Rainstorms Cause Mudslides in Southern California; 'Simpsons' Character Comes Out
Aired February 21, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, HOST: Good evening again.When it comes to the forces of nature, Southern California is famous for being either heaven on earth or hell on earth, but rarely anything in between.Last Thursday, after weeks of heavy rain, it started raining yet again, and it hasn't stopped since, turning riverbeds into rivers and high desert into flood plains.This morning, rescuers had quite a time pulling a man from the rising waters around a trailer park in Thousand Palms. They got him out safely, but they've been busy.Stories of rain and rescue begin us now with CNN's Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Northbound 605.TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Los Angeles County Fire Urban Search and Rescue Team gets a call that a mudslide into a home has trapped at least one victim.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're about less than 10 out.ROWLANDS: They arrive to find mud and debris from floor to ceiling inside a condominium.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, bring a chainsaw and...
ROWLANDS: A woman is trapped against a bathroom wall.
CAPT. DON ROY, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: We had a whole mountain of mud from the hill had come through the house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don, can you pull that?
ROWLANDS: Using saws, crowbars, and sledgehammers, firefighters cut through a dining room wall to get to the bathroom.ROY: This would be what they call a fluid. It's not a static. But what I mean by fluid, it's constantly moving. And if we had actually water flowing underneath that mud pile, which is a big concern for us, because once you get the mud flowing down, and it's static, now we got water actually filtering underneath it into the house, into the spot where she was at, was the path of that mud. And that is bad.
ROWLANDS: A human chain is used to move debris. Eventually, they get to the woman. She is in pain, but able to talk.
LEO IBARRA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: The concern is with what's called a crush syndrome. When we have this pressure built up against our body parts over a period of time, lactic acid begins to build up in our system. And then once that pressure's released, all that acid goes to the major organs in our body.So the concern is, is that even though she's talking to us now, once we alleviate that pressure, she could, what we would call, bottom out. Then she would go into full arrest.ROWLANDS: The victim tells firefighters she can't feel the lower half of her body. Eventually, they're able to get her onto a stretcher.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can move her if she's strapped. We can go.
ROWLANDS: And into an ambulance. The victim is then taken by chopper to a local hospital.Ted Rowlands, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: There is, of course, a difference between really bad weather and the damage it causes, and natural disasters of the sort that hit South Asia. Southern California will recover in weeks. South Asia won't recover for years.Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton have wrapped up their three-day tour of the countries devastated by the tsunami, both visibly moved by what they saw and heard. They spent their final day visiting Sri Lanka and the Maldives.On March the 8th, they'll report on what they witnessed to the president.It's been nearly two months now since the tsunami hit, and we're starting to get some hard numbers on the magnitude of the destruction and the loss of life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): This much we do know, the December 26 tsunami was one of the worst on record. Nearly 170,000 people confirmed dead, more than the entire population of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Tens of thousands more remain missing.Indonesia suffered the brunt of the devastation, more than 122,000 dead there. Sri Lanka, India, Thailand also hit hard, very hard.Catastrophe has many measures. More than a million people throughout Asia have lost their homes. Many are orphans. Aid officials estimate there may be as many as 35,000 orphans in Indonesia alone.Enormous loss has been matched by tremendous generosity. Relief donations have reached almost $4.5 billion. Some aid agencies, like UNICEF, have even turned money away, saying they have enough to do the job for now.In the days and weeks after the tsunami, the task seemed overwhelming.
DR. RICHARD BRENNAN, INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE: This should be oriented...
BROWN: It did to Dr. Richard Brennan on the ground in Banda Aceh.
BRENNAN: It always takes days to weeks to gear up on a large- scale relief effort. The scale of this relief effort is something that I haven't seen before. I mean, this is just enormous.
BROWN: Dr. Brennan recently returned from Indonesia, where he says now the focus is shifting.
BRENNAN: We're into the phase of moving out of the acute emergency response and really having to focus our strategies on helping the communities rebuild their lives and their livelihoods. And we're already talking about community regeneration now.BROWN: The cost of rebuilding will be steep. The United Nations estimates it may take as much as $12.5 billion, which would mean more money will have to be raised.As for the long-term losses, they may be harder to quantify. Whole economies have been decimated. In Maldives, the damage equals more than half of the country's gross domestic product.For those on the ground across South Asia, losses and steps forward are measured on a smaller scale.
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BROWN: Such as one brick at a time. In Banda Aceh in Indonesia, not far from the epicenter of the earthquake that spawned the tsunami, so much of the city was leveled by the water, it'll take a lot of bricks, stacked one on top of the other, to give people a sense that their city is alive once again.Tonight, Beth Nissen introduces us to a woman in Banda Aceh who has a message for her friends and neighbors as they rebuild. Remember what Francis Bacon said, knowledge is power.
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BETH NISSEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Its walls withstood the violent shaking of the earth. But the Banda Aceh Public Library could not survive the huge waves of seawater, muck, and debris that followed. The ground-floor library was swamped, from the front steps to the back reading rooms.Just after the disaster, several bodies were collected from the front and back yards, but it was days before anyone ventured inside.
Ustidar (ph), a librarian who headed up the preservation department, was one of the first to return, one of the few librarians who survived. The library's director and some 20 members of staff died in the tsunami."
The references in the back, dictionaries, law books, the children's library, it's destroyed," she says. "There's nothing left. It's all gone."
Banda Aceh's only public library was a busy place, used by more than 800 people a day. They would come to read the periodicals, magazines, and newspapers from around the region, to wait their turn to get online, access the World Wide Web.
But mostly they came for the books, the heart of the library, of any library. Books on evolution and revolution, on city planning and village development, thrillers and mysteries, classic works by Tolstoy and Dickens, books that helped high school students with their term papers, and college students with their theses, books that were read to children and that children could learn to read by themselves.
The library housed 200,000 titles in all, says Ustidar, in several languages -- Indonesian, Arabic, English, Mandarin.Books in English were especially important. People would check them out to teach themselves English, or better English. "Everywhere in the world these days," she says, "the English language is essential.
"Since the tsunami, the sense of what's essential has shifted to new homes, clean water, restored livelihoods. In a city of ruined schools, clinics, and neighborhoods, rebuilding a library doesn't seem like a high priority.This veteran librarian insists it is. "Life is more than just food and shelter," she says. "A full stomach without knowledge means little. We need education. We need knowledge to expand." Knowledge in an information age to catch up, keep up.
Workers have salvaged what they can from the library's second floor offices and storage rooms. None of the books can be saved, not even the new ones still in their box that arrived the day before the tsunami. The collection will need to be rebuilt volume by volume. That will take great sums of money, years of time.
But Ustidar can already see it, she says, a place full of light and enlightenment, of information and knowledge and analysis and opinion, of civilization and hope, and the advancement of both. A library.
Beth Nissen, CNN, Banda Aceh.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Much more tonight, including a look at gays, God, and Homer Simpson. And an unholy mess at Harvard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLAUDIA GOLDIN, HARVARD ECONOMICS PROFESSOR: He had a yellow pad, and it had, and I saw it had, exactly six words written on it.
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BROWN: Talking points indeed. They landed Harvard in the headlines, and its president in the doghouse.From that president to this one, before he became president.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH (R), TEXAS (on phone): I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BROWN: Candid moments with a friend he knew, and a tape recorder he didn't.Real life in Iraq. Let him paint you a picture.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Try to make the viewer see the cartoon in its real form, so he's shocked by the ideas, so at least he starts to realize that he cannot be neutral, that he has to take a side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And to top it all off, a very, very tall tale. But it's all true, and so is this.This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Busy day for President Bush on the first full day of his European trip. In Brussels, Mr. Bush delivered a speech highlighting what he called a new era of transatlantic unity. The president is in Europe in part to mend fences with some longtime allies who did not support the war in Iraq, chief among them French President Jacques Chirac. Two leaders met this afternoon. Both stressed the importance of Franco-American relations, and they had dinner tonight at the residence of the U.S. ambassador.
Thousands of antiwar protesters took to the streets of Belgium's capital today, holding signs saying President Bush is not welcome there.
As the president works at a bit of diplomatic kiss-and-make-up in Old Europe, he might also be wondering about an old friendship back home. Doug Wead was a friend. We assume "was" is the right word here, for Mr. Wead secretly recorded then-candidate Governor Bush as he was preparing his first run for the White House.
From what we've heard in these tapes, there is little shocking in the talks. The then-governor talks about his faith, talks about politics in a way that leads you to believe he understands it's a rough business, and he talks about drugs, pot, specifically, in a way that makes you think he probably inhaled.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BUSH: Well, Doug, but it's not, it doesn't matter, cocaine. It'd be the same with marijuana. I wouldn't answer the marijuana question. You know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried.
DOUGLAS WEAD: Yes, and it never stops, the question.
BUSH: But, but, but you got to understand, I want to be president, I want to lead. I want to set -- Do you want your little kid to say, Hey, Daddy, President Bush tried marijuana, I think I will?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BROWN: In the tapes, Mr. Bush also disagrees with social conservatives who want him to take a stronger stance against gays.
The recording released by Mr. Wead are just a fraction of those he made over a two-year period that he's now turned into a book. Tonight, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper he's considering turning all nine hours of tape over to the White House.
Well, that is what he said. He also said he didn't think he was being disloyal, that he thought it was an act of preserving history.I suppose it dates me a bit. When I was growing up, nobody wasted a lot of brain cells wondering what the hidden messages were in "The Flintstones." Then again, the Flintstones weren't the Simpsons. "The Simpsons" have made it their business to grapple with and poke fun at as many hot-button issues as they can get their four-fingered hands on.
And in doing so, they've earned not only enemies and laughs, but also the grudging admiration of -- would you believe it -- more than a few evangelical Christians.The sacred in a moment. First the profane.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): It's not politics but profit that leads Springfield to take up the cause of gay marriage.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to bring tourism back to Springfield. As usual, I will open the floor to all crazy ideas that jump to people's minds.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stronger beer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Gladiator fights.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Poetry slam.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Giant rats.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why don't we legalize same-sex marriage? We can attract a growing segment of the marriage market, and strike a blow for civil rights.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Springfield goes for the dollar, offering a sanctuary for gay and lesbian wedded bliss.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gay-o, come stay-o...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gay-o, come stay-o...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): Gay-o, come stay-o...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Not everyone embraces the change. Religious leaders refuse to conduct same-sex ceremonies, which gives Homer Simpson an opportunity to cash in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Reverend Simpson...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: If you think "The Simpsons" was coming to an easy conclusion about the morality of gay marriage, think again. Marge Simpson's sister, Patty, announces she will marry the woman she loves, and Marge has trouble coming to terms with her sister's sexual orientation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP., "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Whoa. Save something for your wedding night.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Marge, are you sure you're OK with this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of course. Everyone should do whatever they want, take a bear to church, read a book with your feet, change your name to Gubelglab.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Even Homer has his doubts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, Lord, please help me say the right words this afternoon, as I consecrate another gay union that angers you so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And the wedding doesn't quite come off as planned, because Patty's bride-to-be turns out to be a man in disguise, trying to score big on the ladies' pro golf tour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "THE SIMPSONS," FOX)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Patty, will you marry the real me?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hell, no. I like girls.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Well, safe to say not everyone is thrilled. Just the same, there's a lot to see in "The Simpsons." not all of it irreverent, dangerous, corrupting, or evil. Not that there's anything wrong with that.Mark Pinsky is the author of "The Gospel According to the Simpsons," and he joins us this evening from Orlando, Florida.It's nice to have you with us.Evangelicals went after Spongebob for less than this. Why would they embrace a cartoon program that is as irreverent on so many levels as "The Simpsons"?
MARK PINSKY, AUTHOR, "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE SIMPSONS": I think because they recognize that they have really a friend in this show. It's -- on the surface, it's critical and satirical, but underneath it really -- it respects faith. Here's a family that goes to church on Sundays, that prays, that says grace at meals, that prays, that reads the Bible, and that believes in God, and they make fun of organized religion, but they don't mock sincere faith.
BROWN: In the program, and as people just saw, seems to struggle with the issue, perhaps as a lot of Americans are struggling with the issue.
PINSKY: I think that's part of the genius of "The Simpsons." Springfield, where it takes place, is undetermined where it is geographically, but it's clearly in a red state. And here's a family where the dad works at a nuclear power plant, the mom stays at home. These are people who are -- they live in a suburban tract house. This is middle America grappling with an issue that really middle America is grappling with, and they do it in a fair and honest way, I think.
BROWN: If they had -- I guess to me, as I watched it, it was that it wasn't preachy that made it work. If it's preachy, then it becomes just another TV show preaching, if you will.
PINSKY: Yes. I think the genius of "The Simpsons" is that they take two steps forward, and then one-and-a-half steps back. You think they're predictable in what they're going to do, and then they fool you by looking at the other side of a question in the next joke.
BROWN: Have you ever talked to the people who write the program about how they see religion? They put the next-door neighbor, who is an evangelical, a born-again Christian, who is often the butt of a lot of jokes.
PINSKY: He is. But it's funny, the writers, the ones that I spoke with, really have fallen in love with Ned Flanders, the next- door neighbor. On the surface, he's kind of a doofus, but underneath, he's a really sincere and loving guy. And because of that, many evangelical Christians have really adopted Ned as their mascot, almost.
When I asked the writers about this favorable portrayal of religion, at first they were kind of embarrassed. Here was this show that had a reputation for being cutting-edge and antiauthoritarian. And I kept giving them examples of all this favorable stuff about sincere belief.
And they finally said, Well, it was an act of creative desperation. They never thought the show would last this many seasons, and so they ran out of ideas for a family sitcom, and because commercial television had ignored religion for so many years for fear of offending people or for watering it down, this was a whole area that they could use that hadn't been plowed to death by, you know, two dozen other sitcoms.
BROWN: Is it possible that a sitcom cannot do what a cartoon program can?
PINSKY: Absolutely. I think when people go into a sanctuary, when they go into a lecture hall to hear a talk about religion, a sort of veil of skepticism descends over their brains. But when they're on their family couch watching a cartoon on the TV, I don't think that filter is in place, and so really, some challenging and serious issues can get through to them, because they're not on guard the way they are when they're in church or in class.
BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE), have you ever tried to figure out sort of how large or how grand is the embrace among evangelicals? Clearly, some people, even at the mention of, are going to be offended by.
PINSKY: I think the recognition on the part of evangelicals that "The Simpsons" is really good for faith took a long time to build, and probably around four or five, maybe six years ago, discerning evangelicals, which is a code word for evangelicals with a sense of humor, began noticing it wasn't what people thought for so many years, that the series was changing, that there was something really valuable there.
And when I went on the radio to promote my book on Christian stations, particularly, host after host said, I'm glad you wrote this book, because I can come out of the closet as someone who's a supporter and a fan of "The Simpsons."
BROWN: You know, I think one of the things the program does, it makes a distinction between poking fun at organized religion or churches, as opposed to believers.
PINSKY: Absolutely. "The Simpsons," without prejudice, attacks every institution of modern American life, and that includes the organized -- the church. The church, the preacher, Reverend Lovejoy, who doesn't really love joy very much, all come in, all take their whacks.But sincere belief, and there's a separation there, sincere belief is never mocked, and God is never mocked. The cartoon characters, ever since Disney, have had four fingers, by tradition. But when God appears on "The Simpsons," God has five fingers. A little wink to say the Simpsons aren't real, but God really is real.
BROWN: Mark, nice to meet you. Thanks for coming with us tonight.
PINSKY: Thanks for having me.
BROWN: Thank you.Coming up on the program, a gentle debate. This is not a schoolyard donnybrook over speech and sex and science that could cost the president of Harvard his job.And later, remembering one of America's sweethearts, Sandra Dee.Take a break first. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Henry Kissinger is famous for saying that academic infighting is so bitter because the stakes are so low.Perhaps he hasn't been back to Harvard lately, where both the bitterness and the stakes seem off the charts. Tomorrow, faculty members are scheduled to hold an emergency meeting. First, second, and last on the agenda, what President Lawrence Summers said last month about women and the sciences, and what it might mean for the future of Harvard -- his future, that is.
Reporting tonight from Cambridge, CNN's Bill Schneider.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): What did Harvard President Larry Summers say to provoke so much controversy? Let's reconstruct the scene with Harvard economics professor Claudia Goldin, a Summers defender who was there.
CLAUDIA GOLDIN, HARVARD ECONOMICS PROFESSOR: When Lawrence Summers got up from a seat over here to address the group, he brought with him a pad of paper. It was a yellow pad. And it had -- and I saw it had -- exactly six words written on it. I have no idea what the words were. But that is what guided his talk. That is, there was no script. There was no formal speech.
SCHNEIDER: Why are women underrepresented in science? Summers asked. He offered three hypotheses. One, willingness to commit to a high-powered job.
GOLDIN: Individuals, men versus women, might make different choices.
SCHNEIDER: But to Harvard physics professor Lisa Randall, that raises a red flag.
LISA RANDALL, HARVARD PHYSICS PROFESSOR: To say that it's just the women's choice not to be serious about their work, that's a bit of an overstatement, and also that obviously has a lot of cultural issues behind it.
SCHNEIDER: Two, aptitude, intrinsic differences between men and women. What intrinsic differences? asks Professor Randall, who has voiced her concerns directly to Summers.
RANDALL: There's no way to establish the kind of intrinsic differences at this point. So having a debate about it is just a debate about prejudices.
SCHNEIDER: Three, socialization and discrimination. Girls are discouraged, and women face barriers.Their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described, Summers said.Summers said his aim was to be provocative.
GOLDIN: He said not once, but I think three times in the discussion, I could be wrong. Prove me wrong.
SCHNEIDER: OK, Professor Randall responds.
RANDALL: The real issue is that these statements just are factually incorrect. And that's pretty important.
SCHNEIDER: A purely academic argument? Not quite. Lawrence Summers is president of the most prestigious university in the world, as this physics student noted.
MARIANGELA LISANTI, WOMEN IN SCIENCE AT HARVARD-RADCLIFFE: His words are going to be heard not only by the students on campus, but also by people all around the country, all around the world, including young girls.
SCHNEIDER: Which makes this academic debate far more than academic.Bill Schneider, CNN, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Quick look now at some other news around the country.In Texas, the search continues for a pregnant woman from Fort Worth and her 7-year-old son. Today, police said the woman's sports- utility vehicle was found in a creekbed north of Dallas. The mother and son reported missing on Saturday.
In Mississippi, a 20-year employee of Northrup Grumman Ship Systems is in custody tonight after opening fire at the company's shipyard in Pascagoula. Two employees wounded, both in stable condition.Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney today proposed raising death benefits for National Guard members killed in action to $100,000 from $5,000. Payments would be retroactive to October 2001 to cover Massachusetts guardsmen killed in Afghanistan as well as Iraq.
Douglas Wilder, the former governor of Virginia, owns a page in the history books, not only in his native state, but in the history of the country as well. His story is the focus of tonight's edition of CNN's anniversary series, Then and Now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Lawrence Douglas Wilder has earned a reputation exploring uncharted territory, politically as well as racially. He graduated from the private all- black Virginia Union University after being turned away from all-white schools in his native Virginia. Doug Wilder went on to become a celebrated criminal lawyer, state senator, lieutenant governor, and in 1990, the first black governor ever elected in the U.S.
DOUGLAS WILDER, FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR: The people of Virginia have spoken tonight!
PHILLIPS: To demonstrate distaste for his state's history of slavery, Wilder chose to take his oath of office outside Virginia's capitol, a building that had served as the Confederate capital during the Civil War. Now at 74, he's beginning a new phase of public service. Last November, following a historic change in the city charter, he became the first mayor elected by the people, rather than the council, in his hometown Richmond.
WILDER: What is it that we are to do? And who are you there for? You're there to represent the people.
PHILLIPS: Today, Mayor Doug Wilder is a common sight on the streets of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University, where he teaches political science.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Three more American soldiers were killed today in Iraq, a roadside bombing in Baghdad, eight other soldiers wounded in the attack. Insurgents have turned up the campaign of violence over the last few days to coincide with a major Shiite religious holiday. Dozens of Iraqis have been killed. CNN's Nic Robertson is in Baghdad tonight with the story of one man who is taking on the insurgents, but not with a gun, his weapon, a pen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's painful and provocative. And that's exactly what this cartoon is supposed to be. "The most painful thing I've ever drawn," newspaper cartoonist Muayyad Nima tells me. So many Iraqis have been killed by insurgents, he explains, that their bodies are like a sea. But Iraqis are determined to sail across to a better place.
MUAYYAD NIMA, CARTOONIST (through translator): Try to make the viewer see the cartoon in its real form, so he's shocked by the ideas, so at least he starts to realize that he cannot be neutral, that he has to take a side.
ROBERTSON: But his pictures, like this one of a family watching TV, reveling in the bloodshed by insurgents, or this, where Iraqis simply ignore insurgents on a killing spree, are not just a wakeup call to Iraqis. They are a direct challenge to the insurgents.
NIMA (through translator): I try to make my style as one of a stand. That is black cartoon, which gives a sense of toughness after all these events and this atmosphere that is full of killing and terrorism. I have to be tough.
ROBERTSON: And Muayyad's message does seem to be getting through. "His cartoons go deep into the true reality," this reader says. "It really is stinging criticism."
Such critique, though, is a new and rare phenomenon. Saddam Hussein banned dissent. And today, few cartoonists dare risk the insurgents' wrath and possible death.
NIMA (through translator): It seems I am not feeling the fear. It is not heroism. I feel that I am presenting a work that enlightens people.
ROBERTSON: Some of his pictures need no explanation, for this grandfather who made a living teaching ceramics during Saddam Hussein's rule, years of artistic frustration finally being released.
NIMA (through translator): I have to be like this. When I implement an idea, I really feel that some people are being moved by the idea, which means that I am on the right path.
ROBERTSON: These days, though, the gun is mighty. And keeping his pen on his chosen path will likely prove a challenge. Nic Robertson, CNN, Baghdad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Still to come on the program the man who invented gonzo journalism is gone, the legacy of Hunter S. Thompson. And the rooster will bring no fear or loathing, just the morning's news. A break first. Around the world, this is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It is a strange weekend, indeed, when on one side of the obituary page is the poster child for the all-American girl and on the other side is the poster child for '60s excess. But that's where we find ourselves, remembering two people tonight who, despite the fact they lived at the same time on the same planet, seemed to have nothing in common. Sandra Dee and Hunter S. Thompson both died over the weekend. They lived differently, and they died differently. Ms. Dee first.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "GIDGET")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: See, this beach is for surfers only. It's too dangerous for dames.
SANDRA DEE, ACTRESS: Dames? Oh, no, I'm no dame.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Oh, well, what do you know?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: It has all the earmarks of a dame.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She was anything but a dame. Sandra Dee was the all- American girl, the quintessential teenager. If Jackie Kennedy was American royalty, Sandra Dee was our reigning prom queen.
ANDREW COHEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF PROGRAMMING, BRAVO: Sandra Dee was pure. She was everybody's wholesome idea of what a teenager was about in the early '60s.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "GIDGET")
DEE: You've got to. It's delicious.
(END VIDEO CLIP);
BROWN: Before she became Gidget, Sandra Dee was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1942 as Alexandra Zuck. Talent shows and modeling propelled her into the movies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "A SUMMER PLACE")
DEE: I'm afraid.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Of me? Of yourself?
DEE: Yes, that and some other new feelings that I can't explain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: She was the girl every guy wanted to fall in love with, and she was what so many girls hoped to be. After a whirlwind courtship, Sandra Dee married teen idol Bobby Darin in 1960. They soon had a son, Dodd. And those who know Sandra Dee well said motherhood was the role she loved best.
STEVE BLAUNER, FORMER BOBBY DARIN MANAGER: Dodd is the apple of her eye, and he is a testament to what a good mother she was. The two loves of her life were her son and Bobby Darin. BROWN: But her marriage to Darin was tumultuous and capsized after seven years, part of that pain recounted in the new movie "Beyond the Sea."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BEYOND THE SEA")
KEVIN SPACEY, ACTOR: All the slaps and the smiles, and, in the meantime, I'm a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) joke out there.
KATE BOSWORTH, ACTRESS: Not as big of a joke as you are right now. SPACEY: Warren Beatty is there with Leslie Caron, who is nominated for best actress. And I'm there with Gidget.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Dodd Darin and director Kevin Spacey talked about the film recently with Larry King.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")
LARRY KING, HOST: Was it difficult for you to see them play out arguments between your father and mother?
DODD DARIN, SON OF SANDRA DEE: Sure.
KING: Your father and his temper, your mother and her drinking.
DARIN: Absolutely. I mean, that's one of the beautiful things of the film, is, it's very real. And it was difficult. I mean, my mom, you know, went through a lot with him. He could be difficult. She could be difficult. And it was painful to see that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: In later years, she revealed the reality behind the dream. She said she'd been sexually abused as a child, suffered from anorexia, but she battled back. And shortly before her death, she went to see the movie "Beyond the Sea."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "LARRY KING LIVE")
DARIN: Well, she went with her assistant to watch it privately. I wasn't there. Kevin wasn't there. That's how she wanted it. And she came over right afterwards to my house. And she's a good actress, but she ain't that good. She was speechless. She was just moved and touched. And she came in and she said, you know, I'm so proud to have been part of his life, to have, you know, spent those years with them. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: And those who knew and loved Sandra Dee felt exactly the same way about her.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: It is hard, on the other hand, to imagine what some of his friends must have thought of Hunter S. Thompson at times. Sandra Dee, he was not. Or, so the legend went, and so the caricature was drawn. The reality may be something else entirely, or at least something more complex. There was a gentle, courtly side to the man. But the legend grew to gobble up great chunks of our attention and perhaps a bit of the man as well. Hunter S. Thompson killed himself yesterday. He was 67.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): Call it a coincidence, but on the last night of Hunter Thompson's life, millions of Americans were watching a television show celebrating a body of work whose peak was reached some 30 years ago, "Saturday Night Live." Like this first startling burst of energy from a satirical voice anchored in the counterculture, Hunter Thompson's journalistic voice was rooted in the sensibility of the late '60s rebellion. Authority was suspect. Insight was better fueled by mind-altering chemicals. And the conventions of a straight-ahead, neutral narration were inadequate to the facts. Only the vision of a slightly mad reporter, Thompson seemed to say, could really convey the madness of the times.
So, when the Kentucky-born Thompson, with years of mainstream journalistic experience behind him, arrived in Las Vegas in the early '70s, he took everything he knew about journalistic do's and don't's and threw them away. His vision of Vegas, the playground of the American id, was filtered through booze and drugs. He didn't just insert himself into the story. He hurled himself into it at real risk to body and mind, the result, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," a unique blend of fact and fancy.
And when "Rolling Stone" magazine sent Thompson on the campaign trail in 1972, the result was campaign coverage that appalled many and enthralled many others. Richard Nixon," he wrote, was like the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He spoke for the werewolf in all of us. "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" was another enduring work.
Two first-rate actors, Bill Murray and Johnny Depp, have tried to capture Thompson on film, but he seemed to inhabit neither the movies, nor the decades that followed the '70s. He ran for sheriff of his adopted home of Aspen, Colorado, found himself in a fair share of scrapes, found his attempts at fiction lacking an audience. And, on Sunday night, after years of affection for firearms, he made one final use of one. The arc of Hunter Thompson's life and work may not have been what he or we would have wished. But if his friends and admirers seek consolation, they can know that future generations will not be able to grasp the nature of his time without listening to that gifted, if demented voice.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We began the program with the forces of nature. And that's where we go next, nature as exemplified by trees. Did you know that some trees are the largest living things on Earth? Some date back centuries, others thousands of years. And that's just the trees in this country, captured in a new book entitled "Tree: A New Vision of the American Forest," created by photographer James Balog.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAMES BALOG, PHOTOGRAPHER, "TREE: A NEW VISION OF THE AMERICAN FOREST": I started out doing the series with one original idea, namely, that I would put backgrounds behind the trees and light them, basically bringing a portrait studio to the forest.
As time went on, the project evolved into a lot of different styles, black and white with a little $16 plastic camera, very high- tech with all these digital images, and then a lot of points in between. I went from Key West to the Pacific Northwest, from Arizona to New England, and lots and lots of points in between. What I was trying to do was make portraits of the largest, oldest, strongest trees in America.
These bristlecone are so old that the great pyramids of Giza were being built when these trees were rooted. They are bristlecone pines in the White Mountains of California in the desert. They're living at 10,000 feet. And they grow to be 4,733 years old. That's the age of the very oldest one.
This is a fantastic old cedar growing on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington all by itself out in a big clear-cut. This is one of the first times I decided that one frame just wasn't enough. I stood at the bottom of this thing and just -- one picture just didn't do it. There's this fabulous aspen grove in Fish Lake, Utah. It's 106 acres. It weighs 13 million pounds, because there's 47,000 trees all coming out of the same root system. I walked through the aspen grove. And this panel shows me looking forward and looking backwards at the same time as I'm moving through the grove itself.
This redbud had this very oriental, soft feeling to it. It's so soft and so romantic and so sweet, I almost didn't put it in the book.
This is the Mount Everest of the plant kingdom. It's a coast redwood named Stratosphere Giant. It's 370 feet tall. I shot this by repelling down through the forest. In the course of going down there, I photographed 815 frames, and then I later assembled the mosaic on a computer.
People help to give the pictures a sense of scale and monumentality of the subjects. This is the beautiful cottonwood tree that I have in my back yard. It's not one of the national champions by any means. But to me, it gave me such joy over the years watching this tree in its annual evolution.
Photography is an amazing act. It forces you to contemplate and slow down and just be there and consider things much more carefully. I learned that these trees have incredible individuality, incredible character, incredible individual personality.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: Morning papers printed on recycled paper after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(ROOSTER CROWING)
BROWN: Okeydoke, time to check morning papers from around the country and around the world. We'll start with "The International Herald Tribune." The president is overseas. Seems like a good way to start. Newspapers struggled a little bit to find the right lead on the president, but this one most often the case. "Bush Warns Russia on Rule of Law.
"But down here, thumbs, if you can. "Open Minds on Open Seas. British Royal Navy Woos Gays and Lesbians." Different countries, different policies I guess the way to look at that, British Royal Navy looking for more recruits.
"The Washington Times" on the president's trip. "Bush, Chirac Tell Syria to Leave Lebanon, Call For Pullout of 14,000 Troops, Per U.N. Resolution." They also put Hunter Thompson on the front page, "End of Story For Hunter Thompson."
Yikes.
"Gonzo Writer Takes His Own Life." I'm not sure why that's front page in Tuesday's paper. But maybe they had that early deadline yesterday.
"Stars and Stripes" or -- today that would be, wouldn't it? "Prison Riot in Iraq Reveals Risks For U.S. Recent Uprising Exposes Increasingly Violent Inmate Population." That's comforting. Also, they put Hilary Swank on the front page. "Oscar Winner Has Good Shot at Second Statue."
You bet.
I love this headline. I don't know about the story. "Conspiracy Theory, Representative Maurice Hinchey's, Claims White House Planted CBS Memos." Well, let's just say they did. It doesn't mean CBS shouldn't have checked them out, does it? Also, by the way, new tips for potty training, if you're interested.
"The Press of Atlantic City," haven't done this in a long time. "Bush Appeals to E.U. For Mideast Peace Help," different lead, same trip.
The weather in Chicago tomorrow, according to "The Chicago Sun- Times," "listless."We'll wrap it up in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Good to have you with us tonight. "AMERICAN MORNING," 7:00 a.m. Eastern time. "LOU DOBBS TONIGHT" next for most of you. We'll see you tomorrow at 10:00. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
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