captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the presidential and vice presidential hopefuls fanned out in swing state territory with one of the themes today: energy policy. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight: with the campaign now fully engaged, we hear from the four men as they make their arguments in four different states. >> woodruff: then, we begin a series of reports about life in the digital age-- tonight, putting and protecting personal information online. >> brown: margaret warner updates the bloody day in afghanistan, where attacks by as many as 14 suicide bombers have killed dozens of people. >> woodruff: we profile rock and roll icon gregg allman of the

allman brothers band, whose new memoir chronicles the ups and downs of life, love and music. >> brown: and we remember i mean no pun, but everybody and their brother has a band rock'n'roll band. my brother said, no, man, we're going to be the band. we're going to be >> brown: and we remember another cultural legend, the longtime editor of "cosmpolitan" magazine, helen gurley brown, who died yesterday. >> single girls weren't supposed to have any sex life. that was not the case, of course. they always have and they always will. but it was sort of underground. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century.

and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: the political conventions won't begin for almost two weeks, but president obama, mitt romney and their running mates are already campaigning in earnest. today, they spread out across the country, focusing on everything from energy to taxes. >> you know, it's great to be here in colorado. >> now, this is my... my second chance to be on a bus tour across ohio this summer. >> we need you to stand with us. it has been great to be back in >> it has been great to be back in iowa. >> woodruff: the four men on the

two presidential tickets blitzed four states that will be critical this november. president obama was on day two of a three-day bus tour across iowa, talking up energy policy. in oskaloosa, the president argued his republican opponent, mitt romney, has dismissed the whole idea of alternative energy. >> he's said that new sources of energy like wind are imaginary. his running mate calls them a fad. during a speech a few months ago, governor romney even explained his energy policy this way, quoting here: "you cant drive a car with a windmill on it." that's what he said about wind power: "you can't drive a car with a windmill on it." >> woodruff: iowa has become a center of wind energy production, and the president said romney has a lot to learn about it. >> the wind industry now supports 7,000 jobs in this

state and 75,000 jobs across the country. ( cheers and applause ) these jobs aren't a fad; they're good jobs and sources of pride that we need to fight for. and if governor romney understood what you've been doing, he'd know that we used to have to import most of the parts used for these wind turbines. today, they're made in iowa and made in america by american workers. that's not imaginary, that's real. that's what were fighting for in this election. so, i want to stop giving $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies each year to big oil companies that are making huge profits and have been subsidized for 100 years, and keep investing in homegrown energy sources like wind that have never been more promising. that's the difference in this election. >> woodruff: at the same time,

romney was in ohio's coal country, arguing it's the president who's forsaken a ready-made energy source. he was flanked by a group of coal miners in bellsville. >> we have 250 years of coal; why in the heck wouldn't we use it? and so i want to take advantage of those energy resources. i like all of those sources of energy. you've probably heard the president say he's for all of the above, and i wondered what he meant because i see how he's been waging war on coal, and i wondered how could he possibly say that. then it came to me. he's for all the sources of energy that come from above the ground, none of those from below the ground, like oil and coal and gas. i'm for all of the above. whether it comes above the ground or below the ground, we're going to take advantage of our energy resources to save your jobs, to create more jobs. and by the way, when we use our plentiful energy resources, our inexpensive carbon-based energy resources, you're going to see manufacturing come back to america. it's not just in this part of

the country; it will be in other parts of nation, as well. it will be part of that first step i'm going to take, which is to take advantage of our energy resources. >> woodruff: then-candidate obama won ohio in 2008, but today romney said the president has not lived up to promises he made to the buckeye state. >> he said if elected president, that if his policies were put in place, the cost of energy would skyrocket. that's one he has kept. he also said that you could go out and build a new coal plant if you want, but if you do you will go bankrupt. that's another promise he's intent on keeping. his vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. can you imagine that? ( audience boos ) this tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he has done. and his policies over the last 3.5 years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office. but now he wants to get

reelected. >> woodruff: meanwhile, romney's vice presidential pick, wisconsin congressman paul ryan, hit the same theme in lakewood, colorado. >> we are offering solutions, and among those solutions we are offering are, number one, make sure that we use our own energy because we have our own energy in this country. ( cheers and applause ) all of it. you have it all here in colorado. we have our own oil and gas. we have nuclear. we have all of the above-- wind, solar, coal. let's use it. let's become energy independent. ( cheers and applause ) let's create jobs. let's stop sending jobs overseas by buying oil overseas. ( cheers and applause ) now, you have the technology here, the wherewithal here, the

oil and gas here. we want to reward that. we should be tapping our resources, which we know we can in an environmentally sensitive way. we want to get the government out of the way. ( cheers and applause ) president obama has done all that he can to make it harder for us to use our own energy. >> woodruff: vice president joe biden steered clear of energy as he stumped in danville, virginia. he called the republican ticket men of "fundamentally flawed judgment." >> romney wants to let the... he said in the first hundred days he's going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain wall street. >> boo! >> they're going to put you all back in chains. >> woodruff: biden then zeroed in on republican calls for extending and adding new tax cuts. >> now, you got to hear it. now, i want you to listen, because you'll think i'm making

this up if you didn't listen hard. $800 billion over the next ten years will go to people with a minimum income of a million dollars. >> what? >> now wait... no, hang on. and of that $800 million... billion, $400 billion will go to 120,000 households. $400 billion going to 120,000 households, while we cut medicaid, while we cut education, while we cut infrastructure. ladies and gentlemen... and on top of that, romney comes along, the governor comes along, as does the congressman, and says we need an additional tax cut for the job creators. i'm serious. we need an additional $1.6 trillion for the job creators,

on top of all this. >> woodruff: the romney camp protested the biden remark about putting people back in chains, calling it a "new low." the obama campaign replied, saying it was in response to a frequent g.o.p. call to "unshackle" the private sector from consumer regulations. >> brown: and still to come on the newshour: our vulnerability online; the deadliest day of the year in afghanistan; a memoir from a rock and roll musician; and the legendary editor of "cosmopolitan." but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: it could be a good sign for the u.s. economy: consumers spent more in july. the commerce department reported today that retail sales rose by the most in five months, and inflation remained under control. wholesale prices rose just 0.5% in the 12 months that ended in july. the news got wall street off to a good start, but the market could not hold its gains. the dow jones industrial average gained just two points to close at 13,172.

the nasdaq fell five points to close below 3,017. syria's newly defected prime minister spoke out publicly for the first time today. he called for other top officials to quit the syrian government and hasten its demise. we have a report from john ray of independent television news. >> reporter: a boy leads a mourning at a funeral for his father. for those who suffer so much, this must seem truly like a war without end. but today, from a longtime loyalist, a claim that assad's time is almost up. riyad hijab, the prime minister who switched sides, called the regime an enemy of god. morally, financially, militarily, it is collapsing, he said. mr. hijab believes regime forces control just 30% of the country, but they dominate 100% of the sky.

rebels say a nato no-fly zone would end the war quickly. in syria, diplomacy is at an end, though baroness amos said the united nations is in damascus to try to reach a deal to increase the flow of emergency aid. >> i think it's important that all parties to the conflict recognize that it is ordinary men and women who are caught up in the middle of this, and that it's important that the fighting stops. >> reporter: the basics of life- - bread, medicine, safe shelter- - all are in short supply. the u.n. estimates that 2.5 million people are now in need of help. only a fraction of them have been able to reach refugee camps in neighboring countries. for the people of syria, the war cannot end too soon. >> reporter: in washington today, defense secretary leon panetta said again the u.s. has no immediate plans to impose a no-fly zone over parts of syria. instead, he said american assistance will continue in other forms.

providing unlethal aid to the opposition, other gulf countries are providing, you know, more aggressive assist fns to the opposition as well, but our goal is try to do what we can to try to assist them in a way that can make them more effective in this fight. with regards to the no-fly zone, that is not a front-burner issue for >> sreenivasan: meanwhile, syrian rebels released a new video today that purportedly shows a captured fighter from the hezbollah militant group in lebanon. the man can be seen sitting in front of three masked gunmen. in the video, he claims to be one of 1,500 hezbollah fighters sent to syria this month to help defend the government. back in lebanon, hezbollah denied the man is one of its members. fast-moving wildfires threatened homes in several western states today. crews in central washington state had trouble getting ahead of wind-driven flames in a blaze that's destroyed 60 homes and forced hundreds of people to flee. it ignited yesterday but grew to 38 square miles within hours. wildfires also burned in

northern california, idaho and utah. a u.s. forest service firefighter was killed in idaho on sunday when a tree fell on her. an experimental u.s. military plane faced a new test today: flying at six times the speed of sound. plans called for the hypersonic x-51 wave rider to hit mach six, 3,600 miles an hour, for five minutes off the southern california coast. that speed would take the plane from new york to london in under an hour. ultimately, the boeing-made aircraft could be used to deliver air strikes around the globe within minutes. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: and we begin an occasional series about the way we live ever more of our lives online in the digital age, and some of the risks and rewards connected with this evolution. in coming segments, we'll discuss the connections and disconnections of online life, the differences between engaging online and in the physical world, and what it means exactly to go "viral," and more. we begin with a look at just how

much of us, our identities, are online, and how vulnerable that can make us. mathew honan learned this first- hand recently when he was hacked and lost control of his phone, email and personal computer. he told the tale in "wired" magazine, where he's a technology writer. also joining us is peter pachal, who watches this world closely as the technology editor for the web site "mashable." can be our case study, i guess, to start. how much of your life existed online in some form or another before you got hacked? >> like a lot of people, you know, it's an increasing amount every year. i had probably more than most. i had eight years or so of g-mail history in there. then in addition to that, i was using apple's service which, while my data wasn't stored online, had an on-line component that let people or wiped my computer, wiped my i-pad, wiped my i-phone. although the data wasn't there,

the control of that data was there. >> brown: it's a long story. we can't go into everything that happened to you. but, tell us, where did you see... where were you most vulnerable? what did you find out? >> what i found out, interestingly, was that there wasn't like there was one key area that was vulnerable. we tend to now give lots of different companies lots of little bits of information. so in my case what hackers were able to do was to take one more small bit of information from amazon, the last four digits of my credit card number and use that to get access to my apple account which they were to use to get into all my other accounts, my google account, my twitter act. to me it highlighted how all of these services are really linkedded together and how little control we have over what's happening with our data that's in them. >> brown: peter pachal, let me bring you into it. little control or little awareness of how much we have there and how vulnerable we are? what do we know about people's bit of psychology and knowledge

of life online? >> well, i think matt said it best in his piece when he said that he basically created an apple i.d. years ago, like a lot of us did, simply to download songs for 99 cents each. now that same account is now linked to so many different services that apple provides. i mean, i-cloud is obviously the main one that serve as a catalyst here. so it really kind of bears taking a step back on, you know, just how many of these accounts we have, how they've grown and also how they're linked. i think like one of the big take-aways, i think from matt's story and others is that do the best you can to isolate your services from each other. use different emails, different passwords. password managers and certain other tools to help you with that. because, you know, it's like dominoes. one gets hacked and the rest

fall. >> brown: peter, staying with you. i want to ask you more about passwords because that is of course one of the best ways to protect all these different things we use and yet most of us, of course, have a hard time remembering too many passwords. i read about how many people use very simple passwords even though they're warned otherwise. >> yeah, i'm glad you brought that up. there are a number of passwords managing tools that are free to use or cost a very small fee. that work for both the web and your phone. that's obviously the absolute best solution because they can also generate random passwords so you don't even have to remember them. they have automatic log-in tools and that kind of thing. realistically, i know that a lot of people aren't going to do that even though we all sort of know we need to. i personally have been guilty of using the same password for other services. i probably shouldn't say that on air but i have been guilty of

it. i now use a password manager. but if you're not going to use a password manager, at the very least, do not use the same password that you use for simple service that you're going to sign up for once and use that same password for your banking information. at least have a few tiers of security in the passwords you're remembering. use like a single easy-to-remember password for stuff you're going to sign up for once. another one for something more severe like email and something really hard for your on-line bank. but that's not the best solution. it's not even really good solution. but at least it's better than using the same password for everything which i do know a lot of people do. >> brown: matt, i saw you smiling as he was talking about the passwords and admitting to not always being as fully useful of them as any of us should be. what was your... what would you

add to that about the, you know, it's a very human psychology not to overdo the passwords, not to make it too complicated? >> right. my passwords scheme, this is what was interesting. my password scheme was actually pretty complicated. i was using a password manager. i wasn't reusing pass wors. i was hacked by people calling up companies on the phone and getting passwords reset. but i think that one of the things that, when we're talking about passwords or turning on extra layers of security in g-mail or facebook, you always have this trade-off between security and ease of use. as we continue to give more and more of our information, our financial information, our credit card numbers, our addresses, things like that to web services that we don't have any control over, i think we're going to have to start understanding and accepting that security is not always going to be easy. it's just a price we're going to have to pay.

>> brown: what do you advise? you guys are in this world. you're always up on the latest gaj hes. what about the rest of us? matt, starting with you. i mean, what do you advise? what do you tell friends? >> one of the main things that i think people should be doing is making local back-ups of their data regularly. i didn't do this. i was guilty of it. it's why i lost, you know, about a year-and-a-half worth of photos of my daughter. another thing that i think you should do is to set up a password manager, something like one password or last pass where you can store all these complex passwords. and then there are security solutions that, like google offers like that are called two-step services, facebook has something similar where you use a password and your phone. you have to basically get a text message on your phone to log into the site from a new computer. >> brown: peter, our last word from you. we haven't talked about the people who are doing the hacking but presumably they're staying up on all of this as well to stay a step ahead, right?

>> yeah. but so are security companies. matt mentiond ease of use. i'm glad you brought that up. i mean, there is some stuff that is sort of being introduced now. the field of biometrics which is basically using fingerprints and things like your voice as your password. now there's a lot to be figured out with these technologies particularly on the back end. for i.t. managers. but promise is that you would basically use your voice as your password because if the app can know it's actually you speaking, then password becomes redundant. you can just throw it away. it just won't let in anyone else. that sort of has aate lot of promise. i hope it actually turns out to basically solve a lot of these issues. >> brown: matt, just finish your story here. you were able to restore a good deal of the information? >> i got everything back that was stored ironically that was stored in the cloud. everything in the cloud is back.

everything in my google account i got back. the stuff on my hard drive what was remotely wiped, that was remotely deleted i still have not got back yet. i just had a data recovery place right now. >> brown: good lesson for, everybody. matt honan, peter pachal, thank you both. >> thank you. happy to be here. >> woodruff: and we turn to afghanistan, where today was the deadliest day in a year for civilians. the latest violence comes as american forces are increasingly being attacked by afghans who are supposedly their allies. margaret warner has our story. >> warner: as u.s. military forces draw down and afghan forces expand toward taking full control of security by the end of 2014, there's been an increase in insurgent violence. the latest: a wave of bombings today in the southwest. suicide attacks by as many as 14 bombers rocked zaranj, capital of nimroz province near the iran border.

at least 36 people died. hours later, a motorcycle bomb exploded in the northern province of kunduz, ripping through a crowded bazaar, killing at least ten. international coalition figures show insurgent attacks were up 11% in the second quarter of this year over last year. in washington today, secretary of defense leon panetta attributed the increase to greater coalition pressure on the taliban. >> as the fighting season has progressed, we've seen an increase in enemy-initiated attacks, though violence levels have remained consistent with past summers. we are taking the fight to the enemy, and when you're aggressive and when you're conducting operations against them, obviously the number of casualties against them is going to increase. >> warner: the past week also brought five more attacks on u.s. and nato troops by men in afghan army or police uniforms, another growing trend.

at least seven americans were killed. secretary panetta outlined preventive steps being taken to try to reverse the trend. >> our enemies have attempted to undermine the trust between the coalition and afghan forces, and in particular they have tried to take credit for a number of so- called "green-on-blue" or insider attacks that have taken place this fighting season. make no mistake about it, i've been very concerned about these incidents-- both of us have-- because of the lives lost and because of the potential damage to our partnership efforts. >> warner: u.s. officials also have to contend with new turmoil within the government of president hamid karzai. this month, parliament voted no- confidence in two top officials, interior minister bismillah khan mohammadi and defense minister abdul rahim wardak, who resigned last week. finance minister omar zakhilwal

is also being investigated on charges of corruption. for more we turn to the "washington post" bureau chief in kabul. kevin, welcome. thanks for joining us. let's start with today's suicide attacks. what are u.s. officials, military commanders on the ground telling you about, one, are they related and, two, who they think is behind them? >> as far as we know at this point, they're unrelated attacks, although most officials will tell you that they were both executed by the insurgents. we don't know which arm of the unsurge ensy. no one at this point is taking credit for the attacks but the one in the south is by far at this point the most deadly. >> warner: how concernedded are they about this uptick in attacks? i think we reported up 11% in the second quarter this year over last year. >> yeah. i think there is concern particularly in a place like nimros where it's been quiet for a long time. the marines for the most part

have pulled out or drawn down their presence quite significantly. i think an attack there is quite concerning to them. you know, they'll tell you that 2014 is still a ways away. you know, the u.s. troops will be here for quite some time. the fight against the insurgents is not over yet. but still in a place like this, there's no nato presence whatsoever there. an attack this big at this stage in the war is concerning both to nato and obviously to the afghans who are living this. >> warner: there's the other worrying trend which is the increase in so-called green-on-blue attacks or afghan soldiers on american forces. how concerned are commanders on the ground about that? we heard defense secretary leon panetta. what do they think is behind it? >> right. i think there are a range of issues that spark these attacks. you know, a number of them are sparked by personal disputes

where there's no real insurgent presence. but some of them, particularly some of the recent attacks are executed by taliban or insurgent plants who manage to infiltrate the security forces and they go through training and put on afghan uniforms and they wait for the right moment. the two attacks in helmand last week were particularly concerning. three marines died in each attack so six total. i think particularly in helmand where you're seeing a significant drawdown now which means that the marines that are on the grounds are forced to have sort of a more intimate relationship with their afghan counterparts, small american advisory teams that are attached to the afghan forces so that relationship is really important at this point. and when that sort of... when the relationship is challenged by something like this, it's a really devastating blow and at a

really important time in the drawdown. >> warner: let me ask you about the shuffle at the top in the karzai government. the defense and interior ministers being dismissed by parliament. what's behind that? >> right. well, you know, the vote was taken by parliament and the lawmakers here accused these two very important ministers, maybe the two most important ministers in afghanistan of being corrupt and not taking sort of appropriate action against in the case of the defense minister against the rocket attacks from across the border in pakistan. but the biggest issue that they were concerned about was this issue of corruption. and it happened very quickly. karzai within a couple of days acknowledged that, you know, the parliament had made its decision and agreed that these men would both be removed. it certainly doesn't say much about public confidence and key afghan officials. again at a really important

time. these are two guys who historically have been really strong american allies particularly minister wardak who has been the defense minister since 2004, has played a really instrumental role in building up the afghan national security forces, but these accusations of corruption have haunted his tenure essentially since he got here. so, you know, american officials are quick to say that this is certainly, you know, it gives you a sense of afghan democracy in action but at the same time we don't know who replaced these guys and if they will be as willing as these guys were to work with the americans during a really important time. >> warner: let me ask you about one other development we hear about out of afghanistan which is is the government revealed, quote unquote, this week that they had talked with a senior former taliban leader. is there anything to this talk of renewd negotiations or peace talks? >> right. it's very early in the game at

this point so it's hard to say for sure. i mean certainly both the afghans and the americans here will tell you that they're confident that this chapter and talks with the taliban will be more successful than the last. the last was essentially a failure. very, very little happened. the afghans mostly blamed the americans for not giving them sort of the proper role at the negotiating table so this time the americans are very adamant that the afghans take the lead in a real way so what we're seeing now is mostly that. it's the afghans meeting with key taliban officials in pakistan and most likely in other places as well. and trying to get these negotiations off the ground. the question though is what sort of bargaining power do they really have at this point? i mean, the last chapter of negotiations really hinged on these prisoners at guantanamo and if the americans were willing to release these prisoners, the taliban said that

that would be a foundation for negotiations. if that's not a part of the puzzle here, if the americans are unwilling to release those prisoners and this is really sort of an afghan-led negotiation without that american involvement, it's unclear really how quickly this will move or really, you know, how far it can go. >> warner: thank you so much. >> brown: next, a hard-lived life amid the sound, success and sorrow of rock n' roll. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. ♪ >> brown: from the bench behind his organ, greg allman has been belting out the rock-and-roll blues for more than 40 years. ♪ wake up, mama ♪ turn your lamp down low

>> brown: the band he cofounded with his late brother duane the allman brothers is aimed for its hard-driving performances and hits like rambling man. ♪ lord i was born a rambling man ♪ >> brown: and melissa. ♪ without melissa >> brown: beginning in the late '60s, the band grabbed audiences with a sound that brought together the southern blues and electrified rock'n'roll that greg and duane allman had embraced. >> it was our two loves music. he sort of leand towards the country blues which is unelectrified. robert johnson. and i was really james brown, you know, people like curtis mayfield.

>> brown: now greg allman has told of the musical voyage and the life of triumph and a great deal of travail in his new memoir "my cross to bear." allman was born in nashville in 1947, a year and 1 days after his brother duane. when he was just two, his father who fought at normandy was shot dead by a hitchhiker while on home leave from korea. as youngsters the boys were sent to military school while their mother finished her degree. they all eventually moved to florida. it was one night in 1960, allman says, that changed everything. >> you went to a concert and heard otis reading and others play. what did you hear? what changed? what happened? >> it was one of those reviews that they don't have anymore. otis took it, by the way. i mean, he would run back and forth across just a quarter-mile long stage. he was about 7'2 ." i mean, built, god! my brother, i remember him

going, you know, like, hey, man, his jaw was open. he said, "man." and the music was going. he said something like, "i've got to have me some of this." >> brown: there was, however, a realistic streak in young greg allman. he writes that he had actually attended to go to college and medical school. >> i mean no pun, but everybody and their brother had a band, a rock-and-roll band. >> brown: you're looking around saying we're not going to make it here. >> we're not going to make rent doing this. my brother said, but, no, man, we're going to be the best. we're going to be number one." >> brown: there would be several intervening years and bands with names like the hour glass. even one called the allman joys. >> i didn't name the band. i did not name have anything to do with that. >> brown: it was gain who gained fame first, a guitarist who

played on famous recordings by aretha franklin and other stars. years later he would be named the second great rock guitarist of all time by rolling stone magazine, just behind jimi hendrix, ahead of b.b. king and eric clapton. what did he have? what made him different? >> oh, man, it was there from the start. he had this like, it was like some kind of a thread woven in to what came out of his guitar. but it made all the riffs like a continuous story. >> brown: allman brothers band came together and brought out its self-titled debut in 1969. they were seen as leaders in a new style of southern rock, a tag all nba never liked. >> rock-and-roll was born in the south, man. it's like saying, rock-rock. >> brown: you mean it was born from bringing together that...

>> four kings of white and rock, two white, two black. jerry lee lewis, louisiana. little richard penman, macon, georgia, chuck berry, st. louis, missouri, elvis presley. >> brown: in 1971, the allmans recorded what is widely considered the finest live album ever made. it would be their ticket to stardom. but just three months after its release, duane allman was killed in a motorcycle crash in their adopted home of macon, georgia. >> my brother died. then it just started raining money. at first, you know, i screamed and yelled and shook my fist at the sky and yelled, shortchang shortchanged.

>> brown: the band members debated whether to continue. >> i told them, we don't want to wind up a bunch of street junkies. or we can forget all that crap and go back to business as usual. it was pretty much a landslide. it was. >> brown: the decision to just do it. >> after hearing what is the alternative. >> brown: but there was still more tragedy on the way. a year later bassist barry oakley died in a eerily similar motorcycle accident near the spot where duane was killed. all that raining money led to a torrent of problems for the band and greg allman in particular through the '70s and beyond. alcohol abuse, drug addiction, broken marriages, most famously to cher. are interestingly, this man who has lived life so loudly and publicly sees himself as quite the opposite. you write about yourself and even talking to you here, you're a shy person.

is that right? >> that's right. brown: and yet you get up on stage and you perform for thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. >> if i really looked out there and just scanned them, you know, i'd go running off the stage, man. (laughing) if i'd have gave it serious thought, you know, i probably wouldn't. poof. disappear. >> brown: greg allman is now 64 and sober 17 years. hes a was granted a new lease on life after a liver transplant two years ago. he and the band, including the two original drummers, are still on the road all these years later. >> woodruff: we'll be back shortly with a look at the life

and legacy of longtime "cosmopolitan" editor helen gurley brown. but first, this is pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support, and that support helps keep programs like ours on

>> woodruff: finally tonight, remembering the legacy of helen gurley brown. she rose to national attention with the publication of a 1962 bestseller that quickly became a cultural touchstone, "sex and the single girl." >> single girls were not supposed to have any sort of sex life. that was not the case, of course. they always have and they always will. but it was sort of subrosa underground. >> woodruff: helen gurley brown, 40 and married at the time, had a larger message: women could have it all-- career, sex, marriage and more. she promoted those ideas as the editor-in-chief of "cosmopolitan" magazine for more than three decades.

some articles had a feminist tone, others offered fashion tips and advice on landing a man. brown defended them all. >> the accusation, if i may, that "cosmo" is a sex manual and we deal prolifically and prodigiously and eternally and everlastingly with sex, sex, sex, yes, we have always covered that particular topic willingly, gladly, enthusiastically. >> woodruff: brown was ousted as editor of the american edition of "cosmopolitan" in 1996, but she stayed on as editor of its international editions for years. she died in new york yesterday at 90. some memories and thoughts now about helen gurley brown from a writer who knew her well for many years. gail sheehy wrote about her for the daily beast. she's the author of 16 books and writes for vanity fair and other publications.

gail sheehy, good to see you again. >> happy to be with you, judy. woodruff: you knew, as we said, helen gurley brown very well. tell us a little bit about her life that would help us understand how she became the person she was. >> well, she turnedded her back on a conventional woman's life at the age of seven. that was 1929. she came from nothing. father died early. her mother was impoverished. she had a crippledded sister. she was really a horatio al jer hero. she emanated a new american dream, the idea of the self-made woman. >> woodruff: where did that come from? you were telling us today there was this self-reliance that stood out in helen gurley brown. where did that come from? >> she just... she was a very plucky girl.

she didn't want to be a hill billy left in arkansas. she wanted to be a successful woman. she had the idea that she could actually do that without getting married until she got good and ready and found mr. right. she managed to get that idea across to working class women, ordinary women living in hard scrabble towns all over america with not much to look forward to but maybe a job at the 5-and-10, a boss/husband and no control over all the children they might have. you know, there was a real social serendipity here. the birth control pill came along the same year that helen gurley brown published sex and the single girl. that allowed her to give a new idea to women too. to take the same prerogatives that young men had always taken. to enjoy a long, lusty prelude

to marriage, if they married at all. and to spend the rest of the time building a successful career. that was a totally new idea in the early '60s and her book came out a year before the feminine mystique and nine years before gloria design em brought out ms. magazine. >> how would you describe what her relationship was with the women's movement? >> well, she wasn't an ideologue. she wasn't the least bit political. but she had a vision. that vision was of women becoming, you know, making their own choices. so she was parallel to the women's movement but she was never, you know, a card carrying feminist. that got her into a lot of trouble with the women's movement. but that movement went off, you know, a little bit to the extremes as well. helen stayed on her message all the way through her life. into her... well into her 80s. you know, the proof of it is, is

that magazine is in 70 or 80 countries around the world including muslim countries. it continues to carry that same message around the world. >> woodruff: how would you describe, gail sheehy, what the platform... what was the message that she most wanted to get across to women? >> she wanted to say, "you can make your own choices in life. you don't have to have money. you don't have to have a man. you have to have grit and hard work and self-discipline. take the jobs that nobody else wants." she took 17 jobs as secretaries and made her way through many bosses who wanted to play pinch and tickle until she found the man that she thought was worthy of her and married a man and believed strongly in a partnership between a man and a woman to achieve success. she married a hollywood producer. in fact, david brown gave her the idea for her first book from

letters she had written as a single girl. he also campaigned with her to get her the job as the editor of cosmo. and he wrote all the cover lines, all those saucy cover lines. >> woodruff: i wanted to ask you about that because she had never been an editor when she became the editor of cosmopolitan. that was really something that they pulled off. wasn't it? >> absolutely. the two of them pulling that off. david had been an editor earl of the post-war cosmo which was going into the trash bin. but the minute helen took over, she totally turned that around. from a very frumpy magazine, you know, meant for sub urban housewives, suddenly there was cleavage. suddenly there were women saying, you know, i want the same prerogatives that young men have. it was a scandal at the time. but she kept saying outrageous things and putting on outrageous covers. interestingly, she didn't look anything like a cosmo cover

girl. she was skinny, flat chested, pock marked. but that allowed her to connect with these ordinary working class girls who had no idea that there was another way to live except, you know, under the rules of the patriarchy. >> woodruff: if you had to summit up, what would you say the legacy? clearly we've come a long way since the 1960s when she started cosmopolitan. >> well, i think that we still... we've learned that it isn't as easy as saying women can have it all which was really helen's idea. you know, she never had any children. neither did gloria steen em. it's when you have children along with want to go have a high-powered career and a marriage that's really meaningful that the rubber meets the road. so, you know, women can have it all but not all at once. i think we've come to learn that. >> woodruff: gail sheehy,

remembering helen gurley brown. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> brown: again, the major developments of the day. president obama and republican challenger mitt romney traded barbs over energy policy today as they and their running mates fanned out to four different states. syria's newly-defected prime minister claimed the syrian government is near collapse, and he called for other military and political leaders in damascus to follow his lead. and a wave of bombings in afghanistan killed at least 46 people and wounded more than 70 others. online, we examine how an early spring has affected seasonal farm workers. hari sreenevasan tells us more. >> sreenivasan: we traveled to michigan, where early blooms were vulnerable to late frosts. that meant fewer cherries and fewer jobs for pickers. you can watch that video, part of our series "coping with climate change." on our "world" page, read a globalpost dispatch about how tribes in eastern syria are turning against the regime of president assad.

voters in the swing state of colorado reflect on the weight of their votes in november. all that and more is on our web site, www.newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll look at the battle for women voters in northern virginia. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions