organized islam treats women as second-class citizens. islamic doctrine sanctions the beating of women and wives in .. are not persons in islam. and terrorists sanctioned in islam. hitler hated the final solutions from the germans because he thought they were too civilized to accept his plan to eliminate the jewish. ahmadinejad shouts it from the rooftops. we are going to wipe out israel and the united states. name me one, one muslim leader,

one muslim government that is condemned that statement. that is the problem we face, and most people are in denial because it is a horrible problem. >> david? what do you think it is going to take to defeat that problem? we are not confronting it right now. we have had 30 years of islamic revolution. >> americans wake up slowly. there are always two-sided impacts of things. there is always a lot of unintended consequences but also good things have to have sometimes negative consequences. america is probably the happiest country on the face of the year. there is so much to do here. there is so much freedom. there is so much opportunity. so, in 1941, just to give a

whole graph of this picture of this problem, in 1941 hitler had overrun all of western europe. only the british were sort of holding out by a thread. the japanese had conquered all of southeast asia, manchuria and gallup did a poll of americans in april of 1941. and the poll asked, should we get involved in this war? and that of course hitler declared american and enemy in terms of a little milder than the ahmadinejad. 80% of americans said no, we should not get involved. and then came pearl harbor, and everything changed. and that i fear, and the reason i put so much effort into this campaign to warn people of the

danger here, we cannot even speak about the danger without being -- those of us who have, without being stigmatized and an attempt made to isolate us and shut us down and deny us access to college papers or college campuses, i fear there will be a great atrocity. i just see it. what the israelis just did invites terror. you trade one soldier for 1000 murderers. what it premium that puts on the next kidnapping and if you go to the mosque web site, hamas says the brigades liberated 1000 freedom fighters. that is the enemy. these are nazis. you don't want to encourage them by appeasing them.

if that is the posture of every western government right now including the israelis. let's try to make a deal with them. when i talk to the college students for example at u. penn, that is their attitude. i can't have a dialogue with them if i bring up these unpleasant realities. well, some of us are going to bring up those unpleasant realities over and over until you know we are shut down or americans wake up. thank you. >> we are going to have one last question david and then we are going to proceed to the book signing. thank you. >> thank you. on september 11, 2001, we had a tremendous wake-up call. every one of us experienced different emotions that day, different sites they saw. for me the most disturbing was to see americans and in dearborn

and paterson new jersey celebrating the destruction of the towers and a crashed into the pentagon and into the field of pennsylvania. the supposed americans celebrated. it was on very briefly on the media and since then, there has been a ban on, a virtual band -- >> that's because they were muslims. >> what do we do about this? >> well we just have to speak up up and tell -- not everybody can do this. some of us are constitutionally more suited to combat. i don't find it pleasant that i cannot go to a college campus without bodyguards and i'm not the only conservative. you have got to keep speaking up until people wake up. unfortunately, what it usually takes is an atrocity although we have had atrocities. we had major hasan who was

screaming, i am a terrorist, i'm a terrorist and was promoted while screaming that from major to captain. even after he had killed 13 of our soldiers, unarmed, the head of the army, casey, said that it was worth it for diversity. it and is it worth it? but the issue is very much -- we have a little pamphlet called islamaphobia which describes it. this campaign is to prevent people, and of course the news media spoken some of them of course msnbc are raising lunatic leftists. but most of those people are you know, there are just careerists and they are not highly informed and they don't want to offend people. so in the name of not offending

muslims, we don't tell the truth. muslims celebrated on 9/11. they will say oh, we are attacking all muslims. no, we are attacking the ones who celebrated bed they wouldn't say who they were. if it was, i don't know, white celebrating a lynching, everybody would say it is why people doing it and they wouldn't conceal the identity. the fact of the matter is in america today, the fbi crime statistics show that jewish are the most persecuted religion. no question about it. eight times, getting this exactly right. i will appear in media matters as soon as this comes out. [laughter] eight times as many hate crimes against jewish as muslim in this country. a lot of those crimes are committed by muslims. and to me, it is a crime against the jewish students on a campus to have thrown in their face the

accusation that israel is an apartheid state when it is the only non-apartheid state in the middle east. and of course the desire to destroy it, because the model is south africa. they want to destroy the jewish state. call it an apartheid state and erasing it. genocide is the agenda of the muslim students association, students for justice in palestine, hamas, hezbollah, iran and now we have in egypt of course. it is not just a jewish. they are slaughtering christians in egypt because the muslim brotherhood is on the rise. this phony arab spring, yeah there were some good people that went out in the square in cairo, but the revolution in the middle east is a fascist revolution,

and it spells enormous trouble and probably wore sooner rather than later. >> and now calvin trillin presents a collection of his essays in the past 40 years. topics range from the economy to politics and the media. this is about 40 minutes. >> tonight i am thrilled to be welcoming the dashing and legendary calvin trillin. on the occasion of his new book, "quite enough of calvin trillin forty years of funny stuff." calvin has been a good friend to the strand. you think yes speaker before. he is also frequently seen

cruising our staffs. so contrary to the title of the featured book, we can never get enough of calvin trillin. taliban has been a staff writer for "the new yorker" since 1963 and he's written a weekly piece of comic versions for the nation's. is nonfiction books come with a lot of his books over here, include american pride, adventures of the happy eater, third helpings, a lot of good books. more uncivil liberties, "travels with alice" and about alice. is works of nonfiction include american stories. a heckuva job, which is more of the bush administration in

rhyme. he has written and performed two mansions at the american place theatre in new york city. in "quite enough of calvin trillin," calvin addresses the subject in the horror of witnessing economics ceremony, the collection features poems about sarah palin, john edwards, bill clinton and chris christie. frankly, i think it's hard to do all this material like that. tonight format, calvin will talk and then we will open up the microphone for questions. if you don't mind i'll pass along the mic. if you don't mind standing up because we the big audience so everyone can hear. then calvin will stick around and sign copies of his book. so please welcome me, enjoying one of the greats american hubris, calvin trillin back to the strand.

[applause] >> will pull well, one thing i should say about that introduction is that nancy asked me if there's anything special i wanted her to say. i said it would be nice to work the were dashing in there. let me explain that. it's nice to be at the strand. it's nice to see fred, who i've known for years. and when this is a book of so-called humor, and i'm sometimes asked aren't you ashamed of making a living by writing snide, underhanded remarks about respectable people? and my only defense is, it's not much of a living. [laughter] and there's a piece in here about dealing with -- i think

the first humor piece i publish was in a magazine called monocle that he edited. they were not big players, monaco. i sent them the peace and accepted it, and sent me a bill. [laughter] and then they went on to become the editor of the nation. and asked me if i would write a column for the nation. and i said how much are you thinking of paying for each column? and he said, something in the hike to figures. [laughter] i said what you mean. he said we've been 65. i said that sounds like metal to figure to me so i got my high-powered literary agent, robert on the phone. and i said play hardball,

slowly. and slowly got him up to 100. a month or two after i started, he came to me and said what about in these quotes? i said what quotes are those? and he said that john foster dulles really say you can't fool all the people all the time, but you might as well give it your best shot and? [laughter] i said richard, if these rich you can expect real quotes. [laughter] so there's some things in the book about, and his various sections sections in the book. there's a biographical section, and i thought since we are at a bookstore i would start a reading something the biographical section from my, i guess you'd call it my childhood in kansas city.

there's a quote at the beginning of each section, and the one in the biographical section says, i found that a lot of people say they're from kansas city when they are not, choose for the prestige. this is a piece called chubby. it's common these days for memoirs of childhood to concentrate on some dark secret within the author a sensibly happy family. it's not just common, it's pretty much mandatory. memoir in america is an atrocity of arms race. a memoir reveals incest is trumped by one that reveals beastiality, and that is driven from the bestseller list by one that reveals incestuous beastiality. when i went into the memoir game i knew i was looking at a disadvantage, a horrible disadvantage. as much as i would hate is getting around in literary circles in new york, the fact is that i had a happy childhood. at times i've imagine how

embarrassing these background would be if i found myself discussing childhood with other memoirists. late at night and some memoirists hang out. after talking about their upbringing for a while, the glue sniffing and sporadically violent grandmother, for instance, or the family tapeworm. they looked toward me, their looks are not totally respectful. they are aware i've admitted in print i never heard my parents raise their voices to each other. they have reason to suspect for bits of information i've let drop from time to time that i was happy in high school. i tried desperately to think of a dark secret, all i can think of is chubby, the collie dog. well, there's chubby the collie dog i say tentatively. this is a true story. chubby akali dal, they repeat? the really was a colleague named chubby. i wouldn't claim they secret qualifies as dramatic but maybe

it explains an otherwise mysterious loyalty i had as a boy to the collie stories about others. we own chubby when i was two or three years old. he was sickly. one day chevy disappeared. my parents told my sister, the oppressor, and and media been given to some friends who live on a farm. so that he could thrive in a healthy country air. many years later as i remember i was home on vacation from college, chubby's name came up while my parents and sukie and i were having dinner. i asked why we've never gone to visit him on the farm. calvin looked at me as if i suddenly announce that i was thinking about eating and mashed potato with my hands for a while, just for a change of pace. there wasn't any farm, she said. that was just what they told us. chubby had to be put to sleep. put to sleep? i said. chubby is gone? some study, somebody, my mother,

said chubby would be gone anyway since collie still living to the age of 18. isn't it an absurdly comedic defining this out, i said? my father said it's not our fault if you are slow in the uptake. [laughter] i know how myself gathering me to tell the start of chubby but as it happened i did relate the story in a book. a week or two after it was published i got a phone call from sukie. the call it was not called chubby, she said. colleague was called george. you were called chubby. [laughter] there's one section here called 20 years of paul's, one for each. and to quote leading that section is i believe in the next inclusive political system that prohibits from public office

only those whose names have awkward metered or difficult to arrive. such as george bush. i mean i know it sounds like an easy run. it rhymes with tush but that's disrespectful. fortunately, when george h. w. left office, he had a lot of middle names so i wrote a poem farewell to you, george herbert walker, though never treasured as a talker. your predicates were prone to wander now off a loan. you did your best in your own way, the way of greenwich country day. so just relax and take your ease, and never order japanese. here's one about mitt romney. mitt romney isn't all it's called. yes, mitt is so slick he reminds us all of 10 and bar, so quick

to shed his moderate regalia, he may, like can, be lacking genitalia. [laughter] and here's one about sarah palin. if i can find it. it's a barbra streisand standard as sung by sarah palin. on a clear day i see flout all stock. on a clear day i see bloodstock sock side note world affairs. don't say no way, though i know elites mock. it's osmosis that doesn't. well, that and our prayers. and joe biden sees new jersey from the shore, and that's just a state that doesn't rate. it's me who knows the score. on a clear day, on a clear day, i see bloodstock -- fred come you can hum along if you want --

and more. then i thought i would do a timely piece tonight. i'm not usually that timely. this is called crystal ball. this is a section in the book called criminal justice, criminals of justices are probably no criminal justice is. and the quote is, i'm an absolutist on the first amendment, except for people who show slides of their trip to europe. they should be arrested. they can't be held, they can at least be down at the station house. how many dead on predictions as a person have to make to get a little credit around here? in the book i published in 2006 called a heckuva job, moore bush administration in rhyme, here's what i said in one of the

non-rhyming passages about the so-called shoe bomber of 2001. i'm convinced the whole shoe bomber business was a prank. what got me on to this theory was reading that the shoe bomber, richard reid, had been described by summoning him well in england as very, very impressionable. i had already decided that the man was a complete bozo. he made such a goofy production of trying to light the fuse is hanging off his shoe that he practically asked the flight attendant if she had a match. the way i figure it, the one terrorist in england with a sense of humor, a man known as colin is a troll, had said to himself, i bet i can get them all to take their shoes off in airports. [laughter] so this prankster, now he is back their cackling with the thought of all those americans exposing the holes of their socks on cold airport floors.

if someone is arrested one of these days and is it immediately because of his mo referred to in the press as the underwear bomber, you'll know i was onto something. that's right. i predicted the underwear bomber in 2006. you could look it up. around the same time i repeated the prediction in public appearances, and as i remember a couple of times on television. i firmly believe in this world of ever diminishing a replaceable resources, using the line only once represents the sort of wastefulness our society can ill afford. and what transpired on christmas day three years later? another bozo tries to blow a hole in an airplane and succeeds only in setting his underpants of flame, in a manner that might have rendered him ill-equipped for the 72 heavenly virgins that would be his reward if he had succeeded.

[laughter] and where was this bozo educated? university college london. to pass that name, the troll, been mentioned even once in the press and television interviews with so-called security experts? talk about connecting the dots, and eliminating stove piping. no, not once. not once have the people who are from washington talk shows, people i referred to as the sabbath gas bags -- [laughter] say somebody should have followed up on his underwear tip. not once has anybody considered the possibility that after the shoe bomber scheme were to profession patrol announced himself, when it had a few years of taking off their shoes, i bet i can make them expose their private parts to whole body scanners. not once has one of these after the fact analyzers consider the

possibility that called the troll is engaged in an elaborate scheme to embarrass us to death. it turns out one of the television shows they said that on was the daily show. and after the underwear bomber was caught they showed it on their moment of zen, they repeated it, and my older grandson who was then six saw a thibault of it and he said, bob o. said underwear on television. [laughter] well, since we're in new york if i can find it i will read something from "tepper isn't going out" which i'm not here to post, but we think this is the first parking novel ever written.

this is a little section of it called tepper is parked in front of rust and daughters. as tepper glanced at the newspaper to make a quick perusal of the sunday shoppers, he noticed one of the countryman was standing on the sidewalk about to tap on the window. recognizing the counterman from past trips, tepper slid over to the passenger door and rolled down the window. how were you doing, the counterman said, then began to lean on the door? five, tepper said that how you? i thought i recognized you. you come to buy on sunday. solid usually. sometimes the wife wants it. i figure maybe are having trouble getting around. i can get you something. thanks anyway, tepper said. i don't think i need anything today. account up and start to straighten up and he said, are

you waiting for somebody? know, tepper said. oh, well, the counterman said but i guess i should get back but he made no move to leave. finally, he said, just here parking? exactly, tepper said. i'm just here parking. the counterman didn't say anything for a while. then he said, you are just here parking because you feel like it. if someone wants this spot, it's too bad because it's your spot and it's a legal spot, reckless a lot of times i feel like doing something myself. like this. like this myself. i can get pretty irritating with some of these customers. i'll bet, tepper said. they will say, give me a nice whitefish. so i will say, one whitefish coming right up. cheerful, pleasant. and they will say, a nice whitefish. can you imagine? this happens every sunday at least once. i can prevent it of course. do you know how i can prevent it?

of course, i could just repeat after them exactly a nice whitefish, but i won't. i won't give them the satisfaction. what i really feel like saying when they correctly, when i say one whitefish coming up and they say, i nice whitefish, is oh, i'm glad you said that because i wasn't going to get you a nice whitefish. if you hadn't said that i would've looked for a whitefish that has been sitting there since last week. and old greasy whitefish because that's what we serve your mostly. that's our specialty. that's how we've managed to stay in business all of the issues. that's why the family is anonymous with quality and integrity in the city for 75 years because they sell their steady customers rotten, stinking whitefish. that's what the boss gets about 40 them to go to the supplier leaking to the stinky whitefish

before his competitors. otherwise if he slept to civilize ours may be deserved by now, he might get stuck with nice whitefish. there's always something, tepper said. the counterman looked exhausted from his speech, could only nod and psychic a glance at the store and look back as tepper. do you mind if i sit with you for a minute? looks like it's quiet in the. i could take a little break. why not, tepper said. he opened the passenger door and slid over to make room for the counterman. thank you. glaad. >> and. [applause] >> i'm sure all that madrid has given you some profound questions. does anybody have a question? >> did the fish tasted good?

>> i find that the fish at russ and daughters? good. resin dogs are sort of like a bad stomach it. i guess they're on their fourth generation. you guys are one generation behind. they were, i think joel ross was a founder and now they have his great-grandchildren. >> did you watch it all any of the republican debates these days? and if so, i would love to hear your comments, especially on mitt romney spent the question is whether i've watched any republican debates. i tend to watch people talk about the debates rather than the debates. i find the debates with a people so slow and boring. and they usually show the best, the best stuff.

i've written a little bit about rick perry. one of the things i wonder is why he wears cowboy boots and is always talking about what an authentic texan he is. he was a cotton farmer. you don't need horses to plant cotton. if you were authentic i think he would wear bib overalls. have kind of a hayseed coming out of his mouth. he spent a little disappointing, and when michele bachmann said that god had sent hurricane irene to warn us against all this spending, i wrote a poem that said why be so hard on vermont? i mean, if god doesn't like the spin, why did he pick on vermont? they don't spend any more than anybody else. in fact, they are sort of thought of as thrifty new englanders. so she's going to i think leave,

to. and with trump out and christie out, all the hair jokes and fat jokes are gone. [laughter] so i think, you know, in the way people in the small joke trade sort of hoped for people like that to come around. we think, if it's not good for the country we say the same thing they said about tooth decay. it's a pity, but we would business be without it? but sometimes people are too obvious a target. i think dan quayle was one of those. the full title or the full poem the title came from was oblivious we on these sales with marx not quite as good as quails. i think perry had worse marks.

that to find homes which i like to write because i get paid $100 uphold -- [laughter] and i didn't think that was much and i looked into our poets were paid. and at that time the highest paying magazine was "the new yorker" which paid $10 online. you can understand why there's not a huge crowd in front of the poetry booth at the career day fair. but i get $10 online. i mean $100 a poem no matter what. so when i want that sort of buzz, working for the absolute top dollar in your field, i write a two line home. [laughter] one of my early ones was about lloyd benson, the former texas senator when he was named secretary of treasury, was called lloyd benson, the short

history of lloyd benson's dealings with special interest groups, was the man is known for pro-quote, for pro-quote quickness. in texas that so folks debate is. that's $50 online. that's not my shortest poem. my shortest form is the political societal and philosophical implications of the o.j. simpson trial. that's the title. titles don't count. and the whole poem is oj, oy v vey. maybe anybody shortens the poem. [laughter] stanky you ever hear from politicians who are saying you're being too hard on the? >> no. i never have, and i've had this sort of nightmare which i have during the day. one of the reasons i don't hear from, they won't admit they read this stuff, but also i don't run

into them because i live in new york and most of them are in washington. but i start having about 10 or 12 years ago i started having this sort of daytime nightmare that i went to a dinner party in new york, and all of them were there. and in my nightmare, and i arrived sort of early because i found a great parking spot. [laughter] and the only other guest there is steve forbes. and the host isn't even home from the office and the hostess said i've got some things do in the kitchen. i'm sure you do have a lot to talk about. [laughter] and i try for an icebreaker. i say, i guess you will be wanting to know why i refer to doing the campaign as a dork robot. and before he can answer, al gore comes across, he's an earth toned clothes, and he's irritated because i refer to them in a poem once as a man

like object. [laughter] then robert or so it was then i guess running for senator from new jersey came over, very angry because i suggested as a campaign slogan for them, never been indicted. and then here comes al d'amato. remember al d'amato? and again, it's a problem with a rhyme in april. i said d'amato doesn't really rhyme with much, and people say tomato, but i'm from kansas city and they can't bring myself to say tomato. but it does rhyme with sleaze ball off the godot. [laughter] and then here comes henry kissinger. i think, my god, henry kissinger is still mad about that one little war criminal mention? talk about hypersensitive.

but it turns out that's not what he is mad about. i guess i said in a column once, why is it that george shultz, former secretary of state with a ph.d is always referred to as mr. schulz, and henry kissinger, former secretary of state with a ph.d is always called dr. kissinger? and the only thing i could figure it may be kissinger had a podiatry practice on the side. [laughter] but the dinner party has not happened, and i tell you i hear from is animal people. and by animal people i don't mean people who are thrown clear of a plane wreck in africa and raised by a bench of our many things. i mean people with special concern for animals. i mentioned once in a column that they appeared to be a breed of dog that seemed to be assembled from parts from other breeds of dogs.

[laughter] not the parts of those dogs are all that sorry about getting a. you may be surprised how many corgis the art in the united states. anyway, i hear from the animal people. i wasn't one of the people who said that dan quayle had a stare like deer in headlights. 's but i suspect people who did write that got more, even though quayle had a very loyal following got more letters from dear people than quayle people. [laughter] >> my question is about wit and humor because it's such a difficult thing to achieve. any of us who have tried to write. is there an editing process when you write something? is it not funny enough? can you talk a little bit about making something -- >> yeah, i think that, i took a

course in college, daily themes, where he had tried a little vignette every day. and they had a bunch, i later wrote about the course. and they had a bunch of rules, and one of the rules was individualized by specific detail. that seems to be a rule of humor. if you talk about philadelphia cheesesteak tasting better, leaning against a car, sort of funny but it is a leaning against a pontiac, it's funny. not quite sure why. but i think, i think a lot of humor these in detail. and i think you can only try to please yourself because humor is so subjective. and if the lady in the second row doesn't laugh itself into her and you can hold her

fingernails out and she won't laugh. i think all you can do is find something that you think is funding. i actually make myself laugh while i'm writing about every two or three years. so if i were a hostage i would not be completely without resources. i could have a little giggle every couple of years, but it's unusual. it's usually something silly that makes me laugh. >> you just made me think when you talk about the dream and make yourself laugh, have you ever dreamed, literally while sleeping, and woken yourself up laughing with laughter? >> no. definitely not. i would say what am i doing up? it's 2:30 a.m. so i have a frown on my face. i haven't done that. have a thought of anything funny in a drink i don't think.

>> i'm sorry to hear that because i'm not a writer, i can write but not on your level, but i do dream and wake myself up laughing in my dreams. maybe it's pathological, i don't know what. i thought maybe -- >> maybe you should see someone about that. [laughter] >> yeah, right. >> i read your book of nonfiction essays that i see is for sale tonight. could you speak about one of the essays? how long it took to write, how many months? you are on the ground at the time. and do you have any follow-up on the woman who killed her husband speaks oh, you're talking about "the new yorker" pieces, the murder pieces. >> yes. >> ordinarily, there are two

different sizes of those. for 15 years i did a piece every three weeks for "the new yorker" around the country. and i would normally leave on a sunday night or monday morning if it was real close, and get back maybe, i always got back kind of any work week. i got back maybe friday or thursday night. i did that for 15 years. magazine writers used to say how do you keep up the pace? newspaper borders said, what else do you do? [laughter] some of those pieces are from that series, so that meant that i was roughly in the city for four or five days, and then spent the next week writing. so a lot of those pieces are two weeks. and then there's some longer pieces in a book called american

stories. but i found that the reporting didn't take that much longer. i felt, u.s. journal, the original series, was unusual for "the new yorker" into in those days "the new yorker" didn't say this story should be about so many thousand words long. it was sort of a against the philosophy of "the new yorker" which is one of the reasons why pieces ran so long, that everybody thought there peace deserves more. but the u.s. journal was specifically 3000 word piece every three weeks, and i was afraid of sort of creep if i went over that. so a couple of them may be a couple hundred words but basically i stuck to that. and i felt i wanted to write a little more, just the fabric of a looser peace. but i found reported the necessary take that much longer,

maybe i stayed over the weekend, but we usually got home, my girls were growing up then and so i went home. usually i found that if i started knowing what the answers to the questions were, it was probably time to go home. and reporting didn't fit into any space you could fit into. you could stay for a year. at least i have always said i have to be sort of arbitrary, this will take about a week. >> your book about alice is so touching and loving towards your wife. did you find that all the single leg for contacting you after that? >> i found that if you carry one of those electric cattle prods -- [laughter] you really don't even have to use it. just turning it on as they come at you. it will do the