worst imaginable person, thomas jefferson. jefferson had opposed washington and opposed adams on the, on the navy. jefferson's support, obviously, was not in new england. and jefferson tried to have a small a navy as possible given the fact he had to fight the war with tripoli. ask he succeeded in keep -- and he succeeded in keeping it very small. madison was his successor, madison went along with him, and that's why we had such a small navy going into 1812. the federalists all, during jefferson's administration, all during madison's administration were screaming for a larger navy. they, they supported a navy. and so if you want to know, to answer your question specifically to what degree were the federalists responsible for what an excellent small navy we

had, a lot. is the answer. i should say, also, that the officers in the navy were nonpolitical. they kept out of politics. they agreed with washington and adams that the officers in uniform had no business in politics, so it was not a political navy, but the federalists certainly supported them, and the federalists were in new england. big time. yeah. all right. well, thank you very much. you're a great audience. [applause] good questions. in. [applause] and we're going to, i'll be here signing books if you want. okay? [inaudible conversations]

>> this event was hosted by water street bookstore in exeter, new hampshire. for more information visit waterstreetbooks.com. >> we'd like to hear from you. tweet us your feedback, twitter.com/booktv. and now, peter laufer talks about his two latest books. calexico is a study of life on the california/mexico border while "no animals were harmed" looks at the way humans interact with animals and the fine line between animal entertainment and animal abuse. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> it is terrific to be back here at village books and to be here in billingham which is just such a spectacular city. freezing today, but just gorgeous. i come up from eugene where as

many of you may know most of the year it is gray town to the, what would be the grass in the river. not really. but not sparkling like it was here today in bellingham. and this is a special place for me. and i have to tell you why. before i talk about the books, and it's really a great evening for me because two books came out of mine this season, and that's a rare occurrence. they're very different books in many respects, and i've been thinking about it to be talking about it with you today, thinking about how it could be that they're so different, one of them "no animals were harmed," and it deals with the point where animal use becomes animal abuse and where is this line. it's a moving line, i think, for all of us. and everybody, everybody approaches this differently, and maybe even with each animal it's different.

and then calexico, true lives of the border lands. so a book about immigration and the boarder and a book about animal abuse. and i've been thinking about this, and, in fact, maybe they're not that different in many respects because with borders we're often abusing ourselves, and when you're looking at the point where animal use becomes animal abuse, you're looking at a border. before i talk more about that and tell you something about the books and read some from them, i want to tell you why this is such a special place for me. i was here, now, it must be four years ago the first time here at village books, one of the most magical independent bookstores in america, it's such a community builder. and this room was packed to overflowing. and it was the summertime.

and it was hot. and just as is the case tonight, c-span was here as i was talking about about -- a book of mine titled "mission rejected." "mission rejected" is about soldiers who came back from the iraq war opposed to the war because of their experiences, or they chose not to deploy to the iraq war because they opposed the iraq war. and the room was packed with people from bellingham and also with veterans because there was a veterans against war convention going on up at, i guess it was in seattle and also up at the border. so it was a hot evening, the lights were on from the cameras as they are, as they are tonight, and i was wired as i am here with this microphone, so i couldn't -- and i couldn't take off my jacket. it was just hot and be uncomfortable.

and the subject matter was extraordinarily difficult to deal with. these stories of these soldiers that they told about why they became opposed to the war were sobering at best. so after talking for about an hour, during the question and answer period a woman raised her hand as is not uncommon in these kinds of author events and said what's your next book going to be about. and i just wanted to get off stage at that point, and i said this had been such a difficult assignment that my next book is going to be about butterflies and flowers. and it was, there was a little bit of a titter through the crowd, and i said thank you very much and left. now, because c-span was with running the talk on booktv in the lower third of the screen was my name and my web site which led people to send e-mail messages. and about half of them came out as you would expect calling me a

traitor and hate mail because of the topic of the book, the subject matter of the book about people coming back from iraq oppose today the war, and about half were like, yes, this is absolutely right, let's draw attention to what's wrong with this war. in the middle of the two extremes was a note from a woman from nicaragua, and she said you were making a joke about butterflies, but my husband and i are american ex-pats live anything granada -- live anything granada, and we have a butterfly preserve down here, and if you come down, we will show you that, in fact, there is a book about butterflies. and, in fact, i -- well, i thought about it a while, i exchanged some e-mail messages with her, and finally it was my wife who said you've got to go down there because this looks like there might be something for you to check out. i went down there and, in fact, i learned about the

extraordinary world beyond just the enjoyment that so many of us have looking at butterflies. which included butterfly smuggling of endangered butterfly species and thousands of dollars changing hands. that's why i have this butterfly pin on my lapel, because that evening here at village books changed my life. i wrote the book, "the dangerous world of butterflies," which opened up the world of strange things that go on with animals to me. and followed it with a book that i -- and came back here and talked about it, and then followed it with a book about so-called exotic pets. and i was here last year talking about that book, "forbidden creatures." and learned about the kinds of people that, well, i'm sure many of you remember just a few weeks ago the case in ohio where one of these types of people that

find it appropriate and valuable to them for some reason and reasons that i had learned about collecting, obsessive collecting, a desire to attempt the to show that they're able to control something that could potentially kill them, scare others as in the case with drug dealers. often these drug kingpins will have private zoos, but also moguls in business. will yang randolph hearst had a private zoo that became the san francisco public zoo. so this case in ohio where the fellow, whatever was wrong with him, let these animals loose and then killed himself as an extreme example of those who have exotic pets. and that led to the third book, this one, "no animals were harmed." which is just coming out now. "no animals were harmed" looks a to

at the controversial line between entertainment and abuse with animals. and so that's why it's special to be here and to have c-span here tonight, because i would not have spent the last few years immersed in this world and come up with these three books that's become a trilogy now of books about our interaction with animals. that so off is -- so often is strange. and one of the odd things, this afternoon i was speaking with the woman who's the executive director of the whiten county humane society, and i hope i'm not going to write a fourth book that deals with bestiality which is one of these things where even saying the word you kind of want to wash your hands. but a county, unfortunately, has been a headquarters for this kind of activity in part because

there wasn't a washington law specifically forbidding it. there is now, and there's a notorious case here which we are not going to talk about tonight. but maybe i'll be back in a year with the fourth book, and then it becomes a quartet. so where is this point where animal use becomes animal abuse? it really in many respects probably depends on the animal. very few of us if a dog were growling here and bothering us right now would take a baseball bat and whack the dog and kill it, but probably most of us if a mosquito were flying around and landed on us would have no problem slapping the mosquito. many of us here would not have any problem after we talk about this going over to the mexican restaurant next door and

ordering a were' toe -- burrito filled with chicken. and yet what is it that makes it so that there is a law against cockfighting here in washington and across all 50 states? this is what i looked at as i was working on the book and, in fact, cockfighting is a continuing reference point as i'm trying to come to terms with what is use and what is abuse. i decided i wanted to see a cock fight so that i could grapple with that in person even though i myself don't eat chicken in part because i don't think that we should be twisting the necks of chickens just to eat them because we don't need to. i wanted to see a cock fight, what is it that makes it so that it's okay to raise chickens and eat the chickens, it's okay to raise the chickens and if you're having some problem with your chickens on your farm, you can

kill all your chickens, it's okay. nothing illegal about that. you could kill all your chickens and take them to the dump. it's okay to do anything you want with those chickens, but you can't raise fighting cocks and engage them. if you do, as has happened right here because not only is the county a hotbed of bestiality, it's also a hot bed of cockfighting, and there recently was a cock fight busted here of consequence or cock fighters, lots and lots of birds, and that intersects with boarders and immigration also because cockfighting has a connection with some ethnic groups that include those who have crossed the border from mexico and have come as cross that border without -- across that border

without proper documentation. i'm looking here, how do i combine these books? and they really do combine. so you can eat the chicken, you can just kill the chicken if you decide that you're not going to engage this chicken farming anymore. you can't fight them, you can't have cock fights, but if there's a cock fight and it's busted by the authorities, if police come and break it up and the humane society comes in after them, after the police or with the police which is usually what happens. they get ahold of the humane society and say, come with us, we need help. they need help on a number of levels. if you all aren't familiar intimately with cockfighting which i imagine just generalizing looking at you you aren't, they -- the cock fighters cut off the spur. there's a spur on what would be the ankle of the bird, and they

cut off the natural spur and attack in that place a gap or a knife that extends way out. that's among the different things that the birds do, they peck at each other, and they stab each other, and they slice each other. and so the police get there in the middle of one of these fights, one of the things that they have to gap l with is getting -- grapple with is getting the bird without themselves being cut. i'm just remembering there's another connection here between the immigration stuff, the border stuff and the animals. a cock fight was raided down in tularie county in california, and one of those who, one of the participants or a member of the audience of the cock fight was slashed in the chaos of the raid if i'm remembering the story correctly. he was injured at least, i knew

that, i know that because he then died. and the, the suggestion is that he died because he didn't get his wound treated because he feared going to the hospital because of his immigration status. .. certain types of anticoagulant vitamins, and other potions that are specific to the cockfighting

business and confused as evidence because of their paraphernalia. so, the humane society is there. they take control of the birds. cockfighting is illegal in all 50 states. the last one being louisiana and they may make a tacit attempt at placing the birds in new homes. would you like a rooster that has been bred and trained to fight in your barnyard fooling around with the rest of your animals are in your backyard? probably not, so they can't place them. sometimes they can but they can't, so what do they do with them? they kill them. they euthanize them, to use the word that they like to use. so there is this moving target here, yes what are you going to do with the birds?

yes, should they be fighting? you can make a case that they should not be fighting. but, to stop them from fighting and then kill them? and the humane society people across the country, i have talked to many of them not just here, say there is nothing else to do. if you allow this to go on, then you are contributing to the abuse of animals, animals used to satisfy some kind of bloodlust of the people who fight them and it has to stop and even the bloodline some say have to be stopped because these are bred to fight. we will get back there in a minute a cassette want cousin want to juggle back over to the border. the book is "calexico," true

lives of the borderlands. calexico if you don't know is a border town in california right opposite similarly intriguingly named mexicali. usually the border is what got through a metropolis, and a megalopolis like san diego or juarez el paso. i wanted to look at the border from another perspective and calexico in many respects reverses expectations. mexicali on the mexico side is the metropolis. mexicali has the symphony. mexicali has the all-night nightclubs and a terrific restaurants and there are 1.5 million people. is the capital of the estate of baja california. calexico has about 50,000 people. is an agricultural crossroads

and it is in the shadow of mexicali. they create together a community and have ever since calexico was founded which is only a couple of years of over 100 years ago. it was founded because colorado river water was diverted into the imperial valley creating this extraordinary -- extraordinarily productive zone of agriculture and that order community was borderless essentially, pretty much up until the events of september 11, 2001. and the community has been rapped by the attempts of the u.s. government or the seeming attempts of the u.s. government to seal the border and to keep people from coming up from

mexico without authorization, for something that is impossible. one of the intriguing things about talking about the border is that it's something that everybody can agree about even though there is so much still much debate and disagreement about the border and what everybody can agree about is that the border is broken. it doesn't work. we have got a serious problem on our border and it's interesting because in the same way, animals we all agree about in a way too because we all engage in some kind of a relationship about animals. everybody has an animal story. everybody has a dog or a cat or hates dogs or hate cats so think about where his use and where is abuse and to think about what to do at the border. i see how it makes sense that i could write these two books at the same time and be intrigued by these two questions because

they do come together and won in some ways helps us understand the other. so, i lived for over two years in berland right before the wall came down and right after the wall came down. perhaps the ultimate example of a border. one of the things that i found extraordinarily eerie and uncomfortable about witnessing what is happening in calexico is the similarities between what came down in berland and will we all cheered about gwen president ronald reagan said to gorbachev, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. shortly thereafter the wall did in fact come down and what ronald reagan said of course.

but we all cheered that internationally, getting rid of that symbol as we are building something that is not just the same kind of thing but it looks so similar to what i remember. a great difference. you have in east germany this attempt by the government are the most part successful in keeping its citizens from leaving and here we are trying to keep the mexicans and others from coming north. but let me read from the book, "calexico" true lies of the borderlands, and give you a sense for how that felt to me as i was walking along the border, checking out that wall. i followed the wall on the road for a couple of miles and it turned into first-rate but i got back to town.

in places, the wall was okay to, a harsh blind spot making it impossible to see activity on the mexican side. it's more sophisticated components leave feeling spaces between upright posts that are spaced tightly enough together to keep out even the skinniest migrant. this allows border patrol agents to keep track of activities on the mexican side. migrants preparing to make their move north. i could see the traffic backed up on the mexico side, cars and trucks idling for hours spewing expensive gasoline as exhaust into the already polluted him. i'll fellate there. it looks so familiar, the wall, the cleared land, the floodlights. of course this was no fire zone. officer chavez officer chavez and his fellow officers often said it was, especially far from urban centers as migrants

struggle to survive in the clandestine crossing. there is no sm 70 in america. our wall is -- motion detectors and cameras designed to alert the officers to make arrests. still, consider this sobering reality. since 1993 when the wall first appeared on the san diego tijuana line and migrants started looking east into the murders -- murderous deserts for easier crossing points, more water crossings have died making the check north from mexico than were killed by the side in the entire 28 year lifetime of the berland wall. in 2006, the column titled immigration 101 from beginners of the late molly ivins was

typically sustained. the best will not work she notes. the great darned wall of china will not work. do not build it, it will not work. they will come anyway over, under, through. ivins is credited with it now crewed axiom if we build a 12-foot fence, they will make a 13-foot ladder. the trouble is that this ugly tool is laying waste to the calexico's of the borderlands. the cost benefit ratio is absurd. and i'm realizing now just as i'm reading this passage of the book that we are here at a border also and you all know the problems that have existed for border crossings since september 11, 2001. in calexico, it's not that the allegiances are different, the realities are different than

they are in washington and mexico city. the people there know the community that they have, that crosses the border the same way you undoubtedly know here that you have a community that crosses a border but you don't have the harsh border they have there. nonetheless there is something that might ring true to you here also because of the border. i saw when i was driving up from eugene that there is a highway sign that lets you know how long the border is in this one said five or 10 minutes as i recall, whereas in calexico now the wait can be an hour and a half to two hours of that idling and a couple of points from the passage i read, imperial county in california has the worst air quality, the worst water quality, the lowest income, whatever the right terminology

is about education, worse is not the good word to use probably but the graduation is the least if that is the politically correct way to say that, and one epa official i spoke with, environmental protection administration agency, the fellow i spoke with said there is no water act on either side of the line and that was sobering to hear on the california site also so what i want to show you is the book is covered with photographs and this is a sign that is all over or allegedly is all over in calexico. it came out of the chamber of commerce and it says, efficiency is security. their point is that if you had a fish and border crossings, this would help build the kind of security not just from a national security standpoint but also from the standpoint of

their economy, which has been devastated because those people in mexicali traditionally came across to spend their money in calexico. not just because they were finding bargains and things they couldn't find in mexico on the american side but because they enjoyed the prestige of shopping in the u.s.. they enjoyed the service. i heard stories down there that you can buy something at the walmart on the mexico side, you could buy the same product at the walmart on the u.s. side in many mexicans preferred to buy it on the u.s. side because they felt that they were treated better as customers, so the economy was hit hard, and what is such a surprise in looking at the border through a calexico instead of the usual metropolis is to learn that the northern

reaches of mexico are the richest parts of mexico. the southern reaches of the u.s. border, way from places like san diego and all paso, are the poorest often are among the poorest in this country, so the whole thing is turned upside down from the stereotype, which makes it an appropriate jumping off place to look at the border. coming back to "no animals were harmed." this is quite the juggling exercise. i met some fascinating people and again looking at this morality of what constitutes abuse and what constitutes abuse. one of the guys that i became friends with and one of the joys

of being the kind of journalist i am going out and immersing myself in the story like this is that those who are initially subjects and have been sources under the -- can become friends in and this guy you probably can't see him clearly here but this guy is sticking his head into the mouth of a lion, and i had the opportunity to get to know him and budapest. he works with the hungarian state circus and he really does do that act that is the quintessential ario typical what does the lion tamer do, and it's just remarkable to watch, in the intimate and around the environment of the old-style eastern europe high and -- european circus so as close as you guys are to me he is with these lions with a net between

us and one has to wonder how secure that net is. he puts his head -- though i said to him, what are you thinking about when you put your head into the mouth of the line and lion and i'm expecting this spectacular piece of philosophy that i can use in some way and related to my own life, but maybe not in the world are dealing with university students is going to be my equivalent of sticking his head in the mouth of the lion. and he said, but i'm thinking about when i put my head into the mouth of a lion is i just want this over with and get my head out of the mouth of the lion, which i thought was remarkable especially since he does three shows a day. can you imagine doing that? this is one straight ahead guy. he undoubtedly really is thinking that he wants his head out. so is there abused there? this lion is undoubtedly bread

and he has raised this line from a pop. i know they're not really pops but he has raised this lion from a pop, and he has a relationship with it and he says it is a business partner. they work together so he'd draws the distinction clearly. it's not a wild animal really, because it never lived in the wild. it was born, captive bred and born in captivity. is something else. at the same thing i ran in to with the creatures were an animal likely you might remember the chimpanzee travis was captive bred also in missouri and drink wine from stemmed glasses and imported chocolates and slept in the bed of the owner. this was not a wild animal yet. it reverted to wildlife characteristics so is it reasonable for us to be breeding

animals, captive reading animals for purposes like a pet or if you consider him her child, the chimpanzee travis or the lion? for the purpose of being a circus act? is that abuse? and animal wouldn't be here if we didn't captive breed it and use it for that and what i talk to the lion tamer about that he said this animal is in much better shape than it would be worried in the wild or are worried in a zoo. i take spectacular care of it. it has a dietitian and the get special vitamins. it lives a very fine life. i don't have an answer after writing this book. i have a lot of questions, and i know those things that are clearly like when michael vick is beating dogs to death and that is abuse.

i went to a bull fight in portugal in a crossroads town, nothing but tourists at all. when i got to the bull ring it was like getting probably when one gets into the little league field in bellingham, just locals somebody selling ice cream. and it was ghastly to see the inapt matador, they call them something else in portugal, and the brutalizing of the bull. you couldn't at the time kill a bull in bullfighting in portugal, but nonetheless, the bull was clearly not going to make it out of this alive. and then just drag when it was all over killed per se, he died during the event, dragged onto a flatbed truck and hauled off. which was abuse.

i can make that decision. that's abuse but coming up with a global definition what is abuse, slapping the hand for a mosquito. what is our relationship? the closest i got i think was to look at the problem being us. this is the problem for us at the border. so is euthanizing the fighting cox and the head in the line and then there are the vegans that i interviewed in jefferson county jail outside of -- he had been arrested and since then he has been conveyed did of burning down to businesses in utah. one of them served -- and the other was a leather factory. then he burned down his sheepskin factory. a factory that took sheepskins

and made them into all sorts of consumer items and he was arrested for that. one i interviewed him in jail it was impossible not to notice the tattoos all over him including right across here, right across his neck in big block letters, big black block letters the word begin. it is quite startling. i told this to my nephew and he said he probably got tired of telling the stewardess that he needed a special meal. that is my nephew sense of humor that this guy was in jail for burning these three places and he said that the way we treat animals is worse than not the holocaust of world war ii in relation to the jewish and we

had no business engaging in any kind of a relationship with animals unless we were so close sitting in some way by the animals. so here's a guy who has made very specific distinctions of what constitutes abuse and then can rationalize burning things down because he thinks this is a war that he finds it necessary to engage in. now, there is the bud light -- i am in calexico and i am in a place to get lunch. it was recommended to me by the border patrol man. the border patrol agents know where to get the best lunch in calexico and he was right. up on the far wall facing me while i was eating lunch was a sparkling image, a mirror advertisement tempting us with bud light and a dazzling senior rita. she looked at me with a

seductive smile from under her cowboy hat. the buttons on hearst can be plows struggle to contain her and one thumb was hooked into the waistband of her jeans at competing for attention with ms. bud light was the background of the ad. it was a map of the borderlands showing the major cities from the pacific to the gulf, and i looked at where calexico is on the map, and there it was a border along with mexicali but what the screen that screens beer and sex was rielle polity. there was only one.on the map representing cities. bud lite calexico in mexicali for one. they essentially were prior to the wall going out. norb -- no separation of artificial line, no berland wall type fortification keeping beer triggers a part and the legend

of the sign reinforced the graphic display of the map. bud lite was making it official. there was no border separating mexico and the united states. after i finished eating i started to track down the party responsible for this intrusion into international political policy and i finally found juan torres working hard in his st. louis office to compensate for the mess washington and mexico city made of the borderlands while he was selling some but at the same time. the intriguing title of latino -- anheuser-busch he knows how to sell beer to mexicans, american beer. i think it was quite the challenge the likes of bohemia. juan torres knew exactly what i

was talking about as soon as i mentioned the map. at first he referred to it by his trade name, then he called it point-of-sale. but i wanted to know the sub text. i asked him what anheuser-busch was up to with this overt sociopolitical message one point on the map for the border cities. obviously they were selling beer but what moore was at work here? what it comes down to he said is that times that to the entire tagline, it was again with ads speaking if you read it on the creative access -- translated into english loosely it says on this side and on that site or here and there we show our heritage. he thought for a moment, or i guess more literally it would be we share groups and really that is what it speaks to, the entire border culture, not just california but also texas,

arizona and new mexico. what we are trying to see -- say is there is a shared culture whether you are officially on mexican side or on the u.s. side. i think you find that in bellingham although it's not the radical difference that it is on our southern border. you i know are part of british columbia. i'm listening to the cbc while i'm driving up here and i'm hearing the weather report from the doria and from vancouver, these artificial lines just don't work. so i wanted to see a -- and they are illegal. i worked very hard to get into a fight even though they are illegal. i came really close in louisiana and alabama and kentucky. but, the guys that are running these things are nervous about journalists, understandably so.

and so, i end up going to puerto rico because even though cockfights are illegal in all 50 states they are legal in guam puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands, a little contradictory perhaps and as i try to come to terms with all of this, what was odd about going to the cock fight, let me just quickly tell you how it went. the birds first of all are trimmed out to keep them light so that they can jump higher and get at each other easier and that means that their feathers on the underside and on their legs are removed, so looking at them in the plexiglas boxes where they are on display prior to the fights while you make a decision on who you want to bet on because this is all about vetting and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, they look like they are walking around

without pants on basically are they look like what they look like in the safeway case under cellophane. on the top the feathers are gorgeous. the tail feathers are plumed out. they get into plexiglas boxes. the ring is very steep ring for the audience and down at the bottom of the cockpit. at plexiglas box comes across as this nondescript building that is across from a fancy beach in san juan and then it drops down to the cockpit and a couple of handlers antagonize the birds with dolls that look like chickens. and then they are put back in the box and they come out fighting. more or less, they jump into the ring and peck at each other and step on each other.