captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: good evening. i'm gwen ifill. blizzard conditions wreaked havoc in the northeast and mid- atlantic today. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight snow and high winds even kept plows off some roads. >> you don't see washington like this. i have never run down the middle of pennsylvania avenue in washington, d.c. so this is the first. >> ifill: we get the latest from maryland governor martin o'malley, wayne county, michigan executive robert ficano and major john winkler of the virginia national guard. >> woodruff: then, what's in a name. we examine a proposal to change the way psychiatrists diagnose mental illnesses. >> ifill: talking to the taliban in afghanistan. margaret warner reports. ♪ >> woodruff: and some tropical music on a cold night: jeffrey brown talks to salsa star turned politician ruben blades about his return to the world of music. >> i want a discussion. i want to make people think about stuff. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's "pbs newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: pacific life-- the power to help you succeed. >> this is the engine that connects abundant grain from the american heartland to haran's best selling whole wheat, while keeping 60 billion pounds of carbon out of the atmosphere every year. bnsf, the engine that connects us. this is the power of human energy. chevron. bank of america-- committed to helping the nation's economic recovery. grant thornton the national science foundation. supporting education and research across all fields of science and engineering. 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. >> ifill: another roundhouse blow from winter staggered much of the east coast today from virginia to connecticut. it pushed washington and baltimore to new records for the most snow ever, in a single winter. rush hour, wednesday morning in washington, d.c. and not a soul in sight. for the second time in less than a week, a major winter storm crippled the nation's capital. this time, a foot of wind- whipped snow lashed d.c.-- still digging out days after 30 inches fell here over the weekend. a city that has trouble dealing with five inches of snow has now gotten five feet this winter. people are hunkered down and fed up. >> there's no eggs, there's no cheese, there's no meat, it's crazy. >> ifill: ray suarez was out on the streets of washington and its suburbs today. >> suarez: people who come to live in washington from places with tough winters poke fun at the capital region's difficulties with big snows. but this one-two punch is so potent it would stop any snow- belt city in its tracks. through the morning the wind got stronger and the visibility declined. the area's rapid transit system was only working underground. the bus fleet was grounded sitting idle in steadily deepening snow. schools were closed, city and county leaders pleaded with people to just stay home, and for the most part, they did. in an area that's paralyzed, the cures for cabin fever are few. this morning, one was tastee diner, where the eggs and hash were sizzling, the coffee hot, and a building crew from just down the street in bethesda consumed a mammoth breakfast, after working nearly round the clock since the last snow. j.b. butler hasn't been home in days. >> i have not seen my house. >> suarez: harold brown says they aren't even close to done with their work. >> when i came out this morning, i didn't realize how bad it was, i had the company across street pushing snow right over to us. we had to plow ourselves out again. >> suarez: this is wisconsin avenue, a major north-south artery in and out of the district of columbia and adjacent montgomery county. it's a point of pride for jurisdictions to keep the streets open even when the snow gets bad up to a point. today the blizzard and whitehout conditions got so bad, even the snowplows were pulled. virtually everything in washington was closed. the federal government shut down for a third straight day, but that didn't stop congressman jim marshall of georgia from making the most of the morning. >> you don't see washington like this and i have never run down the middle of pennsylvania avenue in washington, d.c. so, this is a first. >> suarez: the region's governments and schools shuttered; some school systems for the rest of the week. the three major airports-- reagan national, dulles and b.w.i.-- closed, like so many others in the east. nationwide, airlines cancelled several thousand flights for the next few days. thousands of people in the mid- atlantic were still without power from the last storm and one major utility in the washington area suspended efforts to restore service because of dangerous conditions. washington regional commuter train service was halted as well. amtrak maintained some service in its busy northeast corridor, but many trains never left the station. >> pretty much every hour on the hour, cancelled. >> suarez: even the u.s. mail, and its postmen and women who ordinarily brave snow, rain and gloom of night, they're at home too. >> ifill: it's not just the mid- atlantic getting hit this time. 100 million americans in more than a dozen states are affected. not all were unhappy-- including this jogger in pennsylvania-- who went running barechested. but the massive storm spread a wall of snow, sleet and rain from chicago through the ohio valley, washington and baltimore, through philadelphia and new jersey. and into new york city, where up to 18 inches was expected mayor michael bloomberg told new yorkers to stay off the roads. >> if you want to get stuck in >> ifill: but while congress was closed-- delaying hearings on toyota and gays in the military- - new york city's government was up and running. the storm didn't stop wall street either trading went on as scheduled. but for just the third time in six years, new york city's public schools were closed. students were hardly heartbroken. >> i'm going to get a little sleep, a little studying, just kidding. i'm going to go sledding all day! whoo! >> ifill: all that snow has to go somewhere, and the mayor's office said it will cost the city about $1 million per inch to clear the city's five boroughs. and from chicago to new jersey, the challenge of excavating streets entombed in snow will be much the same. for more now on the impact of the storm, we're joined by maryland governor martin o'malley. i spoke with him a short time ago from maryland's emergency operations center in baltimore. governor o'malley, thank you for joining us. >> sure, my pleasure. >> ifill: maryland had a statewide emergency declared today. what is the status of things tonight? >> sure, well, the status tonight is very, very dangerous, especially on our highways. i mean, what we've seen today are whiteout conditions, blizzard conditions which for the first time in modern memory affected all 24 jurisdictioning in the state of maryland. travel on our highways has been very treacherous. we've had a number of building collapses, and we've seen more snowfall in the last 72-hour period than we've ever seen in the 130-year recorded history of these sorts of sdmo weather events in our state. so very challenging circumstance. we're doing all that we can right now, just to keep emergency services and putting public safety first. we have national guard deployed, supporting the paramedics and other folks doing the important life-saving work out there and we're urging all of our citizens to stay inside until we weather this thing. >> ifill: we heard various reports of snowe plows being pulled off the road, and power being off and being on, serviced and not serviced. where do people stand tonight who are trapped in their homes hoping for a little light and a little heat. >> all of those things are true. what we've seen is, you know, this weather event varies in some counties compared to others. in montgomery county we're making headway in bringing down the power outages and then the one-two punchs from mother nature came through. we now see a lot of power outages in the northeastern part of our state, up towards the pennsylvania line. and so we're just going to continue it work on these. of course, when power goes out, then we have to divert resources from the roads, and pair them up with the utility crews so that we can get at those power outages where it's affecting the greatest number of people so we're urging all of our citizens to hang in there, to look out for one another, and above all, to stay off the roads and keep in mind that as impatient as all of us are to get our out of our homes our primary concern at the city and county level has to be keeping some bare amount of capacity on the road so our paramedic units and national guard can get in there when called upon to transport heart attack victims or moms delivering babies or the like. >> ifill: governor, you talk about the one-two punch from mother nature. you also talk about resources. how much has the one-two punch-- and these are not the only storms you have survived this winter so far-- how much are they costing the state? >> that's a very good question. the last event we had-- and by that i mean the one of two, three weeks ago-- was about $27 million just on the state side. we're easy in excess of $35 million from this one and stim climbing. we're going to be digging out for a long, long time. we're acustomed to seeing the crewsing us down to pavement in a couple of days after a six-, seven-inch snowfall but when you have a 47-, 47-inch snowfall we're just not used to it. fortunately with president obama's leadership and secretary napolitano, we have been on the phone and coordinating with the federal government. they are going to treat the-- this event as the one event, treating it as. and so i'm hopeful that when all of the emergency of this has passed, that we'll get some financial help in order to get our state back to normal here. we're actually in a better position to weather this than most states. every state has budget challenges with this recession but we're one of only seven that still has a triple a. bond rating. we have fiscally responsible so we can manage unforeseen events like this. >> ifill: are you hoping for a federal disaster deck claration, governor? >> we're hoping for some sort of federal disaster declaration, yes, we are. >> ifill: what difference will make will that make in your ability to pull off the financing of this is this. >> well, i mean, it will absolutely help on the backend of this with the financing of it. as far as-- as far as our immediate response to the public safety emergency tdoesn't really impact what wee doing. all of the county executives and i are absolutely committed, budget challenges or not, to make sure we put public safety first, that we fight back with everything that we have and keep lanes open and to protect lives. so far, knock on woorkd we haven't had a single traffic fatality in our state as a result of this. we'd like to keep it that way. we're going to continue to do everything we must to protect public safety and in the meantime, it's good to know we have someone in president obama and secretary napolitano that are going to make sure this doesn't wreck our states and county in the aftermath. >> ifill: governor o'malley from the great state of maryland, thank you so much for joining us. >> gwen, thank you. >> now for more on the logistical and financial, we turn to major john winkler of the virginia national guard. he has been coordinating teams trying to keep ahead of blizzard conditions in northern virginia. and robert ficano, the county executive of wayne county, michigan, which includes detroit. major wink lerk i want to start with you because you're fresh off the streets here. give us a sense of what we're doing, how your organization is coping with this. >> we're coping with it very well. we're doing everything we can to support the northern virginia area, support the civilian authorities that are out there. and get people to where they need to get to-- nurses, doctors people who have injuries, anyone that needs to get to the hospitals. and we can get into the neighborhoods and help the police firemen and the other civilian authorities who can do those things, get in there and do those jobs for the people in virginia. >> ifill: so you're providing assist expanse transportation support rather than actually physically digging people out? >> we haven't dug anybody out, but we've provided assistance to get people out of their homes and get them to the hospitals so that they-- you know, they can deal with whatever crisis they have in their lives. >> ifill: how many different organizations are we talking about that you have to coordinate? we're talking city, county, state? >> we're dealing with mostly the state and the city organizations here in the northern virginia area. the virginia department of emergency management, and those types of agencies. and we work with them and support them in doing their jobs because of the magnitude of this storm they need a little extra help. >> ifill: we don't get this sort of snow here a lot, but you do. the worst of it has passed in michigan, but how bad as it been? >> you know, actually, we were pretty prepared for this. we got 6-10 inches, and our crews have been preparing for this, and this past year we haven't been hit as bad, so financially, it hasn't run at us as bad as some other years have. we spend probably on average about $20,000 an hour, but we do think we reduce the cost. we appropriate roads in advance. before we used to just spray salt and melt it as quick as we could. we now prepare the roads and try to save time and money because the resources have been much shorter than they were in previous years. >> ifill: on the other hand, detroit and the areas around it have already started this in the hole. how big a hit do storms like this bring on your municipal and county budgets? >> well, we prepare for it every year. and, fortunately, this year michigan hasn't been hit as hard as, say, the east coast, and what we've seen in washington and some of the other areas. so we're below our budget so far. other years passed, because of the comfort of salt really drove the cost up on us, we had to be a smarter government because we realized that resource weren't there. so we start doing things like reduing down the number of trucks that we would have on the road. we would time it better. we would make sure we would hit at the optimum times. we think whiched it so that we could maximize, yet do it at a cheaper rate, and i think the public has been very satisfied with it. >> ifill: your airport stayed open. ourselves did not. is there blow-back from cancellations on the east coast for cities like detroit. >> it's always inconvenient and for us being the major hub for delta, there's always inconvenience. there's nothing you can really do about it. a lot of people see in advance that this was coming. we saw it was coming in chicago and then it moves over into the detroit area. so a lot of people that think the airlines-- realized that there was this possibility and a lot of them start to plan for it. we're used to this type of harsh weather, and we prepare for it, and a lot of people that travel through the area prepare for as well. >> ifill: major winkler it has been said today it's the snowiest winter on record in the mid-atlantic region. does that change the work that you do or the way you cooperate or the way you prepare? >> not really. i mean, really tjust comes down to people that want to work together. and from what i've seen during the snowstorm, all of the civilian agencies have learned to work with the military and vice verse aso we've gotten a lot done. it really hasn't changed the way we approach the mission. it's a can-do effort and in the commonwealth of virginia we've been fortunate enough to have those kind of people to work with. >> ifill: explain to me one thing people might not bd understand. how does the national guard get involved in natural disasters like this? do you wait for a phone call or is it something where you immediately swing into action? >> we wait fair phone call, and that decision, i believe, is made by the governor. and it filters down to the military, and it's not common, so this is an unusual circumstance, i believe. and so then the phone call came down to our unit in virginia beach, and we came all the way up to northern virginia, which is my home. and we've been working and living up here. >> ifill: you say "we. how many people are we talking about? >> my organization which is just part of the effort in northern virginia, is 100 men and women of the national guard in virginia. >> ifill: county executive ficano, given your experience and having lived through events like this, what advice do you give to the snowe bound, especially safety advice? >> well, first of all, be prepared for it. when you see that it's coming in advance, go and buy bottled water, have some extra food, and be prepared for things like if your refrigerator goes out, your electricity goes out, your power be prepared for those types of things. also, i know that cell phones are great, but many times they go out, especially when there's a lot of use in a particular area. i know land lines are going out of style a little bit, but we find that it's helpful to have land lines as well. >> ifill: how about that, major winkler, same question. there are people north of here, new york, philadelphia, still feeling the brunt of the storm. what advice do you give them? >> don't go out on the roads until the local authorities in those areas have had a chance to declare them because it's a very difficult to do those jobs when you have a lot of people moving out there. hopefully they have lots of food to get through for a while, and if they need something, be patient because everyone's working very hard. but there's a lot of people that need help, and the conditions are very rough out there. >> ifill: sounds like patience is the watch word, at the very least. major winkler and county executive robert ficano, thank you both vy much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and still to come on the "newshour": new names for some mental illnesses; discussions with the taliban; and some music and some politics from salsa performer ruben blades. >> ifill: but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan in our newsroom. >> sreenivasan: honda is the latest japanese automaker to announce a large recall. the company today added 437,000 vehicles to a global recall for air bags that can deploy with too much force. affected models included 2001 and 2002 accord sedans, civic compacts, odyssey minivans and crvs and some 2002 acura tl sedans. honda has now recalled nearly one million vehicles for the air bag problem since 2008. the federal reserve now has plans for ending its huge economic stimulus efforts by raising interest rates. chairman ben bernanke outlined the effort in written testimony for a congressional committee. bernanke said the economy still needs an easy money policy for now, but he added: "at some point the federal reserve will need to tighten financial conditions." the talk of higher rates kept wall street at bay. the dow jones industrial average lost 20 points to close at 10,038. the nasdaq fell three points to close below 2,148. thousands of workers in greece staged a national strike today, protesting a government plan to freeze salaries and cut bonuses. the 24-hour strike closed schools, and brought air travel to a halt. we have a report from john sparks of independent television news. >> reporter: it's easy to say, the 24-hour strike closed greece filed a test case for other indebted states. its huge socialist government plans been cuts. for many here on the streets of athens today it is not acceptable. "the capitalist government has declared war on the working classes. we will respond with war-like measures," said this mp. the government wants to raise the retirement age by two years. slash public sector pay and introduced a slew of new taxes. >> european union leaders will address greece's debt crise at a summit tomorrow in brussels. the death toll from a series of avalanches in afghanistan kept climbing today. authorities said search and rescue teams have recovered at least 166 bodies from snowbound vehicles on the salang pass. helicopters ferried out more than 2,500 survivors, but hundreds of cars were still trapped in a 2-mile-long tunnel. across the border in pakistan, a suicide bomber attacked a police patrol vehicle in the northwest, killing at least 17 people. it happened on the main highway in the khyber tribal area. most of the victims were policemen. some 15 others were wounded. the u.s. today announced new sanctions on iran over its nuclear program. the penalties affect four iranian companies linked to the elite revolutionary guard. president obama had promised a significant regime of sanctions after iran moved this week to begin enriching uranium at a higher level. but iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad remained defiant today of western pressure. >> ( translated ): in their view, economic, scientific and technological progress must only be monopolized by a few and others do not have the right to enter the arena of science and modern technology. >> sreenivasan: amid the nuclear standoff, iran will mark the anniversary of the islamic revolution tomorrow. the government of iraq has ordered about 250 current and former employees of the company formerly known as blackwater security to leave the country. they were told today to get out within seven days or have their visas revoked. the order came after an american judge dismissed criminal charges against five blackwater guards. those men were accused in the shooting deaths of 17 iraqis in 2007. a rare earthquake struck northern illinois today. the pre-dawn tremor was centered 45 miles northwest of chicago, but was felt as far away as iowa, wisconsin and michigan. the u.s geological survey reported it had a magnitude 3.8. there was no word of damage or injuries, but the shaking tossed people out of bed and set off alarms. those are some of the day's main he suffered a heart attack. wilson served in the u.s. house for 23 years. in the 1980s he was instrumental in helping provide weapons to afghan fighters who resisted soviet occupation. his story was made into a movie in 2007 starring tom hanks as the congressman. charlie wilson was 76 years old. those are some of the day's main stories. i'll be back at the end of the program with a preview of what you'll find tonight on the "newshour's" web site. but for now, back to gwen. >> ifill: next tonight, the debate over talking to the taliban. the "new york times" reports today that pakistan is offering to broker talks among taliban factions who operate from pakistani soil. but will diplomacy work when nations are already at war? that is the topic of a debate now underway in islamabad, washington and kabul. margaret warner reports. >> warner: even as the u.s. pours more troops into afghanistan-- triggering more fighting and casualties-- u.s. and afghan officials are moving to find a way to settle this eight-year war politically. for years, afghan president hamid karzai has talked about reconciling with elements of the taliban to end the conflict with no result. he renewed the offer at his inauguration in november. >> ( translated ): i am calling on taliban brothers to come back to their country. i want the international community to help and agree with me with this issue. >> warner: he made his pitch more concrete at an international conference on afghanistan in london in late january. karzai proposed pursuing this goal on two tracks. one track seeks to peel off and reintegrate taliban fighters and their mid-level commanders into afghan society. karzai proposes to offer them jobs, security and amnesty if taliban soldiers agree to lay down their arms and abide by the afghan constitution. that proposal got an enthusiastic response from coalition members at the london conference. a second track seeks reconciliation with the senior taliban leadership now believed to be holed up in pakistan. karzai would offer them amnesty, a safe return to afghanistan and a role in afghan politics and government. they would have to give up armed conflict, cut all ties with al qaeda and agree to abide by the constitution, including its guarantee of women's rights. publicly, top taliban leaders insist they aren't open to a deal on any level unless and until foreign forces leave. a taliban statement issued after a bloody multiple bombing in kabul last month said that was their answer to karzai's talk of a deal with taliban fighters. but afghan and u.n. officials insist talks have been going on privately, including a meeting# last month in a thrid country between u.n. special representative kai eide and several unspecified taliban figures. for its part, the u.s. supports the move to persuade low and midlevel taliban fighters to defect, as secretary of state hillary clinton said at the london conference. >> among the decisions made today was the creation of a reintegration trust fund to support the government of afghanistan's efforts to draw disaffected taliban back into society, so long as they renounce violence, renounce al qaeda agree to abide by the constitution of afghanistan. >> warner: clinton was non- committal, however, on the issue of reconciling with the senior taliban leadership. for more on this new push to talk to the taliban, we turn to two men with extensive experience in afghanistan. zalmay khalilzad served as u.s. ambassador to afghanistan during the george w. bush administration. afghan-born, he is a u.s. citizen. and michael semple was the european union's deputy special representative for afghanistan from 2004 to 2007. he and a u.n. were expelled from the country by president karzai for engaging the taliban commanders. and welcome to you both. ambassador khalilzad, beginning with you, what prospects do you see for this renewed push to offer... to neutralize the taliban, essentially by offering deals at two levels? >> well, at both the national reconciliation level and the re- integration level, prospects for success is very much condition based. and we face serious challenges with regard to both. at the re-integration level, in order to attract local commanders to join, it's very important in my view, that we are able to control the territory in which they operate. that's the most important thing because unless we can offer security for those who turn in, work with us, they will be at risk and their prospects to stay with us will not last. in addition, of course, there are political and economic incentives that can be brought to bear. at the national level, the reconciliation level, two things are important there: one is that the overall situation has to be one in which the government and coalition side has to be winning. at least that's what the taliban leadership has to believe. >> warner: meaning winning militarily? >> meaning winning militarily, that time is not on their side, they have to come to that judgment. and two, which is what president karzai has been focused on in recent weeks, has been to convince pakistan and saudi arabia-- particularly pakistan, which serves as a sanctuary for the taliban leadership-- to come to a view that reconciliation and a deal between afghans and the taliban-- such a deal is in their interests and they work hard for it. all of this is very much in doubt at the present time. >> warner: and michael semple, do you agree that the prospects are difficult, and do you share the ambassador's assessment of what it would really take? >> they're both difficult, but important. the reintegration package that people are talking about is the idea of offering a deal to field commanders and their taliban fighters, that if they get out of the resistance, they will have some kind of guarantee of security, and you know, guarantee of a job. it builds upon a very simple idea, which is that the majority of people of ranks in the taliban are not the sworn enemy of the government of afghanistan or the united states and offered the right incentive. and as the ambassador said, the right guarantee that they can stay alive, that their former comrades will not kill them, and that they may be prepared to cooperate with the government. the trouble is that, you know, nobody really knows what percentage of the taliban can be attracted by any such scheme. a lot of the taliban commanders that one talks to about this stressed that, you know, ok money's part of it, but it's really not the main reason why our people are fighting. and also, of course, we don't so, however well the reintegration is run, there still is going to be a taliban army in the field and the leadership driving it. the people inside the taliban who have the capacity to deliver something a bit like peace, an end to the conflict, are really the leadership. these are the ones who we're looking at for reconciliation, not for reintegration. a lot of things have got to come right for them to sign off on this. i absolutely agree that they have to decide that they really don't have a prospect of winning out even in the long term. they need to be nudged by pakistan. pakistan has got to come in playing a positive role on this. and of course, they have to have confidence that they are being accepted as a legitimate part of afghan society and not being sort of simply labeled as terrorists. >> warner: ambassador khalilzad, what sense do you get of the role the united states is going to play on either of these levels? in other words, the re- integration of the fighters, that was very much a part of general mcchrystal's overall new strategy for afghanistan. is the u.s. military going to be running that, and running the money... the fund that the international community's put up for this? and what about on the national reconciliation level with the top leadership? again, is there a u.s. role? >> well, that is obviously very important... u.s. role, but for the u.s. role to be effectively played, i believe it is very important that if coordination and agreement to the maximum extent possible between the u.s. and the afghan government. and at the present time, there seems to be some difficulty in the focus between the two sides, where president karzai is talking very much about the national level, reconciliation, as the primary focus. and we the coalition is talking more about reintegration. but with regard to the specific u.s. role, with regard to the national level, the u.s. role to convince pakistan that it ought to play an active, cooperative role in facilitating reconciliation is important. >> warner: mr. semple, with the... with president obama having set a july 2011, at least deadline, to begin drawing down the surge of troops, do you think... does it appear to you that the united states at least also has an interest in some kind of political settlement here? >> i think that, first of all, even if the united states goes ahead with you know, starting to draw down its troops in 2011, there will be an enduring commitment to afghanistan. there will be a troops present, perhaps reduced, for quite a while, but there will be other forms of assistance. yeah, the u.s. is going to continue to be engaged in afghanistan. therefore, it clearly has an interest in getting some kind of political deal. one of the reasons it has an interest is that everybody who has looked at the issue of reconciliation realizes that at the core of any political deal with the taliban would be a clear break between the taliban and al quaeda. if credible guarantees from the taliban that they will help prevent the use of afghanistan and even pakistan for international terrorism. the president has reiterated that this remains at the core of united states policy, vis-a-vis the two countries. and so any deal, which had the taliban coming on board against al quaeda, rather than with it, would be extremely attractive. >> warner: all right. well, i think we have to leave it there. thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> warner: obviously a lot to be done. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now, rethinking mental illness. for the first time in 16 years the american psychiatric association is revising its essential dictionary. formally titled "the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders," the book is used widely by mental health professionals to classify and diagnose illnesses. the proposed revisions have been a decade in the making. among them: a single category called autism spectrum disorders that would incorporate aspergers syndrome; a category called behavioral addictions, in which gambling would be the sole disorder; a "risk syndromes" category to help identify earlier stages of disorders like dementia and psychosis, and a recognition of binge eating disorder. the draft has been posted online and will be reviewed and refined over the next two years. for some perspective on the proposals and their implications i'm joined by dr. alan schatzberg, president of the american psychiatric association. he is chair of psychiatry at stanford university. and dr. allen frances, former chief of psychiatry at the duke university medical center. he led the last effort to revise the manual. gentlemen, thank you both for being with us. dr. schatzberg, to you first. why is this manual so important? >> well, it is useded by, as you pointed out, judy, by practitioners around the world to diagnose potential patients, people who come in for treatment with specific complaints, and to classify them as having within or another disorder. it becomes the common language that mental health practitioners use to describe patients so that we can agree on the diagnosis. very similar to cardiologists talking to an internist saying the patient has had a myocardial infraction, or what we call a heart attack. we need to have agreed upon diagnosis and criteria if we're going to be able to take care of patients. >> woodruff: it's important for doctors, obviously the patients. insurance companies? >> absolutely. because insurance companies will pay for benefits for treatment, whether psychosocial or farmica logic, or other forms of treatments for specific conditions and those conditions have to be specified. we have classifications for medical disorders used and promulgated by the who, the american psychiatric association has criteria for mental disorders and start doing it in 1952. >> woodruff: just quickly yrk does it need to be redone? >> because as we study patients with particular disorders, as we understand more about genetics, epidemiology, brain injury, treatment response, about risk factors, about groupings of patients, we start to see that there are patterns that emerge, that there are disorders more similar to one another than we thought. there are some disorders we thought would be very different that we find out are really one or another variation of a common disorder. so the nomenclature needs to be refind periodically. >> woodruff: dr. fances, we understand you have some concern with what the psychiatric association is recommending. tell us what those are, your main concerns. >> well, we learned some very, very painful lesss in dool dsm iv. and we thought we were being really careful about everything we did and wanted to discourage changes, but inadvertently, i think we helped to trigger three false epidemics. one for autistic disorder that you mentioned. another for the childhood diagnosis of bipolar disorder. and the third for the overdiagnosis of attention deficit disorder. my concern has been that the ambitions expressed by those working on dsm v would lead to unintended consequences with many patients being created, new categories, the lowering of thresholds in existing categories, people probably don't need the treatment that they might receive but-- would probably receive if they get a diagnosis. >> woodruff: so what's an example of something you think shouldn't be diagnosed? >> i think you mentioned some. binge eating disorder i think is a classic example. in order to meet the criteria for this proposed diagnosis, a person would need to binge just once a week for three months. i would certainly qualify for that. i think the estimates-- the low estimates are this would include 6% of the general population. once a diagnosis becomes official, there's a kind of wildfire effect. it becomes more and more popular especially if this is marketed as an important indication for the pharmaceutical industry. and my guess is that before very long, maybe 10% of the population will qualify for this diagnosis of binge eating disorder. that means 20 million people. and there's no proven treatment for the condition. and undoubtedly, lots of people would be getting unnecessary, expensive, and often harmful treatments for conditions that really are made up by the people doing the manual. >> woodruff: dr. schatzberg, how do you respond to that concern that things are going to be diagnosed that shouldn't be? >> in fact, i think dsm v has been assiduous--. >> woodruff: again, this is an acronym-- >> yes, this is the proposed criteria as-- have been very careful to define the threshold for patients being in distress, being impaired. and being able to obtain or receive a diagnosis. we try to be refind on those criteria from dsm iv to make it tighter. in fact, i think dsm v will reduce the number of partys who receive diagnoses. for bulimia, i think it's very important to point out that these subjects are highly distressed. it's not just a matter of someone overeating and having a bad meal or a bad day on thanksgiving. in fact, these-- this disorder is seen commonly in young women. it tend to be associated very commonly with obesity. and the last i looked, obesity say major epidem nick this country. and if we are to in fact address and help the society deal with the obesity problems we have to have a way of defining this pathological over eating. >> woodruff: dr. frances, you want to come back on that point? >> just quickly, obesity is certainly the largest public health problem facing americans but that does not mean it's a mental disorder. >> woodruff: dr. frances, broaden this out. clearly there are specific concerns you have. but more broadly, why should we be concerned, whether it's young people, attention deficit-- which is what you said happened with the previous manual or any of these diagnoses going forward-- what's the real encourage here? >> well, with attention deficit disorder as an example, the prescription of stimulants has exploded. and what's happened is often these are given not for a mental disorder but for performance enhancement. getting a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder allows you to get that stimulant treatment which for many people may not be for a mental disorder but man so they can do better in their everyday life. 30% of college students use stimulants to do better at school. it also createaise secondary, illegal market that the prescription drugs are sold on. so there is a huge public health i think, significance in this, as well as a societal problem that's been caused by it. >> woodruff: a huge public health concern, dr. schatzberg? >> certainly, we don't want to have overuses of stimulants or performance-enhancing drugs, but just having a diagnosis doesn't mean that in fact leads to it. in fact, they say whole social kind of question about how best to treat individuals with attention deficit disorder. but those individuals are using stimulants, potentially illegally, and illicitly, and not doing it because they have a psychiatric diagnosis. they're using it for their own performance enhancement, just as having a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder does not lead to necessarily performance enhancement. that's kind of a silly argument. >> woodruff: just quickly, where do we go from here, dr. frances. as we said, there are two years now before this is finalized. what would you look to see happen, dr. frances, in just a few word? >> the process today has been way to secretive. i think it should be opened up. i think there needs to be a very very careful forensic review because unintend consequences in forensics can be a huge problem. i think there needs to be a risk-benefit analysis of each of the new assessments to make sure they do, indeed, make sense. and i think the field trial coming up soon need to be exposed to public review before they begin. >> woodruff: dr. schatzberg, in a few words, will all those things happen? >> well,un, the task force will take in the comments on the public posting. i think this is an incredible example of openness and transparency. the field trials will in fact test out whether these proposed kinds of categories make sense. and whether they make sfrens a diagnostic end as well as from the sociological. we will try to address some of these issues the diagnostic and statistical manual of disorders. and we thank you both for being here. dr. alan schatzberg and dr. fran. thank you. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: finally tonight, a musical man of many turns. jeffrey brown has our story. >> reporter: a recent concert in panama, featuring local legend and international salsa star ruben blades. ♪ this was a special performance-- a return to music for blades, after spending five years as a cabinet minister. an unusual career move for any musician, but not for this songwriter who's always brought the problems of his part of the world-- poverty, corruption, underdevelopment-- into his music. >> i think that through music you can help to make these issues not go away and present them in a non-political or partisan way and just humanistic way that will make people pay attention to the issues and perhaps understand it better. >> reporter: at 61, blades is now back living in new york. with his wife, luba mason, a jazz singer. at the famous "blue note" club recently, he told me that growing up in panama, music had been all around. >> i heard everything. i... this is important: panama was the first country where you saw the beatles after "the ed sullivan show." yes, because we had the american army in panama at the time in the canal zone area, so there was the southern command network, and ed sullivan was passed on a week after it was shown here, so we saw the beatles. >> reporter: as a young man, blades got degrees in political science and law. much later he got a degree in international law from harvard. ♪ he'd also started performing the latin american dance music known as salsa, and when his family left panama in the early '70s amid political turmoil, blades made his way to new york. where the salsa scene was exploding. ground zero was the recording label, "fania records." >> fania records was the motown, the recording mecca of any latin salsa fan. so i called to see if they would record me and they said no. and then, i was hanging up the phone and i said, "do you have anything else?" and they said, "what do you mean?" "anything to work in." they said, "oh, there's a job in the mailroom." and i said "what does that mean? what do i have to do?" and explained to me what it was and how much it paid. $125 a week, which was a fortune to me then. >> reporter: so you were the lawyer in the mailroom wanting to play music. >> the nut in the mailroom. absolutely. ♪ the rest, as they say, is recording history. blades soon got his chance and became a major star with a string of international hits, including "pedro navaja"-- his version of "mack the knife"- - about a smalltime criminal and life in the slums. blades was celebrated as a lyricist and for broadening what was primarily dance music. >> i noticed that most of the themes had to do with very simple scenarios and i thought... >> reporter: like most popular music. >> right. love, rejection, the friend that betrayed me. and i started writing about social issues. >> reporter: you want there to be a social consciousness. >> i want discussion. i want to make people think about stuff. >> reporter: blades also began acting. he appeared in more than 30 films-- features like "all the pretty horses." and some, like "the milagro beanfield war", that took on social topics. in the '90s, he turned to politics more directly-- forming a party and running for president in panama. he lost, but the public service bug stuck. and in 2004 blades joined the government as minister of tourism-- an important economic post in panama. >> it's a way to really, not through songs, but to go through the trenches and try to change things politically. >> reporter: and what did you learn from that experience? >> i learned it works. >> reporter: it works? >> absolutely. you know, most people go into a bureaucracy-- it's burro, two rs-- burrrrocracy. >> reporter: a donkey. >> yeah. it creates a lot of disappointments, especially if you come form the private sector into the public sector. we made things happen including a national plan that took into consideration what to do not to hurt the environment and at the >> reporter: so you came away optimistic about government. >> yes, i did. because the other thing is that from the outside, you know, we criticize and we always have an opinion. you throw a stick out and you'll hit an expert on politics. but i felt i got to go in there and earn the right to carp and criticize. and i came out thinking, "wow, this can work." >> reporter: so this musician, actor, lawyer, minister: what is it? is it a restless mind? can't hold a job? what? >> ( laughing ) boy, that has been said. i think it has to do with my grandmother. that was my main example. you know, my grandmother was a vegetarian in the '30s. this lady practiced yoga in the '50s! i mean, she talked to me about cubism when i was about seven years old. so i grew up not thinking that anything was impossible. >> reporter: in blades' recent recordings, the sound is acoustic-- more stripped-down from the orchestration of the past. but thematically, they pick up where he left off. his latest c.d. is called "songs of underdevelopment." >> because you need to continue focusing, society is not as just as it should be. we still are not giving everyone the same opportunities. we're still not looking after the little guy or the person who needs the break. so we still have to continue to try to fight for a better, more just society, so the songs continue to be necessary. now and forever, i think. >> reporter: all right, ruben blades, thanks for talking to us. >> thank you. i admire your show. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: the second blizzard in less than a week pounded the mid-atlantic region and stretched into the northeast. it dumped at least another foot of snow on washington and even more in new york city and elsewhere. maryland governor martin o'malley told "the newshour" he hopes for a federal disaster declaration and emergency funding. honda recalled another 437,000 vehicles around the world over trouble with air bags. and the u.s. imposed new the "newshour" is always online. hari sreenivasan, in our newsroom, previews what's there. hari? >> sreenivasan: on our "world view page," the views of four former taliban leaders on u.s. strategy in afghanistan. that's part of our "profiles of the taliban" project, a partnership with global post and p.r.i.'s "the world" there's also a lesson plan for high school students about whether dialogue with the enemy is a good idea. and on "art beat," more from jeffrey brown's interview with ruben blades and his performances. plus the most watched video on our site-- a seasonal slideshow on the art of the snowflake. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> what the world needs now is energy. the energy to get the economy humming again. the energy to tackle challenges like climate change. what if that energy came from an energy company? 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