obligor -- lagard yet -- gloria is one of the most vocal anti not season gets into this amazing transatlantic shouting match with berlin that goes on for several years. he publicly declares hitler to be a pervert a maniac and a fanatic who endangers the piece of the world. he makes these statements very publicly to the press. berlin is not amused, and doctor garbles, propaganda ministry response with things like to 1937 it became -- it became public knowledge that laguardia, who, of course, an italian-american, his mother had been, an italian immigrant, but was jewish. and so the nazis jump all over this. as a one response is, this

german publication that, of course, the jews in the united states. very uncomplimentary photo that they found summer of laguardia to enjoy food at a picnic and they found the nastiest picture of him, and the whole point is, look at this you, the mayor of new york, and this is why we are on the march or are going to be on the march, and this kind of went back and forth across the atlantic for several years. ..

during summer school. >> delarosa is out on bail tonight. he misspoke in the detention center and cucamonga -- were actually at war with the act trieste. ibm of the work, send the make 400,000 new yorkers to play each and the devils defense initiatives either as neighborhood wargames, were atrial sirs scanning the skies

or bombers. my father-in-law did this as a 13-year-old in brooklyn. i have not posted in elmhurst queens. he had a home at like these guys did. they had la guardia were soaking up the sensors. and in fact, this is a civil defense poster from world war ii. do not see student want 25 new york. hitler was very clear about it, there's a remarkable transcript from the mid-40s. 42, 43. if we develop a long-term -- long-range bombers to kill tanks, which is the problem getting across the atlantic and back. if we can do it, we're going to bomb two principal targets. the new york city., which made sense because all is in world war i harpers aggressive player to be allied western front them

are going to get the docs and the jewish neighborhood. that is what their. again, the ethnic history, services again and again in the military history. so that really brings this up to the war. if you want to know before the civil war, world war ii, get the book. i'll be happy to try to answer any questions. thanks for being a patient audience. i hope i haven't spoken to long. thank you. [applause] >> i've been not been made on the coast of maine and it's got some of those old lookout post on cliffs. >> absolutely. and for good reason because the nasties landed eight saboteurs.

for it and i can sit in the hamptons. this is the summer of 42. and for near jacksonville, florida with a sort of half the kind of kooky plans to have been infiltrated or be predators on various industrial plants. they want their target in new york, new jersey, and began if they had any money, any supplies left over, any explosives left over -- i'm laughing, they're supposed to blow up jewish department stores. this absurd lame people, but also beginning and 42 within a few weeks of pearl harbor, the sunsets over and they are taking up their torpedoing tankers and cargo ships right off of long island, off of montauk all the way down the hip enough that the atlantic city.

and basically -- that was the real fear. but it's interesting, not to go on at length about it. it's in the book, but the points of interesting is the blackout and the various measures during the war keep the lights low so enemies can't see it was only partly about the notion that the lights are on so they combine neo. it's really about the light of the city provide a backdrop if you're a cute coming off the atlantic in the the american coast in new york city are atlantic city or what have you, rockaway beach in front of you in the lights are on at night, which is when you want to surface and singer torpedoes at the enemy. those slaves silhouetted any kind of american ship or allied ship that's going parallel to the coast. so let's can the light, keep the u-boats away.

anybody else? [inaudible] iv imac >> well, because -- that's a somewhat complicated question about american foreign policy in the wilson administration and how the war unfolded, but the fact is, try to give it a surety and they are. you know, part of it has to do with the fact that the chairman were sending out, before we entered the war were sinking american shipping. of course the lusitania in may of 15 with british liner, but

over 100 americans died on it. you know, you can answer it on several levels. woodrow wilson tried hard to keep us out of the war, but by 1917 in the early 1917 shermans resume -- you know, the germans get it but lots keeping the western front -- but if keeping the english, fighting on the western front is the transatlantic convoy of ships that can supply them. and so, the germans resume after trimming government actually dispute the higher military level, the army and the navy as they fight about it rescinds submarine warfare. something called the zimmerman telegram at the same moment in early 1917. i think it is the british cryptographers to say for. it is a message from the german foreign office in berlin to the

mexican government. basically the secret, saying if you join us, mexico and germany, and may maybe getting japan involved, too. let's all attack america. and so, all of the buildup of factual -- i very much convinced story which isolate greater length greater length in the book that not only with their black tom explosion can wish they can't figure out exactly what happened, by 1916 or numerous examples of german sabotage in new york and elsewhere. ships catching fire, things like this that are investigated and let alone the fact the dominant culture is anglo is amazing to think that at the turn-of-the-century the german

century the german population is about 20% of the city. but it's only 20%. and you know, the powers of the establishment, the wall street, the press, government is very anglo -- anglophile. yes. well, thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> at now, gail collins talks about the influence of texas on the rest of the 49 states in the

federal government during the events of the 2012 let's fast. this is just under an hour. sheh >> when i told people is going to be interviewing gail collins, almost every person i said hearo two things. she's some much fun. so gail collins is known as thee sun columnist at "the new yorkoa times." the one you would like to have a with, the one who someone said to me, normal. acro [laughter] normal. seally is a the truth is she comes across as normal, that anyone ass j productive as she is ius not bo normal in the way you nir. she is just right a new boat inf addition to writing a column i cod tellek for "the new york times." she was the first e-mail editorn there's a million other things i

could tell you, but the bottom line is not normal. gail, come on up here. cau hes your fan base. [applause] >> thank you. are these working? microphone not working you're a how th work.nows about microphone?vegs. it's here. we have it. whoever it did that, thank you. you saved our day. can i thank all you guys for having me here today. it is so seldom i get to come to chicago. i love chicago so much, and, you know, it's like when you're covering elections, i'm always in florida or iowa or something you never get to come to chicago. it's a real treat to be here. thank you. >> before we get to the hard stuff, i want to ask you a question. are you as fun as everyone thinks. >> my husband lived under this burden for a long time.

he said people are coming up to him and saying wow, it must be a laugh a minute at your house. [laughter] and he says, no, she's not always that entertaining. no, no. >> let's talk about more serious. gail's new book which is a entertaining but serious read texas texas goes. we talked about the premise of the book. it all sorted of started. >> you probably remember the rick pear's succession moment he called for vai lantly ambushed the federal government in front of a large crowd. he said something like no, we have a fine union. there's no talk of leaving. if washington continues to do

the terrible things its doing who knows what will happen. i did not regard it as a real commitment. if you're married and your spouse says there's nothing wrong with this marriage. there's no reason to dissolve it. if you continue to behave in the unsatisfactory manner it wasn't good. i thought about that and i thought about wow, if you look back over the last thirty years, texas has pretty much dominated the national yeand -- agenda. if you look at the savings and loan crisis in the '80s it started when ronald region -- charters of the texas. he did that because he felt that the texas ones were profitable. no, he no noticed the texas ones were all cooking the books that's why they were doing so well. and i kind of looked at that, there was a piece of that story

in which the guy from the worse of all burdened savings and loan which is called vermin savings and loan went on trial. his defense against the charge that he hired a a prostitute to entertained the bank regulators was that the bank regulator had not been able to rise to the occasion. therefore, it was not a bribe in any way shape or form. i looked and thought, gosh, you have to like a state like that. and then i looked at the deregulation of the banks and of all the financial markets and there's 10 there will people involved in that obviously. a large finger in the pie with senator phil graham of texas who was head of the banking committee. i had the privilege, possible i the only journalist in the world who had the privilege being on the campaign tour in '95 which lasted as about as long as this

program is going to last. and then, no child left behind, our federal program for public schools schools are organized around the way texas schools were organized during the george bush period. energy, the environment, all the land wars and sense -- since vietnam all the stuff comes somehow or another from texas. i think we underestimated what a huge influence this state is on the rest of the country. >> one of the points that you made that was most intriguing to me and most pert nentd to people in chicago was the whole charter school movement really got its birth, got nurtured in texas. talk to us a little bit about that. >> yeah, the fascinating thing about the -- what happened in texas was a stage thing you might find familiar. back in the '80s texas schools were a dismal and movement under

ross per row was organized and the basis of the movement was get more money for the schools. let's make them smaller, increase teacher pay, let's bring texas boo the 20th century. and because per row was crazy and rich they managed to get it done. it was a huge reform. the second reform followed for reorganization of the way the schools were funderred to reflect the wealth of the communities. and which they had to gate new tax, more money poured into the schools. at that point, the business community said wait minute. all the money going in, we want accountability. there was a combination of more money and accountability which basically met more tests. in texas, i talked to the people who were involved in that reform period, and their vision was, there will be testing, and in the community will goat see the tests and the parents will see the tests and the teachers and know which kids need help. if the parents are unhappy with

the neighborhood schools they can do something about it. there was never any thought that there would be large closed down the school consequences. it didn't come out what they thought was a texas experience. but the people from the texas business counsels who were working on the programs many of them went to washington with george w. bush. one of them became the lead negotiator on the no child left behind bill. became the lobbiest for peerson the large testing corporation. about the charter school part of the whole deal. i talk to the people who negotiated the bill on the charter schools. nobody ever thought there was going to be a private sector involvement in the charleser -- charter school movement. everybody inhavingsed nonprofits would come in and take over a few schools and it would be a

good way to innovate. nobody said internet schooling run bay private corporation who sets an anchor at some on secure school district in tennessee and announces it's a real public school. the amount of 0 private money -- that's going to the public school system is one the biggest consequences of no child left behind. it was something that the people at least in congress who put it together had no thought about. it was not in their picture at all. >> it all comes out of texas? >> yes, it all came out of texas. when you started the book how much time had you spent in texas? >> before i started the book, i spent very little in time texas. i spent quite a bit, it is a fastly written book. i spent most of last summer in texas which was a bad career choice. [laughter] let me plan my life so i will in

houston for the month of july. [laughter] it was completely crazy. but that's what i did. it's a totally outer view. i'm not explaining texas to texans. i could never do that. i'm talking to the rest of us about what it mean -- what texas means to the rest of the country, and what the great cry from texas of states rights means to the rest of the country. >> talk about the negotiation of empty bases. us a all of the things that come out of texas you attribute too the philosophy of empty spaces that guides life in texas. >> yeah, i've always liked since i started looking at congress long ago to divide the country between the empty spaces because it makes everything seem more reasonable. crowded spaces people appreciate government. because they can see that government does stuff to help them every day. it protects them from burglars, it keeps dogs from pooping on the sidewalk, and stuff suers

from exploding and runs the schools. everywhere you go, and most people in crowded places when they complain about government they complain there's not enough i don't know where they stopping dogs from peeing on the sidewalk. it expands and expands. people from empty places who perceive themselves z being in empty places don't see any point really to government outside of a war now and then. because if a burglar breaks in their house, they're going have to shot the particular. they have no police coming. there's no sense that somebody is going to mess up the land because there's nobody they can see in the outside world. if you are a in a empty place, the vision makes perfect sense. the problem for the empty places 0 people if you're empty you don't have any people you don't have much political power outside the united states senate where you can have two senators for four people if you're wisconsin.

i swear. [laughter] you can be an empty place person if you live in tampa, florida. the great thing about texas, there's 26 million people there and 80% of them live in metropolitan regions, they think they are in empty places. it feels like an empty place. if you ever go houston, it has 2 million people. because it has no zoning you walk along and there's an empty part. there's no organized development. if you drive from one city to another, if you commute to work, it could be 70 miles. they think nothing of driving 300 miles to football game. there's a sense of emptiness. and that combined with the their own conservative preed elections, combined with the size of the place, combined with the wealth of the place, combined with the natch intensity of texans everything about has made them really the center, i think, of political

power in the country right now. >> to me, the most intriguing thing in gail's book is in the final chapters, when she talks about it's already a majority, minority state and will be a majority hispanic strait which is the direction that the country is going. it talk to us about the shift in texas what that means and what it might mean for the rest of us. >> you know, texas could get this one thing right, they would have absolved at least what i perceive as the sins. texas is not crazy on immigration the way say arizona is crazy on immigration. texans are comfortable with the idea of a large hispanic culture. they're not -- you may have seen the debate want first republican debate in which romney turned on rick perry and said you in texas you allow illegal children to go

to texas schools and qualify as state residences when they want to go to college. that's amnesty. and everybody started piling on rick pear i are. he looked so puzzled. that's not a texas law. all rick had done was follow the money the business community wanted the program. he didn't know it was bipartisan. he didn't know he was doing anything interested when he supported it. there was a sense of texas is more sane when it comes to hispanic integration than many parts at least border part of the country. but when it's not done is integrate two things. not integrated the hispanic residences into the political and business power structure in the way you would expect by now. and two, it's not doing the job of educating young hispanic children that it needs to do if they are going to become critical skills workers for the next generation. right now texas imports college

graduates. it imports as many as it creates on the own. when you are paying to help make the universities in illinois top tier universities you are paying to help staff businesses in texas. a lot of your graduates are going to wind up down there. unless texas and tees up and steps up to the education plate. in the future 10% of the education is going to be texas bread. that's when we go south. >> did you worry about in writing the book you were playing to certain stereo types about texans. >> sort of. you know, texans, i knew from the beginning everybody hates anybody from the outside coming into the place and making fun of it. or crirt sizing it or -- criticizing or generalizing about it. we would hate it. i would hate it in new york. people do do it about new york

city every day. still, your sensitive to that. but texas' image texas' sense of self is very, very intense. i'm always freaked out where i go there how much people identify themselves as texans. i will be willing to bet you think of yourself as chicagoans not illinois begans. i group in ohio i was happy there. but nobody ran around saying don't mess with ohio. i never met a going ohio, ohio, ohio, the way perry goes texas, texas, texas. they work on that themselves to some degree, too, you know, and i hope that i was pretty clear in the book there's no actual obvious person in texas every texan is different as is everyone else. they do think as themselves as texans first. let's move from texas to ohio. you grew up in cincinnati.

in a catholic family, you went to catholic schools, basically your whole life. describe yourself gail gleason, that's who you were when you were growing up. who was that girl? you were born in a time where there weren't a lot of women in public life. where women with opinions at some point learned to keep them in the house. who were you then were you an opinionated little girl in were you fun. >> i was always so fun. [laughter] you should ask my siblings whether i was fun or not. i'm the oldest. but, you know, the interesting thing when i look back on, i can't imagine writing my memoirs. the times i recall now was growing up right after when the baby boom was beginning in a suburb that was composed entirely of people couples between the age of 25 and 35 all

of whom who had two to six kids. and every morning the husband would go off to work at the beginning. it they only had one car. there was a stranded island as far as you can see of women and children, and, you know, they had a rolling grocery store, the go had a bus he put shelves on because nobody could get to the stores every day. he would come and bring you baked beans or whatever you needed that day. it was an intense environment. i don't think we'll ever see again. it was a time when everybody's economy was doing better. everybody getting wealthier. everybody had great expectations for the future, although, compared to now, the expectations were so minimal, you know. some day there would be a second bedroom in the house was a great expectations. even though the people were middle class people. >> did you have a sense as being limited as a girl. your life as a woman as a writer

which you apparently started doing when you were little would be little bitted? did you not recognize that? >> no. my mother was alwaysmented to be a writer. she was am birns for -- ambitious for all the kids. because i came first and i was around for so long without anybody else. she was stuck in the suburb she spent a lot of time -- conservative who is liberal who has been mugged. my definition of liberal is a conservative who had twin daughters, you know. i do know not many men of the jen ration when they looked at their daughter who said they won't do anything except become a mom. the exec tastes were great back then. >> how did growing up catholic affect you who are now. >> i can tell you the nones were great on grammar. i can -- i don't know if you went to catholic schools. i did gram sentences are two

paragraphs long going on forever. i noticed in general, i got to say, when i was at the daily news, i was a come limb nist with there bob whom some of you know is african-american and juan gonzalez and jimmy there. they were excited to managed to come up with a i do verse team of come lom nist they advertised us as rainbow coalition. they kept saying never before has there been so much diversity. we talked one day we all had gone to catholic schools. there's something there, i got tell you. >> do you feel that being a female cool column nist makes you different at all? >> years ago somebody from voig or one of the women's magazine called me and said you and maureen doubt are the times that use humor in cool lum. do you think it deals with being

women. they wanted me to say ha we i did flect our aggressiveness. i thought about my own career. when i started using humor was in i was connecticut covering the state legislature. do you know how hard it is to get anybody to read about the connecticut state legislature? it was -- there was a scandal i that were clean. it was hard. to trish who was my partner we would sit there every night and say, well, maybe we could do a quiz or, you know, we could do a po yem. they'd read a pow yem. finally i found the humor worked the best. it's easier to explain things that people don't want to read about like charter revision. by being funny. >> do you worry that humor undermines your serious points? people going read paul and he's

earnist i'm going to take it seriously if gail is making a joke i'm entertained. >> paul has a nobel prize. [laughter] i think he gets to be pretty earnest at that point in time. it's okay. [laughter] i don't know the other thing i used to think when i got into the column writing business i was more angry about stuff or seemed more angry. at some point along the way, i forget what was happening in new york. i thought it was bad, i thought i don't want to write anymore columns that make people want to go bang their heads against the wall or move to finland, i mean, i want to write stuff that will leave people feeling more cheerful about the role as a citizens. and that's kind of been my little mission over the years, i would say. >> you're jrnlg designated liberal. do you accept that term. what does it mean to you. >> yeah. you you'd have to be kind of

really, really an open-minded person to suggest that i'm not sort of liberal in the things they write about. yeah, and to me, i believe in government, i believe government should be efficient, and accomplish things. i believe government does good. i believe in community. i believe -- [applause] see crowded people places are here. i believe in crowded places and everybody working together to try to get things done. >> one of the things people love about what you do is your conversations with david brooks. >> he is so sweet. university of chicago. >> as a reader of the columns, it does make me hopeful for the future that people who disagree politically could actually speak to each other civilly. tell us about how it got started and why you do it. tell us the truth about david brooks. what's he really like? >> david brookings is such a

pumpkin. i love him. i hired him, actually. i was proud of that i was editor. bill had retired, and it was not actually a big secret we were looking far republican columnist. and the trick with the times and "times," the readership of the "times" people who read the opinion page tend to be more liberal than not. and i wanted to find a conservative columnist people would read even if they degreed with them. there was so many out there i could put in the paper. people looked at it and throw it down and walk away. david was -- he's very good at he grew up in the lower east side of new york. his parents were hippies. he went to chicago, as i told you. he knows -- he is the conservative but knows how to talk to the liberals. he's great that way. and we both think it's the most fun thing we do in the week. we have a great editor. it's pretty ease to do it the

back and forth. and people like to -- they like it because they like the fact that we have fun with it and we're not trying to kill each other. >> tell us one thing about him that would surprise us. >> david, wow. he's pretty open about stuff. he is a new yorker, he went to some school. the entire background was completely strange and bizarre for a guy who turned out to be a strong member of the washington establish. he believes many moderation and bipartisan. and his heart is broken every day by somebody doing something. [laughter] my kind of guy. >> you don't file late. >> i don't general file late. i general file on time. >> you've written a book about women in politics. tell us what you think about the landscape out there for women right now. when are we going to see a female president? >> well, i mean, frankly,

depends on what hillary wants to do. i mean you could see a female president in four years. >> do you think he's? she's in the mix. >> i think she is really, really, really tired. she worked like a mania, you can see it in her face. and she has every secretary of states get tired. she puts in the extra mile and a half. and i would suspect she's going go back and, you know, spend year or two doing, you know, virtuous things. and then she'll think about it. i would suspect in a year or two, she's going to feel better than she feels right flow. and . >> would she make a good president? >> i think she really would. i really -- i must -- i have to say during the last time around, the things she said she disagreed with president obama she was generally right, you know. and that's

.. any better than he had? >> to tell you the truth, i think if she had then press enter over the last four years who would not have a health care bill. which would, we would have more modest change in health and and stuff like that, but i don'twoul think she would d takeha that li

i think you attribute to hime tg that he took that leap.. if it doesn't stay together togr right now, it will never happen in any oft our lifetime.ttle so in that sense, he was a hero. if it turns out, either by the courts or congress, then he will have it up at gas. bad many people in congress say we around put that the statistics in a in ter of voters were not covered by insurance will be held by this bill.l. i mean, the people who areethinl helped by this bill are not voters in general. that could be a very depressing take.se amonghe but there is a fence on theare l list from the

democrat spell. if you can make it happen, it will be the greatest triumph since lyndon johnson on his legislation. >> on that note, we have a few moments for questions. >> can you talk a little bit about and richards? >> i can do that. among the liberal population, which there is a liberal population in texas, and they survive today doing better than other endangered species in texas. molly ivins and and richards are the two names that always. they are the heart of what everybody remembers is the liberals in texas.

she did great things, reforms and other things that were amazing. by the time she had gone to be governor, if have already changed. the politics of the state had already flipped. it was amazing to me, not that she didn't get elected the second time, but that she got elected at all and managed to get stuff done while she was there. since 1994, there has not been a single democrat elected to a statewide office in texas, which means they have gone over 99. they elect a bunch of people in texas. she was a woman fighting against the tide. go ahead. >> can you talk a little bit about some of your proposed solutions to the problem that he presented it texas controlled the entire country? in the way that it is sweeping the country as you put it.

the thing that i tried to poke through at in this book with the question of states rights, which is the bottom of both the tea party philosophy, the republican philosophy and the rest. if you look at all the stuff, i was trying to find out how many of the things that happened in texas sloshed over and affect the rest of us, beyond the sense that we are all in this together and want to act as a nation. texas has declared war on family planning. i think they are down to $10 million or $12 million for funding for the entire state, 26 million people right now. it is just nothing. 60% of all the children born in texas now are born in medicaid

funded deliveries. the people are so poor. the children are going to go on to have to be educated. unless we pay for that part of that funding, and i am very proud as an american that we pay to help support women who are about to deliver babies, but it seems to me that since we are chipping in, we deserve it least some say in states being affected by their family planning services and sex education in their high schools, which in texas is very strange. those kinds of things, i think if we start to talk about that, if everyone is aware of how much one state does, how it influences another -- that we could attack the question of states rights right word is, it has been way overblown. that would be my first argument. think about the states right.

and what part is made up for the benefit of the part of the state. thank you. >> you mentioned that health care, the people who will be helped by it most are not voters. that calls into question -- are we responsible? are we our brothers keepers? how would you address the issue those who don't want to have that role. i know one author just wrote a book about community, government -- community in government. is there anything that you can contribute how that can be sold, or is it -- are we capable of fulfilling it that way? >> here is my sales pitch for health care.

for the health care bill for the requirement that everybody in this country has health insurance and that we help those who can't afford it themselves. this is not like asparagus. if somebody gets sick and they don't have health care, we do not leave them on the side of the road to die. if there is a state that has that policy, i would like to know about it and i would like them to stand up and defend it. we pay in other ways for health care for people who don't have health insurance. it is not like anything else in the world that is part of our total community responsibility. in return, it is the responsibility of every person to do what they can to provide health insurance for themselves. the easiest thing to do would be to have one of the european systems where everybody is covered and the state has a plan. we will never go there in my lifetime. we would have to think about it that way. i am really tired of people arguing that people don't need to have health insurance because it is their right to decide, just like it is there right to

shop for asparagus. i'm tired of arguments and how it's up to every state to decide how to do these things. as long as we agree that nobody said content guys decide. we have to take care that. [applause] [applause] [applause] robmac. >> because of air pollution of these plastic batteries, there was a segment on the news a few weeks ago about the chicken farms in texas, polluting the land in the water in the air. and i am absolutely baffled about how texans can hate government on one hand, but because of the lack of regulations of killing themselves on the other hand. do you have any comments? >> well, in regards to questions

about the environment in texas, i have never been to alaska until recently. i thought how could those alaskans not want to protect all of our glorious wilderness. i was adamant. dernessu go ka, theris there is so much glorious wilderness that you tend to think,o well, with texas areas. that sent that there's all this space, therefore you can't really screw it up that much. m. and nobody should bother me on my land and we don't want to regulate business. this is how they got to be dashed if you look at all the environmental indicators, they are always either the worst for the second-worst or the third worst. it is an empty state vision that

is all i can say about it. thank you. >> you have written frequently about the danger of increasing privatization at what was formerly referred to as civic good. the pressure on public education to become private is so great. that is only one thing that you can describe. these are selling off highways. ron emanuel has a plan to somehow revitalize the city what private health. i wondered what you think about and what we can do. whether that is a good model, whether something we should just concede to because it is inevitable. or should we fight it or something? i don't know. >> it is inevitable that some things will get privatized just

the way things are going. i find that generally when people talk about the glories of privatization, the things that they point to most are physical facilities like a road or something. they got the road built. all i can say is the one that most worries me right now is the schools. it just doesn't make any sense to me. there is something that can be done about some of the stuff fairly easily. number one on the schools, there are a number of states right now that are thinking about or have passed legislation that makes it impossible for a private organization to make money by running a public school. it limits the charters to genuine nonprofits as opposed to something that just lends its name to something that the private sector wants to deal. to me, that is the most critical. the second is that many of the states are joining together under initiative that the obama

administration has started, to try to establish national standards for education. if you can have that and two at three sets of tests, you can choose among the cost of testing it is going to plummet. the profits for the testing companies are going to plummet as well. if you can do things like that, bigger ways to get the state to voluntarily work together on some of these issues, to the credit of the obama administration and arnie duncan, they are moving farther than i ever would have thought they would've by now. texas is not taking part in the national sandstorm. those are two things i would suggest. there are some things that can be done by a private company better and more efficiently, but they do not include schools. >> we have time for one more quick question. >> maybe this is just a comment. it is something that project

content disturbs me about conservatives. that is the fact that the income distribution has really gone out of whack in the last 40 years. the middle-class incomes have leveled off, and the upper incomes have really skyrocketed. i was just curious. >> can i say one thing about that? there are many arguments for that. the decline of union membership is very close to the decline of middle-class standards in this country. both the unions and the public in general have to think about this issue. as the unions are dying away, it is really not good just to have public employee unions and not private employee unions. it's a very bad balance.

if the unions by weight in the private sector, the number of middle-class workers die away in the private sector. that would be my thought of the day. [applause] [applause] [applause] >> we are now out of time right on the money. i am so excited. we got through this without a single mention of mitt romney's dog. [laughter] >> thank you, gail. >> what are you reading this summer? booked tv wants to know.

>> the first thing i do is look for anything that eiko comley has coming out. the adults she is coming out. she comes out every year with another dvd. i don't know what she'll do when she finishes back them up with that's great fun beach reading. you just want to finish your book. so i love mysteries and action. i stay away from politics when i'm on vacation and i just go for some pain that just takes me away from where i am. >> the fact is in our world,

which is often remarkably stifling when it comes to thinking about writing, politics, national security state, which used to be called foreign policy but is now accurately thought of his global military policy, we definitely need their rooms very, very small. we need people willing to step back chimeric ready to make their way up the massive trees and actually taken that would win virtually lasts. my book is the one guy could produce a due in may best to consider the american world in absurdities and it accepted as ordinary reality. and those of you who know i like to run mock frameworks have pieces of the site by others despite whatever he thinks about property, and attention spans and the internet.

before a cheering attacker would be the two pieces from the book. however in the shorter side, first you see is really my doubts about rising rooms. i read it back in march 2010, well before military was out of iraq in just after the supreme court issued its citizens united decision, but before was utterly clear the floodgates have been opened so why do what might be called the politics of the rich in america would soon become simply american politics. i called it on being a critic, all the world's a stage for us. in march 20 time, i wrote about a group of pundits and where journalists committee could not see the u.s. military leave iraq. that piece appeared on the topic page at the los angeles time and a longer version began wandering the media world. one of its staff curiously enough with the military newspaper stars and stripes. from a military man came this

e-mail response. preacher article in stars and stripes. when this last time he visited iraq? a critique and 15 well-chosen words, so much more effect than a lot of angry i get this pipe is interesting. at least it interested me. after all, as i wrote that, i was then a 60 federal guides who had never been anywhere near iraq and deadly never with me. i presume the e-mailer has spent some time there, possibly more than once and disagree with my assessment. first-hand experiences not to be taken lightly. what actuality we know about iraq? only the reported net enabled to read, analysis on a box experts at juan cole. on the other hand, even thousands of miles away i was one of many who could see en masse by early 2003 to go into the streets and demonstrate against an onrushing disaster and invasion that a lot of

people erratically far more knowledgeable than any of us can either just the cat me out, cakewalk of the new century. it is true i've never strode down the street in baghdad or body or bastrop armed or not and that is the deficit. if you want to read about the american experience in iraq it is also true haven't spent hours sipping tea with tribal leaders have been inside the green zone are stepped foot on one of the vast american bases in the pentagon private contractors built in that country. would that stop me from writing regularly about what i call and so-called american figure out when most of the people who visited those bases didn't consider places with 20 male parameters full text i find chimeric px with food franchises, mercenary person who knows what else to be particularly noteworthy structures on the iraqi landscape and so with rare exceptions worth commenting on. i'm certainly no expert on shiites and sunnis and probably little foggy and iraqi geography

and i've never seen the tigris and euphrates in person. on the other hand it does occur to me the whole left of the american public officials and military types who would then all of the above, spent time up close and personal in iraq released in the american version couldn't have arrived at dumber conclusions of the last many years. so first-hand experience, value as it may be for court reporters like shahid or patrick corcoran of the british independent can't be the be-all and end-all either. sometimes being far away, not just from iraq, but from washington and all the thinking that goes on from the visibly claustrophobic world of american global policymaking has its advantages. sometimes being out of the experience really speaking allows you to open your eyes and taken a larger shape of things come which is often the obvious, even if little noted. i can't help thinking about a

friend of find as opposed personal take on military commanders in afghanistan was they were trapped in american-made toxin capable of seeing beyond its boundaries of afghanistan. i have no doubt that being there is generally something to be desired. but if you take the personal pointers that you could often hardly matters where you are. thinking about the stars & stripes readers question, conclusion i've come to his base. it is not just where you go. it's also how you see what is there and no less important to you see that matters, which means that sometimes you can actually see more by going nowhere at all. an iraqi tragedy. when american officials, civilian or military open their eyes and check out the landscape to matter where they've landed, all evidence indicates that the first thing that tendency is themselves. but as they see an american stage in the native factors and

countries we've invaded and occupied but where is impacted income small income and to conduct what might be called and they were as so many players in american drama. this is why both iraq and afghanistan, military commanders, top officials like secretary of defense robert gates revisor james jones continue to call still utterly unselfconscious lay for putting an iraqi or afghan face on whichever war was being discussed. that is to follow the image to its logical conclusion, putting an iraqi or afghan mask over her face they recognized however inconveniently or in various miss america. >> watch this on booktv.org. ..