregnant with her first was full of life and strong-willed. her walter had broken two days earlier what she had no contractions and so against the doctor's orders she just stayed home. it wasn't until she felt feverish she decided to come to cornell medical center in e. amana athan. when i was the director for the hospital. i can see right away she had an infection in her uterus, a potentially dangerous situation for both motherland the baby. i started on antibiotics than nine induced labor. everything went smoothly of force. she was a -- fully diluted. we moved her into the delivery room and the anesthesiologist

delivered the a bigger role and in the stacks and soon after thornton delivered her baby. it's a boy. i asked she want to put it to the breast she said she was too tired. we were done but delivering the placenta or so without. usually the placenta follows the baby right out but it can to give to 30 minutes. the clock ticked. 25 minutes, 30 minutes, nothing happened. the placenta of being a little bit stubborn, i choked, but in the back of my mind i was thinking please, god, don't put this be placenta of ohrid it. nor is the relatively rare but potentially fatal competition. it happens when the plot and the attaches itself to deeply into the wall of the uterus and it can cause complications. get more on a fee fluids are said, and called for pitocin the intravenous medicine that causes the uterus to contract. i also told the nurse to get me

a glove so i could remove the placenta manually if necessary. but a moment later the placenta came out, but mary was still bleeding. it's normal to see a little blood after the placenta is delivered but my thing like this. this was the red sea. something was wrong. what could be causing her bleeding? i went through a checklist in my mind. could some still be large in size. get me av digit trey to really call the nurse and use this instrument to shape the wall of the uterine lining. everything was clean and she was still bleeding. whether it was because of the infection had caused a reaction or something else was in nature. her paulson traced to 120 beats per minute. she was going into shock. we were losing her.

we went to the operating room, yelling, feeling unshredded. only once has one of my maternal patient died. it had been a long time before when i was chief resident at roosevelt hospital but i could still picture every awful mint in my mind. it was july 19th, 1976. her name was just men. she had been only 19-years-old, something that no one could have foreseen interfered with blood clotting after she delivered. i got the call at 3:14 a.m.. i had been at home across the street and our 24 floor apartment on west 59th but i stepped in my white coat just in case there was an emergency. so when they called and told me that she was hemorrhaging i was ready to go. i didn't even make the elevator i flew down the 24 flights of stairs and got to the hospital in less than five minutes. it didn't matter. we tried everything and we

couldn't stop the bleeding. i watched her dhaka on the table. nothing of the time could have saved her. i knew that and yet i swore to myself never again. yet here i was close to losing her. my whole journey was filled with blood and i had to call to the blood bank. dree was an shocked but i heard her mumble my name so i had to go in not knowing how much of what i said could she hear much less comprehend. there was no time and the pratt was taking too long. give me a scalpel i said and made a incision from her belly button. in the delivery room i tried to massage the uterus to encourage it to contract. we have to find another way to stop the bleeding. i had my assistant to go for the massage and i went to one of the larger arteries that feed to the

uterus. i clamped it shot, but still, mary was bleeding. the anesthesiologist said normal blood pressure is one twiggy over 80. the second number is barely audible. it's 40. we have to remove the uterus, i said. my heart sank after that fought. this is a young woman. she just gave birth to her first child to read if i perform an emergency hysterectomy there would be no second child. if i didn't she might have only minutes to live. before i took that irreversible step by wanted to make one more attempt to stop the hemorrhage. it would involve a more difficult procedure, 1i had performed only twice before, tying of an artery that is deep in to the pelvis and surrounded by all sorts of other very vital organs. time was running out. i moved the ball will and carefully made my way of around and there it was pumping read. i type of the artery.

the bleeding reduced almost immediately to a trickle. that was it. i realized i was soaked to the skin perspiration even in the chill of the operating room. there were no high-five's or shout of success, just an exhaustive team silently ceiling relief of having saved a life and for me a silent prayer of thanks because no matter how well trained or experienced i was, i knew that i had a little extra help in the operating room that day and that is part of the first chapter. and so i'm a doctor and that is what obstetrics is, somebody that has many hours sitting around, hang around, and the board of obstetrics means to stand by. so many hours or standing by waiting for a patient to deliver and its interrupted by five or six minutes of total chaos. so i became the doctor my father and mother wanted me to be. so here i am.

i am dr. thornton, but i will tell you the title of this new book is another reason why even so i thought of playing field will slow, i looked and found that there was another wall i had to climb into that consisted of racism, sexism and male chauvinism. now you can wind or go do what you are trained to do. i will tell you when i was working at a hospital in new jersey i was minding my own business, walking through labor and delivery and a nurse came out screaming you need to come in. you need to come in. it's not my patient. i didn't know what was going on in the delivery room. what was happening is there was another obstetrician that was in trouble. the baby's head was down but he wasn't coming out and the heart rate was going down so they said get somebody. i need help, did anybody. so the nurse came out, dried me in and i came into the delivery

room, and the obstetrician looked at me and said what is she going to do? all that he or she saw was a black woman. he didn't know i was a double board certified maternal specialist. i asked the nurse may i have forceps. she gave it to me and i asked him excuse me, may i sit down? i sat down and applied the forceps and delivered the baby. my job was done. i got up and i left the delivery remained the only person following me to thank me was the husband of the wife. not the obstetrician but the husband. so that's why saying. you don't expect to be loved or to be part of the crowd. and yes, i am a woman of color and something to prove, there's always something to prove. when you're a woman in the male-dominated profession you always have something to prove. life is life. me, i happen to be black but you could be from the wrong country,

the wrong school. it doesn't make a sense but if you are welcome to you will always have something to prove. i am a woman, i am a mother and i am a wife. as a, with me, there is another layer of responsive devotee. now we have powerful women today. we have a surgeon general that's a boreman. we have a supreme court justices that are women. condoleezza rice, secretary of state but in my situation there was another level of obligational responsibilities and that is having kids. what do you do? again, i delivered about 5:30 in the afternoon are ripping off my clothes. i have to get back home. what am i going to have for dinner and one of my male colleagues was in the doctors' lounge just relaxing. i said its 5:30, aren't you going to get home? i'm going to sit here for a few hours. i will let peggy feed the kids and i will come back about 8:00. i said well that's not me.

i am racing trying to get home what's for dinner, did i get the art work for my daughter and that is the difference between being a woman professional that society expects us to be the loved and wanted to be an obstetrician. my mother would say i'm not a success. nothing could make up for being a failure at home and that's what i'm saying. many of my colleagues are wealthy, they have children lost to drugs, suicide and emotional disturbances but i knew i had to do and the decisions i made had to incorporate my children. now the next excerpt from the book is about my children. one of these little kids, just like yours. i have a son and daughter. my son is 32 years of age and my daughter is 30 but he was young once just like you and this excerpt is about my son. we had given in to a plea for a nintendo game.

it seemed at first like just another toy so we said sure, why not. my husband usually got home first and pick up the kids at school or took over for the nanny. between my academic responsibilities and practice and being on call my schedule was more pact than my orthopedic surgeon husband. and also less predictable. babies come whenever they want to but hip replacements can be scheduled weeks or months in advance. they were downstairs on the family room playing with other electronic games. what are you doing? nothing. no hello, no nod or reaction whatsoever. they sat they're mesmerized by their nintendo. all they could see was the monitor and electronic image of the red car opinion of around

the animated track. i wasn't thrilled to be treated by my own children as if i didn't exist so i stepped in front of the monitor. get out of the way. as i made my you term behind them and saw how entranced the work i wondered how such a game could possibly be good for them. i went back downstairs and i told sure what i didn't want nintendo to turn our child's mind into mush. he smiled and told me to relax. it's just a game. he had a point, it's a game, kids need to play games. but do they have to play that game? just as i had done in my studies and fallujah but to my parents wisdom when raising my children. could help or hinder them so it tried to think ahead.

one day they would be applying for college. no matter how at the end become nintendo wii and to impress anybody on the admissions committee. what would help my children develop, do well and also have fun? the started piano lessons when they were toddlers and they loved it. what sort of games would make all of us happy? i finally came up with just the thing. chess. timmy was too young he could challenge woody and stimulate his intellect. there was just one problem, i didn't know how to play. neither did sure what so it put an ad in the community paper chess teacher wanted to teach seven year old. the following sunday a few days before christmas the doorbell rang. i opened it and i found a young man on the doorstep carrying a composition book. he said his name was friedman

and he had just come from israel and lived on the next block about five houses away. nhs champion, he told me. mr. salles this ad in the paper. i told him to come on in the right to come downstairs to the family room where i had a large coffee table was specially made with the chess board. i introduced him to woody, showed him how the chess pieces and left them alone. as a lot of the stairs i could hear him telling what the the peace in his hand was a pawn and was worth one point. at the end of the hour check on them than i could swear he seemed as engrossed in those little pieces as he had been in the flashing of his nintendo game. as i paid mr. freedman for the lesson and a range for him to come following week he said you know, your son has a spark. even better he said he had fun

and he was looking forward to the next lesson. hearing that was like an early christmas present. moving forward, he was doing well with his lessons. he seemed to have a gift for the game and he said if he kept at it he would be ready to compete in chess tournaments. i even got bloody and electronic chess game he played between his lessons with mr. friedman. the computerized game had this annoying mechanical voice that would announce a the end of the game of a win, you lose. [laughter] how he hated that announcement. he would play that machine for hours only to hear i win, you lose. a frustrated him to no end. then one day he beat the computer. at the end of the game the annoying computer-generated voice of a different message. i lose, you when.

woody was so pleased with himself he left the game on for hours after that. anyone going down to the family room would hear the mechanized concession of defeat in a broken record mode. i lose, you win, lose, you win. now what happened to woody? he's my firstborn and he went to public school, we believe in public school, and he went on to harvard, he graduated cum laude the harvard and went on to columbia university college of physicians and surgeons. my son is a physician studying your surgery. i say that because -- i'm smiling because when they are little kids in preschool i said maybe your grandfather was a janitor but your dad and i, you know, we are financially stable, we are physicians and we can support you. you can be anything you want to be.

car theologist, a radiologist, ob/gyn, as long as there's an m.d. behind that name. he said no problem, mom. straight on. he's like the parent pleaser. would be before he went to harvard became the united states junior open chess champion, he was the national high school chess champion from junior high school champion, national everything champion, new jersey state champion because he loved chess and there was the one thing to position himself so he applied at many of the ivy league schools and was accepted at all of the ivy league schools he applauded. that's the first one. you say it's wonderful. my second one is going to be the same way. no my second board as kimberly, the rubble. she says there's too many doctors in this house anyway. i don't want to be a doctor. i said you know the mantra. no, i want to be in music, so she's a classically trained pianist so she went to stanford. her first semester was premed

but she got her degree in studio art. so i said okay what are we going to do with that but i wanted to read a little thing about my rebellious daughter kimberly. she's the second born and as an ob/gyn i find the second born always somewhat rebellious. in this part of the book pretty soon she began going to terms with her brother and dad and they said she was unusually talented, too. mr. friedman said that she wasn't as obsessed as her brother but it was just a game, not a calling. any time she was cornered in a difficult match instead of trying to figure out a way of her predicament she would say i'm tired now, you can win. was getting close to helene d., again, and kimberly wanted to wear a tina turner costume to school. when i heard that i put my foot down. i said no commodore not going to be that wild woman with of the

during and the short skirt, not my daughter, absolutely not. she begged and pleaded but i wouldn't have it. i wouldn't permit my child to skirt above in a skimpy outfit. she did the princess i said, and that was the end of that. a couple of days later they had a chess tournament and my husband took the kids but they called me with a progress report. you have to win the most of five games to win the tournament in each game gets progressively more tickled. woody is doing quite well that kimberly had lost her first two games. i wish she could have won at least one of them that she wasn't even trying. put her on the phone, i said, remembering how daddy would give me and my sister the best. you want to be teen turner? when she came on the phone. when the next three games and

you can be tina turner. iodine new full well she didn't have a prayer you couldn't win the first to the easy games of the tournament she wasn't going to win all four of the remaining ones but i wanted her to at least try. when he got back on the line i explained this to him. he agreed it was smart to at least give her something to strive for. i didn't give it another thought until a few hours later when isherwood called me back. she won, he told me. he had difficulty believing it himself but he sold it with his own eyes. she had beaten the player with so many points above her she might as well had been next to bobby fischer. i was happy she applied herself and one. i was considerably less have the i had to follow through on my promise. i got the costume for her spiky

black wig and earrings. it wasn't bad enough she were the costume to school, but that day her class went to the hospital to show their costumes to the little sick kids. i can only hope none of the doctors at the hospital realized that that child dressed up as a wild woman was the daughter of dr. thornton and mcclellan so that's my daughter, kenny. schmucky and got her degree in studio arts. she says well, coming and going to be a curator and i said that's fine but it's few and far between. it's not a steady expectation. that's the way it is. well, she couldn't meet her financial obligations of california she made her way back to colombia, new york city, and she was accepted, applied index of the and got her master's

degree in public health. i said that's great, that's she said i know it's good in a fabulous but i know what you want. >> what ever you want is fine s long as you're happy. my daughter now kimberly is a first-year medical student in medical school she wants to be a pediatric reconstructive surgery as she can use her artistic wants and needs and talent so she can help children with cleft lips and politics. so yes, my sisters and i were a joke in our community. but my two children are legacy and that comes when you keep trying. the last excerpt from the book and wanted to review is about my dad, and it starts many years after my mother had died we took a devotee of for his birthday at the shuttle but restaurant, one

of those we couldn't afford when we were kids. it was relevant to the to elegant with waiters in tuxedos and crystal. also didn't hurt it had some of the best prime ribs in new jersey. daddy was always the meat and potatoes kind of guy. my sister, linda, the youngest, had come to town from fort meade maryland. she was a and oral surgeon. she was in the dental corps and army maj. my sister had just finished medical school after getting her degree in psychology and daddy always expected her to be the first doctor for an but she rebuild and had gone her own way so he must have been thrilled when she finally got her degree even if it came later than he hoped. it had been a loyal but we were all there, just him and his the way devotee looked at, no kids, no husbands. the leaders were already built a

solid and i had arranged a little supplies before the main course. the maitre d came to the table and announced there's a call for dr. thornton. some curious diners turned to see who it was. janet, linda and i rose from our chairs and as we stood up, the look on my father's face could have lit up the entire eastern seaboard. there wasn't a call. i had taken him aside earlier to ask him to page dr. thornton because i wanted to see the wonderment on my father's face when his daughter stood up to answer. each of us was dr. thornton. we were the living approve daddy had done what he had set out to do. he marveled at us standing there as if he couldn't quite believe it himself that he actually manage to achieve this impossible dream. all his work on all his sacrifice paid off.

he was too tough to crotty especially in front of us but if there was ever a time he came close, that was it. and i knew it was the best birthday present we could have given him. and that in this chapter to -- end chapter 2. [applause] what happened to all these people i've been telling you about? so what happened to all these people, first, let me tell you about my mom. my mom passed away at 61. she was the one that had me read the first book the ditchdiggers author. i'm not a writer, i deliver babies, but when she called me one day at the hospital she says it would be nice to have a book in the library. she said a library. who would have thought a kid from the project would have been anything in a cure your, doctors back. if it's a book in the library it

would tell people with a little faith and hope and determination you can be anything you want. and i said i'm too busy to read and delivering patient, babies, i'm on call. i don't have time to write a book. she said all i wanted to pose a book in the library. so i said yes, mama and i was respectful. i don't want to be melodramatic but my mother died six months later. she died in 1977 and from that time from 1977 to the time the first book was published it took me 18 years to get that published by goblet published and when the american library association named it one of the best books for young adults i said this is for you. my mother would always say what your aims behind even though fulfillment may seem impossible. so, we tried, we fulfilled, and it became impossible. but what happened to my mother,

two adrianne deferred or working with the west virginia higher education commission and with basically beckley, and i worked with beckley into the blue state teachers college, that's the college she was out and in 2005 my mother is in the class from a 2005 having been given a doctorate, and that's my mom. my dad with 57 years of age. he was too young to die but he worked so hard, three jobs sometimes. he would go pumping oil and would be digging ditches and he would be a janitor. but he said janitors work hard and many people say you're going to work and kill yourself. he said buyer brother work hard and try to kill myself and not work hard and have my kids go through what i went through. then he would say you can only stop yourself, nobody can stop

you. don't let anybody define who you are. if the front door is closed, go around to the back to get in. .. she unfortunately passed away from lupus complications at the age of 48. she went to mamas college.

he wanted her head pay for four-year trickery that she married has about there. heather has her masters in social work. heather went to the university of virginia and also the university of pennsylvania and she lives with her husband in california. my sister betty is a geriatric nurse ready to retire, and she lives in long branch in the same house that my mother and father built in long branch new jersey. jeannette, the troublemaker, the second born, she said okay daddy i'm a doctor. she got her edd in counseling psychology and my father was not a well-versed man. he was not a sophisticated man. he says what is in the eed? she said dr. in psychology. it is a doctor in psychology. he said that is not a real doctor. she said yes it is, they call me dr. thornton. when my mom was sick in the hospital one of the physicians came out and said i know one of her daughters is a doctor and i want to go over the plan of action. my older sister jeanette said

i'm dr. thornton and he was talking about propranolol and the type of drug she would be using. my sister had this

at age 47, 847 that education has done for our family. we are always striving for education. at 47 years of age my husband and i went back to school, went back to colombia columbia to get her masters in public health with regard to health policy and management but what am i doing? i am here today to speak before you to say what have i done? i hopefully have changed stumbling blocks into stepping stones in order to achieve and to arrive at whatever you want to be. i have two children. they are wonderful kids and i'm very happy i have two children because that is really the best accomplishment i have ever done. again, that is me. let's talk about linda, the

drummer. you saw the drummer who was nine years of age. linda is my idol. linda has three strikes against her. linda was black, female and weighed 300 pounds at five feet one inches. she would come home and say daddy, daddy they called me fat and called me baby healy. my father would bend down and say linda your brain is not fat. go back and study. linda went back to study and linda graduated from new york school of dentistry. she is one of third -- three oral surgeons in the country. if you go on youtube and type in thornton sisters you will hear what the thornton sisters were like and 65 and a lead vocalist is linda. linda lost 180 pounds, was down to 120 pounds and she volunteered for the united states army. she recently retired as a lieutenant colonel and now she e is an associate professor at temple university. she also got her masters in health policy and management from texas and that is linda.

i kid sister is not here. she was basically the kid sister and when the first book was written, she was a science teacher. after our parents passed away be said you know they want more for you, rita. you can't just have a bachelors, they want more from you. she said leave me alone. i know education is important but secretly my sister rita went back and she applied and was accepted to seton hall university school of law. so she has a j.d. but she didn't like law, so now today rita at 55 years of age was the first black woman at the jersey institute of technology to get her ph.d. in environmental science. all of us are not positions in all of us are not medical doctors but the surviving daughter of donald and itasca barton are all doctors thornton. we made that one gigantic leap in one generation. many generations you are dropping out of high school in

the next generation will go to college in the next generation will complete college in the next generation will go on to graduate school but in one generation is almost unheard of at a janitor and a ditchdigger and a worker in a slaughterhouse and a garbageman and a woman who cleans houses who had six daughters would -- and that can be done because we have realized the power of a dream. thank you. [applause] now there are some questions and answers from the audience. i know you must have some questions. there is a microphone for you to speak into. on both sides. don't be shy.

do you mean to tell me not one question? come to the microphone. >> hello. >> hello. >> niemi -- i name is kristen and i may ninth-grader at the leadership school. my question was, you feel really proud that you completed your father stream. you deliver those 5000 children but did you really want children that bad? he really wanted a boy so were you like --. >> you said he really wanted a boy? >> guess so how would he feel that you deliver those children children everyday. >> that is my profession as an obstetrician. i deliver lots of babies but as far as my father was concerned

he didn't care whether he had oyster girls. he just wanted us as his daughters to the best we could to rise above and be educated and that would be the only way to get us out of the ghetto and get us into the mainstream. i'm sure he is happy in heaven that he has a daughter that is an obstetrician but i have course wanted to deliver babies since i was eight years of age. [applause] just come to the microphone. i'm not going to bite you. just come to the microphone. just come to the microphone. [laughter] >> okay. okay, do you think you were a ditchdigger to your son? >> do i think i may ditchdigger to my son?

i did not understand that. i am sorry. i can't hear you. with regard to the inspiration? of guiding my son to where he is today? yes, i believe so. i think is apparent you have an obligation to make sure your children rise as high as their little rains can take them. so, yes i do. [applause] >> thank you. >> you are welcome. >> hayek, my question is why did you choose that specialty of being a doctor? why to choose choose that type of specialty? >> why did i choose absurd tricks? i was eight years of age in an elevator with my aunt in the hospital and again lady came in and delivered right there in the

elevator. she squatted and home. she delivered too fast for her to get into the maternity ward. i witnessed the delivery of that baby and i said wow this is cool. i can be around when one person becomes to people? this is cool. that is what i wanted to be since i was eight years of age. [laughter] [applause] >> hello. i am an eleventh-grader. i wanted to know if you had any advice for -- about young women here who are going to college and want to take a major and want to see what our life path is going to be? >> i save for my family was medicine and again people say everybody cannot be a doctor. i'm not saying that. i am saying look to what you like to do. when you get up in the morning

what you think about doing. don't let anybody say you can't do it. when you go off to college especially a large college, there are so many things, so many options but focus on what you really like to do and stick with it and you'll do well versus over here and another semester over there and you lose time. time is very valuable. you can't give time back. choose something, stick with it and you will do just fine. you are welcome. [applause] >> hayek. my question was, do you believe that your grandkids or your nieces and nephews can carry on the legacy of your father and what he wanted you guys to pursue? >> i always hope so because i believe, this is me in my opinion i think medicine is the most noble of all endeavors for one human being to another that you can heal somebody and save somebody's life. it is very noble so i hope that my grandchildren will go into medicine also or in some area

that they will be able to help people. [applause] >> thank you. >> are welcome. >> my name is camilla. i know that you are really successful now. what do you think is your best achievement so far? >> the best achievement is having my two kids actually, being the mother of two wonderful children. thank you, thank you. [applause] but being a double board-certified specialist does not hurt. >> my name is samantha. >> i can't hear you. >> my name is samantha and i want to know other than your mother and your father who will supported you? >> my role models other than my mother? no one. we were insulated from the community there were naysayers who said you can't do it and said i never heard of a black doctor or a female