And Iran were among the topics discussed Michele Kelemen n.p.r. News the State Department the International Criminal Court is ruling out opening a war crimes investigation into members of the u.s. Military Afghan troops and the Taliban predicting little to no cooperation there's also reports a prominent u.s. Attorney has traveled to the Hague Jay Sekulow an attorney working for President Trump and representing the American Center for Law and Justice told i.c.c. Judges Afghanistan doesn't even have the right to allow an investigation of alleged war crimes due to legal agreements signed with Washington the fact such a probe was being considered by the i.c.c. Led the trumpet ministration to block visas for the court's chief prosecutor and anyone working on the potential case Teri Schultz this is n.p.r. . The booty judge is calling on his former employer the prestigious consulting firm McKinsey and Company to release its client list from his nearly 3 years there as Lauren children of New Hampshire Public Radio reports the South Bend Indiana Mayor turned Democratic presidential candidate is getting heat for not being transparent when people judge talks about his resume on the campaign trail he usually focuses on his military service or his tenure as mayor not his time as a management consultant at the elite firm but that chapter is becoming fodder for some of his Democratic opponents but he just says he's not saying much in part because he's under a non-disclosure agreement that he signed when he started his job at McKinsey but he says McKinsey should release that information maybe they're not used to doing that but they're not used to having somebody who used to work there being seriously considered for the American presidency this information should come out and I'm happy to speak to and when it does McKinsey spokesperson has not yet responded to calls for comment for n.p.r. News I'm Lauren children in New Hampshire a jury in Los Angeles today found the Tesla c.e.o. Elon Musk did not defame a British cave explorer when he called him a pedophile in a tweet or in a number worth helped in the rescue of 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped for weeks in a tile and cave last year he also dismissed Musk's effort to help with the rescue as nothing more than a p.r. Stunt that prompted the angry had a tweet from the billionaire in testimony Musk apologized saying his comment was simply heated rhetoric and not a statement of fact I'm Janine Herbst And you're listening to n.p.r. News from Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include a little passports and their new science junior subscription for kids ams to inspire curiosity designed to bring projects to life while utilizing new science concepts more at little passports dot com. Thanks for listening to fresh air on k s u t 4 Corners public radio local support is provided by Les Combe winery and beast row inviting you to their tasting room and wine bar the retail boutique has a wide variety of gift baskets and sparkling wines along with 35 New Mexican wines available for tasting they're open 7 days a week for lunch and dinner in Farmington at 5150 East Main This is Fresh Air I'm David Bianculli editor of the website t.v. Worth Watching sitting in for Terry Gross. That's Aaron Copeland's believe the kid performed by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas our 1st guest today on fresh air this weekend Thomas will be one of 5 honorees saluted for lifetime artistic achievement at the Kennedy Center Honors celebration in a star studded tribute which will be televised December 15th on c.b.s. The other honorees this year are Sally Field Linda Ronstadt Sesame Street and the r. And b. Band Earth Wind and Fire. Michael Tilson Thomas was only 24 when he 1st conducted the Boston Symphony filling in need concert for the ailing conductor he founded the New World Symphony and also served as music director of the buffalo Philharmonic and principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra Terry Gross 1st spoke with Michael Tilson Thomas in 1905 shortly after he became the music director of the San Francisco Symphony which he continues to lead today. As a teenager you participate in the premiere of works by blessed Stockhausen Copeland Stravinsky. You worked with them directly yes yes indeed Yeah so did they give you a sense of what to expect. If you made music into your life you know if you live the life of a musician. Well they did many people did I mean also. Copeland But I very early perceived that there were some people in the music business who had been playing music for their whole lives who seemed to be ennobled and transfigured merely by the process of making music and others who seem to be very unhappy embittered by the experience of making music and so I was trying from the very beginning to understand what was the difference between these people and where did the choice live between having a life in music that made you very very happy or one that made you very frustrated when we able to figure out well I decided way back then that it was important for musicians to kind of take a musical Hippocratic oath before they went into the definition and what is the area that you have to discover that it's just necessary for you to make music I mean to be a musician you have to love. Music as much as eating or sleeping or dreaming or all those other ngs and you can't be sure when you enter the profession of music where it may take you it is uncertain it depends a lot on being very well prepared and being in the right place at the right time but I remember a moment when I was around 18 or 19 I was walking on the u.s.c. Campus where I was going to school and I thought to myself well I know that I'm good enough I know I'm good enough I could be a university musician and they're wonderful things happening at this music at this music school of great quality and expression and if I could do this as long as I can make music I'll be very happy and if it turns out that I can make music in some larger arena Well we'll see about that but it's I know that it's music itself which is this process this dialogue with. With something in my spirit that I must pursue and then I knew I was going into music with. The with no other agenda it was just the music itself that mattered it was those people who for whom music truly mattered who were the ones that had wonderful lives as musicians and when you said you thought musicians should take a Hippocratic oath I thought it would be you know 1st do no harm and that would be something like never perform boring works. Well never perform with your heart not being in it never never allow that yourself to get to the point where it it's a job always make sure that your spirit is focused so that so that communicating music to other people is it is a central priority for you I have a can conducting question I mean a stick stick question you studied you know classical stick technique how much of that do you use now and how much of your take Nique is is based on what you've Like learned in improvised over the years it's definitely a mixture of both I think the easiest way for you to understand this is that there's a constant given take process going on in the rehearsals and in the performance itself so there's certain key moments where I have to really indicate the exact to those of of a certain moment in time to get around a particular corner and then having done that then I what I want to do is sort of turn over the lead of the music to perhaps a solo oboe player or perhaps a viola section or maybe a brass chorale all those different groups within the orchestra have their own have their own reaction time they all take breaths at a different speed they all have a a different way of interacting and it's possible with my battle or with a little bit of body language or in using my eyes a lot mostly in using my my facial expression my contact with the orchestra shapes all those things you are very close to Leonard Bernstein do you feel like you learned a lot about conducting technique from him of course I learned a lot from him by observing him and mostly through the kind of colloquy concerning music that we had over many years when I was studying pieces I had the opportunity to you know to call me up and ask questions and I in the best kind of a rabbinic style almost always when I asked him a question he would ask me questions back and by this kind of dialogue of questions you know he would help me to really find my own way. Of doing the music that was of course terrific and. I guess my conduct is to has become a lot freer it's a lot more economical now than it was 10 years ago but you know these things these things change I I can only say that now it feels to me in the repertoire that's really the mind that as if I'm making the music happen in space as if I'm touching the notes and actually molding them and shaping them in some kind of plastic way you know with within Time itself you are in the role of the James Brown ones right that well I was with him for a couple of days I met him in Boston he was doing a little he was doing a show in a small jazz club and I told him I was a great admirer of his and he said Well come on the road you know see how we do it because I asked him how he got the band to be so tight and this is the time when he was doing sex machine was his big hit and I spent 3 or 4 days with him in Atlanta at Augusta and in Washington d.c. Watching from backstage just what he did and it was a great thrill so did you learn anything you could apply absolutely because what I realized that he was focused on the exact duration of the perceivable present in every particular piece the stroke of the bee had a certain length he one of the the truck driver to be out in front in the hand drummer to be in the back and the bass player to be right the center and he had an exact idea of how wide in time that stroke of the chunk chunk would be would be and he and he used it and it was something very sophisticated and just the kind of thing that composers like Igor Stravinsky thought about a great deal so did it change the way you conducted it all or the way you organized your beat it didn't change the way I conducted so much but it changed the way I could listen to music and imagine how the the it is the exact moment of the attack of music could be really artfully crafted to propel the music in different ways but you didn't have this to do the beat on the one. Well I have the works to do whatever's necessary right. That's conductor Michael Tilson Thomas speaking to Terry Gross in 1905 after a break we'll hear a more recent interview about his grandparents the Thomas chef skis who were prominent stars of the Yiddish theater This is Fresh Air. And salaries do matter and you know he's one of the poorest and most I think a diverse cities can Brazil it's also home to a thriving roots reggae scene and oh I just could he joined me for paper last meadows and read your eyes next time. From p.r.i. . International. Stay with us for Afropop Worldwide coming up later tonight at 9 o'clock support for fresh air is provided by splendid kitchens offering kitchen and interior design to suit your lifestyle with a wide selection of quality cabinetry countertops and hardware located in Durango at 190 Sawyer drive in Bodo park and online at splendid kitchens dot c e o splendid kitchens Durango's kitchen design and remodelling company this is Fresh Air conductor Michael Tilson Thomas is one of the honorees who will be saluted at this weekend's annual Kennedy Center Honors Terry Gross spoke with him again in 2012 when he had written in appeared in a p.b.s. Great performances special honoring his grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomas chef ski who were prominent stars of the year as theater. Boris was a producer he built and he starred in productions of new plays and musicals as well as classic plays translated in the. Did the 1st year dish production of Hamlet when he died in 190330000 people gathered on the Lower East Side for his funeral Boris and Bessie each emigrated to America from the Ukraine in the 880 s. Before we listen to Terry's 2012 conversation with Michael Tilson Thomas let's hear an archival recording of Boris Thomas singing a song in the film bar mitzvah. Was. Too. So that's Forrest Thomas cesky the star of the it ish stage who is the late grandfather of my guest conductor Michael Tilson Thomas Michael Tilson Thomas welcome back to Fresh Air Thank you pleasure so your grandfather sang in synagogues in the Ukraine and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan before singing on the stage do you think he was influenced as a singer by the cantorial tradition. Very much so because in bourses family all my great great grandfathers had been mostly Cozzens counters except the ones who had become instead bodkins let's to say kind of village entertainers people who would get up on a chair at a wedding and sing a song which was completely appropriate to the occasion which was expected on that occasion and yet it would have improvised lyrics little outtakes that made it completely individual to that night so there was that sacred and profane division always in the family and Boris's father who already had a kind of wandering spirit as it was called nonetheless sent Boris to the best cum Tauriel school in Russia in bar ditch of where he became a star. The role of the theater was very important for Jewish immigrants United States many of whom spoke only and so they couldn't read the regular newspapers a lot of the English language theater would not have literal meaning to them because it would understand the language of the stage I mean that was a really important particularly New York a really important. Place for gathering and for. Doing anything cultural Well absolutely because there were very many newspapers in New York and Philadelphia and Chicago and all these bigger cities at that time but for the audience to go to the theater to experience a show especially a show which was very often in my grandfather's case a kind of spectacle gave them a sense of the importance the sheer scale of what was achievable by an immigrant in the United States it inspired the old ladies used to come up to be on the street and said we were kids we had nothing but once a week or once a month we went to the theater and we saw the red velvet curtains with the name Thomas chef ski and large gold letters and we thought if that's possible for him it's possible for us to do the name Thomas cesky is such a famous name in the world of theater and in the world of Yiddish theater I grew up knowing that name I knew that they were. Famous for of performers on the stage but that's about all I knew your last name is Thomas which is a version of Thomas chef ski how to become Thomas. It really started with my father who was trying to make his own way in life in the theater and he simply was and able to do that everywhere that he went he would mention his last name and right away was. The son and therefore he didn't want that he just wanted to be able to find his own way in life and in the theater so he was the what it changed his name initially to Ted Thomas and quite frankly. He also want to to escape from that whole crazed celebrity situation which my grand parents inspired and I think he also wanted to protect me from that because there were crazed fans the only way of describing there were stalker kinds of people who were pursuing my grandparents and their children and with the same kind of order that we're accustomed to thinking of crazy paparazzi or fans pursuing stars today were you aware of that when you were growing up your grandfather was dead but your grandmother lived until you were 16 or 17 and she lived nearby and I think you were pretty close to her did you get a sense of people stocking her or is it like way too late for that she was already in her seventy's. Well she had also moved out to l.a. And one of the reasons for doing that outside of getting some character parts in movies she hoped for. Was that she wanted to get away from the whole scene in New York a town as she said with too many ghosts but what I really became aware of the shadow of Boris for the 1st time was when I went back East when I was perhaps 11 or 12 and I was going to a lot of shows stage manager cousins of mine because so many members of the family were still in the business in showbiz not necessarily as actors on stage but in everything having to do with the behind the scenes life. And we used to go to just one scene every place theater people they say all kid the good scene to see the Lunts Act 2 finale is good. In the 2nd scene of the 1st act is good you know so that kind of stuff but there was this one show My Fair Lady and everybody was talking about it and I thought I'd like to see it my mother said Don't ask Cousin Georgia to get you into that show it's the hardest ticket to get and just don't be a monster so of course when I saw him I meet at least said could we see My Fair Lady we went to the theater people were lined up. Round the block to hopefully get some returns and he went over to the stage door knocked into the hay is Iran and Izzy company manager came out and my cousin indicated means they see this kid Boris Thomas chef ski's grandson 2 minutes later we were in row 5 right in the center of that theater or your grandfather died before your you were born you got to know your grandmother Bessie Thomashefsky pretty well and tell us about the kind of parts that she played in the a dish the air. Bessie started out as a young girl she was about 5 and she arrived in the United States from the Ukraine and she met Boris kind of eloped with him when she was young teenager and 1415 years old and she began finding her way in the theater 1st playing kind of innocent young girl roles but as time went on She also discovered her enormous abilities as a comedian and she very often played trouser parts or parts involving. Women being disguised as men for particular political or educational social purposes a little bit like what the story of a young till is right Bessie did a lot of plays like that where a woman disguises herself as a man in order to gain the advantages of education or whatever that a man can have what she tell you about women's rights and the disparities facing women one she was young. Well she went from being a little girl in a village that was asked to bring in the goats and do other domestic chores to working in a tobacco factory in Baltimore and then suddenly finding herself on stage as a star pretty quickly but she went beyond that she wanted to know everything about the structure of the theater and she became a very effective producer and manager and someone who paid far more attention to the hold business and organization aspect of the theater than my grandfather did who was the kind of big dreamer party earth and that was so unusual for a woman of those days I have some correspondence of hers where she's writing to some people who put into an ad in some big paper that she was going to be a part of some season they were doing and she writes to them saying that she absolutely has not agreed to do this and these are the conditions which they must immediately fulfill in order for this to happen it's really very very tough and straight talk and there's a lot of stuff about her I didn't have room for the show remarkable things like when she was arrested by Theodore Roosevelt this happened in this waged in New York there were blue laws at the time meaning that performances were forbidden on Sunday but of course in the interstate or Sunday was a very big day because Saturday was the Sabbath so they played on Sunday at one point when t.r. Was police commissioner of New York and some of his men raided one of the Thomas eskies theaters and he came in he saw Bessie who was very young and who looked much younger than she was always and he said Look out little girl and she said little girl my ass I'm the star of your being taken and it's made. That's so funny says she got arrested. She did that's exactly the way she told me the story little. Sister and getting arrested yes she was going to be in the center of it and I mean women's rights feminism was a very big part of the it is theater but along with a lot of other social issues but the interest the other plays even the so-called. Sort of low every day plays were about issues like women's rights like about labor capital and labor child labor about degrees of religious observance about the whole issue of assimilation about reproductive rights of women and also a lot about the language are we going to speak Yiddish are we going to speak English. What language at home what language in the rest of the world and what about the much larger issue which is how can it be that somebody who was such a big shot in the old country became a nobody in America and some little show a meal from nowhere in a tiny village has suddenly in the United States become such a such a big shot and what does an immigrant pool of people do to understand where now is honor where is tradition. Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas speaking to Terry Gross in 2012 after a break we'll continue their conversation and we'll also remember children's advocate Mary Previti the New Jersey politician who died last month at age 87 I'm David Bianculli and this is Fresh Air 2 2 2 2 2. The new power Family Foundation supports w.h.y. Wise fresh air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful conversation support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from life reminding consumers that identity theft can happen any time of year including the holidays more at Life Lock dot com slash n.p.r. And from Progressive Insurance offering a way to buy home insurance with their home quote Explorer tool custom quotes and rates are available online learn more at progressive dot com or 1800 progressive Now that's progressive. Impeachment goes forward Speaker Pelosi says she has no choice which profile secretary of state has raised but what he knew about u.s. Aid to Ukraine and also new science says Your dog may be older than you think. Part of China. And the latest news Saturday and Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News. Be sure to join Scott Simon tomorrow morning at 8 for Weekend Edition Huron k.s.u. T. . Support provided by living solar designing and installing solar systems since 1995 a business member and proud supporter of k s u t online at living solar dot net This is Fresh Air I'm David Bianculli in for Terry Gross back with more of Terry's 2012 interview with conductor Michael Tilson Thomas he's among this year's recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievement which were given out this weekend when we left off Terry was asking about Michael Tilson Thomas his grandparents Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky who were stars in the. They emigrated to the u.s. From Ukraine in the 880 s. . So I want to play a recording by your grandmother. Singing a song and I'm going to have you introduce it this is actually from a d.v.d. Outtake from your show. So tell us about this song and when you think it was recorded. This is a little introduction to a song called. Log one of Bessie's most famous parts in which she's playing a. Girl from a little village who's come to United States and is on the eve of a huge adventure a Pygmalion like experimented which she will be elevated from her lowly parlor maid status to being the lady of the house Ok so this is Bessie Thomashefsky recorded approximately 1920 s. a While Ok here we go. Again. Thank you thank you for your time. Maggie and I thank I thank God I felt back then. And I. Think That I think that I think I thank you. So that was the late Bessie Thomashefsky singing on national and she and Doris Thomas cesky are the late grandparents of my guest conductor Michael Tilson Thomas so. What kind of music did your grandmother introduce you to. I was lucky enough to hear her deliver a lot of her biggest numbers right there at our living room since she would arrive every weekend to our house and we would put on a little show together in which I would accompany her and some of her songs and she would do recitations and we did little scenes together so although of my parents fondest hope that I would become some kind of scientist or mathematician I realized that she was already getting me into the whole experience right there at home that's really interesting you know one of the things she says one of things you describe her having said to you when you were. You were more like me than your parents are there more conventional and you have more of what she sank a creative spirit or something that she said Your parents are very lovely people but terribly conventional your like me you're an adventurer you'll have to prove something did you take that to heart. I paid attention to it I didn't know quite what it meant and as I listened to her tell all these stories of her life from her childhood through her stardom and then even her reflections on the way fashions changed and the way she was in her late life of quite lonely person. I took it all in and what I kind of understood from her was that it had been a very interesting ride that she really was proud of what had been accomplished and when she saw somebody a very successful entertainer coming up and she could see in them something that had come from the kind of things that they had done in the theater she was very proud of it she recognized them and appreciated them so when your grandmother died and you were I don't know 16 or 17 was there music at her funeral. There wasn't much music at my grandmother's funeral there were a few prayers and there were very few people there and her plaque just says Bessie Thomashefsky Yiddish theater pioneer star which is exactly what she wanted to say but of course there's a whole repertory of songs that we played at home all the time whenever we thought about her and that I still play it was a very big moment a big rite of passage in my life. The 1st day that I took over playing her songs instead of my father playing them and measuring the way I was playing them against the wonderful nuances that he and my grandmother had brought to the music I was lucky to hear my family play that music for me I wanted to keep in my ears exactly the way they had sung the song some play there with all the irony and mordant see and snappy little gestures and comebacks. So you mentioned some advice in your show that your grandmother gave you about when you're on stage you have to remember that the people in the uppermost balcony are the people who paid the least but are enjoying it the most and you have to even if you're whispering You have to make sure the throws people can hear you how has that affected you as a conductor. My way of expressing what she said to me is what is it like for people beyond the 6th row. That we play in such big halls sometimes in classical music in their their halls designed to be very rich which is on the one hand very nice the gorgeous And that's there but to get the sound to be distinct is difficult and I sometimes tell my students that playing classical music is like making an announcement in an airport that you hear someone say. Passengers on Flight $391.00 the. Immediately play is. So you're trying to make every single moment completely distinct another way Bessie had of saying that she said listen Daniel during an accident you got a child for the 9 Floyd that's the night Floyd that strange of us because you're saying I was getting to the park one day and I noticed the most beautiful suddenly go around that you'll suddenly drop the ox and you'll drop it you've got to keep the contour of it all the way going through same thing in music that's really great . My cousin Thomas thank you it's been great as always thank you conductor Michael Tilson Thomas speaking to Terry Gross in 2012 he's one of the honorees who will be saluted at this weekend's Kennedy Center honors the annual salute to the arts will be televised on c.b.s. December 15th. After a break we remember child advocate Mary Previti as the director of the Camden New Jersey Correctional Center she was devoted to the compassionate care of troubled young people Previti died last month at age 87 this is Fresh Air. I'm inviting you to join me for Cooney notch was an ethno tronic transfusion tonight at 7 together will experience a cosmic mash up of electronica and world music fusion on. The cosmic trance That's tonight at 7 right here on 4 Corners Public Radio. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company family owned operated and argued over since $1080.00 proud supporter of independent thought whether that's online over the air or in a bottle more at Sierra Nevada dot com and from Dana Farber Cancer Institute developing ways to use the p.d.-l one pathway in immunotherapy to treat cancer committed to making contributions in cancer treatment for 72 years Dana Farber dot org slash everywhere this is Fresh Air child advocate Mary Previti spent 3 decades devoted to the compassionate care of the troubled young people in her charge at the Camden County Youth Center in New Jersey Previti died last month at age 87 she was born in China in 1932 and during the 2nd World War spent more than 3 years of her childhood incarcerated in a Japanese concentration camp after the war she emigrated to the United States got a master's degree in education in English and taught high school. Previn's lifetime focus was on improving the lives and education of children that letter to a job as administrator of the Camden County Youth Center a detention center in New Jersey where young people accused of crimes are hild as they await trial the conversation we're about to hear is taken from interviews Terry Gross recorded with Mary Previti in 19031904 the 1st week in private he took over the youth Correction Center in 1974 she had a riot on her hands when I arrived on the 2nd floor the boys were locked down they were behind steel doors they were doing that clanging banging just just like bringing the roof down with the noise that was what I came on and of course my officers standing by I'm a brand new political appointee a suburban housewife a homemaker and here I am walking on to the floor I know you won't believe this Terry in a hostess dress I had been giving a dinner party Crystal and China and candlelight at my home when they called and said there's a riot so I come out on on to this floor and my officers are standing by watching because nobody believed that I was going to last in that place this is your big test there was no question I mean here they're standing by these are people that had been punched in the face kicked there had been violence against the staff there had been violence against kids it went both ways so they knew how dangerous these youth were I mean these are teenage boys charged many of them with felonies I had not a clue what to do the only thing that I knew what to do was to get up to the 1st youngster that I had begun to develop a relationship with and I went to his stores name was Stevie and I lowered my voice really softly. And began to talk with him and I said Stevie What is this about or you could just hear the noise level go down the hallway because everyone wanted to know whether Stevie was going to be a rat so this lady standing there whispering or talking really softly at one door through the Great into his bedroom everyone down the hall softened down the clanging and noises one of the biggest trippers riots just that awful noise it does something to your head it does something to your your north this is it just like it sets you up for war so what did he say when you said what is that it was just something about recreation or something and I thought well you know you could fix something like that there were ways of fixing no recreation or not enough fresh air or something up something you could 6 but it really it was sort of a listening gently to kids as to what what what was it about inside them that triggered this type of rage How else did the kids test you that evening. Well really that was that was really it was it was like a test to see if I was part of the them the them were officers that had been involved with brute force against youngsters the business of mace Mace was regularly used it was kept immediately available in a locked cabinet there on the and mayor up there on the floor and there were officers that would even boast that they just knew the way you could get a kid fixed down real quick you just put you just put some type of a blanket over his door you'd spray the mace across his his radiator in his room and lock him in and you could keep the kid choking and gagging for entire 8 hour shift and have him out of your out of your hair. Merry pretty you're not physically imposing presence about 50425 pounds. You know you live in the suburbs you're not the kind of person is going to show muscle and people will feel so intimidated by you that they'll behave when you showed up that night you know during the riot. Kids start asking questions like How much did that dress cost absolutely because you drinking what kind of food we're serving and know when I read this in your book I was thinking well this happened to me I wouldn't know how to interpret it because I figured they were testing me but I wouldn't know what. What they were looking for in my response you know where they where they sit seeing it if I if they could ask me questions that were too personal that I shouldn't be responding to like what my dress cost or what I was doing at home that night or should I just respond and just be really open with them you know like well that was my feeling. To be open I felt that I need to not needed to show myself as an ordinary human being because when you put violence and force out as your weapon guaranteed violence and force is what you will get back I could never win on that playing ground you know as you say in your book there's a lot of detention officers correction officers who work by the creed that if you treat people with kindness they will see your kindness as weakness and they will take advantage of what they perceive as your weakness they'll take advantage of your kind I don't think that's what you're describing is true I disagree with that and I just I don't operate my youth center from that I have personally observed over 20 years that the officers that are most successful in connecting with young men and young women are the ones who come across as human beings that demonstrate that they really care they're interested they're absolutely delighted with the youth and you can laugh over something that with that they do that's the kind of person that develops a relationship that's the kind of person that almost never gets the challenge of a fist or a fork or spitting or something awful that's the kind of officer that usually can calm a scene when there's difficulty brewing. What's your philosophy at the detention center about how to help the young people who are there and the short time that you have to spend with them well 1st of all there's only one set of rules Mary. Privatise rules. The boys and girls come from a squishy world with no rules no structure do whatever you want if there have been no parents around they come and go in their homes as they please when they please I had one boy say to me and he was a 13 year old charged with murder he said a mom spose to say don't do that and he was horrified when he says you climb out the window or you go way and she ain't even ask you when you come in a world of no rules and here is a kid saying but she's supposed to ask me begging for structure so I say we will make a world that is comforting in a predictable there's nothing squishy about the floor you put your foot down here you will do it this way and only this way is not going to be unpredictable it's not going to be uncomfortable you will know every day when someone's going to wake you up you will know every day when it's time to clean up you will know when you're going to go to school you will know when you're going to eat you will know when you're going to go to bed and there's a certain way that you talk to people and there's a certain way that you were taught that you will respond to people so the predictable structure our children are living in an unpredictable world that is so frightening because they don't know when they're they put their foot down on any day whether it's going to be solid or when it's going to be squishy no child can feel safe in a world like that. Have a lot of the young people who you've seen been abused by their parents as that it can shifting factor to do things they're a very common I think one of the thing that really astonished me we began to see boys and girls just blossoming in our classroom and you say why is this We've had people walk down the halls and say what the school rooms here would be the envy of any school room in America we wouldn't walk in any public or private school as orderly as this and I began to wonder how that could be with children in a juvenile. Detention Center all of a sudden taking seriously their school will have to give a lot of credit to the teachers but then I can be again began to dawn on me we took terror out of their lives we discovered that when boys and girls come in one of the 1st messages the officers will say is we will not let you hurt somebody while you are here and we will not let anyone hurt you so there was a sense that you're going to be safe in this place I want to ask you about something in your background that I have a feeling has some connection to the work you're doing now and the philosophy that you take. You grew up in China where your parents were Methodist men missionaries and I believe it was the beginning of World War 2 you and all the students and teachers from your school were taken prisoners in a Japanese concentration camp after Japan invaded China. Did you have experiences in this concentration camp that helped you. Do the work that you're doing now in some way or understand how you should be doing it well I didn't think of that until much later but I think a lot of what I do at the youth center is very similar to what our teachers March or marched off to prison camp with us we had these marvelous Victorian schoolmarm to missionary teachers in our school that were marched off with us we didn't see our parents for 5 and a half years so you've got a whole school of children with no parents and. They seem to know instinctively what to do with kids in a prison camp it was the most astonishing thing when we did the teachers or that yours did the teachers did on here regard dogs and electrified wires and and bayonet practice and all this the all the other horrors of war that no no child should ever know and these teachers would say they didn't say it this way but it was they made a very predictable atmosphere we knew when we'd get up in the morning does that sound like what I said you a bit ago when you when we would get up in the morning we'd hear Mr Mark come in to to not just all to get on we knew when we had to scrub our little portion of floor that was around our steamer trunks we slept on steamer trunks there were no beds we knew when we were going to March off to choose to fit to eat and the teachers insisted that we were going to continue with school even though it meant sitting on the floor or sitting on the steamer trunks and using slates and a piece of chalk to do our school work and there was a very comforting Lee predictable structure and of course absolutely God was going to take care of us there was no question about that so that was a very comforting thing they surrounded us with a world that we knew what to expect despite Japanese guard dogs and Japanese band practice around us and I think I do much of the same thing at the Youth Center. What kind of team what kind of expectations of your behavior did the teachers have while you were in the constant all well our teachers we were we were growing up in the time of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose who were the princes in Buckingham Palace I was born British So these were great characters in our life and our teacher said you will sit up straight with your backs up straight at the at the dining hall where you might be eating slop out of the tin can and they said there is not one set of rules for Buckingham Palace or outside world and another set of rules for the way she and concentration camp so we had to have rules and manners just like Princess Margaret rose and Princess Elizabeth even in the confines of a Japanese prison camp Mary Previti from conversations recorded with Terry Gross in 1903 in 1904 more after a break this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air Let's get back to Terry's conversations from 1903 in 1904 with children's advocate Mary Previti who died last month at age 87. You are from such an incredibly different world. Then the world that you work in now you knew or you were the child of missionary parents you grew up in China we had parents from Methodist missionaries you went to. A kind of fine and very strict school for the children of missionaries then we'll get to in a 2nd you spent several years in Japanese concentration camp do you tell the young people at the detention center about your experiences in the concentration times I do they're absolutely fascinated when you tell them about it well the whole story sometimes you will sit down in a whole group and on tell them the whole story and they will just be fascinated I was sort of a born storyteller so I love to go and tell them stories and often their stories about me one of the stories I bet the young people really want to hear about you has to do with how you lost your hand that that will that will shut them down to complete quiet when I tell them how I lost my hand in an accident and all of a sudden it's like I broke a code you don't talk about somebody has one hand or some you know some something that makes them quite different so when I open the door oh oh well now that is it's just mass quiet and this is how I'll tell the story well let me start over you I want to say you were wearing a short sleeve red and white polka dot dress today and your arm is severed a little above the wrist and you're not wearing a press that it devised to cover up the fact that you're missing a hand. It's you know if you look at you in a short sleeve dress it's very obvious right so for a young person is meeting you for the 1st time they're going to notice that you're so and as you said they're not going to ask about it because you don't do that so how do you bring it up well sometimes I'll bring it up there I tell the story for a couple of different lessons so I may tell it in a different way each time some kid will say so and so just got sentenced and he was so nice and he was only 14 and also let me tell you a story I said I was so nice and I was only 14 and I'm one time my hand upon a revolving saw and now I'm look how old I am and I'm carrying a mistake that I made when I was only 14 sometimes saying you're sorry does not make the mistake go away so you have to be careful what you do that making a mistake even when you're so young as 14 can leave you Mark for the rest of your life. The kind of work that you're in there such a high burnout level there and just get emotionally exhausted by it I think after a while you know there's no instant solutions you're not you're not kidding yourself about how you're working complete magic everybody walks out of your center is saved what keeps you going in spite of all the obstacles and all the losses. The little gifts I get so many little gifts every day and I look for the short term and the little because I can never expect the long term and when a girl that has been in crisis and just just so hurting will put her arm around me well asked me to sit down next to her at the table or a boy that I have just been working with a lot or he and I have written a story for our student newspaper together and I'm walking down the hallway and then he will reach across the hallway and pat my arm I go home like knowing every day that I get so much more than what I give I get so high from those little touches that you know you've connected with a youngster in a very private way I have never been burned out there Previti thank you so much thanks Terry children's advocate Mary Previti spoke to Terry Gross in 1903 in 1904 Mary brevity died last month at age 87. On Monday's show you should do see him and I can tell you our guest will be Alex Borenstein she's won 2 back to back Emmy Awards for her role as manager for a housewife turned standup comic in the Amazon Prime series the marvelous Mrs Mays she's also been on Mad t.v. The h.b.o. Series getting on and the Fox animated series Family Guy I hope you can join us. Freshers executive producer has Danny Miller our technical director an engineer is Audry Benson with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Hertz from our associate producer for digital media is Molly seediness refer to Sherlock directs the show for Terry Gross I'm David Bianculli. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from Capital One committed to reimagining banking offering savings and checking accounts that can be opened from anywhere Capital One what's in your wallet Capital One and a and from ACA publisher of all awful of sins new novel The Sacrament and nuns past returns to her when she and a former student investigate the death of a priest and a series of abuse claims at a Catholic school in Iceland available now join us again Monday evening at 6 for a fresh air right here on k s u t 4 Corners Public Radio Stay tuned for an evening of music coming up next 2 hours of ethno tronic transfusion on Cooney nosh wa later tonight at 9 o'clock it's our pop world wide followed by World Cafe from 10 until midnight. This is. Us w. Flora Vista. Springs we can also be heard in Cortez Manc us Silverton and online at k.s.u. Dot org. As to country music down to the garage 2016 debut album a new city blues with a sound that rebelled against her superstar parents more conventional take on the Get a sneak peek of the grungy guitars and clang of her sophomore release far from home with a mini concert recorded live at the Americana Music Festival in Nashville back in September on the next World Cafe. Stick around Raina Douras brings you the music of Ob resellers on World Cafe later tonight at 10. Coming up at 9 o'clock tonight until then 2 hours of ethno tronic transfusion up next on Cooney Nashua support is provided by bomb diggity Mancos mystical markets a gallery a Visionary Art drums flutes and ceremonial goods offering a monthly drum class taught by Afrobeat next drummer Bradley Housel bomb diggity native creative Global Gifts for the soul located by the big drum sign on Highway 160 in West Memphis. Hey there How's your Friday evening so far I'm Kenny be and I think I have just what you need to make tonight even better for the next 2 hours will experience a cosmic mash up of worldly electronica. Coming up in this 1st trance tonight we've got help later on from soldier. Music for. Baka beyond deep forest and a few others let's begin the trance this week with music from the Afro beat next.