Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20150103 : c

we attracted mercedes-benz to be the sponsor for our facility. there was another milestone an indication that are building was brand-new and world-class. >> brings back to those discussions as the city was devastated. was there any voices saying we should move to an entirely different location? i'm a strict bottom-line sense that make sense? >> it made sense because people were there, but it was a very difficult conversation to have daily. i was asked by people, where you back? i knew that whatever played well was going to get covered, but you have to send messages to all the people you work with that we'll had to be there. everyone from every socioeconomic background was forced to leave that -- and yet we made a financial commitment to go and be there. it was not easy. we had to have people. first of all, you had to have a building. the first year you had to set the schedule for the nfl for the first year. we were in multiple different locations. knowing that people were there and also that the companies were there, we did not have nielsen ratings. we did not have a per capita. it was a difficult for companies to make decisions as to what they would do and whether the could function, not just a will, but also people to be the customers. we had our season ticket holders that stepped up and we were sold out for the next season. that was the one fact that we could say, 72,000 people are planning to be there for 10 home games. >> you better be ready. >> we were simple, catalyst, ambassadors for a community. we are home where we are. the hornets were -- we did not own the team at a time. we acquired it in 2012. there are some familiar faces in that room. both leagues have a different evolutionary phase. we are committed and determined to help support new orleans. it's a great global, cultural city. >> one of the great stories. kansas and daytona looking for to see what happens down there. a pleasure to talk to both of you. i hope to see you at a game come as you had a race. >> absolutely. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> we're a parting gift. >> wow. >> and i you have divisive. >> thank you. >> thank you steve. >> 1984, democratic convention speech by mario cuomo, who died on new year's day at the age of 82. then viewers calls on immigration and naturalization for the washington journal. interviews with authors and entrepreneurs from this year's washington ideas festival. >> here are some of our featured programs you'll find this holiday weekend on the c-span network. saturday night at it a car p.m. eastern on c-span, from the explorers club, apollo 16 after not charlie duke, the youngest man to walk on the moon. sunday evening at it :00 p.m. on c-span's q&a, president and ceo of the national council, the largest national hispanic civil rights group united states. on c-span two saturday night at 10:00 on book tvs afterwards, meet the press chuck todd on president obama's performance. sunday at noon eastern on -- are three our conversation with talkshow host travis -- tavis smiley. we are calls, e-mails, and we dispute on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at it :00 p.m. eastern, opening the remarks by former house speaker's o'neill, newt gingrich and nancy pelosi. sunday night at it :00, we hear from senate majority leaders how baker, bob dole and george mitchell. find a complete television schedule on c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs are watching. call us at the following number. e-mail us at the following address. or citizen tweet. join the c-span conversation like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> mario cuomo, former governor of new york to new year's day at 82 just hours after his sun andrew begin his second term. mario cuomo played major league a legal and political career. his oratory entered -- dedication to progressive policy made him a star. in 1984, he gave the keynote speech at the democratic national commission in san francisco. the speech got national attention and he became a possible presidential candidate in 1980 and 1992, but he decided not to run. here is his 1984 speech. it is 40 minutes. >> thank you very much. on behalf of the great empire state and the whole family of new york, let me thank you for the great privilege of being able to address this convention. please allow me to skip the stories and the poetry and the temptation to deal in nice but vague rhetoric. let me instead use this valuable opportunity to deal immediately with the questions that should determine this election and that we all know are vital to the american people. ten days ago, president reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried about themselves, their families, and their futures. the president said that he didn't understand that fear. he said, "why, this country is a shining city on a hill." and the president is right. in many ways we are a shining city on a hill. but the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city's splendor and glory. a shining city is perhaps all the president sees from the portico of the white house and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. but there's another city; there's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one; where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate. in this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it. even worse, there are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. and there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn't show. there are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day. there is despair, mr. president, in the faces that you don't see, in the places that you don't visit in your shining city. in fact, mr. president, this is a nation -- [applause] -- mr. president you ought to know that this nation is more a "tale of two cities" than it is just a "shining city on a hill." [applause] maybe, maybe, mr. president, if you visited some more places; maybe if you went to appalachia where some people still live in sheds; maybe if you went to lackawanna where thousands of unemployed steel workers wonder why we subsidized foreign steel. [laughter] [applause] maybe -- maybe, mr. president, if you stopped in at a shelter in chicago and spoke to the homeless there; maybe, mr. president, if you asked a woman who had been denied the help she needed to feed her children because you said you needed the money for a tax break for a millionaire or for a missile we couldn't afford to use. [applause] maybe -- maybe, mr. president. but i'm afraid not. because the truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that this is how we were warned it would be. president reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social darwinism. survival of the fittest. "government can't do everything," we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class. [applause] you know, the republicans called it "trickle-down" when hoover tried it. now they call it "supply side." but it's the same shining city for those relative few who are lucky enough to live in its good neighborhoods. but for the people who are excluded, for the people who are locked out, all they can do is stare from a distance at that city's glimmering towers. it's an old story. it's as old as our history. the difference between democrats and republicans has always been measured in courage and confidence. [applause] the republicans -- the republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. [applause] "the strong" -- "the strong," they tell us, "will inherit the land." we democrats believe in something else. we democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact, and we have more than once. [applause] ever since franklin roosevelt lifted himself from his wheelchair to lift this nation from its knees -- wagon train after wagon train -- to new frontiers of education, housing, peace; the whole family aboard constantly reaching out to extend and enlarge that family; lifting them up into the wagon on the way; blacks and hispanics, and people of every ethnic group, and native americans -- all those struggling to build their families and claim some small share of america. for nearly 50 years we carried them all to new levels of comfort, and security, and dignity, even affluence. and remember this, some of us in this room today are here only because this nation had that kind of confidence. and it would be wrong to forget that. [applause] so, here we are at this convention to remind ourselves where we come from and to claim the future for ourselves and for our children. today our great democratic party, which has saved this nation from depression, from fascism, from racism, from corruption, is called upon to do it again -- this time to save the nation from confusion and division, from the threat of eventual fiscal disaster, and most of all from the fear of a nuclear holocaust. [applause] that's not going to be easy. mo udall is exactly right -- it won't be easy. and in order to succeed, we must answer our opponent's polished and appealing rhetoric with a more telling reasonableness and rationality. we must win this case on the merits. we must get the american public to look past the glitter, beyond the showmanship to the reality the hard substance of things. and we'll do it not so much with speeches that sound good as with speeches that are good and sound; not so much with speeches that will bring people to their feet as with speeches that will bring people to their senses. [applause] we must make -- we must make the american people hear our "tale of two cities." we must convince them that we don't have to settle for two cities, that we can have one city, indivisible, shining for all of its people. [applause] now, we will have no chance to do that if what comes out of this convention is a babel of arguing voices. if that's what's heard throughout the campaign, dissonant sounds from all sides, we will have no chance to tell our message. to succeed we will have to surrender some small parts of our individual interests, to build a platform that we can all stand on, at once, and comfortably -- proudly singing out. [applause] we need -- we need a platform we can all agree to so that we can sing out the truth for the nation to hear, in chorus, its logic so clear and commanding that no slick madison avenue commercial, no amount of geniality, no martial music will be able to muffle the sound of the truth. and we democrats must unite. we democrats must unite so that the entire nation can unite, because surely the republicans won't bring this country together. their policies divide the nation into the lucky and the left-out, into the royalty and the rabble. the republicans are willing to treat that division as victory. they would cut this nation in half, into those temporarily better off and those worse off than before, and they would call that division recovery. [applause] now, we should not -- we should not be embarrassed or dismayed or chagrined if the process of unifying is difficult, even wrenching at times. remember that, unlike any other party, we embrace men and women of every color, every creed, every orientation, every economic class. in our family are gathered everyone from the abject poor of essex county in new york, to the enlightened affluent of the gold coasts at both ends of the nation. and in between is the heart of our constituency -- the middle class, the people not rich enough to be worry-free, but not poor enough to be on welfare; -- [applause] -- the middle class -- those people who work for a living because they have to, not because some psychiatrist told them it was a convenient way to fill the interval between birth and eternity. white collar and blue collar. young professionals. men and women in small business desperate for the capital and contracts that they need to prove their worth. we speak for the minorities who have not yet entered the mainstream. we speak for ethnics who want to add their culture to the magnificent mosaic that is america. [applause] we speak -- we speak for women who are indignant that this nation refuses to etch into its governmental commandments the simple rule "thou shalt not sin against equality," a rule so simple -- [applause] -- i was going to say, and i perhaps dare not but i will. it's a commandment so simple it can be spelled in three letters: e.r.a. [applause] >> e.r.a. >> we speak -- we speak for young people demanding an education and a future. we speak for senior citizens. we speak for senior citizens who are terrorized by the idea that their only security, their social security, is being threatened. we speak for millions of reasoning people fighting to preserve our environment from greed and from stupidity. [applause] and we speak for reasonable people who are fighting to preserve our very existence from a macho intransigence that refuses to make intelligent attempts to discuss the possibility of nuclear holocaust with our enemy. [applause] they refuse. they refuse, because they believe we can pile missiles so high that they will pierce the clouds and the sight of them will frighten our enemies into submission. now we're proud of this diversity as democrats. we're grateful for it. we don't have to manufacture it the way the republicans will next month in dallas, by propping up mannequin delegates on the convention floor. [applause] but we, while we're proud of this diversity, we pay a price for it. the different people that we represent have different points of view. and sometimes they compete and even debate, and even argue. that's what our primaries were all about. but now the primaries are over and it is time, when we pick our candidates and our platform here, to lock arms and move into this campaign together. [applause] if you need any more inspiration to put some small part of your own difference aside to create this consensus, then all you need to do is to reflect on what the republican policy of divide and cajole has done to this land since 1980. now the president has asked the american people to judge him on whether or not he's fulfilled the promises he made four years ago. i believe, as democrats, we ought to accept that challenge. and just for a moment let us consider what he has said and what he's done. inflation -- inflation is down since 1980, but not because of the supply-side miracle promised to us by the president. inflation was reduced the old-fashioned way: with a recession, the worst since 1932. now how did we -- we could have brought inflation down that way. how did he do it? 55,000 bankruptcies; two years of massive unemployment; 200,000 farmers and ranchers forced off the land; more homeless -- more homeless than at any time since the great depression in 1932; more hungry, in this world of enormous affluence, the united states of america, more hungry; more poor, most of them women. and -- and he paid one other thing, a nearly $200 billion deficit threatening our future. now, we must make the american people understand this deficit because they don't. the president's deficit is a direct and dramatic repudiation of his promise in 1980 to balance the budget by 1983. how large is it? the deficit is the largest in the history of the universe. it -- president carter's last budget had a deficit less than one-third of this deficit. it is a deficit that, according to the president's own fiscal adviser, may grow to as much $300 billion a year for "as far as the eye can see." and, ladies and gentlemen, it is a debt so large -- that is almost one-half of the money we collect from the personal income tax each year goes just to pay the interest. it is a mortgage on our children's future that can be paid only in pain and that could bring this nation to its knees. now don't take my word for it -- i'm a democrat. ask the republican investment bankers on wall street what they think the chances of this recovery being permanent are. [applause] you see, if they're not too embarrassed to tell you the truth, they'll say that they're appalled and frightened by the president's deficit. ask them what they think of our economy, now that it's been driven by the distorted value of the dollar back to its colonial condition. now we're exporting agricultural products and importing manufactured ones. ask those republican investment bankers what they expect the rate of interest to be a year from now. and ask them -- if they dare tell you the truth -- you'll learn from them, what they predict for the inflation rate a year from now, because of the deficit. now, how important is this question of the deficit. think about it practically: what chance would the republican candidate have had in 1980 if he had told the american people that he intended to pay for his so-called economic recovery with bankruptcies, unemployment, more homeless, more hungry, and the largest government debt known to humankind? if he had told the voters in 1980 that truth, would american voters have signed the loan certificate for him on election day? of course not. that was an election won under false pretenses. it was won with smoke and mirrors and illusions. and that's the kind of recovery we have now as well. [applause] but what about foreign policy? they said that they would make us and the whole world safer. they say they have. by creating the largest defense budget in history, one that even they now admit is excessive -- by escalating to a frenzy the nuclear arms race; by incendiary rhetoric; by refusing to discuss peace with our enemies; by the loss of 279 young americans in lebanon in pursuit of a plan and a policy that no one can find or describe. [applause] regive noun latin american government to murder nuns and then we lie about it. [applause] >> we have been less than zealous in support of our only real friend it seems to me in the middle east, the one democracy there, our flesh and blood a eye the state of israel. our policy -- our foreign policy drifts with no real direction other than a hysterical commitment other than to an arms race that leads to nothing. and if we're not, it could lead us into bankruptcy or war. of course, we must have a strong defense. of course, democrats are for a strong defense. of course democrats believe that there are times when we should stand up and fight and we have. thousands of have paid for freedom with our lives. when this country has been at its best our purposes have been clear. now they're not. now our allies are as confused with our enemies. now we have no real commitment to our friends and to the ideas not the to bishop thank you thank you and the others struggling for freedom in south africa. [applause] >> we -- we have in the last few years spent more than question afford. we have pounded our chests and made bold speeches but we lost 279 young americans in lebanon and we live behind sandbags in washington. how can anyone say that we are safer, stronger or better? that -- that is the republican record. that is disastrous quality. it's not more fully understood by the american people, i can only credit the failure by some to separate the salesman from the product. and now -- now -- now it's up to us. now it's up to you and to me to make the case to america and to remind americans that if they are not happy with all that the president has done so far, they should consider how much worse it will be if he is left to his radical proclivity for another four years unrestrained, unrestrained. [applause] if -- if july -- if july brings back anne sbsgoss sage berkt what can we expect of december? where would another four years take us? where would four more years take us? how much larger will the deficit be? how much deeper for the struggling and the middle-class to limit that deficit? how high will the interest rates be? how much acid rain killing our forests and powling our lakes. and think of this, the nation must think of this, what kind of supreme court will we have? [applause] >> please. we must ask ourselves what kind of court and country will be fashioned by the man who believes in having government mandate people's religion and morality the man who believes that trees pollute the environment. a man that believes that the laws against discrimination, against people go too far. a man who threatened social security and help for the disabled. how high will we pile the missiles? how much deeper will the gulf be between us and our ennis? and will four years more make meaner the spirit of the american people? this election will measure the record of the past four years but more than that, it will answer the question of what kind of people we want to be. we democrats still have a dream. we still believe in our nation's future. and this is the answer to the future. we believe in only the government we need. but we insist on all the government we need. we believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and reason. a reason that goes beyond labels that doesn't distort or promise to things we know we can't do. we believe in a government strong enough to use words like love and compassion and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities. we believe in edge couraging the talented. but we believe that while survival of the fittest may be a description of evolution, a government of humans shall elevate itself to a higher order. we -- our government -- our government should be able to rise to the level where it can fill the gaps that are left by wisdom or by wisdom we don't understand. we would rather leave it to st. francis of acisi than laws written by darwin. we believe -- we believe as democrats that a society as blessed as ours, the most affluent in the world democracy one that can spend trillions on instruments of destruction or to be able to help the middle-class or to be able to find work for those who can do it, room at the table, shelter for the homeless, care for the elderly and hope for the destitute and we proclaim as loudly as we can, the utter insanity of nuclear proliferation and the need for a nuclear freeze if only it would hold the simple truth that peace is better than war because life is better than death. [applause] we believe in firm -- we believe in firm but fair law and order. we believe proudly in the union. [applause] we believe in privacy for people openness by government. we believe in civil rights and we believe in human rights. we believe in a single -- we believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks than any speech that i could write what a proper government should be. the idea of family, mutual wallity, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all feeling one another's pain, sharing one another's blessings reasonably honestly without sex, geography or political affiliation. we believe we must be the family of america recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another. but the problems of a retired schoolteacher in duluth are our problems, that the future of the child -- dash the future of the child in buffalo is our future, that the struggle of a disabled man who has divorced and live decent sli our struggle. that the hunger of a woman in little rock is our hunger. the that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might to avoid pain is our failure. after 50 years -- 50 years we democrats created a better future for our children using traditional democratic principles as a fixed beacon giving us direction and purpose but constantly innovating adapting to new realities. roosevelt fall bet program. truman's nato in the g.i. bill of rights. kennedy's tax incentive and the alliance for progress. johnson's civil rights. carter's civil right and the the newly visa cords. democrats did it. democrats did it. and democrats can do it again. we can build a future that deals with our deficit. remember this that 50 yoors of progress under our principles never cost us what the last four years of stagnation have. [applause] and we can deal with the deficit intelligently with all families contributing building partnerships providing a sound defense without depriving ourselves of what we need to feed our children and care for or people. we can have a future that provides for all the young and the present by marrying common sense and compassion. we know question because we did it for nearly 50 years before 1980. if we do not nearget this entire nation has profited by this progressive principles but they have helped the middle-class and higher. they gave us a chance to go to work, to go to college to raise a family, to own a house to be secure in our old age and to reach heights that our own parents did not dare dream of. that struggle to live with dignity is the real story of the shining city and it's a story, ladies and gentlemen that i didn't read in a book or learn in a classroom. i saw it and lived it like many of you. i watched a small man with thick calluses on both his hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. i saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, who taught me all i needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple el yens of his example. i learned democracy about my father. and i learned about the obligation from him and my mother. they asked only for a chance to work and to make the world better for their children. [applause] and they -- they asked to be protected in those moments when they would not be able to protect themselves. this nation and this nation's government did that for them and that they were able to build a family and live in dignity and see one of their children go from behind their little grocery store on south jamaica where he was born to occupy the highest seat in the greatest nation in the only world we know. it's an ineffortlessly beautiful tribute to the democratic process. and ladies and gentlemen, on january 20, 1985, it will happen again only on a much, much grander scale. we will have a new president of the united states a democrat born not to the blood of kings but to the blood of pioneers and immigrants and we will have the first woman vice president, the child of immigrants. [applause] and she -- she -- she will open with one magnificent stroke, a whole new frontier for the united states. it will happen. it will happen if we make it happen, if you and i make it happen. and i ask you now, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters for the good of all of us, for the love of this great nation, for the family of america for the love of god please make this nation remember how futures are built. thank you and god bless you. [cheers and applause] ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> former new york governor mario cuomo died. >> the 114th congress gavels in at noon. we'll see the swearing in of members. watch the house live on c-span hand the senate live on c-span2. >> there are stars, ok the new star in the fermment is the united states. stars and stripes known for stars of america. there's the fashi's on either side of the speakers. i love the fashis because all these little rods were bound together in rome. individually they could snap. put it all together and they're awfully strong. but they are a traditional symbol of the roman republic of government in which the people ruled and so those are there too. you raise your eyes up to see this wonderful silhouette almost of an eag with his eagles spread. it's up in the sky and it's -- it's rather like a skylight although it is covered from behind. it's not open to the heavens. but it's a wonderful eagle. and the thing that i love most about it is the sense that spreading its wings over the day-to-day work of the congress are great aspirations as seen in our great symbols in our nation. and it's the great bald eagle. i love seeing the mace. it's been there since 1841. it's a bundle of ebony rods. topped with a terrific eagle glob with an eagle standing on top of it. >> the traditions are important because when you forget about the traditions you forget about the flavor of this place. every time i see the speaker of the british house of commons i accuse him because in 1814 and when the british burned the capital down they also stole our mace. if you read the stories of foreman speakers when this place got rowdy or people got out of hand or there was a fight on the floor, you know, you had to present the mace. so it is a symbol of what this country has informsed in the congress the power of the congress, the power of people coming together and getting things done. >> the 114th congress gavels in on tuesday at noon eastern. we'll see the swearing in of members and the election for house speaker. watch the house live on c-span. and the senate live on c-span2. and joul the best access, the most extensive coverage anywhere. track the g.o.p. as it leads on tv radio and the web. >> next viewers calls on immigration and naturalization from washington journal. then interview with authors an sbrer prenures on the washington bureau festival and mick ebeling. then a conversation with authors joseph o'neill and gary stein guard. -- shteyngart. >> immigration and naturalization were some of the topics but before viewers could weigh in they had to answer a question from the u.s. naturalization test. this is 40 minutes. continues. host: already, could you pass the naturalization test. that is what we want to know this morning. if you calling, we want to talk about immigration, one of the issues that the congress and the present will be working on during this 114th congress. you have to take a test. the numbers are up. this is from the u. s. citizenship and immigration services. it says that the civics test is an oral test. the officer will ask applicant up to 10 of the 100 civics questions. we're going to ask everybody to call in this morning to take a naturalization question. see if you get the answer, then we will let you make your comment. we will begin with common on the democrat line. the question you have to answer __ what is the supreme law of the land? caller: that is an interesting question. wow. host: you're trying too hard. what do you think it is? what is the supreme law of the united states? caller: the law for all citizens to have their laws be __ host: let's show you the answer. the constitution. what iis your comment about immigration? caller: i was calling to say that i watch it program periodically. i wanted to say that immigration such a hot topic. as americans, we should consider that they want __ immigrants want to bring good to their lives. america is the greatest place on the face of the earth. i'm from the ivory coast originally. i can tell you, you do not have some of the stuff that you have here there __ the possibilities, you can work, you can do anything. if you really want to make it in america, it is the best place. host: how long can we been in the country? caller: almost 30 years. host: what is the process, use citizen? caller: yes, i am. it was __ it was not complicated. i went through all the normal procedures. i was in michigan. once everything was done, i came to washington, i naturalized in michigan. i left the u. s., went to ivory coast, then i came back. host: thanks for calling in. we just learned from the naturalization test, that the constitution is the supreme law of the land. what does the constitution do? keith from college station, texas, that is your question. caller: the constitution forms the three branches of government __ the congress, the executive, and the supreme court. host: that is one of the right answers. you can see there. keith, what you want to say about immigration? caller: i think we need to pass an immigration law. i think we need to pass all that. we need a stronger border, security. we need to find a solution for those who have been here for a long enough time that warns of prices for citizenship. we need to expand the number of immigrants that we allowed in for citizenship. we probably need a couple different tiers __ those who are migrant workers, or just need a legal way to work your, and go back __ and other category, technicians, and such. i think you need to do it all, and do it this year. host: thank you very much. the next call is from growing in florida. from the immigration test __ what is an amendment? caller: and amendment is a change to a decision that was already created. host: according to the test __ iit is a change or in addition to the constitution, you nailed it. caller: on the test __ what is the percentage that you need to pass or fail? if you fail, what do you do? do you go to the back of the line? on the question of labor, as it relates to immigration __ this country has always been so extorted when it comes to the question of undocumented or illegal aliens, whatever you want to call them, coming to the country and to make better their lives. florida, for example, most of the southern states have a right to work. my father was a victim of this political scheme. we see a lot of undocumented workers. speaking of infrastructure too __ my father was a highway worker. they were in a union. of course, it was done away with. today, we have illegal aliens doing the work. all of that money is sent out of the country. if we could come up with a system where the money and bonds were going through a pension, to recycle the money, do it in a way that everyone benefits, that would be a better system than hiring cheap labor. one other thing __ to correct the situation, the only thing we have to do is put those people in jail who hire these people, and police them. people forget about that when they put up a fence, and spent all that money. host: that is roy from florida. this is jimmy from south carolina. jimmy, your question __ what do we call the first 10 amendments to the constitution? caller: the bill of rights. host: that is correct. your question. caller: well, my primary concern about immigration is that we are not checking people coming in. it is so easy for terrorist and criminal elements to come in. that is really what we need to work on as far as immigration. host: thank you. debbie in albuquerque. what is one right or freedom from the first amendment? caller: freedom of speech. host: there you go. those are the first amendment freedoms. what is your comment ab >> i don't rootlyeally have a comment about immigration but i'm surprised about one of the questions that you asked which is incorrect on the answer. the constitution enforces property rights and commerce. in amendments, they're the twhaupbz do rights for us. but if you really take a look it's more powerful for business and for property and not for us. madison's the one who had a hissy fit over having them added and i'm surprised that the answer was that it talks about our rights. and i guess that's about all i got to say. >> all right. thank you very much. yeah, we were just -- that was the second question that's on the quiz. what does the constitution do. it sets up the government and defines the government and protects basic rights of americans. we are taking the straight from the u.s. citizenship and immigration services website. next call is steve in millerplace, new york. democrats line. steve, you get a bit of a toughy here. we played this game earlier this morning with our pre production meeting and none of us quite got this one right. so sorry about that. how many amendments does the constitution have? >> well, the last one would be the thing about the pay raise, i think, that sat there for 100 years before it finally passed. are we up to 29? >> you're close. it's 27. very good about immigration. you were a lot closer than we got this morning. >> so you take the tough one for the democrat, that's okay. anyway i'm calling because i'm an esl teacher and all of my students are immigrants. and these children have been demonized and it's a terrible thing. most of them are refugees and when i say refugees i'll just give you an example. one girl, 11-year-old girl, every friday she would see the gang come into her grandmother's store, put a gun to her grandmother's head and take all her money. that child's in my class now. and people are calling her things like terrorist. this is an letch-year-old girl who witnessed very terrible violence in her country. her parents thought it was safer for her to run across the desert than stay in the town she's in. these children are by in large refugees and probably get to stay here because of the terrence violence done in the country. thank you. >> that was steve in miller place new york up next mack in middle town ohio. republican line. okay, mack. what are two rights in the declaration of independence? >> right to liberty and right to freedom. >> life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. >> there you go. go ahead and make your comment sir. >> my comment is the constitution was founded on compromise and i think immigration we need to find immigration on this immigration controversy. there are many examples of compromise and i think our congressional leaders should think about that. >> what do you see as a middle ground? >> a middle ground >> or a compromise i think you called it? >> some degree of amnesty. aoeut tighten down the borders and begin from there. >> what do you do in middle town ohio. >> i'm actually a school teacher. >> what do you teach? >> i teach social studies. >> you do. okay. have you ever given your kids this quiz? >> i of and at times i've gotten resistance from the kids. some of them don't seem like they have to be able to take the test. they feel as though it's for the immigrants and not necessarily for them. but i come back with them and say, well, we enjoy the privileges of citizenship at least we should be able to know what 'em grants in this country should have to know. that's my approach. >> do you have any immigrant children in your classroom? >> a few, a few, yes. >> thank you, sir. linda is up next. linda's a democrat. linda, you get two questions because they're kind of related. so, how many u.s. senators are there is your first question? >> 100. >> and how long is the senate term? >> six years. >> there you go. you got it. >> i have a question for you. >> yes, ma'am. >> who were the three smartest men in the constitutional congress who did not sign and why didn't they sign? >> that is so wrong of you. that is so wrong of you. why don't you tell us. we don't like to answer questions at c-span. >> they did not sign because there was the bill of rights were not attached. >> who were they? >> the dissenters. they did not sign because the bill of rights was not attached to the constitution. now you learned something today. >> yes, ma'am. >> on immigration i think we're doing a good thing starting in connecticut. we're allowing immigrants illegally here. i refuse to call them aliens because they're not e.t.'s, to have a driver's license. this driver's license entitles to drive in connecticut but they can't board a plane and no federal rights attached to this and i think this is the way we're going have to to address immigration with the people that are already here that meet certain standards like they can pass a driver's test. i also think we have built in enforcement with our employers to them contributing to pensions. they contribute to social security. if we could stop employers from hiring them quote unquote under the table that eliminate a lot of the problems that natural born citizens have with them. they don't ever collect social security benefits if they're not here legally but they pay them. we don't enforce our own laws with our own employers. so i agree with what we're doing here and i think it's the solution that the state should look at and i think it's a big piece because then they're ensured they're driving and it's a property damage thing that we all fear and maybe all 50 states should look at something like that. thank you and happy new year. >> happy new year to you as well. >> all right. matthew in santa monica, california. you get a double question as well. >> wonderful. >> how many people in the house of representatives are as they phrase it on the test, how many voting members in the house of representatives? and how long a term does each member of congress have? >> 500 or 500 plus and the terms are four years. >> 435 members in the house of representatives and two year terms. >> well i screwed up on both of those. but i still wanted to make my thought would be a relevant comment to back-up what an earlier caller spoke of. which is the fact that the constitution is a pretty good document, but there were a lot of problems at the time and we wouldn't have a bill of rights if not been for two men, george mason and patrick henry. even after they got the bill of rights through patrick henry went back to virginia and told virginia everything the revolution fought for has been seriously damaged by the constitution of the constitution. you know, that -- of course patrick henry was famous for "give me liberty or give me death speech" as people know. we already had the albany plan of union and the articles of 70-threed race and alot of people thought the american revolution was a failure because of a lot of things that were excluded by the constitution in favor of those who were in power and of course here we are in the 21st century and now america is run by multi-national corporations and bankers and secret societies so the same problem is even worse today. so that's all i wanted to say. thank you. >> all right. this morning in the last 20 minutes of the "washington journal", we're taking the naturalization test as administered by the u.s. citizenship and immigration services agency. 202 is the air code. and you have to answer a question to get on the air. we're talking about immigration. if you want to make a comment you got to answer the question first. here is your question. name your u.s. representative. >> my u.s. representative. >> yes, ma'am. who is your member of congress? >> well, for the next couple days it's shelley. >> that is correct. >> she's going to be senator. >> who is replacing congresswoman, do you know offhand? >> yeah, i do. all we have left is you know -- >> mr. mansion, senator mansion. >> who is really to be perfectly truthful, he's so close to republican what can you say, you know. >> all right. what's your comment about immigration, thanks for playing. >> uhm, well, i was just going to reflect in about 15 -- somewhere between 15, 20 years ago when i was living in d.c. and managing apartments my painter who was from brazil he took the test. he and his family took the test. he had to take it twice. he failed it the first time and so he come in and he said, joyce, you just don't know how hard this is. and so he read me all the questions and i remembered the first one was name the 13 colonies which i did. i mean, that was the one that took a little time. i was using my fingers to count them on. and then they were all -- i got them all, you know, because they were really -- i was a history major and all that stuff in school but after that i was the most brilliant person in the world. but they are a little hard. i guess they could be. just right this minute, my representatives slipped my mind. so i guess it could be a little hard. >> you got it right. you got it right. shelley more capita she is your representative until tuesday. >> joyce, do you think american kids should take this quiz? >> can i ask you one question. >> i'm not sure i'm going it answer it but you can ask. >> okay. because i've called and asked about this for a long time. one of my favorite people on c-span was rob harrison. where did rob go? >> he's on our assignment desk. he's a full-time employment. he's on our assignment desk here on c-span. he works at c-span. >> he isn't on the air anymore. >> that is correct and i will -- i'm sure he's listening. i'm make sure that joyce in charlton, west virginia says hi to rob. >> bismarck, north dakota, independent line. nathaniel, here is your question. why do some states have more representatives than other states? >> nathaniel, we'll never know his answer. charles, why do some states have more representatives than other states? >> easy question. representatives are allocated based on population. that's why calf has more than wyoming. >> that is correct sir. >> what is your point about immigration? >> as far as immigration i've been through it twice. can you hear me? >> we are listening. go right head. >> my first wife was chinese and my second wife was russian. so i coached them both so they could pass the exam and i'm proud both were able to become citizens. i like to say my wife went from a red to a red, white and blue. and that speech that hat trick henry gave that's an iconic speech in american political history. most people don't know the first thing that he said. you know what the first thing he said when he took the floor? >> what's that? >> he said, can everybody in the back hear me all right? [laughter] >> charles, what do you do in alexandria, virginia? >> i'm a telecommunications engineer and spent the last ten years in iraq and afghanistan doing telle come and support for the military. >> do you think america children should take the quiz like we should >> very much so. it covers such a wide number of subjects that really every citizen both native born and foreign risenborn should have a thorough understanding of it of course. >> let's talk to betty. start to betty in louisiana. if lee if the president and the vice president can no longer serve who becomes president? >> i think it's speaker of the house. >> you got it right. you got it right. congratulations. what's your comment on immigration? >> i wanted to mention the fact that i get upset when people always are saying undocumented. it's sort of negates that some people have come and they haven't done it the legal way and i think most people aren't against immigrants. they're against people coming illegally. so i don't understand why. >> so you think the term "illegal" should be used? >> well, that's the point. if you do something -- if you rob a house they say it's illegal. if you go in to a home that you don't own and you are trespassing, then that aillegal. so if someone does something like that, i think it should be called what it is. now, that's not to say that these people don't contribute. that's not to say that these people perhaps don't deserve to be considered as citizens later on, but i really get upset when they try to rename and reterm everything. that's all i wanted to say. i hope people will use words in their original context and meeting. >> that's betty in albany, louisiana. and up next from maryland here in the suburbs here's sam. here you get a double question. how many justices are on the supreme court and who is the chief justice right now. >> there are nine justices in the supreme court and the chief justice is antonio ska leah. >> the chief justice is john roberts. e is john roberts. go ahead and make your comment. caller: my comment is __ one >> you have the right to choose the country you love. we came here because we love this country and the word illegal alien i'm against that because no human being is illegal. we all came here as immigrants. they came here for people to use all kinds of words to describe these people as illegal. >> where did you come from originally? >> i came from sierra leon. >> have you taken this test? >> yes, sir. >> how did do you? did you pass on your first try? >> yeah, i passed on my first try. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> we'll talk next to pat and pat is in aniston, alabama. pat, you get a double. who is -- who is the governor of your state right now and what is the capital of your state? >> montgomery. >> who is your governor right now? >> our governor bentley. >> all right. go ahead and make your comment about immigration. >> i have two comments. one ties into somebody said earlier about u.s. born citizens taking the test. i don't think you should be issued a cell phone telephone number unless you can pass the test. all kids are going to want a phone so they ought to know what country they're in and how it works. requiring them to pass the defendant to get a cell phone is the best way to make sure they do it. secondly, in terms of the immigration issue, there is a belief that you cannot remove all the illegals from this country. i disagree with that. we should attempt to remove everyone of them who have come in illegally. thank you. >> that's pat in alabama. up next is another one and this is will in vinemont which is in what part of alabama, will? >> right outside of decatur. >> here is your quiz. there are four amendments to the constitution about who can vote. describe one of them. >> i'll tell you we had a little -- don't try too hard on this. we had a little bit of trouble on this one ourselves when we were playing this game at 6:00 a.m.. it's a little -- it's not as hard as it seems. one more time. there are four amendments to the constitution about who can vote. describe one of them. >> well, one of them was to give women their vote. >> that's correct. you got it. and here are the four citizens 18 or older can vote. you you don't have to pay a pol tax to vote. and between the civil war and the 19 twenties a male citizen of any race can vote. so that was one of the amendments to the constitution. will, please go ahead and make your comment about immigration, sir. >> yeah, it's complicated thing. so many ideas i hear people talking about makes me think that they don't have a conscience. but you hear people yelling close the border, close the border. it takes money to close the border. republicans won't spend the honey yet they're the biggest complainers. i'd like to see some of these people walk up to these children and say, we're going to kick you out of here. i just can't imagine that happening. and there should be more people possibly on your show that would educate us about things that are going on in this way. and these people are -- i mean, we have a lot worse problems than immigration. i think we should work on a lot of problems. thank you, sir. >> thank you, will. happy new year to you. up next from l.a. is b.j. good morning to you, democrat. all right, b.j. what are two rights of everyone living in the united states. >> what are two rights? >> two rights of everyone in the living in the united states. any two? >> yeah, any two. >> the right to freedom of religion. >> okay. >> and the right to bear arms. >> you got two of them. freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom to assembly and petition the government and worship and bear arms. what's your comment on immigration, b.j.? >> i have an issue with people who have called and forget the fact that this country is made of immigrants that if you're not so fortunate to have native in front of your name as a native american we're all immigrants so we all actually buy -- in our history came here as immigrants. what frustrates me is the fact that we as a country have not even actually upheld our treaties or whatever to the native americans becauseas americans or we call ourselves we took this country by force. so for people to actually denigrate others who have come here in search of better lives it's just frustrating because our ancestors did the same thing. so we can't actually just bash all the people who come here wanting a new life. we have to put in the conscience and be compassionate. >> what do you do in l.a.? >> i'm a student. >> what are you studying? >> information technology. >> where do you go to school? >> santa monica. >> santa monica community college? >> yes. >> why are you up at 6:54 a.m. l.a. time watching c-span. >> i'm up this time of the morning watching c-span every morning. actually i'm actually in texas helping a friend move over the holidays and seeing my family. >> so you're currently in texas? >> yes. >> okay, all right. >> but i get up at five every morning. to watch the show. >> i was going to say you sound like you were not from l.a. necessarily. next up, donna, new york republican. donna, this is from-- >> good morning. >> this is from the naturalization quiz. what are two ways that americans can participate in their democracy? >> they can vote. >> okay. >> and pay taxes? >> you know what that sounded good to me. it's not listed on here. but it sounded good. here are the answers as given by the naturalization test. you can vote and you join a party and you can help with a campaign and join a civic group and give an elected official an opinion. and public support a policy and write to a newspaper so every day here at c-span i guess we are fulfilling one of those ways that americans can participate. why don't you publically support or oppose an issue for us. >> you can release repeat. that >> i'm sorry. i was being too cute. go ahead and talk about immigration. >> well, i disagree with a lot of callers about the idea of immigration. i think immigration is good for our country and that's how our country was founded, yes. but there is a very big difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration and i agree with thewoman who called up and said let's call what it is. if and someone breaks into your home or robs a bank it's illegal. and when people come here from another country through illegal ways crossing borders, whatever, and do not become an american citizen they are breaking all of our laws and one of -- they do collect social services. i don't even not that someone couldn't even know that they collect -- they get welfare food stamps, housing assistance and they are not contributing with any of these deductions taken out of their pay because they are being paid under the table. so all they're doing is taking and not contributing. they're only contributing their labor and not contributing to our financial wealth or health. and this is one of the problems -- one of the main problems. they -- the employers were fined or employers just told the law. they would hire people, anybody at a liveable wage and what happens is when i here a lot of people say well, some of those people that come will work for cheaper wages, they'll do jobs that americans but they leave something off at the end of the sentence. what they're leaving off they're hiring people to do work at substandard levels of pay. if employers would hire people at a liveable wage then the economy would start to come back. >> we'll have to leave it there. thanks for calling in. the happy new year to you and everybody who called in this morning and thanks to participating in the quiz. here's the name of it in case you're interested for it for yourself or the source. u.s. citizenship and immigration services is the sponsor t and it's one shiv eubgz questions and answers for those who are taking the naturalization test. >> on the next "washington journal" and frank sherry founder and executor, discuss the prospects for immigration legislation and john from the national consumers league talks about their push. and we'll take your calls you and can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. this sunday on q & a president and ceo of the national counsel of nation's largest hispanic accurate advocacy group and her compelling personal story. >> i had the great privilege of experiencing the american dream here in this country. born in kansas. my parents actually came to this country in the very early ' fifties. my parents came from mexico with no money and very little education. my dad had an eighth grade education and my mom a fifth grade education and yet they believed in the promise of this country and they were seeking better opportunities for their children. and so they worked really hard and sacrificed as so many latinos and hispanics have done in this country because they wanted that better future for their children and they believed in the promise of this country. so they really taught us important values that have been our guide for our lives for me and my siblings, my six brothers and sisters. but they taught us the importance of family of faith of community, hard work sacrifice, honesty, integrity, all of those were important values that they shared with us. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q & a. next interviews with authors and couldn't (yours at this year's washington ideas festival. >> [applause] >> hello. so everybody has a chapter one. my chapter one started with a guy that steve mentioned. and temp in the 80s and 90s was the four most graffiti artists and he came down with a disease called al s and made popular by the ice bucket challenge which is an amazing awareness campaign and my production company said this year instead of giving our clients this silly gift of a fruit basket or bottle of fine that they'll forget let's instead make a donation on their behalf. we went and set a meeting and sat across from them and said we'll give you this money. what are you going to use it for. and they said, i just want to be able to talk to my brother again. i just want to be able to communicate with him and i said, wait a second. how do you communicate now? they said, we do it with a device called a piece of paper and the piece of paper has a letter -- all the letters written on it. and on that piece of paper when he gets to it when we run our finger along it he blings and we write that letter down. and then we repeat and repeat and repeat and letters form words and that's how we communicate. i said that's crazy. i've staoepb stephen hawking and christopher receives how come you don't have them. he said we don't have money or tphr answer. they're too expensive. and so i have process and my process is that you commit and then you figure out. so i said, all right, here's what we're gonna do, we're going to do too things. temps going to communicate them. we're going to give him a stephen hawking machine and then we'll give him a device that allows him to draw and lets him do his art again. he said really? you can do that? i went, yeah, big hugs, high-five. and they left and we high-fived and i went, holy crap what did i just commit myself to. because i had never put the words okayler recognition technology together in a sentence and i was claiming to do that. part of my process as well is invite brilliant people into my life. i invite brilliant people to my house and we have a hacker weekend. if we track with technology track the pupil if az if that was the tip of the pencil then maybe temp could draw again of the we went about doing this and we came up with this device. the device is called the eye writer. it's not pretty but a web camera mounted in front of an eye and we took it to his hospital room and set up a projector down in the parking lot and set up a wireless signal from his room down to the projector and he drew again and we projected it on the side of a building. so he drew again for the first time in seven years. it was this incredible -- [applause] >> thank you. >> it was this incredible experience. that was it. like -- there wasn't a chapter to it. there wasn't what's next. we did it and so we went and got some drinks and talked about how awesome it was and then we went to bed. that was it. well then we woke up, quote, the next day. and it was "time" magazines top 50 intentions of 2010 and 8 incredible health inventions that transformed live and now part of the permanent collection. and so on and so forth and media and media ask we're like, what the hell did we do? how did we do this? but then temp sent us an e-mail and the e-mail was this: that was the first time i had drawn anything for seven years. i feel like someone -- i was under water and someone finally reached down and pulled my head up so i could take a breath. we got that and i said, all right, i don't know what we did but we got it figure out how to do it again and we got to figure it out for more people. that was the launch. and it's based on this premises of technology but it's technology for the sake of humanity. how do you hack and how do you modify and how do you take something that serves one purpose and make it apply to something else so it accomplishes a fundamental social need and some communication something like that. and so, this kind of set the course of what we were doing. that was my chapter one. chapter 2, july 11th last year year and couple months ago i went out to dinner with a friend and at dinner he tells me about this dr. tom and dr. tom is a doctor which is an area between sudan and south sudan. and he is only doctor which he does everything from delivering babies to pulling teeth to appendectomies, he's it. we're talking about him and so i did what a curious individual does after he gets home after having a couple glasses of wine and i went home and flipped open my laptop and opened up about an article about him and i come to learn about his situation and his situation is of wine and i went home and flipped open my that the government of sudan led by president boo sheer is running a campaign campaign of terror. he flies turbo prop planes over this region and rolls 50 pound drums with jet fuel over them. if you drive the people out when the military comes in there is nobody to fight. it makes it an easy war to fight. the people are used to this and the story went on to talk about a young boy named daniel and daniel was out tending his family's goats and he wrapped his arms around a tree and the bomb went off not far from him and the tree protected his body but it blew off his arms. and after i think it was eight hours he finally got to dr. tom and dr. tom stitched him up. and when he woke, he said, if i could die i would have because now i'm going to be such a burden to my family. so i'm sitting at my kitchen table. got my laptop and my glass of water and getting ready for bed and looking down the hallway where these three knuckle heads sleep. and i couldn't imagine if you're a parent could you imagine if your son or daughter said i wish i was dead because i'll be such a pain in the as for my mom and dad. i said i had to do something. so you commit and then figure it out. you'll see a trend here. i had a bunch of people into my house, physiotherapists and people who work in 3-d printing and fabrication. we try printing with 3-d printers and all types of different things. the weekend itself was a great success if you measure success about everything that fails but the ticket was bought to go to sudan there. was no turning back this. guy had successfully built a hand for himself and he said i can tell you have that tkpwhreupbt in your eye. he said, come out to south africa on your way to sudan and route through johannesberg and i'll get you sorted. i flew to his house and we spent six straight nights 24 hours a day going, going going, testing hands and arms and learning how to work with prosthetics. so we basically came to the end and we successfully made a proelt tow prototype and i hopped on a plane to prop plane to a refugee camp and it was there that i met daniel. and our plan was to meet daniel and it was nervous experience. i never talked to the kid and we were dealing with other people but i wanted to look at him in the eyes. and we got there and our plan was to load up the trucks after meeting him and start our journey, about a nine hour journey from the refugee camp across the border of sudan going under the protection of the rebels and cross under the cover of night to get to dr. tom where we would start our process. there's a rub. the rub is the cease fire ended while we were in the air. so security came in and said i'm sorry you can't go. we can't guarantee you safe passage so you're not going. luckily an ngo found out about us and said, why don't you come on over. we've got your shed in the back. if you want to set up shop there, go for it. so we jumped on it and we started making. we set up the printers and cleaned it up and swept it up and we started making the cast that's he would use for his forearm to replace where his arm used to be and we played with the ergonomics of the elbow and started making it. and there's a saying that i learned which is called t.i. a. which is this is africa. which is the equivalent to murphy's law. if it could go wrong it did. the electricity was wrong. we had to rewire electricity. it was so hot during the day that the 3-d printing fillment that we had was melting to itself before it got into my printer and then we got to november 11th and this is what happened. ♪ >> there is this thing in me that >> there's this thing in me that loves to see things that are not supposed to be done be done. daniel is one of 50,000 left in the wake of the bloodiest war africa has ever known. we flew into an active war zone with three preupters, lap tops, plastic and the goal to build daniel an arm. >> ready? the concept of project daniel was hatched on july 11th and on november 11th daniel fed himself for the first time in two years. but it's never about just one person. if we could teach the locals to do it themselves then project daniel could live on long after we left and it did. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. i've seen that video probably thousands of times and i still get that grin when he gets up and tries to throw. so what we're doing around project daniel and everything that we're doing around project daniel is around this concept of technology for the sake of humanity and we're creating the convention which was the eye writer which was 15 grand which was for $100 and tracting devices 0 that they can communicate using their brain waves. the project daniel arm we were able to make it for $100 normally $15,000. for us this is a philosophy of using technology for the sake of humanity. this is the philosophy of how do you take something and make it so accomplishes a fundamental social need. the question that we ask and we ask everybody here is let's not try to cure malaria. let's try for sure but if i ask you this room do you want to help cure malaria. you'll be like, sure. but if i say let's go help jim, jane or susie. there is a philosophy of helping one person and making that available to many people afterwards and making it accessible. that's where the power lies. one of our mantras is help one, help many. the question i would you guys today who is your one. who is your one and based on what you just saw who is your daniel? thank you, guys. [applause] >> thank you. >> if mapping the human denim was one of the biggest scientific mapping the human brain is the new goal for this one. next speaker are two neuroscientists in the effort of how the brain works and how it controls memory, attention and even hunger. please welcome director of the brain observatory and allan jones the ceo and jim hamlin himself a doctor. welcome. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> a lot of you probably know last year the federal government announced something called the brain initiative which dead indicates somewhere between 300 to $500 million to mapping the human brain. so we have two scientists working on similar projects that try to figure out exactly what's going on in our brains which is no small task but incredibly fascinating and important one. i want to start at the very top and just get to simple but complex question of what we're talking about when we incredibly fascinating and important one. i want to start at the very say brain mapping. >>, yeah, so let me talk about what we often talk about at the allen institute for brain science which by the way is not named for me but rather for paul allen who is one of the co-founders of microsoft. we often think about it as if i have a samsung phone here but imagine this is a new iphone six and i work for samsung, our big challenge how does this thing work. and imagine is this something you can all relate to what do do you? and they do this and it's very common in the industry. you take it apart and start to look at the chip architecture. so they pop these kheufpchips out and they put them in an hrebg tron microscope and look at all the parts. but that's only the start. if all you knew was that architecture it would tell you something about some of the advantages that one phone had over another. but you'll need to turn it on and figure out how the software works and maybe a knew operating system that you need to start to dig into and how that information is coded. and then you need to understand the new apps and how those work on top of that. and so there are these levels of the components and the computation and ultimately in the human brain those apps that are running that we all need to understand. when we think brain mapping we think about all the different elements and how they come together. in some way our brains are almost as complex at our phones. >> there is a caveat. the work we do is try to catalog. the problem is once you map one if you in reality we're not like the same model. we're not both iphone six or samsung, even if we were the same brand we would be very different. each brain -- i brought. i brought a spare. i almost for it in the hotel room. e at this level this is just a 3-d print of my brain and shows the cerebral cortex. when you zoom in and look at connections and cells and even synapsis and architecture of the brain at the microscopic level all bets are off. we have a project called the digital brain library and we catalog brains from individuals who donate them to science. we create maps that i actually studied. so one day when we have one brain of an individual stpaoerb he's then we look at it. why am i am who i am and how much is does it have to with the brain and how are we differently susceptible to disease as well. >> so, we have the federal brain initiative and we've been putting open brains for a long time. we've been studying neuroscience for a long time. what's different right now? why do we have all these initiatives to map the brain. what is driving us to do that? >> well, so, i guess i would say for those of you who don't know the allen institute for brain science we've been around for a little over ten years and about 2.5 years ago paul announced major new initiative which ultimately will commit almost a billion dollars of his own money to an ambitious project that goes after those -- the components and the computation of the brain. a year later there was a large european effort that was announced. this was a 1.3 euro investment and then the brain initiative announcement came soon after. i have heard any day one there will be one from china, japan announced their brain initiative earlier. so there is a lot of people converging on this. the question is why. there certainly is an urgency aroundnding human brain disease. but i think it's also a really interesting time in history and a convergence around a lot of new technologies developed the last many year. thing like manipulating the firing of an in your ron with a hundred years ago there was unfolding the language of chemistry and in a very short period of time lots of very fundamentals were established. fast forward 50 years with the discovery of dna, we had the language of life that unfolded. now here we are 50 years from now and i don't think this is a bold prediction. if you look at where people are putting the money, i think we will have some understanding of the language of the brain in the next decade with all of these efforts. so it's a really exciting time. is it good there are all these different efforts and different institutions or should everyone be working together on a giant brain initiative. >> internationally it's a challenge to combine goals. labs work independently at the national level. we compete for funding between each other. so it would be great to have -- we were talk before it would be great to have an initiative that would be just like where all the scientists got together and said, that's what we really need. i think your scientists are unlike -- even physicists should be less social than your scientists but they manage to get together and do this. i like the fact that the brain initiative really made people think about the brain more. i have -- my experience with the brain library because we know the participants and the patients who sign up and the person behind the brain, i understood over the years that without public engagement there cannot be really be neuroscience. at the basic level we cannot study the human brain if people don't lend themselves -- even 20 minutes of their time if people didn't care about the brain not that we paid them, we don't pay them. some studies pay $20 to go in for an hour or so. public engagement is where i like to focus, for example, i started in a non-profit called the institute for brain and society to make people more engaged in neuroscience. i think it accelerate research as well hand in hand with technology. >> if i could follow too to your question of collaboration versus comepetition competition. it's such a broad space. they peud private versus public i think there's no reason the space is too large and we have been approaching this as something where there is a lot of cooperation and collaboration. we partner with the european effort as much as we do with the u.s. brain iish active as well. i think it's unlike those previous big science projects it feels more collaborative than it does competitive. >> and it's true. when you narrow your goals then you're able to collaborate on something. if it's an open field and everybody may find a different reason to focus on a particular is a respect of brain structure or function the synthesis is the challenge. a final happen for the brain and then eventually many different brains from many different human brains in particular that's going to be i think the challenge. but >> speaking of narrowing your goals, you talked a little bit about community engagement with brain house and what you're doing at the observatory in the institute in san diego right now. can you talk a little more about how you call the big community engagement and what this means for people? brain mapping is such a -- >> we make it personal. i had a couple -- there it is. if you can move through the slides a little bit, it would tell you know, these are participants who are also willing -- they are also meeting us. for example, jane. one thing i discovered, you know, i really came out of the -- not out of the closet -- i came out of the lab. i was a basic scientist. and by meeting patients who would come to me with a diagnosis i started really challenging even the idea of the patient. why do we call somebody -- june died of a.l.s. you know, when we met her she had already been diagnosed. but my -- i became intrigued by the fact, why does medical field call somebody a patient the moment that they have a diagnosis while they are still the person? june was motivated to participate. she wanted to help somebody else in the future. there was nothing they could do about her when she was in life but by donating the brain we could find out what really happened using techniques. of course available today to look at the phenomena that are happening inside the tissue and that will help other people. other people. but in terms of as an idea, i wonder if the idea of a patient really keeps us away from also understanding human nature from a neuro scientific perspective. i met parkinson's disease patients very soon after their diagnosis and the question is, why me? you please, i was riding my bike the week before and now i'm a patient. that i think hinders us understanding the relationship between brain and disease. it's more of a humanistic view i think of the brain. then we focus -- this is the painting we commissioned for the brain institute society. i think it is more important when people become more aware of the brain they become more responsible themselves aware of what lifestyles, diet, nutrition, what it can do. these are things that can help a lot. hand in hand with technology of course. you need to understand the processes. >> sure. and you talked a little bit in your talk downstairs which was great but a lot of people didn't get to see it about people having regular m.r.i.'s and a relationship with understanding how their own brain looks before they become a patient. >> it's like a selfie of your brain. you join our program and take a selfie of your brain and over time it will tell you how your brain is doing. and everybody's brain, this is my brain three years ago. if i, two years ago. if i printed, i used an m.r.i. scan from three years ago. if i print it now it maybe would be less flattering. you know? as an organ to show with me. [laughter] >> it should be our favorite organ. the brain should be our first priority because it's who we are and we know what happens with dementia. >> so the thing about dementia is one of these extremely terrifying but also very costly to society diseases that sort of drives justification for continued investment in something like the brain initiative. do we have enough? is this looking promising? i think we've got, it said 10 years and at that point, you know, we don't know and how is that going to play out? are we going to need to continue to see? >> i think the numbers are constantly changing but there was an n.i.h. panel that recommended the project fund up to $500 million annually. up to 2025. so i think they proposed a plan for that. that's currently unfunded. so to be clear, the brain initiative while having a lot of momentum at this point is not incorporated into the future funding yet. so i think those are, you please, to make the case, you look at this societal cost of just alzheimer's alone, let alone all the other things that are really encompassed in brain disease. you know, whenever i say obesity or eating disorders, people are like, how is that related to the brain? well how isn't it related to the brain? there are so many different things that impact people's daily lives, you know, i think the -- you know, one in four people in this country will have some diagnosable mental disorder this year. which means that every single person is affected by somebody. you know somebody, either somebody in your family or one of your co-workers that affects your lives and if you think about that not only to the person but to the people around them, the burden is huge. and we can do something about it. the technology is here to actually really make a difference. we just have to pay attention to it and put some effort toward it. >> because after all, you know, we're talking about other diseases but if you think about it diabetes, heart disease, these are all problems that science and medicine has i won't say resolved but technically we have a handle on it. the only organ we do not have a handle on is the brain. the only diseases we really don't know what to do with are from psychiatric treatment and drive. we cannot transplant the brain. and so that's really, you know, i don't want to use a cliche' but as a frontier is really where we need to focus. we go back to the beginning of our talk, the brain initiative and what the allen institute is doing, their long-term plan is really to try to bring the brain up to speed to the rest of medicine because we are at a loss. we know from looking at people with dementia we still don't have a grasp on it. that's why these 10 years are going to be essential i think. >> good luck. thank you very much, dr. annese. >> thank you. >> dr. jones. >> our coverage of the 2014 washington ideas forum continues with a aaward winning authors joseph o'neill and interviewed by the atlantic editor. this is almost 20 minutes. >> well, thank you, steve. thank you all for coming. it's a huge honor to be up here with joe and gary because they are truly two of the best novelist working in english, maybe any other language today. i'm a huge fan of their work. you don't even know this gary but i was at the southern festival of the book a couple weeks ago in nashville and i saw you walking through the hotel lobby and i contemplated going up to you and talking to you but i was a little star struck and shy and i realized and thought maybe you would run away. >> oh, no. i'd run toward you. >> but now i realize you are a captive audience here. if you try to scurry away i have this whole audience who could tackle you. i want to get down to serious business. we got a lot of ground to cover in a very short period of time. i want to begin on a couple lighter notes. gary i was reading in "the new yorker" a piece you did in the last couple weeks about your book tour for the paperback of "little failure" which i highly recommend to fortune. you noted in that that you packed i believe 46 adavan tablets for your tour to combat stage fright which is anxiety i can relate to. there you go. how many of those tablets on your tour did you end up taking? how many have you taken before today? >> today just half a milligram of adavan. i feel comfortable in washington. i think people are nice and i think most of you yourself, are on drugs as well. [laughter] >> and one other note of nonseriousness before we get down to serious business and i'm cognizant of the fact it's been a long day. you sat through a lot of heavy duty stuff. i want to be sure i keep you fully awake. gary, you have written many times both in your memoir and in some of your novels about the excessive hairiness or furriness as you put it of your protaganists. this is kind of a self- preoccupation of yours. i will say for the record and maybe afterwards we can have a short competition. am hairier than you. >> my goodness. >> kind of like a full body did shall-when i shave it's arbitrary where i stop. >> oh, my. >> but if we did that probably the national zoo would turn up. >> i can't believe you're having a hair off and keeping me out of it. >> all right. at the end of this we will all -- we will have hair off and the national zoo will come collect all three escaped chimps and take us back to where we belong. anyway, getting down to more serious business -- >> i would say with regard to your respective writing styles and sensibilities in some ways you are extremely dissimilar novelists. if you look at analogs from the american literary greats i would put joe more in the tradition of someone you've been compared to, f. scott fitzgerald which is heavy company to be in. the narrator was of both your novels kind of a nick carrowayesque voice. gary, i put you more in the tradition of sal melo and early nixon & peabody roth not just because of your preoccupation with the jewish themes but because of the carnivalesque exuberance and wit of your writerly voice. >> thank you. i'll take it. >> in the russian tradition i would say gary probably more in the tradition of a satirist. joe, with your restraint kind of writerly precision more cekov or nabokov. >> one place where you really overlap despite the differences in both your fiction and nonfiction is writing about immigrants and expatriates and the immigrant identity process. your debut novel gary, you have the main character vladimir working in new york. you describe him as the immigrant's immigrant enduring victim of every practical joke in the late 20,000 century and the unlikely hero for our times. the characters in your book are also both an american in dubai in your latest book "the dog" and a dutchman in the u.s. in the netherland and i saw you quoted in an interview somewhere, joe, you don't have a home turf. you have no choice but to float around on these post national currents. so i realize you could each spend, you have spent your entire careers in some sense talking about this. but you each talk for very briefly about how does being an immigrant or displaced expatriate inform your writing? i start with you, gary. >> well, when i came to america it was 1980. and being the russian was the worst thing you could be. there were all those movies "red dawn" and red gerbil, red hamster. anything that was red. i was sent to school for a crime i did not commit. when i was sentenced there it was so bad being a russian being a commy i had to pretend to the kids i was born in east berlin not len ingrad. i was trying to convince jewish kids i was actually a german. [laughter] you know, what 10 years later i showed up at overland college, a small marxist college in ohio. and being an immigrant was the coolest thing you could imagine. i mean everyone, nobody wanted to be the heterosexual white male. so i got as russian as could be. i was. the bullets and all that. i tried to annex another college. it was, you know, a really productive --. >> you have not annexed any other colleges like gary has. >> no i haven't. >> you came to america from holland by turkey if i'm not mistaken? >> well, i'm a permanent migrant. my father is irish. i was born in ireland. my mother is turkish. i grew up in africa and holland mainly. i speak french with my mother. so in other words new york was a very good fit for me. and i felt at home there. >> so we're in washington. we probably have, it is an appropriate place to ask this question. what is the relationship of the novel to politics? you have both in different novels dabbled in satire which is sometimes in the political genre going back to jonathan swift. in your book "the dog" you actually saw you quoted outside the context of the novel in an interview and this i think speaks to your own political sensibilities but obama famously bought your first novel. i think when he was on martha's vineyard. >> did he buy it? >> maybe they gave it to him. >> this is just a couple months ago someone asked you how did you feel about that? you said i felt uncomfortable with the whole obama thing. i'm sure it sold books. he's now been in office for six years and they're still force feeding people in gaub. so it's kind of problematic to have that name obama on your book jacket. so for both of you, what bearing or relevance do novels have on politics? do you see yourself as political novelists? >> well, you go. [laughter] dd >> yes. i think novels are inevitably political. the political content of the novel actually depends on the reader. if you're disposed toward asking ethical questions then practically any text becomes kind of bloated with political meaning. i certainly feel that my most recent book, for example, the book set in dubai, is a kind of aggravates more sorts of physical things, how countries are structured and dubai in particular and what that says about for example american society as well. for sure yeah. >> i guess being from the former soviet whatever you do get political. i just want to capture sort of the feeling of what it's like to be in these two giant countries, america and russia. i was privileged to be born in one super power that collapsed and then move to another super power that's doing great. so it feels like everywhere i go k whenever i land in beijing they're like, okay. step on back. yeah. it is really a very 20th century kind of experience that i've had. part of me wishes i was just working at a burger can inc. in denmark having a time and having a decent life. >> that should is a good segue. the prospect of you both and all novelists some day working in mcdonald's in denmark. the future of the novelist. philip roth a few years ago called a novel, quote, a dying animal and elaborated and said maybe a small group of people will be reading it. maybe more people will read them than now currently read latin poetry but probably in about that range. he said because of screen time and distraction. as we were preparing i was google around and that was a great quote by roth. i found an interview you did gary. you said yeah. who knows? some day maybe literature will come back. it sucks to be in the butthole of it all of a sudden. what is the future of the novel? does it have one? >> look. you have to take everything i say with a grain of salt. in the industry they call me a sap. nothing looks up to me. yeah i think we're in the end of it. i think this is coming to an end. i know professors of english who tell me i haven't read a book in a while because i don't have time. i just read parts of books or reviews or texts on books but it is very hard to read an entire book. that's why people turn to, the tv serial like "the sopranos" has caught on so much because it provides a narrative we all need. we are still wired for narrative but we watch it passively now instead of trying to absorb inside a book. reading a book, i have to enter the consciousness of this guy and he has to do the same with me. that takes effort though it is an incredible mind melled technology. but it is almost over. >> do you agree? >> i'm still trying to get over the whole entering consciousness and mind meld. i'll just stay there. such fun. >> i agree. i think the questions of money come into it which is to say that it's just not lucrative for anybody to read or to get people to read. the technologies have overtaken that. because everything is, all human activity is so connected to profitability now. in a way that just wasn't the case in my childhood for example. it just seems to be kind of strange. there seems to be something invalid about reading a novel or a lengthy test. it's if you know, everything has to be -- reduced at points. >> is the novel just a contingent kind of time limited thing from early victorian era to 15 years ago and what's next? >> i think the novel is contingent with -- i think that now we're coming to the end of the enlightenment or to a new phase where information and the mobility of information depends upon its profitable. for example news information now doesn't depend on its accuracy but its sellability to the market. and so the great thing that novels have to offer is contact with reality, contact with truth. that's what good novels do. that's not a particularly valuable commodity anymore. i think that's where to track it in relationship to the enlightenment. >> it's nice when people major in the humanities every once in a while. that used to be a major part of this country. the liberal arts. after the g.i. bills millions flocked to the universities and there was a vibrant intellectual culture which meant a novel could sell millions of copies and still be difficult to read. that's over with now. we have to accept that reality. >> so if and when the novel dies, you have a background as a lawyer. you could go back to being a lawyer. you say in "little failure" what else could you have been but a writer? what else will you do next? >> i like air conditioning and refrigerator repair. with chimet change --. >> it's huge. i'm trying to push my kid into that. he is only a year old. i'm trying to develop his love of refrigeration. i mean i'll join his company. >> so while it still exists what do you see, and this relates to the political question but what is the function of the novel? w.h. famously and over quotedly said poetry makes nothing happen. and the same could be said of the novel. this gets, this is a question. is your aim when you're writing to entertain to enlighten to -- what is the function of the novel? what function can it serve that breaking bad can't serve? >> tough. because "breaking bad" is really good. [laughter] and it's incredibly novelistic. the way these things are structured it is chapters basically of a novel. 56 episodes, 56 chapters. a really good show like "the sopranos" lets you delve into the minds of the characters. it has its own elements of war as well as peace. this is really good stuff. but the novel like i said before, you know when you buy a book from one of us you're entering us for a while. you're living inside here for a while. and that's a whole different technology. to see that completely destroyed is sad. to see it play a minor role as it has for the last two decades is okay with me. we'll all teach our programs and half of brooklyn will come so it'll be nice. >> well, the specific technology that is the novel offers insight into subjectivity and human consciousness. we enter people's minds and tv can't do that. i also think even the smartest television and i watch, there always comes a moment where you think oh, god. that's just stupid. that's just stupid. they have to move, they had to do something stupid or the plot would get boring. in a novel there is no real -- literary novels -- there is no real pay off for being stupid or pressure for being stupid. in fact, you're penalized for it. whereas even something as smart as "breaking bad" you have all these moments where you just think, yeah. that's kind of entertaining i suppose but it's just unfortunate. and then could pick up a novel i suppose at that point. >> does holding the adavan make you feel better? >> it really does. thanks for allowing me to do that. >> we want to make you feel -- this is a good year. 2014. >> people are always interested to know, how do you get your ideas for your novels? how do you develop your characters? what's your writing process for lack of a better way, there's kind of -- there are people, i have many writer friends who are eekers which is to say they write seven words a day but they're all perfect. and there are blurters who they just spew out thousands of words, most of it is crap and they have to edit it back. i'm like a constipated blurter which is the worst of all. how do you guys work? >> just the whole work thing is not my forte. [laughter] you know, i actually think that i -- idleness is what i do best. and if a voyeur looked at my life as a novelist he'd say he just spends a lot of time lying around going to the 'fridge. not even incidentally, none of this stuff like on tv. that rarely happens. and so i just sit there thinking and mulling and sort of actually not mulling things over for a few years and then i often go away somewhere, off to canada usually, and write in two-week bursts and get most of it done like that. >> very briefly you? >> an exciting incident happened. the last book i was in a cab in moscow and the cab driver was drunk out of his mind and he is driving on the sidewalk and crying and saying i can't feed my family. i have to move to america. i said you know the country with a much easier immigration policy is canada. you can move to canada. he said, i can only live in a super power. now i thought, there's a book. >> thanks to both of you. thanks to all of you. i have to recommend the books. thank you all for coming. [applause] >> thank you. >> more from the 2014 washington ideas forum with chad dickerson. he discusses new trends in manufacturing with the atlantic national correspondent. this is about 20 minutes. >> thanks very much, steve. you may refer to me as his holiness from now on. it'll be okay. it is a real delight to be here with chad dickerson. here is the transition between what we've been hearing so far this morning and what i hope we hear in the next 19 minutes. we've heard very intelligent discussions on why things are difficult to do in national politics combined with assertions in general the united states still works and has resilience. we'll hear some illustrations of what that means, the kinds of things we're doing. let's start, how many people here actually have shopped with f.s.? a lot of people? how many people have sold for f.c.? a smaller number. maybe that will change. tell us, for people who haven't sold people in the audience watching, what is it and why does it matter? >> sure. so essie is a marketplace for unique goods vintage items, and craft supplies. we've been around since 2005 just to give you some numbers. there are a million sellers around the world selling in 200 countries. last year there was $1.35 billion with a "b" sold on etsy. we are a 600 person company based in brooklyn. we see etsy as this leading indicator for a new kind of economy that's about making things, about self-determination self-reliance. and as i was saying to jim, i think it is really an antidote to kind of what you're seeing with politics. it's about people in local communities doing what americans and others have always done and that's making beautiful things. >> i'll spend just 10 seconds saying this is just the kind of thing my wife deb and i have been seeing around the country as we've been traveling for the series of studies where people start up businesses. we're meeting in d.c. with a largely policy oriented crowd. we're used tonging of job creation, economic trends in the largest scale. giant factories that open or close, factories that go to china or brazil or whatever. >> right. >> why does the sort of small enterprise that you are connecting and representing, why should we care about it? >> sure. i mean, number one, we're seeing a large number of people making a living on etsy and working full-time. 18% of sellers on etsy work full-time. we're also seeing this reemergence of manufacturing in a way that you may not think about. i should tell some stories. >> we have the slides. it's really interesting. >> go to the slides. so these cuff links are from a shop brass and chain based in ohio. i'm wearing some right now. they make customized cuff links from vintage maps. i'm wearing some right now. you can't see them. on my left i have berkeley which is appropriate for the left. i moved to brooklyn from berkeley. on my right i have brooklyn. they built a very successful business creating this custom cuff links. so this, i think an important theme here is there are so many new markets that you may not think about. this is a shop by allison fonts and she makes super hero capes for kids which is really a. i have one for my son. the really amazing story allison was scaling her business and working 18 hours a day and she noticed that there was a factory across town in fall river massachusetts, and she went to the factory literally knocked on the door and talked to the owner of the factory. the factory had been, you know, a huge employer in the area in the 1980's but was really not going very well. she talked to the owner and he started helping her make these super hero capes and scale up her business. he started hiring people. her sales went up. this is happening in the united states. when you think about the apple, iphone revolution, you need a place to put your iphone for charging and such. so there is an entire economy on etsy of hand made iphone chargers and that sort of thing. the shop here is maxilla and margaret who runs the shop out of pasadena, california has built an amazing business making these items. i have one on my desk. policy. a lot of things intersect here. this is from a shop called milk and honey luxuries out of virginia. sarah the proprietor makes what you see here silverware with stamped messages on them. we reached out to our sellers. we are very pro net neutrality and asked them to make goods to show congress and the fcc that we believed in the open internet. so sarah was in nursing school and started doing this on the side as kind of a stress relief. her business grew so much she quit nursing school. she got who el sail deal with nordstrom's and her husband who works in finance quit to help her do her job. i think we're building a beautiful world when women making things are pulling their husbands out of finance jobs. that's the world i want to live in. that is the world i am >> finally, this is a shop, urban wood goods. the pro proprietier started making these desks from reclaimed wood. and the baskets here, which you might recognize from high school lockers and that sort of thing they were sourcing them from second-hand stores. the demand got so high that they couldn't source enough of these baskets. so they called up the original manufacturer in chicago and asked for them to make a run of these baskets and spin out more production. so in chicago, we're seeing something that started out as a hobby, actually contributing to manufacturing jobs and supporting, in this case a

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