really be keep our eyes on as a problem to be addressed through civic engagement as well as other means? tom, do you want to check since robert raised the question. >> i mean, i think income inequality is very important but i think one of the things, and i think both eric and erica brought this up is when you to keep our institutions honest. ..

>> i think eric did a great with job of talking about some of the problems that we see, that economic inequality seems to breed political inequality. we also have health inequalities which is, you know, tightly related to income. and i think what we should be focusing on is the welfare of our nation. and, i mean, that does include focusing on the welfare of those at the bottom of the income distribution, but we shouldn't lose sight that there are people in the middle who really, you know, have seen their incomes stagnate over the last 20 or 30 years. >> the body language suggests that robert would like to -- [laughter] >> i mean, obviously, i worked in the poverty programs for 18 years, and i'm really focused on the bottom. i will offer this, though, there are some solutions on the income

inequality issue. and one of them is -- and i'm a believer in the transparency with regard to the ratios between ceos and the workers. that rule has been passed. sec is trying to enforce it. that'll with be a good thing. we should talk about that. secondly, i think corporations in america are off sitting on an awful -- are often sitting on an awful lot of investment opportunity that can be done in a lot of ways. they can give it to shareholders, pass it on to customers, and they also could be nicer to their employees which i think would be very good for our country as a whole. but this to talk about this ongoing resentment that this small fraction of people at the very top who for sometimes crazy reasons and sometimes only one-year reasons had very high incomes, this does seem to me to pull us away from the much larger question of how do we increase wages and jobs throughout the rest of the

economy. and we seem to have lost track on that. it's a long way from the end of the recession. it was a bad recession, but it is five years. maybe things are getting better now, but if we don't start picking up speed, we may be back in another recession, and then we really very difficulty. so i am very much focused on job creation and growth. and one thing about social services people and people in the volunteerism world -- and i've been in that as well -- is we sometimes think that we're the center of the world. social services, fighting poverty, volunteers. it's very good the feel that way, but the economy is really the center of the world. it's big. it's so much more powerful. and what it can do for all americans is bigger than what we can do just in sort of government social services or civic engagement. >> i think -- can i jump in? [laughter]

um, i quite agree with a lot of what robert's just said to this extent, but we're -- actually, there's a word that's a been missing from our entire conversation thus far which i think is super important to state, and that word is power, you know? i think volunteerism, participation, civic engagement do not happen in a vacuum. they happen in a context of unequal power. and so it turns to out that there is one way to simultaneously, you know, kind of break what, bill, you cut your teeth on politically, breaking out of the politics of false choices, right? you can both address inequality and poverty, and i come from a city, seattle, that quite recently has taken steps to do just that while simultaneously making our civic health and participation more robust. and that was our move as a city to raise our minimum wage to $15. the $15 minimum wage move, and i

was privileged to serve on the committee that crafted the business/labor/nonprofit deal that made this happen in our city, was not some -- even though we are a very blue city, it was not some kind of socialists run amok deciding they were going to do this. this deal was crafted on an economic theory and a civic theory that is implicit in everything we're saying here. and the theory was when more people in the middle and particularly the bottom have is more purchasing power, when workers have more money, businesses have more customers. and that ends up being great for the whole economy. that's not -- it is great for capitalism in the context of our city. it also happens to be great for civic life. but a r because when workers -- because p when workers have the means to actually make rent, to actually be able to cover health care bills, to actually be able to meet each month's needs, guess what? they have a little bit more time

on the margins to maybe get involved in that political campaign, to volunteer at the church, maybe they have a little bit more time to show up at their kids' school and be part of the pta, right? even that kind of more abstract thing, let's get it very concrete. the low wage workers in seattle who were at the heart of this campaign to push for and to get $15 enacted were people who, for the most part for reasons that we're all agreeing here on, haven't participated in civic life before, had never given a speech in public, had never shown up and gotten involved in public policy questions or participated more formally in our democracy. many of them had not voted, right? but the existence of this campaign was cat litterric for these -- catalytic for these low wage workers. fast food workers, baggage handler workers, you name it, they started showing up in civic life, right? and when they saw you can get results by organizing, by getting out there, they learned

what, you know, i don't want this to sound, again, partisan. they learned what members of the tea party learned in 2009, that when you're in a situation of great economic frustration and you feel like institutions aren't hearing you and you're feeling like the game is rigged and you organize lots of other people and you get collective voice, the system starts to listen to you, right? and that ability for people to discover that capacity is the way to simultaneously address inequality and poverty, i think. >> well, one of the consequences of calling an audible is you don't necessarily know how the play is going to develop -- [laughter] which i think is great, and it actually leads straight to the second question i wanted to pose before we go to q&a involving this entire group, which we will in just a couple of minutes. erica, you used a very interesting phrase before to characterize the millennials, the bypass generation.

and what that suggested, you went on to spell this out, was that somehow you can go around the existing institutions and do things through turn pathways and networks. now, i listened very carefully to eric's seattle story, and what he seemed to be talking about was a connection with the existing institutions rather than a bypass strategy. so what are your reflections on the story you just heard? is it by pass, or is it connection? >> it's not an either/or, and i actually think for millennials the bypass ultimately results in the connection. so when you find an example of see, click, fix, right? in see, click, fix for those of you who don't know, it's an app, a digital program created to basically allow citizens to connect directly with decision makers and elected officials when they see a problem in their

community. a pothole, when they see things, a way of technology to connect immediately with the person or the people or the institution who can fix it. and also, again, build community around that. and so was that bypass? yes, because in theory those pathways already exist. you can fill out a form, you can go to city hall, you could call a 1-800 number. pathways exist, but they created a new way around that using technology that helped elected officials, that held decision makers, their community and their leaders more accountable. but yet there is still that connection between government and citizen. so i don't think it's -- and i can go through countless other examples where young people are saying, look, these institutions, we understand their value, and yet everything that we have seen in our lifetime says that they're not working the way they're supposed to work, and they're not working the way they worked for our

parents. so what can we do to get immediate results and, hopefully, in the end also influence those institutions? there's still a belief in this country in the value that we strive to uphold, and yet again what we've seen throughout this particular cultural context that millennials were born in and came of age in is that things are broken. and so when things are broken, it doesn't make sense to tell someone you can fix it, but you can only fix it using the broken thing. that's in essence what we say when we say, well, you can fix it, but you can only fix it through voting. and then young people say, well, i've seen my parents vote for 20 and 30 years, and many of the issues have gotten worse. let me be clear, voting is very important. i'm not denigrating that in any way, but we also need to recognize where this impulse to bypass comes from and actually embrace it and embrace the results of that in order to help

change these institutions. >> well, thanks so much. i'm now going to call michael wiser back on to, up to the podium to help moderate this discussion. >> so thank you to our panelists. this is an excellent conversation. i'm going the take the chairman's prerogative and ask a first question. i found very interesting your commentary, particularly erica. by the way, erica is a member of the, this coc -- ncoc. we're beyond lucky to have her. but the failure of institutions, i would say that failure of institutions is a frustration common to people in all socioeconomic strata. and in point of fact, you know, i mean, the subtext of this conversation is how do we share what we have more broadly, okay? and whether that's done through

transfer taxes or whatever, whatever mechanism, one of the clear things that's a problem with those who have it to give, who have it to share and or who are reluctant is a lack of confidence in institutions with whom they might share it. public schools being off the top of the charts on that list. and so, so i guess i would ask how do you make -- how do we get common cause here? how do we get common cause to address what we know is a problem? because eric and i were talking before, you know, you can say that the deck is stacked in favor of the 1% or against the poor. which is sort of a subtext of the discussion we've been having today. how to we get to the point of common cause? >> that's directly to me? okay. [laughter] well, i have some ideas. i don't know that i have the

answer. but my approach is, and it's going to sound so fluffy and pie in the sky, but hear me out. it's really about the stories that we tell. the stories that we tell about civic engagement. the story that eric just told about what happened in seattle was incredibly compelling because it involved people that had not previously been civically engaged in a traditional sense or certainly not politically engaged, i think, is probably more accurate. and we see not only what the engagement looked like, but the outcome as a result of it. i don't hear those stories often. i hear them from people like eric, i hear them from the communities that i work with, but in the national narrative around the direction of this country we don't hear the stories about what civic engagement looks like today and how it's working. let me give you an example, ferguson. and is we don't have to get into a discussion, certainly, today

about all the details and nuances of what's happening in florida -- >> please. >> we won't. but so many of my friends right now today have traveled to ferguson. they're in ferguson for something called ferguson october where they are not just working on the issues at happened, right, the -- at hand, right, the conversation around race and police, but using this as a critical moment and an opportunity to help teach civic engagement to a community that is ripe for figuring out where do we go from here. if we can begin talking about these moments not in just a narrow way about the kind of issues at hand, but as these beautiful opportunities to help people say you have a voice, and you do have power even though many don't recognize it and many don't give you the opportunity to wield it, you have power, and here's what it looks like. when we in the civic engagement community just say here, here's what we know, here's the tools we have perfected and developed,

use them however you wish, and the country is watching. i think when we tell those stories, we can begin to shift the narrative around civic engagement. >> i am a little surprised at the sort of downcast attitudes toward our institutions. i'm a little more optimistic. you know, i came of age and started thinking about politics in the early '70s. president nixon was impeached and resigned in disgrace, it was after vietnam. we've had very difficult times with confidence and institutions have really suffered. we are now in the sixth year of president obama's presidency. he passed his signature change that was a grassroots movement to bring affordable health care in the way that he thought would be best. i'm a little more optimistic. another example is the charter school movement. where i come from, clearly, something coming from people and parents and kids saying we're going to change this institution, that it is not working for poor kids.

the new merit society wanted to do something different, and the community rose up and went to albany and just basically changed the course of what was going to happen in charter schools in new york city, protecting an effort to change institutions. so i think that there's a awful lot -- you talk about a movement in seattle. i don't know that i necessarily would have supported that for a variety of reasons, but there is -- our institutions are not so unhealthy. we don't need to be so, in my opinion, discouraged. we just have to keep at it day in and day out, and progress does happen. >> bill? >> just very briefly, i think we would all do well to keep in mind the way eric framed, eric liu framed his remarks which i would summarize as follows: civic engagement is a game that everybody can play, and what that means is it's not always going to push in the same direction.

you talked about the tea party. well, that grassroots insurrection overthrew the democratic congressional majority and led to a period of two years in which for the first time since the end of the second world war, maybe earlier, government spending declined in absolute terms, not inflation-corrected terms. now, we all have our views on the wisdom of that program, but it is a useful reminder not only that civic engagement is a game that everybody can play, but also that civic engagement and consensus are two very different things, right? and you can have more engagement and more division at the same time, and we shouldn't assume that these two things that we all want go together. >> i just, you know, one -- i agree with that, and to go back to what eric was saying, it's both about sharing individual stories and anecdotes, but it's about the larger story of us,

right? and i really want to connect the dots back to what's preceded us on this program. general mcchrystal, what the franklin project is doing, what ncoc is doing with the franklin project here is not one in a list of interesting initiatives. this is the killer app, right? [laughter] national service not just in terms of getting more numbers of people right now national service, but making national service a norm and an ethic in this country will go so, so far towards stitching together a bigger story of us that even as people get more engaged and even as we are pulled apart seven terrifically by -- seven terroristingly, we feel like we know each other, we work together on things. and we come together not just to say, hi, you and i are diverse and different, let's talk about how we are. no, we come together to fix a third thing that's not about you or me, you know, to do something

else. in the fixing or working on that third thing, that commonality emerges across lines of class or race or region, whatever it may be. so i think it's super exciting not only that ncoc's focusing on inequality, but that it's doubled down in this way thanks to alere on connecting to national service. and i think that's something we just have to turn to over and over again as we have these conversations. >> thank you for permitting me that progress ty. let's -- prerogative. let's get a good discussion going. who's got a comment? there are microphones. don't be bashful. don't be bashful. please. stand up, tell us your name, please. >> hi. i'm jamie stacy, i'm in aher core -- americorps -- >> thank you for your service. >> i'm a civilian working to support veterans and military families, so the discussion always in our space is there's 1% that's served and 99% that

maybe is generally supportive but not very p engaged. so i'm always constantly in discussion with the other staff members and my supervisors of how do we make them feel like they need to care? how do we make them feel like they need to go beyond caring but actually be doing something to serve our country too? which is why we're very engaged with the franklin project as part of civilian service, as part of all of national service. and they gave me the opportunity back in the spring to kind of extend what i was learning and live as a homeless perp for a week in d.c. and i saw a different side of this very small percentage of the population. and i was rejected by both the homeless population -- because they knew i was different -- and by the rest of the population. so again, i was thinking, oh, my gosh, how do i make a difference when it's become personal to me because i am in americorps, and

i come from a very privileged background in upstate new york. and the need for this kind of thing, for civic engagement and for citizenship, became personal because of my experiences. but it wasn't personal because of my background. and so i don't know what kind of civic data there is with the 75% who aren't volunteering, but my guess would be there's some that feel like they don't have the power to get involved, and there's some that feel like why would i bother, because it's not affecting me. i'm really interested, erica, to hear more about what you do with stories. i was talking to my supervisor about my two experiences that are really both ongoing. i was saying i feel like i can't make an impact in the community i want to serve because i don't come from them, and they can't identify with me. but when i go back home and talk to these people who have no idea what's going on because they don't need to know, they're not receptive to the people on the street. >> thank you very much. >> sure.

you know, i think we -- as eric just alluded to, we talk about our differences so much, where i come from is different than where you come from, my background, how i look, but we don't talk about our shared needs, our kind of human needs. we don't talk about those enough. i've found that people who volunteer or serve in kind of an explicit, traditional way whether that be with the military or some organization are usually really well positioned to articulate the need that they are trying to meet. both in the world, but also in their own lives, right? so when you hear americorp, they're able to say i felt this thing, and this is what i wanted, and this is why i wanted to do it this way, and americorp happened to be the way i chose to meet that need. i think everyone has the same needs, whether it's a desire for community, whether it's the desire to feel like they're making an impact in the world, a desire to make something better,

we just have to position service, again, as a way to meet those needs. not just the kind of issue needs, but the very personal, human desires that we all have for our lives, to see ourselves fulfill certain goals and kind of, you know, don't want to get all oprah here, to feel loved and to connect with one another. [laughter] but those are real. those are real, and i think when we can tap into those and touch that and tell the story of service in relation to values that we all share, i think that'll go a long way at kind of overcoming some of the more tangible differences between us. >> i just, i'm reminded when i heard that question of something that my friend chris marvin, who many of you may know, iraq army veteran who founded a campaign called got your six which, again, some of you may know,

military terminology, essentially, for got your bark right? and it's -- got your back. it's a campaign to engage veterans as they return from iraq and afghanistan not as victims, and not necessarily as walking-on-water heroes but simply as civic assets here as home, as people who can be great contributors and continue to serve, shape civic life here. i know the question was more broadly about the 99% who didn't serve in this war, but a little idea popped in my mind which, in a sense, is another request i have of our returning veterans. it is a habit and a reflex in ways that i think are better than not having it that when we encounter someone like you who has served in the armed forces we say thank you for your service. right? like i say, better than not thanks. but i would love it now if veterans when that's said to them, thank you for your service, they say, you're

welcome, how are you serving? is. >> right. >> how are you going to serve? >> right. >> right? i mean, just take that five second, essentially, you know, pro forma moment and turn it into a moment of, yeah, i actually did serve, and i'm not particularly special, but i do have standing to now challenge you to show up. right? >> it's interesting, it's interesting that the formation of this organization, the national conference on citizenship, was from truman and eisenhower who believed that this was a vehicle for channeling the patriotic urges of returning veterans into community service. this is really what we're about, how we began. other questions, please? >> good morning. first off, thank you very much to all the panelists for your lovely insight. ms. simon, one thing i really enjoy is that you describe the millennial generation as a solutions-oriented one. with that being said, i understand that the issue of

economic inequality can't be solved overnight, but what is one tangible act that we can begin on to begin that process or that journey when we all leave here today? >> i refuse to say that's a question for me. [laughter] he said what is one tangible thing that people can do, what is one tangible thing that people can do to begin the journey of -- >> the journey of working towards -- to begin the journey of working towards these issues, what is that one step that we could begin today when we leave here? >> okay. well, i think one nice place to start is the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour, national minimum wage, for quite some time. and so in inflation-adjusted terms, it's been going down. there are bills before congress to increase that. i think one thing to do, and that'll help people at the bottom of the income distribution, is to work on congress to actually pass the

will and raise -- the bill and raise the minimum wage. >> please, yes? >> i wanted to give the perspective of the welfare commissioner in new york city on the minimum wage issue. we had a slightly higher minimum wage than the rest of the country. but when i listen to that, so we had two big constituencies that i was concerned about in new york city. one was single mothers usually who were transitioning off assistance programs or had been off for some time and were enters into low wage jobs. and they had children in the household, and as a result they were eligible and received in large numbers a large earned income tax credit benefit, public health insurance for themselves and is their children, childcare assistance and food stamp benefits. so from my perspective, raising the minimum wage might not really have in terms of their economic well being done that much because we had as a country, in a bipartisan way,

developed programs to shore up low wages for that population. the other population i was concerned about was single men. because if you look at what's happening in our country, young men -- particularly of color -- are the most disconnected, out-of-work and troubled members of our society. and this an increasing minimum wage, i'm not so sure it would have helped them either because it would have made it harder for an employer to take the chance on them to hire them because the costs would have been higher. it's competitive for those jobs. it's lots of people -- and for good reasons. we have very open immigration attitudes in new york city, so we liked bringing low wage workers into our city. but a higher minimum wage for them? i don't know that would have helped them. i just caution everyone, i'm not so sure that's necessarily the best solution for getting going on this. i think there are two things. i really feel that we have to talk about getting the economic engine of our country going.

and the second is, and i agree with the civic engagement issues. we also have to talk about responsibility of citizenship. that there comes with being a citizen a responsibility to serve in the way that you said. and i think that that is a very, very big, important ingredient that isn't often stated. this is a burden of being a citizen that is something we all should shoulder at some point in our lyes. i just -- our lives. i'm going to resist the temptation to continue a minimum wage debate. [laughter] >> please do. >> but happy to have one offline after we're done. [laughter] but just to be responsive to the question about millennials, you know, i think one very concrete, tangible reality that many people in your age cohort are facing is student debt. and i think we are ripe as a country for a cross-party,

cross-ideological conversation about how to reform our student debt system. and it's not simply a matter of easing the terms of debt, it's also thinking about to what extent has the presence and expansion of loans contributed to the escalation of the costs of college. we have to have an honest, cross-cutting look at this, but it's got to be one that's led actually by those of you in the millennial generation who are actually experiencing the pain. and i think if you can get engaged in an issue like that, that'd be a very tangible way to get started that would be good for the country. >> let's get some more questions. please. >> good morning. my name is charles, i'm a teach for america 2010 alumni and a teacher at public schools in east harlem. currently teaching third grade, so, you know, when i think about the implications of economic

inequality, all the things we've been discussing today, i don't think we talk nearly enough about the group that is affected the most, and that is chirp. that is children. within our school walls i am the civic coordinator, so we have functions from get out the vote where our kids are wearing yellow t-shirts and yellow hats singing on the corners in harlem, getting members of the community out to vote and each registering voters. so it's been pretty amazing. within our school walls, we have launched our recycling campaign -- and i know some adults are struggling what goes into compost, what goes into trash -- [laughter] but our kids can successfully recycle paper and compost and know exactly what materials during lunch they need -- >> i thought getting it in the trash was an accomplishment. [laughter] >> so my point is, you know, within our school walls we exhibit our values of discipline, respect, enthusiasm, accountability and maturity.

that stands for dream. but the stark reality is as soon as our kids step outside the school walls, there's a disillusionment of service within the school and what is, what they are facing on a day-to-day basis when you go home in their communities. my question for you today is this: what should our messaging be, and we talk a lot about the millennials, we talk about the groups, you know, advocating for higher minimum wage, but messaging and talking to the students. when i go back to my classroom on monday morning, which i had to miss school today, but on monday morning when i look at my kids and i give them the message, what message should we be framing for young minds in our school buildings about how they can in a realistic sense be active citizen members in their community? >> panelists? bob? before you begin, we're going to let this go another ten minutes. we've got a number of questions, i hope that doesn't screw anybody up. >> i'm going to borrow from two

colleagues of bill's at the brookings institute who have talked about the success sequence for young people in america. and the success sequence is to graduate from high school, work and have a committed partner who you want to raise a child together with. before you have children. if those three components of life are adhered to, the chance that they will -- they have a 98% chance of not being in poverty. so i'm a big beaver in being honest -- big believer in being honest with children and young people about what they're up against. and what they're up against is hard and difficult, but it's made harder if they don't graduate, they don't get into the work force, and if they have a child before they're ready. it's harder for them, and it's harder for their children: so that's the message that i would send to your kids.

>> my message is just, is very brief. practice power. finish from whatever grade you're in, whatever, like, whatever the context is in. it could be your classroom, it could once you leave the school walls, your block, your floor in your building, your home, your siblings, right? practice the power of example, practice power of reframing challenges, practice the power of mobilizing resources to address those challenges, practice the power of actually making your voice heard and expressing, getting clear on what it is that you want and expressing that, right? and does that change the world overnight if you're in sixth grade? no. but the accumulation of that habit and knowing that you can have agency in the world even if your world starts with, you know, the five people right around you right now is something that is as important as everything else we've just heard.

>> i would just follow up on the practice power with a message that i told my younger sister. she came out of college and went to teach spanish in an inner city baltimore high school that was actually on the verge of closing. the stories she would come home with every day, i mean, were painful and shocking, and i didn't understand how she was supposed to teach. and we were talking about it, and we come from a religious background. we're the daughters of two pastors, and we talk about how one of the beautiful things that we took from religion was the idea of faith, just that, just that term. you can strip it from religion. the idea of faith, believing in something that you might not be able to see. and how that applied to the classroom and the students that she was working with, the idea that you had to get them to believe in their power each though they might not be able to see it when they leave the walls of the school. you have to get them to believe in the virtue and the beauty of this country and the ideals that we're all striving to reach even

though they don't see it in their neighborhood. so i think you're able to do that through having them practice power there. but there's still going to be a gap. no matter what you tell them in the classroom, there is a huge gap between what happens there and what happens when they go home. but i think if you can instill them with this idea of faith, even though i go home and i don't see that power my teacher told me i have, i know i have it. if you can weave all of that together, i think you'll be welch on your way to helping them. >> just a quick thing. my daughter did a stint with teach for america in chicago, teaching kindergarten and had a headache every day. [laughter] but i think the thing that i would tell students is, one, stay in school; two, pay attention and then, three, you know, when you go home, practice what you learned at school, you know? you have brothers, sisters, a parent, other people in the household, neighbors, you know, practice power.

>> please. in the back of the room. your name? >> my name is wolfe dayton, and i want to give a shoutout to charles, because i always worked at democracy -- [inaudible] thanks, charles. my question today and what we say at democracy prep about civics is that civics equals connectedness. and what was said earlier in the opening that, um, you know, civics is the space between people really resonated with me. but then as i was listening to the panel and eric was telling the story about how the community in seattle kind of galvanized around raising the minimum wage, and then bill pointed out it's possible to have more civic engagement and then yet perhaps more stagnation at the same time because as communities with very different needs all around the country engage civically, they often arrive at different conclusions to similar problems. i'm a native of mississippi, so just one thing that hasn't come up at all would be gun rights

which we all know at the national level is a relatively intractable issue. people in new york city come to very different conclusions about the role of guns in their society than people in a small town in mississippi where i grew up. so my question is what does it say about the future of our country that, you know, we want to solve problems as a community -- which i believe is a very powerful thing. i work for an organization of charter schools where we're designed to put the power in the hands of the community, but at the same time we all come here today as americans, so there is a national government, and they need to be unified as a country. so where do you see us going as we move forward and as those two trends perhaps butt heads, the needs of different communities clashing at the national level? >> bill? [laughter] >> i'm, i'm an only partially defrocked college professor -- [laughter] and so i'll have to restrain myself from my standard 50-minute lecture in response to

that wonderful question. but i will say this, our chances of getting to yes will be substantially enhanced if we make full, generous, thoughtful use of our system of federalism. that does not, unlike some countries like france, require that every decision be made at the center and then apply in exactly the same way to every subordinate jurisdiction of the country. some very good friends of mine have been leaders in the same-sex marriage movement. the last thing they wanted as they adopt developed that -- as they developed that movement is a single supreme court case that would preempt mobilization at the state level the way ruth bader ginsburg roe v. wade did on the choice issue. there is a lot of room for

variety in this country. and we ought to make full use of that and resolve at the center for everybody those things but only those things that need to be resolved uniformly. and i think the great movement of 20th century politics was to move more and more things away from the states and localities toward the center. and for many reasons, we had to do that. but it's a formula that may have hit a wall, and we ought to think much harder about federalism. i'll give you just two concluding reasons why. reason number one, there's some problems that are much better solved at the subnational level. and number two, levels of public trust and confidence in government are much higher at the state and especially the local level than they are at the national level. >> absolutely.

>> so why not build on strength? >> bob, anything to add? said it perfectly? one down right here in front. name please? >> i'm -- [inaudible] with everyday democracy. we are a national organization that works with communities to create -- [inaudible] for them to be engaged at the local level. and i'm particularly, your framing, eric, of this whole issue of agency and power and connecting civic engagement to equality or equity, if you will, is very powerful. and i think because you mentioned power more often than not we find that many civic ebb gaugement -- engagement efforts are devisive, and we mentioned some examples. and also those that are improving the lives of communities sometimes end up not leaving something there. so the people who are bringing that service leave, and the problems are still there. and part of it has to do with

the -- [inaudible] which you speak to. and part of it has to do also with the issue of an equity lens or bringing a listens so that when you are engaging -- a lens so that when you are engaging people, you are empowering them, but also not creating more problems than you are intending to solve there. so can you speak more about how civic engagement can do more to create capacity and to create empowerment and be an equity lens in the process? >> in our last 40 seconds, please. [laughter] >> it's such a great point. as we talk about volunteers in service to make sure that this is not a conversation whether at the local or national level that becomes about people who have lots of stuff helping people who don't have lots of stuff, right? which, of course, in the context of inequality, there are material facts of unequal economic circumstances. but what we're getting at here,

i mean, the big question that we're trying to answer as americans -- and this is a national question whatever your locality -- is, is it possible in a society of unequal material circumstances to actually make the idea of equal citizenship mean something? that's it, right? and there aren't a lot of places even trying to ask or answer the question. so we get partial credit for wanting to try, right? but only partial credit. and i think your comment is really important here, that a lot of what we've got to think about here is not a kind of serving clients mentality, but a mentality of everybody here has the capacity to make change, everybody here has the capacity -- and, indeed, the only end during change b concern enduring change, you know, i've written in the context of minimum wage and other places that true, ebb during prosperity doesn't trickle down from the top, it emerges from the middle

out, right? from the middle out and bottom up. and i would say the exact same thing is true of civic health. it does not get bestowed from on high, it does not flow from those who are already civically healthy to pass it on to those who aren't. it emerges from the middle out and the bottom up. and the best thing that those of us who have some capacity can do is to ensure that those right now in the middle and the bottom of our society civically and economically start getting more wherewithal, more civic purchasing power, right, to set in motion that virtuous cycle of increasing civic demand. that's our job right now. >> bill, do you have a summation that you'd like to give us before we bring this to a close? >> only to say that the conversation has been every bit as rich and stimulating as i think the organizers of this panel could have wished. thank you very much. >> thank you. will you join me in thanking the panel. [applause]

well done. [applause] ♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, for our next siic highlight -- civic high right, please welcome ted mcconnell and susan -- [inaudible] from the national council for the or social studies. [applause] >> what a fabulous panel we were all just blessed to hear from. dr. griffin? our republic, if you can keep it, promised dr. franklin. democracy needs to be reborn in

each generation, and education is its midwife, so said john dewey. more recently, america's favorite unemployed cowgirl, justice sandra day o'connor, has reserved from one end of this country to the other knowledge of our system of government, our rights and responsibilities as citizens is not passed down through the gene pool, it must be taught, and we have work to do. each of these three patriots was describing the essential, historic civic mission of our nation's schools, a mission as important as foundational today as it always has been, as it always will be. for those of us who care about the civic health of our nation, for those of us who care about people becoming civically engaged, we must care about the foundational civic mission of

our schools. and, folks, we're not talking about your grandpa's civic learning. we're not talking about old-fashioned didactic civic education. we're talking about new, exciting ways to learn how to be civically engaged. my colleague, the first social studies teacher in our nation, susan griffin, is going to talk a little bit about that. susan? [applause] >> great to be here with you, and i have to say there's a lot of wonderful stuff going on this afternoon. but if you want to see some applied civic knowledge, then you come to sessions that will have junior statesmen, generation citizen and the cesar chavez public charter school on public policy. they will show you how students

learn to be civically engaged, to the apply knowledge. and, frankly, i was listening to to what everyone said this morning, and you'll be pleased to know that we have all the answers. [laughter] because k-12, we have a document called c3, college, career and civic life. framework for social city standards. it looks at civics, economics, geography and history, k-12. it looks at getting the knowledge, doing research, evaluating evidence and taking civic action. that is the inquiry arc described here. and it lays out what needs to happen k-12. so that when students graduate,

they're raring to go. they're going to volunteer, they're going to do public service, they're going to be ready for a career, college, but most importantly, civic life. so you've got to come to our session this afternoon. >> look forward to seeing you there and thank you, ncoc, for another fabulous national conference on citizenship. thank you. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome ncoc board member garrett graph. [applause] ♪ ♪ >> good afternoon, everyone. or good morning still slightly. so as general mcchrystal said this morning, the importance of national service is hard to overstate in all of the various forms that that can entail. to leverage that power and to

begin to try to build the capacity to achieve the kind of scale that general mcchrystal has talked about, we need to bring together a number of different institutions from the government to private corporations to educational institutions like american here today. no company has taken up this call to service more than cisco. cisco has been working hard with ncoc, with the franklin project, with the as pep institute to make a reality of the service year experience. and not just as a common expectation, but as a common opportunity for young people. today cisco is the title sponsor of our annual conference as well as they have generously committed over $5 million to the development of the service year exchange. for the first time, this exchange will seek to bring

service corps members, host organizations and funders together into one integrated web site and process. cisco has been all in on this project, giving technical and marketing advice and fundraising support to us and our partner institutions through a major matching grant. today to tell you more about this, i have the honor of introducing patrick finn, the senior vice president for cisco's u.s. public sector organization. he leads an integrated team of more than 2,000 cisco employees who work to protect, serve and educate americans in all different sectors. patrick is a -- knows well the power of service himself. he has worked both with his team on a number of various service projects as well as is personally involved here in washington with the an organization, silver springs, that works with children with

disabilities. it's my honor to introduce patrick finn. [applause] ♪ ♪ >> it's an honor to be here. i brought this to prove the you that we're the technology company and not the food company. [laughter] but i'm honored to be here with two colleagues, larry payne who's our vice president of u.s. federal, and lynn doherty who actually runs our commercial east organizations right here. so why are we here? if you think about what general mcchrystal said and the spirit of this conference, we're here for three reasons. this is that conference about america's youth, the future strength of u.s. corporations and the global viability of america to have a competitive, experienced and educated work force. cisco has a culture of giving

back. every one of our 70,000 employees embrace a cause and give back to our community. but here and today we're here because it's about the present and the future of our country and our youth. and there are no topics that are more important. national service is a win/win for our society. it supports communities, helps people improve their lives and provides additional human capital to organizations that serve other people. at cisco we want to make sure people have the skills to succeed this tomorrow's work force and national service delivers on that important promise and really that important goal. young people who p engage in national service are socially conscious, motivated, innovative, tenacious and

talented. these are the people we want to work in our corporations. while serving their communities, young people develop and deploy skills in communication, problem solving, teamwork, leadership. these are skills that are increasingly vital in the workplace and sometimes not up found. according to a report by national service, the skills people acquire during their national service make them more likely to be employed and to earn higher salaries over the course of their career. for example, about two-thirds of americorp members report that their service experience provided them the advantage in finding a job. but right now we can't accommodate for everyone. only about two-thirds of americorp members reported that

finish i'm sorry, we can't accommodate everyone. there is seven ap applicants for every employee -- for every job that's available. so we need to find jobs for our youth. cisco has been a strong supporter of the concept of national service for more than a decade. for instance, we provide cash and in-kind grants to citi year and americorp program and teach for america that puts highly achieving recent college graduates to underserved schools for two years. and now we are very proud to be a partner with the national services alliance effort to make national service a common opportunity and expectation for all americans. because cisco is an i.t. company, we have chose to be an initial supporter of the national service exchange which

has been built in a way to -- and will be run by the national conference on citizenships, the ncoc. i want to thank the ncoc for its leadership and for being such a great partner. this is an exchange that captures the skills of our youth and aligns them with jobs that are available in the work force. that way we're actually connecting the talent with the openings. the online exchange will connect the youth who wish to serve with organizations looking for talents and services and the funders who want to support both. the exchange is indispensable in filling the vision of the alliance. it will handle organization certifications, individual service profiles, fundraising, social media linkage and be the platform to support this important work. to date, cisco has provided cash

support, i.t. consulting, vendor selection and marketing assistance to the ncoc. but that's just an advertisement. what we've really done is we've challenged corporate america in a $3 million challenge grant to encourage other organizations to join us and support this initiative. through the service year exchange, we will connect the right people with the right opportunities. this will give america's youth, young adults the opportunity to do good work and solve problems while they become better, stronger and contributing citizens. we welcome all u.s. companies. we challenge all u.s. companies to join us in making a national service year a reality for all young americans. this is important work and will have the impact on our cup's global competitiveness. thank you begun for the honor of

participating. enjoy your lunch. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, for our final civic highlight from the points of light corporate institute, please welcome yvonne sue turner and jenny lawson. [applause] ♪ ♪ >> good afternoon. imagine a world where every company paid its employees to volunteer, where companies used volunteer programs to attract the best and the brightest and where the private sector used global volunteerism to drive business innovation. we're living in a world where companies are increasingly playing a positive role in meeting community needs through the power of their financial contributions and the power of their people.

and in many towns across america, employers are the focal point of the community around which much civic life revolves. let's look at the numbers. in 2013 the largest corporations in the fortune 500 contributed $54 million each to communities, and the giving trend is rising. 64% of companies gave more in 2013 than in 2010. and companies these days respect just writing checks, they're giving back the most precious asset; the time and talent of their employees. last year points of light announced that 500 companies had given back $2 billion worth of pro bono services to communities, and this year the campaign is mobilizing 5,000 companies and service. so as partnerships in communities are becoming more meaningful, we row you to learn from -- we invite you to learn from the best programs that not only drive social and business value, but also inspire active citizenship. so join us in our learning summit at one p.m. in the work building where we'll explore

what this means, we'll discuss what companies are doing, and we'll engage in a cross-sector dialogue and explore opportunities for cooperation between corporate america, civil society, nonprofits and universities. we'll hear from corporate leaders at fedex and ge, two of the 50 most community-minded companies in the country according to the 2013 civic 50 list, and we'll hear how they've engaged in programs of volunteerism, awareness of social issues, trust in public institutions and other forms of civic engagement. we invite you to join us to learn more. ..

yes, this is the topic right before drinks. [laughter] we will hear from experts on the evaluation including brian, the executive executive director of the corporate executive board committee hr practice, and katie, the manager of the corporate citizenship. both of these organizations have played a very important role in developing metrics and measures for understanding volunteerism and the social impact. we will discuss the measurement framework from the 50s and initiative of the points of light and bloomberg that was founded here at ncoc that honors

the most community minded companies in america and this year's list will be released on december 8. we will share some insight about the questions the companies answered and what we are starting to understand. and we will also share points of light resources and tools to evaluate the effect of a winter programs and social impact. then we are going to challenge you to think about how art you measure indoor programs now, how are you partnering with your companies and philanthropic partners to improve your measurement outcomes. as points of light we are increasingly committed to providing resources for companies looking to build and expand effective employee volunteer programs so they can work with you together in partnerships for great outcomes in your community. so please join us for this conversation coming and i think that now it is time for lunch. thank you. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, we

adjourned the morning session. please welcome the committee chair. [applause] ♪ >> a little taller. there we go. i want to first of all say thank you again to all of the speakers and especially to all of you that have been so important to what's going on. the morning has been filled with a kind of debate and exchange of ideas and energy and enthusiasm that are critical to strengthening the civic life in america. i also want to recognize ncoc's poured into the program can be many of whom are in attendance today. if you are here in the audience any of my fellow program committees i won't call you out but please stand up so we can give you a round of applause and recognize you. [applause]

it's a joy to work with these folks. i enjoy my opportunity as the chair of the committee. in a moment we will mr. lunch followed by the senate to the senate. it's summit. it's a feedback request for in-depth works up -- workshop session. we hope this will hope you take the ideas and topics generated here and turn them into information to action and collaboration that last well beyond today. there are four summits into sessions. we have a coffee break between sessions at 2:30. you identified a session of interest when you registered which is now printed on the back of your name tag. the corresponding room assignment for listing your programming on the screen in the building just across the street. friendly as opposed to unfriendly volunteers and ample

signage will help you find your way to your sessions after lunch. we allocate the room space on the interest identified and did our best to balance the session. you're welcome to change the sessions between summit number one and number two if you wish but if you go to a room that is overflowing please consider attending a different session. they will run until 4:30 and we will reconvene to report our experiences out at the end of the day. we listen to your feedback and a valid debate carefully when making decisions about future events and programming. this morning he received an evaluation when you registered. please pick sure you complete it before you leave today. there will be boxes on the registration table and each of the learning summit rooms to the complete evaluations. after the conference closes today we hope you will join us for a happy hour at the restaurant. it will be a great opportunity to connect with your colleagues in a fun and informal setting.

this default the first drink is on us. shuttles will run between the conference here and happy hour and then the metric station and the marriott to give you options for getting home. but now it's time for lunch. please pick up your lunch outside of the auditorium doors. tables are set up right down the hall in the area that you entered first this morning so you can gather around the tables. lunch is planned to run until 12:45 where we will begin encouraging you to move to the rooms. thank you and enjoy. [applause]

the final debate will be held in a campaign for the louisiana senate seat. the candidate for democratic incumbent mary landrieu and republican challenger congressman bill cassidy. the runoff election is slated for saturday december 6. here's a look at the political ads currently running in the race. >> i marry landrieu and i approved this message.

>> bill cassidy gave a speech that was nearly incoherent. but his record is crystal clear voting to cut social security benefits, to pay for a tax breaks for millionaires like himself. will it be for this? >> before the end of the year, we are going to take whatever actions they can take. >> promising executive amnesty. >> we must stop obama. i will fight the plan. your tax dollars should benefit you. and remember mary landrieu, iraq obama, 97%. i'm bill cassidy and approved the message. spec every morning i say prayer

for my kids. i want them to be happy and do their best. bill cassidy is a doctor. to pay for a the tax breaks for millionaires like himself. i don't know what kind of dr. would do that to my kids. i'm mary landrieu and i approved the message because louisiana children should never pay the price for a millionaires tax cut >> i'm bill cassidy and i approved this message. >> on the obamacare come on voting with barack obama 97% of the time stomach to defend what is an extraordinary record. >> if you disagree with her -- spin it either up for reelection right now. >> now you know what to do on election day. >> host: good morning. remind us again where the race

stands a few days before the runoff. >> guest: thanks for having me on. we are just a few days out from the election and tonight will be on the online and on tv. >> host: mary landrieu and bill cassidy joining in the runoff for the seat. you bring up a debate that is happening. what does each side have to do in the debate tonight? >> guest: there've been some things that are being promoted -- i apologize for that. there've been a few of them coming out in the campaign that's focusing a lot on bill

cassidy's time as a teacher while he was a congressman and how much work he was doing to bring these records out. bill cassidy has basically refuted the allegations saying that he was doing a lot of work and he had some residents said he was working with and everything and as far as the side has been committees agreed to a limited number of debates. this is literally the only debate between the primary and the runoff that he agreed to. perhaps chris convenience it is keep your head down and get through this cause he is leaning in at this point.

>> host: the headline mary landrieu to bring those records to the debate that's happening tonight. besides the teaching controversy, the keystone xl pipeline has been an issue in this race especially the votes that have been in the house and the senate. what do they do for both sides heading into this runoff? >> guest: i think at the end of the day it played a lot better on tv and in dc than necessarily here. i think that if anything, mary landrieu not getting the votes she needed in the senate but they probably hurt a lot more than it helped getting it to a vote or anything like that. i think if it had passed, that would have become a big campaign issue but it doesn't seem to be something people are talking

about here. in that couple of days everyone was wondering what's going on. but once it ended we haven't really heard many people talking about it because they don't seem to care that much about it. >> host: and if bill cassidy wins the seat it would give republicans 54 seats in the 114 congress and the senate in the 114 congress. what would be the key places to watch on saturday when the runoff vote start coming in? >> guest: it is really the key. they're been places where senator landrieu has been able to do really well in the past elections even though they are kind of republican strongholds. she's been able to kind of hold her own and it will be interesting to see if those

areas decided to go fully republican. >> host: we will be watching tonight's debate and friday. we appreciate your time this morning. >> guest: thank you for having me on. to "new york times" columnist look at the influence of media on culture and society. we will hear from chief television critic and the former correspondent as well as op-ed columnists. the events takes place event takes place at the fairfield university in connecticut. it's about one hour and 20 minutes.

>> soon we will be meeting two distinguished journalists. in fact two of them from the times. ms. alessandra stanley and mr. frank bruni. we all understand the very long ripple effects of "the new york times" which extend so deeply into the nation's history. it has been published all these years and of course has been read on five continents as we say all the news that is fit to print albeit today in the new digital world. to be honest, rush limbaugh explained, i can only read a few

paragraphs in "the new york times" story before i puke. [laughter] last summer i was watching a rerun of a charlie rose special and the editor of the new yorker was speaking about the media in america and he talked about his career and spent ten years at the "washington post" and he's been the editor of the new yorker and he said "the new york times" has been the greatest competitor in my entire professional career. then he paused and he said i think "the new york times" is the nation's most important and privately held institution and i thought about that. it's about what you would list as a treasure, what is privately owned in the united states and that is what is in his

assessment of the power of "the new york times". open vision forum wants to think of course the generous sponsors that make these programs possible, to our friends to the des moines hotel and our friends who published the magazine and the entire set of magazines picture in fairfield county. we will be joined tonight by the chairman of the communications department. but to set the stage that bring out another professor of communication the deputy director and my assistant and helping to develop the series for the introduction to the guest. michael. [applause] in the late 1960s, one of the

cries for the feminist movement went something like this. the personal is political. for decades later and equally fitting slogan might not apply. the popular is political. for it is increasingly impossible to extricate entertainment firm electoral effects. we are not just talking about john stewart and stephen colbert, tfa channeling sarah palen or conan the barbarian as their governor. on just about every major issue now, popular culture offers the rosetta stone for politics. we can't understand the dramatic shift in the public opinion on the rights without appreciating modern family. we can't understand the reality of tolerating the guantánamo

detainees without grasping the fantasy of homeland and 24. and we can't understand the increasing crime. i had even as the actual crime rates continue to fall without seeing the world outside of the door. the popular has never been more political tricks or guests tonight so timely. they are leaders and award winners. at the world's most indispensable news organization "the new york times." frank gray was quite literally the peacemaker as the chief restaurant critic sandwiched in between and the current gig as the columnist. he's been that paper's chief critic more than a decade after managing overseas across europe. the work is versatile, element and perceptive teasing out the way that we live now from the media that that we consume out

and making up the big picture as it comes to us more and more on the small screen. please join me in welcoming from "the new york times" is alessandra stanley and mr. johnk bruni. [applause] >> let's hear what mr. frank bruni and his stanley have to say. i think frank is going to go to the podium now. >> hello everybody, good night. i mean good evening. i brought my pillow with me. it is a pleasure to be here. i want to thank you for the compliment and i want to say sometimes when i feel the need i listen to his radio show. [laughter] i was asked to stay a little bit about my career at the times

which isn't so different. we are both people that have bounced around a lot. in my now almost 20 years, which horrifies me because it means i'm getting on in my years. i've been a religion reporter on the metropolitan desk and i've covered a campaign and i covered the beginning of his white house. i reported from san francisco -- the restaurant critic for five years. i've written for the magazine. this follows years earlier and my little brother likes to say that i don't have a career i have in attention deficit disorder and that is true. but i believe strongly going through life and gathering as many experiences as possible. when i got into journalism my notion is that it would give me a ticket or passports to all sorts of experiences and privileged glimpses of the world i i could indicate in couldn't

get in any other way and it's done precisely that. i met a pope john paul and i've gotten to know george w. bush. my belief in a diverse experience and the value that i please have the versatility leads me to what i want to say that the media today which as i guess the topic. we are living in a very interesting moment. decades ago as we made the advances and tv came along a supposedly wise man said that we were becoming a global village areas while, we further advances beyond that and i think what has happened over the last decade is we have become a gazillion global villages in the globe that his fractured as never before. i think the great irony of the time we have all of these cable

channels isn't to sample the world in the most diverse way possible. they use this to marinate endlessly. there's a whole vocabulary that is developed. people talk of modern americans living in information silos. they talk about the way that we support ourselves and that is what happens. we have happened. we have all of these connecting mechanisms, twitter, facebook, all that stuff and instead of using them to reach out to a broad spectrum of our fellow human beings we use them to connect over and over again with people who think just like us. think about people that like real housewives and can see them in six different cities and accents, 24 hours a day. people that like duck by dynasty

and they can find books written by the duck commander. i don't even know who that is that i believe i'm using the correct phrase. it's happening over again. this has been measured and americans are becoming more partisan and people that feel the most strongly as they set up their tudor feed they do with not so they can be exposed to all kind of information prospective specific and constantly hear what they already believe. they live in the speaker chambers and it's kind of depriving us of the common ground between the are going to have a congress that functions and if we are all going to participate in the civic debate in the correct way and i hope we get to talk more about that tonight. one of my most heartfelt appeals of students or anyone else here tonight is in your own news

information consumption you can do nothing better for yourself and your country than making then making sure you're following a few people who don't believe as you do that you are bookmarking a couple of publications or blogs that represent the opposite of your viewpoint in life and if we begin doing that it would be much better shape as a country. alessandra can talk about how this manifests itself on tv and i think i'm near the limit of my time. i don't want to bore you any further. do i get to introduce alessandra stanley my dear friend. [applause] >> i can see you. can you hear me? first thank you for having me. it is an honor to be here but it is a big outing because as you know i don't actually leave the house much or get out of my

pajamas ever. my daughter makes fun of me and had a show called arrested development and said i'm her stay in bed mother. [laughter] so it's great to be here. people often ask me how i got interested in television and i have to explain that i'm sort of cautionary tale for parents because mine didn't let us watch television when we were growing up so naturally it's all that i ever thought about. and it took me a while to get there but look at me now. [laughter] i love tv because i never got to watch it. let me tell you a story that i like, sophisticated gallery owner of new york i asked him how did you become a gallery owner in new york and he collected futures of italian art.

he said it was tv. i said look and he explains he'd grown up in arizona and they worked at the work for the airlines and he was left alone all the time and watched i dream of jeannie constantly. he remembers a particular episode where jeannie was in her wasn't her bottle and it is decorated with what looked like a picasso. he thought that's amazing. when the years went by and the school took him on a field them on a field trip to texas he went to a museum where he actually saw a picasso and he said it's real and he actually quit high school and moved to new york and became an art gallery and never watch tv again. [laughter] we are going to talk about about television i hope. there was a lot of good

television. the soprano, sex and the city. people like yourselves were not watching the way you are i hope now. people said what you even want to be a critic that isn't a dignified thing to the. people would introduce me at parties and say she's a tv critic. but the shows have gotten more sophisticated. you were talking about a narrow audience. that's true in our popular culture. but i'm always struck by is how the audience has grown to include college professors and nobel laureates who are all watching the same shows we are. what's interesting about that is simply that that's how good television has gotten. it's still good in some things

that you can now discuss a tv show before a movie or novel because it has been said many times it is now like a novel. so much so that there was an adaptation that was adapted by the bbc and tom wrote the screenplay and it was so good that it made an awful look bad. it's how things have evolved. we know of course nobody is going to movies because all of that movie directors are doing television. spielberg has a television directing company, pretty much anybody with the name as. frank and i were good fans of nora ephron and then she was in

the hospital she was determined to keep working and she was working on a television treatment and it was actually something that sounded great. it was about a woman i was a compliance officer and realizes her boss is a fraud and i wish that she had stuck around. what i was going to say is people used to feel guilty about watching television and now people are going to feel bad about not watching it enough because they feel like i can't even talk to my friends if i haven't seen orange is the new black. and the responsibility of the critic of "the new york times" becomes not just being a fan but also finding things to say about these television shows good and bad patella something about ourselves. i'm hoping that in this discussion we'll have a chance to talk about what was going on. if we get a chance, i want to talk about the depiction of men, the meaning of the picture because i always write about

women and maybe we should talk about the depiction of men. anyway, thank you for being here and i look forward to your questions at our discussion. >> thank you. [applause] >> who wants to jump in. i had. >> dovetailing off of where you've left us talking about the nature of television nowadays and i think that clearly the most critically acclaimed shows of the last two decades have these intricate storylines with slow and elaborate character development. and above all, they require really long and deep investment of time. simultaneously, a lot of our media culture has shrunk and accelerated and emphasizes the discourse and sound bites and viral phenomenon. i'm wondering how is it that

those two things can exist, why is it that we are willing to make time and put in the effort for these incredibly elaborate shows up at the same time we have trouble getting past something that's 141 characters >> the answer is actually in your question because i think it has to be to that elaborate. no one is going to stop doing things that they can do in ten seconds to do it in an hour but there is that belief if i'm going to draw down the curtains and i'm going to watch ten episodes of deadwood and i'm not even going to stop for food. your head spins from all these things.

>> is there -- i find and maybe folks sure this experience it's hard to catch up to the conversations if you haven't caught up to the show. it would have been the case, you know come in the decades passed but an extremely popular show you could just drop in season three, season four and catch up on the conversation but now it seems harder if you don't put in the ten, 20, 30 hours. stomach that is why people feel ashamed and guilty that they haven't watched enough tv. [laughter] >> david, go ahead. >> i want to follow up on your point about the gender on television and being portrayed in a demeaning way. the recent review of the good wives and madame secretary u. make the case that some powerful women are no longer shocking on television. we always come to expect it at the same time i'm curious if you

think the representation of gender on television is just completely off from the actual landscape and if so, why. >> every clinton was the secretary of state and we now have a tv show about a female secretary of state. i'm not so sure that it is leaning and it used to be all fantasy. and then five years later there was one. so it's a great the great thing about television is that there is so much of it and you can make that argument that it's this and what would you say it is an incorrect or fancy version of reality but then you can just watch a reality show or something. on tv women can be divorced.

a the man is always the wood -- widower. a man that is divorced as a beast that left his wife but if he is a widower he lost her hair and square and can be a sympathetic character. not all men are beasts. [laughter] >> let me go back to your discussion about the tribal i know this is something that you addressed what seems to be going on as we are losing that water cooler conversation. that is those of us a little bit older in the audience we would all watch all of the family or the dick van dyke show or watch an episode of mary tyler moore

then we could come in and share that. how do you feel it is being reflected in the balkanization of our political life >> i think the habits people exercise when they are choosing their entertainment options carries over so you get accustomed has hundreds of channels. we haven't actually come up with a vocabulary to replace the obsolete vocabulary but i think people are in the habit of curating their entertainment universe and when you get in the habit, you carry to every aspect of your universe. to your specific specifications it's interesting binge watching was brought up and i'm sure a lot of you traveled. one of the other perverse effects of technology as is if you look around you on a plane

you could take a five-hour trip five hour trip that brings you across the country and you deposited in a completely new environment and what people are doing isn't looking up around them at this new environment, they are staring down into their iphone or there i had in watching five hours of game of thrones and landing in a foreign country with the entertainment cocoon that they left the country still in tact with and they are staring down instead of up. i think all of that makes us less aware of anything the narrow band of experience we've chosen for ourselves. >> let me follow up on the topic of what you spoke about with the e-echo chambers and suggesting that folks bookmark and reach for publications and blogs and views that disagree from their

own. which publications do you read besides rush limbaugh that disagree from your own box? >> well because he fills up a lot of air, a publication that i recommended to a lot of people because you get this experience on the one place, it does something interesting. it is a little bit annoying in its mannerisms, but it does to the major news events of the week and a the way that it's used to present before they became magazines and other ways it goes to the stories of the last week and it gives you a paragraph or two of pretty objective straightforward summaries of what happened and then it gives you the glimpses of the various takes it gives you a link to any of the things

so if you are using it the way that it's designed to be used, you are able in the specific news events that you are looking at coming into for interactions. so that is one-stop shopping. i know that i shouldn't urge any presentation other than "the new york times" that the truth of the matter is my work for the page and moderates or liberals far outnumber conservatives. there is not a really accurate mirror of the country into political distribution of people in the country. the question still on technology and curious how it has affected your job as reviewer is an op-ed columnists. to me strengthening tv and twitter shows are previewed in real-time and the viewers real time and the viewers all the time and every restaurant in the media constantly but it everybody that yells on the mr. graham at these kind of things.

so how is it your job as a nation's newspaper record being changed in some way by this constant culture of the feedback? >> i like to think that because there is all this sort of instant edited reviewing basically that the time has that we we can be that beacon making sense of it so you can read whatever but at the end of the day you were to come to some place where you know they synthesize the information and they arecome at a higher object of people or people that are not corrupt. i hope that is the case. i rely on the paper for that. i worked there but i can't just

rely on it because they are all over the place and i don't know who is writing them. i don't know what their backgrounds are. are they paid by someone? people are getting more suspicious but you don't know who's writing it so that is a service that is provided. >> if we can continue to find an economic model that keeps us alive and sufficiently funded to do the journalism that we do there are a lot of people defined as more valuable than ever before and in fact in terms of the numbers the problem isn't that they don't have enough people reading because of the internet we have more people reading than ever before but the problem is the economic model with advertising and how we make the income to pay for the journalism has changed. the truth of the matter is for a sophisticated reader, yelp did

nothing and i could see that in the economic effect because i think intelligent readers know where they quickly learn as they grab information you have no idea if they've eaten at more than three restaurants in the last year. you have no idea if you are getting something from the chefs mother or favorite enemy. it's really true. and what you get if you are reading a tv review or a restaurant review, but you are what you are getting is something that you know is not compromised by an economic interest, you are getting something from someone that hasn't just watched that one show that is using a yardstick of fast experience gained over years of watching tv and you can't just watch that reading twitter or people's comments. >> as a sort of follow-up to the

question of your critics are influential. do you read criticism of your own work? >> not lately. i don't read other critics because of the night because i think i'm better than they are but because i'm afraid of being influenced and it's not just that you're going to copy an idea that the states like it's too much you overreact the other way. and you cannot read your own reviews if you were to write a book i think you should have to. but the internet is fierce and you can get preoccupied. you have to try to do what you do. >> how much would you allow your own subjective taste and bias. how much of your own taste are you feeling that you need to

either repress. you have to review it but you know that this isn't your thing. >> then you're passing it off to people. and i think that we can do that. when that much work has gone into something you want to give it the best shot you can.

but a lot of shows i wouldn't normally watch. >> i'm still waiting to make a food items like. [laughter] >> there is no country that i can go to and hope to safely lose weight. [laughter] but i think that it's a great question. i think you cannot suppress or try to adjust the subjectivities that you or anyone person is going to add. isn't isn't that i'm trusting my opinion will always mirror theirs but if they are being true to their subjective nature i can kind of figure out where i overlapped and where i don't because it is only going to work if the critic is consistent to

his or her sensibility so i thought it was my duty as a restaurant critic to offer an intelligent reason or explanation for why i felt the way that i did not say i feel this way because sweetbreads aren't my favorite thing that they are. but you know what i mean, i think that the review is supposed to be something of the consumer via the come of it at via become a bit of a via become a bit of a higher level that most critics at the time aspired to be as come of the review is more of a discussion and a springboard for the discussion then it is meant to be the final word for everybody. so i think it is okay to be true to it. >> staying with your experience of the food critics for his second coming it strikes me that best writing in the newspaper often shows up in the food criticism. that might just be a subjective opinion. but having been a food critic for a number of years how did you feel when you are writing

the restaurant review compared to other things where you could be more playful was there a generic format? >> unfortunately or fortunately there are certain things you have to accomplish over the course of the review. you've written the review since it does have a consumer service element. if you haven't in some fashion somewhere along the way told people at the restaurant looks like, what kind of person goes there there are a million ways to embed that information. so, i found it fun and challenging to try to always made sure that the review didn't have the same structure. if there was an interesting way that gave me the approach originally at the very common

scenario in the industry is going to sound sexist but it is and you find a lot of the couples married where the husband is the chef chefs and about life as a pastry chef which i think says a lot about the society. and there was a situation like that in the upper east side and i don't know how it came up when i was interviewing them on the phone but they lived right above the restaurant. the space has opened up right below them and so i realized i could write about the most enviable commute in manhattan and so in that sense i thought it was actually kind of fun writing the challenge. >> i can say this industry can't. the best critics you read it regardless whether you ever intend to go to the restaurant. i don't like food i don't care about restaurants i just want the writing to be dim.

it has nothing to do with food and that is ideally what you would want if you are doing a book review and you don't have to be fascinated by the show or the book or the restaurant. they have wonderful writers that do this but it is an invitation just to have a great experience while you are reading. >> you can read a review that you will never see anna have never seen and have a great time with the use of language and voice and that sort of thing. >> is there a review or column that you wish you could go back and completely kick out of the archives? the most dangerous thing that you can do command i mean that in a small way, everything that we do is produced on deadline.

we are both in jobs and have always been in jobs where we've had to be prolific and as soon as you put a time limit on something which is necessary and making compromises in ways that when you go back and look you realize you didn't say it the way that you meant to say it as elegantly as you thought you were capable of. i think that you are giving to learn early on not to look back at a shark going forward. >> regard articles, there were some stories that i wanted to do that i kind of chickened out because in those days they were really leaning on you you you into distrusted was politically difficult to do and, you know, just there were some sources in russia that for a little hard to do and i wish that i had done them. i can think of a lot of stories that i would love to go back and do rather than have to go away

and take a lot of it back because sometimes you can talk yourself out of something. >> let me ask about house of cards for a second because one of the most interesting things is the development and as i understand, netflix went through this amount of streaming data that it has 30 million plays per day and 4 million of you are ratings and it basically spit out an algorithm that said it = winner. my question is will the audiences be better off if creative development shows become more data-driven in that way and is there something that is going to be lost in the algorithms? the >> that is the challenge of amazon they think they can create an algorithm for

literature and get rid of the editors and their individual idiosyncratic tastes but so far that hasn't worked for them. people will always be saying everybody has always done that. families of seven, great. now it is a little more as you say data-driven. but there are just things that are serendipity to all of this into some come up with something. madman was amazing and hbo thought they calculated we've already done the peace so they passed. i wouldn't have changed the way that we look at television and it spawned a lot of other shows there is an algorithm that led you there. so i am not that worried about it. i'm worried about amazon but for other reasons.

>> i wanted to follow up on the question. you've written extensively about the issues as it is discussed in the church and the other social issues or the moral teachings why do you think that is and a second second if you hold out as much hope do you think it will change in the catholic church? the >> i will take the second question first. you won't see the significant changes in the third week of church teaching. i don't think that they move at that pace the pace and a lot of the source of the changes that they would like to see are not going to be on the menu. but what is true on catholicism and what i've written about his

religion into the is the religion and the leaders have always picked and chosen what they focus on and what they enforce and turn a blind eye to. and what you are seeing are the signals that he's sending over and over again and today has been fairly consistent that he does not want the church anywhere in the world and certainly in america to be admired. that is indeed changing teaching but it's a pretty powerful thing because there are many catholics who always lived by their unconscious and made their own sort of truth and what they needed to do is simply not be ostracized and published in the community and i think that there is a saying it's get out of that end of the judgment and i think that will continue. who's contemplating the role as a catholic in the country? spinnaker a lot of areas including this one you can find the congregation that was

extremely accommodating to you and the there explicitly or with a wink and a nod says we don't care what the dogma is and in other areas of the country it is a lot harder and i don't have to say to people in those areas. >> a person's relationship is his or her relationship and i don't think that any cleric or church can revert or govern the utterly. so i think that you can always find ways to have a relationship with your god that isn't mediated or compromised. >> let me go back to your experience in the food critic for a second. >> that's an interesting transition. >> i don't think there is a much

better segue. when you were cast were asked to be a food critic having had your own complicated relationship and having written a book about it, did you see them taking the job? there are equivalent challenges reporters would have been assigned to a job like that. but how does that strike you viscerally and intellectually when you were asked to do the job? >> what he's referring to and it is no big secret that before i became the times food critic over the course of my life i have huge food issues. i than a bulimic in college and i did ultimately write a book about all of that. when i was asked to be food critic and i had come to what i thought was the far side of that and i guess part of the answer is i felt that it would be the

final answer if i get truly gained control of the. i will be brief about this i always knew my problem had been one of the kind of common dieters problem magnified with making false extreme promises to myself. i'm going to not eat anything but salary for three days and because of that i'm going to pick out today and they pick out all of those days as well and the enforced rhythm of being a food critic might actually be good for me. walk us through this. is it that you are in disguise?

to walk us through what it was like. >> what i can talk to his restaurant critics are almost always recognized in new york city because it is a very sophisticated market and if you spin the critics and the time they care so much and had so much money that hinges on your opinion so you know when you are and they almost always do a. we went to this extremely long multicourse mail that he ordered and that our server was kind of

hanging back eavesdropping watching the table at all times. towards the end of the meal i went to the bathroom and i was washing my hands and i hit the soap dispenser and some soap landed on my tan shirt and made a kind of dark mark. i came back to the table because it looks like an idiot looked like an idiot and i said to my table mates i hit the soap dispenser really hard its way look like this, please forgive me. the waitress comes over against me to check and says i want you to know your glasses of wine have been taken off as a malfunction of the soap dispenser. [laughter] i then explained to her that the soap dispenser didn't malfunction that i did and it was okay and she said that as it may, we are sorry. i didn't argue because the bill was like $900.

on our way out the manager or the man i assume to be the manager rushes up to me and says i want to apologize on behalf of the restaurant for the malfunction of our soap dispenser. [laughter] i explained again it wasn't the soap dispensers fault and he handed me his card and said be that as of may i want you to know that if you need a shirt dry cleaned or replaced it please get in touch with us and we will reimburse you and at that point i thought i should point out its soap, i think it's going to come out. [laughter] and then really showing it's true manners they said and it keels. [laughter] ..