did to the early appreciate your support, and last, but not least amount to each of you for coming here to show you appreciate what women have been doing to break down the barriers for all of us, and you are here to celebrate women, we thank you. [applause] >> it is independence day, and coming up next on c-span, a panel of medal of honor winners gathered at the reagan library in california to show the lessons that apply to the youth today. and then a discussion of the future of the internet. and then billy jean king on equal opportunity and pay for women athletes. >> bartoli strip makes the togo look -- topa bill topato

cqueville simple by comparison. he tore the countryside and he wanted to understand what makes americans tic. he was surprised by what americans saw. he had read that americans were individualistic and he saw us as much more collectivist. it seems hard for us to imagine that, but he saw the united states as a group of people who like to form associations, who wanted to always be with other people. after you went to the u.s., he saw the french as the individualist and the americans as the more social people. and from that, he concluded that he was going to put up his colossal statue. it was going to have to say

something to people who understood themselves as a big group, as a society, as a collective entity. >> you could watch this entire event as part of our prime time lineup. it also includes a discussion of how social media has changed news coverage, and commencement speeches from newark mayor cory booker and the law and must -- elon musk about the elector car from teselle. it all starts today on c-span. >> will have live coverage thursday at xv a.m. of the president. on friday, you can't see -- at 11:00 a.m. of the president. on friday, you can see him and a pennsylvania.

> >> earlier this year a panel of medal of honor winners talked about the importance o community service and the values that they feel make america great. this is one hour, 20 minutes. before we -- >> before we start our discussion, it is tradition to honor our men and women in uniform to the pledge of allegiance. please rise. >> by -- i pledge allegiance to the flight of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one

nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you, and please be seated. before i invite our special guests to the stage, i would like to point out just a few of the people in the audience who are here to suggest that learning does not as a surly stop when the bell rings, or when your diploma is confirmed. we have in the audience today, roy rocko, the son of a medal of honor recipient, louis richard rocco. we have corporal benjamin robert smith and his wife, emma. he is the recipient of the victoria cross, the preeminent award in australia's military.

thank you for joining us from australia. [applause] from our partners at the congressional medal of honor foundation, we have members of the board as well as family members. i just want to recognize a few of them. and all of the family members of our panelists who are also here today, thank you for coming today. [applause] from the office of california state senator sharon renner, ms. linda johnson. i would also like to take a moment to recognize all of the veterans and active duty military who have joined us today. please stand and be recognized. thank you so much for your service to our country. [applause]

the remarks to the congressional medal honor society in 1983, president ronald reagan said, "freedom, we must always remember, is never more than one generation away from extinction. each generation must do what is necessary to preserve it and pass it on to the next, or it will be lost forever. i speak to our audience of students when i say, i hope you will recognize both part of what president reagan says about ensuring freedom. each generation must do their part to preserve freedom and our speakers today represent some of america's best efforts to preserve freedom over the generations. but to preserve freedom is not enough. president reagan also points out the necessity of passing it on from one generation to the next. and the team at the congressional medal of honor foundation has put together a

remarkable curriculum that invites students to delve into the medal of honor recipients and encourage commitment, sacrifice, patriotism, integrity, and citizenship. it is one of the finest examples i've seen of how we can best pass on these values from one generation to the next. when we talk about education today, a lot of the discussion of education that happens in the media, in politics, in general revolves around us. and the students in the audience know what i'm talking about -- revolves around tests. and the students in the audience know i'm talking about. the word "test" for some of you probably causes some kind of physical reaction that is not a positive one. your scores in math are used to about what you have learned and how well your schools and teachers have done at teaching it to you. spelling tests, vocabulary tests, math tests, physical

education test. and just when you think you have been tested enough, you spend a week or two filling in the bubbles on the test -- on the state exam. we call the high-stakes tests. but the tests that you take in the classroom are not the real high-stakes tests. the test that you take outside of the classroom, the test that you cannot really prepare for, those are the real test. a real test is getting up to one of your best friends if you think they are being a bully. a real test is being honest even when it would be easier and more convenient to lie. a real test is when you are on patrol in the french countryside and your platoon comes under heavy fire from german machine guns and mortars. staff sgt walter dealers was precisely this scenario when he scrambled to a mound of earth specifically to draw the attention of the machine guns and mortars and so the other members of his platoon could flee to safety. a real test is when you are

flying a medevac helicopter in thick jungle fog and under close enemy fire to rescue fellow soldiers. major patrick brady fluent precisely these conditions, and despite the 400th belittles that were found in the helicopter he flew the day, he was able to rescue more than 50 men. a real test is when an infantry commander closes below the zone to any further helicopter operations because of the intensity of enemy fire, but you know that american forces are in desperate need of ammunition and eight. under these circumstances, colonel bruce campbell -- colonel bruce crandall evacuated more than 70 men. a real test is when despite not having slept 36 hours, you and your men are loaded into a landing craft, down to the river into an intense battle. colonel de vargas manage to

carry fellow marines more than hundreds of yards of intense enemy fire to get them to a safe evacuation place. and only after three days of battle to allow himself to be treated for bullet and shrapnel wounds he -- he suffered. these are the kinds of tests that no matter cramming could prepare you for. but lucky for us, we have role models like our guest today who are willing to pass that on to the net generation. i am pleased to welcome them to the stage. [applause] >> you are the first one here? >> yes. [applause]

>> i would like to start off our panel today by asking you to reflect a little bit on the name -- the name of the curriculum that the medal of honor foundation is called lessons in personal bravery and south sacrifice. i would like to start by asking you to reflect on what that means, given your experience. after that, we will turn to our students for questions. let's start here and then had to the left . the leftehlers. -- staff sgt ehlers.

>> i am walter ehlers and i was born and raised in the state of kansas. and when world war ii broke out i was going to our school. my grandfather was actually a german-born here in the united states and so forth. he told us, we are going to have a war with germany or something like this. in 1940, when i graduated from high school, my brother and i decided we would join the army. he was 4 years old and i -- than i. we went down to fort riley, kansas. my life changed from the time that i had to go home and get my mother's a signature. my dad said he would sign. but she looked me in the eye and

said with tears in her eyes, son, i will only sign if you promise to be a christian soldier. i was shocked, but i promised her i would do my very best. and i remember from that time on, she made the impression on me that if i was not going to be a christian soldier i would this honor her. . dishonor her. i actually took that all the way through my military career. i did not do anything unusual, and i did not do anything that would dishonor her, and above all, i did not want to dishonor abroad. that is the way i lived my life and -- this honor god -- and above all, did not want to do anything to dishonor god. and that is the web with your my

career and i had a wonderful career. that is how i got started, and my life has been changed ever since. it was the best thing that ever happened to me when she told me that. because i can still remember as clear as today, those tears in her eyes. they went straight for the hard. -- the heart. and when my brother got killed on d-day, i remember these soldiers all of these years. and i have been back several times. it is an honor to go back and respect them.

the lives of these people who gave so much. i saw so many people killed on the day. -- d-day. i talked to schools all the time. but one little girl asked me one time how many people i killed. i said, honey, i did not kill any people. she looked at me like there was something wrong with me. and i said, i was not trained to kill people. i was trying to kill the enemy. they were tried to kill me. i am here today because i did what i had to do. but i did learn a lot from my mother, and that is what kept me straight and honest throughout military service. >> my turn? [applause]

he's got me all choked up. my name is pat brady. i am universally known as the greatest helicopter pilot that ever lived. [laughter] i have been a member of the medal of honor society for many years. i know i do not look that old. the greatest thing that we have ever done in our society, and we have done a lot of things with young people, with veterans, with every cause that we thought was right and just, but the greatest thing we have ever done is this educational program that you are here to learn about. they ask a guy, if you had it to

do over again, would you do it differently? of course, we cannot. we have had our time and we are out of the reactor is we cannot live our lives over again ourselves -- and we are out of the three now -- arena. we cannot live our lives over again, but we can live our lives over again through young people. i had a boss one time and i had screwed something up and he said -- andi don't feel bad, don't feel bad, there is only a bad example. [laughter] we want to go out and teach things like honesty and integrity to young people

through professional golf. our program goes out and teaches patriotism, courage, sacrifice, how to define a hero through the experiences and vignettes of those of us who wear the metal. that is what we are useful for and that is what we are dedicated to for the part of life that is left for us. this is a great thing we do. we are happy to do it. and i'm looking forward to your questions. [applause] >> my name is bruce crandall. it is always nice to get the microphone after pat. you might think that half of the people who got the medal of honor and for helicopter pilots. that is not so. we had six, total, during the

war. although, we had the heaviest losses during combat. one of the privileges i had was commanding u.s. troops in combat, and what of the greatest responsibilities i ever had was commanding troops in combat. last week, i spent five days at fort jackson going through some of the training that our troops doing basic training. i carry -- and i can hardly walk now. i am not fit for basic training anymore. 61 years ago i graduated from high school and i was in the same situation as many of you. i was 5 foot 6 inches, and i weighed 143 pounds. i did not know what i was going to do. except that i was going to play baseball. instead, i got drafted by the army instead of the yankees or the orioles. and my batting average is three times my great point. [laughter]

not too bad if you are graduating still. [laughter] i ended up making a career at of the army. part of it was because i had been raised in a home that service was one of the requirements. my father was in the navy. it all of my uncles had served in the navy. my mother went to work in a shipyard as a welder. degrade a call came to live with us so he could help take care of oz. -- a great uncle came to the bus so he could help take care of us. my grandmother lived with us. we were aware of how lucky we were to be in our country. the young people of today are probably the jet -- the best generation will ever have. we thought hours was and some

guy wrote an article about the second world war and said they were the greatest generation. we will always have the greatest generation. we are trying to pass on a legacy to you young folks so that you understand the courage is not a battlefield example. you will all have situations where you'll be required to have courage. to say no when it is a proper answer when others are saying yes. to stand up for what is right for your friends. you will learn teamwork and relationships in your school life and in your real life. but he will not hopefully ever have to serve on the battlefield -- but you will hopefully not ever have to serve on the battlefield. no one hates war more than the war weary. we as a group feel that way. the average age of this group is my age. and i do not want to talk about

that [laughter] we have three young guys that came on and they dropped our average age by i year. [laughter] that did not make me feel any number. i am a real supporter of the program and i'm willing to help in any way i can to see that it gets to our young people. even in australia. i will be happy to come over. v and i would likevvvvvvvv to know the key times ahead of time. -- and i would like to know the tee times ahead of time. thank you very much for having me. [applause] >> good morning. the bursting of want to say is to the teachers and administrators and employees

that work around -- the first thing i want to say is to the teachers and administrators and employees that work around our nation. i love to teach. i still do. and i know the hardship that you are going through in making great citizens out of these people that are here today and throughout the state of california. to ben and emma, thank you very much for being with us from australia, and the rest of the australian team. it is always an honor to meet another warrior who is highly decorated. we are honored to be in your company, then -- ben. thank you for being with us. i am a little different. i am not a helicopter pilot. i was a grunt in the marine corporate [laughter] -- in the marine corps. [laughter]

and yes, i did save about seven of my fellows. there is more to the story the kinds of -- kind of ties in with these golden keys to my brothers gave to me on the eve that i was about to go into the core -- corps. a lot of what transpired in my particular situation is based on those keys. hopefully, some of you can put them in your pocket and maybe use a couple of them. my parents were immigrants. my mother is from italy. my dad is from spain. they had two sons. the 15 in the regime appeared another in korea. and i fought in vietnam -- one fought in iwo jima. another in korea.

and i fought in vietnam. my mother, she already had three marines, two in world war ii, and one in korea. and when she learned -- bruce and i played college ball. i went to the dodgers and he went to the orioles. then the army got a hold of him. i got to go up for a while. i had a wonderful father who taught me, you know, look how far you went up the ladder. and it was an honor, too. then i decided i want to go in to the officers corps in the marine corps. my mother had convinced my three brothers that you get in there and you sit down with him and you tell him he is going into the navy. he is not going to be a marine. [laughter] my mother. [laughter]

that evening, she took my brother and my dad and told them to start the car. we are going for a ride. this conversation did not last very long. my brother said, we have been told by mom to convince you not to go into the marine corps like we did. and my oldest brother angelos said, if you do not go into the marine corps, we will break your legs. [laughter] they all were highly decorated. of world war ii and korea. they did not receive the highest awards, but quite a bit. the golden key is they set that evening with me -- and i will pass this on to the young people. always a good example. set your standards high. always take care of your fellow man, never to.

and the third one is kind of tough. -- number two. and the third one is kind of tough. do not ever ask a marine or anyone that you are leading to do anything in peacetime or in combat that he would not do. how does that relate to you? if you go back and set your standards high, at this stage in life you should be establishing yourselves and writing down some objectives. but make them reachable objectives. be yourself. believe in yourself. believe in your god, or whatever supreme being you believe in. always, always take care of each other, truly take care of each other. and learn to do it now. make your friendships today. the french ships at your level right now will always be forever. friendships you have

today it will always be forever. i still have friends and we take care of each other. in my time, we did not have drugs. i did not even know what the main ones work. the main thing is, you do not need it. the energy you can create with in your hearts and our bodies and minds is within you right now. it is a god-given gift that he has given you. i will conclude by simply saying that -- enjoy life. it is truly a one time around. and right now is when you want to establish ourselves as to what you want to be in the future. a great citizen, a great leader, a great future leader, an educator in whatever dimension you want to get into, but promise me that he will take some of these little golden keys -- that you will take some of the so-called golden keys and

use them. i transferred them from the marine corps to my every day life. and they work. they are very simple. set the example. set your standards high. take care of yourself. and never asked anybody to do something that you would not do yourself. thank you. [applause] >> now we are going to get some questions from the students. the students in the audience, many of them have been studying your story and going through some of this curriculum and learning quite a bit about the medal of honor and some of the traits described in the curriculum in the audience we have bill and heather who work with the medal of honor foundation and they will be getting students to ask questions.

we will start over here. go ahead. >> firstly, i want to thank the panel as well as the collective medal of honor recipients across the country for your undying service to our country. i am henry from arcadia high school. of here under the direction some -- of professor osteen. my question is, following your experiences in the field, how was your integration back into society? >> to repeat the question -- after your experiences in battle, what was it like to come back into society? >> i would like to answer that one, because when i came back to california i became a city manager of california and i like combat better. [laughter]

[applause] actually, i spent three years doing prop. 13. those of you that our live understand the problem. [applause] leadership in the military or outside is the same period of -- is the same. jay covered it. don't leave from the back. never do things that you know are not right to do. >> mine was pretty easy. like pat, i stayed in the core for 30 years and continued on -- in the marine corps for 30 years and continued on with

leadership, commanding marines, etc., different commands of to and in french -- infantry regiment of 5000 marines. but nothing changed as far as my views toward society. i was very proud of what the marines did, as well as all of us that fought in vietnam. some people cry that we lost the war. i never lost a battle. i should not say aye. we never lost a battle. -- i should not say "i." we never lost a battle. society put so much pressure on the campaign, but it did not change my views as to life and love of my country.

waltz? >> [laughter] i stayed in the military after i came back. there may be a lesson in this, i don't know. i did not want to go into the military. when i came out of high school i have an opportunity to play football at several universities, but there was this foxy young chick -- [laughter] -- and she was going to a university that did not have a football team, but they did have rotc, and it was mandatory. i hated every bit of it. i kind of put up with the military and one thing led to another. i ended up in vietnam for a couple of years. my thing was, i was in berlin when they built the wall. when i look around at the

leadership and the people i saw serving their country in uniform, something i did not want to do, and i thought, my god. i was there with norman schwarzkopf, who later became chief of staff of the army. and i look at these guys as we get off the train in berlin, germany. i am a crummy second lieutenant and i already have two kids. the guy needs me and takes me to an apartment. i've got food in the refrigerator, furnished and everything. and the commander's wife the next day comes to see my wife, who was pregnant with our third child. wow, these people are something else. and then we built the wall. the kind of stress, they are shooting their own people off the wall and the medics are picking them off. i just looked around at the people in uniform and i said, there are some really wonderful leaders here. i would like to grow up and be like them. so i stayed and learned a great

many lessons as far as courage, sacrifice, what a real hero is, and those things that we will hopefully talk about later on. i did not come into society after the military. i stayed in. and i got to be around some of the greatest people i've ever been around anywhere. knowing what i have -- what i know now, i probably would have left tom when i found out that -- i probably would have left home when i found out that my parents were civilians. [laughter] all of you young people ought to take a good hard look at the military. it will change your life. walt is part of the greatest generation. young people today are part of the second grade -- greatest generation. take a look at it. it is a wonderful way to spend your life, even if you are only in for a couple of years. you are still serving your

country and you come out with great skills in terms of leadership and great relationships and discipline and stuff like that. i did not have a problem coming back into society after combat, not one bit. walter? >> i've got something to say. i am the lowest ranked up here. [laughter] but i'm not a staff sgt. i was a second lieutenant when i got my medal of honor. [applause] it was a battlefield commission. and on behalf of a battlefield commission officers, i would like to apologize because i was insisting on being called a second lieutenant. i am a second lieutenant and the lowest ranking officer of here. the other one, that was for leadership.

i love this staff sgt rank, because it is better than the second lieutenant. i did not have to stay in listed in military service. i had to salute all of the officers above me. it is really a higher rank than what i am. i'm kind of happy about that. i want you to know, these battlefield conditions do not come easy. you have to be a tremendous leader to get a commission and the first infantry, i found that out for sure. i was commissioned officer on the day of the 16th -- on december the ninth and on the day of the succeed i became a second lieutenant in paris, france. it was the day of the battle of the bulge. i did have some leadership training.

>> [laughter] we are happy to be with you, waltz. now that you have promoted yourself you have to buy the first round of drinks tonight. [applause] >> on a second of tenants pay, that will be tough. the next question? >> were you traumatized by all of the wounded soldiers you rescued? >> was i traumatized by all of the wounded soldiers i rescued? you know, i had a real problem with blood and needles, especially the dam needles. -- the damn needles. they were evacuating me, i hated that. the first time i took the blood, i fainted. i was very apprehensive about

going into a combat situation where people in the course of a day -- into the boat tours of vietnam might pick up something over 5000 people. -- in two tours of vietnam, i picked up something over 5000 people. i was worried how i would physically react to the variety of human condition. even today, when i see something with a needle or something like that to my turn the damn thing off. but in, up, it did not bother me. it bothered me very much the people were heard. but it did not bother me because there was something i was trying to do. there's nothing greater in the world and to save a human life. and by the way, the teachers and coaches do this also. they save young lives. but to find yourself -- your way through a bunch of obstacles --

and for me, being the greatest helicopter pilot that ever lived, i could find a way in there that nobody else could find [laughter] to get yourself on the person who is seriously hurt and put them in the hands of the physicians who really save their lives -- we did not -- but the physicians and nurses and hospitals who really save their lives, that was a thrill beyond anything i can think of. stake, lobster, sex -- can i say that? i do not care what it is in life, there's nothing that matches the thrill of saving a human life. that terrell helped me overcome my physical aversion to -- that thrill helped me overcome my physical aversion to needles and blood. i got through it just fine. [applause] >> colonel crandall, who or what inspired you to join the war,

knowing that you may or may not come back? >> who or what inspired you to join knowing that you may not come back -- during the war. who or what inspired you to join the military? >> he is an old guy. [laughter] >> inspired me to -- >> go into the military. >> i got inspired by a letter the says, "greetings, you have been selected." [laughter] [applause] i suggest that if they ever start the draft again, they start with "greetings, you have just been shafted by the uncle sam." [laughter] i wanted to serve. the draft was don and i had a choice -- was on and i had a

choice. i could have gotten out of going because i was in the national guard all i had to do was tell the draft board that. but i knew i had to serve some time. and i was 5 ft. 6 inches and weighed 143 pounds out of high school. and i have not grown and i felt like a couple of years in the army playing ball would be good for me. i went into the army and accepted it. the draft that -- the draft is the worst thing that ever happened to the military, in my judgment. it should never happen again. the draft did not give us bad people. it gave us great people. a lot of them had college educations or partial educations. but what it did is give the local judge and the sheriff the opportunity to tell our young hoods they either go in the army or go to jail. and all we did was change where they go to jail. we have the largest stockades

we've ever had. today, they are all volunteers, and we are doing a wonderful job. we ought to keep the military strong enough to encourage people to stay in that joined, and to make their families' lives good enough so that they will. if i had to do all over again, i would have done the same thing. i found a career in the military very satisfying. i also found a career after i got out pretty satisfying, stealing businesses out of california to come to arizona. [laughter] >> thank you. [applause] >> i was wondering what was going through your mind when you committed your acts of bravery.

>> my troops, my marines, their safety, and concentrating on bringing artillery, aircraft, helicopters, gunships into the zone to annihilate the enemy. they always came first. they still do. but i believe that is the way it should be. i think my brothers gave me good advice about not asking your marines to do anything you would not do. i ended up taking a couple of machine-gun nests on top of saving several folks. they were pinned down pretty badly. my troops were first in my life. >> that is the way it should be. [applause] >> i want to know how the war changed to emotionally.

>> where are you? >> he is over here. [laughter] >> oh, there. >> he says he was 140 pounds and tall, but i was about your size when i joined the marine corps. i'm teasing you. you know that. [laughter] i think it was the strong belief in god that really gave me the foundation to be strong and to accept life as it came, and probably the good advice my brothers gave me. they told me some of the things before i went into combat -- into the marine corps, i should say. it does not matter what we saw in vietnam. what amazes me, the generation

of world war ii, what they went through, it is unbelievable. you cannot describe it. yes, we did see a lot. we did fight against some good warriors against us. it did not really bother me emotionally. there were times when i came home -- and i think this is true of all of us. it takes to some time to wind down. today, a lot of our troops are having difficulty with ptsd because of the numerous the clemons that they are going on. it is just breathtaking -- the numerous deployments that they are going on. it is just breathtaking. pat and i have talked about it. the other thing is, like bruce and i, we did okay in baseball. he was an all-american and i was 18 keep honorable mention all- american in our -- i was a dinky

hon. mention all-american in our college days. the failure is hard to accept. but that is one of the bullets a wanted to give you. there are times that i slept, like all of us. we make mistakes. but it did not change my life. i wanted to get better. and that is how you should be. you should be one of the best services in this state of california how is that? [applause] >> my question is for any of you gentlemen. when you were saving man, did you think of them, or maybe their families, what they would lose? >> i thought solely of my marines. when i was carrying my battalion commander back after his arm was blown off and we're sitting by a

tree and already counterattacking and fighting hand-to-hand, but i promise i would go back and getting it -- get him. how did i feel about that? i went back and got him. what really makes me mad about sammy is what i had him on my shoulder and i ran back to give him to the corpsman, he yelled out, skipper, skipper, i want my damn arm. so i had to go back and find his arm, and i did. and we put him on a chopper with that arm. [applause] >> i never thought about it at the time, but when we saved a soldier's life, we were also saving a husband or a son, and also the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that would come from that one soldier's life that was saved.

you do not think about that at the time. but that is something that i thought about later on. it is like any kind of lifesaving. it is a wonderful thing to be able to do. but at the time it is going on, you are so busy that the only motion is really focused, concentration, and to try to get the guy out and get him to hospital. later in life i did reflect on the number of grandchildren and children and marriages and stuff like that that were involved and the lives that we saved. that is a great thing for me. >> and the thousands of missions that he flew in and picked up not just one or two wounded warriors, but he saved, i would say, 1000.

>> one of the things that the vietnam war produced was medical evacuation from all of our cities, the hospitals and stuff. that is one of the really positive things that came out of that war. we saved a lot of lives in the civilian community afterward. when you are doing the job, you do not think about it. you never get to meet the people that you are carrying out and they do not get to meet you. if i could find all of the guys i carried out i would charge them $5 apiece and retire again. [laughter] you treat the guys on the ground -- they were my family. and you actually develop a sense of ownership with them. and you keep that for years afterward. we will get together in another

month or so, the group that was in that battle. it is great to do. if we pass each other on the back and then we make remarks about how he looks. oh, it's bad. anyhow, we have a relationship that is important on the battlefield, but it does count when you get back, and you get to meet their family. and when you realize all of the grandchildren that are running around. >> now is the time to start taking care of each other. it is not that hard. now is the time to establish that camaraderie among yourselves and your classmates, and keep it forever.

you will never lose it. >> it is surprising, though, that sometimes you will meet in strange places people that you actually rescue. in combat, we knew each other only by call signs. and my, was -- my call sign was rabbinical. this -- robert nickel. and his beautiful young lady walks up to me and she says, can i have you? and i said, you can hug me all day. and she did. [laughter] and shortly thereafter her husband came behind her and he was limping. and he had a big hunk taken out of his leg. to make a long story short, it

turns out i was the pilot because they had recognized my call sign, that had picked him up in vietnam when he was wounded. another time i was somewhere else and a guy says, are you double nickel? and i said, yes. and he said, what do you drink? and i said, scotch. and the next day he has half a gallon of johnny walker black. [laughter] you do occasionally get to meet people you have rescued in combat, which is very rewarding. [applause] >> after this question we are going to digression from the on-

line audience. >> walter ehlers, if you go back to the war, would you change anything? >> if i went back to the war -- i do not have anything to worry about. i have not got much left. anyway, i would be sure that all the soldiers have as much training as they could possibly get before they were ever put into a war. that is the most important thing. i was only doing my job. i had two years of training in combat before i ever went into war. and then i had three years in the war. but when i got my medal of honor i was only doing my job. and i went out and rescued a man

who had gotten wounded after we had let the rest of the squad returned to cover, safely back behind hedgerows. it is something that you do naturally. you do not think about it. and i did not know anything about getting a medal of honor until in december of 1944 i got up on the ninth and 10th of june as a staff sgt. and everybody says, why did you go back for the v.a.? what were you thinking? and i said, i was not thinking. i was just doing my job i said, if i had been thinking, i probably would not have gone back for it. [laughter] i have to tell you that i'm not

telling you to be a christian or anything like this, but i'm telling you what it does for you. for instance, i have a man when i was in states, i asked him to go to church with me one morning. he said, i'm an atheist and i said, you can be anything you want to be. we went to church and we came out he said, i'm an atheist. and again i told him, you can be anything you want to be. the first battle we got into in africa where the tanks were coming down this valley, and they were shelling us and told us to dig in on the hill of there. he is out there digging in on the hill and he says "oh, god, help me. and oh, god, help me." after it was all over i said,

are you still an atheist. and he says, yes. and i said, how come you were asking god to help you up there? and he said, there was not anybody else to ask to help me. [laughter] you hear these things and i actually see them happened in combat. people talking to their fate automatically because it is a hard thing to give up. actually, what are we fighting for? we are fighting for our freedom. and freedom is a religion, anybody's religion. if they want to be free, they better believe. [applause] >> i would like to make one comment. never make decisions that you

think you can change tomorrow. it wants to make one, realize that is for life. -- once you make one, realize that as for life. you cannot change your decisions next week or the week after. >> i would add a little vignette since what walter is talking about, could you do it over again. there is another medal of honor recipient, a great powerful soldier. he was on a hilltop in vietnam one night and they were overcome by the communists. the first wave pretty much took off his legs. he still fought on. the next attack, they threw a hand grenade into his position. webster got the hand grenade and when he was throwing away, it took off his arm. it was in the middle of a tropical storm. i managed to get in and get webster and his wounded guys and get them to the hospital where

they saved his life. but he lost both legs and lost an arm. webster and i became very close. he thought that i had saved his life. we would talk to students like this around the country. we had to prop him up. he had two fake legs and a fake arm that he had a cane on. we would prop him up there and kids would ask they called him mr. serjeant webster anderson. if you had to do over again, knowing what you know now, two legs and one arm, would you do it again? webster looked at him and said kidd, i only got one arm left, but my country can have it any time they want. to me, that was the definition of a true patriot. webster anderson, a great black soldier. [applause]

>> leroy petrie is in fort washington right now. ask him that question. ask him if he would do it again, and he said i would do it again next time left-handed. good attitude. >> the question that comes from online, students have been submitting these are the last couple of weeks. what helps you to be strong, think clearly, and not to give up? in the situations you were in in battle, is there anything in your past or your training -- what was it that really helps you in that moment of intensity and danger that really helps you rise to the occasion? >> did you hear the question? >> i think it was training.

in my case, i could never go home and embarrass my brothers. that was the big thing. i am going to go back to the love of troops. i really do. when you lead them into combat, and pat covered this, you better know what the hell you are doing. you better be carrying any better be smart. the art of anticipation is a lost art, and american society today. learn how to anticipate. that was another key my brothers gave me. >> what inspired me to do what i did is that i had a lot of training in the military service. i was the leader with a lot and had not had any combat training

before, went into normandy, and when we got into this situation in the hedgerows, we knocked out three machine-gun nests and then we knocked out a mortar position. the next day, i was the leader of my squad, and i knew it number-one thing was, i could smell the germans. had a platoon leader who had just come over from fort benning georgia. he was a lieutenant. he tell me to go out and go into this town. my platoon leader tell me to take the squad out, and i

started to lead the squad. he said sgt, we don't do it that way. he said, you send out two of your scouts, and i am going to follow them, and then you bring the squad behind them. i said, that is not the right way to do it. my squad was not that well trained. i said well, that is why i do it. he said, this is a direct order. so they go out in germany. they got pinned down by at tank sitting in a little town out there across an alley.

they saw these guys coming across the field so they started firing on them. they got into a hole in could not get out. so i got a bazooka and ended at the tank. hit the tank and some soft spot. i knew where to shoot at. he had never shot the bazooka before. so that was his first shot and it hit that soft spot and the germans came out of that tank like flies. pretty soon we went over and captured the tank. we captured the tank and then i came back and said lieutenant, it is ok to come out now. and he did, and he apologized to me. he said i will never tell you how to run your squad again. [applause] >> the one thing that i learned in the military, and you learn

this in life, too. we are not all born equal. we are just not. you look around you and you see people bigger, faster, smarter, stronger, they have better hair than you have. we are simply not all born equal. but there is one way, and i think this is the key to success in life and what we try to teach in our program, that we are all born equal. that is in terms of courage. each of us can have all the courage you want. you cannot use it up. it is the key to success in life. it produces great success from those among us who were not given credibility and did not have great opportunities in their life. to me, courage was a very important thing. where does it come from? what allows you to use courage on the battlefield or anywhere

else? the answer is simply fade. i have never seen anything else to explain what people do in combat or in the classroom or anywhere else. i believe there is something to work dying for, something worth somewhere above and beyond the person that you are that is more important than that particular moment. i can explain my faith. i would not do it for anyone else, but fate is the foundation of courage. courage is the key to success in life. i have said this before, and i have been almost get a bunch of times, but i was never afraid. faith was a substitute for fear. it allowed me to do things that otherwise would not have been possible. faith is the source of

everything and anything that i ever did in combat. [applause] >> pat is right. as i said earlier, believe in god or your supreme being or whoever you believe in. he is right. i don't think a day goes by without communicating with the big guy to watch over me. i even asked him to help me on the golf course, but he has been letting me down. [laughter] >> jay had his family that he was afraid of. the marines gave him courage for that. one of the things i got asked the most was, didn't you have fear? i did have fear, but it was

fear of making a bad decision that caused one of my men to die or some of the men i was supporting. i was more afraid of making a bad decision. that is more important when you are doing those things, in my judgment. we should have fear you are going to cause a problem for your troops. >> i have two bullets i fail to pass on to you. if you fall or you fail, it is not the end of the world. i was over in new mexico talking to some of the students. some of them had blown an algebra class. there's just no way that they could get through it, and they were ready to quit school. don't ever quit.

get into some other general map or something. we are not all scientists. i was not worth a darn in math. when i started taking calculus and geometry, i said that's it. i've got to go into another field. but don't ever be afraid, if you fall down and failed, get back up. don't be afraid, as pat put it very well, lean on your faith. get back on your feet and keep going forward. if you make a mistake, admit. if you truly know that you made a mistake, don't ever hesitate to say i made a mistake. a lie just gets you deeper into

your inner soul. [applause] >> it pains me to do this, because i think that given the opportunity, we could sit here for hours upon hours. but we are out of time. so here is what we are going to do. i know that part of the program, the malick honor, is bringing recipients into classrooms viaskype or may be asking questions. those of you still have questions, have your teachers get in contact with me. we will get those questions answered. i don't want you to leave here feeling we have had a question has been unanswered. i apologize tremendously. i would also like to ask, at the beginning of the talk today, colonel vargas was

mention the keys that he was given. in closing, i would ask that each of our panelists give us one key, giving your experience, your help -- wisdom and courage, if you had just one key to pass on to our audience today as a final word, what would that be? >> you heard me say earlier, believe in yourself and be yourself. it is very important to be yourself. i have seen great students trying to guess like those guys whose pants are nearly falling off. the yourself and believe in yourself. always believe in yourself. that is my advice. >> if i did not have faith, i would not have been able to do what i did. i left it in god's hands.

i figured that i had to do this because it had to be done. i had no control over when i was going to die or anything like this. i was fighting to live. so i never worried about dying, but i was really scared all the time. i was fighting to live. i was not fighting to die. and i put my faith in god, and somehow it worked, and i am still here today. and i still have my faith in god and in my children and in my grandchildren. i think they should know that the great courage in the best thing you can do in your lifetime is to have faith. i did not set out to be a hero or anything. i had no idea was ever going to get a medal of honor. i read about in the stars and stripes.

that is how i found out i was getting a medal of honor. i said i was reporting back to duty. he said you were supposed to be back in the state's coming getting the medal of honor from the president. i said yes, i read about it in the stars and stripes. that is how i found out about it. it is a great thing to have faith. >> it takes my friend a while to get his thoughts together, so i will go before him. the thing i would leave with all of you, and i want you to go to the program. faith, sacrifice, love in action. the key to happiness in life, and a hero cannot separate

business from heroes. celebrities are not heroes. look around you and realize how blessed you are to be an american, how extraordinary it is. [applause] the other thing i would ask you to do, and we are all part of this. america has no kings, no queens, no dukes and duchesses and all that stuff. but we do have a nobility in america. america's and ability is called veterans. those of us who are part of america's nobility are required to pass on to the younger people, in terms of being a bad example, a way around the

obstacles that we faced in life. i was on the golf course with my friend at the other day and he brought out a tape measure that measures how close you are to the tent. he said here is your life span, and here is where you are. so here is your life span, and you guys are right here. it's not as well be further ahead when you get to where i am then you are today. be further ahead when you get here than you were when you were right here. that is the thing we try to do for this program that we have. we are living our lives over again through you, and trying to keep you from making the same stupid mistakes that we made as we struggled through our lives. you are so blessed to be an american, and that is very important. [applause]

>> he referred to me as his son gary usually he says illegitimate son. the one thing i would tell each of you, if i was to only give you one thing, is to have self- respect. respect yourself, and you will respect others. when you look in the mirror in the morning, be happy with what you see. it cannot change it much, but in our country we have lost a lot of civility, and i would like to see that come back. self-respect is the key to that, i think. those of you that are in school now, i would encourage all of you to go out and seek your education, no matter how long it takes.

keep going to school. [applause] >> i have one last thing to say to you. you all live in the greatest country ever. this country has freed more people since world war ii than any of all the other nations combined. this is an actual fact. you can look it up in the history books and you can find out that countries that we fought against or liberated became democracies. germany is a democracy. france is a democracy. italy is a democracy, freedom from fascism. japan is a democracy with freedom from imperialism. the biggest responsibility for their freedoms has been the united states of america. you can be so proud of your

country. we hope you will continue to be proud of it because you will do the same things that we did. [applause] >> although most of us in the audience will never be an exact science dirk dick circumstances that our panelists were, there will be challenging moments in your life, maybe even terrifying moments and things like your courage and integrity and commitment to your community are going to be tested. i want to say thank you to our panelists today for giving us a great example of how you should respond. [applause]

i will ask that our students please remain seated. our guests are going upstairs to sign some books. so thank you very much, and have a great day.

>> it got to the point where my twitter followers became my newsroom. being in the studio with producers left and right and researchers, giving me the latest wire information, i was sitting on a park bench with my phone having dozens of it twitter followers during of that for me and i said i would to coverage of these revolutions. >> you can watch this whole event tonight as part of our prime-time lineup. it includes a discussion on the history of the statue of liberty and commencement speeches.

it all starts at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> tomorrow, the former cbo director on the potential cost of medicaid to u.s. states and the federal government and light of the supreme court decision on the health care law. then christopher hayes discusses his new book. after that, jim laurie looks at china's central's mission. plus your e-mail, phone calls and tweets. >> one of my favorite things to talk about is [unintelligible]

most of these trucks make animals grow faster to make more money but this one means when an animal is killed and the meat is sold to safeway, the drug is in there. >> martha rosenberg looks behind the scenes at the food and drug industry in fines regulatory lapses and government complicity in undermining the public health. born with a junk food deficiency. that's this weekend on c-span2. >> in may, a group of technology experts and journalists sums -- journalists discuss the future of the internet. this is about two hours. [applause]

>> good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the monterey conference center for the final event of the 15th anniversary season of the degrees. 15 years. as you know, this year, we have been discussing the revolutionary changes that have affected our nation in this new century and have been reflecting on what the transformations' the middle east and the hope for peace and democratic reforms in the wake of some much turmoil. we heard the long and short perspective on economic changes that impact our future. and we look for inspiration from our founders and past presidents and as we witness the changes in the role of the presidency as the electorate appears to decide again who should lead our nation.

throughout each of these discussions, there has been a common element that has touched each topic. from the uprising in the middle east, to the crisis in the global economy to the ability presidents and candidates to communicate, the way we live our life has been transformed because of new technology called the internet. when we announced this lecture series 15 years ago, did we have an idea that we could watch archived version of our programs on their phones? were that a firm would launch a multibillion dollars ipo based on electronics friendship and family photographs? what we have been able to foresee that this technology would become the primary means for young revolutionaries to communicate with one another and the outside world?

the internet ships technological innovation and grabs the hottest sound bites. it has a tremendous impact on society. it has had tremendous impact on government. it has had tremendous impact on commerce. and it has had tremendous impact on other institutions and has changed the way we live, the way we work, the way we learn, the way we profit, the way we govern, and the way we communicate. but in the wake of such progress, repair for the unintended consequences that have come with the dizzying speed -- are we prepared for the unintended consequences that have come with the dizzying speed of technology? are individuals in our nation's officially protected? how are cellphone, blackberries, and this topology changing the way we communicate?

we will discuss the consequences of the internet with three experts. their combined been set touches on almost every aspect of this diverse subject, including technology, security, safety, politics, economics, communication, and culture. our first guest is vice president and chief internet evangelist @ google and is widely known as one of the fathers of the internet. he is the code designer of the tcp ipp protocols of the internet and was awarded the national medal of technology as well as the presidential medal of freedom and recognition -- in recognition of his achievements. please welcome dr. bensonhurst.

our second guest this the chief of a know well huffington post media group and one of the authors of one of the frequently cited media brand on the internet, "the huffington post." de internationally syndicated columnist and author of 13 books, she has written extensively on the development of the internet and the need to include an engagement, to include trust, and to include authenticity and new forms of media appeared please welcome arianna huffington. [applause] our third guest is a journalist

and internet safety advocate who has been following the development of the internet since its early inception. from 2010 to 2011, he served on the president's own mind safety and technology working group where he chaired the educations of a committee and wrote the education section of the group report to congress. presently, he reports daily for cbs news and kcbs appeared please welcome dr. larry magid. [applause] incidentally, before i forget, please remember that our program this evening runs until 9:00 p.m.. it usually ends at 8:30 p.m., but we have two full hours of these wonderful speakers. leading the discussion is an

experienced journalist and moderator who has been at the forefront at the city of new media and its impact on journalism appeared he is the founder of the public affairs project at the center for innovative media where he is launching an election-year project called "face the facts, usa." a former actor, white house correspondent and interviewer post for cnn, he now serves as director of the school of media and public affairs of the george washington university. please welcome that f -- please welcome back frank sesno. [applause] >> how are you? thank you very much. i am happy to be back to host this wonderful series on the revolutions of the 21st century.

the internet and social media represent the most remarkable and transform a technologies we can imagine, certainly since the creation of the automobile, the telephone, the light pole, the newspaper, just about anything we can imagine. in a few short years, it has become impossible to think of life without these technologies. they have become utilities in our lives. what lies ahead? where is this all taking us? where might we end up? i'm here with three guests who studied this topic and committed this topic on just about every angle, from communications, journalism, security, safety, commerce, innovation, and on and on it goes. we will get started. it is great to see you all. it is a pleasure to be here. i thought we might start with our audience. it is a good place to start.

at home, you can play this game, and to, a little bit of of its participation. [laughter] how many in the audience on and use a smartphone? richer hands? wow. how many of you use a smart tablet? how many of you get news, information, whether, the stocks online? just about everybody. how many of you don't do anything on line, but you subscribe to newspapers and that is how you live? all right, there are a few. [laughter] i want to start the conversation with the subject, the revolutions of the 21st century. is this a revolution or an evolution? it is both. any evolution starts small. getting that first airplane off the ground is not the same thing as flying a jet at 50,000

feet. internet is a revolution. it took a technology that was considered crazy of the time but the traditional telecom people and made it work for computers. there could not have been a better choice. but it has evolved over the last 40 years since that first idea was put on paper. >> i see a revolution that has to evolve. that means that it starts as a revolution and then it becomes an evolution. >> what makes it in your mind a revolution? >> the previous communication technologies would not have served to allow computers to completely interact with each other at the skill and speed that they do today on the internet. >> first of all, it has given voice to millions and it will soon be billions of people who otherwise would not have a

voice. and what are the implications? for politics? for the way we live our lives? for good and for legal? for good, in that, it is like saying that it has amazing mines who otherwise would not have had a seat at the table. and now you have 3 billion additional people will have smart phones and some commit to the internet. ollie's people, these billions of people, will have a seat at the table. -- all of these people, these billions of people, will have a seat at the table, potentially contributing. >> maybe it is revolutionary because, before i came out here, i treated in this event and now

i live in a 140-character world. i don't even conjugate verbs anymore. >> when i think back to the gutenberg bible, he has made it possible for the common person with the priests and the pundits and the gurus had to say. the internet makes it possible for everyone to join the conversation. finally, after the 20th-century commit to look at radio, television, newspapers, magazines, they were pretty much all the same model that could convert started. but today, we have a model for you don't have to have the priest to have a voice. and that is a revolutionary change in the whole history of humanity. but some might say, yes, there's true, but some will say that we're dismissing everything faster. there was no printing press or television. >> dead wrong. this thing does allow for group

interaction. you don't have to know who they are to interact with them on line. this is a very different kind of a collaborative environment that we did not have been many other media. >> all in good thing? >> no. [laughter] >> it is this amazing new chapter in our history. in human history. if you think of adam and eve in the garden of eden -- [laughter] >> they didn't tweet. >> we are living in a garden and we are living in a time of transition. [laughter]

darlings, we're living in a time of transition. but there are snakes. we haven't -- we have identified two snakes and that the garden of eden. i would say the first snake is the danger to hyperconnectivity. we are connected now practically 24/7. it is very hard for me to convince them not to sleep with their smartphone. i used to tell them not to sleep with guys. [laughter] >> what about people who cross the street slow while their texting?

>> there is a town that will give tickets for texting while walking appeared walking. >> the second snake, something going viral, and something that is trending on twittered, can we stop and say if it is worthwhile? >> i have no idea what you're talking about. [laughter] >> i leave the tv on mute when i am in my office.

the other day, i looked up and there was donald trump endorses mitt romney. really? is that news? news would be if he endorsed obama. >> the analogy of the garden did even is interesting. the engineers are adam. no, no, we don't to go there. [laughter] it is when the general public uses the internet that that we go from lead into something else. because it is the whole range of him an incentive and everything else and some that are inimical -- an amicable to society. -- in amicable -- inimicable to society. >> this is a fascinating idea

could this is trending, follow this, follow that. >> we all watch paris hilton and lindsay lohan become major celebrities. and now anybody can create a youtube video and sell or tweet something that millions of people will see it. i agree with arianna. garbage in, garbage out. do we have the filters to only pay attention to what is likely to be important and relevant while, at the same time, not having such fine filters that

block out everybody's opinion? i want to know the information, but i don't just want to know about the echo chamber that i live in. there are also criminals on the internet, whether to harass people or to enter into relationships with people that they might not want to be entered into. there are all sorts of stuff in the internet. >> you are worried about your safety and security. >> we help parents to understand internet safety. but the fundamental issue is that we worry about bullying, but the vast majority dolefully -- the vast majority don't bully. you have to exercise a certain

amount of street smarts to exercise your show. -- to protect yourself. >> i think about tweets that told us that osama bin laden was killed. i think about a article that told us that the article by dan rather about george bush was wrong. we did not have this in human history before. >> the moment that our political system has become so dysfunctional, and away, what is company in terms of participation and engagement is that they go hand in hand. it is the one power that we have appeared at a time when

super pacs can influence elections, when power can drive an entire economy, what is it that can counter that? it is just the fact that millions of people are engaged, involved a man participating. -- involved, and participating. >> when you got into this, did you think that the pipa and sopa reaction online was another example being heard? >> absolutely. that community turned congress around.

it would criminalize allow the government to shut down certain websites. the people who were against that got congress people who sponsored the bill to actual come out against the bill. it was enormous. millions of people signed an on-line petition. we know people who were flabbergasted by the response as a result of that campaign. >> could you ever in your wildest imagination have imagined that we wouldn't appear, with instant communication around -- that we would end up here, with instant communication around the world. >> of course. the whole thing is unfolding exactly the way we planned it. [laughter]

first of all, it is wrong to say just no. we really did appreciate how powerful this could be. we made a couple of decisions in the engineering design that were intended to give this thing future-proof live. number one is that it was not designed to do anything in particular. it was designed in little bits from point a to point b. that is all we ask in the underlying system. everything else is a layer on the protocol stack. it doesn't do anything in particular, but it does everything. tose little bit didn't need know how they were being transported, whether it was a satellite link a fiber or mobile fax. that allows every technology from 1973 to the present could

be swept into and be absorbed and used by the internet. those things were at the top of our heads, trying to make this thing has adapted as possible. we thought we would publish this. anybody who wanted to could build a piece of the internet. then it would begin to grow organically. i would say that is exactly what has happened. >> really amazing. i know you have drawn and the distinction of information, knowledge, wisdom and how the system, connecting or not, those things. talk about that. >> knowledge has three stages. science, opinion, and alienation. we have information about

everything instantaneously. we also have opinions on everything in real time. and then we have what we can call with them. everyone has to agree on that -- what we can call wisdom. everyone has to agree on that. the leader in every field with a great degree is and making decisions several times a day. you look around hand you think is anybody home? [laughter] my point is that why are we making such terrible decisions that such a critical time in

history when we need something better? the hyperconnectivity, the power is always on line. but we never really have any time to connect with ourselves. the story of any great innovator, look at steve jobs. he talked about the problems of solitude. he talked about having come up with innovative ideas. >> but it is not just a generation growing up -- i have watched you. your texting constantly. >> the hard way i learned -- we

started on this journey of recovering addicts. [laughter] >> i think we have a tendency to sell short our young people. it is so true that they are tweeting and facebooking and building content. but it can be acknowledged that kids are smarter than they used to be. we have smarter novation. -- smarter and innovation. they are acquiring knowledge. we will always have people who will fail to be analytical. that information has been out

there for a long time. it does not as if our journalists are the first ones to come out with inaccurate information. we have seen it many times. the financial crisis, sure, i worry about it. but i also see the potential of kids being click on their feet. and they're doing well. >> i had lunch with him a year or two ago and he was very

unhappy. he thought people, especially young people, were too satisfied too quickly with small amounts of information. this is a man who writes 700- page books. but there is an issue there that the instant gratification and instant satisfaction may actually work against this notion of critical thinking and the willingness to find competing -- i worry that we will not in view young people and the rest of us with the consciousness -- will not embew young people and the rest of us with the consciousness for critical information. >> because of the diversity of information, so much coming at us, that is probably the most important thing that colleges and high schools and elementary

schools and parents to be teaching young people. they check multiple sources and beyond that to realize that, just because it is on the internet, that only does not mean it is true, but it the duty to dig deeper. >> how many of you go to google once a day? wow, thank you. [laughter] how many of you go to google five times a day? how many of you who will something more than five times a day? there was a famous piece called "is google making a stupid?" but the the issue really was are we becoming too reliant on this tool?

does it affect your memory? is it our first refuge? >> @ think the problem is when -- i think the problem is when we take this tool and we make it a master. we need to learn to disconnect. there is something that is extremely important and that is sleep. sleep is affected by the fact that they go to bed with their devices. they keep them charging by their bed. the greatest thing that happened to me this year was that i was invited to attend the harvard school of sleep edition. [laughter] you cannot have recharging

sleep if you have the devices charging beside you. how many of you are compelled to look at the day you wake up? you see, that is not good. even if you go back to sleep. how many of you cannot go to sleep now without a sleeping pill? my point is that we have these growing stresses in our lives. paradoxically, we call it gps for the soul. it has a stress sensor.

appll be able to programs for the things that give you stress. whatever it is, you can tell the app, i at 5 minutes. -- i have five minutes. you will tell it what will help you. then it feed that back to you. -- then it feeds it back to you. young people who have stressed will go to that and will help begin to identify stress.

>> larry, will you do this, too? >> it will tell me to call my wife to tell me that i'm distressed and she will yell at me. [laughter] >> this sounds very buddhist to me. it makes me think of robin williams when he goes to new york to buy a honda and he says make me one with everything. -- to buy a hot dog and he says may be one with everything. let's a dive into summer

meticulous about this thing we call the internet and how -- into some of these things we call the internet. he was able to mobilize some people, to give them their time and their money and their commitment. has this changed politics? >> i do not think barack obama would be president now without the internet. they organized around the internet. i remember going to chicago and we had arranged to meet in a hotel. i looked around and looked

around for a couple of minutes because i did not believe that that kid sitting at the table could be him running the political campaign. but that was something that inspired the that relationship. first of all, he made a terrible mistake of abandoning them. the dnc is used basically as a fund-raising tool. you have to have a dynamic and engaged relationship. >> has this means of communication changed the way people run for office and the

way we are governed? >> sure. first of all, they got check it if you make any kind of mistake at any point in your life -- they got you. if you make any kind of mistake at any point in your life, we have this gotcha world where you are always on call in your always accountable for review. but the fact that there can be a -- when done right, you can have a conversation with the voters in your constituency and you can go back to that comment we had during the founding of our country and the early democracy and we still have them in small towns where people are actually involved. >> so it improves our democracy and our ability to connect and participate.

>> when you have a discussion, when somebody can blog and there is a thoughtful discussion -- an unfortunate, it is often abused feared their people the trash anything you say. -- it is often abused. there are people who trash anything you say. but i also see it used very effectively. and smart politicians can benefit from it. also, politicians can use it -- >> i don't see people on the wide -- on the sidewalk saying that politics is so much better because of the senate thing. -- because of this internet thing. but the premise that the president would not have been elected without the internet is an interesting assertion. if the internet hadn't been there, there is a good possibility he would have been elected anyway because of other methods of campaigning.

with regard to the net as a tool, ivory tool has uses and abuses. we're still learning, i think, what those various uses and abuses are and how to deal with them it will not make politics better or worse. it is yet another medium that the debate can happen. earlier, i panetta institute lecture dealt with the presidency. how do you think of the presidency has been changed by this instant communication? the president does not have to hold a press conference anymore. he held a google town hall meeting. are people listening? our people participating? >> one of the great things about the internet is that it

recognizes inauthentic communication. and it responds to authentic communication. it is not enough to manipulate communication. it is almost always with few exceptions manipulated. there is always some other reason. they want to present whatever is going on. there are these rare moments when it happens. but when it is not authentic, it will not create this incredible movement.

>> there is the difference between the public announcement of -- public pronouncement of the president. they're people want to rent facebook -- i have facebook friends to express their political opinions. my friends tend to have some of the same attitudes that i have and there is a bit of a problem there. that will divide the debate that goes on with people are on par with on the committee and around the world. at the end of the day, they don't have the controls to tweet and put on facebook. >> the most impact is where your information comes from, if it is a credible source. so a friend texting you saying check this out, that hasso a frg

check this out, that has a different impact. that is a big change. >> i don't know whether the rest of the people in the audits have had the same experience i do, but i find myself drawn to pay attention to things that other people point me at. i get e-mails saying please look at this or take a look at the facts. that particular fact is important because there are things that happen in the world the detention of policy making faster because the pop-up on the internet. youtube videos have had a huge impact on policymaking and awareness of the events in the world. that is different. this two-way ability to communicate, this horizontal

method, as opposed to hierarchical, and your way to react. you did not better or column of some sort and some of it is crazy, but an awful lot of it is thought provoking it is stuff that you not normally would have seen. >> it is amazing how your voice can be amplified. the airline made the mistake of having wi-fi. i have been mistreated at the airport. so i tweeted it. by the time the airplane landed in san francisco, they had a guy in a red coat there to take care of me and offered me a ride home. admittedly, have more twitter followers than the average person. but the fact that it was amplified probably --

>> i think the lesson here is don't make larry angry. [laughter] a very nice to him good that is interesting. that suggests that someone was following you. >> even if i was an unknown person, it still would have gotten attention. >> they are now recognizing that they can no longer hide behind the glossy ads and disappear. they need to enter the arena. that is why online advertising will continue to grow. the first time we had what we call sponsored blogs, the first one was a big hotel chain.

from day one, we had pre- moderating. >> what does that mean? >> that means that nothing can appear that has not gone through the moderator's. >> how many comments? >> we have had 150 million comments. it is easy to get a story and a blog and get thousands of comments. these are comments that you not believe. you may disagree, but basically, they are interesting comments.

the best comment -- about this hotel company, it was a negative one. the head of marketing went berserk. they wanted to withdraw the campaign. our advertising person said to them, you're in the arena. they will go to facebook and tweet it. the client -- the bottom line is that there was an entirely positive experience because they are is engaged. you can no longer with the drop. it is better to stay there and have a conversation -- you can no longer withdraw. it is better to stay there and

have a conversation. >> 24/7. >> no, eight hours of sleep. [laughter] >> want to come back and talk about the snakes in the garden and talking about politics and how this has changed their lives. imagine what life would have been like if, in the middle of the constitutional convention in this country, alexander hamilton, john jay, madison, they are working on the federalist papers. thomas jefferson is sitting in the back of the room tweeting. [laughter] this was an incredible exercise. i went back and thought about this. what about john and abigail adams, the incredible letters that they wrote to each other. on march 31, 1776, abigail adams wrote "remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. if particular care and

attention and not paid to the ladies, we're determined to rebellion and we will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." that was in 140 characters. [applause] >> if we think about the kind of communication we have had through the ages that is enshrined and has held up. but the library and see shakespeare's original works. i worry about communication that is so temperate, gone. >> they would have been a lot shorter, i suppose, but it would have been a much broader conversation, theoretically one

that did not just include the leak appeared that the average -- include the elite. that the average person in the colonies would have participated. i don't know. we may have been worshiping the sovereign and sipping tea. even today, still, primarily, the elite are dominating the conversation. how can we change that power structure so that the average person to be is part of the conversation? >> let's look at news and information. newspaper ad revenues down in 2011 more than 10%. the enormous times tribune recently announced it will only published three days a week. you have an army of bloggers that you do not pay. are we worried that credible, careful, check-information is

becoming another endangered species in this country? >> i am very sad. i think that is an amazing paper. i saw a column in a " the new york times" today. that is sad. there are casualties of the new technology. but in journalism is not a casualty. journalism can be practiced anywhere. we now have 500 reporters, editors, full-time salaries, and we have a platform. there will be a journalistic enterprise and the platform that provides distribution to tens of thousands of people.

they can write or not right. -- or not write. they can take the advantage of it or not take advantage of it. but most of them take advantage of it because it helps amplify their voices. it is amazing how many of our young bloggers get paid attention to. the become known. >> are u.s. optimistic debt -- are you as optimistic? >> i think "the huffington post" is a wonderful platform. it is the local reporters at city hall that don't get the economy of scale on the international or national level, i don't know how we will pay for them.

i know that television and radio has traditionally lean on the local newspaper. somebody has to pay these people. it is not the printing press that costs money. it is the time. there has to be a way to do it. and i am not sure what will take its place. >> you have local journalists and the community involved in what is happening but in newspaper after newspaper, in -- >> but in newspaper after newspaper, in city after city, editors' jobs have been cut, circulation is way down and it

is a question about who will report that the lettuce at the supermarket is bad or that the mayor is abusing your tax dollars? this is not a crime in some sense. it is economics. the of economics of paper are very different from the economics of digital. you get a larger mass of information out to a larger number people. that was the thing about the newspaper. they wanted to know what was new. because of that, they subscribe to the newspaper. but then you had people taking an advertising because they could see their ads while they were reading. suddenly, more people have the ability to speak and it is faster. and that is the online environment. you don't have to wait for the paper to be printed. the article goes out as soon as the editor says is ready to go out, assuming there are still letters. -- an editor. on top of that, the ads in the newspapers were fixed. the ads in the online ad averment can dramatically change depending on who is reading.

google and others have done well with advertising. the question in my mind is whether we can find business models that will support high- quality journalism which i think is essential. >> are you making more money, enough money with the advertising to hire the investigative journalist who can spend three-six months on a private, to hire the journalists -- on a project, to hire the journalists and others who will travel around the world to tell us what is happening there? >> i think there will be many different models. and our case, david who won the pulitzer for will be on the battlefield" spent eight months -- for "beyond the battlefield" spent eight months. it had great photography and it invited our readers and their lives and their communities.

that is what is so unique about the internet. the conversation does not end at the end of the article. it adds to the story. every story has a list of things. it does not and the people sang oh, how terrible. it provides an outlet. >> i was pleased and proud to see that "the huffington post" won a pulitzer. i remember when you started -- when usa today started publishing. the joke at the time was, they will win the pulitzer for the best investigative paragraph. [laughter] and then it would further for the most investigative sentence. -- and the huffington would win for the most investigated sentence.

>> that is what is unique about the internet. in a sense, when you think about traditional journalism, mainstream media, they often suffer from atv. they -- from add. we take a story and we stay on it. we suffer from o.c., obsessive compulsive disorder. we invite our readers to add to it. it has photography, etc., etc. a story is ongoing. the big stories of our time, unemployment, foreclosure -- >> the question is -- we talked about the revolution and the revolution really is that coming in the old days, the news came to you. the paper came to you.

there were the gatekeepers who said you need to know this one and this one and this one go on the front page. now you go to it. but the question is do you go to that which makes you uncomfortable are unfamiliar or do go primarily to your hardison story is? -- to primarily where your own partisan story is? >> 18 years as a print syndicated columnist, i don't know whether we got 100,000 readers are 20 readers, but we were doing something we thought was important. today, there is an incentive and there are blogs that pays the journalists by the click, by the view. it is not an incentive to wreck -- to write the most important stories in the world, but just to get the view.

you're absolutely right. there is a big danger of people who do what people used to do in print you used open the paper at the business section or the sports section and use it to the front page. -- and completely skip the front page. somebody is making that decision. online, it is possible to skip right past that and it is easy to skip right past that and get an echo chamber, both in the interest you have or the policies you care about but i only care but democrats. i only care about republicans. and that does worry me. and you completely ignored the larger discussion. >> back to the garden of eden, the snake we haven't talked about, we will call it the cyber security snake. the snake and that could disrupt a lot of our commerce, open floodgates on a ban, could -- open floodgates on a dam,

disrupt electricity. how much do you worry about that? how vulnerable are we? >> we are probably less vulnerable than many people say. but we are more tolerable than -- more vulnerable than we should be. there are things that are happening right now to deal with these -- but we are more vulnerable than we should be. there are things that are happing right now to deal with these issues. we also have to pay attention to the fact that the things that you and i do are often -- often create vulnerability. we put information on the net that we probably shouldn't. people use it for identity theft in getting to your accounts and they do their thing. that is partly our fault. we use passwords that are too easy to guess could believe it or not, they're people who use the word password for their password because it is easy to remembered. -- because it is easy to

remember. [laughter] there are things like that and other things that can make the system lot more resilient. that is a process that is ongoing. >> what do you worry about most? >> i think i worry the most right now about viruses and trojan horses that we in just into our computers through our -- that we in jest into our computers through our browsers because, when you go to a web page, you are downloading a file that would be interpreted by the browser. when the weather was first created, the only thing that you're downloading was text from a madrid, and some lay out. it was like pulling -- text, images, and some lay out. it was like pulling a magazine article. in 2013, in addition to that, you are downloading programs

that will be executed through the browser. the problem is that some of those are what we call malware, programs that, when executed by the browser for trojan horses and things. >> what does it do to us? >> once your machine is compromised, it becomes what is called a zombie. now there is a botnet herder. it is like leaving your car in the driveway with the keys in it. someone can use that machine to launch service attacks, to generate spam, to see what bank accounts you're using. those are the things that we need to defend against the most. >> what are you worried about? >> this is all greek to me. [laughter] i am very glad he is here to explain it.

>> the bottom line is you go online thinking perfectly innocently about the things you will download print that goes into your computer. you lose control of your computer and somebody else gets to use it. >> i have to not lose control here. which is not easy because it is time to start taking some of the audience's questions. i want to take a moment to recognize our question review team. this is a moderated conversation, after all. people are responsible for selecting the questions that i will present to our speakers. please hold your applause until i introduce the entire clan. we have the editor of "the santa cruz sentinel."

an attorney with leach and walker. doug mcknight, a reporter for kazu radio. kate mozer, the reporter for "the monterey herald." thank you to all of you. [applause] let me go to the audience questions. what do you all think about newspaper or new site pay walls? will they serve to save journalism? >> what worries me about them is that every newspaper has its own pay well. we will make payment after payment. i'm looking for some kind of signification program where i -- syndication program whereby pay one a reasonable fee, i have to pay a fee, that covers all the various publications. personally, i wish i didn't have to pay for " the new york times," but it is very valuable and i will do it. at the end of the day, i can get "the huffington post" for free.

>> we always be able to afford to give away for free? >> absolutely. "the new york times" is making a decision. we may be different decision. even if it did not have a pay wall, it might have gotten attention. there is the trade-off. a new revenue line will be through apps. if you have a new magazine out, it is -- we have a new magazine coming out. it is absolutely gorgeous. it will have 1500 stories a day.

>> yes. we take the best every week and put them in a setting. that will be the project. but that is a different thing. if you want to have everything carried it in a a beautifulpp -- in a beautiful app once a week -- yocan make it accessible for -- [laughter] >> i was told not to take my devices to bed. >> we can make an exception for this. [laughter] >> observe that the newspaper business was originally largely

funded by advertising. subscriptions were a very small piece. that has evaporated. it seems to me that alternative models, one of which is subscriptions and the others sponsorship, which is something that i think arianna is pursuing. but it is interesting to note that subscriptions or pay-per- view is not the only way of deferring some of the costs. >> here's a question to this point. how'd you get people to click on online ads -- how do you get people to click on online ads? >> unless some it clicks on an ad, we don't get any revenue. >> but they are not randomly placed pierre >> of course not. the whole point is that we tried to present at with information that is useful for people who care about it. everybody says i don't click on

google ads. that is interesting because rakes and $44 billion a year. >> one of the interesting models in ads is personalized ads that you will start showing up in the ads that come to your computer. i know somebody who recently had this very thing. a man showed up for a soccer team. his picture was in the ad that came to him from the soccer game he had just attended. is this the future? >> now that brands are taking root and getting memorable results, remember, for years, they had no clue with the ad

would be good for them not. but they bought it because they thought it would be good for them. but now that we look at the results, this will all change. for me, the most exciting advertising revenue matters is that we will be sponsored sections. first of all, a big part of our dna is a drive to make a difference. we have a section called impact that glorifies people, not for profit, who are doing something good. at the same time, we have 34

sections that are about cars of -- we have dedicated sections that are about the cause of a particular brand. we have mattel and well being around the world. we have one sponsored by johnson and johnson. it has a combination of advertising around one issue. at the same time, many want to have a way to distribute their content. even if it does not about a cause, it can be about -- >> is a media critic for a minute and tell us if there's anything in this equation -- a corporation sponsoring causes in places like "huffington post."

>> i think it is beholden upon "the huffington post" to have a clean wall between advertising and editorial. i think you will. the notion of a sponsored editorial, it does create this chilling effect that, if someone wanted to write a damning critique of johnson and johnson, they might think twice about contributing to that section even if he would publish it. at the same time, companies have to figure out a way to be creative. the whole notion of journalism ethics is changing. whether it is changing for the better or not is an interesting question. but it has to move back. i would look at this with an open mind, but also look at it with a bit of concern to make sure that you and your bloggers

and your advertisers do not abuse this. >> there is no way you can abuse this model. the key here is to make it very clear that it is a sponsored section and make it clear that we have specific sections of people can write about anything. there is no way that anything will be censored because there is a sponsor. this is a way for editorial and advertising can exist. it is absolutely clear who is writing the blog. >> as a journalist, i really enjoy having no clue who will advertise on the page that my article will appear. define new apple was advertising -- if i knew that apple was advertising on the page, i would work really hard to make sure that i didn't favor apple. it is a pressure that i think journalists could do without. >> next question.

>> this is an interesting one. simple, but very interesting. can the internet ever fail and go down? >> the answer is yes, but not the whole thing at once. not since we turned it on on january 1, 1983, the internet has not failed. but for those who watched the egyptian revolution, they shut down all the underlying transmission capabilities for several days. my prediction is that that has gone on much longer -- if that had gone on much longer, people would have figured out use wi- fi, trans-border transmissions to regenerate at least some connectivity to recover from that. so it is an extremely resilience system. it has never police stopped since it was turned on. -- never totally stopped since it was turned on. >> how about china? how're you doing a bit like

china where the government is working to create the great fire wall, it is said, to restrict access to its citizens? >> and they're not the only one. there are 40 states, including the united states, that have done this. >> there are people who want to get around the censorship. we are expanding internationally. where now in canada and quebec and france. we are announcing in spain, india, japan, etc. we would like to be in china, but this is definitely a big issue, censorship.

>> you might be interested to know that the state department has sponsored technology to help people break their way through or tunnel around the censorship. there is a system called tora that allows you to do that. >> in egypt, people are using old-fashioned dial up modem to the internet. -- to dial internationally to get on the internet. people find a way around it. >> how can the consumer evaluate the "information" that is on the internet? >> that is a tough one. the people have to have critical thinking skills. we should be teaching them from elementary school on up. you should look at it with a certain degree of skepticism simply because you should look at everything that way. we should look for multiple sources hand look for the credibility.

is it an organization that is normally trusted? and even if this is, "the new york times" is very irreparable, but the people who do trust -- is very reputable, but the people who do trusted have also been let down. if it is too good to be true, it is too good to be true. a well-meaning campaign about a warlord who is killing people in uganda, but the way in which it was presented turned out to be a bit misleading, perhaps not deliberately, and a lot people had to rethink appeared to be a sort of apple pie kind of a story appeared you have to look at -- story. -- a lot of people had to rethink what appeared to be an apple-pie type of story. you have to look at everything with some skepticism. i don't want a generation of cynics. but i do want a generation of people who say prove it to me and go on and look for the information.

look for multiple truths. >> how is someone here who is checking on their device, dashing for an airplane or what have you, supposed to check 12 sources? >> how many times have you gotten an e-mail from services don't click on this thing because a machine will block or the post office will start charging for e-mail? that has been called snopes. by and large, if it is one of the silly crazy things, they will tell you it is nonsense and it isn't true. everyone to watch, a it is. -- every once in awhile, it is. but most the time, it is not. but it does not take long to figure out whether you have a piece of the misinformation. >> in your opinion, should there be an expectation of privacy on the internet?

>> there is a combination of two things. first of all, teaching ourselves and our children on what to do online, on our facebook account, what to tweak about and what not to. it takes training. it took awhile for them to realize that what they do on facebook is not private. it is private, mommy. is just for my friends. no, it isn't. the's that tell them that next time they apply for a job, their prospective employers -- >> tell them that there it next time they apply for jobs, their prospective employer will be looking at their day's boat. >> -- their facebook. >>they need of training. but beyond that, i do know that there are many ways for information to be used. so we're entering a new world. these are our children. we do not know where this will end. >> i would like to turn the

audience. on the issue of privacy on the internet, how many of you are actually worried about your privacy somehow being compromised online? >> everybody. >> we all are. >> all right. that is profound stop. -- profound stuff. what do you say to them? >> we are living in a world where we have never lived before. if you're caught on somebody's picture, people are putting stuff about you. >> what can they do to protect themselves? >> they cannot. it is easy for anyone to take a picture with a mobile phone and put it up on the net. even know that it has happened until somebody tattoo on the shoulder. i have had this happen to me. -- until somebody taps you on the shoulder. i have had this happen to me. the helicopter landed on the front lawn of the hotel. 20 minutes later, some a tells me you are on youtube.

somebody saw a helicopter landing a thought it was cool. he videotaped it with his mobile. as i get out, somebody says that is vince. fortunately, i was not a black helicopter. -- it was not a black helicopter. [laughter] >> we can control what we post about ourselves. number one, we could not posted. member to come a week have privacy controls, but we know they're not foolproof. nevertheless, there are privacy controls. people who worry about privacy are the people don't take the

time to learn about the controls there are available, whether it is on facebook or google +. >> what do you worry about? >> i worry very little about my privacy. but to the extent that i do worry about my privacy is what other companies and people are doing and could do especially if an oppressive government ever goes chapter google or facebook. -- and goes after google or facebook. especially google. because google has all my e- mail. it used to have all my health affirmation until light truck -- information until that -- until i drop that service. >> do you worry about your privacy? >> i understand the concern of everybody. it is legitimate. personally, i feel that's, in my internet world, i want to be very aware of what is happening, but to circumvent and -- i personally don't worry about it. partly because i'm a fatalist.

[laughter] then i try not to worry about things that are not in money needed control. >> let me go back to what larry was worried about. i am somewhat less worried about what somebody posts about me. i am more worried about things of substance, like my financial and formation, being unintentionally released. the accidents and mistakes are what worry me more than anything else. or maybe a business decision that is harmful because the business decide that that information can be monetized and that would be a bad thing. >> it is like what happened to all of those phony networking

fang. -- sony networking customers. >> a fellow named james christy, here's what he said. this was in a pbs documentary. "during the cold war, we knew who the bad guys were and they had nuclear weapons. there was a finite group and there was a deterrent. but now, anybody can buy a computer for $200 or $3 and the have internet connectivity. and these individuals can have a weapon of mass destruction sitting on their desk in their bedroom." if he is right, you need to be a little more worried. >> i wonder what he meant by a weapon of mass destruction. did he mean a nuclear weapon or a cyber weapon? >> i'm sure he meant a cyber weapon. >> first of all, it is not true that the nuclear threat is over. and it is not just a finite group.

we know that nuclear weapons are much easier to find, high -- one of the things is that the global threat -- there are major threats like that. there are biological threats. there is a whole spectrum of things. >> there is a multibillion- dollar industry focused on try to protect us from these threats. i just came back from the server security conference and they said that there are 100,000 -- they will need 100,000 cyber security professionals in the

next 10 years. it is a cat and mouse game. the bad guys get better and the good guys get better. and there hopefully not too many steps behind them. >> i have a question here just to be difficult. fortunately, i can blame this on somebody in the audience. is it possible for googled not to be evil? [laughter] >> the answer is yes and we are not. [laughter] >> too intrusive? note too much about me? >> action, we don't care too much about you. [laughter] >> well, i don't care much about google either. >> below is not interested persons. -- googled is not interested in person, but patterns.

the analyst was going on. -- that is all that is going on. people at google, human beings are not looking at your e-mail is trying to figure out what adds to put on there. it is a computer algorithm that we're constantly adjusting to what you react to. if you don't click on anything, than none of those ads were the right one. and our algorithm machine tries to figure out why it made that mistake. >> google was seen as the great wonderful new invention. but now it is starting to suffer from the giant pureeing corp. image. -- giants peering corp. image. >> before it went public, it was the company that everybody

loved. i am not so much worried about googled being evil. i am worried about any future management might do. and again, what some oppressive government might do with their data. but google is in the business of trying to get us to click on ads. i think it's a very straightforward. >> one of the things that the panetta series has been during the last couple of years is looking at the revolutions of the 21st century, one of which is in business. connect the internet and business for me and for us for just a minute and playoff that revolution. calms are estimated that in the third quarter of last year, there were about $50 billion of the commerce convicted on line. -- conducted on line. it is up 14% cred and it goes up every -- of e-commerce committed online. it is up 14%. and it goes up every year. what is the revolution, as you see it, that the internet has brought to our economy?

>> we know from the success of amazon and how much a company can sell one thing online and continue to sell everything online. i was that a microsoft conference a couple of weeks ago. first of all, it talked about how he was willing to fail. they're willing to try things that are risky and that are not successful the first time. i think the ones that will be more successful in times of business are the ones who have that kind of conscience. -- culture.

the need to disconnect made the point that he had to disconnect himself and go off completely for two or three days at a time. and that is where innovative ideas have come from. we're dealing with a brave new world and you don't know all the precautions for the consequences for the snakes in the garden. but we ought to be very alert, very vigilant and constantly innovating. that is one of the great things about this culture. the same applies to how you monetize it. there will be new ways of monetizing that go way beyond how of the internet started, with the big banner ads and everything.

at the beginning of the internet, how could you get as many people as possible to come to your site? that is gone. that is no longer a problem anymore. how many people can you get to take whatever you produce and have them talk about it? ubiquity is the new expressivity. -- the new exclusivity. >> the next question to the audience. >> wait a minute, can we pick up one thing? this has a lot to do with consumer interaction with business. but business-to-business interactions are taking off and that has been greatly automated. the massive amount of business that will be conducted over the internet, business-to-business

will largely swamped the consumer business. >> ultimately, it will not be with people, but machine-to- machine. >> what do you mean? >> i mean machines talking to machines. a machine telling the server that it needs to be resold -- to be refilled. we see parking meters that interact with the central server. machines that exchange information with each other, automotive engineering revolutionized by machine-to machine where it the need to know when you're driving down the road, all of that will take gone -- -- will take over. >> our cars are not cars anymore. they are rolling computers. >> most of them are not yet willing -- rolling machines, but

very soon. >>there is an interesting app that i found called next the buffs -- next bus. so there are gps devices on every bus in the city. i can as how many minutes from the next best to my stop? when it says four minutes, i can walk out and the bus pulls up. it is an amazing thing. it works 50% of the time. [laughter] it is almost there. but we try for protection. -- perfection. i wanted to ask the audience how many of you are a engage in some form of social media? wow. google +? a few hands, you see? >> how does that affect business?

people are communicating directly with one another. they are praising, revealing -- reviewing, engaging themselves in this commerce? >> i gave the delta example and i had a recent example with chase. i just said something very nice about amazon. i was presently -- pleasantly surprised when i had to return an item and i call the company and a human being who spoke perfect english took my call. [laughter] [applause] i was so delighted. >> you got through to a human being? how does that happen? >> businesses have to pay attention to people. now they can go on twitter and facebook and get some attention.

>> i think that is incredibly important. it is one of the most of powering things. -- most empowering things. that is how this conversation, about the greatest revolution being the empowerment of people. who otherwise would not have had a voice. now the question is are we using this new power to power business, to complain effective way, to be massively distracted? >> something that we should talk about is how this technology, how this connectivity is affecting the way we learn. education, teaching, the absorption of information -- we have seen suggestions of a revolution, but not a real revolution yet. is one coming?

>> i think one is in the process of happening. just as there has been in music -- as and in journalism, we will see -- just as napster disrupted music and we will seem technology disrupting formal education as we know it. universities and even k-12 schools had better be thinking about how to adapt to a future when, not only do not need them to learn, but also we don't necessarily even need than to conventional us -- to credential less. -- to credential us. you can document what you know and what you can do. i know how to program in c++. they can validate that. i am looking for a programmer. rather than going to stanford

or berkeley or san jose state or anywhere else,maybe i can go to this web site and find this competent person. they have to find a way to cash in on that and adapt to that. there are amazing educational videos that are blowing people's minds with appeared to have to -- blowing people's minds away. they have got to find a way to deal with that or they will find themselves -- >> you have some real experience. >> the one who design their cars that drive themselves, the director of research, their professors at stanford and they wanted to teach a class on artificial intelligence and they decided to do it online. it but maybe 500 people would sign up. 155,000 people signed up. now what? it took a lot of graduate assistance to grade them. [laughter] taughtss's can be entirely on line. all of the questions can be

automatically checked by a computer. >> 150,000 people online? >> over the course of several weeks. 20,000 actually passed the course. i think that as more people than has ever taken artificial intelligence class's since its inception in the 1960's. >> can i come back to your question about revolution? it occurs to me -- gutenberg's invention gave people the incentive to read and to learn to read. it pushed literacy. the internet is giving people the incentive to write or produce films or these other things to express. i have not until tonight but

those two things together. -- put those two things together. i think that is a dramatic difference because we are now people who generate as well as people who absorber. >> that is incredibly important. -- people who absorb. >> that is incredibly important. we used to continue sitting on a couch. -- a friend of mine said it best. he said, we used to come soon sitting on a couch. now we continue galloping on a horse. -- now we consume the galloping on a horse. it is a much more active involvement. it is not even consuming. it is now extracting ourselves. -- expressing ourselves. self expression is the new entertainment. many media and it does not understand that are still puzzled that some many millions of people are doing this. they don't get that appeared nobody is -- they don't get

that. nobody is making them do it. they can sit on the couch for seven hours on and watching bad tv. why is that entertainment? why isn't blogging entertainment, or facebook entertainment? or whatever it is you want to do. people want to be a part of their time. >> if you could get paid to do that -- i actually agree with you. it is an amazing revelation of communication and democratization of opinion. >> this is by no means taking the place of investigative journalism or long form writing. it is just that we're all real

calibrating. >> there is another snake, right? the publishing industry is collapsing because people are some -- ourself publishing. hardwick -- hard-cover books are becoming another pass as people download what they are using. usually, it could get sold for a dollar. the publishing industry is collapsing. the books that you could buy for $37 are becoming a thing of the past. the music industry isn't a record store anymore. i can buy an album. >> it is better than it was ai can go online and i can buy that song and that's wrong and not the whole problem. and it will market is -- his public appearances. his other activities. people have to find ways -- we will have to create new business models for films. i worry with journalism. there was a it theoretically purism in journalism. journalists are not out there hustling and selling and

compromising themselves. on the other hand, i'm not set any more because i think there -- i am not terribly worried anymore because i think there is a way of things working out. at the end of this process, this ugly kind of dirty process, something better will come out. >> one of the other ones we looked at was the middle east. if we think about the world, this leads to the next question from the audience -- the recent arab spring uprising was largely coordinated by the internet and twitter. some dictatorial regimes try to sensa them. -- sunn saur them. -- censor them. how can the internet support and enhance freedom and democracy in developing nations? >> in some sense, it already has. although, i must point out that revolution's like the arab spring do not always turn out the way you hope. tunisia has worked out pretty well. egypt is not so clear, depending on how their elections go. libya is another question.

syria is still ongoing. there is the importance about the influx of mobile's into our communications and garment. -- communications environment. it is more dramatic than the internet. this is the fastest growing phenomenon 5.5 billion mobile's are in use today. not all of them are smart phones. not all of them are internet- enabled. but at least 25% are and that percent will go over time. -- go up over time. what is important is that the mobile is not just a programmable the vice. -- programmable device. when it is important is that it can communicate with the rest of the internet. when youtweet, -- when you tweet, you send it to the internet and it generates a hundred thousand copies. the leveraging effect of being able to get online anywhere, anytime -- you can exercise the hp and the information on the internet.

that is what is making that combination so dramatically powerful. i think that combinati by itself will help spread democratic thinking around the world. >> the internet is a tool. before we had the internet, we had bullhorns. we had mimeograph machines. before that, we had other ways to communicate. we have had many revolutions in our history. so it is a tool. i spent a lot of time in the middle east. everyone says that the conditions on the ground worwere ultimately what caused the revolutions. it was not the internet. it facilitated and perhaps sped up the process and the accelerated the process. >> they're so much more easily organized by using twitter and facebook. the fact that the -- the explosion, which is much more significant around the world.

even than the internet explosion. >> glacier care writes that the revolutionary element -- clay sharkey writes that the revolutionary element is available to everybody. you should read him if you care about this topic. he argues that, for the first time, it is to everybody. >> that is the a empowerment. the everybody to the everybody. iot -- it makes it harder to be a dictator. >> that is the empowerment. it is much harder to be oppressive. after the iranian revolution, the green revolution, where it torso important -- where twitter was so important to spreading the information around the world. while cnn and other traditional

media had been censored by the regime. china had an uprising. they learned from what the iranian government had done. the iranian government censored -- the chinese government censored immediately all of the social media, the internet, everything. instead, they invited journalists to the place of the uprising to spin them in a traditional of presser regime way. -- traditional oppressive regime way. it is much easier to spin a couple dozen journalists than it is to spin a couple million people on twitter and facebook. let's go back to the soviet union. so many conventional journalists -- summit credentialed journalists -- so many credentialed journalists. it would have been much harder

to spin a generatino -- generation of people on twitter and facebook. >> how many in the audits have written a letter, with a novel and a stem, in the last two weeks? look at that. that is great. ok. [laughter] obviously, this person did not have that effect. -- that insight. [laughter] the question is is the post office obsolete? >> no. >> somebody has to deliver those amazon.com purchases. [laughter] >> i did some research on the post office before coming here appeared in the mid-1700's when -- coming here. in the mid-1700's when this republic was first being established, it took about two weeks, as much as 14 days for a letter to go 109 miles from new york to philadelphia. it would take months for ambassador jefferson to send a

letter from france, from paris back to washington. if your overseas and wanted to send a letter, you didn't know if it would make it on the ship. the post office museum says that people would write five letters and send them on different ships so they knew it would come back. it was expensive to send a letter and the typical american columnist received a letter -- american colonists received a letter a year. >> wow. >> how many do you get? -- how many e-mails do you get in a day? >> the day that they were following me around, i think it was over 500. >> 500 e-mails in a day. what does that do to us? how do we deal with all of this income -- -- does anybody here suffer from e-mail overload? [laughter] >> i have become famous among my friends and family for not responding to e-mail could not

because i don't want to. i literally do not see it. in the enormous quantity, i accidentally ignore -- accidentally ignore important messages. >> what does that say about us as communicators, as correspondence? >> what i find amazing now, compared to the past, we sometimes think that we have to respond to each e-mail as we get it. it is the equivalent of sitting office or in your home and then the doorbell rings and it is the postman. every time there is the postman, you have to get a letter, open the letter, and reply to the letter. w never did that -- we never did that. somehow, there is a sense of urgency when getting an e-mail. but now, if you really want to send something -- if you really

-- it has to be texting, not e- mail. my colleagues at work -- if you really want to get my attention, i may have two hundred e-mails i have not even looked at. >> what will you do with that? you cannot possibly respond to that many e-mails. >> i do. >> you do? >> yes, i do. it is very simple. >> you take your device to bed with you. [laughter] >> i think it is like -- >> what you read and think and when the absorbent attachments -- what do you read and think and when do you absorb the attachments that somebody has sent you. >> but that is a very good point. anything that has an attachment -- every week, i get it from the editors that report to me. i e-mail it to another

blackberry where i can read them -- i read them when i have time. you are never going to be able to absorb a long thing. my instant communications are instant. i hyave -- have four blackberry's. i have one for my daughter. they are charged in a separate room, not near my bed. they have a number where they can reach me. that is one of the excuses people and give. -- people give. somebody has to be able to reach me. i have to have it. i was talking about -- he needs to be available.

get a special number for them. another excuse is that you need it as an alarm clock. by my bed, there is an alarm clock. beautiful, vintage-looking alarm clock. -- a landline. -- >> i actually have a landline. [laughter] [applause] yes, it has a wire. >> but people don't call any more. >> spoke, yes, they do. clacks -- oh, yes, they do. [laughter] >> you're in washington, political calls constantly. >> thank god for caller id. [applause] >> the fact is -- >> there is something that we have not really touched on. not just here, but generally as a culture -- it is the impact,

the fact that people do not calling more or -- do not call anymore or that we do not except accept phoneot calls from numbers that we don't recognize. we obsess over polling results. it does not address the question how accurate they are really given that most sane people -- -- most sane people refuse the calls. [laughter] who is it that is left? i think there is a very small minority. very bored americans. they talk to strangers. shouldn't we be re-evaluating -- >> i know a little bit about this because i am currently doing a poll. you have online panels. i'm sure it has its own set of biases.

the polling industry has really had to rethink strategies pierre -- strategies -- >> first of all, because people don't have landline sprint secondly, because i do look at caller id. if it is a number they don't know, they don't pick it up. i am sure you have all been robocalled. if you have been vulnerable and lonely and you pick up the phone and their is a pause because it is a robocall, you hang up the phone. i do. i know most people do. polling has become much more difficult. is it less reliable as a result? how are you getting to people who would not otherwise pick up? >> there are a number of companies out there that have online panels of individuals who have agreed to this debate in these things. -- agreed to participate in these things. i trust they are doing it accurately. they do it in such a way that they claim to be representative examples of the people they want to call. -- want to poll. that is one strategy.

i did not know how perfect is. even though i got a graduate degree in that field, that was long before the internet technology. >> i have a question from the audience here. can libraries pass copyright -- can libraries get past copyright issues to digitize books and check them out? >> you will remember that the big fights over the ability to copy portions of printed material led to the notion of fair use. it is unique in the u.s. i am not sure that many other countries have their use -- have fair use laws. the libraries are our friends in that regard. when andrew carnegie was pushing libraries, as a lot of the publishers would -- which started making arrangements with libraries to do character recognition so they could be discovered.

-- to scan books and do optical character recognition so they could be discovered. the purpose was to allow computers to find the books that have information that you were looking for. it was not necessarily to make the book available that way. it was to make it discoverable. so libraries could conceivably help, but they will face the same argument that we have had to cope with. under copyright law. copyright in its current form is way too restrictive. the creative commons idea and other ideas like that open the broad range of alternatives to the creators of these works. it strikes me that we should be thinking more about how to allow officers to choose -- allow offers to choose 0-- we should be thinking about how to allow authors to choose how they want

to share information and not be confined to current copyright issues. but the other problem we have run into is that books that are no longer in print are very difficult to identify the owner of rights to books that are no longer in print anymore. they're not registered. it is not required to register these works in order to validate copyright under the current bern convention, which we adopted in 1976. it says basically any time you create something, you have instant rights to it, even though nobody knows that. we have a problem of not knowing even where to turn to clear rights to books that are out of print. we need to fix some of if that is registered, it would make it -- we need to fix that. i think a better regime is to use electronic registration. if that was registered like real estate, that would make it somewhat easier to find the party that is to be compensated if they wish to be compensated. >> we have just a few minutes remaining. we have a question from somebody in our audience. it helps to bring the

conversation full circle and to a close. as a high-school teacher, what is the most important thing that i should be teaching my high-school students about the digital internet world? >> critical thinking to begin with. the other thing is to realize that specific content is much less relevant than the ability to acquire knowledge and interpret college. -- and to interpret knowledge. the facts are commodity. what is precious today is the ability to understand and analyze. part of critical thinking is being able to look at the information around you and being able to make some sense of it and to be a producer. in addition to consuming information, go out there and set up your own blog. create a school blog. whatever it takes, be an active player in this revolution. i think that schools need to encourage that. i think schools need to encourage the use of social

media inside the classroom so that it is not completely relegated to outside the classroom. just because you think the kids are more tech savvy, you have some wisdom. give that to the kids. >> what do you see on the horizon? the next big thing that this digital, internet-connected world holds in terms of its promise? >> three things. first of all, more mobility, higher speed access, more use of artificial intelligence for translation. and then the fourth thing, going off the planet. there is an interplanetary internet already in operation. it is on its way. the next step is interstellar. dark but is supporting a study to -- darpa is supporting a study to develop a craft to do that. [laughter] >> top that, arianna.

[laughter] >> that is a perfect segue. we say the next big challenge is going to be planetary. i think the next big challenge is inside ourselves. there are multiple uses inside ourselves. we need to remember to look at them and we need to remember not to be distracted by the glow of -- the glories of the internet. >> machine-to-machine communication. and machines as agents. instead of telling the machine what to do, it will just do it for you. >> it is only just beginning. whether here or on mars. thank you all so much. [applause] our wonderful audience. as always, the panetta institute. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> here is a look at our schedule. next, remarks from tennis champion billie jean king not equal opportunity and pay for women athletes. after that, an author discusses his recent book, "the american spirit," which makes the case for american exceptionalism. then former presidential candidate ross perot talks about leadership lessons from his life and business and military service. later, president obama takes part in a july 4 naturalization ceremony for active service members. >> but today, for a very specific reason, i want to focus on two men in my life who were at my graduation. i know they would like to be here today, but, for reasons i will mention later, they could not make the trip.

these men are my dad and my grandfather. they taught me what it means to be a man. they both are these outrageous spirits with the most corny jokes imaginable. they would show to my graduation and both of them would be like a stereophonic, bad-joke telling machines. my grandfather, this big man would sidle up to me and say, you see, boy, the tassel is worth the hassle. [laughter] yes, granddad. he would look to their program and see, i see that you are not magna cum laude, you are just, 'thank you lawdy.' >> you can watch this whole discussion. there is a commencement speech from elon musk, who created pay

paul and the tesla electric car -- paypal and the tesla electric car. and tomorrow, "road to the white house burch continues with president obama -- >> tomorrow ""road to the white house -- >> tomorrow, "road to the white house" continues with president obama on a bus tour of two states. >> the life of a sailor includes scrubbing the debt in the morning, working on the sales, climbing the loft, whatever duty is assigned. by the end of the day, you are ready to rest. you do not get a full eight hours of sleep. aboard a ship like constitution, it is four hours on, four off. >> this weekend, the life of an enlisted man aboard the u.s.s. constitution during the war of

1812. >> the sailor would be in fear of the possibility of being whipped by cattle nine tales. it was always carried by a petty officer. -- the cap 09 tales. tails.cat o' nine you did not want to see that coming out of the bag. >> this weekend, more from "the contenders," our series on key political figures who ran for president and lost, but changed history. sunday, former new york governor paul smith -- al smith. >> next, remarks from tennis champion billie jean king on equal opportunity and pay for women athletes. she also talked about the future of women's professional sports and ways to empower young girls to start playing tennis. held at the national press club, this is one hour. >> good afternoon. welcome to the national press

club. i am the 105th president of the national press club. we are the world's leading professional organization for journalists, committed to our profession's future through our programming and event such as these, of fostering a free press worldwide. for more information about the national press club, please visit our web site, www got breast or. website, www.press.org. on behalf of our members worldwide, i would like to welcome our speaker and those of you attending today's event. our head table includes guest of our speaker, as well as working journalists who are members of the club. if you hear applause and the audience, we would note that members of the general public are attending. it is not necessarily evidence of a lack of journalism objectivity. i would like to welcome our c- span and public radio audiences.

our luncheons are also featured are member-produced weekly podcast from the national press club, available on itunes. you can follow the action on twitter using #npclunch. after our guest's speech concludes, we'll have a q&a. i will ask as many questions as time permits. i would like to introduce our guests. i would ask you to stand up briefly as your name is announced. from your right, peter foster, you as editor of the daily telegraph of london. -- u.s. editor of "the daily telegraph" of london. a senior associate in the arms button and then -- in the ombudsman office at pbs. jane wattrell, general assignment reporter, nbc 4. the chairman of the board and president of the u.s. tennis

association. allison fitzgerald, freelance journalist, chairwoman of the speaker's committee. i will skip our speaker for just a moment. a reporter for "usa today." david haggerty, first vice president usta. a u.s. navy retired national press club member who serves as a member across usta advocacy committee and military outreach. and larry bivens from gannett. thank you, all. [applause] on september 20, 1973, the world watched as billie jean king stepped on to the tennis court in houston to face bobby riggs, then one of the world's greatest

tennis stars. in the lead up to the event, riggs had boasted of his tennis prowess and belittled female players. he called the not professional tennis players in fear. indeed, it was common but not in the way he thought. a year earlier, congress had passed from -- had passed title ix. the benefits had not yet reached women's athletics. in 1972, just 29,000 women played varsity sports at the university level. compare that with 170,000 men. in high school, the disparities were even worse. fewer than 300,000 high-school girls played varsity sports compared with 3.7 million high school boys. king had just helped found the women's correctional tennis tour at that time when men's tennis was awash in prize money and sponsorships. that year, billie jean king won u.s. open, but earned $15,000

less than the male chimp. she said she would not play the next year if the tournament failed to even up the pot. in 1973, the u.s. open became the first major tournament to offer equal prize money. [applause] when she stepped into the astrodome that day, she had a message to deliver. she delivered it in straight sets, beating riggs, 6-34, -- 6- 4, 6-3, 6-3. the sunday times of london called the drop shot and volley heard around the world. the mass did not change tennis -- winston -- the match did not just change women's tennis, it changed tennis. it is funny how when a woman does something, the only thing we affect half of the population, king said. she went on to found a women's tennis magazine, the women's

sports foundation, in between winning 39 grand slam titles in doubles, as singles, and mixed doubles. she won her first wimbledon doubles title at the age of 17. the next year, she upset the no. 1 seed margaret court in the first round of wimbledon. from 1966 to 1975, she dominated the sport. for six years, she ranked no. 1 in the world. she breathed -- she beat world- class players such as a martina navratilova and chris evert. president obama awarded her the medal of freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. if your daughter has ever won a trophy in her competitive sports league, it is time for a tip of the racket to king. since that fateful day in 1973, gross participation in high school sports has increased over 900% -- girls' participation in

high school sports has increased over 900%. will tell you, there is still ground to cover to make all sports opportunities open to all. please join me in welcoming billie jean king. [applause] >> thank you. that is very kind of you. [applause] those were kind words. i did not remember a lot of it. [laughter] i'm so glad that c-span is here today. i am so glad we had a healthy lunch. thank you to susan. did you guys decide what the menu is going to be today? and also want to say thank you for all of our servers being so kind to us, taking care of us.

it means a lot. it is a pleasure to be here today. do you realize, i have never spoken here. and i am 68, never too late. [laughter] i am really happy to be here. thank you, teresa, thank you, national press club, all the officers, board of governors, the members of the nbc speakers' -- npc speakers' committee for having me. i'm thrilled to be here. i've certainly watched enough people speak here, thank you. to john, who was are reintroduced by teresa, our chairman and president of the usta -- we have a lot of people from usta here today. we are covered. i love it. we of people from the mid- atlantic section. -- we have people from the mid atlantic section. are they here today? i thought they were going to be here. anyway, just a you know, the -- just so you know, the usta is the national governing body of

tennis and there are 17 geographical sections. we happen to be in the mid- atlantic section. the states are virginia, west virginia, maryland and all these -- and obviously the district of columbia, just so we're very clear for anyone that is not familiar with our sport. i think it is important that you know that. i would like to thank the ceo of community tennis. just about everything will be talking about today comes under his leadership, so i want you to stand up, kurt. [applause] thank you. he is a heck of an athlete too, believe me. to all of the board of directors that are here, i really appreciate you being here. also, the two people the problem -- the two people who probably help me the most to get prepared today are barry ford, director advocacy, and also derrick johnson, and character of -- the director of corporate

communications. where are you? thank you. thank you, whit. many of you know me as a tennis player. some of you know i am a social activist. i am proud of this achievement. i am one of over 27 million recreational tennis players. in fact, according to the sporting goods manufacturers association, tennis has been the fastest-growing traditional sports since the year 2000. we currently have over 800,000 adult league participants from 18-88. -- i just made it. [laughter] and that is just adults. as you know, tennis has been a huge part of my life. it changed my life. i was blessed to have a great

career. i wish i had won more. [laughter] given me my platform. -- but more importantly, tennis has given me my platform. it is a platform to continue my lifelong quest for equal rights and opportunities for boys and girls, men and women. since i was 12 years old, i had an epiphany, and i promised i would dedicate my life to that goal until the day i die, and thanks to tennis, i was able to have a platform. and thank you bobby riggs. that also gave me a huge platform. [laughter] for several years, many of you in this room have been encouraging people to pick up a racket. but why? because tennis is the sport of a lifetime, and it can be enjoyed by people all ages and all abilities.

the usta invests 100% -- 100% of the proceeds from the u.s. open for their mission. if you come to the u.s. open and buy a ticket, you are helping community tennis. the mission statement is to promote and develop the growth of tennis. in 2011, just last year, the u.s.t.a. invested almost $50 million for public courts, scholarships and grants. that is a lot. most national governing bodies do not do that. they are usually always asking for money. the usta -- the u.s. open keeps growing. who knows what 2012 will bring? recently, somebody asked me to name a huge turning point in my life. there were a lot.

think that your own life and the turning point in your life. you never know how person is -- how person is -- how a person is going to touch your life or how you are going to touch there's. you never know. so stay alert. [laughter] that's go back to rewind, fifth grade, i elementary school in long beach california, where i was born and raised. susan was sitting next me. thank god her father had just been transferred from new york for his next job. she looked at me and said, do you want to play tennis? i looked at her and said, what is tennis? [laughter] i remember, i had played at tons of team sports. i said, what do you do? she said, you get to run, and you get to jump, and you get to hit the ball. i said, those are my three most favorite things in sports. i will try it. let's go. we go over to her country club and reply.

-- and we play. i came home. i had fun and i thought, and guess i will get to play it. we were also on a softball team. at softball practice, susan said, billie jean king played tennis. at softball practice, our coach said, they give free coaching here every week at the park. i heard the word free and thought, there might be an opportunity for me to play more. so i go out, and i am on the court with clive barker. -- with clyde walker. i will never forget this day as long as i live, because of the -- at the end of the day, i knew what i wanted to do with my life. i wanted to be the number-one tennis player in the world. done. my poor mother picked me up. she said, did you have fun? i said mom, i know what i want to do with my life. let's go home.

i want to tell dad and my brother. come on, come on. i mother is going to be 90 in about two weeks. [applause] she still remembers that day. we still have a good laugh over it. she says, you are still going. what is going on here? she is funny because she did not really care. my younger brother was a relief pitcher most of his career with the san francisco giants. a good righty, good slider. that is my baby brother. my poor parents did not care if we were any good, but here's what happened. most people i know play in clubs. i meet people all the time that think it is a country club sport. i go ex-squeeze me? i don't think so. over 70% of tennis is played on

public parks. in public parks. and i am one of those kids. like i said, i am a public park kid. let me name just a few past champions -- and i mean number one in the world -- that come from public parks. just to refresh your memory. i think you have heard of arthur ashe, who was no. 1 in the world. chris everett was number one many times. stan smith. jimmy connors, serena williams, venus williams, just to give you a few of the champions that have come from public parks. because everyone's initial reaction, they think we came from a club. it is not true. public parks. i am happy to say that the usta is investing in public parks by helping to build and refurbish courts and providing programs and countless communities throughout the country. these tennis facilities have become safe and fun community

has. in the past six years, the organization has build or -- has built or refurbish 25,000 courts in the u.s., and by the end of this year, we hope the we if completed 30,000. things just keep rolling along. [applause] also, the usta is very focused. in fact, the entire community is focused on this 10 and under tennis initiative that has just gotten started in the last three or four years. this initiative is going to help fight childhood obesity, which we all know is an epidemic in this country. we are going to get kids active. we know at the women's sports foundation that if a girl does not exercise, by the time she is 10 years old, she only has a 10% chance to exercise the rest of her life. this 10 and under initiative is

vital to help that. not only do we want to get them started, we want to keep them going, forever. the great thing about the 10 and under initiative is everything is smaller. the courts are smaller. the racquets are smaller. but the balls are actually bigger. [laughter] this is good. this is good. i will tell you why. here is what it looks like with a regular tennis ball when a child plays. i feel really authoritative here. when the children play, they're hitting all their shots appear. -- shots up here. they get all these goofy grips and as they grow older and grow taller, everything is not quite right. what happens with these balls is they are slower and they bounce a little lower. they bounce around the center of gravity. that is the strike zone.

if you play baseball, you know where that is. that is where you want it. that is the sweet spot, the point of contact where you hit the ball it really helps. you would not believe the success these children have hitting the ball back and forth in a long rally. that never happens, usually. they are whiffing at the air. they go back to the fence. , so now it is fun. this way, they are going to stick to it. what is good for kids is good for us mature people. i qualify. this helps us too. we do not have as much space to cover. the ball is a little slower. i like it. this keeps everybody playing forever. i love it. it is great. i tried it after i had my knee operation to have my knee replaced. i said, this is for me.

i have a chance -- this is fun. and i can play with the kids that way too. it makes a really fun. that we get a lot of generations together. it is really fun. i love it. the great thing about tennis too, it is an individual sport and a team sport. you have choices. the other great thing, both genders play it. a lot. i am talking about from the grassroots to the professional. not a lot of sports can say that. we do not have an nfl for the women. we do not have major league baseball for women. if you want me to keep going, i can. i want you to think about how great tennis is as a sport. it takes care of all of us and i love that fact. today i want to introduce mark, who is the owner of the washington cassels, one of our -- the washington castles, one of our world team tennis teams. that is what i do with my life. mark has really gotten into the

10 and under initiative. so has the city open the comes after the u.s. open initiative. i know you guys to a king of the -- guys do a king of the castles play date. everyone is getting behind it. i think it is so important. all of our teams, all of the professional tournament all get behind this 10 and under initiative. if you go to a washington cassels match, you're going to see kids running around, playing on these smaller courts with a smaller racket and a bigger ball. it is so much fun to watch the kids. so far, we have done about 5000 kids courts and we are making tennis accessible in urban areas. you can play anywhere. to not get too fancy with it. none of these opportunities, none of these opportunities

would happen without the tens of thousands of volunteers that love our sport so much. i want to really think the volunteers. lucy is the third woman president of the usta. you know what i'm talking about. you are great with the sections. dallas. -- dale knows. it is so important to really honor our volunteers because without them it does not happen. every section has it. every community tennis organization, everybody. the usta after-school program reached 1 million kids last year alone. also, we also have the national junior tennis learning network. it was co-founded by arthur ashe, charlie pasarell, and

sharon schneider, and we have over 606 chapters in the united states come and -- in the united states nationwide. nationwide. by the way, sidebar, arthur ashe and charlie were roommates at ucla and they played on the men's tennis team there, fyi. they are my era, so i know. [laughter] the nttl provides tennis -- they provide tennis opportunities and also teaches children life skills. it is over 250,000 underserved youth each year. it is fantastic what they're doing. trenton, new jersey. a chapter there. i think david hired the first vice president. -- i think david, the first vice president, his dad was real involved in thehis dad

was real involved in the park were they played. michelle bellama, non michelle obama, began playing in trenton during her sophomore year of high school, which is pretty late. leader -- michelle became an instructor and leader in trenton. she received a four year scholarship and attended drew university. she was named all conference champion and was the most decorated female tennis player at drew. her family immigrated from africa and she was the first family member to attend college. with a turning point for -- what a turning point for michelle to have that opportunity. you never know. since 1994, usta serves, which is the charitable arm of the usta has provided $107 million -- has provided over $10 million in funding for tennis and education programs to over 170 communities. deborah larkin, the executive

director is here today. she is fantastic. she is a tennis nut. she plays usta leagues. i have known her for many years, a dear friend who has done a great job. she is a go getter. she is perfect for that job. in just the past few years, starting in 2003, they provided over $3 million in college scholarships. another very important area is -- they have funded hundreds of adaptive tennis programs that allow people with disabilities to enjoy tennis. we're covering everything. get those checks out. we are checking off everyone. the military out reach program -- we haven't finished. more to come. the usta has a military outreach program that supports more than 100,000 of our military and their families at home and abroad.

they provide tennis facilities and programming on bases throughout the u.s. and other initiatives. like adopt-a-unit. adopt a unit provides tennis equipment so that military members can enjoy the sport in the precious downtime they have. i know that first lady michelle obama and dr. jill biden would be thrilled to know this. if they do not know already, they will know soon that i am -- they will know soon becaus e i am very fortunate to be on the president's council for nutrition and fitness. like the u.s. army staff sg ergeant from shell beach, calif., while stationed in southwestern afghanistan, usta sent a care package that

included nets, rackets, balls, and instructions. andy and his fellow soldiers made a court on flattened mud and gravel. i told you, you can do it any place. they said it up and thanked the -- they set it up and they banged the ball around. i hope it relieved some of their stress. i cannot imagine the stress they must go through. it is crazy to just take a racket and smack of all. -- and just smack the ball. you do not heard anybody. -- do not hurt anybody. it is very good therapy. you do not heard anybody. -- hurt anybody. it is fantastic in you feel so -- fantastic and you feel so much better afterward. we want tennis to make a positive difference in the lives of others. the u.s.t.a. continues to reach out to national policy makers in hopes of developing a partnership that will impact more communities and lives.

we want to ensure that every child has an opportunity to get the best education possible. we want to partner with communities across the country to create safe, healthy communities for everyone. the usta is more committed than ever to make tennis more a accessible. our goal is simple. grow tennis and make it look like america. that's good. let's go to q&a. [applause] >> thank you. before we get started on the q&a, i inadvertently left out a board member of the usta. thank you for coming. [applause]

>> is the 40th anniversary of title 9. do you think it is still needed and if so, should be changed or expanded, and how? >> well, it is the 40th anniversary. it was passed june 23rd, 1972. one of my she-roes is -- [laughter] congressman green of oregon. she is no longer with us. it was her idea. and she was called the mother of education. the other person who is one of my heroes is senator by who was in the senate and introduced the bill. patsy from hawaii. these people were fantastic. she was the first person of color in congress, the first female, i think. i think it is female. i usually have this right. i'm having a -- i am not going to call it a senior moment. it is a brain cramp.

i ask kids who are 21 what they call it when they do not remember something. they say, what do you mean? i say, do you remember everything? >> absolutely not. everybody is stumped. when you are older, it is "oh, senior moment." not! anyway, as far as title 9, it was about education, it was not about sports. that is how it originated. sports was tagged on as a last minute thought. before 1972, the quotas at the harvard of the world were 5% if you wanted to be a woman doctor or a woman lawyer. these are our forward-thinking educators. a woman could not get an athletic scholarship until the fall of 1972. and there were not very many in the fall of 1972, and tell you. there were hardly any. a lot of schools resisted changing along. as far as title 9, women are still 160 million behind every

-- 168 million behind every year in scholarships and opportunities. when you read the sports section, you will think we are terrible because we are hurting the football program. we are hurting the men's sports. believe me, both men and women sports are being dropped in certain universities and colleges, and the one thing i keep telling them, do not get rid of tennis. tennisget rid of men's or women's tennis because we are a lifetime's board and we have -- we are a lifetime sport and we have obesity in this country and we should be encouraging lifetime sports if we are going to be a healthy nation. in the military, they go to pre-boot camp before they go to the camp now. we have got to make this nation strong mentally, emotionally, and physically, and keep tennis at the universities and colleges. [applause] sorry, i get a little wound up.

>> since there on the topic of obesity, aside from destroying all computer games and information technology, what else do you think could be done to change behavior so that people get out and move? >> it is interesting because just two weeks ago our president's council just joined forces with -- yes, we did, we joined forces with the entertainment software association, which is videogames. as you know, there are a few games were you actually have to be active, like dance, dance, revolution. a lot of people do not want to do sports, but they will do that. great. just get moving. that is all the matters under the first lady's let's move campaign. we have joined forces with them. they are going to do many more active video games. they will be part of the answer. the average screen time is 7-8 hours a day, pathetic. it me television, computers, but -- it can be television, computers, but make sure you have the top of your hair all died because -- all dyed

because everyone sees the top of your head now. [laughter] i am in an elevator and everybody is on the phone going yeah, baby. it is very important to get kids out side. we need playtime. even if you can make kids move for one minute, move your arms, move your legs, sitting on a chair, gets your circulation going. a little kid like recess because -- like recess because he can get the wigglies out. i can focus. this is a pretty good word. they are so cute. these kids get it. we have to get them out. nutrition -- we've got to find ways to get our kids moving. as a parent or caregiver, we've got to set the example. we have to live it.

we cannot just tell them what to do. they watch for action. -- they watched our actions. they don't listen to what we say. take a walk with the child, or maybe the child will take a walk with you. sometimes children change adults. obesity is going to be a bigger cause of death and health challenge than smoking. it is done now. obesity is our main challenge because of heart disease and all the things that are happening. we need to really help each other be active and make it part of our lifestyle. it will not be easy. parents, teachers, everybody, we've got to do it. it is preventable. we can do this as a nation. we can do it. sorry, i am getting wound up. [laughter] >> does the current generation of athletes understand the challenges that you face? -- you faced? >> every generation has a different frame of reference. in all fairness, i always try to think a person's age and what their frame of reference

must be. when i grew up, it was amateur tennis. we made $14 a day. one of my first she-roes was althea gibson. althea gibson was the first person of color to win anything. people of color were not even allowed to play in tournament. -- to play in sanctioned tournament until 1950. that was not long ago. i was very fortunate to see althea gibson in person in los angeles and got to watch her play. that changed my life. i have only been in the game bang for two years. -- i had only been in the game for two years. it is important to see each person and where they come from. i did not expect them to understand. we just had a reunion of the original nine. we started women's professional tennis. that is not about wanted it. -- that is not the way that i wanted it. i wanted the men and women to be

together, but they rejected it. so we went to plan b period . we started our selves. we signed a contract in houston, texas in 1970, and that was the birth of women's professional tennis, the way we know it today. do i expect maria sharapova or venus and serena williams to understand that? we can tell them, and their sensitivities are good, but they did not live it. just like i am not living with the pressures they deal with. they are very different. look at the money-management they need to do. [laughter] i would like to have that challenge, i must tell you. i love money. it creates opportunities. i am not very high maintenance, so i just give away, most of it, but it is fun to make money and create opportunities for people. there are different pressures. that are much better players today than we ever dreamed. if i could get one shot to they if i could get one shot to they like they do, it would be