this is a biography by philip david, and he was a teacher of mine.i was in a seminar, a writing seminar he gave my freshman year at harvard. and i had the great, good fortune to be in it. and he made such an impression on me. and i think he is a wonderful writer, now you might. and i think it is amazing to me, and it shows you something about the nature of reputation that bernard malamud went on top of every most important living writers of fiction. and now he has not read so much, and i think this is such a shame because he is really a terrific writer. his short stories are really great. the assistant. even a new life, which was a second novel, an academic novel that you know, hasn't gotten a lot of attention. they all are really, really wonderful. and i am just so happy that this biography has come out that i hope will bring people back to mr. malamud's work. he gave me a sense of the seriousness of the writer's life, that elizabeth, another teacher of mine, also gave me. every day, they got up and they wrestled with very, very difficult work of wr

david burwell. >> that ed immediately raises the value of the property for variety of development purposes. >> reporter: american taxpayers will benefit from the belt line, too, according to highway advocate, philip reedmeyer. >> it's needed to improve the nation's highway system. this is not going to benefit just jefferson county or just the state of alabama. there's a lot of traffic movement through the state of alabama from other states. so this will benefit the country by having the northern belt line. >> reporter: can you make the case to somebody who is watching us in california or illinois, why should their tax dollars go in the funding this road? >> well, our tax dollars have gone to help fund roads in other parts of this country. it's kind of our turn so to speak. >> reporter: on average, for every dollar in gas taxes that alabama stonds washington, the state gets back $1.12 in subsidies. and that's why it's so hard to kill zombie highway programs like the appalachian development system. >> the federal government gives a promise that whateverut it tas to complete the program, federal government will pay 80% of that cost. it does not say, okay, we'll give you the first billion dollars the