at all. >> it is humbling for you to say you with the informal spiritual adviser to the most powerful man in the world when you were the shepherd for his spiritual advising. how was it with your humility you stepped in behind jeremiah right, african liberation geologist along with dr. gilmore and rev. desmond tutu. along--a young man like you moved in to their. if i am not wrong -- you moved into their but moved to i don't

want to say crutch but the shepherd, the best way to say it, if that man was senator. went from being a senator and the faith based initiative which had his own naysayers, built into the stronger organization through your leadership through that period, what did you see demand that you were closest to who at one point was a senator go from senator to being elected president, and you were still there when he got the second term which you call legacy. first term is try to get done, second term is to build your legacy. drop that period, what type of movement, what have you seen as far as faith in barack obama?

>> his faith has deepened. it is a great question. he has said that himself. there's something about a constant stream of trials and different things you have to overcome that slows you down and gives you a sense of perspective. president obama is the last person in the room to panic, the first person to say hold on, let's put a strategy together and we will get through this and that is a prospective god would have all of us, so easy to look at the challenges in front of us and think they are going to be the end of the world and yet we serve a god who has parted seas and raise people from the dead and done all sorts of things and then moved on to yet another challenge and that is the perspective he wants all of us to have. i have seen the president have a deepening faith and constantly remind himself what is most important, spending more time with his family and his wife and

kids and focusing on deepening the night and things like that. i have seen his face grow. other questions? anything at all? yes? >> thank you for compiling. i am just curious if you have a particular favorite passage in the scripture? >> there is the first and second timothy, god has not given us the spirit of fear but tower and love and i go back to that when i need to cast down fear in my life and step out and do a new thing. there is a him that i go back to, up count every blessing. i am always singing it around the house but it reminds me of our flaws as sinners all but god's greatness is ever present. there is some scriptures that i go to. >> my name is brendel jackson and i first met your wife at the

first baptist church. >> wonderful! a great christmas present. >> now that you have the new life of mayor are you working with your wife? >> yes. we run a consulting company together with paul montero who is here. palm. wave your hands so everybody can see it. handsome guy. we worked at a consulting company where we held institutions partner with the faith community. other questions? all right. thank you so much. [applause] >> across here.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers. watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. next participants read selections from books that have been banned or challenge over the years. this event was hosted by the northern virginia fine arts association and is about two hours. >> welcome. i am catherine, executive

director and very happy we're having a band polk read out today. is amazing to me what is banned polk the still being challenged today. the director of the office of alexandria is going to read from the great gatsby. [applause] >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. let me say from the outset this is one of my favorite books, probably because i have always been fascinated by the subject of an island east of new york where i grew up. i became a history buff early on knitting their and eventually became a museum director on the north shore of long island which is on one of these grand estates so i feel like i am very well

versed not just in the history and architecture but the whole social history of that lifestyle from the 1920s. it was unique to long island, one of the earliest places where people who had no association with long island from across the country and across the world's came to long island to see and be seen. if you had money, if you aspired to a title, if you really aspired to a title you could buy one for your daughter. that was often done with long island residents. it was definitely in the 1920s the place you needed to maintain a seasonal home. not a primary home. a home you only use two or three months a year and really let your hair down. what happened with the great

gatsby, the story starts in 1922 with a former army officer from the midwest who meets a young lady in 1917 in louisville, ky ecb. [telephone ringing] >> the daughter of a wealthy family in louisville, horse breeding country, he falls in love with her, goes into the army in world war i and emerges at the other end, multimillionaire. in the meantime the love of his life, daisy mary's on man named tom buchanan, a yale graduate, there is some indication she is grieving for gatsby but goes a hand maries buchanan any way.

a village known as east end, the middle of standpoint and that's the lives on king's point which is defined as west a. it is definitely the more fashionable of the two, king's point is nothing to see sneeze at. as to give an indication, vanderbilt, built a castle in cent point in 1917.just to give vanderbilt, built a castle in cent point in 1917. took several years to build and she said frankly my castle once and point is more authentic. gives you an indication. we start the story here in chapters 7. i hope you have all read the book. is actually a pretty tame -- origin of the i asked why was this a band book?

at a couple nasty words in it like a dam and son of a bitch. there is actually no sex to speak of in the book at all. there is a reference to a term which is probably as scandalous as it gets. what we are talking here it is more the life style. the book was well read in the 20s. was too close to that time period and the people on an island, nothing new to them. certainly went it was reprinted in the 40s and 50s to a whole new generation of postwar parents, this was not something they wanted their children reading in school because of a lifestyle that i suppose they felt it encouraged. the scene opens in chapter 7, gatsby purchased the home across from buchanan who emigrated to

the north shore. specifically because it is facing daisy buchanan's home and he wants her to know he is here on long island, he is a multimillionaire probably worth more than her own husband is. he held a series of parties all summer long hoping she and her husband tom will attend and he will get to discuss this with her. that actually doesn't happen until well into the book. when it finally does happen, he has in turn received an invitation to their home. this is kind of where the book starts, after the invitation is received and the story i'd tell here is from the caraway who lives in a very humble cottage that he rents for $80 a month.

the lights in his house failed to go on one night and as soon as it began his career was over. only gradually did i become aware the automobiles which turned expectantly into his drive stayed for just a moment and drove away. wondering if he were sick i went over to find an unfamiliar butler with a villainous face squeaking get me suspiciously from the door. is mr. gets the sec, asked. know, after a pause, he added stir in a grudging way. i haven't seen him around and was rather worried. tell mr. caraway came over. who, he demanded rudely. caraway. all right, i will tell him. abruptly he slammed the door. get the has dismissed every servant in his house a week before and replaced them with a half-dozen others who never went into west egg village to be

bribed by the local tradesmen but ordered moderate supplies over the telephone. the grocery boy reported the kitchen looked like a pigsty and the general opinion in the village was new people were not released service at all. the next day gets the call me on the phone. going away, i inquired. no, holds board. i hear you fired on row servants. i wanted people who would gossip. daisy comes over quite frequently in the afternoons. so the whole affair had fallen in like a house of cards of disapproval in her eyes. there are some people who wanted to do something, all brothers or sisters that used to run a small hotel. i see, i said. he was curling up at daisy's request. what i come to lunch at her house tomorrow? miss baker would be fair. half an hour later daisy herself telephoned and seemed relieved to find i would be coming.

something was up and yet i couldn't believe that they would obviously choose this occasion for a scene especially for the rather harrowing scene that gad's the had outlined in the garden. the next day was boiling, the warmest day of the summer. as my training emerged into sunlight only the hot whistles of the national biscuit co. broke the simmering hush at noon. the straw seats of the car hovered on the edge of combustion. the woman next to me perspired delicately into her white shirt and as the newspaper, with the does what cried, her pocketbook fell to the floor. oh my, picked it up with a weary band and handed it at arm's length and by the extreme tip of the quarter to indicate i had no designs on it but everyone nearby including the woman suspected me just the same.

the conductor said to familiar faces, some are there. hot, hot is it hot enough for you? is it hot? the ticket came back to me with a dark stain from his hand that anyone should care whose lush lips he had kissed the night before, whose head may dampen the pajama pockets over his heart. through the home of the buchanan house blew a faint wind carrying the sand of the telephone out to get the and me as we waited at the door. his master's body, i am sorry but we can furnish it. it is too hot to touch this new one. what he really said was yes, i will see. he sat down the receiver and came toward us glistening slightly to take a straw hat. in the salon, a you need to indicate the direction.

in this heat every gesture was an affront to the commons for of life. the room was dark and cool. daisy andstore of life. the room was dark and cool. daisy and jordan lay on a couch. we can't move, as they sit together. jordan's fingers rested for a moment, and mr. thomas buchanan, the athlete, simultaneously i heard his voice, gruff, muffled, husky at the telephone. gatsby sat at the center of the carpet and glanced around with fascinated eyes. secret, exciting laugh, a gust of powder rose into the air. the rumor is, whispered jordan, that is tom's girlfriend on the phone. we were silent. of voice in the hall rose high with the millions. i won't said that at all. i am under no obligation to you.

as far as you're bothering me at lunch time about it, i won't stand for that. holding down the receiver, no, he is not. it is the bona fides of deal. i know about it. he put out his broad flat hand with well concealed dislike. i am glad to see you. hello. make us a cold drink, as he left the room away he went over to get the and pull his face down, accusing him directly on the mouth. you know i love you, she murmured. you forget there is of lady present the days he looked around doubtfully. you kiss nick too. what a low, vulgar girl you are. i don't care, cried daisy and began to claude on the brick fireplace. then she remembered he sat down guiltily on the couch just as a

freshly laundered nurse leading a little girl came into their room. less impressive, she crooned, holding out her arms. come to your own mother that loves you. the child relinquished by the nurse rushed across the room and routed shively into her mother's address. the blessed freshest that mother could powder on your old yellowy hair. daddy and i turned and leaning down and took the reluctant hand. afterwards kept looking at a child with surprise. i don't think he had never believed in this before. i got dressed before lunch, that is because your mother wanted you to show you of. her face bent into the single winkle of the small white nick. you dream, you, you absolute little dream. yes, admitted the child call me, jordan has on a white dress too. how do you like mother's

friends? daisy turned around to face get the. don't you think they are pretty? where is daddy? she doesn't look like her father, explained the. she has my hair in the shape of the face. daisy sat upon the couch, the nurse took a step forward and held out her hand. come along. goodbye, sweetheart. with the reluctant backward glance, the child held to the nurse's hand and pull out the door as time came back proceeding to click full of ice. get the took up his dream, they certainly look cool, he said with tension. we drink in long, greedy swallows. the sun is getting hotter every year, it seems pretty soon the earth is going to fall into the sun. it is just the opposite. the sun is getting colder every. come out side, i would like you to take a look at the place.

i looked over to the sound, stagnant, toward the fresher. get the for paused momentarily, raised his hand and pointed across the bay. i am read across from you. so you are, said tom. our eyes lifted over the rose beds to the hot line and we refuse of the dog days along the shore. slowly the white winds of the boat moved against the cool limit of the sky. ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles. sport for you, said tom. i would like to be with him for an hour. we had lunch in in the dining room, dark and two against the heat and drank down there is gay and with a cold a. what do we do with ourselves this afternoon, cried daisy, and the day after that and the next 30 years? don't be morbid. life starts all over again when it gets chris in the fall.

but it is so hot, insisted daisy on the verge of tears and everything is so confused. let's go into town. her voice struggled through the heat bearing against it, molding it senselessly into forms. i heard of making a garage out of a stable, tom was saying, but i am the first man who made a stable lot of a garage. who wants to go to town demanded daisy incessantly. gad's the's eyes floated toward her. she cried you look so cool. their eyes met and they stared at each other alone in space with an average glanced at the table, you always look so cool, she repeated. she told him that she loved him and tom buchanan thought he was astounded. his mouth open the little and he looked at daddy and he looked back at daisy as if he just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago. it resembled the advertisements of the man -- all right, broke

in, quickly. i am willing to go into town. come on, we are all going into town. his eyes flashed between gad's the and his wife. no one move. come on, is to crack a little. if we are going to tell let's start. his hands trembling with an effort at self control, lifted the last of his glass of a. daisy's boys got to the blazing crandall drive with. of the just going to go? like this? let's go have fun. it is too hot. he didn't answer. have your own way, she said. come on, jordan. let's go upstairs to get ready as we shuffled the hot pebbles with our feet. a silver curb of the moon covered in the western sky. get the started to speak, changed his mind but not before

tom wheeled and faced him expectantly. pardon me? have you got stables here ask get the with an effort. a quarter mile down the road. oh. there was a long pause. i don't see the idea of coming to town, tom said savagely. get these notion in their heads. shall we take anything to drink, called daisy from an upper window. i will get some whiskey, answered tom. he went inside. get be turned to me rigidly. i can't say anything in this house calls board. she has an indiscreet voice, full of, i hesitated, her voice is full of money, he said suddenly. that was it. i had never understood before. it was full of money. that was the inexhaustible charm the rose and fell, the jingle of it. high and a white house, the king's daughter, the golden girl. tom came out of the house read the bottle in a towel followed

by daisy and jordan wearing small tight hats of metallic law and carrying light cakes overbear arms. and go in my car, suggested that the. he felt the hot green leather of the seat. i ought to have left it in the shade. is it standard shift, demanded tom. yes. you take my coop and let me drive your car to town. this suggestion was distasteful to get the. i don't think there is much gas, he objected. there is plenty of gas said tom boisterously please look at the age. if it runs out i can stop at a drugstore. we can buy anything at a drug store nowadays. followed this apparently pointless remark, daisy look at tom, frowning. definable expression, at once definitely unfamiliar, vaguely and recognizable as the file we heard it described in words over gets the's face. pushing his hand toward get

the's car and i will take you in this circus wagon. he opened the door and she moved from the circle, you take nick and jordan and we will follow you in the coop. e-book to get the, the punching him with his hand. we got into the front seat of get the's car. tom pushed the gear tentatively and shot off in the impressive he leaving him tight behind. you see that demand? see what? realizing jordan and i must have known all along, you think i am pretty dumb, he suggested. perhaps i am, but i have almost a second sight, sometimes that tells me what to do. maybe you don't believe that, but science, he paused, the immediate contingency overtook him, pull some back from the edge of the theoretical abyss. i made a small investigation of this fellow, he continued. i could have gone deeper if i had known. do you mean you have been to a

medium, in quired jr. humorously? he stared and laughed. a medium. about gets the? no, i haven't. i set up making the small investigation of his past. and you found he was an oxford man? an oxford man, he was incredulous. he wears a pink suit. nevertheless he is an oxford man. oxford, new mexico. daisy invited him. in new him before we were married from god knows where. we were all irritable and aware of it as we drove into the silence. then as dr. t. j. elbert's faded guys came into sight down the road remembered get the's caution about gasoline. we have enough to get as into town, said tom. there is a garage right there.

i don't want to get stalled out in this baking heat. tom through on the brakes in patiently and as we slid to an abrupt dusty stop under wilson's sign after a moment the proprietor emerged from the interior of the establishment and gazed at the, let's have some gas said, roughly. what do you think we stopped here for? to admire the view? i am sick, said wilson, i have been set called a. what is the matter? i am all run down. shall i helped myself? you sounded well enough on the phone. with an effort, wilson left the shade in support of the doorway and greeting card unscrew the cap of the tank. in the silent some light his face was green. i didn't mean to interrupt your lunch, he said, but i need money pretty bad and wondered what you were going to do with your old car. how do you like this new one? i bought it last week. it is a nice yellow one as he strained at the handle.

like to buy it? big chance, wilson smiled, could make some money on the other one. what do you want the money for all of a sudden? i have been here too long. my wife and i want to go out west, your wife does, explained tom, startled, she has been talking about it for years. he left shading his eyes. she is going with the she wants to or not. i will not let her get away. the coop flashed by in a flurry of dust and flash of a waving hand. i just -- something funny the last few days. that is why i want to get away and been bothering you about the car. iou $1.20. the restless beating he was beginning to confuse me and i had a moment before i realized so far his suspicions had alighted on tom. he discovered myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in

another world and the shock made him physically sick. then tom, who made a parallel discovery less than an hour before it occurred to me there was no difference between these men in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sec and the well. wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, and forgiving league guilty as if he had just got some poor girl with child. i will let you have the car, said tom. i will send it over tomorrow afternoon. [applause] >> thank you. >> we have two authors in alexandria. no [inaudible conversations] >> we had an opportunity to do

three variations this year in philadelphia. >> is it in there? thank you. >> the piece we are going to do is from aristophanes's play l i lysistra lysistrata. ..

>> they also controlled the treasut this point. and the play itself has a lot of sexual imagery and a lot of sexual discussion, and one would think in a society like ours that that would be the basis. but, in fact, it was the political nature of the play, that women would take on the role of speaking for every man and that the male characters would take on the role of being those parts of society that were not good, that were harmful to the preservation and growth of the society. and it were those, it was those themes that became the purpose for the ban. now, as the play has moved through and been retained because of its great structure and the interesting and continuing subjects, universal themes that it pursues and that it explores, it's been banned for lots of other reasons in different places. so it's always been, it's a lay that just pretty much stomps on everybody's toes in some way,

but that the way in which it deals with these themes it's funny, it's a comedy. but it makes you think. a selection from greek comedy and tragedy, obviously, there are courses. and a course is represented as a group of thoughts and ideas. and in this case there is a women's chorus and a men's chorus representing those two different types of society. and so here in this scene they have now confronted each other. the old men who were the elders of the city and represent the old way of thinking and the women with water pots who now represent trying to clean out and cleanse the old ways and trying to instill a new way of thinking to get rid of wars, to end those things that are repugnant in society and embrace a new way of thinking. and so to two groups meet, and their leaders have at it. what is this, i see, you

wretched old man? -- [inaudible] >> here's something new, a swarm of women standing pulpit outside to defend the gates. >> bark at us, will you, if you do not see the -- [inaudible] >> with oh, oh, shall we stop there -- [inaudible] suppose one of us were to break a stick across their backs, eh? >> set down our water pot on the ground. if they should tear to offer us -- they should dare to offer us violence. >> let someone knock to out two or three teeth to them. they won't talk so loud then. >> come on, then. unflinching force and no other bitch will ever grab your balls. >> silence, or my stick -- that that -- will cut your -- [inaudible] >> i will tear out your lungs

and entrails with my -- [inaudible] >> what a clever poet. how well he says the woman is the most shameless of animals. >> let's pick up our water jars again. >> you damn women, what do you mean to do here with your water? >> and you, old death and life with your fire, is this to cremate yourself? >> i'm going to build you a fire to roast your female friends upon. >> i am going to put out your fire. >> you put out my fire, you? >> yes. just you see. >> i don't know what -- [inaudible] roasting you with this torch. >> i am giving you a bath, ready to clean off the filth. >> that's for me, you dirty slut? >> yes, indeed -- [inaudible] >> do you hear that? >> i am a free woman, i tell you. >> i will make you hold your tongue, never fear. >> aha, you shall never -- [inaudible]

>> burn off her hair more her. >> [inaudible] >> oh, dear,. >> what? >> i'm watering you to make you bloom -- >> alas, i am too dry. now i am trembling with cold. >> oh. [applause] >> thank you. [inaudible] now we have our -- [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> so no one's tackled whitman yet, right? well, these will probably be familiar words for many of you. i did look this up because, i

mean, i know that "leaves of grass" was banned, but i didn't know very many of the details, and it is pretty amazing. apparently, from the first time it was published in 1855 all through its nine editions, it created a tremendous amount of disturbance. and it was deemed obscene, too sensual, shocking because of its hoho-erotic overtones which, i mean, today are almost laughable. and in 1865 he lost his job because there was a copy of "leaves of grass" on his desk. this was at the department of interior. yale university in 1870, yale university president noah porter compared whitman's offense to that of walking naked through the streets. and it was formally banned in boston in the 1880s and

informally banned elsewhere for a long time. among the few voices that spoke up for whitman were, was ralph waldo emerson. so i'll just read a couple short selections, and i think you certainly know this first one. it's from the inscriptions in "leaves of grass." i'm reading it because i was looking for a selection to read to my kids this week. i teach, and this was what i had selected for them, and then there's a shorter section at the endment so this is "i hear america singing." i hear america singing the very carols i hear, those of mechanics, each one singing his -- as it should be -- brit and strong. the carpenter singing his, the mason singing his as he makes ready for work or leaves off work. the boatman singing what belongs to him in the his boat, the deckhand singing on the steam

boat deck. the shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands. the wood cutter's song, the plow boys on his way in the morning or at noon intermission or at sundown. the delicious singing of the mother or young wife at work or of the girl sewing or washing. each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else. the day, what belongs to the day? at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. and this is at the end, the last section in "song of myself." the spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me. he complains of my gab and my loitering. i too am not a bit tamed, i too am untranslatable. i sound my barbaric yomp over

the roofs of the world. the last cut of day holds back for me. it flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds. it cokes me to the vapor and the duskment i depart as air. i shake my white locks at the runway, spunaway sun. i infuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags. i bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass i love. if you want me again, look for me under your boot soles. you will hardly know who i am or what i mean, but i shall be good health to you nevertheless and filter and fiber your blood. failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. missing me one place, search another. i stop somewhere, waiting for you. so thanks. [applause]

>> [inaudible] i don't have it for everyone, so shall i introduce you as a folk hour itself and author? >> sure. >> patty bowman, she's got an interesting selection of nonfiction for us. >> thank you, katherine. my work as a folklorist took me this summer to south beach where i'd not been since the 1970s and stayed in an art deco hotel. during breakfast one morning, i overheard somebody giving a history of the hotel, and it seems in the 1960s abby hoffman spent time there as he was starting the students for a democratic society. abby hoffman's book was on the list, and i taught there's a little serendipity. the book was banned for many reasons in countries, and we think back to the youth culture of the '60s, and it was international. so scotland yard, france, all of

these countries banned distribution as well as publication. abby hoffman raised the money to publish it himself. interestingly, in japan they were fine. it could be published. and libraries wouldn't carry it, nobody would sell it. it finds its way in through many roads. but rereading it now, i left out the parts on how to shock lifts, how to build a molotov cocktail, how to steal. [laughter] and the absurdity of the yippees and the whole yippee movement is sort of what i wanted to highlight. steal this book, by abby hoffman. free speech is the right to shout theater in a crowded fire. yippee proverb. [laughter] free food, restaurants. in a country such as america --

spelled with a k -- there's bound to be a hell of a lot of food lying around just waiting to be ripped off. if you want to live high off the hog without doing the dishes, restaurants are easy pickings. in general, many of these targets are easier marks if you are wearing the correct uniform. you should always have one suit or fashionable dress outfit for the proper heist. specialized uniforms such as men in priest garb can be most helpful. check out your local uniform store for a wide range of clothes that will get you in and especially out of all kinds of stores. every movement organization should have a prop and costume department. in every major city, there are usually bars that cater to the new generation type riffraff trying to us l their way up the escalator of big business. many of these bars have a buffet or hors d'oeuvres served for free as a come on to drink more

mindless booze. take a half empty glass from a table and use it as a prop to ward off any anxious way threat. waitress. walk around sampling the free food until you've had enough. often there are five or six such bars in a community. dinner usually begins at 5 p.m. if you're really hungry, you can go into a self-service cafeteria and finish the meal of someone who left a lot on the plate. self-service restaurants are usually good places to cop things like mustard, ketchup, salt, silverware and cups for home use. bring an empty school bag and load up after you've cased the joint. finishing leftovers can be worth it even in the fanciest of restaurants. when you are seated at a place where the dishes still remain, chow down real quick. then say you have to meet someone outside and leave.

assorted freebies. laundry. wait in a laundromat. tell someone with a light load that you'll watch the machine more them if you can stick your clothes in with theirs. [laughter] pets. your local aspca will give you a free dog, cat, bird or other pet. have them inspect and inoculate the animal which they will do free of charge. you can get a free or very cheap medical care for your pet at a school for veterinary medicine. underground newspapers often carry a free pet in the back pages, snakes can can be caught in any wooded area, and they make great pets. [laughter] you can collect insects pretty easy. abouts are unbelievable -- ants are unbelievable to watch. you can make a glass case, fill it with sand and start an ant colony. be a library book will tell you how to care for them. be every year the national park

service gives away surplus elks in order to keep the herds underits jurisdiction from outgrowing the amount of available land for grazing. write to: superintendent, yellowstone national park, yellowstone, wyoming, 83020. you must be b prepared to pay the freight charges for shipping the an pal and guarantee that -- animal and guarantee that you can provide enough grazing land to keep the big fellow happy. under the same arrangement, the government will send you a tree buffalo. write to: office of information, department of the interior, washington, d.c., 20420. so many people have written them recently demanding their free buffalo that they called a press conference to attack the yippees publicly for creating chaos in the government. don't take any buffalo shit from these petty democrats. demand your free buffalo. [laughter] posters. beautiful wall posters are available by writing to the

national tourist agencies of various countries. most are located between 42nd b and 59th streets on fifth eave in new york city. you can find their addresses in the yellow pages under travel agencies. there are over 50 of hem. prepare a form letter saying you are a high school geography teacher and would like some posters of the country to decorate your classroom. in a month you'll be flooded with them. airline companies also have colorful wall posters that they send out for free. postage. when mailing to the same city, address the envelope or package to yourself and put the name of the person you are sending it to where the return address generally goes. mail it out postage, and it will be returned to the sender. [laughter] because almost all letters are machine processed, any stamp that is the correct size will pass. easter seals and a variety of other type stamps urinally get by -- usually get by the

electronic scanner. if you have a friend working in a large corporation, you can run your organization's pail through their post am -- mail through their postage meter. those subscription-type letters you get in the mail often have a postage ganger teed postcard. the next one you get, paste it on a brick and drop it in the mailbox with. the company is required by law to athe postage. you can also get rid of all your garbage this way. [laughter] ministry. unquestionably one of the best deals going is becoming a minister this the universal life church. they will send you absolutely free, bona fide ordination papers. these entitle you to all sorts of discounts and tax exemptions. try cutting out a card on the following page and laminate it. let us know how it work withs out. [laughter] gone straights.

demonstrations. demonstrations always will be an important form of protest. the structure can vary from arally or teach anyone to a confronting of the warriors at the pentagon. a gone straight is different from other forms of warfare because it invites people other than those planning the action via publicity to participate. be it is also basically nonviolent in nature, a complete understanding of the use of media is necessary to create the publicity necessary to get the word out. numbers of people are only one of the many factors in an effective demonstration. the timing, choice of target and tactics are equal hi important. there have been demonstrations of 400,000 that are hardly remembered and those of a few dozen that were markedly effective. often the critical element involved is the theater. those who say a demonstration should be concerned with education rather than theater don't understand either and will never organize a successful demonstration. or, for that matter, a

successful revolution. publicity includes everything from buttons and leaflets to press conferences. be in touch with the best artist you can locate to design the visual props. posters can be silk screened very cheeply, and -- cheaply, and people can be taught to do it in a short time. buttons have to be purchased. the cheapest are those printed directly on the metal. the paint rubs off after a while, but they're ideal for mass gone straights. you can print 10,000 for about $250. leaflets, like posters, should be well designed. one way of getting publicity is to negotiate with the city for permission. again, this raises political questions about talking to the pigs, but there's no doubt one reason for engaging in permit discussions, publicity. the date, time and place of the to demonstration all have to be chosen with skill. know the projected weather reports. pick a time and day of the week that are convenient to most people. make sure the place itself adds something to the message.

don't have a demonstration just a because that's the way it's always been done. it's only one type of weapon and should be used as such. on the other hand, don't dismiss demonstrations because they always turned out boring. you and your group can plan a demonstration within a demonstration that will play up your politics more accurately. also, don't tend to dismiss demonstrations outright because the repression is too great. during world war ii, the danes held street demonstrations against the nazis who occupied their country. even today there are public demonstrations against vietnam war in downtown saigon. repression is there, but overestimating it is more a tactical blunder than the reverse. nevertheless, it's wise to go to all demonstrations prepared for vamping the pigs. [laughter] [applause] >> now we're going to hear from ron who is an attorney, literary

agent for hundreds of authors, author of 11 books and 400 articles and reviews. he resides half the year here in al sand drink cra and -- alexandria and half in key biscayne, and he's going to read from "all quiet on the western front." thank you for being here. >> and thank you, and i compliment you for taking on a subject as interesting as censorship, because as we heard just in the last half hour, it's a problem that goes back hundreds of years and in early greek cultures and continues today in small towns and libraries around the country. under my hat as lawyer, i've had to persuade civil rights groups to take particular positions when, for example, in new york city once an organization wanted to stop george lincoln rockwell, a terrible racist, from speaking in a park there, and i had a very difficult time persuading them that that's probably the --

trying to keep him from being licensed to speak is probably the best way to give him a big audience. why not just ignore him? and the same thing with books. you know, sometimes i know authors can't get any better advertisement than somebody trying to keep their books off the shelves. but when it does happen -- and it does happen frequently -- we're really talking about one of the most dangerous robs in our culture -- problems in our culture, and it is the stifling of ideas and taken to the extreme in nazi germany when they burn books, we see where that goes. so my excerpt isn't as delightful as the last one. it concerns the problems of war, and it comes from a book almost 100 years old about war, "all quiet on the western front." before going over to see -- [inaudible]

we pack up his things. he will need them on the way back. in the dressing room station, there is great activity. it reeks as ever of carbolic pus and sweat. we're accustomed to a good deal in the bill lets, but this makes us feel payment. we ask for him. he lies in a large room and receives it with feeble expressions of joy and helplessage station. agitation. while he was unconscious, someone had stolen his watch. i always told you that nobody should carry a good watch as that. mueller is rather crude and tactless, otherwise he would hold his tongue, for fib can see that -- for anybody can see he will never come out of this place again. whether he finds his watch or not will make no difference. at the most, one will only be able to send it to his people. how goes it, franz, asks krop. chem rick's head sinks. not so bad, but i have such a damn pain in my foot.

we look at his bed covering. his leg lies under a wire basket. the bed covering arches over it. i kick mueller on the shin, for he is just about to tell kimmerich what the orderlies told us outside, that the leg is amputated. he looks ghastly, yellow and wan, in his face there are already the strained lines that we toe so well. we have seen them -- we know so well, we have seen them now hundreds of times. they're not so much lines as marks. under the skin the life no longer pulses, it has already pressed out the boundaries of the body. death is working through from within. it already has command in the eyes. here lies our comrade who a little while ago was resting horse flesh with us and squatting in the shell holes. he is still and yet it is not he any longer. his features have become uncertain and faint, like a

photographic plate from which who pictures have been taken. even his voice sounds like ashes. i think of the time when we went away. his mother, a good, plump matron, brought him to the station. she wept continuously, her face was bloated and swollen. he felt embarrassed, because she was the least composed of all. she simply dissolved into fat and water. then she caught sight of me and took hold of my arm again and again and implored me to look after franz out there. indeed, he did have a face like a child and such frail bones that after four weeks pack carrying, he already had flat feet. but how can a man look after anyone in the field if now you will soon be going home, says krop. you would have to wait at least three or four months for your leave. he nods. i cannot bare to look at his hands, they're like wax. it shows through blue-black like poison. it strikes me that these nails

continue to grow like lean, fantastic cellar plants long after he breathes no more. i see the picture before me. they twist themselves into corkscrews and grow and grow and with them the hair on the decaying skull just like grass in a good soil, just like grass. how can it be possible, mueller leans over, we have brought your things, franz. he signs with his hands, put them under the bed. mueller does so. he starts again about the watch. how can we calm him without making him suspicious? mueller reappears with a pair of airman's english boots of soft leather which lace up all the way. they are things to be coveted. mueller is delighted at the sight of them. he matches their soles against his own clumsy boots and and says, will you be taking them with you, franz? we all three have the same thought, even if he should get better, he would be able to use

only one. they are no use to him. but his things -- as things are now, it is a pity they should stay here. the orderlies will grab them as soon as he's dead. won't you leave them with us, mueller repeats? he doesn't want to, they're his most prized possessions. well, we could exchange, suggests mueller. out here one can make some use of them. still, he is not to be moved. i tread on mueller's foot. reluctantly, he puts the fine boots under the belled. we take our leave. cheerio, franz. i promise him to come back in the morning. mueller talks of doing so too. he's thinking of the lace-up boots. franz groans, he's feverish. he gets hold of an orderly and asks him to give morphine. you only attend to officers properly, says krop viciously. i hastily intervene and give him

a cigarette, and and he takes it. are you usually allowed to give it then, i ask him? if you don't think so, then why do you ask? i press a few more cigarettes into his hand. do us the favor. well, all right, he says. krop goes in with him. he doesn't trust him and wants to see. we wait outside. mueller returns to the subject of the boots. they would fit me perfectly, and and these boots i get blister after blister. do you think e will last til tomorrow after drill? if he passes out in the night, we know where the boots -- krop returns. do you think he asked? done for, says mueller emphatically. we go back to the huts. i think of the letter i must write tomorrow to kemmir's mother. suddenly krop throws a cigarette away and looking around him with a broken and distracted face stammers, damn shit, damn shit.

krop has conned himself. we understand. he saw red. out here every man gets like that sometime. what has been written to you, mueller asks? he laughs. we are the iron youth. we all three smile bitterly. of krop rails, he's glad that he cannot speak. yes, that's the way they speak. iron youth. youth, we are none of us more than 20 years old, but young? youth? that was long ago. we are old folk. [applause] >> that's a sad piece. thank you for reading it. reading it so well. yeah. of -- i read it in high school, and i didn't want to know that. i was thinking an hour in we can talk about banned books. there's some food out there. or if nobody wants to do that,

we've got another scene. i've got a piece. our youth -- speaking of youth -- our boys and girls' club kids didn't show up. so let's take a vote. no, let's not. [laughter] have some food. have some food, and i think discussion will naturally flow after that. [inaudible conversations] if people want to come and go, that's fine too. [inaudible conversations] back on the reading, thank you for coming and thank you for chatting about banned books during the break. it made me really exciting to see people talking about that. and we have several exciting authors coming up, speaking of excited. ..

, religion, philosophy, morality and this book is banned in many places but in the united states for obscenity and elson -- isn't all that obscene. chapter iii, candied gets away from the bulgarian army. there's nothing so gallons, so brilliant and well disposed as the two armies, trumpets, a lobos, cannon's made such music as hell itself had never heard. must get swept away from the dust of the world, the bayonet was also up sufficient reason for the deaths of several

thousand. in the amount of 30,000 souls. candide who travel bike and philosophers did himself as well as he could in this heroic butchery. and made the two kings were crossing, went to reason elsewhere. dead and dying and reached a neighboring village. within cinders. was a bear village the bulgarians according to the law of the war. told men covered with wounds held their wives, hugging their children, massacred before their faces. their daughters, disemboweled and greeting their last after satisfying the want of bulgarian heroes and others, have burned in the flames begged to be dispatched. it was strewn with rain, arms and legs. candide went to another village, and treated it in the same way.

candide walked over palpitating limbs or across ruins arrived at last in the seat of war. cunegonde always in his heart. his physicians failed him when he arrived at holland but having heard that everybody was rich in that country and they were all good christians he did not doubt that he should meet with the same treatment from them as he met in the barren's capital before cunegonde was the cause of his expulsion. he asked several brave looking people who all answered him he continued to follow this trade they would confine him to a house of correction. and a large assembly for a whole hour in the subject of charity but the orator looking askew said what were you doing here? are you for the good cause? there could be no effect without a cause, said candide. it is arranged for the best.

it was necessary for me from the advantage of cunegonde to afterwards run the gauntlet and now necessary i should make my bread and to learn to earn it. my friend, the warrior said to him, do you believe the pope could be anti christ? i have not heard it, and candide. whether he is or is not, i want bread. begun, road, do not come near me again. the warrior's wife putting her head out window and spying man who doubted whether the pope was the antichrist pored over him a chamber pot. man who had never -- be held the cruel and ignominious treatment shown to his brethren. he took candide home, clean him, gave him bread and beer and even which the manufacturer person study made in holland.

candide frustrated himself before him and cried mr. pavlov said the best of this world, innocent touched by your extreme generosity and the inhumanity of the gentleman in the black coat and his lady. the next day as he took a walk he to met a girl covered with scabs, the end of his nose eaten away, his mouth and distorted, his teeth black, choking in his throat, tormented and spitting out a tooth which each effort to. candide more moved with compassion than with poorer gave the shocking beggar what he received from the chain. he looked at him earnestly, drew up a few years, candide recoiled. do you know longer know your dear friend? what do i hear? you are my dms there? you in this terrible plight? what misfortune has happened to you? why are you no longer in a magnificent castle?

what became of cunegonde, nature's masterpiece? i am so we cannot stand. candide carried him to the stable and gave him a crust of bread. as soon as he had refreshed himself a little, candide, cunegonde, she is dead? candide faded away at the word. a little bad vinegar he thought at the stable. candide reopened his size. abdel cunegonde is dead? best of worlds, where are you? what else did he die? was it grief on seeing her father kick me out of his magnificent castle? no she was ripped open by the bulgarian soldiers at having been violated. they broke for attempting to defend her, my lady and her mother cut in pieces, my poor people served the same manner as the sister and as for the castle

they left not one stone upon another, not a sheet with the court free, but we have had our revenge. on the very same thing to neighboring village, to a bulgarian lord. candide fainted again. coming to himself and having said all he came to say inquired the cause and effect as well as reason that reduced him to such a miserable flight. alas, it was long the comfort of the human species, preserver of the universe, the stole the ball sensible beings, tender love. these last words determined candide. he went and flung himself at the feet of the charitable james and gave him so touching the picture of the state to which was reduced that the good man did not scruple to take dr. pavlov out. had been in short of his

expanse, only an eye and an ear. he rode well and perfectly. so he made his bookkeeper. at an end of treatments being obliged to go to lisbon about mercantile affairs, two philosophers, explain to him how everything was constituted that it could not be better. james was not of this opinion. is more likely, man had a corrupted nature where they were not born bald. and cannon and bayonets, they made canon and bayonets to destroy one another. in this account might throw the bankrupt and justice which seizes on the best of the bankrupt, chief creditors. all of this has been discussed, replied the wide dr.. private misfortune's make the general good so that the more private misfortunes there are the greater is the general good. while he so recent the sky

darkened, the wind blew from four corners and a ship sailed by terrible tempest within sight of the port of lisbon. half dead within conceivable language the ruling of a ship produces, half of the passengers were not sensible of the danger the other half shriek and parade, the vessel gaped, no one heard, no one commanded. they bore ahead, a british sailor struck him roughly, the force of the blow the sailor himself tumbled head for most overboard and struck on a piece of broken mast. honest james ran to his assistant, told him up and from the effort he made himself precipitated into the sea in spite of the sailor who left without deigning to look at him. candide drew near and saw his benefactor who rose up and was swallowed up forever, he was just going to jump in after him but was prevented by the philosopher who demonstrated to

him the bay of lisbon had been made on purpose for them to be drowned. while approving this the ship foundered, all perished except pavlov, candide and the saber. the villain to land safely to shore and pavlov and candide were born on a plank. as soon as they recovered the they walked the distance, had some money left with which they hoped to save themselves from starving after they escaped drowning. scarcely had they reached the city after the death of their benefactor, they saw europe tremble under their feet, the sea swell and foamed and r&b to pieces the vessels riding at anchor. whirlwinds of fire and-covered the streets and public links, roofs were plummeted on the pavement and the pavement was scattered. 30,000 inhabitants of all ages and sexes were crushed to death in the ruins. the sailor whistling and swearing said there was duty to be gained. what could be sufficient reason

for this phenomenon? this is the last day, cried candide. the sale iran among the ruins facing death, finding it, he got drunk and having slipped himself purchase the favors of the good-natured when she met on the ruins of the destroyed houses and in the midst of the dying and dead. my friend, this is not right, use in against the universal reason, time badly. blood and fury, and i am a sailor and four times have i traveled in voyages to japan. falling stones had wanted candide. he stretched in the street covered with rubbish. he said to pangloss 11 i am dying. this concussion of the earth is no new thing, the city of lima in south america, the same convulsions last year, the same cause, the same effect,

certainly under the ground in lisbon. nothing more probable, said candide but for the love of god all blacks loyal and wine. how probable, replied the philosopher, i maintain this is capable of being demonstrated. candide failed away and pangloss fetched why and water, the following day, provisions with which they repaired exhausted strength. and relieving the inhabitants who escaped death. some may suffer, and moisten their bread with tears. pavlov -- pangloss consoled them that things could not be otherwise. all that is for the best. there is a volcano in lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. it is impossible to be other than they are for everything is

right. [applause] >> time for tradition. >> the next vision, the vice mayor of the city of alexandria is going to read from to kill a mockingbird. we are honored to have our former mayor with us. thank you for being here. thank you for being here and thank you to catherine for organizing an important event to remind us of the importance of freedom of choice. what we see, the core value of our country. i am going to read from to kill a mockingbird. it is one of my favorite books, i read it many times. amazingly as i got it from the library i started reading it, a

passage of it to read and found myself reading a lot of the book and thought i don't remember that passage and i was catching things i had not remembered about the story line. and astounding book and every word of it -- i have to wear glasses now. as we get older. i wasn't sure at the beginning, some great passages through the middle where he explains you should never kill a mockingbird, if i'm ruining this book i am sorry but i want to read from the ending. basically the children are coming home from a halloween party, the older brother, gem, short for jeremiah, is walking his little sister, scout, home,

and there has been trouble in the town and catechists finch, the father, the beloved character we all know and love who defended tom robinson against a false accusation and tom robinson being an african-american not only was falsely accused but was killed and of the man who was responsible for that, mr. yule, has attacked atticus's children on the way home from a halloween party late at night and someone saved the children and it is unclear, heck kate, the sheriff, is there as jem is lying unconscious with the doctor. so the daughter, scout, explained what is happening on

the way home and as she finishes she says someone was staggering around and panting and coughing, i thought it was jem at first but didn't sound like a sigh went looking for him. i thought -- who was it? said mr. tate. there he is, he can tell you his name and as i said it i half pointed to the man in the quarter and brought my arm down quickly lest atticus reprimand me for pointing. he was leaning against the wall. he had been leaning against the wall when i came into the room, his arms folded across his chest. as i pointed he brought his arms down and pressed the palms of his hand against the wall. they were sickly white hands that had never seen the sun, so white they stood out garishly against the wall in the dim light of jem's room. i looked from his hands to his khaki pants, my eyes traveled up

to his tour in denim shirt, his face was as white as his hands, his cheeks within, the hollowness, the mouth was wide, they were shallow, almost delicate indentations at his temples and his gray eyes were so colorless i thought he was blind. his hair was dead, almost every on top. when i pointed to him, he slipped slightly, greasy sweat streaks on the wall and hooked his hands in his belt, as if he heard fingernails scraping. as i gazed at him in wonder, the tensions slowly drained from his face. his lips parted into a timid smile and our neighbor's image blurred with my sudden tears. hey, boo, i said. mr. archer, honey, said atticus gently correcting me. this is mr. arthur radley.

i believe he already knows you. if atticus could introduce me to boo radley at a time like this that was atticus. granted that where jem was sleeping, the same shy smile crept across his face, hot with embarrassment i tried to cover up by covering jem up. don't touch him, atticus said. mr. hecht kate looked through his horn rimmed glasses, he is about to speak when dr. reynolds came down the hall. everybody out, he said as he came in the door. did notice you first time, good evening, arthur. didn't notice you first time i was here. dr. reynolds's voice was breezy. as if he said it every evening of his life. an announcement that astounded me more than being in the same room with boo radley but even boo radley got sick sometimes but on the other hand wasn't sure. dr. reynolds was carrying the

big package and put it down on jem's desk and took off his coat. you are quite satisfied he is alive now? tell you how i knew when i tried to examine him he kicked me. had to put him out good and proper. so, scout, he said to me. atticus glanced at boo. let's go on the front porch, it is still warm enough. i wondered why atticus was inviting us to the front porch instead of the living room but then i understood. the living room lights were awfully strong, but fallen out first mr. tate, atticus was waiting. then he followed mr. tate. people have had of making everyday things even under the hottest conditions but i was no exception. come on, mr. arthur i heard myself saying. you don't know the house real well. i will take you to the porche.

it looked at me and nodded. i met him through the hall past bonet living room. why don't you have a seat, mr. arthur. is rocking chair is nice and comfortable. my small fantasy about him was all lives again. he would be sitting on the porch, right pretty, a right pretty star, feeling slightly unreal i led him to the chair for august from atticus, he was in deep shadow. who would feel more comfortable in the dark? atticus was sitting in a swing and mr. tate was in a chair next to him away from the living room windows, strong on them. i sat beside boo. at this -- atticus was saying i am losing my memory, pushed up his glasses across his fingers to his eyes. jem is not third team. he is already 13. i can't remember. any way it will come before

county court. what will, mr. finch? mr. tate and crossed his legs and been forward. was clear-cut self-defense but have to go to the office. mr. finch, do you think jem kill bob you will? do you think that? you heard what scout said, there is no doubt about it. she said jem got up, yanked him off her and probably got hold of his knife somehow in the dark. we will find out tomorrow. mr. finch, hold on, said mr. tate. jem never stabbed him. atticus was silent. >> that mr. tate as if he appreciated what he said but atticus shook his head. is mighty kind of you and i know you are doing it from that good heart of yours but don't start anything like that. mr. tate got up and went to the edge of the porch and sped into the shrubbery and thrust his hand into his hip pockets and faced atticus.

like what? i am sorry if i spoke sharply but nobody -- i don't live that way. nobody is going to hush anything up, mr. finch, mr. tate's voice was quiet but his. fourth planted on the porch floor boards it seemed they grew their. the curious contest the nature of which was alluding me it was developing between my father and sheriff. it was atticus's turn to go to the edge of the porch and he said into the yard, he put his hands in his pocket and faced mr. tate, heck, you haven't said it but i know what you are thinking. thank you for it, jean louise, he turned to me. he said jem thanks mr ewell off of her. i don't want my boy starting out with something like this over his head. best way to clear the air is have it in the open.

i don't want anyone saying jem's debt repayment to get him out of jail. when we get this over with, the better. mr. finch, mr. tate said, he fell on his knife. he killed himself. atticus walked to the corner of the porche, looked at the with styria, and in his own way, each was as stubborn as the other. i wondered who would give in first, and stubbornness, was quiet and really haven't been is in some ways he was as said as the cunninghams. mr. tate was and schools and blunt but equal to my father's. heck, atticus at back was turned, it will be a simple denial to jem of the way i tried to raise him. sometimes i think i am a total failure as a parent but i am all they have got. before jem books at anyone else

he looks at me and i try to live so i can look squarely back at him. frankly i couldn't meet his eye and the day i can't do that i know i have lost him. i don't want to lose him and stop because they are all i have got. mr. finch, mr. tate was still planted to the floorboards, bob fell on his knife. i can prove it. atticus wheeled around, his hand the in his pockets. can't you even try to see it my way? you have got children of your own but i am older than you. when minor grown i will be an old man if i am still around right now if they don't trust me, they would won't trust anybody. if they hear me saying downtown something different happened i won't have them anymore. i can't live one way in town and another way in my home. mr. tate said patiently he flung jem down, stumbled over a route

under the tree. i can show you. mr. tate reached in his pocket and withdrew a long switchblade knife. as he did so dr. reynolds came to the door. the son under that tree just inside the school yard, got a flashlight? better have this one. i can turn my car lights on but he took mr. tate's's flashlight. jem is all right, in won't wake up tonight. don't worry. sorry. that the knife that killed him, is that the knife killed him? no, sir. still in him. looks like a kitchen knife from the handle. the kid ought to be there with the hearse, dr.. good night. mr take flipped open the knife. it was like this, he said. he held the knife and pretended to stumble as he leaned forward. his left arm went down in front of him.

stabbed himself through that soft stuff between his ribs. is weight drove it in. mr. tate clothes the night and put it in his pocket. scout is 8 years old. was too scared to know what went on. you would be surprised, atticus said grimly. i am not saying she made a. she was too scared to know what happened. was dark out there, black as ink. it takes somebody used to the dark to make a competent witness. and won't have it, atticus said softly. i am not thinking of jem, mr. tate's. hit the floor board. stephanie crawford's lights went on. atticus and mr. cage looked across the street and each other and waited. when mr. tate spoke again his voice was barely audible. i hate to fight you when you are like this. you have been under strain no man should never have to go through. i do know that for once you haven't been able to put 2 plus

2 together and we have to settle this tonight because tomorrow will be too late. there's a kitchen knife in his car. mr. tate added atticus was not going to maintain any boy jem's side with the boston arm had fight enough left to tackle a grown man in pitch dark. heck, said atticus, that was a switch blade you were waving. where did you get it? took it off of a drunk man. i was trying to remember, scout speaking to herself, trying to remember mr. ewell was on me, then he went down. jem esteban not at least i thought. atticus, i took it off of a drunk man. you probably found a kitchen knife in the dump somewhere, just bided his time. atticus made his way to the swing and sat down with his hands angle between his knees. he was looking at the floor. in moved with the same slowness that night in front of the jail.

it took him forever to hold his newspaper and toss it in his chair. mr kate went softly around the port. it is not your decision, it is my decision and my responsibility. for once if you don't see it my way there's not much you can do about it. if you want the trial i will call you a liar do your face. your boy never stabbed barbule, he said slowly. didn't come near a mile of it and now you know it. all the wanted to do was get him and his sister safely home. mr. tate stopped pacing, stopped in front of atticus. i am not a very good man but i am the sheriff of meghan county, live in this town all my life, going on 43 years old, know everything that happened here since before i was born. there's a boy dead for no reason and the man responsible for it is said. let the dead bury the dead. mr. tate went to the swing, beside atticus, pushed back his

hair and put his hand on. never could tell that it is against the law for a citizen to do his utmost to prevent crime from being committed which is what he did but maybe you will say it is my duty to tell the town about it and not hush it up. know what happened then. you know what happened then. all the ways that make it a including my wife bringing angel fruitcakes, my way of thinking, taking one man who has done you and this town a great service in dragging him with his sideways into the limelight? to me that is a sin and i am not about to happen on my head so with any other man would be different but not this man, mr. finch. mr. tate was trying to dig a hole in the floor with the toe of his boot. people his nose and massages left on. i may not be much but i am sheriff of meghan county. bobby will fell on his knife. good night, sir. mr. tate stamp of of the porch.

atticus said scout, mystery will fell on his knife. can you understand? atticus looked like he needed cheering about i hugged him and kissed him with all my might. yes, sir, i understand. .. >> that a applause is really for hr lee, not for me. i know that was a long passage,

but it encapsulates so much of the book, and i think that today the lessons of the book live on. so often, i think we know that. and the great thing about what she did, i think, is that she took a very small town, small story and told it very well. but it made it universal. and timeless. and it's a great gift to our, to the country and to the world. i think it is unbelievably timeless and

>> this book is the adventures of huckleberry finn, and it was banned in, i think, for many reasons similar to why "to kill a mockingbird" got banned.

there was a lot of racism involved in this. the -- i'm sure everybody is familiar with the story of a young boy, young white boy, who ran away from home and partnered up with a, an escaped slave. and the idea that there was a white boy associating with a black man and was, you know, actually partnering with him and sailing down the river with him was horrifying to some people. and then later on it got sort of the reverse idea that, well, now they're using all this derogatory terminology about, you know, jim. and, of course, that's bad. so mark twain got hit on both sides. anyway, as you recall, the story takes huckleberry finn, who runs away from his abusive father and partners with jim, the escaped slave, and they end up sailing

down the mississippi on a raft. on their way they have several adventures, one of which involves picking up two men who were con artists called the duke and the king, because one claimed to be a duke, and the other one claimed to be the heir to the throne of france. needless to say, as you hear them talk, you realize that this is a little -- they're stretching the truth a bit. but what i'm doing is picking up on chapter 25, and that's where they come upon a town where a well known tanner named wilkes has just died, and he left his substantial fortune to two brothers of his who came from england. but the brothers had not arrived in time for his death, and so the duke and the king decide to change their personas and come in and claim to be the man's

long lost brothers who were coming to visit. and here we start. the news was all over town this two minutes, and you could see the people -- and this is all told from huckleberry's viewpoint -- you could see the people tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on their coats as they come. pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd, and the noise and tramping was like a soldier march. the windows and dooryards was full and every minute somebody would say over a fence, is it them? and somebody trotting along with a gang would answer back and say, you bet it is. when we got to the house, the street in front of it was packed, and the three girls -- the daughters of the deceased -- were standing in the door. mary jane was redheaded, but that don't make no difference. she was most awful beautiful, and her face and her eyes were all lit up, she was so glad her uncles was come. the king, he spread his arms, and mary jane, she jumped for them, and the hairlip -- this is one of the daughters who had a

hairlip -- jumped for the duke, and there they had it. everybody most, least ways women, cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have such good times. then the king, he hunched the duke private. i seed him do it, and then he looked around and seed the coffin over in the corner on two chairs, so then him and the duke with a hand across each other's shoulder and the other hand to their eyes walked slow and solemn over there, everybody dropping back to give them room. and all the talk and noise stopping, people saying, shh, and all the men taking their hats off and drooping their heads so you could have heard a pin fall. and when they got there, they bent over and looked in the coffin and took one sight, and ten they bust out a-crying so you could have heard them in orleans most, and then they put their arms around each other's necks, and then maybe the three

minutes or maybe four, i never seen two men leak the way today done. and mind you, everybody was doing the same, and the place was that damp, i never seen anything like it. then one of them got on one side of the coffin and the other on the other side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the coffin and led on to pray all to their selves. when it come to that, it worked the crowd like you never seed anything like it. so everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud. the poor girls too. and every woman went up to the girls without saying a word and kissed them solemn on the forehead and then put their hand on their head and looked up towards the sky with the tears running down and then busted out and went off swabbing and sobbing and give the next woman a show. i never seen anything so disgusting. [laughter] well, by and by, the king, he gets up and comes forward a little and works himself up and slobbers out his speech all full of tears and flat doodle about

it being a sore trial for him, and his poor brother to lose the deceased and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long journey of 4,000 miles, but it's a trial that's sweetened and sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears. and so he thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's heart because out of their mouths they can't, words being too weak and cold and all that kind of rotten slush til it was just sickening. and then he blubs out a pie cross goody-goody amen and goes to crying fit to bust. and the minute the words was out of his mouth, somebody over in the crowd struck up the docks solinger and everybody joined in with all their might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church letting out. music is a good thing. and after all that soul butter and hogwash, i never see it freshen up things so and sound

so hens and bully. then the king begins to work his jaw again and says how him and his nieces would be glad if a few main principal friends of the family would take supper with them and says if his poor brother laying yonder could speak, he knows who he would name, for they was with names -- that was very dear to him and mentioned often in his letters. and so he will name the saying to wit as follows: reverend mr. hobson and deacon -- [inaudible] and mr. ben rucker, and abner -- [inaudible] and levi bell and dr. robinson and their wives and the widow bartly. dr. robbenson was down to the end of the town hunting together, that is -- i mean, the doctor was shipping a sick man up to the other world, and the preacher was pointing him right. lawyer bell was way up in louisville on some business, but the rest was on hand, and so they all come and shook hands with the king and thanked him

and talked to him, and can then they shook hands with the duke and didn't say nothing, but just kept a-smiling and bobbing tear heads whilst he made all sorts of signs with his head and said two, goo all the time like a baby that can't talk. so the king, he bratted along and managed to inquire about pretty much everybody in dog and town by his name and mentioned all sorts of little things that happened one time or another in the town or to george's family or to peter, and he always led on, but that was a lie. he got every blessed one of them out of that young flathead that we canoed up to the steam boat. then marchy jane fetched the letter, and the king read it out loud and cried over it. it give the dwelling house and $3,000 gold to the girls. and it give the tanyard, which was doing a good business along with some other houses and land worth about 7,000, and $3,000 in

gold to harvey and william and told where the $6,000 cash was hid down cellar. so these two frauds said they'd go and fetch it up and have everything square and above board and told me to come with a candle. we shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag, they pilled it out on the floor -- spilled it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight. my, the way the king's eyes did shine. he slaps the duke on the shoulder and says, oh, this ain't bully. nor nothing, oh, no, i reckon not. why billy, it beats the none such, don't snit and the duke allowed that it did. they palled the yeller boys and let them jingle down on the floor, and the king says it ain't no use talking, being brothers to a rich dead man and representatives of foreign and heirs its got leavitt is the line for you and me. this year comes of trust into providence. it's the best way in the long run. i've tried 'em all, and there

ain't no better way. most everybody would have been satisfied with the pile and took it on trust, but, no, they must count it. so hay count it -- they count it, and it comes out $415 short, says the king. darn him, i wonder what he done with that $415. they worried over that a while and ransacked all around for it. then the king -- then the duke says, well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake. the best way is to let it go and keep still about it. we can spare it. oh, shucks, yes, we can spare it. i don't care nothing about that. it's the count i'm thinking about. we want to be awful square and open and aboveboard here, you know? we want to lug this here money and count it before everybody. then there ain't nothing suspicious. but when a dead man says there's $6,000, you know, we don't want to -- hold on, says the talk about. let's make up the deficit. and he begins to haul out yeller boys out of his pocket.

it's a most amazing good idea, duke. you have got a clever head on you, says the king. blessed if you ain't helping us out again, and he begun to haul out yeller jackets and stack them out. they made up the 6,000 clean and clear. says, say the -- say, says the duke, let's count this money and then take and give it to the girls. good land, duke. let me hug you, it's the most dazzling idea ever a hand struck. you certainly got the most astonishing head i ever seen. oh, this is the boss dodge. there ain't no mistake about it. let 'em fetch along their suspicions now if they want to. this'll lay 'em out. i don't know where i am, but i'm pretty close to ten. but as you might expect, they get -- [inaudible] because the two real heirs show up. [laughter] [applause] so anyways, thank you. >> it's really nice to see how bad guys get their comeuppance,

at least in fiction if not always in real life. our next reader is peter -- [inaudible] peter is a poet and a volunteer here, he's also a cook, and he volunteers for some social service organizations helping folks who just need a little help. and he's going to read from lady chatterly's lover, so we really have quite variety. ancient greece, the 18th century, the 19th century, the 20th century. >> lady chatterly's lover certainly has been known and banned for its frank and honest and aboveboard discussion of sexment but that's not all there is to lady chatterly's lover, and i thought i'd just kind of indicate that through some of my readings here. and, of course, starting off at the very beginning, there's a lot here that we can relate to in terms of our own war wounded from iraq and afghanistan. because clifford, the male -- one of the male characters, one of the main male characters, is

badly wounded in world war i. ours is a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. the cataclysm has happened, and we are among the ruins. we start to build up new little habits to have new little hopes. it is rather hard work. there is no smooth road into the future, but we go round or scramble over the obstacles. we've got to live no matter how many skies have fallen. this was more or less congress assistance chatterly's position. she had realized that one must live and learn. she married cliff clifford chatterly in 1917 when he was home for a month on leave. then he went back to flanneledders to be shipped over to england again six months later more or less in bits. constance, his wife, was then 23 years old, and he was 29. his hold on life was harv louse. he didn't -- marvelous.

he didn't die, and the bits seemed to grow together again. for two years he remained in the doctor's hands, then he was pronounced a cure and could return to life again with the lower half of his body from the hips down paralyzed forever. this was in 1920. they returned, clifford and constance, to his home, ragby hall, the family seat. go on here, and this is a little bit about -- let's see here, i want to read this. this is a little bit about the importance of the woods on the estate of ragby hall. to clifford and also to constance. this is mostly from clifford's view through connie. connie opened the wood gate, and clifford puffed slowly through into the broad riding that ran up an incline between the clean

thickets of the hazel. the wood was a remnant of the great forest where robin hood hunted, and this riding was an old, old thoroughfare coming across the country. of but now, of course, it was only a riding through the private wood, the road from mansfield swerved round to the north. in the wood everything was motionless. the old leaves on the ground keeping the frost on their underside, a jay called harshly. many little birds fluttered, but there was no game, no fez santas. they -- pheasants. they had been killed off during the war, and the wood had been left unprotected til now clifford had got his game keeper again. clifford loved the wood. he loved the old oak trees. he felt they were his own through generations. he wanted to protect them. he wanted this place inviolate, shut off from the world. the chair -- his wheelchair, a little motorized wheelchair -- chufs slowly up the incline

rocking and jolting on the frozen clods, and suddenly on the left came a clearing where there was nothing but a ralph of dead bracken, a sapling leaning here and there, big sawn stumps showing their gaping roots lifeless and patches of blackness where the woodmen had burned the brush wood spotlight rubbish. this was one of the places that sir jeffrey had cut during the war for trench tim we are. the whole knoll, which rose softly on the right of the riding, was denuded and strangely forlorn. on the crown of the knoll where the oaks had stood now was bareness, and from there you could look out over the trees to the railway and the new works at stacks gate. connie had stood and looked. it was a breach in the pure seclusion of the wood. it left in the world, but she didn't -- it let in the world, but she didn't tell clifford. this place always made clifford curiously angry. he had been through the war, had seen what it meant, but he didn't really get angry until he saw this bare hill.

he was having it replanted, but with it made him hate sir jeffrey. clifford sat with a fixed face as the chair slowly mounted. when they came to the top of the rise, he stopped. he would not risk the long and very jolty down slope. he start looking at the greenish sweep of the riding downwards. it swerved at the bottom of the hill and disappeared, but it had such a lovely, easy curve of knights and ladies on palfreys. let's see here. um, okay. this is a little bit like ptsd, i guess, post-traumatic stress disorder. this is clifford -- connie looking at clifford and seeing how severely wounded he really has been deep in his soul despite being mended after the war. clifford looked again -- looked at connie with his pale, slightly rom innocent blue eyes in which a certain vagueness was coming. he seemed alert in the

foreground, but the background was like the midlands atmosphere; haze, smoky mist. and the haze seemed to be creeping forward, so when he stared at connie in his peculiar way, giving her his peculiar, precise information, she felt all the background of his mind filling up with mist, with nothingness, and it frightened her. it made him seem imperm, almost idiocy. and dimly she realized one of the great laws of the human soul, that when the emotional soul receives a wounding shock which does not kill the body, the soul seems to recover as the body recovers. but this is only in an appearance. it really, it is really only the mechanism of the reassumed habit, slowly, slowly the wound to the soul begins to make itself felt like a bruise which only slowly deepens its terrible ache til it fills all the psyche. and when we think we have recovered and forgotten, it is then that the terrible after-effects have to be encountered at their worst. so it was with clifford. once he was well, once he was back at ragby and writing his

stories and feeling sure of life, in spite of all he seemed to forget and to have recovered all his equanimity. but now as the years went by slowly, slowly, connie felt the bruise of fear and horror coming up and spreading in his. for a time it had been so deep as to be numb as it were nonexistence. now slowly it began to assert itself in the spread of fear, almost paralysis. mentally he was still alert, but the paralysis, the bruise of the too great shock was gradually spreading in his effective self. and as it spread, connie felt it spread in her, an inward dread, an emptiness, an indifference to everything gramally spread in her soul. when clifford was aroused, he could still talk brilliantly and, as it were, command the future as when in the wood he talked about her having a child and giving an heir to ragby. but the day after all the brilliant words seems like

leaved crumpling up and turning to powder, blown away on any gust of wind. not the words of an effective life, they were the hosts of fall aen leaves of a life that is ineffectual. let's see here. um, okay. i'm going to read one other short passage here. connie is reflecting on life and the changes the war has wrought in her and brilliant england itself. connie went slowly them to ragby. home. it was a warm word to use, but then it was a word that had had its day. it was somehow canceled. all the great words, it seemed to connie, were canceled for her generation; love, joy, happiness, home, mother, father, husband. all these great dynamic words were half dead ones now and dying from day-to-day. home was a place you liveed in,

love was a thing you didn't fool yourself about, joy was a word you applied to a good charleston. happiness was a term of hypocrisy used to bluff other people. a father was an individual who enjoyed his own existence, a man -- a husband was a man you lived with and kept going in spirits. as for sex, the last of the great words, it was just a cocktail term for an excitement that bucked you up for a while and then left you more raggy than ever, frayed. it was as if the very material you were made of was cheap stuff and was fraying out to nothing. all that remained was a stubborn stow by schism, and in that was a certain pleasure, in the very experience of the nothingness of life, phase after phase. there was a certain grisly satisfaction. so that's that. always. this was the last utterance. home, love, marriage, so that's that. and when one died for the last

words, the last words would be so that's that. yes, lady chatterly's lover -- [applause] this is more than just sex and all. it's a good novel. >> thank you, peter. i wonder if we could push up our schedule a little bit and have -- [inaudible] would you like to go next? >> >> sure. >> you don't want to go together? >> [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> today i'm going to read bits from the lorax. i was surprised to see that it was on the banned list because i also read it to my chirp. who i brought. my son liam and my daughter, ken kennedy. have a seat, bud. [laughter] and the other thing, the other ting is that -- thing is that dr. seuss, of course, writes in rhyming scheme which for my

cries i do also. not that i'm emulating dr. seuss, more from the pressures of michael when he wrote about -- when i first started, and he said this crier writes in rhyming scheme. i thought, oh, great. now i have to do it for the rest of my career. [laughter] thank you, yes. so how much are people reading? >> 5-10. >> fife -- five to ten minutes? and we were just talking about who's going -- [inaudible] >> okay. >> i thought in honor -- [inaudible] it would be nice to have something light now. be. >> sure. at the far end of town where the grickle grass grows and no birds ever sing expecting old yous is the street of the listed lo to rax. and deep in the grass some people say if you look deep enough, you can still see today

where the lorax once stood just as long as he could before somebody lifted the lorax away. what was the lorax and why was it there? and why is it lifted and taken somewhere? and the far end of town where the grickle grass grows, the old -- [inaudible] still lives here. ask him, he knows. >> daddy, why -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> because i'm reading. have a seat, bud. have a seat, buddy, okay? you won't see the onceler, don't knock at his door. he stays in his lurkin on top of his store. he looks in the lurkin under the roof where he makes his own clothes out of -- [inaudible] and on special, dank midnights in august, e peeks out of the shutters and sometimes he speaks. and he tells how the lorax was lifted away. he'll tell you, perhaps, if

you're willing to pay. on the end of a rope, he lets down a tin pail, and you have to toss in 15 cents and a nail. >> and big worms? >> and the shell of the great, great, great grandfather snail -- not a worm, a snail, see? >> oh. [laughter] >> then he pulls up the pail, makes most careful count to see if you've paid him the proper amount. then he hides what you paid him away in his snose, his secret, strange hole in the -- [inaudible] then he grunts, i will call you by whisper phone, for the secrets i tell are for your ears alone. slurp. down -- the whisper moth bone to your ear, and the old whispers

are not very clear. since they have come -- have to come down through a -- [inaudible] hose and he sounds as if he has bees up his nose. now i'll tell you, he says, with his teeth sounding gray how the lorax got lifted and taken away. it all started way back, such a long, long time back. way back in the days when the grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean. and the song of the swami swans rang in space, one morning i came to this glorious place. and i first saw the trees, the bright-colored tops of the -- [inaudible] >> they big fluffy? >> big fluffy talks. mile after hill in the fresh

morning breeze. >> hold it down, let's see the pictures. >> yes, i'll show the pictures. my son will not talk to me if i do not show you the pictures. and under the trees i saw brown bile boots frisking about in their -- [inaudible] suits. as today played in the shade and ate fruits from the ripplous pond came the comfortable sound of the humming fish humming while splashing around. but those trees, those trees, those trees, all my life i've been searching for trees such as these. the touch of their tufts was much softer than silk, and they had the sweet smell of fresh butterfly milk. i felt a great leaping of joy if my heart. i knew just what to do, i unloaded my cart.

definitely getting interpretive dance. [laughter] this is the off-broadway version of the lorax. the reading and the dancing. we are available for parties. [laughter] in no time at all, i had built a small shop. then i chopped down a tree with one chop. and with great skill and with great speedy speed, i took the soft tuft, and i knitted a snead. at the night's finish, i heard a ga-zump. i looked, i saw something pop out of a stump. it was of a man. describe him? that's hard. i don't know if i can. he was shortish and oldish and

brownish and mothy, and he spoke with a voice that was sharpest and bossy. >> like -- [inaudible] >> i was wondering how you were going to do that. [laughter] >> mister, he said, with a saw-dusty sneeze, i am the lorax, i speak for the trees. i speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues, and i'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs. he was very upset as he shouted and puffed, what's that thing you've made out of my tuffala tuft? look, lorax, i said, there's no cause for alarm. i chopped just one tree, i am doing no harm. i am being quite useful, this thing is a snead can. a snead is a fine something that all people need.

it's a shirt, a sock, it's a glove, it's a hat, but its other uses, yes, far beyond that. >> it's nothing. it's just a big -- [inaudible] >> yes. a big, old puff. but it has other uses, yes, far beyond that. you can use it for carpets, for pillows, for sheets or curtains or covers or bicycle seats. the lorax said, sir, you are crazy with greed. there is no one on earth who would buy that fool snead. but the very next minute i proved he was wrong, for just at that minute a chap came along. and he thought that the snead i had knitted was great. he happily bought it for 3 .98. i laughed at the lorax be, you poor stupid guy. you never can tell what some

people will buy. stop there, give people -- [inaudible] [applause] you're welcome. >> a children's book -- [inaudible] it was banned. >> yeah. why was it banned again? the original concern. >> i think -- [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] >> environmentalists. let's look it up. [laughter] >> banned prior to the u.s. for being -- [inaudible] political commentary. >> ah. >> go figure. thank you for that. [applause] our town crier. >> thank you. thank you. >> and now -- [inaudible]

historical works about -- [inaudible] >> thank you so much. i hope i am banned at some point. i think it would be be really good for sales, so maybe you can ban me. how about that? my name is michael pope, and i'm going to be reading a passage from ernest hemingway's farewell to arms. very short passage. and it's appropriate that the passage i will be reading is short because the beauty of hemingway's writing is very spare, very short and declarative sentences, or they're long sentences, they're a series of short phrases that are strung together. you'll hear this as i'm reading. it's a very opposite approach that someone, other writers might take. but hemingway is sort of resonates with us for a number of reasons. one is because of these short, declarative sentences really sort of speak to how we think about language and communication, but this particular book also sort of speaks to us because it was written in 1929, and the reason

it was banned is because -- well, two reasons. one is the sort of violent and graphic content. that's sort of a no-brainer. but also because the book, there's an undercurrent in the book of oppositioning to american -- opposition to american involvement in world war i, sort of a war weariness that i think people today can relate to. so with that in mind, i will read this very short passage from the beginning of ernest hemingway's "a farewell to arms." in the late summer of that year, we lived in the house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. in the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. the troops went by the house and down the road, and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. the leaves fell early that year, and we saw troops marching along the road and the dust rising and the leaves stirred by the breeze falling and the soldiers marching.

and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves. the plain was rich with crops. there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. there was fighting in the mountains, and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. in the dark, it was like summer lightning, and there was not the feeling of a storm coming. sometime in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and the guns pulling the motor cars. there was much traffic at night, and many mules on the roads and boxes of ammunition on each side of the pack saddles and gray mortar trucks that carried men and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. there were big guns, too, and can that passed in the day drawn by tractors and long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green, leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. to the north we could look across the valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on the side of the river.

there was fighting for that mountain, too, but it was not success. and in the -- successful. the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. the country was wet and brown and dead with the autumn. there were the mists in the river and the clouds in the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road, and the troops were muddy and the wet capes, and can their rifles were wet under their capes and protwo -- two leather boxes, 6.5 millimeter cart ridges bulged forward. there were small gray port cars that passed going very fast. usually there was an officer on the seat, and the driver and more officers in the backseat. they splashed more mud than -- [inaudible] even if one of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two generals. he himself was so small that you could not see his face, but only the top of his cap and miss

narrow back. and if the car went especially fast, it was probably the king. he lived -- [inaudible] and came out this way nearly every day to see how things were going, and things were going very badly. at the start of the winter came a permanent rain and with the rain camed cholera, but it was checked, and in the end only 7,000 of it died of it in the army. the next year there were many victories. the mountains that was beyond the l valley and the hillside where the chestnut forest grew were captured x there were victories beyond the plain and the plateau to the south. we crossed the river in august and lived in a house that had a fountain and many thick, shady trees and a wall garden and wisteria vine on the side of the house. now, the fighting was in the next mountains, beyond that was not a mile away. the town was very nice, and our house was very fine. the river behind us and the town had been captured very handsomely, but the mountains beyond it could not be taken, and i was very glad that the us

austrians seemed to want to come back to the town because they did not bombard it to destroy it, but only a little in a military way. people lived on it, and there was hospitals and cafés and artillery up the side streets and two body houses, one for the troops and one for the officers. and with the end of summer, the cool nights and the fighting in the mountains beyond the town, the shell-marked iron of the railway bridge, the smashes turn of the river where the fighting had been, the long avenue of trees that led to the square, these were things -- girls being in the town, the king passed in his motorcar sometimes now seeing the face, the little long-necked body and be the gray beard like a goat's chin. all of these were sudden interiors of the house that had lost a wall through the shelling with plaster and rubble in their gardens. and sometimes in the street the whole thing going very well in the carso made the fall very different from the last fall when we had been in the country. the war was changed too.

"farewell to arms." thank you so much. [applause] >> has anyone got anything else to read? because we did open this up to the public. no? then i want to thank the readers, and i want to thank the audience for listening, and i'd like to invite you to have a snack in the main gallery and discuss books and why they're banned. and thank you very much to c-span and to joe and the camera lady whose name i don't know. [applause] >> is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@cspan.org. or tweet us at twitter.com slash booktv. >> and now on your screen is the coffer of a new book by john shaw, "jfk and the senate: halfway to the presidency." first of all, mr. shaw, with the 50th anniversary of the kennedy

assassination, was it a benefit to publish your book at this time, or did it hurt? >> you know, i think it was a mixed blessing. on the one hand, there's a tidal wave of interest in kennedy that came out, you know, on the 50th anniversary, and yet because of that there's this avalanche of books, many of which deal with the fascination. so it's almost -- it's a very crowded field to enter. so in the perfect world, i might have come out at a different time, but the book was ready to go, and my publisher wanted to go with it now, so i feel good about it coming out now. i was going to say the thing about kennedy, he seems to be interesting at all times. he's one of these characters that is just such a compelling public official, public figure that, you know, he's obviously hot now, but i think a year from now and five years from now there's so many unanswered questions about his political career that i think he's always going to be a popular person to write about. >> well, we don't think about him as a senator very often. give us a snapshot of his senate

career. >> well, that was what drew me in, because we always think of kennedy as president kennedy. he was in the senate for eight years, before that six years in the house, and he was an interesting, and i think, a consequential senator. he was not a master of the senate a la lyndon johnson, but he was very active this foreign policy debates, very active in the discussion about vietnam, algeria, the soviet union. he also did something kind of interesting, he chaired a special committee to determine the five best senators in american history. this was a committee that lyndon johnson created for himself, grew tired of it, handed it off to ken kennedy -- kennedy. so this was in some sense the one project that kennedy was in charge of during his senate career. he took it very seriously, you know, inquired of all the great historians in the country and spent six, seven months really digging into this, came up with a list of the five greatest senators, and it was something that became part of his identity as being a young politician, but

also someone very steeped in american history. so -- >> who came out at the top of that list? >> el, there was robert taft and robert concern. [inaudible] were the two 20th century ones. but the big ones were john calhoun, daniel webster, henry clay. the great triumvirate of the pre-civil war era. so kennedy's committee quickly decided on the top three, webster, clay, calhoun. they had a longer debate on the next two, and even back at that point kennedy would prefer a gentleman by the name of george -- [inaudible] to be the leading progressive, but there was some hint that the nebraska senators might filibuster, so kennedy had to back off. so even back then there were some subtle hints of filibusters and delays in the senate. >> what would you say was one of president kennedy's most substantive pieces of legislation in the senate? >> well, i would say two things. first of all, he was very active on labor issues. he was the chairman of a labor

subcommittee, and that was the one domestic issue that he really, really dug into. it was a huge issue back at the time. he mastered it. it was the one maybe domestic issue he mastered, and even his contemporaries said that he understood the nuances of labor law better than anyone. interestingly, he got caught in a very kind of complex political battle, and the final bill didn't really resemble what he wanted. but so i would say labor law but also on foreign policy. i mean, he gave, i think, some really marvelous speeches on indochina, the french involvement in indochina, on algeria, the french involvement in algeria, on the whole battle with the soviet union and how the u.s. should try to emerge in the cold war. so he was interesting. he was a more compelling person than i expected, and, of course, had some great contemporaries. he worked with people like hubert humphrey, lyndon johnson, richard russell, it was a really

interesting time with some great senators. >> so what was his relationship with lyndon johnson when they were both in the senate? >> it was a very wary one. in fact, i spent some time at the kennedy library, and his file is thick with letters to lyndon johnson asking for better committee assignments, because johnson was the senate democratic leader. kennedy was the more junior senator, so he was sending johnson a lot of letters asking for different committee assignments. johnson seemed to put them away, and at one point ted sorenson sent a wonderful note, johnson appointed kennedy to some third or fourth of tier, you know, boston harbor dredging commission or something, so sorenson said in the letter, we're making great progress. you know, senator johnson has named you the chairman of the boston harbor dredging commission. so it was a wary, competitive relationship. but in the end i think johnson came to respect kennedy as a tough, formidable politician. didn't think he was a real heavy hitter on policy, but he thought

he was a real compelling political figure. >> john shaw, did president kennedy's senate career benefit him as president? >> i think it did. i think he understood the issues, the foreign policy issues very well. he really had a good schooling in that. i think he developed an appreciation for how congress worked. he spent 14 years in the congress. but he was very clear that he wanted to move on to the presidency and, in fact, became only the second u.s. senator, sitting u.s. senator to win the presidency. before him the only one who had done it was warren harding in 920, and since kennedy the only one who's done it is barack obama in 2008. so the senate isn't really a natural jumping-off point to the presidency, yet kennedy found a way to use it to advance his political ambition. >> the name of the book, "jfk in the senate: pathway to the presidency." the author, john shaw. >> but with i was

tremendously -- but i was tremendously grateful that god was going to give i me another chance. i had had breast cancer, and i had survived that. and now i was confronted with addiction. and, by golly, i made up my mind i was going to survive that too. >> watch our ram on first lady betty ford today at 7 p.m. eastern on c-span. and live monday night our series continues. >> i got upset with the press, too, because they covered my mental health work, the first few meetings i had. and then they never showed up anymore. and so one day i was walking in the downstairs floor in the white house and met this woman who was one of the press people. i said, you know, no one ever covers my meetings. he said, ms. carter, it's just

not a sexy issue. [laughter] but we toured the country, found out what was needed, developed legislation and passed the mental health systems act of 1980. it passed through congress one month before jimmy, as he says, was involuntarily retired from the white house, and the incoming president never implemented it. it was one of the greatest disappointments of my life. >> first lady rosalynn carter monday night at 9 eastern live on c-span. >> here are some programs to watch this weekend on booktv. at 4 p.m. eastern, jack cashel talks about his book, "if i had a son: race, guns and the railroading of george zimmerman." then at 7:45 p.m., film maker m. knight shyamalan offers a solution to current education problems in his book, "i got schooled." tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. eastern,

newt gingrich talks about his most recent book, "breakout: pioneers of the future, prison guards of the past be and the epic battle that will decide america's fate." then at 6 p.m. eastern in light of the ongoing battles over the federal budget in congress, we take a look at several books that have recently aired on booktv about the u.s. economy. and visit booktv.org for this weekend's television schedule. >> while visiting idaho, booktv took a trip over to kellogg located about 36 miles away. the town was founded in the late 19th century by prospector noah kellogg. we sat down with julie whitesel weston who recalls the history of the town. >> kellogg, i remember playing in the park. i remember skiing in the mountains. i remember going to school, which i loved.

and i remember all the people who were around, the miners went by our house in the morning. they came by our house in the amp. we could hear the -- in the afternoon. we could hear the mine whistles blow, we could see the lights of the rock house where the ore came in. but we weren't very much involved with the mine. we saw all these people, but we didn't -- i don't think any of us realized what was going on underneath us. so it was just kind of like a normal childhood. be the history of kellogg began with the jackass. noah kellogg was a miner, a prospector who came here from mines farther up the valley and with his jackass, he was exploring around the hills right back up this way. and supposedly, the jackass kicked over a big piece of galena ore, and that started the rush here. but mostly you find those minerals underground. you often find gold closer to the top, which was one of the

first rushes to this area. but when they found the silver, that's when kellogg started. it was about the 1880s. a mining town looks very different from a town in the midwest. in this town we had a smelter, so it was constantly pumping out smelter smoke, and we had tall smokestacks that would pump it out day and night. and towards the end of the time the mine was still going, they did a smokestack that was 750 feet high to push the poisons higher up so it'd get in the wind and go someplace else. a smelter is where you take the ores and smelt them down; that is, put them in big vats of boiling chemicals, and then we would get silver, lead and zinc, and lead was the predominant metal. but with lead you often had silver and zinc. all those were products from this mine. here in this valley, um, the boom lasted 100 years. it went from the 1880s to the

1980s when the mine was closed down. the mine was almost the sole employer except for retail stores. everybody depended on the mine. because everybody depended on the mine, the mine affected everybody's lives. the taxes from the bunker hill which was the name of the mine supported the schools, supported the library, paid for our uke forms in the marching band -- uniforms in the marching band and employed the students in the summer and then provided scholarships, thousands of scholarships for the kids who came out of here. the effect on the town of the pine closing was devastating. the town had been through lots of hard times. there'd been labor strikes, and i write about one of the big strikes in my book, and it had been through the depression went all the men voted to work just three days a week so everybody could work, but when the mine closed down, nobody could believe it.

and they tried to get people to come in and be a white knight to save the town and somebody else buy it. a company called gulf resources had bought it from the original owners, and they were mining deep and mining fast and getting the best stuff out, and then the environmental protection agency came in and said you can't keep doing what you're doing. and between the way the gulf resources managed the mine and the epa, they closed it down, and this became a superfund site. the environmental protection agency is the one who tries to keep the air clean and the water clean. of and in the town did not have clean air or clean water. and so there were lots of poisons that were spread out on the ground. while this one company was managing the mine, there was a bag house fire. the bag house was the place where many of the poisons were taken out of the processing

before it went up in the air, and they kept running the mine and the smelter even though the bag house had burned. and that was, i think, approximately 1972, maybe 1974. and the town didn't know that. and so there was lots of lead and arsenic and other toxic chemicals that were spread out. so when the epa came in and said this has to be cleaned up, the river has to be cleaned up, we did call it lead creek. and they just closed everything down. and the company who was managing it had already said they couldn't run it anymore because it was too expensive to comply with the regulations. it became l a 21-square-mile superfund site, and everything was closed down. there were fences around everything saying no trespassing. if you come into this property, you'll be poisoned. the lakes in the area had signs, don't swim in here, don't eat the fish.

it was, it really did end the town as a mining town. there were government monies spent, about $220 million, by the time i wrote my book which was in the 1990s when i was first doing interviews. now i guess it's up to about $440 million cleaning up the area. they dug out every yard, put in clean dirt. they worked on the river, moves the river -- moved the river, dredged it, moved it back. they took out the field and the football stadium and put clean dirt in, and so basically, the town's pretty clean now. many people in the town felt that was not appropriate, that we'd all lived here, there was nothing wrong with any of us -- with a few exceptions -- and it just, it just was the end of our era. a lot of people stayed and waited, waited and waited for the mines to reopen, but th