in california is simply meant to show people that you cannot have a nice green lawn in a desert. it doesn't work. in minute we don't have giant space heaters in our backyards to make it possible for us to sit in our backyards in february and barbecue. we don't expect that. so people in southern california have to learn how to love gravel that's all. and they have to think twice about what they are growing for export. they are major exporters of almonds and alfalfa and avocados, all heavy water-use crops. and those are just the ones that begin with the letter "a." there are a lot more. california is exporting their precious water in the form of produce. and so the rest of us may need to accept that for certain

periods of the year we will need to eat frozen strawberries and not fresh strawberries. that shouldn't be so hard. number 10. thanks to alaska and texas and north dakota. our country is close to being energy independent. for this reason we need to take a deep breath and we need to back away from the middle east. these tribes of the middle east that european colonizers around the time of world war i packed into nation states are not happy with each other. they need to sort that out themselves. there is not much we can do to assist that. what we spend in iraq and afghanistan so far does not appear to have brought progress. and it could have gone a long way towards repairing our crumbling infrastructure in this country. you can call this isolationism,

[ applause ] you can call it ice tea. whatever. but the president's policy of don't do stupid stuff or cause no harm, is a sensible idea. number 11. rational conservation still had a long way to go in this country and we need to practice more of it. in minnesota we send electricity that is generated by coal. we send it to north dakota to run their oil pumps which create tons of natural gas which they simply flare off as a by-product instead of using it to generate their own electricity. wrong, wrong, wrong. the era of coal-fired power plants is over. so why not bring this gently to an end? and it's time to think again about nuclear power, which was

cheap and efficient. there were accidents. yes, three-mile island chernobyl, japan but we can learn from these things. hollywood made some very scary movies about meltdowns but they also made scary movies about flesh-eating zombies. and we don't lock up of ugly people who talk slow. number 12. music and theater are businesses as much as football or casino gambling and we should use tax increment financing and enterprise zones to include the arts, which would bring cities, the inner cities, back to life and bring some soul back to the people who live in them. numbers 13. the country is moving rapidly in the direction of accepting gay

people as people come as people period. and the government needs to come along with that. sexual preference is a characteristic. it isn't the key to somebody's identity. people are more complicated than that. i have a friend who came out as gay 20-some years ago and it was very dramatic and he carried the banner of gay liberation and he fought for the right of gay people to adopt children, and he -- and then gradually, he settled into 15 years of a close, loving relationship with another man and having won the right to adopt, he was then free to decide that he didn't want to. he was happy being an uncle and he did not want to have the burden of children. number 14.

how am i doing on time? >> great. >> do you want me to hurry up? >> no. >> do you want me to expand? do you want me to read from the appendix, the footnotes? number 14. let's give the word diversity a rest. just a year's moratorium. just put it aside. we are diverse. we are one of the most diverse nations on god's green earth and it is one of the shining virtues of this country but the word diversity has been adopted by a bunch of bean counters and a bunch of social engineers, all of them amateurs. the league of american orchestras for example, has set diversity as a goal. i'm quoting now. the inclusion and involvement of a broad representation of our community reflecting its true makeup including race, ethnicity and cultural backgrounds, gender, sexual orientation,

age, socioeconomic status, disabilities, education and religion. in other words, it's not enough to play mozart beautifully. you also have to make sure your audience includes the right proportion of elderly disabled gay asian men who earn less than $30,000 a year. but minority persons are not trophies. they are people. they have their own taste, their own pred elections and what makes mozart worth playing worth listening to, is what happens in people's hearts. subsidized concert tickets? yes. more school concert? yes, yes, yes. counting the number of hispanics at the philharmonic concert, i just don't think so. number 150 -- number 15, john,

i'm coming to the end. there are some big changes we cannot make, simplifying the tax code would put too many accountants out of work and it would be hard to retrain those people. fixing the health care system as a practical non ideological matter, it can't be done until younger people get older and people my age die off, which poor health care will hasten the process. same with climate change and environmental disaster. we have to come closer to the cliff before we can get anything done. ejecting a woman president might be nice. but she won't take office until 2017. we can however put the face of a woman on the $20 bill. and that's my last suggestion. it would be so easy to do. the department of the treasury is just over the way. as you walk by there on your way to the parking lot just yell up

to somebody, get rid of andrew jackson! not worth remembering any way. harriet tubman has been proposed. i would accept that in a minute. i myself would vote for emily dickinson because in this way you cover women, english majors, unitarians and possibly, we think, lesbians. though we're not absolutely sure. we don't have proof of that yet. all of these 15 things can be expeditiously and what a different world this would be if we would take action here. a few weeks ago the new york times printed a big investigative story on nail salons in new york city, where they employed mostly immigrant people mostly asian women many of them don't speak english probably undocumented, we're not sure.

they need to bribe somebody in order to get a job in many of these salons, they are paid less than the minimum wage. the salon keeps a proportion of the tips that they receive and they are exposed to horrific chemicals which -- with long-range health consequences. it was a horror that this was happening in manhattan the most liberal city in america, it was just astonishing. and it changed people's behavior. the governor of new york two days afterward announced a crackdown, whatever that may mean, on nail salons, but it provoked every single woman in brooklyn and the upper west side of manhattan to ask some pointed questions the next time they walked into a nail salon. it was progress and it was done in a matter of days. it was like a throwback to the old days of campaigning

journalist when upton sinclair wrote a big expose of slaughter houses and brought about in a remarkable short amount of time the pure food and drug act. let's do it again. that concludes my speech. thank you for listening. i'm going to go back to being a comforting voice on the radio and talking about a small town. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. i have so many questions about that radio program but since we're talking about current affairs i just want to ask one question about current affairs before we leave that. we are talking so much about the 2016 race already, hillary clinton, the democratic side, bernie sanders and now maybe o'malley gets in, he will announce and on the republican

side we have more than a dozen or more. how do you see the race and how do you like hearing about it this early before 2016 election? >> we are waiting for donald trump. that's all. we are waiting for donald trump to come in and pee-wee herman, i hope, on the republican side. and fill out that bus. democrats are kind of lacking for drama. i just don't think a guy from vermont is going to do this. so we are looking at hillary and at the same time trying not to look too hard. i like her, myself. i sat next to her on a dais at the white house correspondents' dinner and she talked to me for about five minutes and she had a

big republican on the other side of her and she talked to him for an hour and 10 minutes. exactly the right thing for a political woman to do. i was proud of her. she made the right choice. he detected that i was a supporter and she didn't waste time on me. >> mentioned in the introduction the 41st anniversary of your radio program is coming up. why do you think that it's been so successful now in its fifth decade? >> we don't know what success is in radio. the listenership numbers are fictional. you know, we toss dice and -- i have no idea that there are 4 million listeners. i doubt that very much. when you subtract from that 4 million, the number of incarcerated felons whose

wardens set their radio dial and then the number of people in memory units. and then you know, parents of small children who are not good sleepers it's not all that many people. you just don't think about it. i don't think about it at all. and i'm sorry you made me think about it. >> you often write your program from what i understand, the day before. so very quickly and what -- where do you get the inspiration for your scripts that make the stories so modern but still retain the essence of the show's folksy charm? >> folksy charm? did you use that -- all right. all right. inspiration is fear of public humiliation. is a powerful motivator.

and it starts to build. here we are. we're around noon on friday and i have to do a show on saturday a broadcast and you know, it starts to get on your mind right around this time. and even more so this afternoon. and then saturday morning, it gets very intense. but the beautiful thing is that i have all these other people who are much better organized than i, and they do the heavy lifting. sarah sarah bellu is my brilliant writer. what she has done for me over the years is great. we miss nattily dressed. but sarah bellum is still there. folksy charm. come on over here and i will put my arms around you, son. >> we talked about the dwindling

attention span in journalism for stories and so many of us are tweeting things out known. as someone known when performing for speaking slowly and deliberately and focusing as much on the artful manner of telling the story as on the content of the story, what do you think about this era that we're in now of speed and small bits of information and is the art of story telling going to endure? >> spitting out small bits of information is not a good way to earn in living. it's just -- it's not -- it's not a good life. the american people are readers, they're curious people and they want to know things and so they are waiting -- the readers, especially the ones who are my age, are waiting to hear from you younger people about the world and you see it. don't try to do this in 140 words.

it's just not the right -- not the right way. i went to a speech on wednesday. robert caro, the great biographer of lyndon baines johnson stood up and gave a talk off-the-cuff about the research that he had done on lyndon baines johnson's experience of the assassination in dallas on november 27 163, and the research that he did. here was a journalist talking about his research and he held an enormous audience absolutely spell bound for about 45 minutes. no. we want to know. we want to know these things. so don't hold back. anything that is crucial that is important in this country, somebody will write a book about it. why shouldn't you be the one? >> this questioner notes that in

your book, "homegrown democrat" you ended by inviting readers who spot you in a cafe to approach and say hello. how many did that? >> usually they said, i like your show. good job. you know. our kids grew up on your show. they were -- they were restless and they were insome knee yaks and we found that when we got your monologues on long-playing cds and put them next to their beds that everything changed. that's what they say, actually. >> people want to know what you think of that guy, douglas mark houy -- hughes, no relation, who flew the gyro continuer on the

capitol lawn to protest money in politics. >> protest money and politics? where has he been the last 150 years. it's a little late for that. i think he is one more guy wanting to play with toys. i took it to mean they should demilitarize pennsylvania avenue and put it back in its original shape. i think heavy traffic would have discouraged guy from flying anything. taxis getting out of control would have scared the begeezes out of him. i think they should take away the barriers and drive by the white house and wave as we go. >> did national geographic get it right when they located lake woe begone?

the city of st. cloud has seen a surge of somali immigrants in recent years. and in a prairie home companion for changing demographics of lake woe begone. >> we have one of the largest populations of somalis in minnesota. a large settlement in south minneapolis. they have their own shopping mall. and you walk in there and you see middle-aged women in long black robes and their daughters in cutoffs and lowrider jeans and jewelry in their belly buttons. the population has not decided -- i think, the somali have not decided if they are here to stay. they've been here for decades. and -- but they still believe somehow that there will be a

return to their disastrously war-torn country. in the meantime they are doing the best they can. we have many listeners among the somalis to our shows. i don't know if i should introduce a somali character and what he or she would do in lake woe begone. i could have a somali woman who would come as an intern to the lutheran church. that would be interesting. that would be interesting. a conversion and a young woman who was in training to become a pastor. that's a possibility. but we have all these listeners because they learn from english from listening to "a prairie home companion." we don't make references to politics on the show. we don't make obscure pop references at all, pop

references are obscure now. and we talk slowly. and we pronounce our words and talk in whole sentences. back to you, john. >> questioner wants your opinion on lib lymph. do you see contradictions from lbj to today, proclaiming progress but also increasingly presiding over more economic inequality? >> that is a powerful, complicated sentence. i am not sure i could diagram that sentence. yes, of course, there have been changes since then and defeats. but we don't have people running successfully for public office against social security and medicare. and so that says a lot, right

there. you can always run against washington. i mean, you know, welcome to the club. but they don't get very specific about their plans for entitlement programs. they talk about them sort of vaguely. and so- a so the things that lbj and his cohorts and others since have set up seem fairly durable to me. >> are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of public radio and why? >> i am very optimistic about it. it has become an important news museum -- medium especially in rural parts of the west, the midwest, it's become very, very important as newspapering you know, has been up and down and

mostly down public radio stations have come forward to cover local politics with some care. we started out as an alternativeforward to cover local politics with some care. we started out as an alternative medium, in many parts of the country, maybe most, finding ourselves in the mainstream. public radio does one thing that even its harshest critics and there are many cannot deny, and that is that with very few exceptions, very few, it gives uninterrupted broadcast time to people running for public office in this country. it gives you the listener a chance to hear them at some length and not in little tiny quotes. so for that alone. >> several questions asking about your future.

now i read in the introduction that the aggressive schedule that you're keeping, so obviously no signs of slowing down, but i also understand that the "prairie home companion show" will keep going whether -- in your mind long after you keep going. >> it will keep going in my mind, you say? in my imagination? no you know, it bumbles along from week to week. and we make as long-term plans as anybody else does in broadcasting. it also depends on stations and the extent of their interest and their ability to pay our extortionate fees and rates and

so forth and send baked goods and other prizes. keys to the city and so forth and honorary degrees. but no. i am sort of in a euphoric period. when you reach your early 70s i hope you experience the same things, field this sort of bounding optimism. either that or the medications. no, i feel just fine. and thank you for your concern. >> one of your greatest stories on "a prairie home companion" was the profit which you told during the 1991 persian gulf war. what would a prophet tell us now? >> i'm not in the prophesy business and i sort of regret that monologue. i've been trying to forget it for years and years and years. it was one of my ill-advised ventures into political commentary.

i have almost erased it from my mind, john. you brought back a little tiny bit of it. i have no idea. i have been around and seen a lot of young people in the last month, actually. i went to my old high school in anoka, minnesota and i went to princeton and i went to talk to some students up at harvard. i did a show at a men night college in indiana and being around people that age is just so inspiring. they're just so keen and they're so bright and they have social skills that we never had back in the day. you know we were little scared, you know, perspiring people afraid to look other people in the eye. and they are not and they're funny and they're engaged in

dozens of things. so our replacements have arrived. they are here. we have to come to a graceful point where we can step aside for them as i am now stepping aside for you, john. >> many questions about any writers or broadcasters or storytellers or musicians that you enjoy in upcoming people that you follow? >> which was this? past or future? >> currently. >> of current. >> musicians, story tellers, authors. >> i love to hang out with people from texas because texas is like a foreign country to me. and so whenever i'm with people -- we just lost a great texas musician johnny gimbel, he was the greatest story teller

i ever met. he was a barber in the army. his stories about barbering alone let alone his stories about bob wills and willie nelson and lyle lovett and the old west and he was a great man. had told myself 20 years ago i was going to go down to dripping springs and i was going to sit there and get johnny gimbel to talk to me and i was going to write his biography and i didn't do it and i will regret that for the rest of my days. musicians are wonderful story tellers because they don't have much money. and they have to travel around and make their way by the grace of other people. they have to learn to live on the hospitality and the kindness of strangers just as tennessee williams said. and this makes them beautiful story tellers. we really need to let them talk

more on "a prairie home companion." thank you for reminding me. i will try to do that in the future. >> two interesting questions from the audience and i will let you decide which one you want to answer. one question is, what is the meaning of life? the other question is we read we begone boy and main street in class as representative of small-town america. how do you compare your minnesota with main street by sinclair lewis? >> what was the meaning of sinclair lewis's life? well he was a lot funnier writer than people give him credit for. if you read main street i think you will see that story about carole kenecott and her discomfort in gopher prairie, minnesota. sinclair lewis was the great american writer. i read him in junior high school.

i read doddsworth and i read babbitt. he was a satirist so they didn't care for him in minnesota. he lived uncomfortably in st. paul for brief periods of time. he had a lot of personal troubles. but his view of small town america was so colored by his own experience. he grew up a doctor's son in minnesota and he was ungainly, he was not physically well coordinated and he suffered very bad facial complexion as a result of smallpox scars. so he was an outcast. he was a terrible -- he suffered terribly in his childhood. i did not.

i grew up among sanctify brethren and we felt we were the chosen people. we looked down on lutherans as being worldly and loose, and we believed that when the second coming occurred that jesus would bring a special car just for us. and so it's an entirely different upbringing. i a lead and upbringing of privilege, privilege. >> before i ask the last question, i just have a little bit of housekeeping. the national press club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists and we fight for a free press worldwide. to learn more about us visit press.org and to donate to nonprofit journalism institute visit press.org/institute. and i want to remind you about a couple upcoming programs. the co-host of npr's morning edition will talk about his book

jackson land president andrew jackson, cherokee chief john ross and the great american land grab. that is next thursday at the club. may also talk about jackson whether he will be on the $20 bill. on june 1st more than a dozen journalists who have been fined detailed or jailed for their support of the first amendment will appear together at a press club event on june 1st. i would like to present garrison keillor with our traditional national press club mug. [ applause ] now we just have a little bit of time left. one time when you were here in the past you sang a song. and i'm wondering if you would be interested in singing a song again? >> i will if they will. that's the only deal.

this is going to be my sixteenth point in my speech. that every morning in every public school in america all the children should face the teacher and they should all sing this song. ♪ my country 'tis of thee sweet land of liberty ♪ ♪ of thee i sing land where my fathers died land of the pilgrims pride ♪ ♪ from every mountainside let freedom ring ♪ [ applause ]

>> garrison keillor, since you picked a short song we actually have a couple minutes. [ laughter ] >> i have a better finale. one of the questioners asked why you always wear red socks. and in addition i'm told you always wear a red tie. why the red socks and why the red type? >> i had a pair of red socks and i put them on for a show and people commented on it. nobody had ever commented on by wearing black or brown socks. when you are in the business of standing up in front of people you notice these things. and i am sorry.

john, it's not a longer answer but that's -- but that's the truth. >> could we give a nice round of applause? [ applause ] [ applause ] >> we hope that you don't wait 21 more years before you come back and see us and thank you so much for being here today. we can't always guarantee that minnesotans will be in charge but we will always extend a warm welcome to you no matter who is running the national press club. i'd also like to thank our national press club staff for putting together this program.

and that includes journalism institute and broadcast center and if you would like a copy of today's program or to learn more about the national press club go to that website, press.org. thank you, we are adjourned. [ applause ] this weekend the c-span cities tour partnered with time warner cable to learn about the history of lincoln, nebraska. >> one of the most important american writers of the 20th century. she was given almost every award possible in her life before she died except for the nobel prize. she was known for some of her masterpieces like the professor's house, death comes from the archbishop a lost lady

and many others. in 1943 she made a will which had a few restrictions in it. one was she didn't want her letters to be published or quoted in whole or in part. she left behind 3,000 letters that we know about now. the biggest collections are here in nebraska. in her will she said she left it to the sole discretion of her trustees whether or not to enforce her preference. and they believe that she belongs to our shared heritage and we ought to know more about her. >> an important historical figure in nebraska's history was solomon d. butcher. >> he took photos from about 1887 1886 until the early 1890s

of homesteaders anded so houses and was able to tell the story of this important development in american history. okay, well i'm going to show you one of my favorite images of the solomon butcher collection. it's the photograph of the cristman sisters. it is four sisters who each took a homestead claim in custer county. this shows women homesteaders. it was the first time that women could own land on their own. it didn't belong to their husbands. it didn't belong to their fathers. single women could own their own land. that was a really big deal with the homestead act. each sister -- each of the cristman sisters took a homestead near their father's ranch. they each built a small house on the homestead, which was part of the homestead act.

and they would take turns staying in each other's house and working each other's farm. the sisters really pulled together and made it in nebraska. >> watch all of our events from lincoln, saturday evening at 6:00 on c-span 2's book tv and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on american history it have on c-span3. another of our congressional freshman profile features with illinois republican mike bost. he defeated bill -- in one of the most expensive house races of 2014. he is a former marine, a volunteer firefighter and served in the illinois state legislature. this is about 20 minutes. >> so we welcome congressman

mike bost of the 12th district of illinois. i see by your house pin that there is a marine corps flag on there. how does a former marine former firefighterer and a beauty shop owner want to run for congress? >> i served 20 years in the illinois general assembly. i've got ten grandchildren. it was a situation where i was not happy with the things that were happening out here everything from obamacare to overregulation on business. not only was i in the beauty salon business but in the trucking business for many years. i came home from the marine corps and ran it for 10 years. the frustration of dealing with all of that and then talking to the family took a lot of prayer and decision-making and i could have just thrown my hands up and said i'm done with politics but

instead i said i'm going to try to make things better for the grandkids. >> when did you want to run for the house? >> for the state house? >> for your seat in congress? >> it would have been in february of 2014. well, no. right after the other election. i was trying to weigh out -- >> just after '13. >> your race, you defeated the incumbent democrat bill enyart, in what was reportedly the most expensive races. >> it was. it is an expensive market. the southern part is the paducah, kentucky market. that is not as expensive. that's a $60 point market. st. louis, it is like $600. >> so your district reaches all of the way up that far? >> my district goes to alton, which is still north of st. louis but not quite into an area

called grafton. it's 11 1/3 counties. the 1/3 county is the county north of st. louis. >> how did you do it, from the standpoint of raising the money? who helped fund you? what was your argument in beating the former congressman? >> let me explain to you that we had jerry costello there for many years. jerry was a conservative democrat. he represented the area well. he was constantly in touch with the people. the concern that had come up was that this congress or bill enyart was not keeping in touch with the people. they'd become used to jerry costello's trial which was constantly in contact. they knew him all over the district. and in a short period of time i realized that was not occurring. i actually talked to a democrat state legislator who said, i do not know him, and he was in the district, and that is not what these jobs are about. they are about servant's

positions, and i was able to look at that and then spring board on the other issues that were out there. of course we also had a videotape that was from my experience on the floor as a floor leader, that we didn't know whether they would use or not. but we had to figure out how to build our name recognition. >> this is the one that got you the nickname of melt downmike. plain to our viewers. this became viral. >> it did. is it the rated as the second greatest -- second greatest rant, according to cnn. so it basically what had happened is, right after here in congress they had passed the obamacare. and the statement had been made, we got to pass it so we can find out what -- >> so twren.

>> yes. and i'm on the floor leader. and we have been working on the illinois pension problems. we had been working on it for a year and a half. and i'm one of the leaders and the floor leader. i see one of the staffers and i say i need information on the bill and they said we changed it. i need some information on the bill, because there are some hangs i need to talk about, and he said, they changed it, and i said, they changed what part of it, and he said, all of it, and i said, who changed it, and he said the democratic speaker, so things went on. they actually moved the bill in a partisan manner out of committee, and they were bringing it to the floor. my job as a floor leader is twofold. one is to protect the members, and two is to argue our point. but this was more than that. it was a case where 30 years, plus of having the same speaker bypassing rules and basically

what happened is i'd had enough. and i threw the bill in the air. and if you listen to it there were specific arguments. it was loud. but there were specific arguments that i was talking about. >> and this went viral, and in the end, you think it helped your campaign. how does it feel when the spotlight and the media and other members may be criticizing you for how you -- >> right. you wish that it was not a case where you had to do that, but sometimes, what we have discovered specifically with this is, the majority of people who contacted me right after it happened and in the campaign -- as a matter of fact, they say you do not what to send some of people like this to washington, d.c. it will make the federal problems worse, and the answer we got on the street was, no, we want some it is like this in washington who will stand up for us and who will say, no, things aren't right. >> what have you found so far?

how different is it or is it different from the expectations? >> it is quite a bit different, and one is the controlling rules as far as your debates, everything like that after being a floor leader in illinois where we did not have to address the chair, the chair was kind of the moderator. so it's different in that respect. just the level of work and the amount of subjects you need to be abreast of and the sheer size of the job in compared to being a state legislator. >> we talked earlier about jerry costello keeping in touch with the district. how do you do that? >> we do that by social media, and when i am back in the district, i think it's funny, with the county having 11 1/3 counties, when people say, well, you're home. well, my population base is quite a bit away from my home. and so for instance during easter we were there one week before and one week after. of those 16 days we were home i

slept in my bed four. the way you do it is you are out and in constant contact. everything from town hall meetings, but also we have listening sessions, where we go out and meet with different community leaders and meet with just the general public. and they know we're out there. that's one thing we're getting comments on is that wow, you're everywhere. >> you do not have duties anymore about being a volunteer firefighter, but you brought a helmet. >> it means a lot to me. >> tell us a bit about your service. >> that was a gift from one of the fire departments, because i quite often carried the language. but i was a full-time firefighter with the city of murphysboro. and you get to do all the things that your mother doesn't want you to do running into buildings that other people are running out of getting dirty,

getting wet and people like you because of it. it really was one of the most exciting job i ever had in my life. even with the marine corps, this was right up there. >> you were a volunteer. >> i was actually a full-time firefighter. for two years. but i was a -- what they call a paid for call. if you are in town, you respond. and i was that from 1988 until actually even up into the time i was in the state legislature until 2008. >> you talk about the busy schedule on capitol hill. what are the committees that you serve on? >> i'm on small business. i'm on veterans affairs and i'm on ag which is appropriate for the district, it really is. >> does that sound like a lot? >> it actually is. you know they told me that you probably don't want three committees but it worked out that they were going to put me on. so we're able to cover it. but it's a busy time. >> how do you keep it all straight? >> got a very good staff, spend

a lot of time reading and studying those issues and one of the more difficult things to do is a lot of these things are obviously from other congresses before and you have to play catch up in your mind and that was a little difficult but we're getting to the point now where we are pretty smooth with it. >> you have several witnesses, and you only get a few minutes. >> that is probably one of the rough parts of this job. you can call them in but not as far as committee work. by the time you get down to the freshmen members, most of the questions have been asked. it's drawn out over a long period of time. but i -- with some of the subcommittees, i've been able to get into what i need to know during the actually committee. but quite often we have to come back to them later with questions so we can get our answers. >> what is on your to do list? in terms of what your district would like the get done in congress and what you'd like to see? >> a couple of things. we have got scott air force

base and i'll be work to make sure there is a geospatial system that is needed to relocate. we are hoping that we can get it there. one -- but the most important get it there. one has to do with both coal and oil and those resources. over burdensome regulations from the epa and other agencies have just caused -- why do we strangle our businesses in this nation? and when we're trying to compete on a worldwide market with so many agencies that have duplicative rules -- now that doesn't mean we don't want to see that everything is safe. i'll fight for that. but in business -- and if you've been in small business, which i have government does everything that you have. >> give us an example. you were in the trucking business? >> you bet. >> and beauty salon business. what was a regulation that you

kept coming up against? >> in the trucking business if you know about the fact that there's a driver shortage well the driver shortage is not occurring because they are not wanting people to do the jobs. it's just that people doing the jobs can't sell enough hours because of a mishandling of the road hour rules and the laugogbook rules. you don't want to go back to where it was in the '70s. for instance if you are on a run and you're coming up on the amount of hours that you're scheduled to have in a week and you're an hour -- a half hour from your destination you have to stop the truck and wait 36 hours to move on forward or they have to send a driver? and, not only that, that driver -- then if his week falls with a weird break in the middle, he can't -- he or she cannot sell 40 hours. that's when you've got people here in d.c. writing rules that have never actually set in a

truck. they don't understand. it's the same way with all business, not necessarily from the standpoint of the federal government but in the beauty salon business we at one time had tanning beds. we became so overregulated that -- >> overregulation in terms of federal and state? >> federal and state there, uh-huh. >> and in a state like illinois how prohibitive are the regulations? >> in illinois it was very prohibitive. illinois, the level of taxation on the trucking industry was very prohibitive. that's -- and the cost of doing business in the state of illinois. >> you mentioned scott air force base. we're talking as a transportation bill a. highway bill, at least through july -- what's the biggest infrastructure needs in your district and how do we go about resolving this? >> as we move forward -- and i don't know that you can put it together for a gas tax or anything like that. they can say well they really want it. but the reality is people in

the coffee shop and beauty shops, they are a little bothered by that. and so we want to watch and see if we can find a stream for long-term purposes. and i'll be working with the colleagues to figure out what that is. but truly, our job as the u.s. congress, unfortunately, there's many things that we dabble in that should be states but interstate commerce, that's our job. and highways that's our jobs. we need to be sure that the bridges and roads are kept up and we haven't been doing a good job of it. >> what would you say the conditions of the roads in your state are like? >> they are rough. there's constant construction but it's not -- i think they patchwork things because of funding problems. they don't go to the depth that they need to to restore them to the point that they were when they were first built. >> you're one of members of congress who served in the

corps. >> i was in the marine corps, went to san diego for boot camp. out of san diego to 29 palms california. >> are there any similarities between the military and house of representatives? >> no, not really. let me explain why. in the -- in the marine corps, our job was to -- we had spears and immediate obedient to order to save your life, by the way. here we are independents representing our own district. there might be those who want to rule over and give you orders because you do have leadership, but leadership has to understand that each one of us represents our district. >> have you been put in a situation where you've wanted to vote one way and had to sort of hold your ground? >> no, not here in the congress. there were those times you know, after 20 years and will

that come up at some time? it may. i've still got a way out for my district. and it may upset some people because there's certain things -- i've got a lot of coalmines, a lot of union in the district and i'm a union firefighter but i'm a republican. so it's about jobs and keeping people working and straightening our economy out. there's other issues, foreign affairs the borders, all of these things. when it comes to my district i'll be voting my district. >> were you born and raised in your district? >> uh-huh. lived there all my life except when i was in the marine corps. >> did you join after high school or -- >> i joined the corps in 1979. i was driving -- i graduated from high school. i was actually driving for the family trucking business. >> yeah. >> and i got hit on a motorcycle by a drunk driver. it was in october and i got hit hard. but i ended up with just slight

twist of ankle and my back was out of place. so i was at home not in the truck when the iran hostage situation broke out. and 18 years old, you think you can whip the world and you're going to change everything and i looked it up and waited it out and next thing you know i woke up in marine corps boot camp and i was serving. >> so it was that iran hostage situation that motivated you to join? >> you bet. you bet. see an issue and wanted to -- maybe that's why i run into buildings that other people are un running out of and that kind of stuff. >> looking at that incident 30 years later and your initial motivation to join the corps, what are your feelings? >> you know, i'm not a big fan of what the president's trying to do as far as his negotiation with iran. they've got a history. it's a history that we've had to deal with. we want to be very very

careful. i don't -- i want to make sure that whatever we do we make sure they don't have a nuclear weapon. so i'm going to be standing very, very -- very strong to make sure my voices heard through congress that we're not going to go down that path with them. >> you're in your first term here but campaigning against -- tell us about the process of winning re-election to your seat in 2016. has that started? >> it has. it always does. understand, as i said, 20 years in the illinois general assembly where i ran every two years. you immediately go right back into running in the state of illinois because it's an early climber. it's actually seven months from the time you're sworn in until you're petitioning to run again. so we're going to be out and doing that shortly. it's part of the process. and somebody said, you know, i think we should change the

constitution. no. i don't think so at all. i think the best way to keep other cross inongress is every two years. the voters make decision. >> you know i'd like to say yes but in a moment, if they don't want me, i'll go back to doing whether it's the beauty salon or grandchildren and doing all of those things sure. but i also think that we need people with experience and that's also the reason i don't agree with term limits. we've got a couple of states around us. not illinois but bureaucrats end up running the government, not those that are elected and i want to be sure it's the elected people. >> you talked about your grandkids a moment ago. you brought a picture from your office that sits in your office. >> i did. we had to tape one of the newest ones up on the top to show it

because birdie was born a week ago sunday and so there are ten of them now. they range in age from 14 to newborn and they all live within six miles of the house. >> how many kids do you have? >> i have three children. and they are -- i think they are done now. i don't know. at six my wife made the statement because there was no more room in the car. she said i think we've had enough. i said, i don't know if you know this or not but they are going to have to make that decision on their own. >> do your kids and grandkids have been back east to washington to see you? >> they have. i had one of the greatest blessings that i could -- that i can -- and i have a picture of it hanging in my office. my grandson pinned this pin on the first time. and it was so -- that was an amazing moment. and he got to sit on the floor with me when i was sworn in. >> would you like to see one of your kids or grandkids run for

office? >> that's pretty well up to them. i don't know -- my children i'm kind of wondering. whether my son -- he's 34 now and he's an attorney, has four children of his own, he knows the strain that it puts on a life. and so i would be very proud of them whatever they do. i don't know that i would definitely push them that way. >> illinois congressman mike bost of the 12th district in illinois, thanks for being with us. >> thanks for having me. a number of commencement speeches coming up tonight for you on c-span 3, including former secretaries of state condoleezza rice and madeleine albright and president george w. bush and melody hobson. coming up later on our schedule, a couple of panels from the intelligence oversight as the u.s. senate continues to debate nsa surveillance and the u.s. patriot act. the ceo of amtrak and safety

board will testify before the train derailment in philadelphia last month. there were eight fatalities and 200 injuries as a result of that crash. live coverage will get under way at 10:00 a.m. eastern. then, in the afternoon at 2:00 eastern, a hearing on the takata airbag safety and recall issues. it's also on c pf span 3. >> remarks now from former secretary of state condoleezza rice as she gives the commencement address at college of william & mary. robert gates who served with

secretary rice during the bush administration is the chancellor of william & mary and presented her with an honorary degree. [ applause ] >> condoleezza rice, yours has truly been a life of vast accomplishment and striking service. william & mary is proud to honor you. by virtue of the authority vested in me and by the college of william & mary in virginia i here by confer upon you the doctorate honoris causit.

[ applause ] congratulations. asserting the massive authority that occurs to me as chancellor, i am pre-empting the president to introduce our commencement speaker. ladies and gentlemen, my dear friend and a very great american, condoleezza rice. [ applause ] >> thank you very very much for that tremendous welcome and for this tremendous honor. it's quite something to be named in the same breath with benjamin franklin and indeed i was the

66th secretary of the united states states. i wanted to thank my great friend and your chancellor bob gates. i want to thank you, too, bob for your life of em am plear service to our country and i want to thank the president of the college. president wrigley you have done a marvelous job of leading this fine institution to the director and todd stuttlemeyer and the board thank you for your leadership of william & mary and to the staff who have nurtured them and cared for them. to family and friends, thank you for your support and love of these graduates and to the class of 2015, congratulations!

[ applause ] now, it's great to be here in tribe country. as an ak democrat mek i'm pleased to be here because this is a respective place of learning and it's had such an important role in the history of our country. as a southerner, it's nice to be a little closer to my roots. and as a sports fan, i want you to know that thanks to your football coach, i now have enough t-shirts and hats and golf balls to be a member of the tribe for the rest of my life. [ applause ] it's been many years since my own undergraduate commencement at the university of denver. i remember almost everything about it. i remember how proud my parents were. i remember the closeness i felt to my classmates and my friends. i remember the thrill of achieving my academic goal. i do not, however remember a

single word that the commencement speaker said that day and you won't either and i promise not to take it personally. on this day, you can be forgiven for feeling a little restless and a little prowl. you'll have lasting memories of this place and your professors trying to outdo each other in the debates and even i will remember the joy on your faces as i joined you last night for the candlelight ceremony. those experiences have been a part of your journey together, a journey that ends today in celebration of your educational achievements at this highly respected institution. education is transformative. it literally changes lives. that is why people over the centuries have worked so hard to become educated. education is more than any other force can help to erase arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlock

every person's god given potential. this belief is very personal for me. it has long been an article of faith in my family. i first learned of this idea through stories about my paternal grandfather, a real family hero named john wesley rice sr. he was a share cropper that was utwa alabama. he decided to get book learning in a college and so he asked how a colored man could go to college. and they told him there was this little presbyterian school called stoneman college. he saved up his cotton for tuition and after the first year they said, so how are you going to pay are to the second year? he said well, i'm out of cotton. they said, you're out of luck.

but thinking quickly he said how are those other boys going to college? they said, they have a scholarship and if you wanted to be a presbyterian scholar, you could have a scholarship, too. so my family has been presbyterian ever since. my john wesley was onto something. he knew that education would allow him to be something that he otherwise would not even imagine and knew that it would resonate for generations to come. indeed, my father went on to become not just college educated and advanced degreed and an administrator at the university of denver and a presbyterian minister. and his sister, my aunt teresa, would go to the university of wisconsin in 1952. she would get a ph.d. in

victorian literature and write books on dickens. you think what i do is weird for a black person? she wrote books on dickens. [ applause ] because of all that my grandfather and others of my ancestors, really second-class citizenship, she understood that education was a privilege not a right. and that it therefore conferred certain obligations. and so today i would like to talk a little bit with you about the important responsibilities of educated people. the first responsibility is really one that you have to yourself, the responsibility to find something that you're passionate about and follow it. i don't mean just any old thing that interests you, not just something that you might or might not do but that one unique calling that you can't do without. as an educated person, you have the opportunity to spend your life doing what you love and you

should never forget that many people don't enjoy such a rare privilege. as you work to find your passion, you should know that sometimes your passion finds you. that's exactly what happened to me because you see, my first passion was to be a concert pianist. i could read notes before i could read. but i started encountering prodigies, 12-year-olds that could play what i took all year to learn and i was 17. i thought, i'm about to end up playing a piano in a piano bar or maybe teaching 13-year-olds to murder beethoven or maybe playing the piano while you're shopping in the department store but i'm not going to play at carnegie hall so i went to my parents and i had the following conversation. mom and dad, i've decided to change my major. to what are you going to change your major?

i don't know. well it's my life. well, it's our money. find a major. i went back to college in desperate search of a major and my first thought was english literature. now, with all due respect to the english literature faculty out there, i hated it. so now it's winter quarter of junior year. my project was to interview the city water manager of denver, the single most boring man that i have met to this day and i thought, well, that's not it either. but then in the spring quarter of my junior year i wandered into a course taught by a czech refugee, a man named joseph corbell, whose daughter was named madeleine albright. with that one class i was hooked. i discovered that my passion was things that are national, things russian and diplomacy. needless to say, this was not exactly what a young black girl from birmingham was expected to do in the early 1970s.

but it was like finding love. i couldn't explain it. but i knew it was right. and you know something else, several years later, as i was taking off from a helicopter from the south lawn of the white house, serving president george h.w. bush soviet specialist i sat there with gorbachev, his wife and me and i thought i am really glad i changed my major. keep an open mind and keep searching. and when you find your passion, it is yours. not what someone else thinks it should be. don't let anyone define your passion for you. because of your gender or the color of your skin.

[ applause ] the second responsibility of an educated person is commitment to reason. here at william & mary you haven't been taught what to think about how to think how to ask questions, how to reject assumptions, how to seek knowledge. in short how to exercise reason. this experience will sustain you for the rest of your lives but no one should assume that a life of reason is easy. to the contrary. it takes a great deal of purge and honesty. the only way that you will grow intellectually is by examining your opinions attacking your prejudices constantly and completely with the force of your reason. this can be unsettling and it can be tempting, instead, to opt for the comfort of a life without questions. it's possible today to live in an echo chamber that serves only to reinforce a high opinion of yourself and what you think. that is a temptation that he had

indicated people must reject. at those times when you've decided that you are absolutely right, go and find someone who disagrees. don't allow yourself the easy course of the constant amen to everything that you say. a commitment to reason leads to your third responsibility of an educated person, which is the rejection of false pride. it is natural especially among the educated, to want to credit your success to your own intelligence and hard work and judgment. and it is true of course, that all of you sitting here today are here because you do in fact, possess those qualities. but it is also true that merit alone did not get you to this state. there are many people in this country who are just as intelligent, just as hardworking, just as deserving of success as you are.

but for whatever reason maybe a broken home, maybe poverty, maybe just bad luck, they did not enjoy the opportunities that you have had at william & mary. don't ever forget that from this day on learn to listen humbly. be optimistic. too often cynicism can be the travel of learning and i surely understand why. history is full of much cruelty and suffering and darkness and can sometimes be hard to believe that a brighter future is indeed dawning. but for all our past failings for all of our current problems, more people now enjoy lives of hope and opportunity than in any other time in human history. this progress has been because of the concerted effort not of cynics, but of visionaries and optimists and idealists who don't live our world as it was but never lost sight of the

world as it should be. here in america, our own ideals of freedom and equality have been borne by optimists. there was a day in my own lifetime when the hope of liberty and justice for all seemed quite impossible. but because individuals kept faith with the ideal of equality, we see a different america today. you're headed into a world where optimists are too often told to keep their ideals to themselves. don't do it. believe in the possibility of human progress and act to advance it. now, what do i mean by human progress? i believe that all human beings share a certain fundamental aspirations. they want protections for their lives and their liberties. they want to think freely and to worship as they wish. they want opportunities to educate their children, both boys and girls and they want to be ruled by the concept of the

govern, not by the coercion of the state. and -- -- and they want to be treated with respect. no matter who they are or how they look. this challenges us to accept and embrace difference. all too often difference has been used to divide and to dehumanize. i grew up in birmingham, alabama, the home of the clueku klux klan. i know how it feels to hold aspirations when your neighbors think that you are incapable or uninterested in anything higher and perhaps there are some members of this audience who have faced that from time to time. we have not and will not quickly erase the lasting impact of our birth defect of slavery or the

follow-on challenge of overcoming prejudices of one another. but please remember this. we do not have a constitutional right not to be offended. we are americans. [ applause ] we are americans and i believe that we are fundamentally decent people and in every decent society, whether here or abroad, we should seek not to offend but we will help our cause if we also resolve to be slow in taking offense. it is a great act of kindness to give someone else the benefit of the doubt. try to react to others as you would hope they would react to you you, no matter the color of their skin and no matter the

color of yours. and as we look from here out into the world where men and women seek the very basic liberties that we enjoy let us remember that they are indeed different but their desires for freedom are like ours. in my professional life i've listened with disbelief when they say the men and women of africa or asia are not drawn to the dignity that liberty destous. maybe some say they are not ready, too tribal too poor, too religious. do not patronize them in this way. it is your responsibility as educated people to help close the gaps of justice and opportunity and, yes, the gaps of freedom that still exist beyond our shores, just as you must do here at home. at william & mary i know the mission of service is very close to the heart of this college, a recognized model for learning,

the ideal of service to others has inspired this class and those before to devote thousands of hours of your own time to help those in need. yes, your service has and will help them. but it is true that it helps you more. because when you encounter those who are less fortunate, you cannot possibly give way to grievance. why do i not have or its twin brother entitlement? why don't they give me? in fact, you will ask, why have i been given so much? and from that spirit you will join the legions of optimists and idealists who are working toward a better human future. what better place to draw on that spirit than here in colonial williamsburg where a college educated and patient patrons, like thomas jefferson and john marshall went forward

to build a rule of law, their political institutions did not always live up to the grand aspirations expressed in their great documents. their and their endeavors were imperfect as are all human beings. they stumbled. sometimes they failed but they kept going and left a legacy that allowed future generations, descendents of the free and descendents of slaves to pick up the torch and walk toward the goal of making we the people a more inclusive concept. you now leave that very college william & mary, to join the ranks of the most privileged community, the community of the educated. it is a club that you may never quit and from which you can never be expelled. but remember it does confer responsibilities. so as you leave, i ask you to bear a few things in mind.

be passionate about what you choose to do in life. use your powers of reason cultivate humility remain optimistic and always try to serve others and the goals of freedom and justice. capture this moment forever in your mind's eye. the day when you and your parents and your family and your friends came to this place to celebrate a new beginning. and affirm on this day that as you leave this place, you will always remember why you came. may god speed you on your way today and for the rest of your lives. thank you. [ applause ]

another commencement address now from former secretary of state madeleine albright. she tells graduates in massachusetts that the world needs a new generation of leaders. [ applause ] >> president distinguished faculty and trustees, honored guests, most important people, members of the class of 2015 -- [cheers and applause ] -- families and friends good morning. i want to begin by thanking tufts very, very much for this honorary degree. and i know i speak for my fellow honorees for saying how grateful we all are and i'm so honored to be with all of them because they are a remarkable group of

people. as the class of 2015 well knows, a degree is a very precious thing. it's very satisfying to work hard and earn one. it's another delight to receive one simply for showing up. but that's not the only reason that i'm excited to be here. although i didn't attend tufts i feel a very personal connection to this outstanding university. back in the 1960s, this is where i met one of my heroes, former secretary of state dean ach chi son, after he delivered a speech. and i never, ever imagined that i would one day be appointed to achison's job. it's not that i liked ambition. it's just that i had never seen a secretary of state in a skirt. as a professor and a mother of three college graduates, i have to confess that i just love commencement ceremonies. they are a unique milestone in

our lives because they celebrate past accomplishments and future possibilities. to the parents of the class of 2015, i can only say, the moment has finally come. having once been in your position, i expect that you're thinking with some amazement about how short the interval is between diapers and diplomas. to the students i say congratulations. in order to reach this day you had to pass one of the most difficult tests of all, surviving a truly wicked boston winter. now that you've all thousandedawed out you will realize graduations is one of the five milestones of life. the others being, birth, marriage, death and the day you finally pay off your student loans. today is a time forever celebration and for looking back and admitting that all the hard work of reading and writing and

studying and cramming before tests was, indeed worth it. in few two years, you will recall this ceremony and you will understand that today may 17th 2015, was the day you first began to forget everything you learned in college and graduate school. but as the names of dead european kings and the body parts of dissected animals begin to fade the true value of your days on the hill in boston or in graftton will become more and more apparent. for by studying here at tafts, you alongside from students of more than 100 countries have gained a global perspective and that's true whether your degree is economic medicine, whether is it you studied the art of diploma engineering. the class of 2015 will truly live global lives. you will compete in a global

workplace, shop in a global marketplace and travel further and more often than any prior generation. to succeed you will require the kind of knowledge that extends it way beyond mere facts to knowledge itself. and i know from my own experience that such wisdom can be hard to obtain. i arrived at welsley college about halfway between the invention of the apple watch and the discovery of fire. i had one basic goal which was to be accepted. as an immigrant i didn't want to stand out. i wanted to fit in. fortunately, in the 1950s, conformity was encouraged, though we were also in a period of transition. women were finding our voices but we were also expected to be young ladies, except for perhaps during that occasion outing to boston. in college, i learned much about renaissance composures and

shakespearean plays and learned a lot about myself, that i wanted to use the fine education that i had received for something more than meaningful table conversation. that i wanted to test not simply accept the limits of the boundaries of the life that i was preparing to lead that i wanted to give back to this country that had given so much to me. i suspect that the same is true for you and your experience here at tufts. you arrived here having already lived 21st sent tree lives. some came from the nearby towns in new england. others from the suburbs of los angeles and the city neighborhoods of chicago. some were raised amid the skyscrapers of hong kong. others iraqi refugee camps in syria. some lost loved ones in 9/11. and all of you lived through the trauma of the boston marathon

bombing and its aftermath. regardless of where you came from at tufts, you have learned much about what is outside you and much about what is inside you as well. you learned how to put your opinions and your assumptions to a test. and this is important. because from this day forward, you will have to rely not on grades or guidance from professors to tell you how you're doing and where you stand. you will have to rely instead on an inner compass, whether that compass is true will determine whether you have become a drifter who is blown about by every breeze or a doer an active citizen determined to chart your own course, questioned your assumptions and when necessary sail unafraid against strong winds. i look around this morning at the class of 2015 and i have to tell you that all i see are

doers, which is good, because in the years to come there will be much for you to do both here at home and overseas. i'm keenly aware that commencement speakers have a habit of ticking through the world's problems and then challenging graduates to fix them. and, yes that's what i plan to do. but when i tell you that the world needs you, i really really do mean it. for we are living in a time that is more unsettled, more complicated and in more need of a generation of leaders than any that i can recall. at home america's great challenge will be to retain a sense of community and common purpose. as today's graduates reflect, we are a diverse people. we are all proud of the distinctions that gave us ourselves our separate identities and loyal to the groups to which we belong. this kind of solidarity is a means of honoring ancestors and

a way to inspire the young. it makes us feel less alone and helps us finds for ourselves a unique place in a crowd. but there's also a danger. because when we -- when pride in us descends into fear or hatred of them, the american tapestry unravels and the social fabric is torn. the result may be a young african-american gunned down in florida, a shooting at a jewish community center in kansas city or a gay couple brutally attacked at a new york restaurant. yes, we are proud of our group identities but it's what comes after them and after that hyphen of american that counts most. no matter our race creed, gender or sexual orientation, we are all equal shareholders in

the american dream. and that means -- [ applause ] and that means we do not fear our differences, we embrace them. living up to that principle and valuing fairly the contributions of each other is what tufts counsel on campus security was all about and it's the great test our nation must pass in the 21st century. around the world we will face other tests. the outcome of which is equally uncertain. today, the international landscape is as contradict industry and combustible as i have ever seen. technology and globalization help bring about unprecedented prosperity and progress for millions of people but also cast new shadows upon the world. we see this in the resurgence of nationalism in europe and asia,

alongside rising sectarianism and extremism in the middle east. we see it in the widening gap between the rich and the poor and growing dangers to the environmental health of our planet. we see how technology has given new destructive tools to groups who use religion as a license to murder as if god's commitment -- commandment was thou shalt skill and we see how the 21st century has been proven wrong. to put it another way the world is a mess. that is a diplomatic term of art. i'm sorry, but it's true. yet, for all the anxieties and turmoil that surround us i have to say that i remain an optimist though an optimist who worries a lot. around the world, america remains the brighten beacon of human liberty.

we are diverse entrepreneurial and we are resillient. no other country is in a better position to succeed in this new era than we are. we must be unafraid to express our leadership but we must also realize that for all our power we can rarely succeed by simply going it alone. if we want the world to heed our views and follow our lead, we must listen to the concern of others. we must listen confidently to rising powers, such as china who want to have a greater say in global governance as we push themselves to the same rules that we uphold. we must listen to scientist who is say global warming is real and a great threat to our future. [ applause ] scientists who believe that

conservation is a national security imperative, not a four-letter world. and we must listen to those who argue that globalization should not lead to marginalization of the world's poor. i have traveled almost everywhere and i have found essentially three categories of countries in the world today. in the first, people work all day and still don't have enough to eat. in the second families are able to scrape together just enough food to meet their basic needs. in the third category of countries, diet books are best sellers. of course the same distinctions also apply to the neighborhoods of boston and baltimore and to the mountains of appalacha and the america west. some people shrug their shoulders and say such inequality is too bad but there's not anything that anybody can do about it. i say such unfairness is

intolerable and we each have a responsibility to change it. [ applause ] as the light on the hill, the tufts community has always taken these responsibilities seriously and today's graduates are no exception. through protests and marches you have made your voices heard on behalf of the voiceless. you have stood up on behalf of workers. you have spoken out against the scourge of sexual assault. you have pressed for action on climate change. with the assistance of institutions, such as tish college, you have shown yourself to be active citizens and i'm proud that this commitment to public service was recognized when the truman scholarship foundation, which i chair named tufts, was honor institution last year. so there's an awful lot to

congratulate you on today. but as i said earlier, i want to challenge to you do far far more after you leave this wonderful place. for a while, there was time when you could say that you didn't know enough. today, armed with this extraordinary education, there can be no doubt that you can help produce enough food, build enough shelter deliver enough medicine and share enough knowledge to allow people everywhere to live better and more productive lives. now, i don't intend to put the weight of the world upon your shoulders because that is always going to be your parents' job. but i do help -- actually i insist that each of you after bidding farewell to jumbo and having your last drink at buren use the knowledge here gained at tufts to be more than just a consumer of liberty. i insist that you also be a defender and enricher of it employing your talents to heal

help and teach both here at home and abroad. i insist that you be doers, not just hearers. i insist that you put your opinions to the test when required and you dare, as tufts' motto suggests, to be voice for peace and light because your choices will make all the difference to you and to all of us. the future depends not on the stars or some mysterious forces of history but rather on the decisions that you make and i truly, truly mean that. you are the leaders of tomorrow and it will be your job to pick up the baton so often mishandled by the leaders of yesterday and today. it is the job that you must approach with modesty for some of what is thought to be knowledge today will be considered mistaken assumptions tomorrow. but humility and critical thinking when combined with

courage and determination are indispensable qualities of leadership. it is said that all work that is worth doing is done in faith. today, at this ceremony of cherished memory and shared resolve, let us each embrace the fact that every challenge sur mounted by our energy, every problem solved by our wisdom every soul awakened by our passion and every barrier to justice brought down by our determination will ennoble our lives, eninspire others. to the class of 2015, i say again, congratulations and thank you so much for making me a part of your remarkable class. thank you. [ applause ]

[ applause ] republican senator lindsey graham has now declared that he is running for the republican nomination of president. we'll see more campaign announcements coming up this he can would. wednesday, former governor lincoln chafee will announce that he's a democratic running for president. and on thursday former governor rick perry will declare that he's a republican candidate for president. that will begin live at 12:30 eastern, also here on c-span 3 and online at c-span.org. up next a commencement ceremony

from oklahoma state university. james langford following his speech, we'll hear remarks from the u.s. ambassador to saudi arabia. >> well, good morning to you. this is number 23. isn't this romantic? i took her to a commencement for our anniversary. so we'll later tonight be able to have a nice romantic dinner and cuddle around the tv and watch weather like everyone else. so welcome to oklahoma on that. graduates, congratulations to you. it's a very big day for you and your family. so i hope you enjoy and you just take this in in the moments ahead and you're able to remember well what happens here. there are a couple of moments in

your life that you will get free advice from random strangers. this is one of them. if anyone finds out you're graduating, total strangers will go, great this will happen again when you get married and when you get pregnant. okay. so just at that point you just smile, nod you want to say do i know you but you don't. fill filter out what is helpful. will you do it to some graduate and you'll randomly in the produce produce aisles startling them about life. enjoy it. there's free advice that you can filter as you choose to but i want to be able to put a few things together to say these are things that i think are very significant for you to consider and not lose track of. number one is this.

get out of debt. now, i know the irony of someone currently serving in the united states senate talking about us getting out of debt. i get that. but i'm going to tell you, this is one of those things that you want to get off of your back as quickly as you can. if you have any debt do whatever you can to knock that out as quick as you can. i know you want to get a real car and real furniture. all of those things ahead as you land a job and mortgage and wonderful responsibilities. knockout the debt as fast as you can. you'll be grateful to have that off of your back and to be able to focus on other things in life. second thing is this. reconnect with your faith. i'm amazed at the number of students that i interact with that had a practicing faith up until they got midway through college and then just somehow drifted. i understand this is the united states of america. not everyone has to have a faith. but for those that choose to

have faith i encourage them to actually live the faith that they have. and to be able to walk in that. it will always be meaningful to you in your life. if you've grown cold and distant in your faith, re-engage in your faith. there are a lot of terrifying moments that are both terrifying and exciting in your life including today, because for some of you, as you graduate today, you suddenly realize, oh, there's adulthood coming monday. for some of you, you have successfully postponed that by getting a master's degree soon. but that terrifying moment of realizing i'm about to take the next step and i do not know what's there you should have that moment also be a moment where you walk in your faith. how many of you have been to the united states capitol before? let me see your hands. that's great. when you get to the united states capitol, there are a series of paintings in the

rotunda which looks like it currently has an iron maiden around it. the dome itself is our second dome. the first was wooden copper. the rotunda actually predates the dome above it. the dome was built during the civil war but the paintings underneath it, the last of those were put in the 1840s. my favorite of those is called the pilgrims. the paintings are to depict the beginning of america. one of them depicts the moment america began. and it's a painting of a group of individuals on the decaf ship huddle and an open bible praying as their ship is leaving for europe. and that moment that was captured is both a terrifying moment for them, of not knowing where they are going, but reassuring reconnection to there

is something very important to us. we don't know where we are going but we know god will be there when we get there. i would encourage you to reconnect with your faith. third -- [ applause ] third, i would encourage you to heal family hurts. they get more personal as they go. don't you notice? heal family hurts. in the days ahead your relationship with your family will be more important to you than what your dip employee ma is today and that diploma is extremely important. but i have had many students, that as they went through high school and college, got more and more disconnected with their family. there was a broken relationship there and they thought you know what, i'm leaving, i'm heading out. it doesn't matter anyway because i'm moving out. so i'll just leave that broken relationship behind. what does it matter now? it's too much work to fix that family hurt. i will tell you, for the rest of your life, every birthday every

thanksgiving, every christmas, every mother's day, every father's day, you will regret that decision. my mom was a librarian. now, i don't know how smart your parents were, but my mom was a librarian. okay? a librarian knows everything and what she doesn't know, she knows where to find it. so i grew up with my mom being the smartest woman on the planet. but somewhere around 9th grade, she bumped into a wall or took a fall or something happened because she just started deteriorating and it just got worse and worse and worse as i went through high school. but about my sophomore year of college, she started gaining from my academic wisdom. and about my sophomore year of college, she started getting smarter again. she's back to genius level. now, i say that to you to say there is this path of

independence that all of us go through. that's good. we have god's creation to say we're not always living in your parents' basement. a amen? probably a bigger amen from up here. okay. when there's a broken relationship, i don't care where it came from and how it started but it ends when you actually reconnect, when you look each other in the eye and to say, can we start over again? heal the broken wounds. some of those can start today. you'll have time in the storm shelter later to be able to visit on these things. but you can start some of that conversation today. heal those broken wounds. many people that i talk to about a lot of things in what is going on in d.c., i spend a lot of time talking about the three d's, debt, defense and federal directives. those are things that we deal

with. but broken families cannot be fixed by washington, d.c., and the biggest issues that we face as a nation are families that are struggling to stay connected to each other and committed to each other. that is a decision that you will make in the days ahead and i will encourage us to turn our nation around by turning our families around. [ applause ] number four -- and i only have 14 of these. i'm kidding. i have two more and they are quick. number four is serve. a lot of things you will do to make a lot of money. this president wants you to be able to get out of here land a great job, represent the university well and be a great donor back to the university. okay. but you know as well as i do, at the end of life, the joy you will have will not be how much you made but who you served. keep that in perspective. you will do well. it's the nature of a free market economy. as you take care of your family

you also take care of a nation and your neighbors. take care of your family. go provide for them well. but remember to continue to serve. and last is this. don't this. don't forget your oklahoma roots and how great this nation really is. not everyone is here is from oklahoma. i get that. oklahoma state has folks from all over the country. but we welcome you to continue to carry the name of oklahoma with you because this phenomenal state and this great university, the heritage and tradition spreads around the country. take it with you. understand that we are americans. we do things a little bit different in america. we're passionate about things like invention. more inventions come out of the united states than any other place in the world. we invent. we find broken things and fix them. we work until things get done. we do not quit. we are americans. i get tired of people that come

to me and complain about where we are as a nation. i typically smile and say why don't you get up off the couch and get to work because this nation will be turned around not when we complain about it more but when we engage. i am fully aware that we have a bunch of stuff to work on as a nation, but that happens with each of us and each of you engaging and understanding we are americans. we fix things. so we get to work. couple years ago i had the privilege to visit with julia july ard, prime minister at that time of australia, you'd like her, she's a red head. very sharp lady. came and gave a speech to a joint session of congress and at the end of that speech she ended by saying i have to tell you about when i was a little girl in australia everyone got out of school the day the americans

landed on the moon. now we don't think of that as americans. we know americans and many in the generation remember well when america landed on the moon. all of australia got out of school as well. not many had televisions in australia, we all found someone with a television piled in their living room and sat there and watched the americans land on the moon, and she said i distinctly remember thinking americans can do anything. then she hesitated and said i still believe that's true. [ applause ] it was a reminder again of who we are and how the rest of the world sees us. i was in central america last september working on immigration issues, you may have heard a few immigration issues going on. i was in central america talking about factors in

children coming to the united states. at one point one of the leaders stopped me and said you don't understand. you're the united states of america. everyone wants to be you. that's who you are. don't lose track of that. you've been prepared and well equipped by this university. the nation needs a new generation of leaders. you're now it. welcome to real life. welcome to leadership. congratulations on being a graduate of one of the greatest universities in the world oklahoma state university. god bless you all. [ applause ] u.s. ambassador to saudi arabia delivered remarks at oklahoma state university commencement ceremony. he served as undersecretary of the u.s. army from 2009 to 2014.

he says the challenges for this generation include violent extremism, climate change population growth, and religious and cultural differences. >> good afternoon everyone. good afternoon to graduates of politics and agriculture. great to be with you. mr. president, thanks for the honor bestowed on me this morning and the honor of allowing me to address this class. students, i think we thanked a lot of people and i think we have missed one of the most important elements in your lives, they're all sitting around this arena. so i think you should give your folks, your families and friends a big hand for what they've done to get you here.

in 1970 45 years ago, i graduated from college and attended my commencement. in 2060, 45 years from now, some of you will be attending or giving a commencement speech somewhere. so how will the next 45 years shape and influence your message? how will the society you are a part of sitting before you. you will be the first generation to look back reflektively on most of the 21st century, rather than looking towards it. if there's one certainty in your life, it is that your next four decades will be different than the first two decades that have brought you here. we can speculate today that population growth will be a

factor, environmental impacts, technological changes, and if today is any indication climate. you will tackle many problems in the next four decades that are likely to include war crime, terrorism, poverty disease, and intolerance, to name a few. and these problems will be related to a variety of factors associated with developments in such areas as science and medicine and education, politics civil society, law, religion, i could go on. so let me go back and rewind the clock a little bit to an earlier generation that made it possible for me to graduate from college in 1970 and be with you here today. in his book, "the greatest generation" tom brokaw journalist author former nbc news anchor wrote about the generation that lived through

the great depression of the 1930s. men and women who fought tyranny and evil in world war ii and came home to rebuild a nation. some of you here today may have benefitted from the post 9/11 gi bill, but it was the original gi bill enacted in 1944 that gave a great boost to that post world war ii generation. as tom brokaw stated in his book, quote, they gave the world new science literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in the long curve of history. these men and women gave birth to my generation, the baby boomers. and we boomers have come to know how much we benefitted from the country we inherited that became the envy of the world. now my generation also experienced war.

we fought the cold war, and the vietnam war, and witnessed and participated in the civil rights movement. conflicts and events that sometimes created a divide between our generations. the values of my parents' generation were framed around personal responsibility, around duty to country honor faith. they were shaped in large part by the trials and tribulations that they endured and had to overcome. my generation lived through the fall of the berlin wall and the vietnam war, and all these things made us challenge the unquestioned patriotism of our parents' generation. civil rights and the war on poverty focused our commitment to ending segregation and reducing income inequality. one year before i graduated from college in 1970 the u.s. landed

a man on the moon, an event that unleashed the innovative and competitive spirit of the american people. the impact of which is still being felt today. the civil rights movement i talked about earlier offered an opportunity to redefine race and gender relations in america and today our country is far stronger because of the courage and sacrifice of those who fueled it. it was these issues and events that tested my generation. and like all college graduates entering into life's stage your generation will now be tested by the endless possibilities before you. as i sat through my commencement address back in 1970, at delphi university listening to senator marching rat j smith, republican senator from maine i wondered if i would be sent to fight in vietnam, a war i opposed with most of the class sitting around

me that day. i ended up not being drafted and instead set on an academic and government career, and little did i know that 28 years later i would begin nearly a decade of leadership in the army fighting wars in iraq and afghanistan, and working to put into effect the most sweeping policy changes since the truman administration's end desegregation of the force and in our case the end of the policy of don't ask don't tell with respect to gays in the military and to allow women to serve in combat rolls. when i graduated from college i could not imagine the vicious act of terrorism, the bombing of the murrah federal building in oklahoma city 20 years ago this year, and the subsequent attack on 9/11. i would not have predicted that in 2008 we would endure