study into the white house, directly to president bush, into the spending the new secretary of defense to sub coordinates in iraq who are achieving at the restrictions. so basically by the time petraeus becomes the top commander, everything is all lined up. at it all lined up so he can go in and impose the strategy he wants to with the full agreement of the u.s. government. this has all been very exquisitely coordinated. >> now jonathancast, katz, who lived in haiti, talks about the work to rebuild the country.

it's 45 minutes. >> hello. thank you for the introduction. this is very cool. this is my first book, so if i look like i'm really not accustomed to this, it's because i'm really not accustomed to this. so the book is called "the big truck that went by." and there's a spoiler in the subtitle. how the world came to save haiti and left behind a disaster, i'm going to read to you a little bit about it and talk about it, and then i hope that we have a good discussion as this topic usually provokes. so i'm going to start by reading from chapter one, the end. before i do i'm going to give myself some water.

this brand of water is in the book. had i known that i would have picked that section. i can try to look for it in a little bit. these are actually delivered to haiti after the earthquake by the u.s. military. it's called fiji water for a reason. it comes from fiji, which is not in the caribbean, and it was sent at quite a lot of expense and quite a lot of effort. it was a very beautiful project for photographers to take pictures of the gleaming pallets of bolted water coming off the planes with the concept being that there was this incredible water crisis and food crisis. the way it was reported was that haiti was perhaps on the verge of a famine, and there were real

problems, and there certainly needed to be a response. but this is an example of a response that is not terribly well thought out. it was a is in gesture on behalf of the fiji water company. but it was sort of ridiculous because they actually do have water in haiti. it's an island, much like fiji, and what really needed to be done was for the water to be cleaned up and distributed better and for the existing system of water in haiti to be improved, and, frankly, long before the earthquake, for a system of potable water to be implemented and maintained and for government institutions to be supportive and formed that would be capable of doing that kind of thing, which would have eliminated a major part of the crisis when the earthquake struck, and could be done now to help eliminate and i ameliorate

other crisis. so thank you for the visual aid. i'm now going to drink some, which may make me a bit of a hypocrite, but as you read in the book, that is also part of my character. okay, so, the end. the phone was next to me on the bed. not ringing. ignoring this was proving difficult. it was hot, slow, january afternoon, just past 4:45'm in the hills above port-au-prince. my bureau and residence was quiet. my lope house meat, the staff photographer, was on home leave in spain. our main translator was finishing phone calls in the large office space before heading down to hill.

the only person who was there a hard-working haitian mechanic who was replacing the brake pads in my hopeless 13-year-old geo tracker. i was in my room. the call i was waiting for was from someone at ap -- i don't know maybe actually sit thing the crowd -- telling me i could ship out. after disasters and not one utility i could count on i was done with haiti. my friend were great. he house was terrific. a two-store with stone walls on the first floor. set back. from the sun rising behind it, the sounds of children filled the day and i'd fall asleep to hallelujah's from the church at night. but ap long talked about getting rid of the mouse my foreign friends done with their rotates

has shipped off to the next cries. ap's national editor said could i pick my next possession so long as at its kabul, laos, or baghdad. i chose afghanistan. sounded like a good place. all that was left for the phone to ring. 'to kill time i played trivia against a friend in the states online. i was sitting on my bed in gray boxers and a sleeveless undershirt. sweating out the last of the tuesday heat. we started a new game. name a human body part for every letter of the alphabet. you win. i heard a lot of rumbling outside. i looked out the window but the yard was empty. must be a water truck, i thought. then the bed started to vibrate. i heard plates rattling in the kitchen downstairs. the wooden mast from mexico i worried might fall suede.

met dust sin bottles and bug spray. shied on the table. there had been a rumble on the island before, a little one, when i was would correspondent on the other side of the dominican republic. i stood up and felt nothing. the roar outside got louder. then the floor started to move. vibrations got thicker. christ, maybe it its one of those, i thought. what do you do in one of those? other doorway. something about a doorway. i walked toward it but for some reason kept going into the hall, and then everything shifted. i lowered myself, or maybe i fell. then a shove came the other way, then another, and other another. suddenly the house was an airplane in the storm. everything was falling. the frame photo from jerusalem barely missed my head and cracked on the floor. everything was flowing now. waves through the floor. a contest between the up and down and the side to side. who is going to shove harder, the up and down or side to side.

they were both winning. there was a maybe cap cal roar. i appeared, no, no, no, no, no, no, the world turned gray and everything blurred. things falling long after the should have been nothing left to fall. the flap of the crankout windows shot from their frames and burst across the floor. i watched the front wall crack in two, daylight pushing through the dust. the floor disappeared from under me and reapril and was gone. it was going to fall. i was going to fall. i heard a sound like trees being mowed down in the forest. it was the house next door collapsing seconds ago. i thought about running through the shattered glass and tumbling down the stairs but there was no time. when the second floor went i could either be under it or ride down on top of it. i went on top and braced for the pain. that's the beginning of the en, quite literally in fact. fortunately at that moment not of me. so jump forward a little bit

here. just read a couple of short sections. so, the book -- actually takes a large step back after the first chapter and goes through quite a lot of haitian history, back patrol 60 million years,, -- approximately 60 million years and then comes forward and talks about the immediate aftermath of the day after. the first chapter goes to -- theirs more in the first chapter than what just read. and then we have a chap their called crossroads, which is about the immediate tip of the spear response, when the things that most of us outside of haiti saw on television, of the responders coming in and the military and such. i talk about a lot of different things happening at that time. but one of the things that i'm going to talk about here is search and rescue. because -- well, i'll explain

why. search and rescue was the highest priority of the responders. called it the most urgent need, and obama noted the six u.s. search teams in his speeches. the head of the joint task force haiti said, quote, not hundreds but thousands would need to be distracted from the rubble. the rescue teams specialeesed technology and training exemplified the advantages the developed world offered haiti. sensitive microphones, heat-seeking devices and rescue dogs. journalists enshourd audiences would not miss a single survivor being pulled from the rubble. a successful rescue is like an earthquake in reverse. life. the tone of the reporting took on a religious tinge. quote, a new york rescue squad pulled two miracles from the rubble of haiti, led the new york daily is in, at california governor arnold schwarzenegger rashed, quote, many of us were able to watch the california

rescuers live on television performing all of these miracles. the first u.s. team to reach haiti was dispatched to u.n. head quarterback and pulled out a bodyguard with minor injuries. ban ki-moon called it a small miracle. an enormous effort targeted the collapsed hotel mt. which had some 200 people inside, mostly foreigners, when it fell. general keene, the head of the u.s. military response would boast, quote, the hotel montana had six teams alone because of the number of people trapped there. the places were ordinary haitians lived and worked, schools, stores, homes, offices, many we equally gastly numbers inside, got far less attention. after the quake, cnn's ivan watched a team of haitian rescuers try to free a girl whose was under the concrete. they could reach her but didn't

have equipment to carry out. the buried child wailed while the crew debated severing her leg but the amputation could kill her. watson told the anchor in atlanta, on a neighboring hill that's a hotel. a posh hotel, a lot of foreigners were staying at. there are dozens on american french rescuer there, working to rescue at least one woman named sarah who is trapped. then another heard-renting scream from the rubble stopped him cold. it took the rest of the day to find a generator and power saw to pull the girl out. she today of her injuries to days later. there are many reasons for this disparity. most foreign rescuer arrived without clear orders where to go. the hey shawn government had no reporting mechanism in place for those in need and there was no formal coordination of rescueert efforts between organizations or the u.s. task force and the haitian government. foreign officials knew the un

headquarters, hotel montana, and caribbean supermarket, one of d -- those who ven very toured into port-au-prince faced language barriers, some retreated based on vague reports of, quote, civil unrest. the coverage of those few featured rescue sights provided a much-needed uplift for viewers abroad. the luxury hotels and high-end supermarket appeared on broadcasts around the world, and win new rescue teams came in they knew where to go. they had already seen the priority sites on tv. and i will jump to one more in the middle of the book. and n a chapter -- i could explain but -- buy the book. at it explain. but it talks about a donor's

conference held in march of 2010, the end of march of 2010, at which the international community, representatives of governments, major international organizations such as the red cross, came together in new york at the united nations, to make pledges for the long-term rebuilding of haiti and that's in this chapter and this part is just a little before. >> as the conference approached its organizers went to haiti to draw attention to what the considered pry ored for recop trucks, the u.n. secretary general month ki-moon arrived on march 14th. the days were getting longer. farmerson the mountains awaited the daily rains to nourish their corn, potatoes, but the weather looked more ominous in the city. it was impossible to say exactly how many people were now sleeping under open skies but the most widely used estimates estimated over a ten knock of the donary's population.

jurists reporting on the camps. crime-ridden hot beds of simmering unrest, at risk for further calamity. microcosm for their widely held view of haiti. the high lot of the secretary general's visit was a trip to one of these camps. up the hill, on the golf course. the iron gated clubhouse was still a ford operating base of the u.s. army. young paratroopers peered with curiosity as the diplomatic entered with a fay los angeles of security guards. out front was a more familiar face. it bearer was becoming a force even more powerful than the soldiers, sean penn arrived. for a few days the landing team of the relief organization, or

jphro, distributed water filters and medical aid here' and there. then an army officer invited inside the wire. most workers were excited about actress ma rooa. both acors lived in a structure behind the clubhouse which protected them from the elements. ban walked them down the hill. he highlighted the ongoing need for medical aid and an police stand he emphasized the need to protect women and girl from sexual violence. finally they were led to a ridge overlooking the golf course. cameras, directing journalists toward a shot of the secretary general before thousands of blue, white, and orange tarps. once everyone was in place ben spoke. what will happen to the people who are living here when the reasony season starts?

we have to move these displaced persons to a safer place. once again, it was important to understand both the threat and it limits. on a normal day in port-au-prince rain is dangerous. there's little drainage only the streets, causing roads to back up like bathtubs. storms hit hard. one drop, thousand drops and then a river from the sky. it's an old joke in haiti that street merchants will stay still for gun buff run off of after after two drops on their head. it was major overstatement to believe the rains would cause a, quote, second round of death, unquote in any way come miss rat with the earthquake, as bill clinton would warp though, ground had become significantly more dangerous or diseased than before the quake. the rain can be bad but not usually that bad. they don't have a monsoon. the danger of floods and landslides would be somewhat

greater when hurricane season got underway in late summer and fall, but in march there was still several months to mitigate the danger. nevertheless, after returning to new york, ban would expand on his concerns in the washington post writing that, quote, the steep ground would soon, quote, turn to mood, dangerous and diseased. he joined a drum beat of warnings about the approaching of the rains. eight agencies are in a race against time, read a typical prerainy season press release by care. once again, it was as if the only way to get aid groups and donors to, a was to create indiscriminate panic and media were not amused. when the first decent shower hit my editors sent me out to the golf course in full weighedders waders and poncho, i looked like it was entering the mekong delta in july. now, no mother would want to

spend a night holding her crying baby in two feet of [bleep] filled water. you can fine occupant what the bleep is en. while the wind blew and -- no just world would stand by while she had to. nearly every major ngo sign in 2000 to a minimum global standard for disaster response that, quote, people have sufficient covered pace providing protection from the climate, and ensuring privacy and safety. this is a lofty goal because haitians never had this. but the responds would have done well to avoid the panic. after all, had those who rushed in after the earthquake not panicked over mammed thieves familiar anyone and civil unrest and carefully considered strategies strategies to take advantage of the people who went to the countryside after the quake, the

quake zone might not have ended up with huge camps in the first place. the secretary general's plea at the golf course notwithstanding no one was going to be relocated before the rains started in ernest. the attempts to find space was stalled because the wealthy who owned most of the land refused to donate. it was equally unlikely ban ki-moon would have made such a statement without knowing people would be relocated soon or at least where. seems he knew something i didn't. i rant to ask him more but he was enveloped by cameras. and then i saw sean penn walking alone. i reached the actor before a spokesman came over to introduce a blushing colleague. what's the plan for the rains, the spokesman asked, and to my surprise the actor answered in detail. what is the plan or what should be the plan? penn replied, drawing an impatient breath. what should be the plan is total

relocation. penn started giving the extended answer the secretary general had not and his deliver was everything ban welcomed. demonstrative, vivid, and intense. you could forgive. he was handsome, if weathered by 49 years on earth, and with tan skin rapid around cheeks, a pair of aviator sunglasses dangle. he seem to draw from his recent portrayal of stark, the governor of louisiana, but where that dim character was in 1930 populism, haiti went for the monarch of the modern ngo. quote, another thing i think has to be very clear is that a tarper is not a tent. he said. squinting in the mid-daylight. a tomorrow's structure is not a tent. a tarp's structure sits on dirt, this is toxic dirt, which could carry in high number of high

number of life-threatening bacteria, and this is a camp that should be relocated, as many of them should be, flood zones and sew so on, and frankly we have to work to understand how to address the relative unlivability currently of this city if only for children, you know, every good deed today is another cancer patient tomorrow from what they're breathing on the streets. the actor set up parameters for relocation with the confidence of a hardened feel manager. outside port-au-prince. quote, large scale urban camps with manufacturing, lands for agriculture and the ability to build communities, unquote. it was an imparked miami. unafraid to contradict u.s. policy that tarps the u.s. government has been favoring was a war a measly intrusion, and came from a newly minted and recently arrived aid worker but perhaps it wasn't so hypothetical after all. when the population's spokesman

asked penn if he was choosing the relocation site, penn surprised me again by saying he, quote, had a meeting with the president the other day in washington and has extended the members of his government to ask who can advise us. we're going to be shown the sites itch was confused. sean penn had a meeting with the president? in washington? granted, the actresses nicole kidman and angelina jolie were officially un ambassadors, probably more influential than ban ki-moon. george clooney would become a spy master, organizing a system of private satellites. ten penn seemed to be taking the next step. contradicting directly to policymaking, perhaps there has been to more of ki-moon's camp to visit than a round of publicity. [applause]

>> i think probably the best thing to do, because i will find a way to blow the topic, whether of my choosing or yours, is to open it up to questions. so, there's a microphone going around. and also please speak up so that everybody can hear you well. >> are you planning on going back to haiti soon? >> speak up a little more year are you planning on going back very soon? >> yes. >> so, i understand that why cleave started an organization, raised an enormous amount of money. the money disappeared-he is under investigation, can you give some substance to that

whole story? >> sure, wyclef is in the book as well. very interesting guy, and interesting character. he was best known for, in the course of the story in 2010, he wanted to become president of the republic of haiti and mounted a very promising campaign until base lilly at the last minute he was left off the ballot. at that time his financial problems, both personal and on the part of haiti, his charity, his ngo, were factored into that. i would say that interestingly enough, even though it was quite common knowledge in haiti that there was these wide-spread allegation0s unpaid taxes and misspent money that had gone those aid group, most people i

was talking to, haitians, didn't really care all that much. they were much more interested in his promise as somebody basically who had lived the dream of growing up poor outside of port-au-prince, moving to brooklyn and then making it huge, and then coming back as a major star and a major force. i had a conversation in the book here where i'm talking to somebody who was a waiter in a restaurant. i said who do you support in the election? he was like, jean. and i was like why? he is an american, he speaks creole like i do, which he does. i don't know which of us i'm flattering more. probably me. but he said, yes, i know. but if he is american, that

means that when he is electioned president, we're all getting visas. [laughter] >> he said this in terms of the allegations, which have only gotten worse with time, it's hard to say -- there hasn't really been any substantive proof brought forward the allegations are wrong. the allegations are mostly based in paperwork and filings or lack thereof with the irs. one of the nice things about the way business is conducted in this country, clear it there not without problems but at the very least there are filing agencies and oversight agencies. so usually when you have done something wrong so long as somebody is willing to look for you, you probably left some kind of a paper trail, and he seemed to have gotten caught up in that. interesting when you talk to

wyclef, think like a lot of people, haitian and otherwise, who come in to work there, i think he does he big dreams and does mean what he says when he says he wants his organization to help life get better. but the organization doesn't exist anymore. it's been shut down. i don't know if there's going to be a criminal followup to what happened but it's pretty ugly. things didn't turn out well for haiti in the end or other people who were supposed to be helped. >> with all the problems that occurred during katrina, why do you think they didn't do a more effective job, particularly with the engagement of presidents bush and clinton in haiti? >> there is -- the question is,

after everything had gone belong katrina, why didn't they do a better job with the engagement of presidents bush and clinton in haiti. >> this is not the first time that aid has gone wrong. that it has not done what it set out to do and has made problems worse. people who work in aid and development can tell you over and over again story after story after story of places they worked that they came in, they taught it was going to go one way, went the other, they're not pleased. they know there are problems. these are deep-seated structural problems. it is not really a surprise -- it wasn't a surprise to me, i don't think it was surprise to anybody who knows haiti well, not a surprise to anybody who knows disaster relief well, that many of these issues occurred, because they occur everywhere. they occurred here in a very different way, but after sandy, i was paying very close

attention to the news, as the storm was coming up. and you saw a lot of the same things coming up again. a fear, for instance, that in the wake of the storm, there was going to be a wave of panic, a looting, society was going to break down and the mob mentality would take over. people were out there looking for people. the media, the people in disaster relief. officials were out there looking for any sign they could find of society breaking down, the looters coming in, and usually blowing it out of proportion because, really, while there are isolated instance departments here, as there are anywhere, it wasn't that big a deal. now in katrina, more like haiti, that attitude had major, major ramifications. you end up with people,

innocent, new orleanians who survived a disaster and are just trying to stay alive, getting shot to death by the police because the police assumed they're stealing something that they're not. right? so, that's the long way of saying that it would have been nice if there had been the period of reflection. new plans were made for disaster relief going forward so when the haitian earthquake hit, at an hour of no one's choosing could have been implemented but it's not a surprise that-per-reflection had never taken someplace it's a good time to have that period of reflection now. >> i have a question for you. number one, would what do you think of the current president? and what do you think should happen to our street and baby

doc when they return to haiti and what do you know about raw earth? i heard there's discovery of gold and other raw materials in haiti, and third, what do you think is some of the solution to the current plague of haiti right now, with all the problems they're having. the u.n. is down there, hey hear stories of women being abducted and kidnaps. >> you asked me what i think of the current president. i'm just going to dodge that. i'll tell you. what i think should have hasn't to aristede and devalval yay when they returned, and what i know about the raw materials under the earth in haiti, and what can be done to fix it. easy. i've been waiting for this question. the answer, one word. plastics.

um, i have no idea. okay. so a couple of things. first of all, this actually ended up being one of the arcs of the book. politics. the president of haiti at the time of the quake, actually ends up being quite major character in the book, probably to both of our surprise. and in many ways the arc of the book is what happened to his political trajectory and how that led to the elections, which, because everything in haiti has to happen at the same time, occurred the same year at the earthquake, a couple months later in november of 2010. the earthquake was in january. which resulted in the election of mich lel who was best nope as as -- best known as being a carnival singer and taking off

his pants. usually in america we wait until they become president for that to be part of it. haiti decided to reverse it. i like him because his slogan is bald head. right on. he was very interesting because he came into the political neofight. he was a musician. he was seen as basically kind of like a hey shine wyclef -- haitian wyclef. let that sit there. and not a really serious candidate, and he very quickly became a very good and very competent candidate who people really liked. and it surprised a lot of people he became president, and there are many people who cry conspiracy. many who cry conspiracy no matter what the election. but there are many people who cry conspiracy because they could not energy out how a man

like sweet mickey became president of haiti. and you can reality about it. the election was a mess. there were all kinds of things going on. he did have large support, especially in port-au-prince, and people did seem to like him and did have high hopes. so far what i can say -- i think the safest answer is that it's a little too soon to say what the results of his presidency are going to be. things haven't changed all that much in a general sense one way or another. my friends in the press in haiti i think feel a little more restricted than they did under the previous president. it's not in any way the repression that occurred during dictatorshipped of the past but that's a concern. but he is very charismatic and

likeable and more willing to play ball with the united states, investment plans for haiti. of which -- i'm critical of many of which. but i guess we'll seem it's a dodge. but there you go. in terms of what is under the ground, there's certainly gold. there's certainly all kinds of mineral inside haiti. in the dominican republic right next door, the same island, same mountains, contain enormous reserves of gold so wouldn't surprise me at all if there were precious metals under haiti. there are many people -- i don't know if you're one of them -- who believe that essentially everything that is going on in haiti is a grand game to secure rights, mineral rights for american and canadian companies. if it is, i'll write a story about it. i certainly cooperate prove that at the moment. the president has been willing to sign of mineral rights, at

least mineral right ford haitians, for the part of the country that previously had not been sold. open pit mining. not that pleasant if you live in the area. before being the correspondent in port-au-prince i spend time in santo dough meaning go, santo domingo, and i reported from a mine, closed when the price of gold win don't, and the price of gold is up and keeps going up, and so it was going to be re-opened, and there was a huge fight over cleaning up that mine area, because it was a mess. i mean, rivers running red with pollutants, dead fish, people who lost their water sources and now have to walk miles or abandoning places their family lived for generations because the land had been ruined.

if that's the future of haiti, just seems like another problem. and in most countries where large scale mining take place it's not usually the host country that benefits from it. but as to -- i know this wasn't your question, but responding to a question that is sometimes asked as to whether or not everything is -- the key to everything is, rather than plastics, gold, i'm not really sure. gold has been a big deal in the caribbean ever since chris columbus stumbled on haiti. but i don't think there's one single answer that explains everything that's going on. it's probably part of the mix, and i'll let somebody else propose how to fix haiti. >> i'm going to leave this up to you. i'm going to dodge this as artfully as i dodged the question about mickey. >> was the impact of the earthquake largely in

port-au-prince area or outside it? >> the question, was impact of the earthquake in port-au-prince, which is a fantastic question because this gamp overlooked and even hard to write about. the earthquake -- because the thing is that port-au-prince has often stood in for haiti, in the imaginations of people outside. it alives the enormous area in which many, many people, million office people live that is not in port awe print, which is a big deal for a lot of reasons. if you're trying to increase tourism, which there are people who want to do, there are good and bad things about that. thinking outside of port-au-prince is extremely important because the odds of haiti becoming a tourist destination like other island thursday the caribbean is strong. the odds of port-au-prince becoming a tourist destination

are nil. i mean, it would -- that's a long, long way away. the crowded big city. very hard to get around. it's not going to draw in the crowds. that is one thing. but it also impacted the way that people thought about where to direct their aid, and it caused issues because there were people in other parted of the country would were dealing with problems they had long been dealing with, crisis, emergencies, and they were very angry that the aid was being concentrated in port-au-prince and the rest of the country being ignored. [inaudible] >> this is the thing. -- because there's two parts of this. it's that on the one hand the impact of the earthquake was basically in southern haiti. the epicenter was close to port-au-prince, port awe prince was by far the largest center of mortality. and it was by far the largest

center of homelessness and other kinds of need. however, it was not a the only place impacted directly by the earthquake and wasn't the epicenter. the epicenter was closer to another city, and in between those -- is the beginning of the countryside. the crossroads, the rope that chapter four is called the crossroads in part. another beautiful city in southern haiti on the other side of the mountains was also very hard hit. and so it was ironic, because there was this concern that all the aid was being concentrated in port-au-prince, and the parts of the country that had not been impacted by the earthquake were being forgotten but the aid effort, didn't do a good job of hitting the entire quake zone. so areases that weren't in port-au-prince but right on top

of the epicenter -- and i can say because, as the resident correspondent, ap sent an enormous team. there were many, many journalists who came in for us to report. which really freed a lot of us to do all kinds of different things and since i was the resident guy, i spoke creole, i knew the country, i was happy to move around, and i probably looked like a guy who needed a break from the city, i kept getting sent out to places out of the quake zone that people were fleeing to. and i can tell you a couple things. briefly. one, two cities were wiped out. a level of destruction, even having survived the earthquake in port-au-prince and seeing what is otherwise an unimaginable level of destruction, laogon look like a jerry bruckheimer film.

and it looked like a monster came out of the ocean and smashed the city. it was flat. nothing left. a complete dead zone. many people died. many people survived the collapse of their home. but that place was gone. this is the story that is no not the book so i'll share it with you. i was actually sitting on the back of a pickup truck in laogon, three or four days after the earthquake, four days. i had to file a story. and i was sitting there and just sort of typing what i saw. i think i even type jerry bruckheimer film into my mac book. and a group of guys from the united states, clearly, came around and we were sitting next to the hull of what had been the hospital. everything basically in front of us was flat and the hospital was cracked and listing. and they came through and they

said, excuse me, are you american? yes, i am. is the hospital open? i'm like, well, literally, but -- i didn't say that. i think i just said no. clearly not operating. and why said they had come from kansas city and they had raised money and they had brought pharmaceuticals and ban damages and medical supplies and they had come to haiti and driven to this city because they heard it was in dire straits, and they wanted to help, and they asked me if i had seep any n dp os walking around they could give this medicine to so the medicine could get to the people. i said, no. le are you an ngo? i was like, no, i'm not. and then they thanked me and then they walked out into this rubble field. this is like four days after the earthquake. and the situation was like this for a while.

so it was really interesting. i was like people. ...

in the popular imagination, port-au-prince it's very hard to explain. it is very unlikely to be a direct result of the earthquake. that is just my personal opinion. yes? >> [inaudible question] >> sure. >> [inaudible question] >> jonathan, what do you see as the future of it 10 years from now? the amount that's a good question. i don't know. you know, i can say that haiti as a country, port-au-prince at

the city, and the other cities of the earthquake zone, there have been large earthquakes in this area in northern haiti. a city in northwestern haiti is routinely hit by tropical storms and hurricanes. those places are no better prepared for disaster than they were on the 12th of january of 2010. in that sense, if there is another disaster, and there could well be, a couple of days in, as i said, it could basically be a bumpy road that is devastating. that fact remains very high.

and as long as people still have an opportunity to talk about it, we are linked together in one way or another. because we have to be fully invested in the country's past. we have little investments in its future. we have the ability to make the country stronger and resilient and better able to withstand disaster on its own. we can step back and allow patients to lead the way. we can't allow the possibility that we belong and we have made mistakes if those things are

done, things are going to turn on immediately. if we keep doing what we are doing, what we are for the earthquake, what we did in the aftermath of the earthquake, and what is happening right now, 10 years from now, probably things will be worse. but there is no reason why that has to happen. one of the things that we are hoping for, i am not an evangelist, i'm not a journalist -- but i do care about this country. it was my home for 3.5 years, have a lot of friends and it's a wonderful place. if there is good that can come out of this, we can look at the mistakes that have been made in the past and learn and take the lessons to our advantage. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like us and interact with

booktv guests and viewers and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> the best day to be a player in america was july 9, 2004, when dick jackson, holly from dan, and lawrence frank came out with a book about public health. what i did was put some epidemiological meet on the sociological bones that we planners have been arguing about. the suburbs are killing us, here is why. the greatest aspect of that epidemic, or our health challenges is the obesity epidemic. it's not the obesity itself is the problem, but all of this illness is that it leads to.

diabetes consumes 2% of our gross national product. a child born after the year 2051 in three chance of becoming a diabetic. we are now looking at the first generation of americans who are going to live shorter lives than their parents. that is probably not a huge surprise to you. we have all been talking about the wonders of the american diet and the sodas that we are drinking. only recently has the argument and have the studies been done comparing diet and physical inactivity. one doctor at the mayo clinic for patients and electronic underwear and measured every motion. set a certain diet regime and some people got back from other people didn't. expecting some sort of metabolic factor at work, the only thing

that changed people with the amount of daily activity. i forget the first name of the gentleman in the blue zones, where in the world do people live the longest? you see what they do, they drink redlined calmly put in the book, and you make millions. don't become a weekend warrior, don't asked people to exercise, they will stop. build exercise in a normal way of life. who will go from being unaccountable lumberjack? well, that's not what happened. walk to work, walk to the store. the one thing that the book forgets to ask you is that you can certainly walk to the store because you live in a cul-de-sac

off of the interstate and you're not able to get there. it's about how we build our communities. it is a choice you can make. that is nowhere more obvious than in car crashes. they are funny because on the one hand, we nationalize it. oh, that's just a part of living that was a one in 200 chance that all die in a car crash. that's just part of life. nothing i can do about it. or, we feel like we are in charge on the road. we are good drivers will it's not the same all over the world now

14,000 people are dying in car crashes. in england it is five out of 100,000. in new york city, it is three out of 100,000. new york city has saved more lives in traffic and lost since september 11 that were lost by september 11. in the short-term, -- we can just decide to live in more urban environment. in the long term, we can be more healthy. dick jackson's famously asked the question, what sort of environment or city are you most likely to die in a pool of blood? that is how he puts it to his audiences. they compared murder by strangers, crime, to car crashes

and added the two together. in all three places you are safer in the gritty cities because the accommodation of those two. fourteen americans die every year from asthma, it's easy, everyday from asthma. it is three times the rate of the '90s and entirely due to automotive exhaust. ninety something percent. it's not what it used to be. finally, it is the environmental

discussion thread which has turned 180 degrees and last 10 years. the vulcan project maps where our apartment for a prince are. red is bad, green is good. it looks like the united states sky at night. that carbon footprint, scott bernstein in chicago said what happened to the center of measuring co2 per mile? we start measuring co2 per household. well, they're only a certain number of us. we can choose to live where we per loop more or less. if you look at a per household, the red and green just let. you absolutely change places. the healthiest place you can lives in the city. manhattanites burn one third of the fossil fuels as other people

in dallas, for example. they are heating and cooling as neighbors, their apartments are touching. and there is less driving if they are doing. transportation is the greatest single contributor to most civilians in greenhouse gas emissions. that is the greatest race we can make. when i built my house in washington dc, i cleaned the shelves on the sustainability store. i got the solar panels, one hotter heater. wood burning stove. a law burning in my wood burning stove contributes less co2 than it was to decompose and force nationally. the energy saver lightbulb save as much electricity -- i should say as much carbon a year is

moving to the neighborhood saves in a week. the whole gadget discussion, what can i buy to make myself more sustainable, and where can i live, how can i live to contribute less. and the answer is the city. this is fundamentally the opposite of the american egos. you know, from jefferson on. the morals and the health and the freedom of man, if we continue to pile up on ourselves as cities doing here, we can take what they say in america. and it made sense in the 1700s when we had the whole country to spread out on. but that is not the case now. we have a national economic crisis which is only going to

get tougher. we have a national economic health crisis which is bankrupting us. as hurricane sandy group, global warming is affecting us dramatically. we need to solve these challenges as a nation collectively. >> eucom on this program and more at booktv.org. >> host: you're watching the communicators on c-span. we are in las vegas at ces international at the las vegas convention center. here are some of the interviews we did this week. we would like to introduce you to go mckenney, the new president and ceo of cable labs. what is cablelabs?

postmark we have been around for 25 years. services that you are familiar with, such as broadband and video, we provide those i am not new to the cable industry. i came from a technology officer at hewlett-packard. >> host: what do you think you bring to cablelabs? >> guest: i bring as a whole other perspective the perspective and not just the core technology, but how it is consumed by the consumers. what do people actually do with the technology in their homes and lands and on their desks. what does that really drive for a benefit in productivity?

for me it is about coming up with those great ideas and having them have a high impact. >> host: what are some of the things you are excited about? >> guest: we have been looking at the programs that we have running. we have narrowed it down to key focus areas. one is to work on new technology. we have the cablelabs that will allow the cablelabs 10 gigs on the download and one gig on the download speed. this is kind of where we are seeing that progression. higher capacity, better technologies on the network side, more capacity to watch videos and, you know, communicate with friends and all

kinds of things. >> is not going to take new hardware and new wires into the home? >> no, actually the cable industry has argued that these in play. there is all of this cap ex investment over this. mike of time. the collapse that comes into your house has, you know, phenomenal amount of capacity with it. the technology is taking advantage of these advances in allowing the cable operators to take advantage of what they have already invested in. >> host: mr. mckinney, is this a growing industry? >> guest: oh, yes, definitely. we have our membership is worldwide, and that is part of the u.s. if you look in areas like china, there could be up to $30 billion of cap ex funds. even here in the united states, we are still seeing growth.

there is no slowing down. there is this insatiable hunger for full capacity in the cable industry. being able to choose a provider of choice to provide those services. >> host: when you look 10 years down the road, how will people be viewing video over tv? >> guest: the role of the second screen in your living room, having a remote control, now you are seeing this as a device

shipped. i have it in my living room, but i want to see it out and about. it's a way the way that consumers want to enjoy the content. they want to see the content that they want. so i think you will see a shift in what the concept is and what device they want to enjoy it on. >> host: about a year ago, you publish your first book, beyond the obvious. >> guest: i'm a believer that creativity and innovation is not a gift. it's a skill that anyone can learn and be good at. everyone can benefit from it. even in your business world or family world. it's based on the seven years of podcasts that i have been producing.

basically it is taking all of this experience in information and make it widely available. make it available for small businesses all the way up to large organizations. basically revealing what some may think our secrets. it is basic skills and it is hard work. innovation is not the serendipity thing that everyone imagined it could be. it's hard work, but anybody can provide proficiency on it to. >> host: what is the term bhag? [laughter] >> guest: well, it is a acronym. if you can define it, you will be amazed at how the human sphere achieves that. how people will come together around a common goal. the state program here in the

united states is a perfect example. kennedy laid out the objective of putting a man on the moon. in the cable industry, there are transitions that we are seeing in the industry. how do you transform the network technology, we open all these devices. some of the bhag devices worked with content sources and content coming from traditional programming channels. what is anime? what we need to look at? we are in the stages of really defining a handful of two or three of those devices of bhag

in order to define the industry. >> host: this is very critical of the cable industry. >> guest: when you think about the amount of dollars put into the industry, there's a big capability that is there. the talent is when you serve 98 and 98% of those -- you have to think about the size and scale. it's part of a challenge when you're dealing with $40 billion of revenue. you have to think about it in the context of scale. it can cause you to move

forward. part of what the ceos and cable operators have dealt with, what they clearly have done is picked up the technology. how do we do it in two years, or how we doing in one year. one of the core premise is that we have laid out for cablelabs is to pick up that page. we are in that early stage. the beginning of that new idea. >> host: what differences have you discovered between silicon valley, culture, and cable culture? >> cable culture is very entrepreneurial. a big monolithic company, but still, a lot of the cable industry is still family owned. you know, think about communications. they are very entrepreneurial

and they do not shy away from the risk of investment. it is their own money and what is very unique about this industry is how well they cooperate. there is no other industry that i have ever been involved in where you can bring an entire industry together to have a conversation, dead aligned and get this done. especially in a cohesive way. it's very unique, which in the case of silicon valley, you have all of these little companies are competing together against each other. >> host: phil mckinney, have you had to deal much with washington and policy issues in your career? >> guest: i have in my past. when i was in washington dc in the business. i have seen my fair share on the hill, talking about things in front of the sec. but it's been a while.

my current role, i don't have a responsibility for the cable industry. michael powell, who is the ceo, michael and i have known each other for many years and it is a great partnership. >> host: what is the future of wireless when it comes to the cable industry? >> guest: it is a growing interest of the cable industry. we have cablevision, comcast, time warner, etc. all bringing those networks together. you are a cable subscriber and you have access as part of that.

they want access to this in their home, and also outside of their home. we can offer the value-added component when you are out and about. that is not just limited to your neighborhood, but being able to use that nationwide. >> host: back to beyond the obvious, you talk in your book about the importance of the question. >> guest: if i ask a question, you can't stop yourself from answering the question. so if i ask you a question, you have populated the answer and respond me. if it's math question, the challenges with questions, no matter how you ask them, you build in a natural response.

that is split vertically. if i had 13 and a deck of of cards come in a mental card is five. part of it is asking questions in such a way that you never consider. it causes you to look at the problem in a unique way. >> host: can you give a concrete example of where that has been tested? >> guest: oh, yeah. what about the customer -- what do they not like about the buying experience of the product. i want to find customers who looked at our products but chose a different product. people don't volunteer the stuff. what you found for seven years

was me watching customers on saturdays in retail stores. i would watch them and i would introduce myself and handle my business card. intended to freak them out, they thought they were being stalked and i would ask them what do they not like about the product. and what help them choose this other product. we got phenomenal insight if we had not been there to ask questions. >> host: phil mckinney.com is a website in case you like to read some of his blogs. what is the killer question? >> guest: the killer question is one that transforms and create something. it's high-margin and transforms her career. >> host: when you hear the term tv everywhere, what does that mean you? >> guest: that is the ability to watch your device anywhere that

you want at the time that you want. you are in control. it's getting there. part of the challenges, things like life. some providers don't allow you to have access to it, like hbo, but some do, you can watch your favorite hbo content wherever you are out. so it's getting there. the industry is moving. >> host: is the package industry -- do you think that is a continual thing? a continual process that could be offered. >> guest: as far as offering packages? to be honest, that is not a decision of the cable industry but the programmers. programmers control how all these shows bundled together work. you have to buy the side

channels and it's part of a negotiation from the programmers standpoint. it is really not a decision of the cable industry. that is the question you should ask of the programmers. >> host: here at ces las vegas, what have you been excited to see? >> guest: well, forte is a big hit. it is twice the resolution of your hdtv today. all the big tv manufacturers are showing it. it's a transition from standard definition to high-definition, and achieving a jump in resolution again coming. that technology is not going to go mainstream for three or four years. it's just very expensive. we are still in the early stages of having content available at that resolution. but that is the hot topic here at the show. some of the interesting things are health care. within ces, they have

governments. they hold what is called the health summit. things that you wear, things are not only help you to want to get healthy and lose weight, but also services and technologies that allow you to age in place. these technologies allow you to be monitored by health professionals and family members. lots of interests, particularly if you look at the baby boomers retiring. the importance of being able to use technology to artman health care. >> host: it is headquartered in colorado. when will you be opening up a lab in california? >> guest: we are still looking for space in silicon valley. midsummer timeframe. the real purpose for the silken valley office is to really

innovate on top of the cable technology. we believe that we have a great platform for other innovators and we want to make that as easy as possible. we want to start a culture that is. we want to start a culture that is in the valley. >> host: this is "the communicators" on c-span. phil mckinney has been our guest >> host: hello, this is "the communicators" on c-span. we are at ces in las vegas and here here's more of our coverage. joining us now on "the communicators" is charla rath. she is the vice president for verizon. charla rath, is there a shortage at this moment? >> guest: that is a really

important question at this time. it's a very lengthy process and there is a concern that in three to five or 10 years time frame, there won't be enough spectrum to support the kind of development that we actually see here at ces. it's a very valid concern. there is incredible growth in mobile video and all sorts of different mobile users. i think if you see a large portion of this, it would in fact be portable or whatever. three years ago, there were not even tablets, there are so many issues we are seeing incredible growth in. no amount of innovation is going to account for this.

>> host: what is the best policy of verizon. >> guest: in our view? well, in our view there are multiple approaches to solving the spectrum crisis, if you will. it actually allows them to buy incentives to current holders of licenses that may not have very much flexibility. for example, a broadcaster, with all they can do is broadcast.

what this does is actually says to the licensee, well, if you put your spectrum up for sale, he put up some portion of the proceeds. we are also working very closely with the federal government. there are also a number of deficiencies that you can build up your technologies. [inaudible] and then there is technology that can change. and we need to accommodate them push policies that allow the spectrum to go from very inflexible to single-purpose uses all the way up to much more

valuable uses. >> host: are shared uses a possibility? >> guest: it is one possibility. but we also believe exclusive licensing -- it's probably one of the best ways to encourage economic growth and development. [inaudible] i will also say that given how deeply and intensive the spectrum is right now, there will probably be more going forward.

>> host: is a government sitting on a new sector that should be released to the market? >> guest: yes, i think the straightforward answer would probably be yes. but it is actually require some background in information. when you need it, it's very important that you have access to it, even if you don't have all the time. but there is expense among government users. if you think about it, they are not commercial and economic consensus uses. they don't have to pay for the spectrum. they don't have to monetize it in any way. they can just use it and basically it is given to them. as a result, they are not always thinking about how to make it more efficient use of it.

the government doesn't necessarily have the ability to do that. the bottom line is that we think there is probably spectrum that could be shifted to commercial use. for the benefit of the economy. >> host: what is the science behind the 4-g? >> guest: i'm not sure i could answer that in layman's terms. i should probably get some engineering personnel there. it is something called ofdm that makes a much more use of efficiency. i'm sure they could tell you how it works. >> host: verizon, what is the current status between verizon and the others?

>> guest: the second portion of that deal closed last summer. we are expecting it sometime this year, that it will be, you know, this year maybe next year -- we will be watching for it. [talking over each other] >> host: will it be online? >> guest: yes, it will be. we purchase that kirk -- per capacity. it is more and more of a crunch and we can see it online and serve the needs of our customers. >> host: you sent out a tweet about how verizon could use the

spectrum more efficiently. did you get some feedback, with some of it negative and what is your response? >> guest: well, it has been interesting. you have to take everything with a little bit of a grain of salt. what happened is t-mobile, we actually sold some spectrum to t-mobile, they sold some to us, we need to maintain that we are extremely efficient users, we have more customers per megahertz than any other company. you know, we have folks that are loyal customers of. >> host: do think that there needs to be a governing factor? using the congress understands

the issue that you face. >> guest: that is an interesting question. in addition, it updated the commercial spectrum enhancement act, which is the act that permits the government to use proceeds from the auction of the federal government sector to upgrade their system. both of them were very good things. is there a need for a conference a piece of legislation? you know, not so much on the sector side.

and i like what congress did last year. it actually really win fairly far. it kind of resolved a few key issues that have been outstanding for while. >> host: how much of your day and work week deals with the sec type of stuff? >> guest: that is an interesting question. i am not somebody who is daily at the sec. i think about what kind of spectrum can come out online in five or 10 years. [inaudible] we were talking about long-term and what to do with the second policy, generally. >> host: five years down the line, 10 years down the line, what worries you and what are you excited about to .

>> guest: what worries me is that i don't want to be put in the same places i was a couple years ago going to the government and saying i will have more spectrum. i would like to see a process of spectrum management that actually is much more market-driven. things that are available to existing licensees, but what excites me, quite frankly, some of the things that we talked about last night. a lot of times people go and they want to watch whatever movie is that they want to watch. but this is really about being

able to truly be a connected society. and in a way, to deal with some of the other shared types of things we talked about. we talk about education and health care [inaudible] if you are in your car, it's going to be mobile. so often, we should view the spectrum is being related more towards it's really to enable the kind of interconnected health care and energy education policies. it's all going to be mobile.