measuring stick, mr. watson. would you hold that for me, musgrave, please? and that. now, will you take the last yard of the string and tie it to the base of the fishing rod, watson? yes, and when you've done that, would you bring the ritual and join me on the lawn? would you measure

that shadow, please, watson? >> nine feet. >> so the calculation is now a simple one. if a fishing rod of six feet throws a shadow of nine feet, then a tree of 64 feet will throw one of? >> 98. >> 96. >> yes, of course. and the line of one, of course, will be the line of the other. watson, look. two inches from mine. >> the mark made by brunton. >> now read out the steps. >> west eight by eight.

>> 64. >> and, um, south! seven by seven. >> 49. >> west six by six. >> 36 and... >> south five by five. [dramatic music] ♪

>> and? >> two by two. >> one, two, three, four. i don't believe it. >> some mistake in your calculation? >> that's impossible. >> brunton hasn't been here. >> "two by two, and so under." >> these stones haven't been moved in many a long year. >> [whispers] and under... holmes. you've forgotten the "and under." >> is there a cellar under here? >> as old as the house.

there used to be wood all over the floor down-- that's brunton's muffler, i'd swear to it. >> watson. [dramatic music] ♪

>> inspector. this is a friend of mine, dr. watson. >> inspector, i have some experience in forensic pathology. the man has been dead for two days. cause of death: suffocation. >> no wound or bruise on his person, sir? >> none. >> accident, eh? >> oh, there's no doubt about it. he must have been down there alone, and the flagstone just fell shut on him, poor fellow. >> sir reginald, i'm told that your butler was down in the cellar in an unused part of the house.

what was his business there, sir? >> a butler's duties are many and varied, inspector. i can't possibly answer that question. >> well, no one would have heard his cries for help in that part of the house. that is the point, surely, inspector. >> [screams] >> tregallis. >> rachel! she done it! she killed him! that's why she run away! >> tregallis. >> rachel? >> it's nothing. the servants are naturally upset. >> well, who is this rachel? >> one of my housemaids. she was engaged to brunton. do please cover him up. when he disappeared, she became ill and left. >> well, i shall want to see her. i shall want to see that young woman also. sergeant. all right, take this away. >> doctor, please.

>> the local inspector, holmes-- >> if you could find a plausible explanation for him, to avoid publicity in this wretched-- >> i must confess that, so far, i am disappointed in my investigation. i had reckoned upon solving the matter when once i had found the place referred to in the ritual. but now that i'm here, i am as far as ever from knowing what it was your family concealed with such elaborate precautions. >> but you've solved my mystery of brunton. >> yes, but how? how... did his fate come upon him? and what part has been played by the woman who's disappeared? >> i, um, should explain holmes' methods in such cases. he puts himself in the man's place,

having first gauged his intelligence. then he tries to imagine how he himself would have proceeded in similar circumstances. >> in this case, brunton's intelligence was first rate. >> so, you see, it is unnecessary to make allowance for the personal equation... as the astronomers have dubbed it. [mysterious music] ♪ >> he knows something is concealed.

he's spotted the place. but he's found the stone is too heavy for a man to move unaided, so... what does he do? help from outside.

no one to trust. help from inside. but who? rachel. she still loves him. he sees it in her eyes, for all her show of hate. >> shh. [whispering] i'm here to say i'm sorry, my love. i'm a foolish man. i don't deserve you. >> [whispering] you don't. >> forgive me, rachel. >> why? >> there's no one else for me, nor never has been. you know that. it's this house. it eats into your soul. let me take you away from here. we'll start afresh. >> your promises... oh, richard, you make them so freely. you've never loved me. [cries]

>> oh, you're wrong. i love you for your beauty and your spirit. we are a perfect match. with my brains and your heart, what do we want with service to others? the world is out there calling us, my love. >> and how do we get out there with no money? >> we'll have all the money we need. i found something in this house all them country squires have missed. now i've found it, and i'm ready to go. but not without you. i couldn't live without you. i'm to be yours, my rachel. >> [sighs] what money? what have you found? >> come with me. put on your gown. i'll show you. softly, now.

there it is, under that stone. all we have to do is lift it. now, pick up that wood. while i lift this, you wedge it. come on, woman, do as i tell you. ready? and another one. and that one over there. >> there is a slight indentation

on this log. and on this. caused by the weight of the stone. >> heavy work for a woman. >> and this, i think... has been used, finally, as a support. >> there's our treasure. that box was laying there for two centuries or more. >> we're going to steal it? >> how can you steal what nobody knows exists? >> [laughs] well, how did you know, then? >> brains, my girl, history and mathematics. here, hold the light for me.

bring the light closer. >> [laughing] make our fortune! oh, yes, that's a fine promise! >> quiet. there must be some value in it. >> how clever are you. or proud, more like. you're better than your masters! >> quiet, woman! >> i know your cleverness, husband! you just needed me to help you. if it had been treasure, you'd have been off and away without me! you would have gone with her! >> you're a fool if you believe that. here, take this.

now help me out of here. rachel. rachel! my love. get help! i can't breathe! get mr. holmes. quickly. please, my love. rachel! oh, god. help me! rachel! rachel! help! rachel, i can't breathe! [gasping] rachel! rachel, help me! >> [crying softly] >> that would explain her blanched face and her fevered brain

at breakfast the next morning. >> nothing but fungi. >> what was in the box, holmes? >> it's charles i. >> we may find something else of charles i. the bag that was fished from the mere. >> gentlemen. look. >> it's a jewel. family heirloom? >> it's possible. >> your ancestor sir ralph musgrave, was he a prominent cavalier? >> oh, yes, indeed. he was close to charles ii in his wanderings during the commonwealth. >> then i think that should give us the last link that we wanted.

gentlemen, you must bear in mind, when the royal party were driven into exile, they probably left many of their most precious possessions buried behind them, with the intention of returning for them in a more peaceful time. gold, musgrave. watson, i believe you have in your hand a relic which is not only of great intrinsic value but also of great importance as a historical curiosity. >> but what is it? >> nothing less than a fragment of the ancient crown of the kings of england. >> the crown? oh, no, no, holmes, it's too fanciful. now, consider the ritual. how does it run?

"whose was it?" >> "his who is gone." >> that was the execution of charles. and then, "who shall have it?" >> "he who will come." >> that was charles ii, whose advent was already foreseen. there can, i think, be no doubt, gentlemen, that this battered and shapeless diadem once encircled the brows of the royal stewards. >> but how came it to my family? >> when charles i was executed, the crown was seized, broken into pieces, and sold for 1,000 guineas. since then, there has been no trace of it.

until now. >> but why would charles not get it back on his return? >> that is a question which may never be answered. when your ancestor died, by some oversight, he left this guide to his descendant without ever explaining the meaning of it. >> father to son. >> until at last it came within reach of a man who tore its secret out of it and lost his life in the venture. >> [echoing] rachel. rachel! >> was it chance the wood slipped? was she only guilty of silence? she had a passionate celtic soul. a man had wronged her. she had him in her power. might it not have been vengeance

that sent the stone crashing? her hand for dashed it away. and what has become of her? >> very probably she's far away from hurlstone now and carries her secret with her. [ducks quacking] >> [screams] captioning by captionmax www.captionmax.com 's sake, 's sake, can you hear me?

a large stapler? sorry. it's hard to tell which part of the story is meant to be interesting.

this week, the roadshow is back in the european capital of culture, 2008. at the heart of the cheeky, thriving metropolis of liverpool-- to quote its own publicity-- stands the magnificent st. george's hall. this building might have been winched onto its hilltop position

from ancient greece or rome. it reflects the immense pride that the wealthy merchants of liverpool felt for their city when they commissioned the architect harvey lonsdale elmes back in the 1830s. elmes had his work cut out because liverpool really needed two very different venues. st. george's hall was designed to be, firstly, a home for liverpool's musical festivals-- the small concert room for intimate gatherings, and the great hall for more lavish affairs. secondly, or more importantly, depending on how you looked at it, the building had to serve as the hub of the city's legal system. beneath the grandeur of the great hall, prisoners sat in bare stone cells, waiting to learn their fate. sentences handed out here in the crown court ranged from imprisonment to transportation, and in some cases, execution. a young barrister named william gilbert

made several appearances here before giving up the law and combining his gift for words with the music of a certain arthur sullivan. together, they became the masters of comic opera. if you left the crown court a free man, you could pop next door and find yourself in a very different world. the small concert room is a perfect example of early victorian interior design-- extremely plush. but it's in the great hall that you get a real sense of the no-expense-spared attitude of the city fathers when they built st. george's. after elmes' death, the decoration was taken over by his friend charles cockerell. it leaves no doubt of the origins of the town's wealth. the chandeliers hang from the prows of greek ships, adorned with neptune, god of the seas, and liverpool's mythical liver birds. like the tides, liverpool's fortunes ebbed and flowed, and st. george's was allowed to fall into decay. it's all different now, of course.

the cultural revival has taken care of that, and the hall once again is looking its very best. let's hope we can say the same for our team of experts as they take their seats in britain's first air-conditioned building for part two of our liverpool roadshow. well, this has to be the most miserable-looking william shakespeare i've ever seen. where does the poor fellow live? well, it came from my grandparents, and it's just been passed down through the generations. because it was in such a terrible state, i didn't know whether it should be thrown in the bin, or whether it was worth anything. it looks as though someone's already thrown it in the bin. you've got this enormous crack. it's heavily scratched. it's chipped. okay, it is old, so it's been around for a while. i was just intrigued to know how old it was. we're actually in its home city. it was made somewhere in liverpool, and the name we associate with transfer-printed jugs of this type from the late 1700s is sadler, and mr. sadler specialized in transfer printing on tiles,

and then he went on to these cream-colored earthenware jugs. now, shakespeare has a strong association with david garrick. david garrick was the laurence olivier of his time. he was the great, great thespian, actor, of the 18th century. born in litchfield. made his debut in ipswich in the role of richard iii, and then he stormed london in the same role later, and he became the giant of the stage. so, it would appeal, in spite of its condition, to someone in the acting business. it would also appeal to a collector of liverpool pottery, and it would appeal to, possibly, a collector of english history of the 18th century. but it is well and truly... battered. yeah. to use a technical term, cream-crackered. it really is. and what a shame, 'cause it's a little bit of a disaster. nevertheless, okay, it has some residue value.

i would think that it would fetch somewhere in the region of £2,000 to 3,000. wow. for that battered state! ( laughing ) well, this is the most sumptuous cover i have seen for a long time. i love the colors. i love all about it. tell me how you came to have it. well, i purchased it at an auction held to raise funds for the completion of the liverpool anglican cathedral, held in 1978. it had originally been on the bed of queen victoria, between the 11th and 13th of may, 1886, when she visited liverpool to specially open the exhibition of commerce, industry, and shipping. so was it-- do you think it was made specially for her bed? it was specially commissioned by the lord mayor of liverpool, mr. radcliffe, for her bed. didn't she knight him after her visit? yes, yes, so he became sir david.

sir david. yeah. and what i love about it is this wonderful chenille work here. yes, well, i'm not an expert to know how good it is as far as the embroidery goes. i-i trust you to be the judge of its merits as a piece of workmanship. it-- it's good embroidery. i wouldn't say it was absolutely outstanding because it is something one does see in the early pieces of the 18th and 17th centuries. however... it's in the style of. ...it has been extremely professionally made, including a lot of money put into it, as well as time, because it has gold and silver thread. oh, really? of course, we have silk. lovely velvet here. and these little baubles, i think they're poetic license to say that they're the queen's colors, but-- maybe, yes, but the lining is blue, nevertheless. the lining is stunning. it is rather nice, isn't it? yes.

it-- it's silk satin, and, ohh, i don't blame you for going for it. because of its lovely condition, have you any idea what your-- whatever you bought it for has gone up to? well, i'll tell you what i bought it for, what the hammer price was. £280, which was a fair few pounds in those days. i would say, if it went into an auction now in the right auction, the fact that it's been over the top of a sleeping queen victoria, i would put £4,000 to £6,000 on it. £4,000 to 6,000? should i get excited about your handbag? well, when you see what's in it. ( reading ) "to rosa... love paul mccartney." i'm very excited! and... "love, john lennon." so you were a beatles groupie, presumably. i was, when i was 16. and where did you get the signatures? i was in the cavern one time, and i saw them going through,

so i decided to go for it. i used to go all the time to the cavern to see them, but this particular time, i had me bag with me, so i asked them, and they signed it for me. and did they know you? you got a personal dedication there... ...so they must have-- i used to go a lot to see them. yeah. most evenings when they were on, so... i think, um, value-wise, there's an awful lot of attachment to the beatles, but an autographed handbag has to be the sort of creme de la creme, really, of collectibles. i think it probably is unique. the bag is pretty average '60s vinyl. i'm guessing, uh, this is, like, late '62, early '63 period. um, not a great deal of value there, but with the signatures inside it, i think we're looking at something approaching £1,000. you've got two of the fab four's signatures, and it's a pretty special item. thank you, beatles groupie, for bringing it in!

( laughing ) thank you! it came from my father's side of the family. it was an aunt of his who didn't have any children, so the cousins got to pick, and when my mum went with my father to pick it, she fancied this, and it was in a big victorian frame, and it was quite cumbersome, and my dad thought it was ugly and didn't want it. she insisted. it would have been about the '60s, and she insisted, but, yeah, he didn't want it. so, you mentioned a very ornate, beautifully carved frame. where's that? well, unfortunately, when i was about 13, which would be about 20 years ago, a lorry hit our house. beg your pardon? a lorry hit our house. it was an accident. yeah, i know. we lived on a corner, and a lorry hit, and the vibrations shook it off the wall. and when it hit the floor-- it was beautiful-- the frame cracked, so we had to go and get it reframed, and this is as much as we could afford at the time. but the panel survived.

yes! and it's quite a weight. and what do you think of it now? where do you have it on display? i don't actually have it on display because i'm actually quite scared to put it on the wall because it's heavy, and i don't know if i'd secure it properly, so, unfortunately, it's been under my bed for nine years. so this has lived under your bed for the last nine years? well-- in a blanket. well, at least it's been in a blanket. well, at the front, down at the bottom here, we do have a signature, which is james bradley, 1881. now, the name bradley is linked within the worcester area, and there is a james bradley, sr., and a james bradley, jr., and i know from these dates that this is james bradley, jr. now, bradley was a ceramic artist of some repute, to be fair. he was linked with royal worcester, and was known to take in hand a lot of studies, a lot of painterly studies, actually concentrating and looking at birds. so there we go. we've got it.

also looking at some quite modern techniques as well. he was actually at royal worcester part and parcel to do with a lot of the blushware decoration. this, however, as a plaque, i don't believe is a royal worcester plaque. for one thing, it is a bone china panel. but royal worcester weren't necessarily known for these large panels. they didn't make them. they were often "bought in," and it is a sort of late 19th-century tradition of painting on panels that became very, very popular. my guess, looking at this for its size, and looking for it for its qualities, i think bradley probably undertook this either in his own personal time, for his own pleasure, or it was actually undertaken maybe as a commission. in terms of sort of commercial appeal. for me, it's got everything. i mean, do you actually like it? i've had it since i was about 26, and i've looked at it several times and thought, "well, what could i do with it? it's under a bed." and i've thought, "well, maybe i should sell it," but every time i do it, i fall in love with the ducks.

the ducks, or the ducklings? well, the ducklings, and i actually really like the background. it's charming. i think it's charming, so i've never been able to get rid of it. for me, this would appeal to such an enormous audience, and i think there are so many people out there who would just go, "ah! it's so lovely, and i've got to have it." it's ducks. i think that if it went up to auction it would carry a pre-sale auction estimate of £2,000 to 3,000... oh! okay! ...but i actually think it's the kind of panel that, on a good day, i wouldn't be surprised maybe if it started to nudge up into the 4,000 figure, because i think you get a couple of people who love the study, love the subject, i think they're gonna want to take it home. i first came to liverpool in 1953. i went to stay with a pal, and we watched the queen's coronation on his tiny television set, but i think you can beat that feeble story. certainly can.

this was presented to my aunt, who was mayoress of glossop of that time, and all the dignitaries were invited to liverpool for the opening of the mersey tunnel, and everyone was presented with one of these boxes... by the organizers. ...by the organizers, yes. not just a box? not just a box, no. if you open it, you can see... whoa! all the potions. look at that! untouched by human hands, by the look of it. yes, yeah. the only thing, all the perfumes have evaporated, obviously, with time, but nothing else has been opened at all. it's got everything there, hasn't it? it has, yeah. this is a very beautiful design, isn't it? it is, yeah. what is in that one, do you think? that's powder, if you look inside. so it's still got the paper over it. yes. the powder's still under there. yes, yeah. which do you like best? is that your favorite of the contents? i think it is, yeah, because i like the design on the top of there.

it's very handsome. it is, it is. it's really good. well, as this has kind of been, not spoiled, but it's evaporated, you say, does it smell? have you tried it? it does actually. we've opened it today. oh. today for the first time? can i have a niff? yeah, you certainly can. this is that sort of smell. a magical moment. mm. eau du mersey tunnel. ( chuckles ) we-- we actually bought it directly from the artist at an exhibition in teignmouth in devon while we were on holiday during the 1950s. my father followed me into the exhibition because i was a small child at the time, and i ran on ahead and ran into the exhibition and said, "come and look at these." and he was taken with this picture and asked scottie wilson himself how much he wanted for it. and all scottie wanted for it was the price of a bottle of whiskey. ( laughing )

well, that sounds very much like him. and scottie wilson used to make you pay to go into these exhibitions. that was his main form of income, wasn't it? you'd have to pay. i expect you did. it was probably a shilling in those days. his real name was louis freeman, and up until about his mid-40s, he was actually an antiques dealer. he had a shop in secondhand goods, and he had gone to canada after the second war, i think, to-- to open a shop in just used goods and things, and then, one day, he was sitting down, bored out of his mind in this shop, and started doodling on the paper tabletop. and after a while, he'd covered the entire table with this intricate design. and he used to say it was because he was in a dream. well, it might be that it was a slightly alcohol-induced dream. whatever. it turned his life around. he decided that if he could have an exhibition of all these paintings and charge for them to come in, then it would be just enough for his subsistence and his whiskey bottles, and he could just keep going, like that.

yes. and, uh... he had an extraordinary following. dubuffet, jean dubuffet, and pablo picasso both thought that he was a kind of genius, and they each owned pictures by him, and in fact, later in his life, when he returned to england, they persuaded him to go over to france and have an exhibition. and that is why he is now regarded as perhaps the most important artist in-- well, it's called a movement-- of "outsider art." have you heard of this term? no, i haven't. well, it was really invented to kind of provide a bracket for certain artists who weren't properly trained or who claimed some inspiration from the supernatural, and, as a result, some of those artists-- scottie wilson particularly-- has a kind of cult following of people who, um... of necromancers, wizards, witches, and people who generally believe in alternative culture. i don't think you need to believe in all that stuff to like a scottie wilson, on the other hand.

do you believe in all that? no, to be honest. no? well, me neither, but i still find that it has a peculiar power. now, value. it cost the price of a bottle of whiskey, which must have taken care of scottie wilson for the rest of the day, i would imagine, but i think it's probably worth about, um... £1,000, 1,500, maybe £2,000, this one. i think it's probably lost a bit of color. that must have affected its value. £2,000. yes. that's a lot of whiskey. i bet this would be the most perfect dream sequence for any little girl, to be surrounded by all these barbies, but it's not just about being a little girl. you can be a big girl and love these. yes, well, i used to watch antiques roadshow with my granddad when i was little, and i always used to feel so sorry for people who had taken their dolls and their items out of the boxes, and then, when i started collecting barbie dolls, that was one of the main motivations, the fact that you could keep them in the boxes. they'd just be pristine. i was very excited about it. it's quite interesting, because when you think of barbie

and you think of the antiques roadshow, the two kind of don't necessarily go together in terms of what we're looking at now. i mean, we're looking at modern-day barbie, really-- collector's edition barbies made specifically for the collectibles market. we're not looking at what we call vintage barbie, which is from 1959 onwards. and the market has sort of divided in two ways, really, and you've gone for a very sensible, quite canny route, haven't you? how did it begin? well, when i was a student, i worked in a nightclub as a champagne hostess, as a bunny girl, and one of the outfits i wore was an outfit like this, at christmastime, and it just so happened i was reading an article in a magazine-- "if you do anything this christmas, buy this doll, "put it under your bed, and keep it for 20 years, and it will be a collectible piece." so, anyway, one of my customers in my champagne bar kindly bought it for me, and that's how the collection started.

so, it began with a present, but then, um, it's led on to you, well, buying. i mean, how many have you got altogether? i've got over 200. gosh. what-- what has led you to barbie? i mean, you could have broadened out into other dolls, but barbie is the one for you. why is that? because you've got every single theme you could possibly want. if you're interested in movie stars, every single movie star-- your favorite movie star, rather-- there'll be a movie star doll. which we've got here, haven't we? i mean, there she is. there's the queen, yes. dream... yes, dream liz taylor. you know, you actually begin to appreciate that they put in so much effort to get the facial features right, didn't they? they do, they do. and these are special editions. they are made specifically for grown-ups, aren't they? yes, they are, for collectors 14 years and over. there is an investment potential. i mean, this doll over here, for example. she's beautiful. retailing at least $500. she's only going to go up in value because there was only a very limited run of dolls on them.

there's a lot of career dolls, as well, so, the preconceptions of barbie, which i've had a lot, people sort of think i'm just a big grown-up barbie doll. well, really, i'm not. i'm a lawyer, i'm a businesswoman. i've got my own company, and there's a lot of other things i do, and i'm certainly not dizzy at all. you happen to be in a market that's only going to go one way... ...and that's up, actually. yes, it is. um, value-wise, i mean, you can pay, probably, what? sort of £50 or 60 for an individual doll, maybe, but you're going to have to hold on to it for a while, i think, for it to really go up in value. i suppose we have to tag this with a price, don't we, and sort of say how much this collection would be worth. it's really hard. have you got it insured? i've got it insured for £5,000. you could double that insurance figure quite easily, with what you've got. just seeing what you've got here is just amazing. it's like a dream come true for me, as well as you, i think. a joy to see. thank you for bringing it in.

aw. thank you very much. thank you. thanks. eighty years old. i figure it's a bit-- oh! the wheels are going. yeah, the wheels are going round. so, basically, it needs maybe a bit of oiling, like all of us. now, tell me, who do you happen to have such an amazing piece that hasn't been played with? it was actually given to me by my second dad, which was given to him by his dad when he was 2 years old, and he'd never, ever played with it. i think it's absolutely splendid. it's tin plate, obviously. it's still got its driver, still got its lovely headlamps. everything is in wonderful condition, even with this baggage at the back. there's nothing in it, though. i believe it is by johann distler of nuremberg, and he started producing penny toys at the end of the 19th century. he'd sort of sign his work either "j.d." or a thistle, actually,

and then, by 1920, when i think this was about-- the time this was made-- between the 1920s and '30s, they made all these trains and cars and that sort of thing, but they didn't mark it. i can't find a mark on it. no, i couldn't find anything. well, without the box... oh. there is a box. what? there is a box... ...but it's in the house where my mum used to live 10 years ago, in the loft. still there? i may have to go knock on the door. you may well. that would make so much difference, and especially if it's in good condition. the box is, yeah. assuming the box is in as good condition as this, we're talking about an auction price of £2,000 to 3,000, so, for insurance, we should be insuring it for £4,000. oh. is that all? ( all laugh ) what did you expect? nothing like that at all.

nothing like that. i always get very excited when you see senior officers' swords, 'cause you can bet that the most senior soldiers in the british army will always have something rather special about their swords, but i have to say, when i saw that, i looked and i thought, "there's something very, very unusual about that," and i thought of it for a second or two, then i suddenly realized that, rather than the plated scabbards that you find in most swords, this is actually a solid silver one. i thought, well, whoever owned this must have been somebody pretty special to have had a sword of this quality. so, let's take the scabbard off and concentrate on the sword. you often find that, even with swords like this, that they're quite anonymous things, and unless someone has had their initials put on it or you can trace it through the manufacturers, then you wonder, whose was that? and you think, "well, that's a nice sword, and it'd be nice to know whose it was."

on this occasion, we are absolutely spoilt rotten because some kind person has etched onto the blade, "presented by the citizens of liverpool "to major general r.s.s. baden-powell, d.s.o., "in remembrance of his heroic defence of mafeking, june, 1900." so there's no doubt about it. and, being a sharp chap, i picked up from your garb... well done. ...that you have a connection with the movement that this great man founded. it's actually in the possession of merseyside county scouts, who've loaned it to birkenhead for an exhibition, which is one of-- one of his artifacts. it's quite a precious item to us. it is. it's a wonderful, wonderful sword. it was represented to the liverpool county scouts two years after baden-powell died, 1943. and it's actually been quoted his widow said she wanted it as a last link with the chief because baden-powell held this area as really as a center of great scouting. that's fantastic, isn't it?

it is a wonderful sword in its own right. but i wonder whether or not you actually sort of looked at it and you thought, "is that sort of a european sword?" a lot of people who look at these general swords, they think, "ooh, it's a bit of arabian. it looks like a scimitar." i-i thought cavalry officers' swords were always that shape. they often tend to have a curved blade, but some have straight blades, so you can never use it as a defining factor, but it is very much inspired by the scimitar shape of swords that came from egypt, the middle east. napoleon went into egypt in the latter part of the 18th century, and there was this great fashion started for everything sort of middle eastern. a lot of senior officers started wearing these arab-style swords, and it caught on. and generals today still carry them, so it's got a very, very long time scale within the british army. never knew that before. i absolutely think this is the most wonderful example of a general officer's sword that i've seen,

'cause some of them, i think they must have been bought by people who perhaps hadn't got very much cash. but this has obviously been paid for by the people of liverpool, and they will have said to wilkinson's, who built the sword, "we want the best. this is one of ours. we really want the best for him." so, it's got real ivory there, solid silver scabbard. very fine decoration. it is the best they would have ever produced. it's fairly ironic that i'm here standing today with this sword that was given to this great man from the scouting movement because i was actually thrown out of the scouts. oh? why? well, i feel that it's the time for the nation to know that i wore a sheath knife without having passed the hand ax and knife test. i think you'd best put the sword away, then. i think i should have worn that, shouldn't i? it would be a great privilege for anybody to carry that, and the fact that it's still in this county today, under your stewardship, i think that's a wonderful testimonial.

thank you, thank you. we always talk about value on things. purely academic, i think. we'd never sell it. i know you wouldn't, but on the other hand, everybody should know what things are worth because if you know what things are worth, you're in a very strong position. i think that if that was put up in a sale, you would get between £10,000 to 15,000 for it. it is a fantastic sword. i'll have security to take me home, please. it's great that you brought it. thank you very much. it's been my pleasure. oh, what a plumptious day, as our ken would say. you know, when st. george's hall was opened in 1854, they had a 3-day musical celebration. i wish we could stay longer, but we shall have a sing-song in the charabanc on the way home, and plan to come back as soon as possible. until then, thank you very much, liverpool, for having us, and for now, goodbye.

♪ this week on "moyers & company" -- american labor in crisis. >> i joke that the labor movement's in the sweet spot of despair. just strong enough to be a bit afraid to lose and not strong enough to really win anything right now. >> most of the leaders of the movement, unfortunately at this point, remain fearful of shaking the table. >> and perfidious and passionate poetry from philip appleman. >> money buys profits and teachers, poems and art, so listen, if you're so rich, why aren't you smart? >> funding is provided by carnegie corporation of new york. celebrating 100 years of philanthropy and committed to doing real and permanent good in the world. the kohlberg foundation. with support from the partridge

foundation. john and polly guth charitable fund. the herb albert foundation, supporting organizations whose mission is to promote charity. and committed to building a more just and peaceful world. more information at mackfound.org. and betsy and jesse think foundation. the hkh foundation. barbara g. fleischmann. and by mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. welcome. in all the hullabaloo over the supreme court's decision on health care, another of its rulings quickly fell off the public radar. before deciding the fate of the

affordable care act, the court announced it would not reconsider citizens united. that's the odious 5-4 decision two years ago that opened our elections to unlimited contributions. within minutes of that announcement, right-wing partisans were crowing about the advantage they now own. an advantage not due to ideas or personalities, but to the sheer force of money. they were remarkably candid and specific. here's what fred barnes wrote in "the weekly standard" about the senate race in missouri -- "for three weeks in may, republican super pacs took turns attacking democratic senator claire mccaskill in tv ads. republicans hadn't held their primary. it's not until august 7th. but mccaskill wound up trailing all three of the gop candidates in polls. now mccaskill, unnerved, is struggling to recover. that's what super pacs can do. when they emerged in 2010 and

worked in tanm,we thehere a critical force in the republican landslide in the congressional elections. this year they're playing an even bigger role. the size and reach of their efforts dwarf what they did two years ago." attaboy, fred, for telling it like it is. for exposing the hoax that the court's original decision was about "free" speech. free speech, my foot. it's about carpet bombing elections with all the tonnage your rich paymasters want to buy. try not to laugh when you hear one of its perpetrators, the noted lawyer floyd abrams, say, as he did not too long ago, "i don't think we should want as a matter of policy to make decisions which are essentially, people can't do all the speaking that they can in a political campaign. i don't think we can ration speech." excuse me, floyd. speech is already rationed in

and on your playing field, those who have no money have no speech. and just who do you think is doing this "speaking"? hello, poor people, are you there? it's your election, too. all 50 million of you. hello, we can't hear you. better get a super pac and speak up! poor people haven't lost their voice. they can't afford a voice. and every day working people, universal laryngitis, the chronic absence of money. as for children, children who have a big stake in our elections but no vote, for them to be heard they would need piggy banks the size of wal-mart heirs. or the koch brothers for uncles. and if "free speech" is a right, why all the secrecy? why hide from voters where the money is coming from? why not openly say you're downright proud to be exercising your first amendment rights and that writing checks is your patriotic duty? instead, conservatives across the country are fighting to keep their sugar daddies secret. according to their guardian

angel in congress, the highly leveraged senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, the right wing opposes disclosure laws because the super-rich just might be bullied and harassed by the rest of us who want to know who's buying our elections. so that the editorial page of "the wall street journal" asks us to have pity on billionaires and those little ol' corporations and their ceos who just might have their tender feelings hurt. if they were exposed to boycotts and pickets, were it known which candidates they were buying. wait a minute. weren't we taught the first amendment also guarantees the right of citizens to assemble and petition, even to boycott and picket? that's what a couple of hundred protesters were doing just the other day. they marched to the d.c. offices of american crossroads and crossroads gps. those are the right-wing money mills run by the mastermind of much of this massive fund-raising, karl rove. he's making a bundle himself buying and selling "free speech," while at the same time

deploring the disclosure of big donors' names as "shameful" intimidation. exercising their first amendment rights, the demonstrators taped a kind of wanted poster on rove's office door, indicating they would like to see him wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. instead, he could be seen last weekend in casual wear, buzzing around in a golf cart at mitt romney's utah mountain gathering of high rollers. no doubt plotting how to raise more millions to pay for more "free speech." let's see if we've got this right. on the one hand, conservatives declare that corporations and the super-rich can spend all they want on exercising their first amendment rights, but on the other, they demand to keep it secret so the rest of us can't exercise our first amendment rights to fight back. have you ever heard of more cowardly lions? it's one big joke. big enough to make you cry. three things don't go together -- money. secrecy.

democracy. and that's the nub of the matter. this is all a sham for invalidating democracy in the name of democracy. it's the trick authoritarians always use to hide their real intention -- in this case absolute power over our public life and institutions, the privatization of everything. the supreme court is pointing the way. instead of mitigating the worst excesses of both the state and the private sector, the court has taken sides, saying to the massed wealth of the 1%, america is yours for the taking, for the buying. that's what george iii though too. which brings us back to our celebration of the fourth of july, to the declaration of independence and thomas jefferson, who seems to have thought that a little uprising now and then would be good for what ails us. this time the overweening power is not the monarchy but plutocracy, the convergence of the political, religious and corporate right that would keep

us in the dark about where all that money is coming from, and who it's buying, until one day we wake up and our country is no longer our own. fortunately, those orange jumpsuits come in one size fits all. so remember, moneyed lords and ladies, what king george learned the hard way -- you can only push your subjects so far. the supreme court's doubling down on citizens united wasn't the only decision this session that seemed designed to strengthen the grip of corporate america and the superrich. another one -- knox versus seiu local 1000 -- the service employees international union -- would diminish the financial power of organized labor by restricting union dues used for political action. the knox decision is just the latest attack in the ongoing

battle against labor. and like the fight in wisconsin and other states, it focuses on public sector unions in part because they're the greatest remaining bastion of labor's power. the strength of organized labor was once a muscular way for working people to push back against plutocracy. in union there is strength -- that was the old saying and it was true. but the percentage of union members in the american workforce has declined in the last 60 years from 35% to 12%, and labor has faced a pounding series of setbacks of which the supreme court's knox decision is just the latest. and yet, with corporations continuing to put the squeeze on employees, with joblessness and inequality rampant, now would seem the perfect time for people to turn back to unions to fight for them against the monied interests. why haven't they? stephen lerner has spent more

than three decades as a labor and community organizer, and as architect of the justice for janitors campaign. he was director of seiu's private equity project, which worked to expose the wall street feeding frenzy that would end in catastrophe especially for the working class. bill fletcher jr. graduated from harvard and went to work as a shipyard welder, along the way becoming a labor activist fighting for racial justice and union democracy. he has worked with seiu and the united auto workers, among others. he's the author of this upcoming book "they're bankrupting us and twenty other myths about unions." welcome to both of you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> corporate profits are at an all-time high. wages as a percent of the economy are at an all time low and fewer people are employed than anytime in the past 30 years. why isn't this the opportunity for an old-fashioned, good old fight for the working people?

>> the question is less is it the right moment to organize, but what are the ways we organize and what are the things that we have to start doing that really let us take on corporate power. >> such as? >> massive, nonviolent civil disobedience. the labor movement was built when it occupied factories which wasn't legal either. that we need to look at a set of tactics and be willing to take risks and things that we haven't done in years because when somebody wants to destroy you, giant corporations, they pass laws to make it illegal for you to exercise your democratic rights. then we need to look at movements of the past and other countries. and what they've done again and again is that we're willing to go to jail. we're willing to take tremendous risks to win our country. >> the difficulty in developing and moving in the direction that stephen is suggesting is that the leaders themselves have to begin by recognizing that this is not 1970. that there's no going back to what we once had. >> you're talkin' about the leaders of unions? >> leaders of unions. >> and you're saying they don't recognize it? >> they don't.

they continue -- they are fearful, bill, of fundamentally becoming organizations that are viewed as disreputable. they're very worried about being in a situation where they're no longer invited to the white house dinners. and what we have to understand is that unions did not get started based on white house dinners. they got started based on exactly what stephen is suggesting. that you have to be ready to throw the dice. and most of the leaders of the movement, unfortunately at this point, remain fearful of shaking the table. we need battle stations. a new level of vitality, a new level of tactics, new strategies, new forms of organization that we have not previously used. that's where we are. >> i think many of us at least have spent our life sort of waiting for the great leader to come and, you know, come and save us. and i actually am not waiting. i don't think that there's going to be somebody in washington that's going to emerge and do that. i think instead we have to look

at where are the battles that we can have that we can both win but also become symbolic and exciting that inspire and move people. because the labor movement's suffering from a version of the stockholm syndrome. that we've been held captive by capital for so long, we're so used to losing, that we almost identify with our oppressor. and that part of what has to happen here is brilliant strategies and tactics, but there's another piece which is that we just have to be willing to say slowly dying is worse than having a really big fight and trying to win. >> let's use this wisconsin example. labor has spent very little time focusing on educating its own membership. 38% the families of union members voted for walker as opposed to voting for the recall. people look at their self interests in very different ways and it's up to the unions to really create a framework where there's a dialogue. not simply telling people what to believe, but really a dialogue about what's happening

with working people in the united states. >> there are 16 million union members. >> private and public? >> private and public. the organized labor needs to look to educate those 16 million people, because it's not simply about building alliances between the leaders of different unions and various community organizations or social movements. it's that the members of the unions have to feel themselves that they're part of something larger. people have to have that bigger picture. unions can do that. they should be doing it now. but that necessitates putting resources that many leaders feel could best go elsewhere. >> it's too easy to blame the bad guys. that sort of corporations try to destroy unions 'cause that's what they do. is that the labor movement, really for 30 years, 40 years, has, with, you know, with some exceptions of great work, not been focused on organizing private sector workers. it's not been focused. and i think workers are much

more likely to organize if they think the consequence of organizing is life gets better than you get your brains blown out, which is really, when i knock on a door and say, "do you want to join the union?" what most workers are thinking, "oh, do i want to lose my job?" and so i think part of, we have this funny moment where we have to both inspire people to take a risk 'cause there's a vision grand enough to fight for, but also people have to think there's some hope of winning and that's not what we've offered -- >> but there was a lot of hope of winning in wisconsin and workers and their families did exactly what you are recommending. they got out in the streets. they had strikes. they had protests. they prolonged their demonstrations. and still you lost. >> well, you know, what i would raise as a question is whether the primary field where we're going to change the country is through elections. and that that may not be the place. that may be, that's where, you know, one of the things a good organizer does is try to figure out is where can we maximize our power and how do we play in the field where we're most successful. and it's important we win the presidency and important we do

politics, but thinking we're going to vote our way out of this mess when we have a declining base i think is a mistake. >> president obama stayed on the sidelines in wisconsin as he has in so many of these labor fights of the last three years. do you feel betrayed by obama? >> not at all. first of all, i think that it was correct for obama not to go into wisconsin because he would have become the issue. but the deeper question is i don't feel betrayed by obama. i feel disappointed in obama. but i think that if anyone has looked at who he was in 2008 they would have understood, this is a corporate liberal. >> what do you mean by that? >> he is someone who sees his relationship with wall street, with the major corporations, that's the critical alliance for obama. he was, he saw himself as preserving capitalism and he saw himself not as a champion of

working people. he saw himself, he gave wonderful speeches to working people, but he does not see himself as the person who was saying, "we're going to take on the economic royalists." >> i think in 2008 the labor movement failed because we thought one human being was going to fix everything and we went into neutral. and i think the real moment of lost opportunity was when the economic crisis hit. that unions and other progressives were waiting for somebody to fix it versus being in the street and really challenging the power of wall street. there was a moment where the entire country was questioning. >> trade unions keep giving money to the democrats because they, you think they'll come to your rescue and they don't. i mean why do, why does labor keep depending on a party that is always hanging it out to dry? >> i think the things that unions, and it's not just unions, but progressives need to think about, is who really has the country in a mess? and i think we've been very nervous about really, with red-hot anger, naming who the

bad guys are and then talking about it in terms that resonate with people. not abstractions about trillions of dollars. but talking about this teeny group of people at the top that are pillaging the country. and i think when we start to focus that and then have ways that people can act that's not just about rhetoric. i'll give you a specific example. in california there is a program to pass a series of laws that defend homeowners and protect them from their homes being foreclosed on illegally, protect, if a bank forecloses on a home they now get fined $1,000 a day every day if they don't maintain the home. there's a whole set of legislation that's been passed. many of the people who should support it haven't supported it. right? and so the way we've gone about getting them to support it is not to say we would or wouldn't support them, but we actually took people that were facing foreclose and took them to the lawn of some of those politics and did ads saying, "here's mary smith. she faces foreclosure. this is her state representative and he won't -- he won't do, support the law that would save

her home." it's those kinds of things that are pressuring politicians to do something that really matter. that are about workers saying, "we want to start getting our money back from wall street." >> i think that the two party system is so undemocratic that it makes it very difficult for a third party to emerge. but labor needs to be thinking in those terms. we need to be creating worker candidates who are running. people that are representing the interests of economic justice, not simply funding someone who's going to kick our rear end the least. >> we feel like we've been screaming to the public for years, "you destroyed unions, you're going to destroy democracy," and folks didn't hear it. so i've sort of moved beyond, you know, the panic that labor movement's in trouble and start, you know, saying, "what is it that we actually do that doesn't make us dependent on, you know, liberals who don't really support unions who might be good on social issues?" and what are the kinds of things that let us start to build a movement that workers want to be part of and that can really challenge the power of capital. i think the problem has been, is

>> i think the problem has been -- is that people know they're weak and they're terrified of getting wiped off the face of the earth. and so -- >> why are they weak? >> they're weak because we've been under a corporate assault for years going back to the '50s. i think the question that i wonder about is there are moments where we've won. you know, in my own life, in the justice for janitors campaign, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers stood up to the real estate industry. there's right now, a strike in louisiana of guest workers that work at a crawfish factory that's a supplier to wal-mart. and i think we need to look at these moments where people are taking action and say, "how do we magnify those and what are the seeds of a movement that we can learn from in there?" because i think if we can spend all our time that we keep talking about why we're weak or why somebody did something that wasn't strong enough, we need to figure out what are the things that we can do. >> but i would say we're weak because in the late 1940s in the face of the cold war organized labor ceased being a social movement.

it gave up being the champion of economic justice and took on more of the form of a trade association. and so in that it lost the moral standing that it held with millions and millions of people. there was a point when people would say, even if they weren't in the union, "i'm not going to cross that picket line. i'm with the union." their issues are correct. their issues are correct. over the years as unions stepped further and further away from being the real champions of economic justice and i'm not just talking about a good speech. i mean real champions of economic justice, real allies of community groups that are fighting for them. when we stepped away from that of course we were going to become weaker. we were going to become more isolated. and we'd be looked at as special interests. >> why the resentment among so many working and middle class people who've been exploited themselves? why are voters not standing up? >> because it's easier for

regular working people to start blaming someone that they can physically identify, someone that is not very strong, someone that cannot penalize them, rather than actually taking on the real powers. they're focusing on other weak, and i'm using the term broadly, weak sections of the population rather than focusing their attention on who really -- who holds the power. >> but the thing on this that i think is really important is none of what's happening now is a surprise. for 30 years many people have said again and again and that if the private sector isn't organized and private sector workers lose pension plans and private sector workers lose their health care that they'll then be convinced they shouldn't fund it for other workers. in going forward there is no way out of this mess unless we organize millions of private sector workers. you will not have a public sector labor movement that survives if private sector workers are, have been impoverished in the country.

>> and private sector are now how much, what percentage of the workforce? >> only 6.9% of private sector workers are now in unions. it is now lower than it was at the start of the great depression. what the right wing has managed to do is get workers who have been crushed angry at somebody else. you know, their neighbor who has a little bit better, than against jamie dimon. and we shouldn't be afraid to name names. or the guys who are the cause of this. >> which raises the question why conservatives have been more successful than progressives in appealing to populist anger and populist aspirations? >> we don't connect with people 'cause we're not saying who the bad guys are. and the second part is if we're in bed with and afraid to take on the people who have caused the crisis in this country, then why would people rally behind us? >> but there's another issue, bill, which is that the right wing has a story. and they have a story, particularly right wing populists have a story that is

very compelling, particularly to white people. a story that's intertwined with the myth of the american dream. and they use that story as a way of focusing on scapegoats. of moving people away from real issues of power. of playing upon people's resentments. and what we on the left side of the aisle often do is throw facts at people. you know, we'll say to people there's this vast polarization of wealth. well, that's true. but people can draw different conclusions about that, including that maybe if they play the right number they too can be on the upside of that. we have to have a story that puts these pieces together. that explains to people how does wall street operate. what does this mean when we're talking about changing taxes? what is this issue of power? who is to blame? >> but why haven't you done that? i mean --

>> we've been through the biggest economic collapse since the 1930s. and yet four years later the capitalist class that brought it on is riding high in politics. it's far more influential than labor is. >> right. >> but this is why i think we need to look at some of the good things that are happening. when we did the demonstrations at the shareholder meetings of bank of america and wells fargo, we did a version of what bill just described. we talk about housing, we talked about how they treated workers, we talked about their role in funding private prisons and we talked about their role in destroying the environment and we talked about money in politics. and all the groups who normally don't work together came together. and in the case of wells fargo, lots of people are arrested, both inside and outside the meeting we sat in. and we took all those issues and said, "you know what? it all stems, the story, from the same problem which is the power of giant banks." and so when we were in charlotte, north carolina, the city invoked an emergency order and said, it suspended civil liberties in downtown charlotte for this march. but we built enough pressure

that we backed them off and we sat down and took over downtown charlotte for two hours. but the thing i'm trying to pull out of this is issues that are normally separate and siloed, became the same issue. it's how do giant banks hurt the environment. how do they hurt workers. how do they hurt communities. how do they hurt immigrants. and in looking at that you can imagine the kind of movement we need to build. that's not separate movements. one movement to focus on who these guys are. >> i can understand and appreciate the victories that you win here and there. but there's another side of the ledger too. and i looked at the details of those votes in san diego and san jose where voters who went for barack obama in 2008 voted by large margins to cut the pensions of public employees. the folks you care about. >> i'm not surprised when people vote to cut pensions because what they look at is that they say, it's like crabs in the barrel. "these folks have something i do not have." and almost no one is saying to

them, "yes, that's true, but you lost it because of what happened and we need to fight to get it back." >> so let me give a specific example of what public employee unions could do that would make a different. what i'd love to see, which i think could actually demonstrate leadership, and the chicago teachers' union actually did this. they said that they would take a wage freeze if the mayor would move his money out of all the banks that are continuing to foreclose on people in chicago. i think one of the things that we could do that would really make a difference. is we need to turn collective bargaining into a vehicle not just for the narrow group of people who are bargaining, into a battle for the common good. so if public employee unions said, "we're willing to strike to force the city or the state to renegotiate debt with wall street," then i think people would rally behind them and say, "oh, that's where the money went. it went to wall street. it's not goin' to those workers." >> twenty california counties allow some public workers to make more in retirement than

they did while working. and then there's one county executive retired at 62 so she could bring down a pension of $272,000 a year for life. in a county whose public pension system is underfinanced by $750 million. now, against that minute particular, a telling story repeated over and again in an election, you're trying to say there's another story that will mitigate that example? >> well, i tell you a funny piece of it is one of our weaknesses is that we're not, that we're afraid to sometimes just to say, "yeah, that's wrong." and here are things -- >> yeah, exactly. >> and we have this knee-jerk defense. of course it's absurd. >> people will respond to the story the you just told, because, again, it relates to something i was saying before, that it's easier to blame that public sector worker who is gaming the system than to go after the people in wall street who have walked away with

billions. it's much easier. >> but bill, with all due respect, the voters in san diego, and san jose see the particularities of this particular county -- >> but -- >> -- executive more clearly than they do jamie dimon's situation. >> we have to provide some answers, better answers than we're giving. i don't mean just in simply explanations, but what people can do about the morass that they find themselves in. in addition to saying, "yeah, this is a problem," we've got to say, "this is how we would --" >> so let me give a very specific example. there's 16 million homes, which is really 30 million people are underwater. their homes are worth less than they paid for them. they're overlaid with all the key battleground states. so we've launched a thing called the home defender's league -- >> we being? >> we being a bunch of different community groups and unions. we've, in the last couple weeks, called half a million people. we're having meetings around the country. we have a very simple demand. every mortgage should be reset to current market value.

that would put $700 billion in the economy, create a million jobs, save the average homeowner $5,000 a year and it would extract the money from wall street who stole it from them in the first place. very concrete. an answer. good math. economists support it. and we have a chance to win that. >> what's the website? >> you go to homedefendersleague.org. >> many of the people who are in their homes are not losing them. they're property owners. they're paying taxes. and they're fed up with what they perceive to be the heavy burden imposed on them by public employees. >> and the person that you're describing that's paying those taxes and is feeling squeezed, we need to begin with the fact, you are being squeezed. there is a squeeze. it's not your imagination. so the question is then where is the money? is the money to be found in crushing public sector workers or is the money to be found in reversing a practice over the last 50 years of decreasing taxes on corporations and on the

wealthy? because the problem is that what's happened as the tax burden on the wealthy has shrunk, of course the people in the middle are bearing more and more of that. and they're resentful. and they should be. >> the majority of those people, as mad as they may be at a public employee, know when in every poll, every discussion, the system's imbalanced, the people at the top are sucking up all the wealth. financial capitalism is failing as a model in this country and in europe. and i think as they start, if we survive this period and if we go on offense and let me just be clear. offense is not defense yelling louder. offense -- >> so what is offense? what's your strategy? what do you want people to do who believe in what you've just said? >> so i would say, one, we should take the fight on underwater homeowners and foreclosure that's already stopping, where people are occupying homes around the country. a wonderful way to connect with regular people in the fight against banks that's happening all over the country. there's a woman in arizona, lily

washington. bank of america foreclosed on her while she was visiting her son who had been shot in afghanistan and threw away her purple heart. a wonderful moment when they foreclosed when veterans, not radicals, regular veterans delivered a purple heart to her house saying, "we are with you in your battle against bank of america." we need to look at the places where we can have battles we can win that put people in motion, that name wall street, that start winning victories. i'm worried less about washington and much more worried about what happens to communities all over this country and how we start to fight back and win in those. and that's the kind of thing that builds the excitement and the energy to take on the bigger fight about how the system's been co-opted. l entephneeril l b >>en steph lerner, bill fletcher, thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much.

faithful viewers of this broadcast know that from time to time we ask poets to drop by and share their work with us. this time, our guest is the versatile philip appleman, whose creativity spans a long life filled with verse, fiction, philosophy, science, religion, and above all, moments of every day experience captured like the glint of the sun sparkling through a crystal glass. just take a look at a sample ofe his legacy -- "darwin," "apes and angeles," "darwin's ark," "in the twelfth year of the war," "open doorways," and this, my favorite -- "summer velond surf," about the joys and wonders of loving and living. his latest book of poems is "perfidious proverbs." a fellow poet said that to watch philip appleman "sling words is to be richly regaled." i quite agree. welcome, philip. >> wonderful to be here, bill. >> i have long thought of poetry as music to be heard best in the voice of the composer.

so let's go right to some of your poems. >> good. i love it. >> here's one of my favorites. and i think it's one of your favorites, too, "eve." tell me about that poem. >> twenty years ago, i published a book called "let there be light." it was a series of satires on various biblical stories. and eve being one of the first came out at the head of the list. and, shall i read it? >> please. >> eve is kind of reflecting on the snake, at first. clever he was, so slick he could weave words into sunshine. when he murmured another refrain al that shimmering promise, "you l be as gods," something shwiwitngng whd re ipeis hback,n myrteart and i crunched the apple -- a taste so good i just had to share it with adam. and all of a sudden we were naked.

oh yes, we were nude before, but now, grabbing for fs, l kneave we ew that we knew too much, just as the slippery serpent said -- so we crouched all day under the rhododendrons, trembling at something bleak and windswept in our bellies that soon we'd learned to call by its right name -- fear. god was furious with the snake and hacked off his legs, on the spot. and for us it was thorns and thistles, sweat of the brow, dust to dust returning. in that sizzling skyful of spite whirled the whole black storm of the future -- the flint knife in abel's heart, the incest that swelled us into a tribe, a nation, and brought us all like driven lambs, straight to his flood. i blamed it on human nature, even then, when there were only two humans around, and if human nature was a

mistake, whose mistake was it? i didn't ask to be cursed with curiosity. i only wanted the apple, and of course, that promise-to be like gods. but then maybe we are like gods. maybe we're all exactly like gods. and maybe that's our really original sin. >> the original sin. hubris, right? >> yes. >> you've said that's one of your favorites. what makes it a favorite? >> i like the personal tone of eve, who, you know, doesn't get to say anything in the bible, to speak of. and to turn her into a kind of down to earth re-interpreter of that kind of tickles me, that's all. >> she finally gets to tell her own story. >> right. >> did you ever wonder about the silence in that story of the first woman, as it says?

>> yeah. no woman i know would tolerate it. >> exactly. here's one that we like, especially. it's one of the five poems of pagans that you did. and this is one of the short ones. would you read that one? and by the way, tell us what mammon is, for those who haven't been reading the bible lately. >> well, mammon is the love of money and greed and he's the god of wealth. i call it my bernie madoff poem. >> read on. >> o mammon, thou who art daily dissed by everyone, yet boast more true disciples than all other gods together, thou whose eerie sheen gleameth from corporate headquarters and vatican treasury alike, thou whose glittering eye impaleus in the x-ray vision of plastic surgeons, the golden leer of televangelists,

the star-spangled gloat of politicos -- o, mammom, come down to us in the form of treasuries, annuities, and high-grade bonds, yield unto us those benedict arnold funds, those quicksand convertible securities, even the wet judas kiss of futures contracts -- for unto the least of these thy supplicants art thou welcome in all thy many forms. but when thou comest to say we're finally in the gentry -- use the service entry. >> do you ever go back and say, "oh, that's one of my first children. i mean, i remember -- i've forgotten that kid, but now i realize that it is my poem." >> yeah, i love reading the early poems as much as the late ones. i brought along a poem which it would be an interruption, sort of, of the thrust here.

but -- >> that's what life is about, a series of constant interruptions, philip, go ahead. >> the first thing you see in this book is a dedication that's for margie, who happens to be my wife. we're looking forward to our 62nd anniversary this summer. and the dedication says, "let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight." but because margie is home and has had a stroke and is ill, i would like to read a poem for her, if you don't mind. >> please do. >> it's from a book called "summer love and surf," which came out in 1968. and it's the most beautiful book. it's so beautifully designed that it won the -- >> oh, it is. >> -- design contest for that year. and was written when we were living out in malibu, in one of those houses that are built on stilts. and it's so far on the beach that at high tide, the ocean is

gurgling under your bedroom. and we love it there. and this is a young love poem. and in recent years, i've written poems for our 50th anniversary and our 60th anniversary, which are very old love poems. but this is sort of back at the beginning. "summer love and surf." morning was hesitating when you swam at me through wave on wave of sheet and blanket, glowing like some dimly sighted flora at the bottom of the sea. around your filmy hair, light was seeping in with water sounds, low growling in the distance, like dragons chained. after our small storm dwindled, we faced the rage outside, swells humping up and charging in to curl and pause and dash themselves to soapsuds on the stork-legged pilings of our house. the roar was hoarser now, the wrecks of kelp were heaping food for flies,

our long-nosed sand birds staying close to dry land; farther out, pelicans arched their wings in quick surprise and gulls scream urgently. the call was there -- we fought the breakers out and rode their fury back, triumphant and again triumphant, till at last, ears stuffed with brine and heads a-spin like aging boxers battered, we flopped face down on hot sand, smelling sun and salt and steaming skin. your eyes were suddenly all sleep and love, there in the sun, with sea birds calling. the sky goes metal at the end, water, gray and hostile, lashing out between the day and night. plastic swans are threatened, deck chairs, yellow towels, barbecues stand naked to the peril, as if it were winter come by stealth. still later, in the lee of dark and warmth,

we probe the ancient fear -- at night the sea is safer under glass, the crude, wild thing half tamed to shed its past-galleons sent to 50 fathoms, mountains hacked to rubble, cities stripped. at night, the sea, barbaric bellows stifled, sprawls outside the window, framed like a dark, unruly landscape. behind us is a darker kind of dark -- i watch your eyes for signals. the music makes a pause for prophecy -- "tomorrow, off-shore breezes pa and" warmth to each other's warmth, we do not listen. >> that was how long ago? >> 1968. >> you had been married -- >> we had been married 18 years at that point. >> how does love change from

then to now? >> it's more profound and more essential. it was very strong right from the beginning. we met on the first day of french class at northwestern university in 1946. and we've been together ever since. >> she became a playwright, didn't she? >> she was a playwright. and her plays have been produced about 60 times in mostly new york and los angeles. and i appreciate her work on my poetry and other things i write. she is a wonderful critic. four years ago, she had a stroke. and that kind of put an end to her writing. so that was a very sad thrust. >> i'm curious as to this poem, "this year's valentine." where did that come from? what's it about? >> i wrote this right after the twin towers went down. this was a poem i wrote for the next valentine's day. they could

pump frenzy into air ducts and rage into reservoirs, dynamite dams and drown the cities, cry fire in theaters as the victims are burning, but i will find my way through blackened streets and kneel down at your side. they could jump a medi, head-on,me and obliterate the future, fit .45's to the hands of kids and skate emo off tfischool,ff flip live butts into tinderbox restre and hellfire half the heavens, but in the rubble of smoking cottages i will hold you in my arms. they could send kidnappers to kindergartens and pedophiles to playgrounds, wrap themselves in old glory and gut the bill of rights, pound at the door with holy screed and put an end to reason, but i will cut through their curtains of cunning and find you somewhere in

moonlight. whatever they do with their anthrax or chainsaws, however they strip-search or brainwash or blackmail, they cannot prevent me from sending you robins, all of them singing -- i'll be there. >> a year after 9/11 in that huge climate of fear, how could you have such faith in love? >> it's always been there for me. and it keeps me consciously aware that i'm not alone on this earth yet. we're up in our 80s now, so there'll be a time in sometime soon when i will be alone. but while i'm here the thing that i most value is that, love. >> is that the source of the meaning in your life? i mean, you have this remarkable essay, that had a profound impact on me a few years ago, on how the meaning of life comes

out of the moment you're acting, out of your choices every moment, of how you will live that life. "meaning is not out there," you say, "it is in the doing of the moment." >> right. you create your own definition, you create your own meaning, as you act. i was brought up in a small indiana town, went to a fundamentalist church. and when i was about 13, thought my mission was to be a missionary to darkest africa and bring the message. that cleared away a couple of years later. but -- >> why did it clear away? >> i kept reading books and finding out things. and after a while, i realized that what i believed in didn't have much to do with reality. and i studied catholicism for a while. and i went on to take on all the other belief systems. i read all the holy books of, you know, the koran and the buddhist and the hindus. and i spent years doing that,

searching for the meaning of life out there, you know. and eventually, having gone through it all, decided i had to decide on these things for myself. and so i left the holy books behind and started making my own philosophy of life, which pretty much is in the essay you were talking about. i consider myself a humanist, not just an atheist, but a humanist. >> which means? >> means someone who wishes he could work for the betterment of the human condition without reference to a supernatural thing. >> well, you do often, in your poems. i think of another poem that also has been a favorite of mine, called simply, "gertrude." would you tell me about this one and read it? >> my mother was one of those saintly mothers, some of us are lucky enough to have. her name was gertrude. and she was struck by rheumatoid

arthritis when she was about 40. and spent a great part of her life after that in bed or in a wheelchair or something. she was hit very hard. and all of her children, my three sisters and i, did everything we could to help, but nothing worked. and finally she died at the age of 75. i wish that all the people who peddle god could watch my mother die -- could see the skin and gristle weighing only 79, every stubborn ound of flesh a small death. i wish the peoped w p hoeddl god e her young, loveldeinarnd g aldns beautiful in kitchens, and could watch the hand of god slowly twisting her knees and fingers till they gnarled and knotted, settling in for 30 years of pain. i wish the people who pedle godd could see the lightning

of his cancer striking her, that small frame tensing at every shock, her sweet contralto scratchy with the lord's infection -- philip, i want to die. i wish i had them gathered round, those preachers, popes, rabbis, imams, priests -- every pious shill on god's payroll -- and i would pull the sheets from my mother's brittle body, and they would fall on their knees at her bedside to be forgiven all their faith. >> that's very powerful. and in contrast to all of the people both of us know, some of them who find faith a consolation at the time of death. that's intriguing how the human beings walk such different paths, when it comes to religion. >> when margie's mother died -- she was another saint. but she died regretting to herself all the sins she had had

in her life. and because she hadn't really had any sins, but little shortcomings, she forgot to say thank you to someone or something like that. and the whole thing came crashing in on her and she was convinced she was going to go to hell. >> this one is from "karma, dharma, pudding and pie." will you read that? >> this poem has an epigraph from job. it says, "god will laugh at the trial of the innocent." the poem is called "god's grandeur." when they hunger and thirst and i send down a famine, when they pray for the sun, and i drown them with rain, and they beg me for reasons, my only reply is i never apologize, never explain. when the angel of death is a black wind around them and children are dying in terrible pain, then they burn little candles in churches, but still

i never apologize, never explain. when the christians kill jews, and jews kill the muslims, and muslims kill writers eyk thin are profane, they clamor for peaceth or for reasons at least, but i never apologize, never explain. when they wail about murder and torture and rape, lud uncky abel complains about cain,d and they ask me just why i had planned it like this, i never apologize, never explain. of course, if they're smart anhecury fige it out -- f the best of all reasons is perfectly plain. it's because i just happen to like it this way so i never apologize, never explain. >> job kept asking why -- >> poor thing, yeah. >> -- and never got an answer. >> no. >> jesus himself, "oh god, why hast thou forsaken me?" no answer. >> i'm not so impervious to the

world that i don't know that religion does a lot of good sometimes. that some religious people really are good and they want to do good. but unfortunately, so many religious people let the religions lead them into hatred. >> let's have a little fun with e "fronidpeom prf one from "perfidious proverbs." it's actually called "parable of the perfidious proverbs." and proverb, as people i hope know, is an epigram of wisdom contained in the "book of proverbs" in the -- in what christians call the old testament, the hebrew bible. >> okay, yeah. >> how better it is to get wisdom than gold. >> money buys profits and teachers, poems and art, so listen, if you're so rich, why aren't you smart? >> he that spareth his rod, hateth his son.

>> that line gives you a perfect way of testing your inner feelings about child molesting. >> he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. >> but here at the parish, we don't find it overly hard to accept his dirty cash or credit card. >> hope deferred maketh the heart sick. >> that's just why the good lord made it mandatory to eat your heart out down in purgatory. >> wisdom is better than rubies. >> among the jeweled bishops and other boobies it's also a whole lot rarer than rubies. >> he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. >> trusting your heart may not be awfully bright, but trusting proverbs is an idiot's delight. >> i like that. i like that. that's from "perfidious proverbs," which is your new book. what gives you happiness?

what gives you joy? >> poetry does, music does, theater does, but mostly i think it's just having my wife and living quietly and enjoying being together. i think that's the greatest thing in my life. >> philip appleman, thank you very much for being with me. >> thank you. >> that's it for this week. at our website, billmoyers.com, you can see and hear philip appleman read more of his poems. there's also more on the supreme court's recent decisions and how they may affect your life. that's all yoe ersethd u anyoe i l see 'lu there and see you

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