The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

most be good evening i'm jim lehrer on the newshour tonight a congressional debate about bain the us debt to the united nations a look at new research on the learning disability dyslexia and david gergen dialogue about this being one nation after all mr roger rosenblatt essay on justice and all follows us only the news this wednesday brought to you in part by adm keating the world is the biggest challenge of the new century outside the us you'll find ninety six percent of the world's population inside you'll find in the supermarket to the world there's a landline your life or the company that was built with integrity humanity and strike these are the values that have made in your life the company keeper and by the corporation

for public broadcasting and by the annual financial support from viewers like you united nations secretary general kofi annan called on the us today to pay its debt to the un he met with president clinton at the white house they discuss the some one billion dollars us over last year a plan to pay it passed the senate that died in the house representatives who led more of the story right after the news summary also mr clinton praised the deal and in reach with iraqi president saddam hussein he said it still gave the us room to respond to any new iraqi threat we believe that the resolution gives us the authority to take whatever actions are necessary but of course we would consult it would be unthinkable that we wouldn't we do that all time you have spent an awful lot of towns telephone with the large numbers of world leaders unless the weeks is this mythical figures are unfolding and so

much of this conflict rakoff also had a un visitor today he's the sri lankan diplomat designated by and in your company un weapons inspectors he will arrange with iraqi officials or visits to the eight presidential site previously off limits freezing temperatures grit the southeast today farmers sprayed fields with water to minimize damage to spring crops water is warmer than air and thus help prevent freezing temperatures dipped into the teens and twenties as far south of florida in the midwest motorists in northwest indiana were still stuck on i scolded freeways many had to spend the night in their cars and trucks more than one hundred thousand customers were still without power in indiana and illinois and florida today state appeals court declared dzhokhar rodeo mayor of miami again he was the incumbent when he lost in november ninety seven runoff election in a lower court ruled that vote was tainted by fraud throughout the results last week and call

for a new election today's ruling cancels that decision in the yugoslav problems of kosovo today albanians dug up the bodies of fifty one people killed and buried in a mass grave by serbian police that would be re buried according to muslim tradition the victims died last week in a conflict between albanian pro independence demonstrators and serb authorities state department spokesman james roden said the us condemned the original burial and these are barrels that were conducted without the approval of the families this action suggest that president milosevic has something to hide all we're concerned that the perils of destroyed and damaged evidence before to be properly examined by independent forensic experts say this is another demonstration of the intransigence and flouting of the will of the international community by president milosevic in indonesia today president suharto was inaugurated for a seventy five year term he took the oath of office before the one thousand member of parliament he warned the

current financial crisis that indonesians could no longer lived extravagantly and would never again experience the financial growth of the past twenty five years in the country's second largest city students against aged auntie suharto protests lloyd bridges is dead the veteran actor died at his home in los angeles yesterday yesterday he had suffered from a heart condition for several years he was best known for his role on the television series c scott he also played gary cooper's deputy in the nineteen fifty two movie i know his two sons beau and jeff also became well known actors lloyd bridges was eighty five years old and that's it for the newshour tonight now it's on to paying you in debt new research on dyslexia and david gergen dialogue now roger rosenblatt essay oh balmy home and begins our coverage of the un story

that is un secretary general kofi annan signed two weeks ago in baghdad allow weapons inspectors to resume their work and prevented what was expected to be a massive bombing campaign against iraq but from the outset on capitol hill the deal was greeted skeptically by republicans and gave critics of the un one more reason to question the role of the world body the secretary general is calling the shots judge jerrell wright earlier this week objected to my characterization of this episode as contracting out us foreign policy with all due respect i stand by that comment because it appeared that in fact is what has happened and it's happening over the past several years the united nations has been criticized mostly by republicans both for its missions and its management they point to the un peacekeeping effort in somalia in nineteen ninety three that ended in the deaths of the eighteen us army rangers sort of a long deployment of un peacekeepers in bosnia we're unable to end the fighting there

last year kofi annan replaced boehner as amateurs gali as un secretary general and promised to institute organizational reforms to reduce what critics describe as a bloated united nations bureaucracy what united nations warns it's what the us also wants a reformed united nations that it's effective efficient enough and relevant to that task that member states want to set for us the united states is an original member of the united nations and for years has been responsible for twenty five percent of the un budget today however the us is way behind on its contributions and owes the world body some one billion dollars according to the most conservative estimates inherent capitol hill republicans who control the purse strings don't appear to be in any hurry to pay off that that it's long past time to make good on our debt to the united nations during his state of the union address in january president clinton urged congress to appropriate the money owed the un and in the weeds since

secretary of state madeleine albright has made several trips to capitol hill to lobby for the payment many tell you frankly that if we are not able to pay are you in your ears to our legs will truly be cowed cut out from under us at the un we are told daley by our best allies and friends that us credibility will be sadly diminished that will hurt america and cost americans sometimes on capitol hill factors not directly related to a piece of legislation nonetheless determined its fate in the case of united nation's founding that fact there is something called the mexico city provision in mexico city around this place is shorthand for prohibiting us taxpayers more from the use of foreign organizations or more to go several adapted that provision as part of us foreign policy following a conference in mexico city in nineteen eighty four the policy band us financial support for international family planning groups that perform or promote abortions even

if they use their own farms president clinton overturned that ban three days after he took office in nineteen eighty three now despite the president's threatened veto congressional republicans are trying to reestablish the mexico city policy by attaching into the same legislation that contains the money owed the united nations at a hearing last month senate foreign relations committee chairman jesse helms urged secretary albright at least to seek a compromise with republicans on the mexico city policy we're not going to get you not to make money and save me that for that all to reconsider or operatives of his assistants have decided in his state now to his reforms were concerned from cisco and we get two views from capitol hill republican senator rod grams of minnesota is chairman of the senate foreign relations international operations subcommittee and democratic representative lee hamilton of indiana is the ranking member on the house international relations committee welcome to you both senator graham's

un secretary general kofi annan was meeting with some senators today including you i believe could you update us on that oh every meeting every left the white house and meeting with the president we met with him in the german films office and we talked a little bit about the iraq that settlement the agreement that he was able to reach with saddam hussein after close consultation with security council members and also we talked about the wind package repayment careers to perform six other up and i think it was just a good meeting to come to clear the air what everybody know where everybody stood out what our intentions were and i think everybody wants to move forward but it has to be i believe that the dollars for the readers have gotten that the reforms or were asking for so i think we were able to again re establish that and that's all i think was a good opportunity for him to come to the hill and for us to have a chance to talk with them about iraq and about the only one so senator graham's you support our authorizing appropriating money for paying back the land that only certain conditions are attached and you just tell us briefly what a couple of those conditions would be of course we're looking at you

know the budget the transparency of the budget of the number of personnel the reforms about sunset in some of the programs that are no longer needed such as the committee and colonization was still hold conferences across about seven thousand dollars per member so these are things that don't need to be and we wanna make the when the best that it can be we need to put into effect just some basic reforms are not trying to micromanage those reforms are very broad outlines the security council will determine what exactly what they will be or seen these areas should be reviewed a new policies and practices should be put into place and we tied those directly with the repayment of the resisters kind of the stick and the carrot you know were saying that if these reforms are and that we're going to play up these do's and of course this goes back ten twelve years that this was passed in congress called the kestenbaum solomon bill so this isn't something that started two years ago were trying to take care of the situation that has over a decade long this really the first time that we had a bailout with agreement with the democratic leadership the administration republicans and members of the un i'll pay this package was only they don't bother president over the

line dealing with what you're mentioning report mexico city so this could've been taking care of last fall instead it's still sitting on the table ok and then i come back to mexico city to the abortion issue in just one minute that representative hamilton what you think about paying the year wears and should there be conditions attached i think the united states should they what evolves in full on time and without trying to impose conditions this is a financial aid legal obligation that we have we cannot be a full player in the united nations unless we pay our dues you can have a meeting with anybody the united nations today before they're in my view of the united states is not paying its full share were setting a very bad precedent other nations will not pay their dues if we do not now i agree with senator graham that we must push hard for reform and it's a question of how you do it do you insist on it

do you try to dictate those reforms or to try to negotiate the matter what the past history of this mess has been i think it is now counterproductive you try to insist on conditions and some of these conditions in this package incidentally simply cannot be itchy we will not be able to get our share of the un budget down to twenty percent by the year two thousand i don't think we will be able to get our share of peacekeeping assessments about a twenty five percent next year so we're asking for conditions here that simply cannot be achieved in the united nations context far better off i believe now to achieve our goals by saying we'll update without pay what we legally all gonna build on time and were prepared to negotiate these reforms of the senators right the un doesn't the substantial reforms some steps have been taken but not enough the question is how you'd best deal senator how do you respond to that what's wrong with

paint and then pushing for reforms well for one thing at twenty five percent of the peacekeeping that was an act of congress to put into law here in congress we wouldn't be the thirty one percent assessment but the twenty five so that's a decision congress made several years ago the twenty percent on the do's was something that then un ambassador madeline albright suggested and proposed on behalf the administration so we picked up where they said that they could go with this and then we'd been tailored it down this area must go from twenty five to twenty two and then from twenty two to twenty in the out years so we're only doing what the administration asked to do then the other things are very simple like the budget we need to be able to look at the budget to see where they're spending money and not just the united states but the entire world all hundred maybe five member should have an opportunity to be able to examine the books to see what's on there and where the money is being spent so these are reforms that are hard to make but only the political opposition are standing in the way and i know secretary general annan has got a tough job but i think that we need to give him support to walk into those rooms and negotiate the reforms that we really about why this act this package that is being

considered now calls for eighty eight hundred and ninety million dollars by our count that is where us account we know about one point zero one two big by the un accounts one point four billion so even if this package that is now being considered is about that unfold we're falling farther behind in our ears to the united nations or worse off not that respects represented hamilton this is the situation is changing pretty rapidly just as with speaker during the day ended today what is the current status of the mexico city about language language on conditioning this on some sort of decision to not allow fans to organizations that either perform abortions or lobby for abortions i will be voting in the house tomorrow on a state department conference report which includes many things including the un package but it also includes the mexico city policy it's

my information that because of that but not just because of that there are other things in the bill the administration will veto the bill at a low level get through the senate or not i expect it probably will pass the house but in any event it's not going to become law the president will be doing and do you oppose them on that basis and also on the basis that it has these conditions i oppose this conference report for a lot of reasons that micromanages all over the place in the state department it intrudes on the president's ability to conduct foreign policy doesn't care bills that we owe to the united nations it has many many provisions in it that i think are intrusive than the foreign policy process it's a bad bill and i think would substantially heard the president in his ability to carry out american foreign policy and senator graham's where do you come down on the abortion issue well i've supported of representatives smith on the site i disagreed with them on i'm passionate of this package but nonetheless it is on the package it went to the president laughter even in the one line

elizabeth that says that to allow us funded organizations to lobby to change abortion laws in other countries that's all that set out rep smith moved a long ways in the negotiation towards the president the president refused to move even an inch and decided that you win or year's un reforms state department reorganization an imf funding was not as important as that one line in the bill and decided to veto it is threatening to do it again so all that we do might be for not but if the president decides that all of those are not as important as allowing our country to her funding for lobbying on the abortion issue i think this is something the president should really look at because the ball is in his court we've done our job on the hill now the president has to make that last decision about the funding elizabeth really were only fifty four million dollars behind on bills and that's only because of the calendar year is we're not in a rear each isn't that the bulk of the money is peacekeeping not owed to the un but the other members of the one such as britain france fiji et cetera so these arab funds that are not holding up the activities of you when we might be making some of

her friends are a little anxious and getting their money but it's not stopping any of that but basically it says if you want the dollars you're going to have to have the reforms in that very basic very simple how to congressman hamilton do you think it is these monies are holding up their activities in you and the lack of these monies but we certainly are it's not that her friends are anxious they're just out right now that's what we're doing is asking the world to take over all these burdens of peacekeeping rep obey our share we want them to pay the bill and they don't like that and i don't blame them for not likely we are to pay our bills on time in full with regard to mexico city my view is that's a very important issue members feel very strongly about it but linking it to the question of the un and to the other big question international question the international monetary fund i just dont think makes good sense for american foreign policy these issues of payment of dues to the united nations and payment of the quota for the international monetary

fund go right to the heart of the ability of this nation to conduct its foreign policy they're tough enough issues in another themselves as the differences here might very clear but to link it to a another very difficult issue no matter sort of this is just putting at greater obstacle in the way of the conduct of american foreign policy something very briefly ari will be over two point nine seven billion dollars last year alone and peace keeping fees us taxpayer seven hundred million already with the saddam hussein issue with iraq so we pay more than our fair share of being a little bit behind on these rigs has nothing to do with our obligations and what we do to help keep peace around the world very much still to come on the newshour tonight new research on dyslexia a david gergen dialogue and roger rosenblatt essay but first this is public on public television were taken a short break now so your public television station can i ask for your support that support helps

keep programs like ours on the air our those stations not taking a pledge break the newshour continues with a look at the continuing debate over the us peacekeepers in bosnia defense secretary william cohen another top defense officials appeared before the senate appropriations committee today to ask for extra money paid for that mission here are some excerpts with respect to busted we have made enormous progress you'll be easy to simply appear to be artificial deadlines that were upset and and many were subscribe to and simply say times up and leave but the fact is we have contributed an enormous amount of stability to the region we have been successful in the same three hundred thousand us soldiers are retired from active service back into civilian life

section on weapons have been destroyed and we've seen some democratic elections independent immediately start to be established receive some four hundred thousand refugees and displaced persons and start to return to work to bosnia and we had one third of the war criminals that window in custody in the head of those who've been a publicly indicted the economy in nineteen eighty six so it increased by fifty percent starter low bass tones up fifty percent ninety ninety six was up thirty five percent in nineteen ninety seven and so the trend lines are all in the right direction in terms of what we're doing there is clearly a better condition in bosnia today than there was by year and then six months ago i must say it's to hear the president said i don't propose a fixed end date for this presents but it is known but by no means open ended that's it there's a disconnection their own apps dishonest in terms of

dealing with this what with this congress and i think with the country the guy in my district or wants to have a clearly understood policy and where were there and we were just a year if we aren't well we afford it but you'll forgive me but there when i'm serious about this and i really feel as though our you mean your efforts to assert your defense and the chairman of joint chiefs and the hierarchy of the defense part i think it is in common you that perhaps it down carefully with president say this is gonna come and get your one is there's this lack of any clarity with regard to policy with respect to a policy they can still the policy has been the articulate policy of the administration that that's the change i think it's pretty clear cut in terms what the objectives so what were some of those objectives i think you could see taking place they're not going to be full blown and they're not likely to be in the immediate future but i'm saying i was a great go to a must tell you just a couple of

years ago i was sitting on that side over there and i had the same questions then that you are raising now are we getting into for how long how much is it going to cost and so i also i didn't insist upon it was a representational made would take one year in fact the military obligation was revealed that one year the other aspects of a civilian implementation went up so the question then the game tj became should you continue to be military presence to allow the implementation on the civilian side that was in really envision encapsulated and data itself should there be for example in a judiciary is independent hopefully you know we're an awareness at the shearer created should there be competent professional police as opposed to a bunch of thugs who are hired of bolivia the local ethnic of the journey their time should they be free elections should there be of radio and television broadcasts which are relatively independent you're seeing the seeds of all of those start to have to take your

side and bear fruit at this point it's still going to be some time for the presence as it gets i can't give you a definite time but is not open ended the reason he can say that is that no one can give you a precise time if we've learned anything from his past experience by giving a day one year eighteen months or foe well it doesn't work out that way but i can't be open ended because of you each year the president's going to come back to you and have the congress and saying i'm requesting funding for this engagement if congress does not approve the budget secretary cohen said he would be forced to cut military maintenance and readiness programs in order to pay for the bosnian nation they were sir john dyslexia and the phil ponce

ten million americans have and your logical disorder known as dyslexia it's believed to affect as many as eighty percent of all those diagnosed with learning disabilities people with dyslexia have difficulty learning to read even though they have normal intelligence while many people may think of dyslexia as reversing letters scientists say the basic problem is a person's inability to link words and parts of words with distinct sounds for example the word cat is made up of come back and a person with dyslexia may recognize the sound come but may not necessarily connect the written letters c with that sound because there are no awkward physical signs of dyslexia early detection is often elusive according to some estimates as many as one in five american children may have dyslexia yet most are not identified until third grade and beyond many are never diagnosed and for those who are programs that would help or frequently

unavailable in public schools your partner jenny elementary in washington dc is one school that does provide special instruction for dyslexic children its inclusion program allows kids with special needs to attend regular classes for children in the second and third grade class have dyslexia and other learning disabilities student teachers on hand to help them when necessary other option sometimes offered in public schools or private classes and literary they're also less traditional methods of teaching the lab school of washington is one of more than one thousand private schools nationwide here to the learning disabled although jewish in iran sixteen thousand dollars a year eighty five percent of the students are fully subsidized by public funds sally smith is founder and director ninety five percent of our kids are dyslexic and so we have to do with the latest research has shown that we have to work with them on their phone the mic awareness songs sound simple

linkage that we don't stop educating them because they can't breathe appalachian the arts are used to develop academic and social skills events class the students develop the motor skills and information learned messaging and building apart the woodwork class but isn't filmmakers learn the trade in video classes students created and produced an animation of what it's like to be learning disabled there are also special so called clubs where kids appropriately cost and study history is central and that is that i have to spend a lot of their lives problem solving because learning disabilities don't hardly

far away and although this what's your first line reading skills can improve consistently with practice right now now there's been new research that people with dyslexia actually have different patterns of brain activity in people who are good readers to explain those findings and their implications we're joined by dr sally shea which lead author of the study which is published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences she's a professor of pediatrics at the yale university school of medicine and reliant head of child about human behavior at the national institute of child health and human development that's part of the national institutes of health and what both doctors say which were bigger study find well since dyslexia was first described over a hundred years ago we've learned a great deal about reading and reading difficulties in particular we've learned that in order to learn to read a child must develop an awareness that the spoken word is made of small units of sam and that letters represent the sounds based

on this knowledge we examine two groups of people a group of good readers and a group of dyslexic readers and we found significant differences in brain activation patterns as each of these individuals performed a series of reading texts and that are specifically how you went about finding out that there's different ways that the brain works and people who who have dyslexia as opposed to people who can read well we use a remarkable new technology turned functional magnetic resonance imaging is a regular mri well it is and it is it is in terms of the basic hardware that's news is the same if you have a headache or a knee injury and you have an mri but that mri only lets you see the structure it doesn't let you see the brain in action and word of this mr assure you of this mri showed us what we did was ask each of these people too identify letters to sound out letters and then to sound that works and what we found as we walked in the brain we

found a pattern of activation in the back of the brain as good leaders sounded out letters and words a whole region in the back of the brain became active so here we're looking at that a chart that doesn't summarize those fines in the normal brain you talk about the pattern of activation a means a level of brain activity and we see that there's some there's activity in the back and also the front but in the dyslexic readers would we say we see a very different pattern we see a pattern of relative under activation in the back of the brain and we see a pattern of over activation in the front of the brain and what we need the league is this pattern of relative under activation in the back of the brain coupled with relative over activation the front of the brain named represented neural signature for the reading difficulties experienced by dyslexic and so there's a telltale pattern there are good readers exhibit that dyslexic readers do not exactly and you think thats so you think that gives you a

key is to as to the cause of dyslexia well i think these findings have several important implications i think from the perspective of scientists this confirms what we've learned from reading test the language has that the difficulty occurs when people with dyslexia have to try to sound out words get to the sound structure of words and i think what this does is for the community of scientists that have been dedicated to studying dyslexia tells us where does shine the light tells his which systems involved which system is disrupted right now there's a is there is there any answers to why people flocked to it and uses the front part of the brain well that's an interesting question and that's a subject of future research and indeed there are investigations currently going on to address just that the show and why is a steady significant for a number of reasons number one if you don't want to read you don't make it in life yet it is aggressively pursued research and supported research to try to understand three things what does it take to learn how to read

if you don't read well what gets in the way and the most practical aspect if you don't read well what do you do about it is sally study in the yale group goes after the first two questions what does it take to reach to sally is mentioned we've been able to identify that reading requires an understanding that words are made up of sound parts that will be applied to prayer that's how one decipher is the code and read this study also shows that there is a neural biological underpinning for the difficulty the kid show us they're reading a slow labored hazard and it's primarily because they do not map the sounds well onto the print this study indicates clearly that their neural biological features that explain the differences in this and my understanding is is the first map of a so called reading pap in the brain well it can verges on a number of other studies quite nicely this one is more complete and showing what we consider the most

comprehensive system what the study also does by applying a non invasive camera if you will a non invasive technology is it allows us to study children as well as adults sally's group and other groups now are working on trying to understand a very critical question if you don't learn to read and we can get to you early enough with the right kinds of intervention as you gain in your reading capabilities what happens to the brain how does the narrow physiology changes well and these findings are going to give a significant understanding about how plastic the brain is how young kids have to be in order to receive optimum kinds of games whether interventions applied five and six years of age are equally robust at ten eleven and twelve years of age and does the brain have something to say about that with respect to how open or malleable it might be to respond to the intervention dr shea with how important is it to have some tangible evidence this the dyslexia actually exists why i think it's incredibly important

dyslexia is referred to as a kid and disability and what that means is there's no external sign that someone can point to and say that's the source of the difficulties you know if you break your arm can have an x ray and point and say ah here's the fracture there's the source of the difficulties what often happens is that young men and women who are dyslexic sometimes the brightest young men and women they work very hard and they accomplished a lot that they have difficulty reading and then they're told well there must be a not trying hard enough maybe are not motivated enough or maybe it's her imagination so what these findings do it a lot it allows these individuals points in these brain activation patterns and say look here's the evidence here is concrete proof of the neural biological evidence nature of dyslexia and every line and what what does one do with his proven terms of coming up with better treatments for people with dyslexia well part of the anti aids program is clearly devoted to trying to figure out what in the world we can do we now understand that the sound issue these phony issues that sally studies identified

helmand river until the sound structure that is difficult for the youngsters that is in the brain scans that sally show knew those brain regions that should help kids understand that words are made of sound or under activated the task of the teacher is to make sure the youngsters develop that sound capability so that they can then map the sounds on the letters that they seek to make a connection between what they hear and resting in the river that threat were working very hard to see which kids respond to which kinds of teaching methods to increase reading behavior but we're now clear that what the cia would study has identified has to be improved in order for accurate and good reading to take place it's not something we can circumvent in order to produce robust reading and children with difficult dr shea words of one of the parent of a child with dyslexia what should i hear if you take away from the study well i think there's several things one is that reading difficulties are real they haven't or a biologic substrate but i think even more than that these differences

emerged when these dyslexic individuals were trying to get to the sound structure of the route were that tells us this is we're the prying difficulty is and that would direct us to in terms of trying to improve someone's reading ability to try to bring up that level of awareness so that children develop an understanding that words made of sounds and that the lettuce represent the sounds there are some wonderful studies carried out of three when i see hp that have indicated already that if you use these principles teaching children about the basic nature of language reading really improves it makes a real difference with insulin that you think right now i heard in dialogue david gergen editor at large of us news and world report engages

allen well professor of sociology at boston university author of one nation after all eleanor many people even concern of all americans fly apart whether visitors to native american arthur schlesinger has worried whether there's too much less and not another human you've come to quite a different conclusion i talk to people or you may be wary problems is that a lot of the folks who say that word from critical to war in that we were at each other's throats are reflecting their own views about the world that they haven't actually gone out and talk to the american people and tell about what to get your cow i thought it would be a good idea to hear what people out they're set in auschwitz there would be a good idea to try to get away from studying people in cambridge massachusetts at berkeley california so i interviewed people in the suburbs of tulsa oklahoma which people call a buckle on the bible belt n cobb county georgia which newt gingrich and the most

conservative county in america according to many people i interviewed among hispanics suburbanites near the mexican border in san diego county iowa black suburbanites in georgia the people around boston were lined working class catholics in medford people from all over all different walks like middle class people by launched but many difficult was morally i found that there is such a thing god and it still exists but it's not a middle class morality of your parents' or grandparents' generation it's not this idea we have that that people are they're very judgmental about how others live that they kind of put their finger at other people and you know there were once was a great book written about middle class morality in the united states it was called the scarlet letter someone commits something that violates the mall close your brand them and then you make your prize in your community while you yourself was passing the judgment you violate their total account watch out it's actually the exact opposite and

people tend to be very self critical and judgmental about themselves they believe in right and wrong they know what's right for themselves but they simply reluctant to ever say you thought very important part of the story was what happened to religious belief in this country how people get along different religion i think it's one of those great stories that essentially goes unreported because we don't tend to notice it though we were at that time that that night and then the author wrote the scarlet letter for example we were a christian country most people believe that you needed one religion to have one morality and that if you lost the one religion you would lose morality we're in our country it's enormously religiously diverse and we still see that morality comes very eclectic we from a number of different sources but even more importantly people have learned to live with each other in spite of different religious beliefs and are very very accepting of each other

i mean it's it's actually astonishing when you consider how many people have died in the name of faith in the world's history or how many people in other countries are even european countries like great britain are still killing themselves over religious belief we have actually transformed ourselves from a formerly christian country to one that's fantastically religiously diverse and then so about lunch without violating people's rights its ads are remarkable but so the point is that people have a set of rules apply to themselves with her what talk about what really fuels other factors that led to the camp laissez faire that we always practice and economic role now applies to them or roma as well which is pretty ironic because conservatives to become a likely that there in the economy and the beast that regulators the people's morality and liberals who tend to be pretty open and laissez faire open morality and the one to regulate the economy american split the difference is a pair of both which is one reason why this way from

electing conservative you also wrote that in addition to a quiet face people have a mature take because i found something that i don't think the polls are quite reflective get in that is a sense that the divisions over vietnam in the united states which though progress a part of the country are healing by that i mean that people who kind of once had on my country right or wrong a purely a pure believer after a blind faith in their country they been chastened by watergate by other things they may know that their country can do wrong and they're not willing to give that absolutely unquestioned loyalty anymore they love their country they're enormously patriotic but it's not in this completely and totally way that congress spent all judgment on the other hand people who are against the war are people of my generation who i said you know what this country is doing is awful and hobble an image in some cases you left the

country they've seen the collapse of communism they've seen what happens elsewhere and they've come to a quiet appreciation of the united states as well so i think there's been a real healing of one of our most sincere divisions that does all this mean that people are coming more toward them alone and rejecting strange various forms i have a lot of people for whom extremism of any kind was an enormous problem for them and to give you an example we have the effect in this culture where that's taking place we presumably have the conservative christians on the one hand who are denouncing things like value relativism in homosexuality and then we have people who lead our own lifestyle of liberation and freedom are on the other hand i am one of the things i found i remember interviewing someone in oklahoma for whom there was no difference whatsoever between conservative christian fundamentalists and gay activists because both worked for you both have what you call it in your face approach to politics

but even more importantly both took something that he valued and priced got on the one hand i love and sex on the other and made a public and for him things that are really really valuable are things that you should keep out of politics you shouldn't politicize and we should make extreme statements about it makes a kind of sense why would people love god and he disliked politics one is the politics and god brought together why should people who love sex love family life and a politics once a sex and politics work together so they want to keep things private they want to keep it to themselves and extremists they define as people who take these things very valuable and to simply try to hammer whole point about them people don't wanna make points about things that formerly their lives they don't want things according to principal way one thing different path so this argument culture that exists only airway the newspapers in the polls it's about the role when people live it's not an absolute that's about that imax you know i'm one of those people like star do i write a lot of boats have a

point of view are very strong feelings about things it's not like what i'm describing out there in the market as a model for the validity of business leaders in rio lee i actually think that people need to argue more at the end of the book i try to say look this non judgmental isn't the starters it's wonderful i'd rather have this than bosnia our northern ireland but let's face it if we live in one country and we share a common goal of citizenship we've got a lot on the judgment about each other and we've we've got a take and respect each other serious and me enough to really argue start with cars start with how its first and i think like with anything you need a balance as most of the people i talked to they really believe in balance i would much rather start with a tolerant society and then try to work in a little bit of judgment was and then start with this is it were people hate each other and try to teach little tolerance well thank you very much thank you finally tonight a sales roger rosenblatt considers even

handed justice he'd recently anc the american movie classics cable channel presented the country with an invaluable from six am saturday morning to experience on their morning show and movie finance law center for then un quote job so you navigate it so it's not a bad idea to go to china to honor all the ones they liked ms gordon t that open ended all right there was charlie chan at monte carlo charlie chan on broadway in london in panama at the opera and more and more are older bigger is famous chinese hawaiian detective played alternately by sidney toler and warner oland still over twenty four hours with his sayings for every occasion his ability to one birth every clue and most of all his elegant and unswerving sense of justice you can come cannot modern viewers when sid certain elements of charlie chan announced today

that they're a good presence of the hapless before that african american and the frequent put downs of asians themselves that chinese but just the parties in the act and the justices could always be counted on at the end of every movie and gathers on suspects in a room and the guilty party is named the end uma ph the reason one ought to give thanks to emcee for showing these movies back to back as that they served to continually remind viewers how little justice they get to see in other places televised murder trials are followed by explosions of rage and despair when it is perceived as it often is that justice has not been done when a celebrity ads to his fame by confessing some transgression on a talk show where is the justice in that no justice for cambodia pol pot no justice for saddam hussein no justice yet for the bosnian murders kidnapping gratifying to be able to summon all

the criminals to one room and calling charlie chan unfortunately one cannot do that in the world as it is and so the idea of justice has become a quaint dream the justice and small are the frauds to be brought to justice of the liars and sheets or the gossip so the back by this or that outlets and over praised where is justice for the people who claimed credit for other people's work for the ingredients for the fakes where's the justice at a book party where people are invited to live through their teeth or at a dinner party where absent friend is torn to tatters me a new series of charlie chan movies charlie chan at the dinner party charlie chan at the power breakfast at the fundraiser at the hmo the newspaper who would bear how about charlie chan in congress or charlie chan in the oval office is there a producer in the house he's in

crimes and misdemeanors is woody allen created a sort of a paper trail in and fill it is a wonderful piece of work but a sad one because in the end it's all the principles are gathered in one place the ambitious and fellow and even the killers go free while the good an authentic people are punished suggested an hgtv show that's not the way life is always one of the glorious beauty of the camp is that justice is never deny this maybe why we take a detective stories in general we can count on sherlock holmes miss marple <unk> paro sam spade nero wolfe nick charles file of bands larger and the rest to do what life only does sometimes bring the bad guys down on greek economy into really everyone here tonight the great thing about ten is that he brought the bad guys down in the presence of the good guys

justice was done and so was exonerated in that final room the camera with zero in on all the faces of the potentially guilty but in the end only one percent of the time the rest of us could go clear their innocence and guilt and justice done at last expressed in the unequivocal sentence you are new demand let's be again the major stories of this wednesday un secretary general kofi annan appealed to the united states to pay its debt to the un he met with president clinton at the white house mr glenn frey pfannenstiel with saddam hussein that opens off limits presidential palaces the weapons inspectors and sub freezing temperatures threaten crops in the southeast and get motorists stranded in the midwest will see you online and again here tomorrow evening i'm jim lehrer thank you

brought to you in part by adm keating the world is the biggest challenge of the new century and fifty years the world must have room at the table for ten billion people were setting places every day at a supermarket to the world entwined in your life the company that was built with integrity humanity and strike and in your life and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by the annual financial support you think you need tanks video cassettes of the newshour with jim lehrer are available from pbs video call one eight hundred three to eight pbs one

it's been the pipe the

is by