forever more be seen through that. thank you very much. [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> we have time for questions. so if you have a question, please come on down to the microphone. we encourage the students and faculty and staff and community members for the questions. >> hello, my name is jim and you gave me great comfort. i know if i am ever kidnapped, it is because i'm incredibly good-looking. [laughter] i practiced criminal law in that area and you just gave the finest presentation and laying

out of any case i have ever heard. you are probably one of the finest young journalists. thank you for sharing with us today. >> thank you. [applause] >> make you again for that wonderful talk today. i'm a professor of criminology here. my question is what you propose is a solution to this fine line between opinion based versus fact-based journalism. i know that in madrid, there are five or six different papers, and you know you are picking it up, what opinion you are getting. but do you have a solution in mind? that people know what they are getting? >> i don't think the question is that people know what they are

getting when they have a particular name. so i think that you know where they are coming from because you kind of know that is developed over time and you kind of know what they are going to say in the political spectrum. i think that is less of an issue than people in their appetites for actual news and what people want is they want someone else to chew it over, do all the hard work, and i think that that is the problem. there is a decrease in literacy, even among the most literate people in the country. you see that in research and also in terms of books.

just on their own, not part of a class event. it is shocking that they don't read because it's fun. they only read because it's proper. and i think that that idea, that we are getting to a point where they think they getting news is reading a bunch of tweaks across a twitter feed, which is basically headlines, where it flows through a facebook page or slows down a block. we might want to blame the media companies that. they are just trying to survive. so if people were, you know, if

they were dying to get straight news and straight news coverage was getting a tremendous rating, you would see a lot more people doing it. the ratings do not suggest that. what they do suggest is the more the partisan view becomes, the bigger the personality, the more outrageous they are. the bigger their ratings. so in a media environment, those media companies are saying, okay, how do we do that? had we give people more of what they want and somehow stay true to what we believe is in their vital best interest to provide straight news. i think newspapers and magazines do a little bit more and you have to buy this as a chunk. but online you don't. there is a tricky balance that you have to play.

on television, there are one or two or three at a time. so you have to say, how do we hold that 30 minutes. i don't want to say death to the public. >> hello, my name is colby barnes and i am part of the retired faculty. many of this information is based on facts. if you present the facts and then you give an opinion, and you leave the door open for another interpretation, what is the real facts? >> welcome as far as i'm concerned, there is another element, if you're asking me.

people can look -- you can look at any incident. the school shootings and etc. you have the same set of facts. you can have a lot of different opinions about what that means, what it means about safety, making sure that our children are safe, and people can come with those same set of factors, very different perspectives. the problem is when people are unwilling to entertain perspectives, but not confirm what they already believe you if you're not willing to read something that challenges what you believe, than it does become an echo chamber and you are kind of in a -- you are getting further away from letting other people do that for you because

that area is where you feel most comfortable. you should constantly be uncomfortable. you should constantly be in a position where you feel like you have to and can defend your position. i think there is a certain laziness where people are saying, okay, i don't want to have to defend my position. i just want people to tell me that i'm right. ..

in other countries people have set aside creative institutions for the delivery and for what he would call unbiased information so they can operate in a democracy. we have chosen not to do that with the exception perhaps of marginally of public television, and that is the systemic cause of why we are getting more and more opinion rather than more and more information but the second thing i would like to say is that simply i think that it's true we have more than such partisan news and information but many countries have partisan news information and they've managed to survive. they have a vigorous debate. it's partisan and people still

manage to be informed. so i think that we should begin to interrogate whether or not the way that we have organized the mass communication system is such that we are going to give the information that we need to be a responsible citizens. but last come and maybe we should change that. because i was trained as a journalist but i look at it differently now and as this somehow there is information that is unbiased because people perform a certain number of rights talking to this source and then a second source and now we have the truth. i think that object to the inn itself is something that needs to be interrogated. is it true if you read a story in "the new york times" you are actually getting the fact or a selection of fact made by an individual according to his or her own by a cs about what constitutes the truth about a situation.

so i just wanted to if you would interact with this idea that there is information out there that somehow we is reliable and there are other forces now federally giving partisan information therefore we are impoverished because of that. >> well, i mean on the reliability truth part, what i think we are coming to grips with in an information age is this kind of avalanche of information, so every year it seems another agency makes more data available online partly because they can no longer afford to print a giant box and somebody has to flip through each one so that is available online at a press conference you usually click on the link and there are 200 or 500 pages.

in a fury and people continue to think this makes a more educated decision. all information is accessible. in truth and in practice people are like what is 500 pages? i'm not reading 500 pages. you know, tell me what's in these 500 pages. so, people i think are having the exact opposite that people when there are three brands of see real people quickly make a choice walking down the aisle some other day. too much choice and to much information as over willing to people and in fact i think it is leading to less information and this a dilution of things coming

their way. that's why they are looking for people to synthesize and they are not necessarily looking for people to synthesize on a factual basis. it is so much that people say is this is this the truth or what the people say and hear the truth of what they said there are described this right or are your quotes correct they say a separate thing because is this the truth of the entire matter and i don't think that sometimes we are getting to be crux of that matter but in some cases we don't know the truth of the matter is. but what we are saying is we are going to do our best to give you a survey of people discussing

what's in these pages. one of the classic examples for that i think that will continue to exist is the affordable care act. almost no one read the affordable care act. almost to this day no one has read the entire thing. even in congress. right? so, you start asking people about specific provisions, go on the hill and start asking. they will call the page come get me the pages, because no one knows. what was it like over a thousand pages? people get -- those kind of things are overwhelming to people coming and people like toledo the have access to it, they don't exactly access it. >> back to my point, do you think there should be a non-commercial, non-governmental organization that's responsible for providing us with news

rather than relying on commercial services. it's rather than -- if there is an appetite you could literally run a month-long special on the affordable care act. the provision between the big businesses, small business individuals, whether or not it is helpful but they believe it is helpful and hurts their business helps this family they will take away the long standing provider for them. where is the truth in that? it will be after it is enacted which will take years after it is enacted and we can go back

and look at the data we can see the bigger trend is that it helps this group of people or her to that group of people we need to adjust this particular provision and not that one. but i literally don't think there is the appetite, even if you have it to have someone do that. and i think that is a big problem. >> i guess the concluding thing is -- >> the question is should we have a bbc. i don't know. i don't know. >> thank you again, mr. below for coming. appreciate your talk quite a bit. you said something i thought was pretty provocative and that is that it's the duty of the trayvon martin that led to this becoming such a fall lowercase, such an interesting case with so many people. and, you know, i think the previous questioner, professor

leslie, in his presentation talked about how you can look at different forums for the news on trayvon martin. you look at black newspapers, black media if you want to call it that, and then you look at the majority media, and you can see they had a different interest in the case and that their representation of trayvon martin is different based on that. so, then what we were getting at is we were getting to the point where the case went national. it got into the national media. we started seeing people sign petitions and getting concerned about trayvon martin. and i'm not -- i don't have any data on this but my guess is that the majority of people were not black. and so, what we were seeing is a reaction to the perceived injustice of the situation that was crossed racial. so, what i wanted you to talk about is whether or not you

thought that there was some deeper meaning or some deeper understanding about where we are with race in a society today. based on the way that this message of course introduced by people like yourself who were in the mainstream media, but basically does that have any reflection on the way that the majority of the american society can see the racial conflict today? >> well, first the point that i am making is my theory is it is an amplifier it isn't the cause of the outrage that a young attractive people when they perceive them to have been the victims of injustice, that young attractiveness as strange and horrible as this is is the amplifier of sympathies. now whether or not the kind of

crossover in support says something about race it was much more ideological than it was racially because if you look at the same reports that i cited, the gaps between whites and blacks was even bigger. so the gaps between the number of blacks that were following -- percentage, the percentage of blacks felt in this case extremely closely was approaching the percentage of blacks was approaching out like a third of whites come and the same inverse relationship existed among whites and blacks on the other way to say most -- this case was receiving way too

much attention and was receiving not enough and i think when i look at the racial data in those polls, it wasn't optimistic. and i think to the degree some of the televised rallies were the first i think that was ideological because of the way that the case was represented as liberal or conservative. >> from the department of history -- >> i'm so nervous with all these professors asking questions. >> i'm not even a professor. >> i'm sweating on this. [laughter] >> i should also sort of give

you the call i am canadian and i have had the good fortune growing up with the cbc that gives you a bland boring style of news. i've had the unfortunate experience countering cable news in the state since moving here. there was a joke going around during the election that bush will say. is flat and al gore will say that it's round in the head line will be candidates disagree on the shape of the earth. and it seems to me that there is some serious systemic problem. most cable news seems to have someone that is moderate to be gently to the right of center and then some hysterically right-wing person will define object to the that is in between

the two, the love of big banks and it seems to me your concern over appetite for the news think it's understandable. do you think there might be a problem with the fact people like me better left of center feel like the objective news out there is even the news to begin life? >> the facts are not negotiable. what end up being argued about quite often in our news is whether or not what perspective you are coming from in relation to those facts. is their someone pointing fingers at striking down on

earth you will have a certain set of believe when it comes to abortion and follow from that sort of the leaf. if you believe that there was a big bank and that jesus didn't ride on the back of a triceratops, then you probably believe another certain set of facts which is that global warming is a real thing we have to do something about. so coming at that come in determining what set is going to be in terms of media. the incredibly religious society more than any other industrialized country and religion plays a large part and

creeps into how we define using the fact we still capitalize when we write it in the newspapers and the fact we will allow every presidential candidate to say that that is real and no one ever questions that. everyone gets a question as to whether or not it is manmade or not. so we as a whole culture are very religious. we give certain privileges to that religionocity and we allow it to exist without question. and within our politics over the to our media coverage so long as we allow that as a culture and expect that from the news, then

you are really going to have these very extreme views where people seem to win not even on the same planet, the but they don't believe in the same set of facts. i get profess to speak. i have a specific question about this whole issue of homicide. since trayvon martin we saw jordan davis outside of orlando on the stand your ground case and we recently saw in brooklyn the uprising that occurred after that. it became increasingly shocking to me when i realized the leading cause between 18 to 34i believe is actually homicide cannot cancer but homicide. so i was wondering what does it take for this to become sustained national issue that is in the media on a regular basis, does it need to be framed as a public health issue or something else that needs to be done to

kind of keep that in the conscious? >> i think all of them bypass the public health issue but we do not describe it that way and it's incredibly resistant to keeping any sort of data that means there is no study -- there was an interesting report done at the university of chicago. there was a major one the studies about gun violence over some crazy thing like 20 years or something. there is no data. all of the arguments seem to fall flat.

we have the data and we are studying that all the time. it's still private. they can track which population is being affected more and how people are behaving and engage in sexual activity. we have tremendous amounts of information. that means that we can target intervention messages. we can't do that with guns because everyone speculates. maybe it's video games -- but we don't know because we make sure we don't trap all the data. so if we actually start to label

gun violence, and i think most of that is done related come if we start to track down violence as a public health issue and start to treat the collection of data as a public health issue you can still maintain privacy, but you know how to target your messaging. if it is law-abiding citizens. towards the people that is the biggest problem. part of obama's proposal on this a lot of it is going to go up in flames. most of the executive orders were about data.

there was no data collection. >> this is something i had no prior knowledge of but in defense my mom just bought me this shirt. [laughter] just a quick question. you mentioned that people's opinions are negatively changing, that maybe we are becoming more ignorant, or i think that you said it was developing a laziness. i was wondering how much of that is actually related to new technology and easy information access and maybe we are not developing a laziness but exposing it and one that we already have like exposing our own ignorance anybody can go on twitter and say something or anybody can go on facebook and

say something aren't more of us going to college than we were before. >> you hit an interesting point. in my opinion, this is what i do, in my opinion, it's about in terms of the broader aspect there are more people getting for all the education in terms of death we are shallow as we have been as a public overall and that is because the act, the practice of literacy is losing currency so the people who were of my mother's age when you went to college you read everything.

that's how they learn. we are a very different kind of society. do it prep for the s.a.t. that is considered to be an educated person. the previous iterations there were not that many people going to college with the well first human being. one marker when i see writing from people that have retreated from college and i cringe.

it's not because they are not smart, they haven't written enough to be good writers than nine years to among the college educated kids and intellectual curiosity. i've been on a couple panels in new york city and invariably there is some industry no matter what the industry is and they are constantly complaining about they don't hire anybody because the kids don't know anything. they had three assistant for something and he said i had to fire all of them because they don't read books. i think we are coming up against

having a kind of generation of people who think that they can survive the gandy educated and the intellectual in the absence of those constant pursuit of knowledge of the constant pursuit of grades. that is the way that we are assessing education. >> thanks again for coming. apologies for the questions. i was wondering if you thought he would consider maybe the personality journalism to be somewhat consistent with the rise of the diversity among the community of journalism because it seems to me there might be a danger just pointing a finger

towards the journalists just by virtue of the fact you are black or brown or whenever. they are in such a way that for one thing you can't separate. like i'm latina. i can't not be latina. but furthermore it puts a label on that. there is a danger considering that -- i consider it to be now put a history of journalism being rich white male-dominated. when i look at the group of leading the opinion makers, the personality journalists there are not many latinas, there are no asians. it shows people consider on the

sunday shows. they still do not reflect america. a year and a half we overlap on the editorial page but now i am the only minority on the editorial page of "the new york times". i'm the only southerner it still isn't -- i don't look at that as being the issue because we are still stuck in 1960 in terms of how integrated the media is.

i think that the change is just that people prefer personalities and -- here is something people don't tell you and you will not say out loud. racism -- racial preference, i hate the word racism -- racial preference is amplified on television, right? so, they can talk about why you will not be part of the program in codes that never say it's because of race. we don't need to review at the same time. i won't be back to this show. but they say things like that out loud and it's considered to

be okay because they understand when they are in the whole country they actually will say things like this is too much of that, we don't really connect to that person. as a people, minorities constantly struggle, can i let my hair grow out of my head of the way it grows out of my head or must i change it with chemicals in the job. people make that choice because it is a decision. that's the comment it is an

assault. they can have those discussions without ever really saying. they didn't care but they are responding to the way that america responds to the people on the screen. they are responding in some cases to a subliminal some conscious racial preference among the american public about who is about to be a personality journalist in america. i guess i was considering more the blotters and website like

color lines or news programs like democracy now. its color lines informing them of a certain perspective. but it seems like there wasn't something like that that was accessible before ten to 15 years ago. so i am saying it would be labeled as the type of personality journalism that you're talking about. >> not necessarily. i mean, if you have to go a little bit further back in history to remember what segregation did to journalism. all of the images that you will ever see can with the black press. you have to create your own soul

in every city there was a black newspaper. every one of them. and i am sure the same thing existed for other communities. you have to go further from that and say there is always the press that came from a certain perspective in america and some of that has with integration to some degree was eaten away and all of your talent observed into the mainstream but not at the rate that you thought it would become so you're independent ethnic presses but you didn't get your kind of equitable distribution of the people within the mainstream. as a, now you have the worst of both worlds.

>> let's get charles blow a warm thank you for the wonderful talk. [applause]

today we meet to discuss the safety report reaching the zero actions to eliminate alcohol impaired driving. this is critical because of

impaired driving remains one of the biggest killers in the united states. 25 years ago today, our nations of the deadliest alcohol impaired driving crash in u.s. history. a drunk driver drove his pickup the wrong way on interstate 71 near carrollton kentucky. he hit a school bus and killed 24 children and three adult chaperons injured in 34 more. the families in carrollton kentucky are recognizing the 25th anniversary of the crash. that same year, impaired drivers would kill thousands more. let's look at how we are doing as a nation to address the national epidemic of impaired

driving. as i will explain, we have made progress since that deadly night in kentucky. but it's been not nearly enough. in 1982, the first year of the far tracking system, 21,113 people died in u.s. crashes involving alcohol when. driving. this represented nearly one-half of all highway deaths. the percentage due to alcohol impaired driving is about one-third of all highway fatalities. moving the percentage from one-half to one-third of highway fatalities has taken great effort by thousands of dedicated people of many organizations

[applause] >> earlier this month supreme court justice sonia sotomayor spoke with av, ninth and tenth graders and answer questions about her childhood, her career and the inner workings of the supreme court. this is about 50 minutes. [applause] >> it is still not real for me when someone calls me a rock star laughter could because inside of me when i think about me, i don't think i've gotten

older. i still think of me about your age. believe it or not my hair was curly year. all those things have changed but inside i still feel like you maybe some of you are one who dreamed. but that isn't going to mean anything it means that much to you right in here and the now. all i can do is share with you what i have learned through my life so that if you have moments like the ones that i've had in

my life you write remember my words someday and they might give you hope for yourselves. when you become a rock star like people say i am. you know when you lose? you lose the ability to the in the audience because they put me in the front of the room everywhere i go. sometimes it is just nice to look and listen and i've got to do too much talking now so i'm only going to talk to you for a few minutes and have a conversation because i hope he will ask me questions. there's a lot of seats over here. don't be ashamed. i've got some people. tell your mom to bring you over.

when i was your age i didn't know that there was a supreme court. in the days before the internet when you heard a word like the supreme court, you had to pick yourself up and go to the library and research was meant. so if i heard the word supreme court and i probably did in the news 1i didn't bother remembering the word. i was looking it up, so i knew that there was a quote out there that the only court i understood is the court that i had seen on television. and my favorite show when i was a kid was perry mason the time television was black-and-white that you got to see the first television lawyer and perry

taught me something. a television taught me something to the door parents will hate hearing this. but a little bit of everything can be pretty good. and watching perry mason taught me about something called being a lawyer. i had no lawyers and my family, i never met a lawyer anywhere. and so it was a profession that i knew nothing about. all of a sudden, television exposed me to this different career and i started to examine it and think about it is a possibility of myself. but what was not a possibility was becoming a supreme court justice. if you don't know the supreme court is, you don't know what a

supreme court justice is and that is the point that you cannot dream and as you know what the possibilities are because they don't just pop into your head. they are things you learn about that give you hope about something and you can become. so how do you find those dreams? you find them the way that you are right now by taking the chance and applying for a competition and hoping that you get picked as the 100 in this room did. but the others that tried, and you did something just as

important. you tried. and that is what life is about to learn about your possibilities, you have to try things that could be scary. how many of you have travelled and spent the night here last night? i bet if your parents didn't come with you, if a teacher came up with you or a sponsor came with you that there was a little frightening. because when you go away from home at your age the only people i ever stayed with was my family. but unless you are doing things that you are a little afraid of coming to learn new things you can't dream. but you can't know what your possibilities are so under a prada view, pro for taking the

time to learn something new. not everybody in the room is going to become a lawyer and not everybody should become a lawyer. [laughter] and maybe what you one day will be on this supreme court or maybe he will be on the u.s. supreme court and i hope i am around to see that. i'm going to make a promise i might regret, which is if anybody watching this today in this room ever becomes a justice i will come and swear you in. okay? [applause] i happen to like metal wall and if the chiefs will give me the book, you see, one of the purposes in my book it was written for you and i am giving

the cat away, but i think -- i'm getting the secret away to the dewaal going to get a copy of it. [applause] it is a gift in the supreme court in the state of colorado. [applause] it is dedicated to each of you. the reason i wrote the book is for you. for anyone that shares any part of their life that could be like mind, and i've had a lot of challenges in life. you will read about them. first of all life had a juvenile diabetes since i was seven and i've been giving myself insulin shots. my dad had a drinking problem

and he died when i was very young. i grew up in poverty. i grew up in a housing project. i spoke english -- i spoke spanish before english, and when i went to college, i had to teach myself how to write english the right way because i wrote him very poorly. and what do you guess? i'm on the supreme court and you know what my job is? i write all day long. [laughter] that is a long way to come. for a kid like me that didn't know who lawyers were, i didn't know my possibilities. and i wrote this book so that anyone that ever feels like they are not sure about what they can do, they can look at my life and

i hope say to yourself as she is just like me. and if she can make it, so can i. that is the message i want you to carry away. because, you see, it's not anything special that i have except for one thing. i always knew how to say i don't know. you get a lot of lawyers that come to the supreme court. degette questions from the justices, from the judges. they don't know the answer. instead of saying i don't know, they try to make believe that they do know. there are a lot of lawyers in the room and a lot of judges. [laughter] and i sat their scratching my head, not in front of them but inside of myself and say what are you, crazy?

you have eight or nine judges in front of you why are you trying to make believe you don't know? i find that lots of people do that. you sit in the classroom, the teacher is talking, you don't understand what he or she is saying you sit there and you make believe that you do because you are ashamed of raising your hand and saying you know, you are not being very clear. i don't understand i was never afraid of doing that. and every single time that i didn't know something, i had enough confidence to say that i don't know. that takes courage. and most people do not have that. but it's something you do not need a special skill to do. and so, i would encourage you

whenever you meet up with something new that is a little frightening come a little scary and you don't know how to do it that you kind of look in the face and say okay i will figure it out. and just asked and study until you figure it out. so what happened? i looked at perry mason on television. and as i started going to high school and college, i eventually learned about the supreme court and learned more about law. i'm going to read you a little bit of my book. my ambition to become a lawyer had nothing to do with middle class respectability and comfort. some lawyers make a good living but that was not what motivated me. i ander stood their job as being to help people. i understood it was a force for good, for protecting the

community, for upholding order against the threat of chaos and for resolving the conflict. it gives a structure to most of our relationships allowing us to promote our interests in the most harmonious way and overseeing this noble purpose with a passionate wisdom was the figure of the judge. all have action heroes, astronauts, firemen, commandos my idea of heroism and action was a lawyer. the judge being a kind of super lawyer. the wall wasn't a career but it was a vocation. i found my passion. and that is where you should be looking for. because i really believed what you do best are the things you are passionate about, the things

you like. they don't have to be important to anyone but you. you watch television and you think the governor -- sorry, he's not here. [laughter] the president, senators, governors, justices, those are the important people in life. they do important jobs, but so does everybody else. the school bus driver that picks you up in the morning and takes you home at night. the person that helps your parents with their food or their home, anybody, any job helps to serve people. what's important is something my mom used to tell me you do when you are doing well and you like

doing it because if you like doing it, you are going to be giving to others. so i found my passion into law, but you can find it in almost anything that you do. i am a lawyer, a judge, so all of this is legitimate work. [laughter] >> that would be a bad thing. [laughter] but as far as you are doing anything that is dean fall and you like doing, you are going to be giving things to other people. ..

it will give joy to the people around you and make what you are doing for the people that share it. have i done enough talking and let you ask questions? the judicial learning center, i don't know if they opened it yet. don't leave without seeing it. it's really extraordinary. i don't know many other court house -- i'm sure there are some, that have anything like had it. it's an interactive center. it's like a museum.

before you rev. even if you don't want to be a lawyer, learn something about it so you can with knowledge say i don't want to be that. [laughter] anyway, please, who is going to be brave and ask the first question? go ahead. you raised -- i saw your arm first. get up. tell us your name, tell us where you are from. [inaudible] >> say it louder. >> i'm grant more michigan from colorado. i was wondering what the biggest challenge being latina woman that is a lawyer and became a supreme court justice -- what was the biggest challenge for you? >> people organize their feelings with other -- it's a

way to simplify life. human beings are very complex. to get to know somebody, you have to spend a lot of time. you have to make a lot of effort. for a lot of people, they just don't know how to do that. too much for them. and a lot of people, during my career, at various times that i was being nominated to do things, a lot of people looked and said a poor latina from new york, she can't be smart enough. during my nomination process, there were a lot of people who wrote that. it was very, very hurtful to me because here i had graduated very near the top of my class at college. did very well at law school. had lot of really important

jobs, but people were saying i wasn't smart enough. and i knew that was because of stir stereo types. it's something we all have to spend time fightings. it makes you look at somebody else and say, oh, they're not really pretty. because you don't spend any time getting to know who they are inside. and learning that beauty comes from thed in. it has nothing to do with what a person looks like on the outside. it's the personality they gave the world. you need to take time to do that. and so that's been my biggest challenge. dealing with people's expectations and having fun proving them wrong. [laughter] [applause]

yep. you guys are good. [laughter] >> [inaudible] what can you like to to growing up besides watch merry maison? >> excuse me. >> what did you like to do growing up besides watching perry mason. >> do you know why i'm walking around? my nickname my family gave me because it's a hot pepper. today they would give me all sorts of labels. i was constantly on the move. mom said that at 7 months old, i one day, i didn't crawl, i went from the floor, stood up, and ran. i never walked. [laughter] i still do that. i can't sit still. so what did i like doing as a kid? i loved playing cowboys and

indians, policeman and robbers, back then you had to use a lot of imagination because there weren't -- i don't want you to think that i was that poor, okay. i was poor. but not starving poor. but the point is that it was a different world. we didn't have as many toys or interact iive toys as you have. so we had to play games. i would spend hours playing never standing still. i got in to quite a bit of fights protecting my younger brother, and he talks about it all the time. i loved to read. you see, it's important as television was to giving me the sense of possibility about being a lawyer, the world opened for me when i read. what i found -- when i found books, i found my rocket ship to the universe. and i say that literally because

among the books i loved was science fiction, history, mystery, books about other culture. i couldn't travel to the place. i never imagined that i would take the trips i take now. whoever thought i would be in colorado. [laughter] so, you know, i had to visit those place through books. so i spent hours and hours reading. my mom said that i never came to the dinner table without a book. now my friends fight about whether that's good or bad. and telling their kids they can't play game during dinner. i don't know what the right answer is, but those were the thicks that i liked doing. >> my name andrew turner. i'm from agree lee west high school. what is the best piece of advice

you can give to high school students that would like to become a successful leader someday. >> i think i said it earlier when i said take chances. failure hurts, you know, no failure ever feels good. it's embarrassing, it can be mortifying sometimes. talk about some of my failures in my book, they really sting. the hardest thing to do is to take changes where you can fail. because most of us like the security of doing things we think we can do. but so you to take a class that you might not be doing something well at. you have to do what i did. it took me until i was 50 do it. take dance classes. all right because my mother tells me that every time my

cousins -- female cousins were learning how to dance at family parties, i was outside chaition fire flies. and i couldn't sit long enough to watch and listen and figure out how to dance. it took me until i was 50 to figure out how to do a little bit of dancing. because i'm awkward. i'm not a good dancer. [laughter] but trying. that's the advice. take a course that you don't think you can do. try a new activity after school because it looks like fun. you might as well try it now. when you get to college, you might not have the time. so just take chances. yes? then i want to go to that end.

[inaudible] what was one of the first opportunities you went after to get to where you are today. >> going away to college. no one from my family had graduated college in new york when i was growing up. some of my cousins were just going to college, and all of them were going to local colleges. i had a friend who called me up and said, sonia, you have to apply to the ivy league schools. i said, what are eye have i have -- league schools? the best colleges in the united states, harvard, princeton, yale, and i said i can't afford

to go. and he said, they'll give you a citizenship. how much does it cost to apply? i can't afford that either. [laughter] he said, they'll waive the fee. sonia, just do it. apply. and i got in. now, today the thought -- if i had known how hard it was to get in, i probably wouldn't have tried. i would have thought -- why take the risk to be rejected? but i took the risk. and then i had to decide whether i would go. because my grandmother said 0 to me, sonia, why are you so far away from your home. all of your cousins are going local colleges. i loved my grandmother, and it was really painful for me to say, but grandmother, i think this education will be important to me.

that was the first step to the rest of my life. not that i couldn't have gotten a good education near my home. but i met people in college from around the world, from every place in the country, they taught me so much about things i didn't know about, and being away from home gave me a chance to learn about a different places and ways of living, and different opportunities they had. and it was safe. i still got go home at the holidays, i had thanksgiving with my mom and christmas with her. when i got really lonely, i took a bus and came home. but that going away really did start my life. taking those chances.

for all of those parents who don't want you to go away, they're going to hate me today. [laughter] >> hi, i'm [inaudible] richards from delta, colorado. i would like to ask, as humans we profile people. what do you feel about racial profiling. why are the yankees your favorite baseball team? [laughter] >> first, i grew up in the bronx, what other team am i going to love but the yankees? okay. [laughter] [applause] you grow up in the bronx there's only one team. even when you leave the bronx, there's only one team. the yankees. [laughter] little egocities call about that. i'm asking you're -- i'm assuming racial profiling in police work. i talked to you about the danger of steer owe in choosing people for any kind

of job or anything. it has dangers in f what you're doing is using profiling without -- [inaudible] by that, i mean, if you're thinking it -- if you're a police officer or anyone else thinking that only profiling is going prove who did something, you're probably going to be wrong most of the time. because that's not the way the world works. are there sort of indicators of sorts that have to be listened to? absolutely. you know, they are talking about with the following the news about the boston bombing, and about criticism whether they are justified or not. about following up on the activity of the two young men who were involved. is that profiling? could be. is it something that you just can't ignore? maybe sometimes not. it's a fine line that society

walks in trying to be fair. as long as you understand that whatever you do in life, don't do it without thought. really understand what the purpose of what you're doing, the why. then, i think, will give you better answerrings. >> thank you. >> back here. >> hi, i'm kathleen. i'm from -- [inaudible] high school. my question is kind of complicated. i was watching one of your interview with pbs. you were talking about how supreme court justice john paul stevens said no one is born a supreme court justice. they simply become one. during the interview you said you haven't become one yet. i was wondering -- there are all the challenges in your life, and

position now. why did you say that? [laughter] >> i'm confused. >> it's a fair question. what i meant was that you know in every position you're in. every day of your life, you should spend trying to learn something new. and i walked in to a job as a justice on day one, i had been a judge for 17 years, but being a justice was something new. in some ways t a different sort of judging. the same on a lot of issues. the questions are much bigger. and they are questions that don't have clear answers. because when you see, when cases come to the supreme court, it's because generally there's a -- different judges are looking at the same question and they're coming to different answers. and so by definition, if it

comes to the supreme court, it's unclear. and so if it's unclear, and the precedents aren't so clear, then we have to do something else. we have to establish the framework of answering that question. that's a different kind of judging. because of that each day i'm a justice now, i'm learning how to do that better. how to think while broadening, to think more precisely, to understand better the consequences of the decisions we make, and the why and how to avoid the bad ones in the future. because no court is perfect, no justice is perfect. we grow. and what i meant in that interview, i wasn't born a justice. that's what john paul stevens was saying. he grew in to it after thirty five years on the court in to a

legend of a justice. and he was saying to me, sonia, to become a legend, you have to work at it. and that gave me a lot of confidence in knowing that i was growing as justice. my decisions today will be as good as the ones from ten years now. they won't be as good as the ones now. i want to go to the other side so i play fair. okay. i can't get stuck on one side only. young man with the blond hair back there. you know, if you were my age, they would be asking if that was really your color. i know, it is. [laughter] >> hi. i'm joshua. i'm from colorado springs. by the way, very cute outfit. i love that.

[laughter] thank >> thank you. >> as a -- you have a lot of -- [inaudible] if your life with diabetes -- what drew inspiration from them. in your case they weren't so little. >> you're right. we can be overwhelming. >> there was one gift of diabetes. it was the gift of understanding how precious life is. when i was first diagnosed, it was over fifty years ago, taking care of the disease was very different than it is today. the statistics back then, this is not true now, for any diabetic in the room, understand today diabetics can live full lifespans with many less confrontation. when i was first diagnosed, it

was sort at the beginning of taking care of diabetes. most people with my kind of diabetes were predicted to die young. i had expected not live past the age of 40. when i turned 50, i had my closest friends with me, and i told them that story that i -- that taught me that if i wasted any minute of my life, that it would be -- [inaudible] that's what -- [inaudible] every time i wanted to -- i think to myself, i have a gift.

[inaudible] in the greatest -- i had some [inaudible] to find a moment of joy. that's all i can ever say. [inaudible] you almost have to -- [inaudible] [applause]

>> because i lost my mom when i was in sixth grade. i was wondering how it was growing up without your father. >> you'll read in my book, -- as complex as my dad's drinking problem had made our house very -- [inaudible] my childhood was very -- [inaudible] and so when he died, there was a mixture of sadness, yet i talk about in my book -- [inaudible] one of the things we have done every year is put up the christmas tree. and he knew how to put up the perfect tree. he would spend hours at hiding

the hours of every single light. i tried it. i can't do it. we he did it perfectly. and i remember standing back after i finished the tree i picked a tree with a crooked trunk so it looked like charlie browne's tree. i remember realizing that life is complex. it's no real good or bad in any situation. so it's a mixture. you don't have your mom, that's something you'll miss probably for the rest of your life. but so you a relationship with a dad that a lot of other people will never experience. it's always a mixture of good and bad. i don't think the people -- [inaudible]

[inaudible] when i was being sworn in as a justice i my mind swarmed to everyone that played a part in my life. -- their spirit stayed with me. you know, you'll read in the book that my my mom is a great, great lady. she learned how to be a mom too. she wasn't a perfect mom. there are no perfect moms or dads or no perfect anything. there's no perfect daughters. what you learn is to look for the good in you.

yes? my name is alex, i'm from willow park, colorado. >> i'm going need a map we should have put a map up there. so i can know where everybody's from. >> i was swornd -- wonder as supreme court justice how much research you have to do for each case. >> too many. it's very complicatedded to explain. because i can tell you what the process is, i don't count up the hours. it also depends on the case, okay. about six weeks before cases are heard in court, anywhere from six to four weeks before that. we get all of the briefs. with the briefers come the

record blow. that's usually to be a thin volume. can be multiple volume. s the briefs, jrnlg, generally with only about fifty pages. we tell them how to do the fifty pages. so it's really fifty pages worth ever words we told them. however, you can have more than one party. sometimes you can have more than one brief on the same side. you can have what we call friend of court, amicus briefs. in some cases we had amicus briefs have been over 100, and so if you do 100 times 25 to 35 pages, that's a lot of reading. okay. then we have to read a supreme court cases on the issue because i have to study them. we have to read any articles that we think are important that

the parties have asked us to read. it can be hours and hours of reading. i call that research. i do a reading of the briefs, then my law clerks give me a -- [inaudible] supreme court cases and all the materials, and i'll have more reading then. then we have arguing. so if you talk about hours, it's a lot on each case. and after words, when you write the opinion, if it's your opinion, weeks. because every opinion goes through draft after draft after draft. my law clerks tend to give me an opinion first then i turn it around. we go back and forth and back and forth until i'm satisfied. and that is a less than think

process. even when the opinions come from my colleagues, if i'm doing a dissent. that's a lot of work even if i'm saying i agree with you. i'm reading it and looking at what they're saying to make sure i'm happy. if i'm not, then i can negotiate with them. no, you can't have this unless you change this. all the judges here know what it's like. drafting anything by committee is very time consuming. >> okay. yes, sir? i'm mary. i was wondering how you think as a nation we can overcome our differences in order to let conflict -- fight conflict and violence. >> it's the hardest civil issue around.

conflict between people over so many different issues has been with with us since the beginning of man. i don't have the answer. i do think that talking and trying to understand the needs of other people is a good starting point. a lot of times we think we know what the ore person is feeling. we don't really listen foe them try to explain their feeling and the yf it. and then we don't spend the time checking our own behavior to figure out if there's things that we can do to alter the dynamic. it's a complicated process. it's what i describe in my book as putting yourself in the shoes of the other person.

it's only if you start there can you really start to think about how everybody working together might be able to satisfy their different needs. conflict is unavoidable. it's not the ability to listen -- i think in the end you have to continue trying to talk. yes? hello. my name is jasmine. i'm from -- [inaudible] i was wondering for you feel like you have too much power? [laughter] >> yes. you know, one of the reasons i wrote my book when i got cat catapulted to the new life. when i say cat putted i went from the back of the room to the front of the room overnight. i had no idea i would be on a world stage. and i got worried.

i -- [inaudible] how does it change you? and you don't sort of notice it, it will take you over. and so i worked really, really hard at trying to remain true to me. to still have fun. to still be with people as people and not because of my position. it's not so easy. one of the reasons i wrote my book. i tell people all the time. i wanted my friend, if they saw me getting too egotistical. i wrote a book for the reason. to take a book and hit me over the head. [laughter] because the book is a thank you in recognizing how much i got from others becoming who i am. and trying to remember every single day. there's something that can be --

[inaudible] okay. yes? you know, i'm just doing this randomly. >> i'm from -- [inaudible conversations] i know that everybody suffers from their own type of issues in their life despite what we do in our abilities. we're always going have something that blocks us from where we want to be in life. my parents have always told me that despite your problems, never let that take away your education. because your education is something powerful in your life. if you ever do that, then you have nothing in the world. so i was wondering what was your motivation as child growing up to become a successful as you today? >> that was from my mother. that lesson is the one that i got from my mother. and your parents are right.

-- [inaudible] you cannot do anything you want to do well unless you become educate. i know -- i'm not criticizing withinly say there's a lot of -- every time i see one of them make that decision, i say all on limited thinking. don't they know if every sport game there are complicated strategies about how you play the game? game theory is a theory applied in college to certain studies. if they went to college, they would play their game better. that's true about almost anything including being a singer and author and artist.

some of the best in the world. think of the people who have won numerous oscars like merle streep. meryl streep is brilliant. she loves reading, she loves writing. this is a woman who has become educate to do her acting well. think of richard burr ton who used to play shakespeare like he lived in the age of shakespeare. my point being that education, that's the key. that's the key. because even if you can't do all job, education permits you to do a lot of others. if you train for only one limited little thing, you then get stuck. if your open your mind to learn more, there will always be opportunities. because they [inaudible] if you have knowledge about the alternative, you think about how do i grow around them?

if i can't do this. what is relate related to it that i might be able to do and still have fun? here, listen to your parents. [laughter] [applause] >> nay please, the court. [applause] [applause] >> did she hate home run or what? [laughter] [cheering and applause] >> in your question, very thoughtful. you were wonderful. you deserve a round of applause too. [applause]

so now, justice sotomayor, we're going to transition to the learning center. you and i and two students, solet go -- so let's go. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] are you guys ready? okay. one, two, three. [cheering and applause] the learning center is open for everyone to see. have fun! [inaudible] you have to see our video. i want to thank all of those,

all of those students throughout the state who are watching this on the internet. you'll now get to see our rule of law video directly. then you have to sign off. solet go. justice, sotomayor, if you will be our guest. [applause] pals tonight on c span, a look at new recommendations from the national transportation safety board that members say could reduce deaths from alcohol impaired driving. we'll show you some of our recent discussion with chairman debra as well as portions of recent meeting where the board approved a recommendation. here is a preview. today we meet to consider the safety report. actions to eliminate

alcohol-impaired driving. this is critical because impaired driving remains one of the biggest killers in the united states. twenty five years ago today, our nation saw the deadliest alcohol impaired driving crash in u.s. history. a drunk driver drove his pickup truck the wrong way on interstate 71 near karolton, kentucky. he hit a school bus and killed 24 children, and three adult chap roans. injuring 34 more. today our thought are with those families in kentucky who are recognizing this 25th anniversary of that crash. that same year, impaired drivers would kill thousands more. let look how well we're doing as a nation to address the national epidemic of alcohol-impaired

driving. arizona i'll explain, we have made progress since that deadly night in kentucky. it's been not nearly enough. in 1982, the first year of ntsb's far tracking system. 21,113 people died in u.s. crashes involving alcohol-impaired driving. this represented nearly one-half of all highway deaths. today the percentage of death the due to alcohol-impaired driving is about one-third of all highway fatalities. moving the percentage from one-half to one-third of highway fatalities has taken great effort by thousand of dedicated people in many organizations. watch more from the meetings

as the comments from the ntsb chairman. also milwaukee county sheriff joins us live to give huhs take on the proposed rule. it's all tonight along with the phone calls, beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern on our companion networking, c-span. you're watching c-span two with politics and public affairs weekdays a featuring live coverage of the senate. every weekend the latest nonauthors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedule on the website. you can join in the conversation on social media sites. journalists ted con over recently went overcover as a meat inspector inside a nebraska slaughter house. he wrote about it in harper's magazine and our guest earlier this month on washington journal.

joins us from new york city this morning. thank you for being with us. start off by telling how and why did you decide to do this piece? >> i have always been interested in placed i wasn't suppose god, i guess. my last book for which well known about working in a prison for a year. and it struck me as a journalist, we should be talking about places like that. i feel the same way about the origin of the feed i eat. i'm a meat eater. there's a lot of attention on meat lately. i thought the best way to take a look inside the slawlgter house -- slaughter house for an an extended period of time would be to become a participator. >> host: you talk about participate story journalism. the story is undercover. it describes it being undercor. in the article you declare it to

be embedded. what is the difference? >> guest: there's a couple of levels here. one, that federal usda meat inspectors are by law embedded in every slaughter house. a slaughter house can't operate without federal inspectors present. so they have to give them space in the factory. they gave us parking places. i had a locker room inside the meat solutions factory in sky already, nebraska. along with my cohort, a federal inspectors. on another level, i am em bedding myself with those inspectors. without them knowing my goal is to write about what life is like in there. there's a couple of layers to that. >> host: ted, before we get more to the piece itself, how do did it work for do you get in there. did you become part of the team of usda inspectors doing the day-to-day work in the slaughter

house? ? >> guest: yeah. that was my goal. it took me two years to do it because it wasn't that hand to qualify. you can either get the job by experience. most people in it have worked in the meat industry, a lot on the line, running quality assurance in a big plant. you can also get it by having a four-year college degree with a math and science. i applied. they told me i lacked some of the math i thought i had. i took a long distance learning course. i got full credits, and a couple of years later, there i was out in nebraska. yes, i had a badge, i was a federal meat inspector. there's nothing pretended about it. i was fully devoted to the job. it was required all of my attention, especially in early days when there's so much to learn. meat inspectors don't just look. in the beef plant they use knives and a hook to get in the

piece of meat to look for the disease. it's participate. it's demanding. especially in the beginning. >> host: you mention the plant was owned by car gill. they pushed back the journal say they are calling it a table-like tale. what is your response to their concerns? >> guest: that's kind of funny way of putting it. this is a 14,000-word piece. they picked up on a couple of tiny factual inaccurate sincerities, the funny thing about the response, they liken it to the "jungle" which is of course, the powerful novel that got meat inspection start in the country. i was very flattered by that comparison. , i mean, none of us can hope to have that kind of power with our writing these days. within a few week of the

publication of the "jungle" congress established federal meat inspection in the country. that was an incredible and sudden reform. these days factories aren't like the "jungle" at all. i wasn't going after the industry. you know, i wasn't targeting car g.i. l. i didn't see a single rat in the factory or see anybody fall to a grinding machine, as in the "jungle" what i saw was the way industrial -- slaughter working. the way you can run more than 5,000 head of cattle through a factory in a day and turn them in to meat. the the ingenious northeastern help get done. the huge corp. of workers, mostly latin american who use knives all day and get consider

a what they consider a fair wage. there's an awful lot of stress injury in the places. i suffered it myself. even though my job wasn't as intensely about cutting as theres. get let breaks in the day and i got to change positions. we rotate our posts as we cut to different part of the animal during the day. the regular workers don't get to do that. anyway, i wanted that kind of overview. i wanted to have, you know, a stake in the whole -- pardon me, in the whole process. i didn't just want to be a curable observers. i wanted to get my hands dirty. >> host: our guest ted con over. he has a recent cover story about an industrial slaughter house. here are the numbers to call. democrats 202-585-3880. republicans.

202-585-3882. you mention how many head of cattle can come in. who owns the plants? where are they in the country? >> >> guest: sure. most of the nation's beef plan -- plant are in that part of the midwest where there are cattle. so kansas, nebraska, northern texas, out there. and the companies are names you are familiar with. car g.i. ll is one of them. tyson, you know, these are the big corporations, mostly. and there's also some smaller players like kosher meat planets. this happens on various scales. usually they are giant multinational corporations that run these plants. the industry shifted from a

major city like chicago to smaller american towns in the middle of the last century. i think largely due to the rise of highways and truck transportation, which was able to move cattle in the way trains had before. you didn't need the rail heads in chicago to get the cattle there. you could use trucks to get them anywhere. so there's towns like skylar, which have, you know, for many years been mostly caucasian, and english-speaking. in the last twenty, twenty five years, there's a whole group of towns like this that have become largely latino as a wage for meat work fell and so there's been a profound demographic change in the country's midsection as well as the typical meat factory worker has changed. most of the inspectors i worked with -- were people who have grown out there.

they were mostly white. on the day i started a mexican-american woman started. i was able to get her perspective on it. >> host: our first caller is william in jacksonville, florida. you are on. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i saw documentary that covers a lot of -- [inaudible] that he was talking about. it was called "food -- [inaudible] was there [inaudible] when you're saying is sounds pretty similar control basically all of our food source. what was your take and was your piece similar to the documentary? -- [inaudible] >> host: i did watch the documentary. but it was more than a year ago. i'm fairly sure what i saw stands touch my own experience

and to to others' scrutiny. yeah, that's kind of the way food is made in this country. i remember as i flew out to omaha, early on, i sat next to carr gill employee who worked in a decision, a very big company. he said something to me, i think it was one out of three products in the supermarket has involvement by them in one way or another. it's not necessarily a bad thing. i think actually among the meat companies, car gill is more open than others about letting journalists inside. they let cameramen in to a plant in colorado a couple of years ago. that said, if you want to see how your meat was made, i would say lot of luck. these plants are surrounded by -- they are extremely secure. they have cameras all around and

cameras inside. everything i did on the job could have been watched by somebody in plant management, and in fact, those video feeds are available at company headquarter in kansas. there's a lot of surveillance. there's a lot of secrecy over how meat is made. i don't think it's justifiable, and i think the harder that food companies work to keep journalists out, the more we're going make our way in. there's this whole set of laws called ag gag out there now. in the two years, i was waiting to get the jobs. the laws started getting passed state after state in iowa. it was to stop the hidden camera videos that make the meat industry look so bad. i was afraid the laws were going make it impossible for me

to do my job as journalist. nebraska hasn't passed one yet. it sort of shows there's an attitude of fear about what is going on in there. i think they should be more open. >> our delawares is ted over has a cover story called "way of all flesh; undercover in an industrial slaughter house" he writes a companion piece to this about how he did the reporting. "meeting our meat" going undercover at the slaught or house. he talks about some of the law he details. craig tweets, you adopt need the fda. make it law that any citizens can view any food establishment during business hours. transparency and openness. what do you think, ted? >> guest: i kind of like that idea. i mean, fat chance of it happening. i don't see why it shouldn't. you know, it gives a sense

there's something shameful going on. i appreciate that the process of killing animals is not attractive. there's a lot of blood involved. there's a lot of things that if you're not used to it, turn your stomach the first time you see them. one of my job posts was something called -- [inaudible] all of the organs that would drop out of the body cavity would pass in front of us inspectors, and right after lunch to have to stand at the table and watch these steaming piles of organs -- it's not easy. it makes you think hard about the process. my first comment is why i haven't become a vegan as a result of this, and i certainly understand people who do. i -- unfortunately i like meat too much. that said, i think i want to eat meat that is not going to make

me sick. there are things that happened in the factories that -- that give some cause for concern. >> host: what laws regulate meat inspection. when and how is it inspected? >> guest: sure. at the plant write worked, one of the veterinarians who run the detail of inspectors looks at the animals when they arrive. they arrive forty at the time in a trail called cattle pods. they get unloaded and weighed and wait in corral for their turn in the called knock box. they go up a ramp designed by temple brandon, which is supposed to reduce some of their anxiety. a worker there -- told me in spanish that it smelled so bad because they don't want to die. i don't know if that's true or not. but you kind of imagine most animals don't want to die.

that's what they're there to do. once they get inside, a different team of inspectors the first thing we look at is the heads and tongues which have been separated from the body. limph nodes for infections, signs of tb, we're looking for to make sure they're the right age. cattle over thirty months -- i when i was working there were considered at-risk for, you know, -- oh. bo convenes -- bse. i'm afraid i have forgotten what it stands for. we check various parts of the animal at various stages of its disassembly, if you will. a different team of inspectors grades the meat. that's a different process. they will put a usda stamp on it, as it's about to leave the

factory. other meat then gets tested by the usda in grinding planets, that's a different kind of inspection. we look for things like things cow have eaten. sometimes -- they are full of bacteria, and so quality control is really important at that stage to keep the meat. >> host: let's go to mount pleasant, michigan. good morning. >> caller: hi. thank you. i'm a big fan. >> host: sure. >> caller: i have a question about the integrity of this journal -- [inaudible] didn't it seem like --

[inaudible] sort of thing. it kind of seems like when we -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> guest: so undercover reporting is, to me, a last resort. i think for journalists it's a nuclear option. some degree of deception is involved. i think should be judged differently. the first test is the subject important enough to justify an undercover investigation? i think that the production of meat of something we can put in our body with potentially fatal consequences rarely, thank goodness, but that's a possibility.

the additive to our food and the apt biotic use and the raising of cattle. it passed that test for me. is there a way i can get the same story by not going overcover? that's the next question. i don't think so. i might have gotten the tour of the plant. i would never be able to do the job myself. and the last question is an important one. privacy sincerity. i change the name of everybody i worked with. they didn't know i was there to write about them. some say silly things, as all of us do at work. i didn't want them to suffer any personal humiliation because of that. if it will put your mind at ease, though, let me say i found the inspectors to be conscientious and hard working. i think because everybody was on point, all shift, every day, the meat coming out of our chain was clean. so i'm not sure how thrilled my editors were that i arrive at

that conclusion, but i felt part of the process that had some integrity. it's not sufficient, i think, overall in guaranteed food supply. it was one little step. fortunately i didn't have to write about the people i worked with in a sort of derogatory way. i liked them. i think they worked hard. the only thing i didn't like about the plant was the conditions that left my arm swollen and finger tips numb and my hand unable to take off my socks by the end of the second week. my palm was so sore. ..

postcode before you get off the line, tell us more about how long you worked in this industry and do you have any repetitive motion injuries that ted conover talked about? >> guest: wow, i thought in 1988. finally in 1995 became covered. i don't have those things going on with me. mine are more so carpel timeout. but not really what those things. my concern is the company i work for is building a new facility in pennsylvania and at the end of the year we don't know for going to have jobs. but everything is prepacked sent in. >> host: thank you for your call. >> guest: that such a reasonable question. it sounds as though he faces choices that would reflect his

professional integrity in terms of how to -- how certain cuts of meat are they bold. there's a lot of difference between angus and holstein. the holstein was harder to cut. what this really points to is the key role federal inspection on private industry. since his c-span, i didn't make sense to talk about the sequestered. earlier this year, there was a fear of offending cats the usda would shut down meat factories across the country for about 11 days because there wouldn't be enough money to pay the inspectors. lo and behold, congress passed a law that allowed the usda to shuffle some funds for these plants are not have to shut down. big inspection falls right in the same category as air traffic control or national defense. these are things you're kind of have to have a government to do

no matter what some people think when it comes to grading me, certifying the wholesomeness is made or what was that end. if government is not going to do it, i am not sure who is. the way it works in a factories quality control is done partly by respect or simulate aspect is there helping companies by checking nme companies do that on checking on top of that. the inspectors have this fantastic power, which is -- other workers do too, but inspectors can stop the line. if i saw something that go by, i can stop the entire chain. i saw some oil on a carcass monday. my coworkers saw a lever chopped onto the floor and put back on the table and that contaminated.

a coworker of mine saw an animal that was too old people as a young animal cellmate that might have problems with it, with neurological prions, without whole family of disease, that he could have gotten in if my companion had pressed the button. i think americans need to done and the production to ensure there is integrity and the idea that a company could do it without an inspection is kind of scary. i've set up a google alert for every time the usda food safety inspection service as they recall in this constant, all year long and it's often little

companies that attract to get away with producing something without the benefit of inspection. the ones that should worry us all and when a huge lot of ground beef in some markets and that that with possible contamination because contaminated meat is not fully cuts can kill you. i have a friend in upstate new york his wife cooked some undercooked chicken from what he believes is the pain she got in her stomach and other parts of her body soon after eating that. she said i don't need any attention. i'm strong, this will go away. it didn't go away and it killed her. i think, you know, 3000 people a year i thought to die in the united states include weren't all nice. that's a good inspection is all about to make that happen. >> host: ted conover, harper's magazine contributor. a story in the "washington

post." at least one federal program was able to beat it. the sequestered was supposed to be a better cut, but three weeks in the agricultural department inspectors are part of a spending bill to president@ticket get out of the sequester, like a kid out of jail free card the program by $55 million in new money. what came out of the question of inspection, are just ted conover writes today the u.s. is responsible for overseeing the slaughterhouse operation employing throughout the country. the food and drug administration is responsible for most other areas. fresh produce, sirsi recent outbreaks on camelot since nominal on spanish, seafood, dairy and processes like peanut butter. let's talk about the rest again with the usda does what the fda

does. here is the usda white house budget request for fiscal year 2011. over $22 billion he can see the break down for money for federal food safety inspection at the state level and also the international level. how to set the usda does differ from the fda has? >> guest: in the simplest terms, the usda monitors the killing of animals, monitors slaughter. the fda monitors seafood, produce, processed foods, that kind of thing. it is so funny bifurcated responsibility for food supply and slowly has been modernized and product today. the fda has gotten the most attention in terms of legislation, the suit modernization act has also been slowed down by the sequester is

intended to increase inspection and the increased proportion of our food that originates overseas. i've got this down. what is there? 80% to 90% comes from other countries to 20% to 30% of produce. it was not all inspect it the way we would have inspected things here. so we need to do that. the government is a bit behind in doing those inspections and that is a scary thing. so just in a very small nutshell, that is to france. peanut butter is fda. poultry, pork and beef production is usda. >> we mention the budget request for fiscal year 2014 for server $22 billion. here's the difference between the fda's requested budget pair $4.71.5 billion would go to implementation of the peace

safety modernization act and some of the other monetary breakdowns. marcie is our next caller in yuma, arizona. >> guest: >> caller: high committing an act for c-span. i'm glad i got in this morning. i have a strong concern for the laws lobbying for all of the states. as you mentioned yourself, we need undercover people to go in and see if the animals are treated humanely and we also need people to fight for your gestation ages to be changed in salon that line. i think is horrible they are not only making it illegal for these people to go when, but they are attacking organizations such as mercy for animals for having their people go when and colin

ecoterrorists. i think it's out of control and i totally agree that the opposition have been, that there should be more openness in our ability to see how that animals are treated. >> can i tell you a story about that clicks i was waiting to get hired i called the founder for mercy for animals which has produced another stomach turning videos showing abuse of animals. i told him who i was than i said, how do you choose the plants were used then your people to do these hidden videos? i think you picked the most notorious ones? he said no. he said recent people where we can get hired and we found to be said every single place they work. i have no way of verifying that is true, but i kind of don't

doubt it. these practices are irony certainly endemic to agriculture that management is officially again to abuse. educated people are against abuse, but we hire people and put them in super difficult jobs with little supervision and not all of them feel the same way we do, and the way our better selves doer said about animals and is the hidden videos of chickens being whacked against walls and dairy cows hit with canes to get them to move, even though they have broken links. you can go online and you can't believe what you are seeing. i want to say though that i think that attitude towards animals is not the way the mainstream, even nonagricultural

america. so monday in the break room i was watching a look at the omaha paper and there's an article about the latest mercy for animals video. my supervisor went online and we have gathered around his computer to watch it. it was awful with the animals -- the things they were going through at the hands of these workers. the inspectors all thought so. none of them said that is bs. that is a lot of noise about nothing. nobody said that. people were aghast. how could that be allowed to happen? said these humane treatment laws they didn't represent a reasonable consensus of how americans think animals should be treated. it's not like city people versus country people. country people feel the same way. in industrial can happen.

postcard summer writing and about where they get their meet and make decisions. once as i am the order be from farmers and other cattle is treated well and fit non-gml grass. one irish grub writes in this industrial slaughtering is horrible. i bet many friends while farmers in new york state. ml custom gas fed free range cows. ted conover come to talk about conversations that go on. the usda employees do perceive this divide. one of your colleagues said she was bothered by the fact urban consumers could influence the whole economy by hopping on some politically correct bandwagon in terms of labeling. as they go to the store. >> guest: the pink slime that

was a phrase used by usda scientists to describe made from parts of the cow that could almost debatably be called me. things you would not think of as me can be made to look like me. in the sky plus the city is served in school lunches, people in nebraska suffered because jobs disappeared. the demand for so-called pink slime. there are other official names for that product. the dementia drastically in people, my supervising veterinarian lost their jobs and he was angry about that. he said this is one of the cleanest things that come out because it is subjected to a

known you and all these other things. in his opinion, baseless hysteria try and gain over reason in regards to what we put in our bodies for food. do you find differing opinions about that. canada will allow me products treated with ammonia because of safety concerns in america seems to allow a lot of things other countries don't, such as so-called sub therapeutic use of levels of antibiotics ask our growing up as they are fed these, even though they are not sick, and helps them grow. there's a lot of concern that strokes that are so amazingly important to human health that it weakens them when they get sick. you find a lot of differences of opinion about this, depending what part of the country is the

event and how connected to the industry you are. >> host: jack is in georgia, democrat. hi, jack. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. my comment is first of all, i salute this gentleman for her. on your program. i think right now they probably didn't take the courage it took years ago. they must've had ramifications. the problem as i see it is the laws that are written in the books that introduced legislative power are not stringent enough and i'll tell you why. anything goes in america today. this wonderful country allows

perpetrators, especially in the industry of slaughterhouses, meat that comes in, meat that is served to her schoolchildren, meat over the entire population. who knows that the people at the head of the tivo the kind of meat we are eating. husker jack and georgia. hi, kyra. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. would corrupt on a complicated animosity in application with about 5500 pigs. we were typically have better growers and their vast, but this way of growing eggs is just nasty. they are fed unnatural gsl

diets. if they pick a of her sickness with drugs, they only have to be off of it for 30 days before slaughter. i was wondering if ted had seen examples of animals being slaughtered and the rules and standards are to that and also the laws being pushed because of people thought they were treated and grown in sadr, things would quickly change. ask for taking my call. >> guest: unfortunately i was posted in said a factor in the kill floor, which is like a football sized room, where these animals on hooks make their rate around be disassembled, just outside the room is that the cattle would arrive. usually before dawn the cattle had been arriving all night to get ready for their trip to the chain. so i didn't get to see them, but

i believe the veterinarian i worked for had high standards and would never allow a cow to go up that ramp. that said, you see disturbing tanks inside, like the day in the sun delivers. i saw what looked like my dog after a bath. it was like a white star shaped animal. i said what is that? i was so shocked and people around me chuckle. it turns out it had hopes and was a few days. supposedly the heifers that are slaughtered have not had calves, but that is not always the case. i realize a lot of times you see a whole of a fetus inside. their blood as it turns out by use of laboratories is quite

valuable. there's something exciting about that. every 12 seconds where he worked in nebraska. to go on for slaughter, which messes up the whole process as you can imagine. and he liked to think that doesn't happen and it was weird because that was a part of the country where you still see billboards with the board at human fetuses, you know, sometimes on the highway. to see that in front of me unsatisfactory was upsetting in a way i never would have day. you get out of the habit of thinking about meat unless you're in a farm area and you

realize something important goes into meat. an animals life in the labor and pain of the people who worked to get the animal out there. it left me thinking i should appreciate the meat a little more. >> guest: >> caller: i'm calling to tell the gentleman. cannot suppose he ever read the bible, but if he had read the book of mark, chapter seven verses 14 to 23, jesus declared all foods cte ironman if they are given thanks and prepared marmalade. now, you can take a liver. it can tap on the floor. have you ever heard of washing

it off with water? >> guest: of course. this is the company's employees not following the own rules by inspector paradise. the company took that, put it in a pale and disposed of it properly or seneca cat food. that's what we do if there are liver flukes and mobile ducks. everything gives you sooner or later. i do in deed give thanks when i eat me. >> host: ted conover, joining us to new york city this morning. his stories on the front page of hearts. thanks so much for talking with us this morning. >> host: more now they dimmock of obesity and how the american diet has changed over the last years.

>> host: but look at the foods and beverages americans consume, how it's changed what it means in terms of diet and problems like obesity. we're joined this morning by cynthia ogden, traditional epidemiologists. thanks for being here. and also for national public radio, npr's allison aubrey. thanks you as well. ushers start with the basics. what a major changes in terms of americans die us now over the last decades? >> guest: one of the last decades we saw an increase in calories available and particularly in the 80s and 90s at the same time i saw the increase in obesity. our recently decreasing calories consumed by americans. there's the changes in diet breed like to hear your perspective on what you eat and how to affect in your house.

(202)585-3880. if you're further west, (202)585-3881. is the big take away obesity? you started out with that one. >> guest: that is a significant public health concern. large increases in the 70s and 80s and 90s. it's been slowing down our recently. that is a big issue related to our diet. >> host: b. can see your obesity increased in the 1980s and 90s and the bubbles >> guest: you start to see what happens when programs focused on more exercise for over a decade.

shanda is definitely plateau. just last summer we saw in him where's from places like new york city and philadelphia where they've really focused on getting kids active unchanging lifestyle patterns in meeting and you can see the cities at the the numbers are plateauing. >> host: what are the health and policy implications that the rise of obesity? >> guest: we start to see what it costs a lot of money to treat obesity. about 70% of spending of health care dollars comes treating people with chronic diseases than many chronic diseases are lifestyle diseases. heart disease, type-2 diabetes and those surratt diseases that can be prevented or treated better with better lifestyle. >> host: we see here for the cdc americans are heavier today than in the 1960s.

today nearly 36% of adults and 17% of youth are obese. our studies conducted? >> guest: that's a great question. we have the national health nutrition survey and its unique because it combines an interview with the physical exam and his representative at the u.s. population. they travel around the country entering the exam, things like weight and height are taken on blood draw, and dental exam another thing. said the state are based on measurements, which is important because if you asked people, you can get misreports and women tend way. >> host: so as you look at the cold hard numbers, what is the take away in terms of regional

reporting. give a sense that the country be at urban or rural or geographically or having a harder time of hope and wait? to ask others different sources on regional differences. in the south the presence of obesity is higher. >> host: one other chartier from the cdc and the nchs toxic calories concerned and where people get calories to change in the difference between the 20-year-old 239-year-old consuming calories from fat food. the lowest renaults 60 and over. tran tan, what do we know about the culture of eating and how that plays into fast food in diet? >> guest: children's snack two to three times a day and also if

you look back to 1950s, typical american eating 2.8 pounds of meat a week. by 2006, the number had in priest about 50%. read about more cheese. about 31 pounds of cheese a year and they drink a lot less milk. so the way they play out as these things tend to hog more cheese and saturated fat. the trendline in the last two years i've started to show a downward trend and consumption is decades of increasing. americans even have changed a lot. it's important to note that americans seem to be getting the message that people need to be watched what they are eating and balancing that with exercise.

>> host: this is the new burst of the food here made. go work some policies in terms of recommending that the? the u.s. department of agriculture and human services every five years. these panelist scientists sift through the body of evidence emerging. a lot of times this happened in 2010 and what you see as you might remember from the past of essay. i'd been at the bottom it said he expects to 11 servings of great and at the top you just a few servings of oils or saturday. bless him run the researchers researchers and policymakers said had the exact prescriptive or qualitative, will focus on

patterns. they want this to be simple. said they change the icon from the pier bid to this plate in the idea here is directional. we want to encourage policy makers made to the door first, vegetables. that's half the play. they want to encourage people to eat more whole grains. that is another quarter of the plate any proteins and at the same time the sugar, saturated fat, sodium. >> host: 's allison aubrey is that npr. we're also joined by cynthia ogden, a nutritional epidemiologist. let's hear from choice in woodbridge, virginia. >> caller: high, calling to find out about the fact that for many, many years the doctors have said it's not necessary to take vitamins. we can get all the vitamins they need from our food. i am concerned about the trails

in the sky, all of those toxic chemicals being taken from the food, even the organic food is in trouble because of all of these chemicals. if we don't take vitamins, how are we going to survive the onslaught? why have the doctors changed their view now about vitamins? why are they telling us now we can take vitamins they prescribe? >> guest: i wouldn't say necessarily doctors have changed their view. it is certainly true your doctor has given you different ways. what happened to fall researchers look at the body of evidence and taking vitamins and supplements. they tend to see their great benefits. before i take people not here, i should say that it's case by case. if you think back to the 1980s and 90s, vitamin a was

prescribe blood recommended by resentments that they started to say we don't see a benefit. if we follow a group of people over time, taking a supplement that 10 or 20 years later can check in to see if they prevented some disease or cancer, we can't measure a benefit. so that's greasy changing guidelines for researchers and policymakers look at a body of evidence and start to say maybe not so much of a benefit here. certainly the studies have come out ways. for instance, folic acid is critical when a woman is part of town and prenatal vitamins. so you can't hit with a broad brush here. in general when you hear vitamins are not recommended any more, sometimes is because there is also studies that suggest a multivitamin is is beneficial. >> host: cynthia ogden, one of

our callers have asked how his overweight defined today versus how we define 30 years ago? >> guest: the definition of overweight or obesity is different in children and adults, but the body mass index which is for adult obesity and a bmi between 25 and dirty. her children it's different because it is comparison to growth charts for most parents are familiar with that obesity is it above the 95th percentile of the growth charts for bmi and overweight is and 80 to 95th percentile. those growth charts are also based on a national health and nutrition examination survey that we talk about where the data comes from. >> host: the difference between adults and children we see here calories coming from carbohydrates. fat, protein, carbs and how that breaks down sugars and 30%. alison mowbray, what do you read

for this? >> guest: there's a big push to limit added sugars in the diet. we are really talking about sugar sweetened beverages, candies. it's estimated the typical american of about 350 calories a day or added sugar and the american heart association has said that needs to come down. something to 150 calories of added sugar per day. that's why you hear about more about this. in the grocery store you see lower sugar. a lot of awareness about lowering the added sugar in the diet. >> host: maasai recent poll companies plan to limit the size of sugary soft drinks a course on hold right now, the 70% said they oppose it 28% support. he reported on the reaction to that proposal.

>> guest: we have talked a lot about the sugar ban any judge striking it down. the question is very different policy? is the number you can use. right now the government of massachusetts has proposed a soda tax or sugar tax, basically making garbage is more expensive. the legislature in massachusetts but that died last year and it went nowhere. this year i don't know if it's any better because it doesn't seem to hit people. people don't want to be told what they can and can't eat. i will say there's a lot of other ways to nudge people. researchers are experimenting things that would nudge people towards health care decisions. one example is people get their health insurance and can enroll in the program cognitive

vitality. when they shop at wal-mart, that broccoli or something considered to be a good for you food and they get a discount. the idea seemed to give cash back rebates come you might nudge people to do more of the healthy stuff and less unhealthy stuff. post ok'd joins us now. good morning. are you with us? brusca want to make in pennsylvania. hello, pennsylvania. >> caller: just, man. i appreciate you taking my call. thank you. my comment is obviously this is a complex problem. this is going to begin a simple solution to this problem. it's a big problem i realize that. my question is, as far as food stamps are concerned, this is a social problem in health problem, but if anybody looked at the fact that so many people

on food stamps and maybe there's a relationship between that an obesity going up. i have three daughters. i just want to plug-in for vitamins. we'll take vitamins, calcium two. >> host: before we let you go, how conscious are you when you go shopping for your family? how much do you think about the kinds of food you guys buy for your kids? >> caller: very. we are very conscious about it. a lot of it has to do with family values and individual family responsibilities. >> host: how have you learned about nutrition? >> caller: over the years and i try to instill values in their children as well. reading books, online, all kinds of information. they oppose, food labels and such. all kinds of different ways.

>> host: was good cynthia ogden can have a talk about the grass we see in terms of low income, middle income and higher income individuals and the calories they consume. >> guest: the relationship between obesity is actually very complex and not always what people think that is just a low income population. it varies by fax and age on that relationship. this grass in particular his village to sugar sweetened beverages and the percent of total calories in the diet by income by the two different age groups by children and adults. you can see in both cases it's the higher income folks and in this case it's about a third of the popular tatian, the top third consume a smaller% of calories from sugar drinks.

studies suggest that in fact food stamp recipients of snap dollars as the program is called don't distribute dollars to match different id. at typical american. it's a bit of stereotyping that goes on to people on food stamps by unhealthy things. the bottom line is americans by a range of not so healthy things. the reality has been foodstamp dollars at the end of the month are while they can afford to just buy that says we find things because they're a lot cheaper. so i think it is interesting to focus on low income americans is an interesting one. the state legislature in florida last year tried to pass a bill that would have restricted the use of foodstamp dollars for junky foods and was not very

successful. one of the reasons is that the end of the day if you can't buy a candy bar, does that also mean you can't buy the ingredients to save a cake. you can buy the sugar, flour. it's a very hard thing to regulate that way. >> host: at different giant oceans like california. good morning. >> caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i want to illustrate another aspect to what has just been stated in another caller. one of the things that strikes the heart of the matter is we as consumers are paying to undermine our own howled through the subsidies we gave today background used to be the subsidies for the small farmers think local come to seek kurgan accorsi tells the end to stand down most of the dollars are

going to the big aggregate in the processed food from which goes back to affordability. i think we have two shift gears. people are waking up thanks to people like dr. oz and enlighten people that she's seen more people wanted to do their own organic cartons and get away from this process food. i think again, we have to somehow get more money to sustainability and less money going to the processed food industry that basically undermines our house, increases our health care costs and lines the pockets of the pharmaceuticals on the end of it. >> host: do practice what you preach? they are funded in your shopping

habits? >> guest: i have a community garden i participate in. we grow our own vegetables. but again affects the environment. as a whole dynamic about that. >> host: let's get a response from our guest, allison aubrey. >> guest: it raises a whole bunch of interesting questions and points of view. i would just point out one thing when you talk about big act, one thing many americans don't realize is we will be needing to get more calories are more productivity out of each land because of the people in this planet. why the race fascinating points about community gardens and local ads which is really big right now i'm a huge food movement that is exciting to

people that focuses on local food. at the end of the day, most policymakers and experts say we need these local foods as well. >> host: people reflected in our diets. i was raised on a sugar for morning serials. by foods a couple times amount to make sure you eat your vegetables. assembly race. anti-victorious as i rarely touch presences of any kind pentothal content is off the cards. likewise the processed food in the middle aisle. dr. cynthia ogden, researchers conducted when americans are eating and how it's impacting diet. heidi tamela says over the calories are coming from and how americans are making choices where they shop and what they grow? >> guest: is part of the survey, there is meant to be

about people site and this is a typical way information is obtained from people. in the last 24 hours what did you and you spend time probing indigenous and he smacks her add sugar to that food item? as you take time to go through it, models of the food to get serving size is because you want to know how much. did you have a hamburger this paper this day? you really want to drill down and get specific information of exactly how much. it takes time to do that. >> host: t. is in michigan. t. >> guest: >> caller: i have a question. thank you for taking my call. both the additive of aspartame put in our food, which is a chemical we do not know, our

bodies don't know what to do with that. if it say, call, they will store in our fat cells and organs. we are going to be ill because of it, but yet, it is an absolutely everything we eat. there's nothing on the shelves that doesn't have a form of aspartame. >> host: let's get a response from allison aubrey. >> guest: because of labeling must come you know if you try to avoid aspartame, it does need to be labeled. i understand your frustration that you think too many things contain us. it's been widely studied for many years. if you look on the national cancer institute website, you will see a statement about the thinking is about aspartame.

the thinking is the levels people got it doesn't seem to add to the risk of diseases in any quantifiable way. they basically come out inside that. but we know so far, aspartame is safe. lots of people don't agree wi@ safe. lots of people don't agree with that and that's why we have labeling laws. if you want to avoid it you can. >> host: sooner, daly city, california, welcome. >> caller: i am going to give some opinions as opposed to questions. what i am observing young parents feeding their top players are younger children, that they are giving non-sugary drinks. i see ice cream before the age of three and when i was feeding

my children, before the age of three, they didn't even know what a cookie was, a cake was, so it is, that sort of thing. we have these little grantors we could dive back in the 70s, where i would cook my own food and grind it for my child to eat as opposed to buying gerber prepared baby foods and that sort of thing. so also, you mentioned obesity not so much before dvds. i was just making a comment the other day, looking at some movies made before the 80s, we were all sin, not obese.

also, in the last decade i have such gastric disturbances that even my gastroenterologist could not figure what is wrong and going on with me. he mentioned that he did test for celiac disease and i was negative. what turns out to be, thanks to a friend of mine who does have a child with celiac disease. she said don't eat anything with wheat for four to six weeks, see how you feel. i did that just to see what would happen. as soon as i started anything but we again, i do think terrible symptoms. so i basically became gluten intolerance and i let my doctor know so he could learn from me but have been listening and help

other patients. >> host: let's go to cynthia ogden first so we can talk about her observations about americans purged the 1980s, and what she deserved in film and photographs and also the aspects of children diet. >> guest: obesity was 15% in adults than it doubled during that period discussed in the 80s and 90s. one of the things interesting about obesity is the problem is obesity is higher in women than men, and essentially caught up in the prevalence is the same in both genders. this problem may let god look similar in children. however, it is tripled over the same time. in children is tripled and there's very little difference by sex. >> host: you can see your

food, beverages, added sugars. >> guest: house of us talking how many added calories. when you think is the total calories. it's about 16%, which is pretty high. in fact, in dietary guidelines have also referred to the range for added sugars and fats is 5% to 15%. we see the added sugar on a 15%. what this graph shows is the majority are from food producers and things like that. however, if you look at individual items, it's sugary drinks are sugary sweet beverages to provide the greatest amount of sugars. >> host: outfit not break, our caller talked about her aversion

to meet. she's gone gluten-free, wheat free. >> guest: reasonably there's been another change. mainstream has the people referred to as wheat intolerant. says the collar was tested for celiac and tested positive, tested negative, but it's better when she took wheat out of her diet. she certainly not alone. other people are referring to as a nice more of a recognition about this issue. bitartrate gastroenterologist who spent 10 years ago we would've said not so sure this is really wheat. now there is much more that for some people wheat intolerant israel. >> host: she also talked about as a mother creating baby food

for kids. >> guest: yeah, if you have time to do that, that's great. >> host: allison abreu reports for npr radio. you can hear her stories on radio stations across the country and random online at npr.org. she contributes to the salt, and here is food eating and health blog. also, npr has a blog shop which reports on health issues. our other guest is cynthia ogden, a nutritional epidemiologist at the national center for health statistics and oversees a group within the national health and nutrition examination survey. what does that mean? >> guest: epidemiology is a study health on the population level. it's great applied mathematics and statistics, but looking at the relationships between behaviors and disease. the group that we are involved

in is the variety of different epidemiologist. i work on issues related to other kinds of health issues using the same survey data. >> host: our next caller is from nashville. >> caller: yes, thank you for c-span. i'm not a citation, but doesn't the numbers seem to be greater than polio? why is there no policy statement that this is a national emergency or crisis? why can't i mobilize can't demobilizing march of dimes towards obesity. mayor bloomberg's statement is not about adult. it's the children. they can't defend themselves, much like tobacco or alcohol. the underlying issue is addiction. we are a nation of addicts in any city address.

nationalize agriculture, market with top security clearance than farmers. something like the kibbutz in israel. volunteer six months, 10 months to introduce some economics and physics. the other one is card-carrying for children. poster i don't quite get that one. >> caller: if you want your sugary beverage, may i see your i.d., please. >> host: bring up concerns of some academic. we officially recalling what do the numbers show us? >> guest: more than a third of adults are obese and 70% of children we seen this increase mentioned before. sometimes people call it an

epidemic, but epidemics are often related to infectious diseases. >> host: allison not breed. >> guest: one of the things he touched on was children vulnerable ones. there's quite a bit of focus on children in the public health realm. if you look at, for instance, regulations from the department of agriculture and the school lunches is also schools are allowed to serve. detecting children might be getting at the end of the meal are vending machines are being served in the school. go see several years back the state of california was an early player and they greatly limited to access to sugar sweetened beverages and snacks anytime they were at school. researchers at the university of illinois published a study and found the result if kids are reading their school couldn't california eat 160 calories less

than kids in other states where they don't randy's sugary junky things in school. so you raise a good point that children are the vulnerable ones and think a lot of the focus and energy right now is on nutrition and limiting access. >> host: bishop, california. >> guest: good morning. yes, that is my biggest concern, to which the children growing up because as you know will just add to our already unhealthy nation and i've been involved in health and fitness for over 30 years. for some reason you have the information and everybody knows that they should be doing, should be eating it shouldn't be eating it comes down to behavior and personal choice. and i'm not really sure i would like to be a change that. i'm not sure how to go about it. another minus of dollars that

flow into cdc further research and the national institutes of health and all of these. yet we see people with the ebt card can go into a liquor store and buy candy and soda with that or into caesar's and macquarie cp says and people don't cook anymore. >> host: let's leave it there. cynthia ogden, your thoughts. >> guest: we think of obesity is a complex problem. there's a lot of other contributing recess while. thinking about changes that have occurred related to snacking as he brought up. we are eating out more than we used to eat and spending more food dollars on restaurants and fast foods and things like that. our food portion sizes have increased. but we've eaten have changed.

averages. we've seen a lot of these changes. it's a very complex problem related to the being taken how much you expand and how physically act if you are, which talking about. >> host: decisive affairs in the government need to campaign to tell kids to go out in play. allison not great, can you explain what happens at the federal level and that the first lady is doing and how official that is? >> guest: the first lady has done a variety of different things. one of the ways is to really bring a spotlight to the kinds of things and programs the usda has and to some extent programs under the obama administration can apply for grants to serve apples at lunch time for instance and all kinds of ways schools can use grant programs

to manage kissers healthier choices. at the same time, the first lady is the honorary chair for healthy america it is through this relationship where you can only do so much in schools. the first lady has made it clear she thinks it's important on the partnership deals with restaurants and red lobster, wal-mart, hyatt hotels for the idea instead of serving up coca-cola at a restaurant that becomes the standard. there is no one magic pill here. it's complicated, so there's hundreds of little things happening. if you look at them as they will come you might start to see more of a leveling out of obesity. >> host: alvin abreu, food and

health responded, thanks for joining us this morning. cynthia ogden at the cdc national center for health statistics. thanks to you. >> guest: you're welcome. ..