straight ahead on a tuesday on "the cycle" the sound of silence. hope floats in the search for flight 370, but it is fading fast. as the sunrises and crews resume their search in one of the most remote parts of the world, the nagging question remains, what are they looking for? >> leading politics this afternoon, payday at the white house. president obama uses his pen to write a midterm message to the republicans on torre. if you think politics aren't involved here, our first read team has a warning. >> the sports headline today. the uconn huskies are top dogs, but millions of bracket busted college hoops fans may not be calling them man's best friend this afternoon. i'm abby huntsman. connecticut already made history, and they could do it all over again tonight. >> often the out of control world of parenthood. it's not just a hit nbc show. the scientist who says if you're not putting parenting and experimenting in the same

sentence, you're doing it wrong. >> all that plus i will make one thing crystal clear, al gore did, in fact, invent the internet. well, sort of. sflimplts we come on the air with hope. it's now been 32 days, more than a month, and we've had somewhat promising days and some days where the despair of the families range louder than anything we could hear from beneath the vast ocean floor. we thought we would take this day to reset as all parties involved try to step back and assess the progress made and the immense challenges that lie ahead. >> this is day 32. the battery life expires on the device at 30 days, but

experience with the kit from around the world is that they usually last longer than the 30 days. we don't know if it is, in fact, related to that missing jumbo jet. crews continue to chase the pinging sound heard over the weekend, but in reality this unprecedented undertaking is giving new meaning to searching for a needle in a haystack. ian williams is about as close as you can get to the search area in perth, australia. >> the u.s. navy's ping locator working around the clock has not been able to reacquire that sound signal it detected twice at the weekend in which was consistent with an aircraft's black box. that means they've not been able to pinpoint where that sound came from and launch a submersible vehicle to check it out further. now, the search coordinator here angus houston said they wouldn't give up listening until they

were sure the black boxes had stopped transmitting. don't forget, the batteries in a black box have a shelf life of just 30 days, but he said the previous experience suggests they do last a few days longer. they warned that the search wool take time, and there's a lot of noise in the ocean, and when it comes to detecting sounds in water, he said funny things happen. this is day 32 of a search that today involved 14 aircraft and 14 ships. they've yet to find a single piece of wreckage. the ahs ramian defense minister david johnston was here in perth, as he described the search for mh 370 as a herculan task. back to you. >> thanks for that report. nbc's tom costello has been on the story with us from the very start, and he starts us off once again in our washington bureau. tom. >> hey, guys. good afternoon. so, yeah, a mixture of frustration and optimism at the same time. this, you may recall, these are

the arks that the engineers identified as being possible flight paths for flight 370. the chinese heard the pinging they thought over the weekend. we haven't heard anything about that since. this is the area that the australians heard pinging on sunday, but they have not picked it up since then. that's two days now that's gone by without pinging. meanwhile, they've now isolated the search zone by air to an area that's about 30,000 square miles. we say only 30,000 square miles. that's because it's down from this huge search zone. one time the state of alaska was comparable in size. what are they listening for? they're listening for something like this. [ beeping ] that's the pinging, the sound of pinging that they should be hearing coming from the black boxes. as you heard ian say, nothing in the last two days and the concern is the batteries may have already died on the black box. the other very interesting point here is it's entirely possible that the signal from the black

box that as they move through the water, they get bent, and they curve, and they are distorted dramatically. we have heard oceano fwrafers and audiologists tell us this the last few days. the fact that they're not hearing anything may be a bad sign. maybe not. we don't know. here's the topography that they're working in. the portion of the indian ocean, it's about 1,000 miles off of the coast of australia, and we're talking about an area of volcanic plat wroe. it's called broken ridge. the problem for investigators or searchers is that you have depths in this area that range from about 1.8 miles all the way down to 3.7 miles. they believe that the depth in that area where they thought they might have heard the pinging, that was somewhere in the neighborhood of three miles deep. imagine now you have got a launch of a search effort for something that's three miles deep by mapping the pitch black

ocean floor for any signs of anomalies or irregularities, and then in a best case scenario, you come across something. you then send down your photographic equipment. you photograph the wreckage. you hope to identify within those photographs the black boxes, and then the recovery effort begins, right? ultimately what you would have to do is drop a submersible vehicle with claws down three miles to the depths of the ocean. we've never ever launched a recovery effort that deep before, and you would have to try to pick it up, pick up a black box, and carry it three miles up through very, very different temperatures of water, different layers of water temperature in the water, and ultimately up to the ship. the cable alone, the cable that's three miles long, this is a massive effort, and i talked yesterday by phone with the ceo of the company that here in maryland, by the way, that may end up getting that call to come to perth, australia and help

with this. in a best case scenario, he says, with although support equipment, which is literally housed in trailers like a tractor-trailer rig, you would have to fly all of that to perth. you would put it on the ship and then get the ship out to the location, out on the water three, four day trip. by the way, you have to weld is all down to the ship itself, and before you can even begin putting it off to the side of the ship and into the water, you're talking about ten days to two weeks at the fastest rate possible. they don't even have wreckage yet. this is going to be a month or more, maybe even two months at the best case scenario. guys, back to you. >> all right, tom. thanks so much. captain timothy taylor knows the ins and outs of searching for this plane below the deep ocean waters. he spent more than 30 years searching the ocean for missing objects. he is currently the president of tiberon subsidy service that is specializes in underwater robotics and technologies. captain, you just heard that report from tom costello, the

difficulties of even if we find -- if we relocate the pings, if we find where the black boxes, the difficulties of being able to actually retrieve it from the floor of the ocean, is this even possible. >> it's possible, but it is extremely difficult and probably even more difficult than did he in the short sen op sis. we're getting into depths over three miles. the auv's on site are good up to 2.7 miles deep. a whole new set of equipment will have to be put on place. as he said, it's going to -- they have to find it first, but bringing it and finding it up and bringing it up, this is not months. it's probably years. especially since wirnt is coming on now. >> what makes it so difficult is there's no wreckage on the surface of the ocean, so all of this is happening underneath the water, which makes that very, very complicated. as you are alluding to, this could take months and months, maybe even longer than that before we even get our hands on the black box. what does that mean then? once we get our hands on it, is that too much time? >> have you two searches here.

you still have a debris search for the families. if they need closure. that's going to happen first. the black box is the forensic study of what's happened, and they'll find wreckage there too, but they're probably going to find wreckage floating before they get to it on the bottom and locate it. you have two sempz. >> i thought you were done. sorry. once you realize that the battery on the black box and the pinger is probably dead, how does that change the search? what then do you lean on? >> well, it could be like that satellite till emtri that they got and they had to do all new math. they may take the pings they have currently and with very limited resources, it is data. they may be able to piece the puzzle together and narrow the search zone down, but then they go out as you just said in a slow meticulous search of the body with gear that -- the biggest auv will cover -- every day you launch an auv, it probably takes three or four days time to do it, if you did the math. >> and that pinger they were

using, detected those pings within the first two days. was that just a stroke of luck? >> it could have been luck. i mean, this story is -- every -- it's written like it was written because every time something looks like it's over, something miraculous happens and they find a satellite picture or in this case the ping. very likely it could be the last ping, but as you noticed the geology is extremely rugged there, so sound can bounce off of things and you could get a pocket of sound where you get outside of that you don't have it, so it's not just a flat plain. it's very difficult. >> you wouldn't say yet that if we had -- if those were, in fact, pings from the black box and we haven't heard them again, you wouldn't say that means that the battery is definitely gone dead? >> i wouldn't say that. there's another thing. in deep water, there's a deep sound channel. that sound -- because of pressure and because of depth and because of at the particular time, sound can get in it, and that's a good thing because now you can locate this when you're

not exactly right on top of it. especially that towed pinger rate. it's 2,000 to 40,000 feet deep. whale kz talk throughout the ocean in this channel. >> wow. >> there is that consideration if they picked up the sound that was in that channel and then they can do the math back. if the chinese ships ping was good enough, they can use that data. there's enough data out there that the search will continue on to water. i'm more than guaranteed that they will do some kind of underwater search. just how you narrow down that search drill and make a choice of where they're going to look. >> some hoechl information there. thank you very much. >> up next, what you say can matter. the small step president obama hopes will trigger giant leaps for women in the work force. it is equal payday here, and the cycle rolls on. tuesday, april 8th. before larry instantly transferred money from his bank of america savings account to his merrill edge retirement account. before he opened his first hot chocolate stand calling winter an "underserved season".

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>> president obama used equal payday, and it's no one's favorite holiday ho to highlight how far women and minorities remain in the red whether it comes to what they take home, and he was joined by lily ledbetter, the face of the fight against employment discrimination. the president used two executive orders to bypass congress in & advance his midterm message about income inequality. one essentially gives whistle blower protection to federally contracted employees who discuss their pay with colleagues, and the second and potentially more potent will require those federal contractors to disclose payment data broken down by gender and by race. in this case the white house

says transparency is their main goal. >> i have two daughters, and i expect them to be treated just like anybody's sons, and i think about my single mom, working hard, going to school, trying to raise two kids. all at the same time. i think about my grandmother trying to work her way up through her career. and hitting the glass ceiling. >> the president's event today comes as senate democrats push the paycheck fairness act. first introduced last year. basically a similar means to the end is what the president did today.

>> it means people know whatting their colleagues make who are in similar positions to make sure that if you find out, look, i'm doing the same job, we have the same responsibilities, but i am making a lot less than my male counterpart, then you can take action. >> well, as the president pointed out, lily ledbetter, if she had that transparency would have been able to sue and fix her situation much more quickly than she ultimately was able to, but igor, one of the criticisms from republicans is that this is just a political move that, the president is just trying to score political points here. this always bothers me because to start with, this is a real move for federal contractors, and it makes a real difference for people who work in that sector. even more to the point, political moves can be important in and of themselves if they push towards real world action. >> i think so. here you are talking about $400,000 in lost wages for a

woman over her career. i mean, that's really astronomical, and i think there are coalitions that can be built here. i mean, you know, some businesses who are on board, but then i think republicans should be on board for making sure that women have access to equal wages, that you can increase their wages across the board. that gets them off those government programs they constantly want to shrink. building up consumers, lifting people out of poverty and wages, it's the kind of thing paul ryan talks about, but this would actually go some way towards accomplishing. >> as the white house is making this push, there's an article in "the times" today about the fact that even there they have more male employees and top roles than females. there's a pay gap of their own. at some point it sort of seized on and exploited, perhaps, overly dramatically, but i do think it is important to recognize because it shows how even without any overt discrimination, which no one is alleging about this

administration, in fact, they've been inclusive, but when you don't have true diversity up to the top of the echelon or corporate ladder, then you still wind up with these disparties. >> yeah. there are a lot of different factors here. women being pushed towards lower paid jobs away from some of the higher wage jobs, and women also making different choices. choosing to have a child, start a family, and not having the programs like universal pre-k and paid sick leave to really help them, you know, in advancing their career. >> igor, i think any issue, you have to consider what do the massive americans sxpt then what does the tiny elite of the richest americans want, and then you can start to understand the issue, and so here basically we are asking wealthy americans who are the job createors to pay a little bit more to some of their employees to get gender equity, and, of course, they're going to resist that and the lead politician who's are in their pocket are going to resist that for them, and the center for responsive politics points at something very interesting to this idea that there's a huge

gender gap among big donors, so the 644 donors who hit the aing gat limit in 2012, 78% were men, so basically we have a bunch of rich men in business and in politics who are deciding whether or not women are going to get equal pay. >> well, it seems that way, but i would say that those men are also at least rhetorically coming out and saying everyone is for equal pay. we're for equal pay. we don't want to do anything about it and think the whole thing is a distraction from obama care. at least they understand, look, the public is on the side of equal pay. we have to at least be there somewhat. >> yeah. as crystal alluded to this morning, lily ledbetter is such an important piece of this conversation to actually have a story that we can all look to to advance this conversation, but igor, thank you so much for joining us. in addition to being equal payday, an important note for ice cream lovers. it's also free cone day at the ben and jerry's. they taste even better when it's free. talk about a treat your news

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built for business. a sobbing oscar pistorius took the stand for the second day in the south african trial. he described in vid detail the events leading up to him shooting ask killing his girl friend. >> i just froze. i didn't know what to do. i heard this noise. i interpreted it being someone who was trying to get into the bathroom. the first thing that ran through my mind was that i needed to arm myself, that i needed to take reeva and i and get my gun. >> tfr the second day on the stand for oscar pistorius, and the second day in a rethat he could not contain his testimony to the skenled end of court. emotionally unable to proceed

the judge concluded ending court early, but along the way oscar pistorius did get the first blow by blow, detailed account of exactly how and why he says he shot and killed his girlfriend and not an intruder, as he thought was the case when heard a noise at 3:00 in the morning valentine's day, 2013. along the way he provided a couple of details, made a couple of claims, and prosecutors will no doubt jump on it cross-examination. among them, that it wasn't just he who was awakened at 3:00 in the morning. steenkamp herself was also awake asking him if he could not sleep, and it was at that time that he heard a noise, he said, that convinced him immediately that an intruder had gained entry into his apartment. his thinking then, testified, identify got to protect myself ask reeva. i have to arm myself. i have to get my gun. he got his gun claiming that he called to reeva to call the police, phone the police, he said. he walked down the passageway in terror towards the bathroom, shouting all the way, shouting to reeva, shouting to the intruder to leave, and though he

didn't hear anything from reeva, though he didn't confirm her location in the apartment, when he turned the corner and faced that locked bathroom door, he fired the shots, and he said before i knew it, i had fired off four shots. only later discovering his tragic mistake. he says at that point he put on his prosthetic legs and went to the balcony, and he began shouting to god and reeva and to any of his neighbors for help, shouting repeatedly in a way he had never shouted before, presumably awaiting the testimony of those four prosecution witness who's said they heard a woman screaming and heard an argument between a man and a woman before the shots were fired. oscar pistorius, when he finally broke down in court, sobbed for long minutes even after court was adjourned. he will be back on the stand tomorrow. mike taibi, pretoria, south africa. >> the clean-up continues over parts of the midwest and southeast from that dangerous line of storms. people had to be rescued from homes and from cars, and it appears the tornado touched down in north carolina.

the severe threat continues from many areas this afternoon, but scattered storms expected from new orleans to northern florida and once again in the carolinas. i'm apparently in charge of that now. the uconn huskeys are the undisputed national champions and millions of brackets have gone through the shredder. they pulled off what many considered the impossible last night against the eight seeded kentucky wildcats as the seven seed, the huskies, became the only to ever win a national title. star point guard shabbaz napier was named most outstanding player. back on the uconn campus, students erupted shortly after the win, and it was a mostly peaceful celebration. a couple dozen students were arrested. the scene could play itself out over again tonight. that's because the undefeated laet lady huskeys will take on undefeated notre dame in the women's championship game. >> democrats have enlisted their own all-star to step up to the fight to protect voting rights ahead of this year's midterms.

a new on-line video, vice president joe biden takes aim at suppression efforts and last year's supreme court decision on the voting rights act. >> if somebody said i would have to make a pitch for protecting voting rights today, i would have said you got to be kidding. but last year when the system cut the heart out of the voting rights act, it opened up the floodgates to voter suppression, voter suppression efforts nationwide. this year alone there are almost 15 restricted voting rights bills under consideration nationwide. >> this video comes amid new research on voting process and how we're doing. pew charitable trust just released their election performance index for 2012 analyzing how states and the country faired on issues ranging from turnout to polling technology to wait times. the charts allow to you compare performance over the past two presidential electrics, and according to their research, 2012 was actually better than 2008. joining us now is the director

of pew's election initiatives, david becker. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> so let's start with the good news here. the improvement to 2012 over 2008, what accounted for that? what improvements did you see? >> well, there were several things we saw nationwide. for instance, wait times, the amount of time people waited in line to vote actually went down in 2012 compared to 2008 by an average of about three minutes. now, that wasn't true everywhere. places like florida did see very long wait times on average of about 45 minutes, but overall nationwide wait times went down. in addition, we saw some very positive developments like on-line registration, which was offered in only two states in 2008, was offered by 13 states in 2012, and now it's up to about 18 states. >> yeah. you mentioned that about on-line voter registration. it was interesting reading that part of the report because it does show an area where there's progress and in a modern world, why can't you vote or at least get registered on-line? i wanted to ask you sprefkly, though, in the same vein about

whether you think it's a good idea in the voting rights amendments act, which is what john lewis, jim sensenbrenner bill that you know about, of course, what they would do under the that bill would actually require any changes in the last six months before an election to be published on-line on the internet. that's not currently required. do you think that kind of national requirement is a good idea? >> i think it's something that's certainly worthy of consideration. i think sunshine is the best disinfectant in many circumstances. that's, of course, what we're trying to do with this index is to put out the best objective data that's publicly available on although states so that we can compare the states across election cycles, compare them to each other, and see how well each state is actually performing and offering election services says to voters. >> now, i have to say, most of the republican efforts to restrict the vote in my opinion are counter productive. they're unfair. i think the wrong direction for the party, but there's one rule actually we might be in favor of, and that is at least having a first and a last name on the

ballot. i'm just saying. you know, in all seriousness, i mean, the lines are still an issue. you make the point that it actually went down three minutes from 2008 to 2012, but you look at a state like florida in 2012 that had an average wait time of 45 minutes. i mean, that means there were so many people that waited for hours and hours and hours. i mean, who isotology do that on tuesday when you are working? is it so crazy to say let's have elections on the weekend? let's make an event out of it? let's make it as easy as possible for people to vote. >> well, of course, many states are already doing that. there are states that are saying you don't have to vote on election day. you can vote in the days and even weeks up before election -- an election occurs if you want to vote in pirn, and you can vote to always -- you can choose to always vote by mail if you want to. there are states like colorado, for instance, that allows you to vote by mail for all elections and allows you to vote by mail for a particular election and allows you to vote early in person well before election day or show up at the polls on election day like we always

traditionally have. if you look at a state like colorado, they did quite well. they were fourth this year. >> did the id have an impact in either suppressing votes in a particular area or motivating folks to go out to the polls because they felt their votes were attempting to be suppressed? >> well, we didn't look at voter id laws per se. they vary so much between states. some of them in some states you need a small number of photo id's, or you can't cast a ballot at all, and in other states you can have a large number of id's, and fine you don't have that, you might be able to cast a ballot. one thing we try to do with the index is show what the data shows. what is -- what's occurring with turnout in the states relative to other states? for instance, in 2012 turnout did go down nationally in almost every state turnout went down. if there was a big drop in turnout, that would be something to keep an eye on. also, if there were long wait times, if wait times went up in a particular state, if there were more problems reported due to registration problems, for instance, those are things that

states should probably take a look at as they have this conversation about what impact the policies they've chosen have had. >> absolutely. it's great info and really helpful. david becker, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> up next on the 50th anniversary of the greatest legislation of the century. trey sits down with civil rights leaders to discuss how far we've come and where we're headed.

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focussing on civil rights issues. president obama himself delivering a key moat address. you just interviewed several members of the cbc about all this. who did you talk to? >> representatives marcia fudge, greg meek, and kelly. >> he is a president of all the people. even the people that don't look like him, that didn't vote for him, that didn't want to see him win again. >> he realizes that, you know, his election as president did not end racism in america. he also realizes that individuals would love to undercut his presidency by trying to say that he was just a president for a few people. what he is trying to do is outfox them so that he could get done for the folks that he needs to get things done for without them trying to put him in a box as if he could only deal in one area. history is going to record the president as making

accomplishments that he did not do specifically in the name of african-americans, but a lot of those issues helped african-americans. where the difficulty has been is you need a partner, as we talked about before, when you are president. president is not a king or a dictator? you need a partner. once he got elected, you have folks that are just straight out won't compromise and anything that barack obama says he is in favor of, they're against. >> we can't pass up employment insurance. what do we expect people to do if people can't eat or they don't have money coming in? then they can't spend the money. not only it affects the people that need to receive the unemployment, but it affects the economy. >> one party has decided we will not allow anything to go through as a maefrt of course. >> that's true. >> how do we get out of that? >> one of the things that i personally do is try to make relationships of some sort with my republican colleagues to allow them to understand the things that are important to me

are probably things that are important to them as well. i have decided that there are enough of us in the middle who are moderate, who want to move this country forward, that if the leadership would allow us to do our jobs, we could do an awful lot more. >> thanks for that report. this week as anniversary is being celebrated across the aisle because the civil rights act of 1964 profoundly changed american society for the better. it was the first modern law that applied the constitution's equal prediction clause to individual and private discrimination. not just state governments and also barred employment discrimination and gave teeth to some longstanding efforts to end racial discrimination in our schools. historian clay risen argues that while the law was the most important piece of legislation of the 20th century, the popular story about it distorts history and often misunderstands legislative policy making in general. he set out to correct some of that record in a new book "the bill of the century" the epic battle for the civil rights act, and he is here at the table. welcome. >> thanks for having me.

>> one of the things you talk about in the very start of this book is the idea that when we look at the civil rights act's passage as only a product of, say, lbj or mlk, we're just missing out on the reality of the bipartisan and grassroots interplay that occurred and, as i mentioned, that that runs the risk of us not learning the right lessons for today. >> it both deserves enormous amounts of credit -- there's no denying that. there were so many other people involved, both inside the government and in the grassroots around it who were not only pushing for a bill, but then helping to shape the bill as it moved through congress. that's not unique to the civil rights act. that's how legislation works. so today when people ask, well, why can't obama be more like johnson, well, that's not the whole question. you also have to look at the whole context in which both presidents were operating. >> thank you. you talk about that all the time. you can't just sort of yell at people in the bathroom and get

stuff done. one of the key functions, key dynamics within all this is the southern democrats, right? why they didn't compromise to get a weaker bill as they had in 1957 and 1960. very interesting stuff about them. you say that they operate as their own party and that they were democrats in name only and that ultimately they misplayed their hand. >> absolutely. i mean, you are right. they had in the past compromised, but, you know, the southern republicans were already a force. they were already emerging. they started to win elections in 1960, and, you know, they were running to the right on race, and they were forcing these guys, these southern democrats, to really sort of strengthen their own position, but, you know, the bill was so big that, you know, they were looking at this and saying this is our last chance. yeah, i think they could have compromised a little smarter. maybe that would have been the way to go, but, you know, they really felt themselves with their backs against the wall. >> yeah. it was going to happen. one of the people that you highlight that i didn't know anything about before i looked at your book is j. erwin miller, who was an industrialist, very religious, and he played a key

role in galvanizing sort of religious support for the civil rights. >> and big business. i mean, he was this guy. he was the head of cu mmi ns engine that was based in a small town in indiana. he was someone who is a very progressive minded industrialist, and he was willing to bring both his role as a religious leader, he was president of national council churches, but also as a business leader to sort of organize both of those spheres which hadn't been involved in civil sxrits to bring them to the issue, and i think it made a big difference. >> not too long ago was so contentious and was so dif icive and unfathomable to think that we would one day be celebrating it as a country and coming together as a country. i mean, we have presidents from both sides of the aisle, not coming together over a tragedy, but over celebration. >> it was a bipartisan bill with a lot of -- there were a few republicans who voted against

it, but the majority in both houses voted for if. that was really the southern democrats who opposed it, and the beauty of the bill is that it is something that worked across the aisle that people across from each side came together to pass. i think it's fair to say also it is one of the crowning auto chiefments of liberalism. it is a federal government program to stop racism, and it's something the conservatives and republicans have said, yeah, that's a fair role for the federal government. your book goes a long way towards adding elimination. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> absolutely. >> now, how are you advancing the civil rights dream? let us know on our facebook page. the cycle.msnbc.com or tweet us at _#advancing the dream. we will be replying. shifting gears about everything about parenting that you ever wanted to know but were too tired to ask. and how not to end up with veruka salt as your child. >> no, i want one of those! >> wonka, how much do you want for the golden goose?

>> they're not for sale. >> name your price. >> she can't have one. >> who says i can't? >> the man with the fun where i hat. >> i want one. i want a golden goose. okay ladies, whenever you're ready. thank you. thank you. i got this. oh, no, i'll get it! let me get it. uh-uh-uh. i don't want you to pay for this. it's not happening, honey. let her get it. she got her safe driving bonus check from allstate last week. and it's her treat. what about a tip? oh, here's one... get an allstate agent. nice! [ female announcer ] switch today and get two safe driving bonus checks a year for driving safely. only from allstate. call 866-905-6500 now.

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[ female announcer ] f provokes lust. ♪ it elicits pride... incites envy... ♪ ...and unleashes wrath. ♪ temptation comes in many heart-pounding forms. but only one letter. "f". the performance marque from lexus. but only one letter. when folks in the lower 48 think athey think salmon and energy.a, but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. thousands of people here in alaska are working to safely produce more energy. but that's just the start. to produce more from existing wells, we need advanced technology. that means hi-tech jobs in california and colorado. the oil moves through one of the world's largest pipelines.

maintaining it means manufacturing jobs in the midwest. then we transport it with 4 state-of-the-art, double-hull tankers. some of the safest, most advanced ships in the world: built in san diego with a $1 billion investment. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. and no energy company invests more in the u.s. than bp. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that's not a coincidence. it's one more part of our commitment to america. what was supposed to be the family trip of a lifetime has trigger aid debate about parenting. a san diego couple planned an around the world sailing adventure with their two young girls, age 1 and 3, and it ended

with a daring at sea rescue because their 1-year-old was sick, and their boat ended up at the bottom of the ocean. now they face a wave of criticism on-line with many asking what were they thinking taking that trip with toddlers? the father said they were as prepared as possible. family members defend them as great parents. were the kauffmans giving their kids an amazing experience, or putting them in danger or both? the truth is parenthood is full of tough calls and there's no rule book. our next guest set out to write one. dalton conley, a professor of socialology and medicine at nyu. when he had kids, he raised them as a scientific experiment which tested which theories worked and which didn't. he shared the results of his new book parentology. i want to talk about the definition of parentology. you call it being a little bit more improvizational, jazz parenting. what is jazz parenting? is there a hip-hop parenting sf is there a disco parenting, a rock 'n' roll parenting? >> it's definitely disco parenting.

i don't know about the others. the idea of parentology is we live in a complex scientific technical economy, and so in today's world, there's not one size fits all approach to raising successful kids or well adapted kids. really you just kind of need to roll with the punches, but don't do just whatever comes to your mind like take your kids out on a pacific ocean when they are just recovering from an infection. really be guided by the science, read the science critically, and then try it out on your own kids, revise your hypothesis, involve them like it's a learning moment, and then move on and in every decision as you say there's a lot of tough calls, and we look to scientific evidence, but we need to understand how to interpret it and implement it ourselves. >> well, you talk about how important it is as a parent to be flexible. that's a difficult thing, i know, for many people. i'm not a parent yet, but that's something i am concerned i won't be as good as. when you put your kids through these experiments, was there ever a time where you wanted the rules to apply where you said, you know what, maybe we

shouldn't be so flexible? >> definitely now that they're teenagers, i'm having a little bit of -- >> re thinking. >> yeah. for example, i used to bribe them to do extra math because i knew how important math is i kn math is for all these academic exams and so forth. so i basically set up an economy of gummy bears, video game time and money. and it worked in the short time where i got them to do extra math and they did okay on the test that they needed to pass. but now my house is like a turkish bizarre. how much money do i get? so a little regret in there. but i'm adapting. >> we've created that monster in my house hold, as well. now my daughter thinks that she can get something for even like the most basic of tasks. but i'm intrigued by this idea of really involving your kids in the sort of parenting decisions. i think the traditional way is for parents to say this is how it is and this is how it's going to be and not allow any of that

sort of negotiation or input from the kids. but you find that to be helpful? >> i do actually think that you get ultimately more agreement and more cooperation if they understand the logic of your decision. a lot of parenting books say give them a false choice. like do you want to take a bath or a shower. >> my daughter does that to me by the way. she says can i have a cupcake or cookie for breakfast. >> draw. so i would say that actually them understanding why a cupcake or a cookie is not the best idea for breakfast scientifically is going to have a longer term effect and actually that is part of raising them, giving the so he so he accurate tick method. sometimes you do have to say because mom said so, but most of the time i think if you have the time,accurate tick method. sometimes you do have to say because mom said so, but most of the time i think if you have the time, it's worthwhile to engage

your kids so he accurate particularly. >> and i love the concert of jazz parenting.accurate particularly. >> and i love the concert of jazz parenting. the cycle has been like a father figure to me and i sort of recognize the kenny g vibe. the question i want to ask you, we have so much science, but for a practical parent who reads one or two things, when should they use some of this stuff and when they should go on their own instinct without any books? >> i would argue that they should not be reading the 7 habits of highly successful parents or five ways to raise a perfect child because there is no one formula. my book tries to explain this is the fishing rod. this is how you read the latest study that comes in on your twitter feed or on your facebook postings that if you don't breast feed your kid, they would have ten points less iq. well, let's look at the study,

let's not panic. actually it turns out that breast feeding has no affect on iq. so relax. half the time it's debunking the science that is out there. and also every kid is different. so you need to learn how it applies to your own kid. >> dalton, thank you very much. if you thought the relationship between joaquin phoenix and his phone was hot in her, wait up you you hear about the one between siri and uncle sam. krystals th has the details nex. in a small cage. so that was our first task, was getting him to wellness. without angie's list, i don't know if we could have found all the services we needed for our riley. from contractors and doctors to dog sitters and landscapers, you can find it all on angie's list. we found riley at the shelter, and found everything he needed at angie's list. join today at angieslist.com

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government is not the solution to our problem.

government is the problem. >> this is a great phone. but it's so much more than that, isn't it? the i phone has become an iconic symbol of american capital list tick greatness, of the kind of job creating innovation that could be unleashed if only government would just get out of the way and let the lords of the private sector to their thing. what if i told you that all of the most important technology enabling the iphone was actually the result of government research? from the lithium ion batteries to the touch screen to the liquid crystal display, the technology that makes the iphone possible was all brought to you not by this guy, but by this one. and that is not even to mention all the tech that makes the iphone smart like gps, the internet and even dear siri. the collective source of apple's success is detailed in the entrepreneurial state, a terrific book that systemically debunks or mythology around the role of government and the role of the private sector in risk

taking and innovation. contrary to our notion of the swashbuckling entrepreneur who innovates and takes all the risk and is therefore justified in reaping all the rewards, throughout history where we see game changing invention, we usually find the government. google search engine, hybrid cars, fracking boom, anything that uses the internet, all can be traced back to government inventi invention. three-fourth of molecular biopharmaceuticals owe their creation to you, and me and uncle sam. and this is all great. government should be investing in r&d. there are risks that are too large for the private sector to take on. and investments in the public good that the government will make, that no corporation ever would. it's also not to minimize the real contributions that a brilliant architect like steve jobs has made. but we seem to have completely forgotten that government plays

an indispensable role in innovation. that is because government risk taking entrepreneurial is an inconvenient fact if your political agenda centers around lowering tax so is that corporations and venture capitalists can keep all of their publicly supported windfall. after all, how can you justify the top nine apple execs making about 15,000 of their retail employee. if you understand the collective nature of apple's success, how can you look the other way as apple saves them billions in american taxes when you realize that it is american taxpayers that provided the fertile seed foos apple's success. government as effective innovator also didn't mesh so well with an ideology that says government is the problem. it's a the lot easier to justify the screwing of most of merg when you can pretend that most americans were irrelevant to the creation of great corporate success. so our contribution has conveniently been left out of the story. time to rewrite the story.

this? this is great. a functioning economy which fairly rewards those who contribute to its prosperity? is even better. that does it for the cycle. now with alex wagner starts now. congratulations, ladies. today your wages have finally matched what the average male took home more than three months ago. it's tuesday, april 8, and this is now. >> equal pay for equal work. not that complicate. >> today the white house is spotlighting equal pay day. >> the president announcing two new executive orders designed to narrow the wage gap. >> that's personal for me. i've got two daughters and i expect them to be treated just like anybody's sons. >> i urge congress to join the president on the right side of history. >> we saw many republicans vote against the