the number. we use it for seven years. it 63 gallons. and it's cheaper than dropping a 500 pounder. first we did it. and secondly is it really better if we use those which have maybe three times as much lethal stuff. i'm not make it a case for the guy. ..

with the president put 250 special forces guys into canada? hell no. the world sees what he does and they think the number into iraq is three or 4000 i'm telling you three or four times that. i'm just saying, that's telling

the truth to the people about some basic stuff and that's bad. on the other hand, let me say this, i think he will be the brightest president that we will ever have for the next 50 years. >> that is a low bar, but thanks so much for your time today. i really enjoyed the discussion. >> thank you robert. >> cspan, created by america's cable television companies and brought to you as a publicntin public service by your cable or satellite provider. >> joining us from new york is donald mcneil. he is a reporter for the new york timeses and author of the book zika, the emerging emerging epidemic. joining us now, thank you for joining us. >> guest: thank you for joining me. >> host: the title says it's an emerging epidemic but tell me where are we as far as the u.s. on this epidemic as well, where is zika concentrated and is it spreading?

>> guest: it is still emerging. this is the first year of the epidemic hitting this hemisphere. it sprang out of brazil at the end of this year and has been spreading northward. it reached florida last month. there are more than 1000 travel related cases in the united w states, people who have it because they went to countries that have it but nowe flo we he local transmission in florida. >> host: what are the former --b common forms of transmission. >> guest: it's mostly from theth mosquitoes and we think it will be limited mostly to the most tropical parts of the south.ere florida over to houston. there could be a break in hawaii but nobody knows yet.

>> host: go ahead. >> the second form of transmission is sexual transmission. mostly male to female or male to other males. there is one known casessio ofai female to male transmission, and this is an incredibly sneaky virus. no one has seen a mosquito bornn virus that is also sexually transmitted and no one has evers seen a mosquito borne virus that attacks babies in the wombrth either killing them oror destroying their life. >> host: i was going to ask, can you give a further explanation explanation of what zika is and how it works. >> it's a virus like yellow fever but for most people whoope get it, even children, even people with hiv as far as we no, anyone who who gets it it's a mild disease but a woman who is pregnant, any time in her pregnancy, it can cross placenta and reach the fetuses brain. babies have been born blind or

death or unable to unclip their limbs. clearly they will never be able to walk or talk in the mostases severe cases have microcephaly which is a tiny shrunken headune within undeveloped brain. some of those children die int h the first week of life and some of them survive but they havea h really, very little life. they can breathe and l digest bt not do a whole lot else. a it's real tragedy for those parents. >> host: aside from the children, if an adult the contrs it, what are the symptoms ando what is the damage so to speak? >> guest: there isn't much adult contracts it. it's a bothersome disease with rash, red eyes, low-grade fever, 102 or 103 at most, an itchy rash 03 at most, and itchy rashe but it usually goes away in 7 - 10 days. more seriousnce of

symptoms a little like polio but it's very rare and it usually goes away. it's a one and 4000 or one and 5000 risk. we deal with risks like that every day being involved with automobiles. it does exist but the most recent is to the babies. hav >> host: he is here to talk about the virus and what we've talked about in the u.s. if you want to ask que questionu can do so on the phone line. you can post on twitter if you want to shoot comments his way at cspan wj. your book, mr. mcneil, what wasi what caused you to get interest in this virus in the first

place? >> guest: it was a slow week after christmas last year and i was looking for an item to writt and i saw a headline out of brazil that said officials in the health ministry had asked mothers in brazil to stop having children if they could. i was just shocked by that. you never hear governments asking women to stopnmen having children. that's extreme, that's the end of urination. i thought what the world is this and i saw theythis had this outk of tiger separately in the hospitals in brazil. t they were positive but thehe clearest explanation seem to be nine months earlier there hadbra been this outbreak of this mysterious mosquito borne virus. >> it was actually a mild disease and nobody expected anything terrible from it. >> guest: suddenly one after another babies were being born with horrible birth defects. i started writing about itzil immediately and we been writing about it full-time since then.

>> host: from the responses that you seen on the ground, particularly inn miami florida where we have some of the news come out over the last coupleena weeks, we've seen pictures of suited up workers trying to combat this. what are we seeing in these pictures? >> guest: it's clear that there's mosquitoes and one part of miami that is transporting the virus. the cdc is hoping they can limit the epidemic to just that one square mile of territory so thee are intensively killing mosquitoeslly there.et whether or not they canhe do the remains to be seen heard puerto rico was over run by the virush but puerto rico is considerably further south and doesn't have as good of mosquito control. florida has the best mosquito control in the world but that doesn't mean they can beatdoes . they had an outbreak of another disease in key west in 2007 and

they began fighting it when they knew about three cases but it still took three years and 90pry cases before they beat it. we will see what happens. i'm not sure if what they've limited to one square mile is justified. they're using traditional mosquito killing techniques with aerial spraying and spring bushes a and trees and pesticids to kill the juvenile mosquitoes. it's tough t to do. miami is a big area. key west is a small well-educated, wealthy population but miami is a larger population and there are some people saying they want officials staying off their property and so it can be tough to fight in areas like that.

>> host: again donna mcneil, our guest for discussion on the zika virus. we will start with sally and in florence alabama on the independent line. go ahead. >> caller: good morning. my question was, in september september 2014, the genetically modified mosquitoes released in brazil had the fever so could there be a correlation between the two? >> guest: no. those mosquitoes, first of all they are all mail so they don't, bite humans and they can't transmit a disease. second of all, they have been released in a lot of places, the grand cayman islands, panama and where they were in brazil is 17000 miles away from where thef epidemic were in brazil. mosquitoesmile only fly about ae

in their lifespan. it would be hard to believe that a release of the mosquitoes in bismarck north dakota would create an outbreak in new york, as anet example. just because something is genetically modified doesn't mean you are going to glow like a jellyfish or have a terminator gene. there's really no connection between anect mosquito borne di and a change in one small geneth that causes it to die early which is the modification they made. >> host: california, your next, republican line. matt go ahead. >> caller: thanks for taking my call and thanks to c-span. i had a question for mr. mcneil. has he written or covered the partisan aspect of this, the bickering between congress and t the obama administration and not being able to pass some sort of

budget for this? i see in the washington times now they are taking money out of cancer research, aids programs,s just to be able to combat this. is that a temporary fix? aretary they going to figure something out on a budgetary front?ng >> guest: the first thing i should say is i'm a science reporter. i i my nightmare is covering washington. i'll let my colleagues in the washington bureau handle that.t. i am watching as anob observeres rather than a politicalpo correspondent.ight money is needed to fight epidemics, whether it's sars or evil ebola. congress has to approve money to fight these things. the only agency in the federal government that has a lot of fun

discretionary funds they can do with what they want is the military and i wouldn't be surprised if the military is called in to fight zika. it has been in many other countries in this hemisphere. they have some discretionary funding. the attitude has been take thene money we gave you for evil a and use it to fight zika. the about the epidemic endeddfu sooner than we thought so there must be money left over. money for fighting epidemics is underfunding in this country so a lot of the ebola money went to fighting things in africa. we don't want fever coming here. there's a lot of diseases iney africa we don't want, here.o se a lot of that money went to sete up laboratories and surveillance

areorks and things that useful to protecting the united states. yes the cdc and the hhs tookdget some money from that budget, they took took some money, now they're taking it from other in budgets. eventually, if the disease keeps spreading, they have to come upp with new money to fight it ande right now the disease is stillt spreading. limitedexpect it to be to one square mile of miami. i think before the summer is over we will see a lot more zika in the country. i think it's probably going to take more money. >> caller: $81 million transferred over and they have been arguing for months on how it should be spent. the democrats blocked fundingnn that theed republicans supporte.

nancy pelosi talked about moneya for zika research and here'sre' part of what she has to say.o no >> what is it with them that they don't understand? sexually transmitted disease you use contraceptive. of course there are many different issues, come on. come back. do the job. do the job and anytime i see onr of the republican colleagues i'm going to ask them, what wasan i that you accomplished on your break that was more important than the health and well-being and the safety and the security of the americanansaeric people.a >> host: let's go to keyport new jersey. ahe republican line. go ahead. >> caller: i would like to know, given the fact that we have human genome transmission, i realize it is still early in thw presence of the get in the us,

but do you know how long someone can transmit the disease oncehah they are infected?ly g and given that, how safe is our blood supply going to be going into the future? thank you. >> guest: not everybody who gets zika is capable of sexually transmitting it. it has been a surprise to learn that some viruses can get into the testicles, basically, and set up an infection there but that's not universally the case. only some men who gets zika getr it deeply enough to pass on the disease. originally they had found that only about two months in semen but now they have found it forya about six months, but what theyr have found is it's not always live virus. it's still kind of an open question for scientist. the cdc attitude so far has been

look, we have found what we think is live virus for two months so let's act out of an abundance of caution is a people shouldn't have s unprotected sex if the woman is thinking of getting pregnant for six months. they sort of six take than known dangerous. and they triple it. right now, that's the advice. basically any any woman whoand s pregnant should avoid of unprotected sex with a man who has had zika virus over the course of the pregnancy. a man can have zika virus without any symptoms. but it's also clear that some people have zika and they're not able to transmitted sexually. you can't really run tests on everybody who is having sex with pregnant women in this country.d we have test, they're not perfect but they're pretty good. there is a a window period in which any blood test will missai the infection because it has not

multiplied enough times for it to be detectable. one things the government does or the blood bank industry does, when you know an area has the confections, they stop accepting new blood from that area. e' kind ofgen some pathogen inactivity that can kill the virus in the blood.th you can render the blood safe even if it is infected with zika. it's unusual technology but it is used for some things. >> host: nextst: up, christine n the independent line. go ahead. >> caller: , i was listening and i heard you were a science reporter. i wondered if you have a particular science backgrounddh. also, mosquitoes are the transmission source of the zika, what is the actual mutation source of the virus and how did

that originate and is there a vaccine in development with the cdc? you. cdcs? >> guest: okay, i'm i'm afraid my science background, i have an undergraduate degree in rhetoric from uc berkeley.self the science i know is basically self-taught from being a reporter in science. i was a broadway theater reporter brepo and an africa correspondent and there ien i started covering aids and in nei york when i came back i was covering infectious diseases that hurt people out in the poor countries ofpoor the world and n countries that might reach to our country. zika is certainly that. the second question is what iser the mutation. we don't really know there is any important mutation in zika but has made it moree. dangerous or more transmissible. the disease has been known about

since 1947. it was in monkeys in africa in 1947. it was then found to be in humans by the 1960s but because it was mild and very obscure,t nobody started testing for it until 2007 when it turned up in the islands and the cdc was investigating an outbreak of the mystery disease and that's when i started characterizing the disease. there's no obvious mutation that makes it more dangerous to babies or more transmissible among humans but when you have a population that is totally naïve to the disease and you start transmission, you you can get a lot of transmission of that disease.at w the classic example is what happen when white people came to this country and brought all their diseases onto the american indian population and the american indians had never had

measles or smallpox or tuberculosis or lots of disease is a 90% of them were wiped out within a couple generations by the diseases that were introduced. we are seeing something like that with zika in that we have a totally naïve population in all of the americas from here down totothat - argentina. luckily for us it's a relativela mild disease except forti babie. the question of the vaccine is, no there is no vaccine now. the best hope probably there will be a vaccine. this is unusual. it's not light malaria or aids. it appears topr be something wev can make aer vaccine against pretty easily because it's related to yellow fever and bengay and japanese encephalitis and there are back at scenes foi those that work pretty well. even though the vaccines are being made and just being tested now, it still takes about two years of testing because, with vaccines, the cancer drugs are given to a sick person so you can get experimental withth emperor with with the vaccine you're giving it to a healthyori

person and your target is a woman who either has a baby orle is about to have a baby and so that is the most vulnerable population. you want to be absolutely dead sure that your vaccine is as safe and effective as it can be before you start handing it out. that testing is expected to take two years.at woks another thing that is going to complicate that is it looks like the epidemic peaks and disappears pretty fast. colombia has already declared its epidemic effectively over. it's not completelyover or for t it's over as a public health emergency. if there is an in epidemic around to test the vaccine around we may never get theth final test done on the vaccine. it's kind of a racee against time. the best experts say two years minimum for this vaccine. that's not going to be a very helpful protection whilexper ths disease is emerging. >> off twitter they ask if you anticipate athletes from rio coming back with symptoms.

>> guest: no, first first of our not hearing any reports out of a rio of athletes suffering symptoms. i was thinking that, i didn't hearno it.oes i wasn't expecting it very much but this is rio's winter. doesn't mean it's cold in rio, you saw the pictures and there's no snow but it's in the 70s rather than being in the '90s and mosquito transmission tends to peak and fall. there is relatively low mosquito transmission. also there has been a big epidemic of zika in rio so a lot of the population has heard immunity which means they are immune to the virus so the mosquitoes can't pick it up from them and give it tore the w athletes. i was unsure what would happened all summer before the gamestry started but now that they've started it doesn't look like there is a lot of

transmission or athletes suffering from zika. i don't expect any big transfer of it back to this country oror any m other country. >> host: donald mcneil as our guest to talk about the zika virus. it thehis new book onf emerging epidemic. let's hear from martha from connecticut, democrats line.er: go ted. >> caller: i would just like to no, my question was asked and answered if you are a scientist and you said no you had no background in that but reporting you have excellent background. my question is this, how would we, in connecticut, being the distance that you stated for them to fly or to travel, howort would they get to the statesseas with this disease basically being a south american disease. how did it come here in the first place? was there stagnant water it just doesn't make sense unless it's transmitted by humans.

>> guest: it's people. it's not mosquitoes. aroundd theloods go world either in the noses of people or in the blood of people. you can get on a plane in southern china and be in the united states in less than a day and if you have a particularly bad flu you can transmit it to the next person you see. you can transmitted on the airplane. remember this is a mosquito borne disease but it's also ath blood-borne disease. you get infected in brazil ortul puerto rico or the dominican republic or virtually anywhere and then you fly to thisif country. if you are in the y in right pe one you can sexually transmitted and to if the right mosquitoes are are in place they can pick it up from you and transfer it to other people. it's not instant. the mosquito, the female mosquitoes suck blood into their abdomens and then it takes a week or so for the virus to get from the mosquitoes got to itr sell celebratory glance and then

spread it on. there are 3000 different types of mosquitoes in the world. only a few species and only one species is common in the united states that we know about that transmits this virus. there's a second one that cann n transmitted but not very well. the egypt i mosquitoes are almost never in connecticut. in a superhot, super wet summer like this one is shaping up to be in new york city, there's a possibility of some of those mosquitoes turning up in connecticut late in august orth september but it's not a big rest. the real risk is in florida, alabama, mississippi, houston mississippi, houston and mostly in the city because you have to have a kind of spin up, the whee mosquitoes bite a lot of people and you get a whirlwind of bytes

going on. that's why yellow fever was mostly a forced disease although they are having some giant outbreaks in cities in africaca right now. >> host: from ohio on the independent line, good morning. >> caller: thanks for taking my- call. i am a practitioner and live in ohio. i moved from india to pakistan to couple years agoem andis then came to america in 2005 because of the extremist people. i came here and i faced zika which is very dangerous. i just want to let people know that it is a mosquito borne infection which was first identified in africa in 1947. it has significantly crossed the world since the first reported case ine fiazil brazil in 2015. for for most people it's a very mild infection.

scientists believe it's behind the number of children being born with unusually small pets. >> host: we already got that from our guest this morning. what would you like to askest ? >> caller: what is the best way to educate people on how they get this disease and catch it. i think education is one of the most important things these days for people to actually know about viruses like the guy.zika: thank you. >> guest: i didn't quite understand the question. is it what is the best way to treat people? >> host: he was asking about how to educate people. what's the best way to educate,v people? >> guest: posters andradi tv ad,

radio, you have to reach people through every medium there is. in new york city they had posters in the subway in april. the education has to be pointed toward the risk. in new york city they had thesee posters up in april and may intk the mosquitoes subways and i remember looking at thesether pictures and i was thinking it's really cold and windy out there and there's no dangerous mosquitoes out there right now and they're not likely to arrive in august. at the same time there are people coming back from these countries and really there should be pictures ofy good-looking guys on these posters because they're really the only ones transmitting it right now.to you have to give people fairly detailed information in a way that they can understand that is not too scary for them. people need to understand this is not the doomsday virus. this is not -- this is a veryths

serious threat to unborn children but to everybody else is not a serious threat. there shouldn't be panic about this but there should be extreme care for women who are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant stay away from these areas or think about not beingnd pregnant during this time if they have to be in thatat area because it is a real risk and the chances of getting it are at small but the downside is absolutely terrible. that is something city helpless authorities and public health authorities and anyone else inr the business of communicating to the public needs to do. >> host: let's hear from robert in indiana, republican line.can er: good morning. >> caller: good morning. how are you. you were talking about fundingbm for this disease. from plantake itt parenthood who is performing these abortions because they're killing our unborn children for no good reason.

>> host: tony is up next on the: republican line. >> caller: how are you doing this morning? how this disease dated back to 1947n and showed up again in 2015.al where's the transmission factor as to where it's all the sudden this big issue. when i was a little kid il gots bit by mosquitoes and never had to worry about zika and now in 2016, it's all the sudden, you have to watch the mosquitoes. can you explain that please? >> guest: sure, can i ask where you were bitten by mosquitoes as a kid. >> host: he's already lost us. sorry about that be too there was a time were getting bitten by mosquitoes could lead you to have malaria and other dangerous diseases. the fact is diseases and transmission change over time. it was it discovered in 1947 in

africa and probably hadn't beena discovered for thousands of years. unlike yellow fever that didn't come to this country with slave trade, it went at some point from africa to asia, it circulated their and because of the mild disease nobody paid attention to it. you also have to understand it's tough to detect diseases when you don't know what they are. it's easy to detect when you know what they are becauseey i you've designed the test but when someone just has a mild fever and a rash, unless you have a specific test, you don't know what it is. it took it took them five years to do the research to realize that the virus that was in the monkey in africa in 1947 was seven was not yellow fever, was not bengay, was not forced fever, there are lots of diseases out there that most people are happy they don't know the names of. this happens toto be one that has traveled the world.caus

we went to asia and no one developed a test for it. because it was mild nobody noticed it. it was in areas where you had epidemics of malaria and yellow fever and more serious diseases. nobody really noticed it. it circled under the radar. it was in micronesia and the islands, it created an epidemice there but it was mild.atin it was thought to be unimportant but more work was done inve a tt was created because the cdc went to investigate that epidemic because we've had a relationship since world world two. polynesia,ted entral infected 66% of the island within seven months and that's when they discovered the connection to the paralysis. they did not make the connection to microcephaly to the damage to the babies because it doesn't damage every baby.

it damaged a minority of them. finally, when it came to brazil, you had a situation with millions of people because you had people crowded together. you have to have all these factors. you have to have the jet travel in order for people with the virus in their blood to transmit quickly enough. you have to have populations crowded in urban slums which you had in brazil but you didn't ten have in brazil 50 years ago and, you also have to have people who tend to give birth in hospitals because that's when you notice something likeit microcephaly. it might've only been five cases of microcephaly inive a hospital but they knew that was unusual because usually doctors were only seeing one case of microcephaly every two years anh suddenly they have multiple cases and something serious is going on. it's possible, there aret diseases that we don't know about each year.

>> host: charlie from kentucky, independent line. >> caller: thank you cspan for contributing to this. i appreciate your efforts. my question is what do the bill and linda gates foundation know and can they help with this problem. >> guest: the bill and melinda gates foundation has a lot of people who are experts in mosquitoes. they are playing some role in zika, it takes them a while to ramp up. people needed to take the disease seriously but puerto rico was so broke they didn't have any money for ads, i

haven't look specifically into this so i shouldn't try to answer the question without looking into it but they have mosquito experts who are normally experts m in malaria ad other diseases who can beey helpful and they are a giving money right now, most of the budget for other countries is coming from those countries own steel fighting efforts. you don't have to give a lot of money to brazill or colombia, d they have mosquito diseases alls the time and they have to fight them. in theted united states, a lot f that money has come from the state of florida. they're fighting mosquitoes all the time. since the taxpayers are at riskn you ask the tax players to pay for their own protection. i wouldn't count on this as something the gates foundation has to do with. fighting ebola was something

every american should take interest in peer you shouldn't run to the foundation every time you need money. you should say this is in yourys own self interest in protecting your own babies. do those test to make sure your: family is protected." >> host: the book is zika, the emerging epidemic written by our guest who reports reports for the new york times as well. donald mcneil is joining us. and now to the democrat line, your nex next. >> caller: hello and thanks to cspan, i'm glad you are having this program this morning. i believe people really have lack of education about this disease and aboutuito mosquitoe. i came in late on o the show ani don't know if you'veve talked yt about the best way to eliminate mosquitoes from someone's yard.e it seems like sometimes peopleyi panic and they spray these pesticides and i think sometimes people don't realize you can

have overkill on pesticides. when they were having all thisre outbreakak in brazil and i saw those men on tv, i can understand the fear of pregnant women getting the disease but the stuff that they are spraying all over could be just as bad for the babies i wish you could speak a little bit about the best way to eliminate mosquitoes around your yard. once mosquitoes are born, they don't fly 50 miles and start, they stay in a small area.st: i was wondering if could speak about that.

>> guest: i really don't degree there is any equality between the risk of pesticides and the risk from this virus. we know this virus destroys babies. pesticides, people have an irrational fear of pesticides. they're not the whole answer, the way to eliminate, i'm h talkinger about one mosquito that's the main transmitter, it's a mosquito that likes to bite humans but it doesn't runs. often bite birds and deer andswa horses, it likes to live in human gardens and lay its eggs in relatively clean water likes. in a birdbath or a swimming pool that isn't chlorinated or in your rain gutters, or in your pet's water dish if it isn't cleaned regularly. they will get inside your house and lay eggs in your shower drain. it's a mosquito that likes to live in human areas and it willc

get into your house and hide in your closet until it safe enough to come out and bite.the the cdc refers to it as the cockroach of mosquitoes because it likes to hang around humans and hide in dark places. it's very different from mosquitoes who transmit west nile virus and others. the risk from pesticide, a pesticide pesticide is dangerous if you inhalen the them in lare amounts or if you're an agricultural worker in your getting them on your hands or breathing large clouds of them but the occasional truck passins through or plane going over or the occasional fog in your garden does not place risk on your unborn child. there is an irrational fear of zika and other pesticides. it's fear of something that is not really that dangerous. many more babies will be kept

safe and will survive if this mosquito is beaten then if we ignore the mosquito because as in a irrational fear ofylva pesticide. >> caller: i've heard several different discussions about where babies aree ba bei being t and i understand' it's a limited amount of space in brazil andn the french polynesia. i understand they think it might be a combination where microcephaly has an outbreak that there is concern that there's a combination of other viruses that people already had or some kind of agricultural chemical. is it true that microcephaly has been local to only two locations or are babies havingthan

microcephaly in other areas? thank you. >> guest: the epidemic in the french beg polynesia began and d in 2014. there were 18 cases of confirmed or suspected microcephaly there. brazil has had more than 1000 cases of microcephaly but there's been microcephaly in colombia, panama, mexico, there's definitely been cases in the united states, yes there's been microcephaly and puerto rico although mothers who picked it up in other countries and had the babies here, there have be n babies born with microcephaly in slovenia and other countries.

there was some suspicion there might be an antibody enhancement which having fever before woulda make you more likely to get aor serious case of zika or microcephaly. that hasn't been proven. it seems possible a woman can just get zika virus and haveika severe damage to her baby. the jury is still out but it z looks as if seek a loan can cause the condition. sorry, i forgot forgot one part of the question oh it was about the agricultural chemicals. that has nothing to do with it. most of that disease strikes people in urban area in the,

large slums and there was no agricultural chemicals.n that was an absolute red herrino >> host: let's take one more call. this is from elaine in florida on the republican line. go ahead. >> caller: hello, i wanted to tell you i'm 77 years old, i'm not having any more babies, i'm not having any more sex and i i have lived in florida for 14 years. i have never seen a mosquito, i've never gotten bit by mosquito so what are my chances of getting the zika virus?fl >> guest: where do you live in florida that you've never seen r mosquito? c your chances, it depends a lotes on where you live in florida and whether there is local transmission.m se congratulations i guess i'm being safe from sexual

transmission but mosquito transmission in southern florido is a risk. right now it's confined to onein neighborhood in miami but that doesn't mean it won't spread oth later in the year. we are waiting to see what happens. if you can avoid all mosquito bites in florida you are doing a great job of personal health.ro a lot of other people are at risk so it remains dangerous for pregnant women in florida or potentially dangerous for pregnant women in florida for the rest of theh season. >> host: the new book zika, the emerging epidemic written by donald mcneil. things for joining us. >> guest: thanks for having me. >> i am reading several things on my summer reading less. it's hard to say what it will be

because i'm a spontaneous book reader. i will start reading a book and i'll have a couple going at one time and i will run across an article or some reference to a book and say i have to take a look at this one. it's really never planned as i move forward. as far as my plans for the summer, 11 thing i'm reading is a book that i haven't read since i was in college, actually actually back when i was studying in college i wrote a book called the zen and art of motorcycle maintenance which i was drawn to because i am a passionate motorcyclist and that's what i love doing in my free time. i plan to do a lot of that my free time this summer. the book is not just about motorcycle maintenance, it's also a philosophical book. i've always loved philosophy. i have a masters in philosophy and that's an intellectual interest of mine. i remember being taken by that book back in the late 1970s and i've thought it was time to