without further ado, gary rivlin, thank you for being here. [applause] >> i want to start by thanking maple street books for having c-span, for coming, we spent three years, and talking about it. in a way, i have been working on this for ten years, office of the new york times, i was on staff covering google going public, facebook, firing of carly fiorina. my phone rings after we are seeing the images, the rest of the country seeing images of the tech ahead. do you mind going to new orleans. i was on a plane within a day or two. and suffering to be part of it. and a breakfast on the first few days. how and why did the levees fail. how did the most powerful country on earth fail so miserably to rescue tens of thousands who were trapped here for five days, 6 days, 7 days, and it was a grisly task of counting the dead. all of that is important to essential journalism but my fascination for whatever reason was what you going to do now? the water is going to receive. the national guard came and took control of the city but what next? 80% of the cit