quorum call:

mr. wyden: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon is recognized. mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent that vacate the quorum call, madam president. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. wyden: madam president, i understand that cloture has been filed on the motion to proceed to the pip pa legislation. as one of the bipartisan group of senators who strongly objects to proceeding to this bill, i believe it's important to begin to outline the very real dangers that are posed by this bill. now, the primary architects of the internet and our leading

cybersecurity experts have made it clear that this legislation will undermine the key technologies that prevent fraud and protect consumers on the internet. our nation's leading first amendment scholars have made it clear that this bill poses a serious threat to speech and civil liberties for all who use the internet, and our nation's leading technology employers warn that this bill presents a clear and present danger to interknowvation and job growth in an area that is going to be a major source of new jobs for this century. today, along with senators moran of kansas and senator cantwell of washington, i have introduced the "open" act. we believe that this is a reasonable and bipartisan

alternative to the pipa bill and to the legislation that is before the other body, and we hope that the senate will take the time to consider alternatives before taking action that could deal an enormous body blow to a vital job engine for our economy. over the past few weeks, madam president, more than a million americans have weighed in strongly in opposition to this legislation. therefore, i will be working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle over the next month to explain the basis for this widespread concern, and i intend, madam president, to follow through on a commitment that i made more than a year ago to filibuster this bill when the senate returns in january. madam president, i would yield the floor.

i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. wyden: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon is recognized. mr. wyden: i ask unanimous consent to vacate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. wyden: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn and

convene for pro forma sessions only with no business conducted on the following dates and times, and that following each pro forma session, the senate adjourn until the following pro forma session -- tuesday, december 20, at 11:00 a.m., friday, december 23 at 9:30 a.m., tuesday, december 27 at 12:00 p.m., friday, december 30 at 11:00 a.m. and that the second session of the 112th congress convene on tuesday, january 3, at 12:00 p.m. for a pro forma session only with no business conducted and that following the pro forma session, the senate adjourn and convene for pro forma sessions only with no business conducted on the following dates and times and that following each pro forma session, the senate adjourn until the following pro forma session -- friday, january 6, 11:00 a.m., tuesday, january 10, 11:00 a.m., friday, january 13 at 12:00 p.m., tuesday, january 17, at 10:15 a.m.,

friday, january 20, at 2:00 p.m. and that the senate adjourn on friday, january 20, until 2:00 p.m. on monday, january 23. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning business be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. further, that following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business until 4:00 p.m., with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each and that following morning business, the senate proceed to executive session under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. wyden: the next roll call vote will be on monday, january 23, at 5:30 p.m. on confirmation of the gerard nomination. madam president, if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until

senate stands adjourned until >> as well as directing the president to take action on the keystone xl pipeline project. the third bill passed this morning, the disaster aid bill. you can follow the senate live here on c-span2 when members gavel back in, and for now we return to our booktv programs. [applause] >> thank you. honoree is someono

knows very well the pains and joys, the satisfactions, refusals and today acceptances of the before kilometer bus foundation, and i will read to you from the notes that we received from our fellow board member, carlo brundage. gerald is honored this year for his novel, "shrouds of white earth." he calls for native survival, a much-needed skill. in fact, an art perfected by indigenous peoples of america in a world of welfare fascists, corrupt government and casino politics. this state of surviveance is a state of being like a noun or a

place that oppressed people are always in. it is a dignified place of constantly fighting a losing battle. he claims, casinos are the reversal of sovereignty. the hero and narrater of the story is a native american artist. dogroy whose works advocate for four-legged brothers and sisters. his shrouds depict an unnoticed yet mass slaughter of animals by human beings in the form of roadkill which he kuwaits with genocide. he equates with genocide. an ironic tone is chronicled throughout the work much of european art history questioning the validity of the canon of great art and the omission of great painters.

and joining us this afternoon from the english d. here at the university of -- english department hear at the university of california at berkeley is professor richard hudson who will be accepting the award for novelist gerald -- [inaudible] [applause] >> i just came here today to honor my former distinguished colleague ishmael and my very food friend gerald -- good friend gerald, and when i got here, ishmael said you're accepting the award. [laughter] gerald had written to me saying that ishmael's going to accept the award for me. gerald happens to be in france at the moment not only going to a family reunion from the french side of his family, but also doing research for a new novel he's writing on a great, great uncle who died and was killed in world war i. and he's visiting war sites and

burial grounds and so on. and i wish i actually were with him. [laughter] with all of that. but i remind you that gerald also is a professor emeritus. he was a professor of native american studies here and american studies, and he was a very, very great colleague. in fact, we taught courses together. i think, i think tennessee was in one of our courses. i'm sure, this is his second award. and i think this is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of his 75th book or so. [laughter] i once heard somebody ask him why he wrote so many books, and he said i have no idea. [laughter] but thank you very much for this award. [applause] >> thank you. and thank you, professor hudson.

in speaking quite a bit over the course of this afternoon's ceremonies of the idea about histories and the role that the before columbus foundation has in honoring books which reveal and decipher and interpret the american experience bringing some of these histories to light, and our next honoree has done this with extraordinary power. the name of the book, "high hotel" by karen yam she that. and before bringing karen to accept the award, i'll read a short note from our fellow board member, sean wong, about this extraordinary book. if you were there in 1970 san francisco, then this book is about you. at some point in reading, i lost all objectivity.

i wept, i laughed, i read silently while moving my lips, and i read the last 12 pages again and again as if an ancestor had written them. please, join me in welcoming karen yamashita to to the american book awards. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thank you. >> thank you. >> just wait a minute. [laughter] >> thank you so much. thank you, tennessee, and ishmael, for organizing this. and thank you to the before

columbus award foundation and to, um, cal berkeley and to the judges and, also, the founders of this american book award. i'm very honored. i also want to say thank you to ishmael reid. many years ago when i was just out of college, and i think i wrote a poem. and it was in -- [inaudible] yeah. and i think maybe that's the first thing that was ever published of my work. you believed in me then, and i'm forever grateful. thank you. there's always a moment that happens when someone takes a chance on you and says, hey, and you say to yourself, hey, i think i'm a writer. and i think that was a great moment for me. thank you. i was born in oakland and raised in los angeles, california, and my grandparents immigrated to

california at the turn of the century, 1900. my parents and most of their siblings graduated from cal berkeley. they were immigrant families of modest means, but they got an education at cal, and they always showed their deep appreciation for that opportunity. but in 1942 with world war ii, my parents and their families were forced to leave california for the desert terrain of a concentration camp in topaz, utah. at the end of the war, our families returned to california to start life over again, and by the 1960s they had spawned another generation in a time of great political turmoil and change. in 1968 as i was about to graduate high school, the new year began with the tet in vietnam and an historic turn in that war made it clear that technology and arrogance could not win a war. and then by the end of that

year, martin luther king jr. and robert f. kennedy were assassinated, riots broke out in all of the major cities, the country saw the chicago police beat up demonstrators at the democratic convention in chicago, and students at san francisco state college and the university of california berkeley closed down both institutions to protest and rally for third world colleges and ethnic studies to hire faculty of color, to eliminate the barriers of class and race and to give access to higher education to african-american, latino-american, native american and asian-american students. and so begins the story of the i hotel from 1968 to 1977 here in the san francisco bay area with its center at the i hotel or the international hotel on kearney and jackson streets between

north beach and chinatown, the old center of the filipino-american community. the i hotel revealed after the great san francisco earthquake in 1906 had a long history as an elegant hotel, but by the 1970s it had become the home of elderly filipino and chinese bachelors who had worked as migrant farm laborers, longshoremen, fishermen, veterans of war, factory workers, merchant mariners, cooks and lawntymen -- laundrymen. wars had prevented them from family and married lives. after a lifetime of work, these men refused, refused to be evicted from the hotel to be replaced by a parking lot and corporate greed. they were supported by students and community activists and thousands of supporters in the city of san francisco and its

bay areas, all of whom struggled to prevent the eviction of demolition of the hotel for ten years. on a night in 1977, over 5,000 people surrounded the hotel in 12 rows of their bodies and changed the way we think about the dispersal of colored and ethnic neighborhoods, about urban redevelopment and affordable housing and about poverty, work and a people's history. the american book awards has a long and impressive history and list of awar dees honoring those works of literature that speak to the people's history. this is an honor that also honors the history and legacy of the people's struggle for civil rights and social justice. for my family and friends, for a small but mighty and idealistic

independent press named coffeehouse press, and for my fellow writers, colleagues, my teachers and students, and for the legacy of those activists and people of conscious remembered here, please, know my gratitude for this recognition. and honor. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. with all these very generous and kind words about before columbus foundation, i would also like to draw our attention to our executive director who really has been the life blood and

backbone of bcf for all these decades, gundar. [applause] before moving on to our lifetime achievement, our second lifetime achievement award for this afternoon'ser is -- ceremony, i would like to share with you some of the thoughts of our board members for honorees who, for many reasons, could not join us today. and i'll begin with the book "journey into america: the challenge of islam." authored by hackabar ahmed and this book comes to us from board member and president of before

columbus foundation. ahmed's scholarly work "journalny into america: the challenge of islam," presents readers with a nuanced, complex and rich portrayal of muslim-american life that is usually painted with broad strokes, caricatures and stereotypes in in the mainstream news. ahmed, relying on his scholarship and decades of expertise on islam, acts as a tour guide for the reader as he takes us across america asking, challenging and enlightening questions what it means to be both muslim and american in the post-9/11 world. the answers are messy, varying, surprising and at times common and familiar. with a clear-eyed vision and a healthy curiosity, ahmed's journey into america reveals the

of the-unseen -- oft-unseen and misunderstood layers of community whose voice has been drowned in sensationalist headlines. again, we honor ahmed for "journey into america: the challenge of islam." also this year we would like to honor with the american book award the translator and scholar jeffrey alan arjgent for the frat ro sides. ishmael wrote -- our board member writes to us -- he's finally found his translator. many other translators have taken up the gauntlet, most notably and successfully richard wilbur whose translations have

now become classics. but argent most clearly resonates with the diamond-like form and sparkling content. what happens in argent's english couplet transposed from the al sand green is an enormous intensity of emotional feeling, an intensity that can only be achieved by a hand-wrought form, witty and articulate, and the silent and unspeakable slamming against the wall of the imposed orders and forms. one of the chief aims of translating is to familiarize ourselves with our neighbors. and writers of english have been trying this for over three centuries. the particulars of french tragic theater have been a tough nut to crack. racine was too obscure, classic

for far too long. now we have these brilliant translations, literature in its own right. and we honor jeffrey alan argent for the complete plays of racine, volume one, with the american book award for 2011. also who could not join us today, miriam jimenez and juan flores, editors of the latino heritage, and i'll read to you from the notes or from this work which comes to us. the latino reader helps to define a very important cultural manifestation that bridge between latino and afro deseven

dancy. the spanish-language caribbean is racially anarchistic. as for centuries afro blacks have intermarried with spaniards ever since the spaniards came in 1492, the same year that the last muslim city of granada fell into the hands of the christian recon keyes that. the spain of this period was populated by the moors which we could divide into berbers. they were from southern morocco, close to the regions of mali, senegal, ghana. as such, they were also variously black, chocolate, hazelnut and mulatto, ginger-skinned, brown, white. the spanish men and women who came to the caribbean were children of the societies. the experiment of all and louis,

this created a human hodgepodge a lot different than the an lo phone regions of north america. to understand the latino-afro connection, one should study new orleans, one of the most important caribbean cities in north americaner the tore. territory. it has a french and spanish base. it is not protestant, but catholic carnival like the rest of the caribbean, it celebrates mardi gras. in the early days of jazz, there were many contributions of cuban and per tee row can -- puerto rican musicians such as latin jazz -- such latin jazz is not a new genre as some think. the latin tinge has been an element of jazz from its origin. consider the music of louis got

shock. this precious collection of narratives, poems, interviews in this reader throws light upon the undertoe of our -- undertow of our modern culture. it is the hybrid of poignant society, an encounter which is continuously brewing new ideas and images. it is present in all forms of expression, music, cuisine, dance, painting, lyrics, poetry, literature. a very important mambo step in the right direction. thank you, juan and miriam. this book is a better focus, a better camera to take a picture of who we are, and this comes to us from our board member, the wonderful poet and educator, victor hernandez cruz writing to us from puerto rico. so, again, we honor with the american book award for 2011 the afro-latino reader, history and culture in the united states.

also this year eric gansworth is honored with the american book award for "extra indians." of the author, gansworth, board member kate trueblood writes: gansworth employs many narraters to tell this story, but the anchoring voice is that of a native american trucker who tries to help a lost japanese tourist. tommy jack mcmorrissey is a mystic devoted to meteor showers. she is a deluded young woman who perishes in the snow. when the media descends upon tommy, the story ripples outword in the form of interviews, newspaper articles and film clips each of which connect mcmorrissey to individuals he

thought were lost to the past. at the same time, the reader sees how the media distorts and limits the story offered by the present. the novel is particularly resonant for our times because it is about the choices to best make when they return to sieve land. tommy mcmorrissey served in vietnam. and became best friends with fred hakowski, the extra indian of the title, who tells him, i had to come back for something, some purpose, tom, and this is what i think it is. i'm going to hollywood. all those indians die on screen up there. if i could survive vietnam, i can surely survive hollywood. [laughter] so we honor "extra indians" with the american book award 2011. author eric gansworth. also this year we honor william

w. cooke and james tatum who as part of their fruition of their tremendous friendship over the years collaborated to write "african-american writers and classical tradition." and i'll read you a few notes that i made here on this wonderful book. "african-american writers and classical tradition" is the most exciting work of literary criticism to emerge in decades. indeed, it lays the groundwork for an entirely new field of study. rarely can it be said that the reading of literary criticism as a joyful process yet with this book, cooke and tatum have produced just that. written with great humor, at times tremendous passion, the reader is swept into the excitement of surprise and new discovery following the adventure unearthed in the vast

resources of classical latin and ancient greek literature employed by african-american poets, novelists and political thinkers. once familiar cannonnized figures such as frederick douglass, w.e.b. duboise and ralph ellison are illuminated in fresh, often startling ways, and george s. skylar revived given new life and shown to have vital relevance to today's times, cutting to the very core of the most contentious and controversial issues in america. relatively obscure artists such as fran ross, author of "oreo," are given their proper place alongside the aforementioned giants and the greatness of poet rita dove is affirmed in the brilliant concluding chapter. we honor with the american book award 2011 "african-american writers and classical tradition" by william w. cooke and james

tatum. we now turn to our second lifetime achievement award this year which goes to the writer and play wright, screen write luis valdez. and we are very, very pleased to have carla blank with us to receive this honor for luis valdez who cannot with us this afternoon. carla blank is the author of "rediscovering america: a multicultural history of the united states, 1900-2000." she is the director of the two-act play, "the master crusaders," which is sponsored by the before columbus foundation. please, join me in welcoming

carla blank. [applause] >> luis is a very rare bird. [inaudible] in his neighborhood and remains faithful to his neighborhood while at the same time being accepted by broadway and hollywood. ..

as a cultural voice of the united farmworkers movement, kappa sino dramatized the struggles of the farmworkers in better working and living conditions, to gain higher wages and to help raise funds for the ufw's fight against the huge agricultural businesses. with flatbed trucks serving as stages, they drove into the migrant labor fields and berrios, the surrounding neighborhoods, and into the middle of strikes putting on our toes, their name for their style of canadian like sketches where the performance portrayed themselves with dialogue in the real words, exchange for the scabs in the fields every day. by 1967, the troops split off from the union to focus on making other kinds of theater, setting off a chicano theater movement that included many

groups that formed throughout the southwest. in 1978, louise baldez wrote and directed his world war ii era play, which was coproduced by the center theatre group of los angeles. it played to sold-out houses for 11 months breaking all previous records for that theater. in march 1979, it became the first latino play to open on broadway and in 1981 it became a motion picture, also directed by valderez. in 1981 when they opened a new playhouse in san juan batista, which made it possible to experiment with the relationship between music, dance and theater baldez created -- based on folk ballad form. the work was awarded critics awards including best musical. in 1987, baldez wrote and

directed low bomba, the richie balance story for columbia pictures. a shepherd's tale premiered in 1991 on pbs great performances and has become a christmas holiday staple on telemundo network. continuing to write and direct plays, films and television dramas felt as mentors generational theater artists at the playhouse which include a multimedia digital center, the latest method to continue its mission to the create new audiences with popular art for the 21st century. thank you. [applause] >> thank you carla. i want to again extend my thanks

to the english department here at the university of california for hosting the american book awards this year and also to our friends at c-span and booktv for being so generous with their time and coverage into all of you and of course the office for the recipients of this year's award. thank you very much for it taking the time for being so generous and joining us today. thank you again. [applause] >> for more information about the american book awards visit before columbus foundation.com. >> so i say if you can't live with a nuclear iran, and i can't, then you have to say what to do and i think all options are on the table. >> if we took that oath of office seriously in washington we would get rid of 80% of the

government. >> abbott to your question was who has been proven construction -- constitutional conservative in that race, and that would be me. >> mr. brown you have just written a book. it is called "beating the odds," eddie brown's investing in life strategies. where did your life begin? >> well it began in a small town in florida, rural florida, 13 miles from orlando, a place called apopka. so i was born to a 13-year-old unwed mother in abject poverty, so what this book is about. >> what you're? >> i was born in 1940. >> racist times? >> it was during a time of segregation, so imagine this.

i always say people cannot control the hand that they have been dealt, so if someone had looked at my hands, unwed 13-year-old mother, abject poverty during the time of segregation, no running water, no electricity, and to come from that to building a very successful investment management firm is really what the book is about. also it is about delving this successful business and how i went about it. >> mr. brown butter to her three things that happened in your life that change the course of your life? >> you can always look at it as sort of forks in road. the first fork if i had gone down that path things would have been dramatically different than going down the other path. i had a very entrepreneurial uncle growing up, lived a block

away. he was in the moonshine business, so when i was growing up, i basically built three businesses between the ages of 11 and 13. >> in moonshining? >> no but i did spend a lot of time with my uncle in the moonshine business. unfortunately, my mother came and got me when i was 14. she was then an adult. remember she was 13 but then she was 27. she took me to allentown pennsylvania to live with her so at that fork had not occurred, i'm afraid i would have gone down the wrong path. yeah so there was a major fork. >> what about college? >> i went to howard university right here in washington d.c.. got my bachelors in electrical engineering. many years later got a masters in electrical engineering from new york university. many years later got an mba,

masters in business administration, from indiana university graduate school of business so what i did was build a foundation for thinking that i was going to be in the technology world, where i spent five years with ibm. but after getting my mda, i actually got very interested or more interested in the investment world so i switched careers. and i became basically a money manager. >> its 2011. why did you write "beating the odds" published by wiley? >> fortunately we were able to get a major publisher. they were positioning in the business book category, and actually i had no interest, no plans to write a book and it was actually lord al lewis who is the widow of the legendary reginald lewis, one of the great, the greatest african-american entrepreneurs ever, that encouraged me to

write this book. so what she did was, she got lair walker who had she had commissioned after her late husband's death to write reginald story, to call me. now blair had a best-selling book, why should white gods have all the fun? how he wrote a billion dollar plus business and john wiley happened to be the publisher, so when blair told about my story and presented a proposal, they got very interested. here is an african-american who comes from nothing to build a very successful business. so that is how it came about. >> eddie brown is the author of this book, "beating the odds," eddie brown's investing and life strategies. eddie brown with blair wiley.

>> christopher hitchens was a contributor editor to "vanity fair" and a professor of -- he is the author of over a dozen books including the missionary division mother teresa in theory and practice, why orwell matters, god is not great, how religion poisons everything and his last come has 2010 memoirs, it's 22. mr. hitchens passed away on december 15, 2011. booktv covered several events of the late mr. hitchens available to watch on line at booktv.org including in depth from 2007, three hour interview discussing all of his books to date. >> "uncompromised" is the name of the book. nada prouty is the author. the rise, fall and redemption of an arab-american patriot in the cia. first of all, nada prouty, when and how did you serve in the

cia? >> well i originally started working for the fbi as a special agent and i worked with them for a little less than five years and i transferred from the fbi and worked with the cia in the start of 2003. worked a number of high-profile cases for the fbi such as the uss cole, the bombing in riyadh, the conflict bombing, the assassination murder of the usa diplomat in 2002, and i was exposed to working with the cia officers overseas and they value the cultural and linguistic abilities. i transferred from the fbi to the cia and i was dispatching in baghdad. so i was involved with saddam hussein and obviously that was a successful operation. i detail a lot of other cases that i worked for for the cia. >> how one word you with the cia? >> a little less than five years, in less than 10 years total government service. >> the subtitle of your new book, "uncompromised," is the

rise, fall and redemption. why in that order? >> because my career, it had skyrocketed. i was being assigned cases that seasoned agents with years experience and the same thing, is given a lot of missions that i needed to accomplish that were extremely hard missions and they are detailed in the book. but then after i returned from baghdad, i was accused of, falsely i used i should say, being a terrorist. eventually, i was exonerated and i'm here today telling my story. >> tell us very quickly about that accusation. >> well, it involves the terrorist group and has the land the fbi thought i instituted documents relating to hezbollah passing intelligence to hezbollah. obviously that wasn't true. the evidence against me was

secret and the evidence was not shared with me. but the cia conducted an investigation and a federal judge both exonerated me publicly. >> were you arrested? >> no, it was not. i pled guilty to the charges because i was threatened. basically it was a death threat. the government said they were going to deport me to lebanon and denounced the lebanese government that i work for the fbi in the cia and that was basically a death threat so i pled guilty to these false charges. detail that in "uncompromised"? >> i sure do. i describe a number of the cia missions and the number of cia cases. i was involved in three renditions for the fbi and describe the circumstances around the false accusation and finally the exoneration. >> nada prouty as as an arab-american woman in the cia, did you face situations that may be a white male would not? >> because given my language

skills and looks and cultural background, i was given a mission to get out of the green zone and collect intelligence. i was disguised with -- under which were my weapons and i was able to collect intelligence that others may not have been able to. but again, i discussed these cases in the book and hope to get a chance to read it. the cia have to set your book? >> , had to submit my manuscript to the cia and they had to approve it. >> why did you leave the cia? >> it was part of the plea deal, and fortunately. people asked me all the time, would you ever go back to government service? i tell them the same thing. i am living proof that the justice system works because the truth was told in and. i am happy to have served my country and i will certainly country again at the drop of a time. this is not pessimistic. this is for me and optimistic y.