less and less satisfactory. and i know the concept of proportionality has to be tied up in this somewhere. and it seems like almost the more intemp rate our response, for instance, hiroshima, and i'd like to hear professor newton's applying of propositionerralty -- proportionality to that, the more intemp rate our response, the the better final result we seem to get. ..

a form frequent my misunderstood in application, listeners are prone to -- application of its precise meaning due to it's very familiarity. its impre session carries the risk it will be honored in name only. that's the problem. we're not transparent enough, we don't understand it enough we're not consistent enough, and what proproportionallity does is both serve as an empowering, affirmative principle to say this is perfectly permissible up to these bounds and, therefore,

anything within the bounds, why top short of that? often politics or tactics or perceptions. all kind of reasons. the point is, and one of the could goes of the book, is to say, where proportionality applies, let that constraint but it's not artificially inject it. then we can have the debate about what the right end result or desired end result is and what are the true constraints. sometimes it is just poll fixess or just perception or allies or the end state, sometimes it may be history. but we need to be clear about what it is and in a nutshell, this book is essentially saying, don't hide behind proportionality, understand it. in its complexity, and apply it properly. >> i have a question about to what degree does proportionality, once again, apply to the israel-palestine

dispute. a lot of the people who study israeli security services, basically make the case that israel's strategy is to exact a high price. if the plo hijacked an airplane, israel would bomb a refugee camp. if a soldier gets kidnapped, lebanon gets invaded. my question is, does this -- to two degree does this apply to the israeli case. >> i think you have to be extremely careful of the con nations in the media because even a couple of those examples involve other principles and things and they're not true proportionality calculations. the biggest thing about pre portionallity -- there's a section that deals with israel and hamas and gaza and hezbollah and other things. the biggs thing is it's absolutely not, and seldom if ever is, simply --

proportionality -- there's a reason i'm a lawyer, because i can stay as far away from mathematics as possible. but it's a proportion between things and it's going to expand at a constant rate, and so i could show you dozens of op-eds and find this particular thing was disproportionat but a this many civilians versus this much. that's absolutely and almost always an incorrect application of proportionality. far more knew knew -- nuanced. it is subjective and shifting and context specific, based on tribal structures, et cetera. 0, so the short answer is -- the easy attention say proportionality is always applicable with respect to israel and the kinds of conflicts it fights, but i also add with a caveat, it's always

controversial and always o'hill -- politicized and difficult and the u.s. military and politicians need to do a bert job of clearly understanding it and applying it. where it doesn't apply, don't hide behind it. most of the time there's another principle at play or another constraint. when it is proportionality constraint, let's call it what is it. in the targeting process we have a very complex targeting process, by which we inject proportionality at the appropriate point and then change it. you can tweak a variable and it's going to change this analysis. that's largely in the history of the israeli conflict. that's what is going on. >> one more question. >> so, i've been up here once before. this question revolves around education surrounding these issues. being born in 1996, i have no

memory of the vietnam war. i didn't learn about it, didn't live through nittany major way or any way at all for that matter, and that's to a degree reflected in our schools. i spent maybe a day learning about the vietnam war in all of high school, and i think there was a sentence on the massacre despite the extreme -- the deplorable happenstance of it and just in american schools there's next to no education on the vietnam war, and wars currently, which we haven't necessarily so clearly succeeded in. my question is how do we better improve education of americans in that regard?

>> this is a little controversial because there's been -- shared with me animes anytime op-ed, about the -- surrounding the commemoration around the 50th anniversary and the one the government put in force at the pentagon, and petitions surrounding these education efforts because they're not completely telling the whole story of the vietnam war, and it's a glorified heroic story they're putting up on the web site. so, this is definitely an issue that is still taking place, and one that has current ramifications, because although i'm now understanding more about proportionality and war, in terms of me as a historian and how i would have applied that to the vietnam war, that illinois -- you'll tell me this instance correct but that image of the soldier, torching a villager's home with a zippo

lighter, or looking at sort of a battalion totally being sort of ripped to shreds with american military machinery, which the north vietnamese didn't have, and so i don't quite understand -- i see sort of remnants of what is taking place today with the war -- with the previous question about israel and palestine, and i don't understand how that tweaking proportionality -- how that still has been taking place today and why we should still understand this. i think what you're getting at is extremely important because maybe i'm drawing too many simple analogies from vietnam but -- but prefire zones. west moreland basically steppedded all of vietnam, south vietnam,as free-fire zone, and with guerrilla warfare you can't stipulate this part is okay to

bomb and this part isn't. that was the case -- those were the issues at play in south vietnam during the war. so, although, as historian context is important, i hate to draw simple analogies with the vietnam war, with the wars today, but in certain other ways you can see mistakes being repeated again and again. >> just on the broader historical thing about education. this is hugely important, and hugely important for everyone here in part because we make choices about what gets taught and how things get taught in a democracy because we, the people, care, or don't, and if we really want to be an informed citizenry and participate in the big choices that our country is going to face, our citizen us also need to learn about history, about government, civics, and so on. and the way that happens is when we get together and clamor and ask questions of our elected representatives and so on, and

try to get involved in making that happen. i think you're right, we do need to learn more. i'm sorry you didn't learn enough about these things, and i'm glad you wish you wanted to learn more. what we need to do is we all need to push together to try to get that changed. >> and in a context of the book festival, ill would be remiss if didn't point out we can make choices about what to read and the kinds -- i think in particular the kinds of conversation wes have with our neighbors and in our churches and our families. we can sit over the thanksgiving table and talk about football or talk about ideas, and really -- where our society is going. you used the my lai example. it was a proportionality defense. completely wrong on the law and moriality, and there's dozens of examples in the book at free-fire zones. the point is that when politicians and when strategists and pundits and op-ed writers

throw around big glossy, cotton candy types of concepts, an informed citizenry says not so past. and when congressmen andwomen are at home at town haul meet, an informed citizenry sis, is what you said on the floor really true? nat based on what i read and were very informed. that's an absolutely laudible, noble thing, but do something about it. >> on that note, which i think is a very well taken one, i want to thank the panel for a very stimulating discussion. ranging over history and con at the -- contemporary politics, and thank you for your attention to this. thank you. [applause]

>> we visited the reader's lost book store to talk about the competitive business of independent book stores. >> book stores in green bay over the years have kind of come and gone, and have been other of a variety of qualities, and of course, every independent book store is different from every other one. the readers loft was first opened 21 years ago by the owner, virginia crest, then there -- barnes & noble moved into town, and they would have a major road project that would close our street, and it became apparent she needed to do something else. so, she looked for the kind of commercial space that she was looking for, and she didn't find it. so she bought this land and built this building and went into the commercial property business. but -- so right at the center of the building, which has four

other rentable spaces, is the readers loft. it is the largest of the spaces here, and that move probably made it possible for us to continue to exist. throughout the so-called recession we continued to have higher sales and better profits each year. and have continued to do that. we are kind of known for literary fiction. we sell a ton of mysteries. we have the largest poetry selection in northeastern wisconsin. i can assure you. even the barnes & noble has -- their poetry section is pretty flimsy and has only the popular stuff. and what we're basically known for is getting the book you want. the owner has said, try as hard as possible not to say no to

anybody. we can almost always find a copy of a book, thanks to the internet. didn't used to be so. used to be a very sort of medieval process. but then when book dealers began to list their inventory on any number of variety of sites, 40 or 50 different sites on the internet, where book dealers list their inventories, and there are couple of metta search engines that will search the sites at the same time. so, within about 20 or 30 seconds i can have access to the inventories of about 40,000 book dealers worldwide, and i can usually have an answer for a customer while they're still on the phone. because independent booksellers curate their own collections. you will find a different

selection in each different store. barnes & noble stores, and other big box stores, are curated by somebody at the head office, and they have their own warehousing system, and if you walk into a barnes & noble in green bay or st. louis or san francisco or new york, for that matter, you will find largely the same selection of books. so that is the difference between us and the big box stores. the difference between us and amazon is that amazon has everything, and all i've got is 30,000 books here. we have that amazon that amazon doesn't have is live, human beings, and we have opinions, and we have books we like in our -- evangelists for, as they say, and we tend to recommend to our regular customers, whose

tastes we get to know, books we think they'll like. and there's a lot of difference between that, believe me, and an algorithm. amazon really complicated the book business a lot more, and it's still interesting to see how that works out. their recent dispute with -- has brought to public consciousness some of the aspects of the unruliness of the book business. the conglomeration of the industry, the really being thing is the merger of penguin and random house, which were the two largest publishers to start out with and now they're one publisher. we'll see how that works out.

in general, it appears to me that the con glommating of imprints and publishings housing that has taken place over the past 15 year has really opened the doors for smaller independent publishers, of which there are lot more now than there were ten or 15 years ago, and i think that's a good thing. they have a niche to fill. the big houses are less likely to take a chance. so it's kind of exciting, watching from the sidelines and being at an end of the business that appears to be safe and getting better all the time, which is to say independent book-selling has rebounded in the last few years. so from this perspective, it's pretty exciting and interesting to watch all that stuff shake out.

i continue to learn more about the business. i'm really happy to be in the end of it i'm in. >> leaves a lasting legacy here in the green bay area. on a number of counts. in 1822, he led a group of oneida indians here, and they seled on the west side of green bay. williams was an episcopal minister at the time, and the oneida nation is part of the greater green bay community. the other legacy that william left behind is a bit more bizarre. after he was removed from his position with the episcopal church, williams began perpetuating the story that he was the lost prince of france in the early part of the 19th 19th century, any number of

folks in europe and north america were claiming to be the lost prince of france. the son of louis xvi and marie anthoineette who was in prison following the french revolution, and be boy reported he died while in prison in france but rumors persisted the boy was smuggling smuggled out of prison and was in exile, waiting to return to the throne. he -- williams lived here with his wife. the foundation of the home remains. it was a very convenient location for williams to spin his tale town suspecting travelers heading up and down the fox river, which was one of the main thoroughfares at the time. through a chance encounter with a number of french officials and al the reporters of the day, williams continued to push the story he was the lost prince of france. putnam's magazine ran a story that purportedly doubled their

subscription to the magazine, reporting on william as the lost prince, and subsequently led to a book called, "the lost prince." and williams really, for the rest of his life, lived off of his story. he was invited to all the parties and receptions of the high society of the day, both here and on the east coast. newspapers such as "the new york times," would announce his arrival to the city, and publish his social calendar for the period of time that he was in the city. so, he very effectively and successfully lived off his story for the rest of his life. williams died in new york, in a cabin that was built to resemble a french chateau. his remains were returned to the area in 1949, and at that time there was some observation done of the remains, and it was determined conclusively that he was of north american and probably native american

descent, which is consistent with what we do know about williams' past. but he was very successful in his day in -- promoting himself as the lost prince of france, more successful than the other fakes out there at the time. >> for more information, go to c-span.org/local content. >> now joining us here on our set right outside of the history and biography room is shabazz who has written this children's book, "nothing little" who were your parents. >> guest: my father, malcolm x. my mother, dr. betty shabazz. two humanitarians. >> host: what do you remember about your father? >> guest: gosh. i wrote in my first book "growing up x," my father coming

home, flickering images, pearly white teeth. really tall, 64let or 6 a -- 6'5". great presence, called my name with authority that would stop me in my tracks. just things like that. sharing cookies together, a beautiful doll i had, a rocking chair. >> host: what do you remember about the day he was killed? >> guest: fortunately i don't remember that. but when i was writing "growing up x" i realizedded had an impact because when my uncle willford came to visit us, i was four or five years old, and i remember when he was leaving it was traumatizing. i just remember crying uncontrollably, and so i knew that somehow that must have been indicative of me missing my father. >> host: who was earl little.

>> guest: oh, my gosh. earl little was -- is malcolm's father, and early little was actually president of the milwaukee branch of the marcus garvey movement, and he helped marcus garvey get out of jail back in the 1920s for the alleged mail fraud, and earl little was a pastor, an activist, a great preacher, he was all these great things that instilled specific values into his children. >> host: where did he live? how did he die? >> guest: oh, gosh. well, earl little they say was killed -- the black legion want a splinter group of the kkk in the $1,920, during the great depression, and they put him on -- just not the greatest situation but he was killed, and

>> host: did your father witness it? did your far remember that? was he old center. >> guest: yes, my father did talk about it in his autobiography. they perceived their father as this really invincible person, the great protecter, the great provider, the strength of the family, and he would take his son, malcolm, with him when he did speeches, when he was speaking to the community about self-reliance, about perseverance, about working hard, the importance of education. >> host: what was malcolm little's life like in omaha? >> guest: malcolm's -- my father's childhood was exceptional. because he had so many siblings, and much like my open, having five sisters, it gives you this sense of just pride, humor,

tenacity, you know, makes you a good friend, compassionate, all these wonderful things that were instilled in malcolm by his -- both of his parents-that would enable him to go on in his adult life and become this person, malcolm x. one of the greatest political strategists, one of the greatest humanitarians, just so many wonderful things bass my father was so young -- because my father was so young. he was only 28-29 years old when the world knew him and he was killed at the age of 29, and to have made such a significant contribution in such a short lifetime, speaks volumes to who he was and for me as an adult, i reflect on that sense of loneliness, that sense that he must have really felt having sacrificed his life, not asking for anything in return, but the

benefit of humanity so we could move forward into a more egalitarian future. >> host: you have an illustration in here of a house burning. >> guest: when my father was, i think about four years old, his father -- his father was an activist also, and he bought land on -- lan at that time which was reserved for whites only,, in omaha, nebraska, and so, you know the story, you're not allowed to live here, and so the burned their house down and then they moved to -- from wisconsin to nebraska to michigan. >> host: and who burned down the house? >> guest: the kkk. >> host: when did your father stop being malcolm little and become malcolm x? >> guest: my father became malcolm x once he went to jail, at 20. he went to jail at 20.

and he was -- before he came out of jail, 1962, -- i guess he was -- i don't know, however old he was -- he went to 26, 27 years old -- he became malcolm x. the national spokesman for the muslims, that they nation of islam. >> host: this is a children's book and just goes through his very young childhood. >> guest: yes. it focuses on the values and importance, the role of a mother, the role of a father, you see a young impressionable child. could be any nationality. and the values -- when the values of a mother, nurturing her children, stressing the importance of education, the love for learning, and the father being the provider, the strength, and just instilling the values of leadership, accountability, compassion,

integrity, all the things that my father would go on to exhibit to the world in his adult life. >> are you fining that the generation today is too removed from your father's activism? >> guest: you know, i travel the world, and i speak to many different organizations -- many different audiences, young people, middle aged, elders, and what i find is that there are many young people who are very much in tune with malcolm. they're very much -- very attracted to his legacy, and then there are some who are not, and so i think it's just important for all of us who are conscious, who are educated, that it's important that we educate the ones who are misinformed or who need guidance.

>> host: there's some pretty magnificent illustrations in the book. who did the illustrations? >> guest: the illustrations were done by a.g. ford, and he is absolutely just phenomenal, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful depictions of moments that were important to my father, that played key roles in my father's life. >> host: "malcolm little: the boy who grew up to become malcolm x" ills the name of the book. his daughter is the author.

>> up next, investigative journalist, ronald kessler, discusses what secret service agents have revealed about our presidents over the years and talks about the recent scandles involving the agency. he spoke at barnes & noble book sellers