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Investors Look for Answers; American History, Texas-Style; Two Iranians Released in Iraq; Tough Talk: What to Do About North Korea?; Abundantharvest.org Unites Gardeners and Food Charities
Aired May 21, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Here's what I've got "On the Rundown." It's a brand new hour.
Stocks are down, stocks are up. In short, we are coming to the end of a volatile week for markets around the world. Amid all the fear and confusion, you just want answers, and we've got them coming up in a minute.
Plus, the Texas State School Board gearing up for a very controversial vote today. They want to change the curriculum in a way that has a lot of you up in arms on the blogs. We'll bring you up to date with that story.
Plus, how do you get a lifetime of positive reinforcement in just one day? Simple. I did it. Just talk to Maya Angelou. I did that yesterday, and her words moved me. So today I've got some words for her in my "XYZ."
Big story right now though is a pleasant surprise on U.S. markets. The Dow's actually up about 80 points after a very rough overnight, rough morning on U.S. markets. We want to give you a little bit about what's going on.
It was a brutal day yesterday. Take a look at what we've got right now. Oh, look at that, 93 points in just a couple minutes. It's done a lot better than I thought.
I want to just show you -- I want to put this into perspective for you. I want you to look back to 2007. October, 2007, is when this market hit its peak, 14,164. I say this because if you've got a 401(k) or an IRA that emulates the Dow or the S&P 500, this is how it would have looked.
So, back in October 9th of 2007, it hit its peak, and it kept on going down. It hit its bottom, we hope, last March, March 9th of 2009. So, we went from 14,000 on the Dow to 6,500.
Ever since then, from last April, all the way until now, it's been on a relative upward slope. It hit its high back in April again, and now we're off from that fairly significantly.
But if you look at it in terms of what's happened there, what's happened over the last couple of weeks, it doesn't look as serious as it may sound to you. But you know what? If it's your money and you're losing it, it's serious.
So, let's bring in my friend Christine Romans. She is in New York City. She is my co-host on "YOUR $$$$$."
Christine, so it's down a lot.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
VELSHI: I mean, when you look at it compared to -- when you look at it in that big a stretch, it doesn't seem as bad. But we've lost a lot of money in the last month alone.
ROMANS: Yes. OK, so you look at today. You pointed out that the Dow is up 93 points right now, but even up 93 points right now, you're still down 450 points for the week. So this has been a tough week, just this week, for the markets, even with this recovery. If it holds, who knows? We have two more hours to go.
You're absolutely right to point out where we are from that peak. You know, you are down significantly in your retirement investments from that peak.
However, if you started buying more recently, you've seen some pretty good gains in your investments over the past year or so. So, it all depends on what -- when you're going to need that money, when you're going to retire, and where you've been putting in the money and taking it out.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: Every single person is different.
VELSHI: And it's a market.
Listen, we've got some questions from Facebook, because I invited people to say, what is it that you want to know about this? What's the stuff that confuses you?
Michael says, "How over-inflated is the market? How could the Dow be over 11,000" -- it's not at the moment, but it was -- "when there's 10 percent unemployment?"
It's a good question.
ROMANS: It is a good question. And you even at that point had people saying, yes, we might be right for a correction. And that's exactly what has happened.
You have had a correction. A correction is a textbook term. It's 10 percent. The market has fallen 10 percent. Ten cents of every dollar, that stock investment is wiped out as the market corrects.
Now, the next question is, does the correction feed into something called a bear market, which is 20 percent down from those April highs, or do you find buyers here who say, oh, gosh, now I'm going to go in and I'm going to buy some stocks here?
VELSHI: Let me tell you this one from Elizabeth on Facebook. "When will overspending governments realize that they are the problem and not the solution? Do you think when they realize it and start doing something about it, the markets will react positively?"
ROMANS: I think they're realizing it. Don't you? I mean, I think what we're talking about in Europe. I think that's what we're talking about, a lot of governments that have spent prolifically and haven't had -- haven't been able to get out from under their debt problems.
And what started as the consumer -- the credit crisis in the United States and this global crisis in the banking system has now turned to part two, which is the sovereign debt crisis. And this is the question that everyone's asking now: What do countries -- and not just Europe, but the United States, the U.K., and Japan -- what do we have to do over the next few years to get our fiscal houses in order, and how will the markets respond? And that's what we don't know.
And markets I think, Ali, and I think you agree with me, they matter less than this, than what it's going to mean for how you live your life.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: Your taxes, the services your government can provide, and just the stability of your country.
VELSHI: Yes, you're absolutely right about that. They are important, but the other stuff -- I mean, the fact that you have a job and other things like that matter.
This is my favorite question that was posted on my Facebook page. It's from Christine. I don't know if it's you or somebody else named Christine.
ROMANS: It's not me.
VELSHI: "Should we be freaking out right about now?"
ROMANS: No. Remain calm. What's that British phrase, stay strong and carry on? Or -- if everyone can just let me know.
VELSHI: Stay calm and carry on.
ROMANS: That's it.
No, we shouldn't be freaking out about anything. We should be taking a very close look every three to six months, at least every six months, to what your retirement goals are, how close you are to those goals, and readjust.
You know, you and I talk to people who manage money all the time. Manage money for real, normal, middle class people. And they say, you know, don't close your eyes. And the whole idea of just putting the 401(k) statement in the top drawer and not opening it, oh, perish the thought.
VELSHI: Bad plan.
ROMANS: You've got to know where you want to go, how much money it's going to take you to get there, and how you're going to get yourself there, whether the market is up or down.
VELSHI: OK. Well, let's you and me commit in the next week or so to doing a little bit more of that, helping people understand how they divide up their assets and how they rebalance.
ROMANS: OK. Good.
VELSHI: Some great tools on Money.com. You and I talk to a lot of people --
ROMANS: There's a -- somebody wrote a book. There's a book. It's called -- let me think -- "Give Me My Money Back." Did you ever hear of that book?
VELSHI: I did. I'm a big geek about this. You and I are both market geeks. But let's share that with our viewers, let's help them out, make some decisions.
Great to see you. You and I are spending the weekend together on TV, Saturday at 1:00 p.m., Sunday, at 3:00 p.m., on "YOUR $$$$$."
Christine, good work. And I hope you don't have a very long day at the New York Stock Exchange. I know it's already been a long day for you. I hope it doesn't get too long at the New York Stock Exchange.
ROMANS: It's only an hour and 53 minutes and 27 seconds to go.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: All right.
Christine Romans at the New York Stock Exchange.
Hey, listen, in Texas, it's a fight for the history books, literally. The school board is slated to vote today on how students will learn about slavery, communism, capitalism, and more. And this fight is way bigger than Texas.
Stay with us. I'm going to tell you more about this when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Every day we bring you a segment called "Chalk Talk" about education in this country, things that can be done better, things that need fixing. We've spent a good deal of time on this show on the Texas social studies controversy.
Well, a vote is scheduled for today. Every 10 years, the Texas School Board has got to revamp its social studies curriculum. As a result of that, textbooks get published, and there are some people who say that because Texas has the most public school students in the country, it influences textbooks that go to other smaller states.
Now, the school board has been pushing for a version of American history which emphasizes the role of capitalist enterprise and military and Christianity, and even patriotism.
Gary Tuchman has the latest on this story from Austin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The people on the Texas Board of Education are not professional historians. But that doesn't stop them from controversial and confident pronouncements.
PATRICIA HARDY (R), TEXAS BOARD OF EDUCATION: There would be those who would say, you know, automatically say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over States' rights.
TUCHMAN: Most of the board members are conservative. And they're on the verge of changing social studies teaching standards in Texas. For example, students will soon be discussing whether the separation of church and state is a legitimate historical concept.
That's the kind of debate board member Don McElroy wants to see.
(on camera): Is there such a thing as the separation of church and state?
DON MCLEROY (R), TEXAS BOARD OF EDUCATION: There is such -- there is such a thing as the First Amendment. The first has been interpreted lately by judges in a different way.
TUCHMAN: By no state-sponsored religion, but what do you think about the phrase "separation of church and state"?
MCLEROY: It's really been abused. It's swung way out of kilter is my personal view.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): People pushing for the new curriculum say it will dwell more on the positive in America and less on the negative. Biblical values will be highlighted more. Free enterprise will be emphasized; the term "capitalism" which sometimes has negative connotations, not so much. And, yes, when it comes to the Civil War, discussions about states' rights.
(on camera): The board does this review every decade. The initial recommendations come from educators and historians. All agree the recommendations have never been changed this much.
(voice-over): And that has left many in the public who have come out to these hearings disenchanted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your actions have produced a series of curriculum standards which undermine the importance of multiculturalism and respect for alternative viewpoints; foundations upon which America's society and democracy have been built. Our siblings should learn that America is not just a Christian nation.
TUCHMAN: But many Texans are very pleased.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to thank you for the work you do for the children of Texas and for the children in the other 49 states. You are a truly unique group of elected servants of the great state of Texas.
TUCHMAN: More than 200 Texans went on a list to testify about their feelings. The testimony went late into the night on Wednesday finally ending just before the stroke of midnight after 14 hours. Some of the comments went beyond the scope of the debate and were quite derogatory.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to tell you that Islam is coming, and Islam brings death. So I say repent, America. Repent.
TUCHMAN: The one Muslim member of the board told the man not only was what he was saying irrelevant, but it was also hateful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it was insulting to our population and everybody that we represent.
TUCHMAN: But not one other board member, Republican or Democrat, complained about it. The final vote on the recommendations will be made Friday.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Austin, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Now, the sheer size of the education system in Texas means that this could have an impact way beyond the borders of that state. There are 4,700,000 students in Texas, 55,200,000 students nationwide.
I did say they were the biggest textbook buyer. They're not. Texas is the country's second largest textbook buyer. The biggest one is the biggest state, California.
Textbooks written to comply with Texas standards, however, are sold in many other states. And that's what has some people concerned, that whatever Texas does may have an influence, particularly in smaller states, that don't have enough buying power to dictate their own types of textbooks.
All right. Two Iranian detainees have been released in Iraq. Does that mean something for anybody here in the United States? We're going to tell you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. When you hear about Iranian detainees, we've been following some particular stories. This one's different.
Two Iranian detainees who were held for years in Iraq have been freed today. Their release comes as those three U.S. hikers who are being held in Iran met with their mothers for a second time. Is there a connection between these two?
Our Ivan Watson broke the news of the detainee release earlier here on CNN. He's with us now from Istanbul, Turkey.
Ivan, bring us up to speed on this story and whether it's connected to the other story.
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's hard to not to see these prisoners as some kind of pawns in a three-dimensional chess game going on between these two rivals, Iran and the U.S.
What we learned today was that -- from the Iranian Embassy telling our CNN bureau in Baghdad that two Iranian nationals who have been in U.S. military custody for years, one of them as long as seven years in Iraq, were released to Iraqi authorities, handed over to the Iranian Embassy, and very quickly flown out of the country today. The timing seems rather strange, especially since just this week, Iran made a very big deal of granting visas to the mothers of three Americans who were arrested by Iranian security forces some 10 months ago while hiking along the border between Iraq and Iran, granting visas to these three mothers to go visit their sons and daughter in Tehran just this week -- Ali.
VELSHI: So you think it sounds to some people like there is something afoot. Americans were given these prisoners back, and hopefully that will result in these three Americans detained in Iraq, maybe some development on that front?
WATSON: Well, the Iranian Embassy denies that there's any link. American officials we've tried to talk to have referred us to the Iraqis. And in the past, ,when we've seen similar patterns of something that looks like a prisoner exchange between the two countries, both sides have denied that.
However, earlier this month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when asked in an interview with "The Boston Globe" about the release, possible release of these three Americans held in Tehran, he suggested a possible prisoner swap. Just last week, Ali, we saw something that looked very suspiciously like a prisoner swap, though both the French and the Iranian governments denied that.
What we saw was a 24-year-old French national, Clotilde Reiss. She was arrested last summer in Iran, accused of being a spy for the French, ,and held in prison. She was released, and just days later, the French released an Iranian who has been in a French prison for 19 years. He was convicted of the brutal murder of a former Iranian prime minister in France, a dissident Iranian leader, and then abruptly released.
Also, the French refused to extradite another Iranian wanted for dealing in arms-related supplies that the U.S. had requested. The French and the Iranians denied that was a prisoner swap, but you really have to wonder when you see the timing of that case.
We don't know what's going to happen right now between these people who have been released from Iraq and the future fate of these three Americans. We do know that their mothers have gone to Tehran airport after several days on the ground in Tehran. They were allowed to visit with their sons and daughter for two days, consecutively. But they went home, evidently, empty-handed -- Ali.
VELSHI: All right, Ivan. You'll stay on top of the story for us. Thanks so much.
Ivan Watson joining us from Istanbul, Turkey, tonight.
All right. Let be bring you up to speed on some of the top stories we're following here at CNN.
There's a picture of the Dow. It was up almost 100 points, about, well, 20 minutes ago. It's back down a little bit again. It's still up though for the day.
Many had worried that this was going to be another day like yesterday, a cataclysmic loss, actually. Investors are wary after the market dipped officially into a correction -- we're going to tell you about that a little later on -- yesterday. Lots of people worried about the financial problems in Europe and whether that will be contagious and create a second leg down in our own economy.
All right. It is day 32 since that explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. BP says it is siphoning more than 200,000 gallons a day through a tube. Now, a Louisiana congressman has asked the White House to set up temporary health care centers along the Gulf Coast to serve volunteers and workers.
Another health setback for rock singer Bret Michaels. His publicist says doctors found a hole in his heart that they think caused him to suffer a warning stroke. Michaels is 47 years old. He may still be able to appear on the season finale of the reality show "Celebrity Apprentice" on Sunday.
And when we get back, we're going to talk about dispersants. That's that stuff that BP has been putting into the Gulf of Mexico to, well, disperse the oil.
Are they doing more harm than good? They could wipe out an entire colony of oil eaters, the microorganisms that live off of oil. We'll explore that in "Off the Radar."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes?
VELSHI: What's going on?
MYERS: Let's talk about a few things that we talked about last hour, and let's just kind of drill down and get a lot bigger on what we're talking about here, because it's all part of the loop current that's kind of looping around.
VELSHI: Oh, I see. We've got a reverse image here. This is --
MYERS: This is the United States.
VELSHI: -- land.
MYERS: Yes, sir.
VELSHI: All right.
MYERS: I use maps so often, I didn't even think about --
VELSHI: Right. Yes. You see things -- that's Florida.
MYERS: I see people and --
VELSHI: Got it. OK. All right. I got it.
MYERS: -- I hear voices and all those other things.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: The loop current comes out of the Caribbean, up into the Gulf of Mexico, and down. The Coast Guard basically said that the oil has been going this way and not into the loop current.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Don't worry about it, Florida, just yet. It could change, but right now we're doing OK.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: It's all part of the same oil that is moving down -- could move down into Florida, but it's going to take a long time. Old oil, Ali, doesn't have as many toxins in it --
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: -- as new oil. It turns into tar balls that you can actually pick up.
Now, old oil isn't as toxic to fish, isn't as toxic to plants. And even though we saw some pictures yesterday of how the oil was on the stocks of the marshes, that's actually OK.
I talked to NOAA. It's OK to be on the stalks. It can't be in the ground. That becomes toxic in the roots, kills it.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: It can't be on the foliage up on top. It smothers it, kills it. So, what they were seeing in those marshes, not great, but not a lethal injection to what could be something that could kill all those marshes and eventually make it another real big problem.
The Coast Guard also said that the oil is not getting into the loop current here. This little area that was kind of an elephant trunk that was going in there, that's gone now.
VELSHI: OK. It kind of evaporated. It's all good. It's a little bit better than it was.
And I have so many people wanting to know -- you know, hey, there are 700 vessels out here scooping up the oil. Where's it going? What are they doing with it?
VELSHI: What do they do with it?
MYERS: What do they do with it?
VELSHI: That's a good question.
MYERS: Well, the old oil has very little value. In fact, is expensive to recycle or to render irrelevant, basically, because a lot of the things that we would use it to make gasoline --
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: -- those are all gone. They're into the atmosphere, so this is junk.
That goes on shore, and it goes into a holding tank. They hold it to dispose of it. That's going to cost money.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: BP is going to pay that money.
Then there are other newer oils that are getting siphoned off, especially the one that had big pipes going down in there and sucking some of that -- what, 200,000 barrels yesterday?
VELSHI: And that's coming right out of the well. So that's what they're drilling for.
MYERS: That oil could be OK. That oil, it's still going to be mixed with some water, but it always is anyway.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: So that oil will be moved to shore, into the holding tanks, and then refined into something, at least. But there's going to be a lot of oil that just washes up on shore, that doesn't get recycled, and it's going to be all along the beaches, I'm afraid.
VELSHI: All right. Thanks, Chad.
MYERS: Sure.
VELSHI: All right. There is tough talk about North Korea right now, and it's coming from the secretary of state, what she's calling an act of aggression against South Korea, and what she says is going to be done about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Every day we take you around the world with our "Globe Trekking" segment. This time it's South Korea -- North Korea and South Korea, actually. No more business as usual for North Korea. The U.S. says that North Korea sunk a South Korean ship and that something has got to be done.
John Vause has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once again, the world is asking, what are we going to do about Korea?
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We cannot allow this attack on South Korea to go unanswered by the international community.
VAUSE: The U.S. secretary of state in Tokyo on the start of a visit to Asia didn't hold back. The evidence is overwhelming, she said. The torpedo that sunk the South Korean ship was fired by a North Korean submarine.
CLINTON: And the United States strongly condemned this act of aggression.
VAUSE: The North Koreans deny it. This government official warning the North will react with, quote, "merciless punishment if there is even mild retaliation by the South Koreans." Pyongyang is threatening to tear up a landmark nonaggression pact the two sides signed almost 20 years ago.
In Seoul Friday, President Lee Myung-bak called a rare national security meeting. The attack, he said, was a perfect military ambush, but with few good options, any South Korean response, he said, would be prudent.
For South Koreans, who have long lived in the shadow of threats and aggression from the North, there was resignation that there is little that can be done to change Pyongyang's behavior. "It's difficult to take strong measures and it's difficult just to leave North Korea as it is right now. I feel frustrated to see this. I think there's actually no conclusion," says this man.
(on camera): Next stop for the U.S. secretary of state is Beijing, and if there are to be consequences for North Korea's alleged actions, Mrs. Clinton will need to convince the Chinese to get on side, not to use their veto power in the U.N. Security Council to back some kind of punitive action. Never an easy job, especially now. China is one of the few friends North Korea has left in the world.
John Vause, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: All right. Back here in the United States. Getting fresh food on the plates of the needy. One man is doing just that with a help of a website. We'll meet him right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: On Wednesday we introduced you to an urban farmer, someone growing fresh food among the streets and buildings of a city. Now in Tuesday's -- in today's "Mission Possible" you'll meet a man who is trying to solve the same kind of fresh food shortages in a different way. He also happens to be our "CNN Hero of the Week."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY OPPENHEIMER, COMMUNITY CRUSADER: I had an idea about how to not waste food. We're having an ample harvest and the very least we can do is give it to people who need it.
They'll be enjoying this tomorrow at the pantry.
OPPENHEIMER: Ampleharvest.org enables people that grow food in their gardens to find a food pantry to donate their excess produce to.
It's a nice big one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: That would have been a perfect solution. I grew up with more rhubarb. I didn't like rhubarb, and nobody in my family liked rhubarb and it grew endlessly in our backyard.
Gary Oppenheimer is the founder of Ampleharvest.org in New York. I now like rhubarb, Gary, but back in the day, and I guess there are people like this, there are things growing, they're deliberately growing fruits and vegetables because that's a great thing to do, but often you can't manage the yield and you have more than you can use or you'd like to do something with some of your great harvest, and you're helping people do that?
OPPENHEIMER: Yes, Ampleharvest.org was a website that I created last year to enable the more than more 40 million people in America who grow food in their home gardens to be able to donate the excess food from their gardens to a local food pantry.
Most people didn't know that they could, many people hadn't thought about the idea, some people were afraid of doing it. And I set up a mechanism where it's very easy to basically go on the site, key in your address, find a list of food pantries and distance order. Pick the one you want to donate to and make the donation.
As I said, there are 49 million people according to the USDA in America who are food insecure, which is a fancy government way of saying either you don't have enough food or you're at real risk for not having enough food and we have over 40 million gardeners who grow. You know, even if only 10 percent or 20 percent of those people make donations, it's a lot.
VELSHI: Are we thinking that the people who are going to make those donations are people who have excess stuff or might they be even growing it because of the fact that they know the cost is low and they someone will benefit from it as opposed to it going into the garbage?
OPPENHEIMER: Some may be that generous. Frankly, what we tell people is that they should be enjoying, preserving and giving away as much as they can, because they've grown the food for themselves -- These are home gardeners, of course -- but whatever is leftover, the excess produce, that should not be thrown away, that should be donated to a food pantry.
And just to give you a case in point, I received an e-mail this morning from one grower who said that last year he had thrown away two 55-gallons drums of lemons, four 55-gallon drums of grapefruits and two of oranges because he didn't know he could give them away. Most people don't grow that much, but nonetheless, that was wasted food, that could have helped his community.
VELSHI: OK, so now tell me how this works. What's the system?
OPPENHEIMER: Very simple. First of all we encourage pantries around the county, we are almost approaching 2,000 pantries --
VELSHI: When you say pantries, are these the same as food banks sort of idea?
OPPENHEIMER: There not exactly. A food bank, there are around 250-plus food banks around America. Each one -- think of the large warehouse operation or regional operation that collects government and private food donations and they turn around and disburse it to the food pantries, 30,000 plus around the country in the communities. So the average person who is in need of food is actually going to a food pantry that may be in the basement of a church or a YMCA or something like that.
VELSHI: So your donations go right to the pantry. So get people -- you identify the pantry that (INAUDIBLE) -- and they get it right -- right to the pantry.
OPPENHEIMER: Yes, think of this like a Google. You can go to Ampleharvest.org, find a pantry near you and you take your food straight to the pantry and hopefully, you'll do that for the rest of your life as you continue gardening.
VELSHI: OK, what did it take to get the system going? Was it complicated? Were people looking at you like we didn't need this system, or did people say what a great thing that you were doing?
OPPENHEIMER: I think I was in somewhat unchartered territory. I had the idea last year in march after creating a similar program in the community garden in North Jersey where I'm the director of. I had an idea in March, in seven weeks' time it went from an idea to rollout on May 18th of 2009. All along nobody said it was a bad idea, simply that nobody had ever done it before. And it took off very, very fast and it's been very, very well received all throughout and it's growing wonderfully. It's a good thing for the communities. It's a good thing for the people. It's a good thing for the future health of America.
VELSHI: Let me ask you this. I'm a city guy and if I were volunteering at a pantry or worked at one, I would know what canned goods would look like, I would know what bread is supposed to look like. I don't really know that much about produce. Not that I want to be advertising that on TV, I should probably be eating more myself. But I don't know that much about produce.
How do your pantries know what they're getting, what the quality of it, what it might even be called?
OPPENHEIMER: OK. Well, that's a really good question.
First of all, on the website, we have a "Frequently Asked" section, three sections -- one targeted to the general public, one targeted to the gardeners and one to the pantries.
To the gardeners, we basically tell them what they really should be doing is harvesting the crops on the morning of when they're going to make the donation and they should be inspecting that they're donating. It should be a quality equal to or better than you would buy for themselves in a supermarket. Spoiled stuff, stuff that has insects in it or whatever, should never be donated. But if it's something you would buy for your family, that's what you want donated.
Now once it gets to the food pantry, they can also, if they want, take a look at, but that's what become available. An interesting problem we've run into and we have a solution we're going to be working on later this summer, is that many people are donating apples and carrots and potatoes, the routine things that everybody from a supermarket knows about and those are well received in pantries.
But many gardeners, myself included, like to grow weird things like blue potatoes and kohlrabi or starfood or what have you, and many pantry clients and many pantries don't quite know what it is. We'll be working on a picture dictionary later this summer for the benefit for the pantries around the country to help the pantries understand and their clients understand what they're getting, the nutritional value how to use it, et cetera, et cetera. No food in this country should go to waste.
VELSHI: Gary, I tell you, first of all, I think it's fantastic and I'm glad you're here talking about it and we congratulate you on it. But when you get the picture -- the produce picture directory? Send me one. I need -- I need a produce picture directory, just so I know when it comes on my plate. That's the kohlrabi, the blew potato.
Gary, great to see you. Great work. Thank you very much.
OPPENHEIMER: Thank you very much.
VELSHI: Gary Oppenheimer is the founder of Ampleharvest.org. Visit the website. That's great.
Take a look at the Dow, up 32 points, still in positive territory. Investors a little bit wary of what happened yesterday in the market. A lot of people are worried about the financial problems in Europe and how they may actually end up affecting the rest of the world.
And the Gulf of Mexico, BP plans to start pumping a sealer into the gushing oil well this weekend, if everything goes according to plan and very little has gone according to plan so far, BP said the leak driveway sealing companies near me could stop next week. Meanwhile the Environmental Protection Agency has told BP to find a less toxic chemical to disperse the oil.
And for the first time commercial trucks will have to follow regulations on fuel economy. Today President Obama ordered the EPA and Transportation officials to draw up the new rules which will go into effect in 2014. They'll apply to the kinds of medium and heavy- duty trucks you see on the road every day.
All right. Where is he? Where is he? Ed Henry. Is he there? There he is!
ED HENRY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
VELSHI: Where he's supposed to be, at the White House. Which, by the way, taking heat over this oil spill. Ed's going to fill us in when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, every day we take it over to Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent, for "The Ed Henry Segment." He is at the White House. You think, you know what? It's Friday afternoon, almost summer, everybody wants to take it easy. Robert Gibbs, press secretary, did not get to take it easy today. He was hammered about this oil spill.
HENRY: It's pretty warm out and he was taking heat in the briefing room, you're right.
Look, I was asking him about it yesterday, some of my colleagues were asking him about it; today, Dan Lothian and some of our colleagues from other networks were really pushing Robert Gibbs on the notion how much longer can you wait for BP to get this done?
And Robert kept saying that, basically, look, BP's in charge, they're responsible for this and the government's just overseeing it. But you heard, you know, just sort of a litany of questions of can the government just sort of stand by and let BP continue to kind driveway sealer of shift this story and what not. Yesterday, changing it from 5,000 barrels a day that now actually as many scientists have been saying it's spilling out more than 5,000 barrels a day.
And Robert kept basically sent saying, look, legally and every other which way, BP is responsible so the federal government can't step in here, can't push them out of the way, but at some point it's going to become a political problem for the White House if BP can't get it done and then the government is standing by.
VELSHI: Right, and this daily litany of new things being tried and not working isn't feeling all that good.
Listen, let's talk about we've had these primaries this week. We had an election in -- in Pennsylvania for Jack Murtha's old seat. What's going on with fundraising with these two parties as we're heating up toward November?
HENRY: Very interesting thing, we can't let go unnoticed. The Democratic National Committee over the last month, they just reported they raised about $10.5 million; the RNC, about $3.5 million less. They both still have a lot of money in the bank and RNC Chairman Michael Steele put out an e-mail saying they've got money all around the country, they think they're building grassroots networks that are going to make sure they do well in the midterms just about five months from now.
But I think the fact that the DNC outraised the RNC by $3.5 million in what is not a particularly friendly environment for the president or the party in power, reminds us that while the democrats may take -- you know, may take some hits in November, it might not be as bad as many predicted. They were still far way off. But money is important here.
Message, of course, important as well. President feels pretty good about getting this victory on Wall Street reform yesterday, as you know. I mean, look, if you had said, say, five, six months ago how close is he to getting health care reform and Wall Street reform, we all were saying these are both big, heavy lifts and now he's gotten them both done.
VELSHI: Ed, we appreciate, I think, most of the nation when they watch a correspondent like you from the White House see the same shot all the time. You mix it up for us a lot. I have to ask you, are you like in a driveway? Where are you? We've seen this shot a little bit. So there's a guy over in that little portico who was trying to come out. He had a suitcase and comes out, and then he walks out and sees that you were on TV and he walks back in.
Where are you?
HENRY: There's like a break room back there for the Secret Service, and so that's why a lot of Secret Service officers come by here. We're right here by the briefing room. I'll walk down a little bit. And Bill Burton's his office is here, you know he's got his shade down. He walked by a minute ago, I was trying to get Bill Burton, the deputy White House press secretary, to join us in the segment today, but he wanted to get back to work.
VELSHI: Here's the guy. He's over your shoulder. The fellow carrying the luggage. He was trying to come out, he doesn't care and he's going to rouge your shot anyway.
HENRY: I think people want to move quickly. They don't necessarily want to be part of it. VELSHI: Speaking of being in the middle of a path, the president was speaking and a mouse went by, a rat or some kind of rodent.
HENRY: Down here we see the little critters and a few moments ago, we were hoping they would run out. There were two of them that jumped into the bushes here. We think they're rats. But yesterday, at least one of them was running past the president's podium in the Rose Garden before the president was going to speak. A lot of people got pictures and wondered if it was a rat or a mouse. Robert Gibbs was asked about it, and here's his answer --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president didn't see this yesterday. So, I was telling him about it today. And Reggie says field mouse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Way too big.
GIBBS: I said -- I said based on the size of the photograph comparing it to the diameter of -- my sense is that Reggie has lived in some houses with field -- field mice. But I would say, again, judging the -- judging the size of the animal, based on the diameter of the seal, I got to tell you, that's a rat.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: I got to tell you, Ed, a field mouse is the size of my thumb, a rat is a rat.
HENRY: A rat is about this big, I driveway sealing home depot think. And it's too bad he won't join the segment because he ran by a few moments ago. His tail is sort of medium. I don't know if it's a rat or a mouse.
Robert obviously thinks it's a rat. He was talking about Reggie Love, the president's body guy who that follows him all around, former Duke basketball player -- by the way, Duke coming here next week because of their NCAA championship. So Reggie Love and some of the Duke fans are pretty happen.
But I would bet if you gave Robert Gibbs some truth serum, he would say that's not the only rat running around the press briefing room.
VELSHI: Ed, you have a good weekend.
HENRY: You, too. You got any big plans?
VELSHI: I might head up to the northeast.
HENRY: Have a good weekend. I might ghee going that way, too.
VELSHI: Why don't you join me in Atlantic City?
HENRY: Atlantic City, maybe we'll make a segment of it next week.
VELSHI: All right, fine, have a good weekend. Ed Henry --
HENRY: Don't get into any trouble.
VELSHI: Absolutely not. But bring bail money just in case.
Stocks, up, down, when the stock market goes way up and suddenly comes way down fast, there's a word for it. But not the word you were thinking of yesterday, because this is a family show. I'll show you next on "Wordplay."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for a correction. We hate that word in our business. It means we got something wrong to begin with. That's not the kind of correction I'm talking about. Long-term investors don't like correction either.
Today's edition of "Wordplay," that's the kind of correction I'm talking about. In the stock market a correction is a drop of 10 percent or more from a recent peak in the stock price or index. Yesterday's plunge in the Dow took us to Correctionville in a hurry. Clearly if you're among those kinds of people who sell stocks at their peak, you don't mind corrections at all because you don't own the stock. Everyone else is left to ask whether a downturn is a temporary pause or the first step to a bear market. I wish I could tell you.
Dancer, poet, activist, inspiration, Maya Angelou is all of those things, I met her yesterday and I will never forget her. My "XYZ," it's for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for "The XYZ of It."
Yesterday I got to meet a true legend, one of those rare people whose presence is so strong you feel it when you are near her. Dr. Maya Angelou has been everything from a cable car operator to a friend and activist alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she's also a poet and one of Oprah's best friends.
The artist, mother, activist, singer, dancer, poet -- and that's not all, by the way -- who seems to have been everywhere and done everything celebrated her 82cd birthday yesterday. Eighty-two years just aren't a blur of Grammys and bestsellers and game changing next to timeless icons, they're a woven fabric of courage, perseverance, authenticity and optimism. She abused and even a mute, she rose above it all and went on to inspire countless people across the world.
One thing she said to me really stuck out, never complain. Quote, "The world is better than we have been," she said, "but we are not as good off as we could be." She encouraged fighting through hard times and respecting all regardless of color, gender, orientation or circumstance. She's the kind of lady you pose a question to and she answers with a song, sometimes in another language. She tosses out wisdom on a whim that makes you kick yourself wishing you had a pen to write it down and never forget it. And what she says isn't only true, it's backed up by her actions. She walks it like she talks it.
What I found most remarkable is what she would say to people who wanted a picture next her as she sat in her wheelchair. Don't lean over me, she said, stand strong and stand tall. We could all learn a little something from that. Stand strong, stand tall, stop the complaining, get out and just plain do stuff. She said it best at the end of her famous poem read to the nation on Inauguration Day, 1993. Quote, "Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise, I rise."
That's my "XYZ." Have a great weekend. Here's Rick.
CNN NEWSROOM
Investors Look for Answers; American History, Texas-Style; Two Iranians Released in Iraq; Tough Talk: What to Do About North Korea?; Abundantharvest.org Unites Gardeners and Food Charities
Aired May 21, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Here's what I've got "On the Rundown." It's a brand new hour.
Stocks are down, stocks are up. In short, we are coming to the end of a volatile week for markets around the world. Amid all the fear and confusion, you just want answers, and we've got them coming up in a minute.
Plus, the Texas State School Board gearing up for a very controversial vote today. They want to change the curriculum in a way that has a lot of you up in arms on the blogs. We'll bring you up to date with that story.
Plus, how do you get a lifetime of positive reinforcement in just one day? Simple. I did it. Just talk to Maya Angelou. I did that yesterday, and her words moved me. So today I've got some words for her in my "XYZ."
Big story right now though is a pleasant surprise on U.S. markets. The Dow's actually up about 80 points after a very rough overnight, rough morning on U.S. markets. We want to give you a little bit about what's going on.
It was a brutal day yesterday. Take a look at what we've got right now. Oh, look at that, 93 points in just a couple minutes. It's done a lot better than I thought.
I want to just show you -- I want to put this into perspective for you. I want you to look back to 2007. October, 2007, is when this market hit its peak, 14,164. I say this because if you've got a 401(k) or an IRA that emulates the Dow or the S&P 500, this is how it would have looked.
So, back in October 9th of 2007, it hit its peak, and it kept on going down. It hit its bottom, we hope, last March, March 9th of 2009. So, we went from 14,000 on the Dow to 6,500.
Ever since then, from last April, all the way until now, it's been on a relative upward slope. It hit its high back in April again, and now we're off from that fairly significantly.
But if you look at it in terms of what's happened there, what's happened over the last couple of weeks, it doesn't look as serious as it may sound to you. But you know what? If it's your money and you're losing it, it's serious.
So, let's bring in my friend Christine Romans. She is in New York City. She is my co-host on "YOUR $$$$$."
Christine, so it's down a lot.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
VELSHI: I mean, when you look at it compared to -- when you look at it in that big a stretch, it doesn't seem as bad. But we've lost a lot of money in the last month alone.
ROMANS: Yes. OK, so you look at today. You pointed out that the Dow is up 93 points right now, but even up 93 points right now, you're still down 450 points for the week. So this has been a tough week, just this week, for the markets, even with this recovery. If it holds, who knows? We have two more hours to go.
You're absolutely right to point out where we are from that peak. You know, you are down significantly in your retirement investments from that peak.
However, if you started buying more recently, you've seen some pretty good gains in your investments over the past year or so. So, it all depends on what -- when you're going to need that money, when you're going to retire, and where you've been putting in the money and taking it out.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: Every single person is different.
VELSHI: And it's a market.
Listen, we've got some questions from Facebook, because I invited people to say, what is it that you want to know about this? What's the stuff that confuses you?
Michael says, "How over-inflated is the market? How could the Dow be over 11,000" -- it's not at the moment, but it was -- "when there's 10 percent unemployment?"
It's a good question.
ROMANS: It is a good question. And you even at that point had people saying, yes, we might be right for a correction. And that's exactly what has happened.
You have had a correction. A correction is a textbook term. It's 10 percent. The market has fallen 10 percent. Ten cents of every dollar, that stock investment is wiped out as the market corrects.
Now, the next question is, does the correction feed into something called a bear market, which is 20 percent down from those April highs, or do you find buyers here who say, oh, gosh, now I'm going to go in and I'm going to buy some stocks here?
VELSHI: Let me tell you this one from Elizabeth on Facebook. "When will overspending governments realize that they are the problem and not the solution? Do you think when they realize it and start doing something about it, the markets will react positively?"
ROMANS: I think they're realizing it. Don't you? I mean, I think what we're talking about in Europe. I think that's what we're talking about, a lot of governments that have spent prolifically and haven't had -- haven't been able to get out from under their debt problems.
And what started as the consumer -- the credit crisis in the United States and this global crisis in the banking system has now turned to part two, which is the sovereign debt crisis. And this is the question that everyone's asking now: What do countries -- and not just Europe, but the United States, the U.K., and Japan -- what do we have to do over the next few years to get our fiscal houses in order, and how will the markets respond? And that's what we don't know.
And markets I think, Ali, and I think you agree with me, they matter less than this, than what it's going to mean for how you live your life.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: Your taxes, the services your government can provide, and just the stability of your country.
VELSHI: Yes, you're absolutely right about that. They are important, but the other stuff -- I mean, the fact that you have a job and other things like that matter.
This is my favorite question that was posted on my Facebook page. It's from Christine. I don't know if it's you or somebody else named Christine.
ROMANS: It's not me.
VELSHI: "Should we be freaking out right about now?"
ROMANS: No. Remain calm. What's that British phrase, stay strong and carry on? Or -- if everyone can just let me know.
VELSHI: Stay calm and carry on.
ROMANS: That's it.
No, we shouldn't be freaking out about anything. We should be taking a very close look every three to six months, at least every six months, to what your retirement goals are, how close you are to those goals, and readjust.
You know, you and I talk to people who manage money all the time. Manage money for real, normal, middle class people. And they say, you know, don't close your eyes. And the whole idea of just putting the 401(k) statement in the top drawer and not opening it, oh, perish the thought.
VELSHI: Bad plan.
ROMANS: You've got to know where you want to go, how much money it's going to take you to get there, and how you're going to get yourself there, whether the market is up or down.
VELSHI: OK. Well, let's you and me commit in the next week or so to doing a little bit more of that, helping people understand how they divide up their assets and how they rebalance.
ROMANS: OK. Good.
VELSHI: Some great tools on Money.com. You and I talk to a lot of people --
ROMANS: There's a -- somebody wrote a book. There's a book. It's called -- let me think -- "Give Me My Money Back." Did you ever hear of that book?
VELSHI: I did. I'm a big geek about this. You and I are both market geeks. But let's share that with our viewers, let's help them out, make some decisions.
Great to see you. You and I are spending the weekend together on TV, Saturday at 1:00 p.m., Sunday, at 3:00 p.m., on "YOUR $$$$$."
Christine, good work. And I hope you don't have a very long day at the New York Stock Exchange. I know it's already been a long day for you. I hope it doesn't get too long at the New York Stock Exchange.
ROMANS: It's only an hour and 53 minutes and 27 seconds to go.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: All right.
Christine Romans at the New York Stock Exchange.
Hey, listen, in Texas, it's a fight for the history books, literally. The school board is slated to vote today on how students will learn about slavery, communism, capitalism, and more. And this fight is way bigger than Texas.
Stay with us. I'm going to tell you more about this when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Every day we bring you a segment called "Chalk Talk" about education in this country, things that can be done better, things that need fixing. We've spent a good deal of time on this show on the Texas social studies controversy.
Well, a vote is scheduled for today. Every 10 years, the Texas School Board has got to revamp its social studies curriculum. As a result of that, textbooks get published, and there are some people who say that because Texas has the most public school students in the country, it influences textbooks that go to other smaller states.
Now, the school board has been pushing for a version of American history which emphasizes the role of capitalist enterprise and military and Christianity, and even patriotism.
Gary Tuchman has the latest on this story from Austin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The people on the Texas Board of Education are not professional historians. But that doesn't stop them from controversial and confident pronouncements.
PATRICIA HARDY (R), TEXAS BOARD OF EDUCATION: There would be those who would say, you know, automatically say the reason for the Civil War was over slavery. No. It was over States' rights.
TUCHMAN: Most of the board members are conservative. And they're on the verge of changing social studies teaching standards in Texas. For example, students will soon be discussing whether the separation of church and state is a legitimate historical concept.
That's the kind of debate board member Don McElroy wants to see.
(on camera): Is there such a thing as the separation of church and state?
DON MCLEROY (R), TEXAS BOARD OF EDUCATION: There is such -- there is such a thing as the First Amendment. The first has been interpreted lately by judges in a different way.
TUCHMAN: By no state-sponsored religion, but what do you think about the phrase "separation of church and state"?
MCLEROY: It's really been abused. It's swung way out of kilter is my personal view.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): People pushing for the new curriculum say it will dwell more on the positive in America and less on the negative. Biblical values will be highlighted more. Free enterprise will be emphasized; the term "capitalism" which sometimes has negative connotations, not so much. And, yes, when it comes to the Civil War, discussions about states' rights.
(on camera): The board does this review every decade. The initial recommendations come from educators and historians. All agree the recommendations have never been changed this much.
(voice-over): And that has left many in the public who have come out to these hearings disenchanted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your actions have produced a series of curriculum standards which undermine the importance of multiculturalism and respect for alternative viewpoints; foundations upon which America's society and democracy have been built. Our siblings should learn that America is not just a Christian nation.
TUCHMAN: But many Texans are very pleased.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to thank you for the work you do for the children of Texas and for the children in the other 49 states. You are a truly unique group of elected servants of the great state of Texas.
TUCHMAN: More than 200 Texans went on a list to testify about their feelings. The testimony went late into the night on Wednesday finally ending just before the stroke of midnight after 14 hours. Some of the comments went beyond the scope of the debate and were quite derogatory.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to tell you that Islam is coming, and Islam brings death. So I say repent, America. Repent.
TUCHMAN: The one Muslim member of the board told the man not only was what he was saying irrelevant, but it was also hateful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it was insulting to our population and everybody that we represent.
TUCHMAN: But not one other board member, Republican or Democrat, complained about it. The final vote on the recommendations will be made Friday.
Gary Tuchman, CNN, Austin, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Now, the sheer size of the education system in Texas means that this could have an impact way beyond the borders of that state. There are 4,700,000 students in Texas, 55,200,000 students nationwide.
I did say they were the biggest textbook buyer. They're not. Texas is the country's second largest textbook buyer. The biggest one is the biggest state, California.
Textbooks written to comply with Texas standards, however, are sold in many other states. And that's what has some people concerned, that whatever Texas does may have an influence, particularly in smaller states, that don't have enough buying power to dictate their own types of textbooks.
All right. Two Iranian detainees have been released in Iraq. Does that mean something for anybody here in the United States? We're going to tell you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. When you hear about Iranian detainees, we've been following some particular stories. This one's different.
Two Iranian detainees who were held for years in Iraq have been freed today. Their release comes as those three U.S. hikers who are being held in Iran met with their mothers for a second time. Is there a connection between these two?
Our Ivan Watson broke the news of the detainee release earlier here on CNN. He's with us now from Istanbul, Turkey.
Ivan, bring us up to speed on this story and whether it's connected to the other story.
IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's hard to not to see these prisoners as some kind of pawns in a three-dimensional chess game going on between these two rivals, Iran and the U.S.
What we learned today was that -- from the Iranian Embassy telling our CNN bureau in Baghdad that two Iranian nationals who have been in U.S. military custody for years, one of them as long as seven years in Iraq, were released to Iraqi authorities, handed over to the Iranian Embassy, and very quickly flown out of the country today. The timing seems rather strange, especially since just this week, Iran made a very big deal of granting visas to the mothers of three Americans who were arrested by Iranian security forces some 10 months ago while hiking along the border between Iraq and Iran, granting visas to these three mothers to go visit their sons and daughter in Tehran just this week -- Ali.
VELSHI: So you think it sounds to some people like there is something afoot. Americans were given these prisoners back, and hopefully that will result in these three Americans detained in Iraq, maybe some development on that front?
WATSON: Well, the Iranian Embassy denies that there's any link. American officials we've tried to talk to have referred us to the Iraqis. And in the past, ,when we've seen similar patterns of something that looks like a prisoner exchange between the two countries, both sides have denied that.
However, earlier this month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, when asked in an interview with "The Boston Globe" about the release, possible release of these three Americans held in Tehran, he suggested a possible prisoner swap. Just last week, Ali, we saw something that looked very suspiciously like a prisoner swap, though both the French and the Iranian governments denied that.
What we saw was a 24-year-old French national, Clotilde Reiss. She was arrested last summer in Iran, accused of being a spy for the French, ,and held in prison. She was released, and just days later, the French released an Iranian who has been in a French prison for 19 years. He was convicted of the brutal murder of a former Iranian prime minister in France, a dissident Iranian leader, and then abruptly released.
Also, the French refused to extradite another Iranian wanted for dealing in arms-related supplies that the U.S. had requested. The French and the Iranians denied that was a prisoner swap, but you really have to wonder when you see the timing of that case.
We don't know what's going to happen right now between these people who have been released from Iraq and the future fate of these three Americans. We do know that their mothers have gone to Tehran airport after several days on the ground in Tehran. They were allowed to visit with their sons and daughter for two days, consecutively. But they went home, evidently, empty-handed -- Ali.
VELSHI: All right, Ivan. You'll stay on top of the story for us. Thanks so much.
Ivan Watson joining us from Istanbul, Turkey, tonight.
All right. Let be bring you up to speed on some of the top stories we're following here at CNN.
There's a picture of the Dow. It was up almost 100 points, about, well, 20 minutes ago. It's back down a little bit again. It's still up though for the day.
Many had worried that this was going to be another day like yesterday, a cataclysmic loss, actually. Investors are wary after the market dipped officially into a correction -- we're going to tell you about that a little later on -- yesterday. Lots of people worried about the financial problems in Europe and whether that will be contagious and create a second leg down in our own economy.
All right. It is day 32 since that explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. BP says it is siphoning more than 200,000 gallons a day through a tube. Now, a Louisiana congressman has asked the White House to set up temporary health care centers along the Gulf Coast to serve volunteers and workers.
Another health setback for rock singer Bret Michaels. His publicist says doctors found a hole in his heart that they think caused him to suffer a warning stroke. Michaels is 47 years old. He may still be able to appear on the season finale of the reality show "Celebrity Apprentice" on Sunday.
And when we get back, we're going to talk about dispersants. That's that stuff that BP has been putting into the Gulf of Mexico to, well, disperse the oil.
Are they doing more harm than good? They could wipe out an entire colony of oil eaters, the microorganisms that live off of oil. We'll explore that in "Off the Radar."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, Chad.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes?
VELSHI: What's going on?
MYERS: Let's talk about a few things that we talked about last hour, and let's just kind of drill down and get a lot bigger on what we're talking about here, because it's all part of the loop current that's kind of looping around.
VELSHI: Oh, I see. We've got a reverse image here. This is --
MYERS: This is the United States.
VELSHI: -- land.
MYERS: Yes, sir.
VELSHI: All right.
MYERS: I use maps so often, I didn't even think about --
VELSHI: Right. Yes. You see things -- that's Florida.
MYERS: I see people and --
VELSHI: Got it. OK. All right. I got it.
MYERS: -- I hear voices and all those other things.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: The loop current comes out of the Caribbean, up into the Gulf of Mexico, and down. The Coast Guard basically said that the oil has been going this way and not into the loop current.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Don't worry about it, Florida, just yet. It could change, but right now we're doing OK.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: It's all part of the same oil that is moving down -- could move down into Florida, but it's going to take a long time. Old oil, Ali, doesn't have as many toxins in it --
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: -- as new oil. It turns into tar balls that you can actually pick up.
Now, old oil isn't as toxic to fish, isn't as toxic to plants. And even though we saw some pictures yesterday of how the oil was on the stocks of the marshes, that's actually OK.
I talked to NOAA. It's OK to be on the stalks. It can't be in the ground. That becomes toxic in the roots, kills it.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: It can't be on the foliage up on top. It smothers it, kills it. So, what they were seeing in those marshes, not great, but not a lethal injection to what could be something that could kill all those marshes and eventually make it another real big problem.
The Coast Guard also said that the oil is not getting into the loop current here. This little area that was kind of an elephant trunk that was going in there, that's gone now.
VELSHI: OK. It kind of evaporated. It's all good. It's a little bit better than it was.
And I have so many people wanting to know -- you know, hey, there are 700 vessels out here scooping up the oil. Where's it going? What are they doing with it?
VELSHI: What do they do with it?
MYERS: What do they do with it?
VELSHI: That's a good question.
MYERS: Well, the old oil has very little value. In fact, is expensive to recycle or to render irrelevant, basically, because a lot of the things that we would use it to make gasoline --
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: -- those are all gone. They're into the atmosphere, so this is junk.
That goes on shore, and it goes into a holding tank. They hold it to dispose of it. That's going to cost money.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: BP is going to pay that money.
Then there are other newer oils that are getting siphoned off, especially the one that had big pipes going down in there and sucking some of that -- what, 200,000 barrels yesterday?
VELSHI: And that's coming right out of the well. So that's what they're drilling for.
MYERS: That oil could be OK. That oil, it's still going to be mixed with some water, but it always is anyway.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: So that oil will be moved to shore, into the holding tanks, and then refined into something, at least. But there's going to be a lot of oil that just washes up on shore, that doesn't get recycled, and it's going to be all along the beaches, I'm afraid.
VELSHI: All right. Thanks, Chad.
MYERS: Sure.
VELSHI: All right. There is tough talk about North Korea right now, and it's coming from the secretary of state, what she's calling an act of aggression against South Korea, and what she says is going to be done about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Every day we take you around the world with our "Globe Trekking" segment. This time it's South Korea -- North Korea and South Korea, actually. No more business as usual for North Korea. The U.S. says that North Korea sunk a South Korean ship and that something has got to be done.
John Vause has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN VAUSE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once again, the world is asking, what are we going to do about Korea?
HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We cannot allow this attack on South Korea to go unanswered by the international community.
VAUSE: The U.S. secretary of state in Tokyo on the start of a visit to Asia didn't hold back. The evidence is overwhelming, she said. The torpedo that sunk the South Korean ship was fired by a North Korean submarine.
CLINTON: And the United States strongly condemned this act of aggression.
VAUSE: The North Koreans deny it. This government official warning the North will react with, quote, "merciless punishment if there is even mild retaliation by the South Koreans." Pyongyang is threatening to tear up a landmark nonaggression pact the two sides signed almost 20 years ago.
In Seoul Friday, President Lee Myung-bak called a rare national security meeting. The attack, he said, was a perfect military ambush, but with few good options, any South Korean response, he said, would be prudent.
For South Koreans, who have long lived in the shadow of threats and aggression from the North, there was resignation that there is little that can be done to change Pyongyang's behavior. "It's difficult to take strong measures and it's difficult just to leave North Korea as it is right now. I feel frustrated to see this. I think there's actually no conclusion," says this man.
(on camera): Next stop for the U.S. secretary of state is Beijing, and if there are to be consequences for North Korea's alleged actions, Mrs. Clinton will need to convince the Chinese to get on side, not to use their veto power in the U.N. Security Council to back some kind of punitive action. Never an easy job, especially now. China is one of the few friends North Korea has left in the world.
John Vause, CNN, Seoul.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: All right. Back here in the United States. Getting fresh food on the plates of the needy. One man is doing just that with a help of a website. We'll meet him right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: On Wednesday we introduced you to an urban farmer, someone growing fresh food among the streets and buildings of a city. Now in Tuesday's -- in today's "Mission Possible" you'll meet a man who is trying to solve the same kind of fresh food shortages in a different way. He also happens to be our "CNN Hero of the Week."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARY OPPENHEIMER, COMMUNITY CRUSADER: I had an idea about how to not waste food. We're having an ample harvest and the very least we can do is give it to people who need it.
They'll be enjoying this tomorrow at the pantry.
OPPENHEIMER: Ampleharvest.org enables people that grow food in their gardens to find a food pantry to donate their excess produce to.
It's a nice big one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: That would have been a perfect solution. I grew up with more rhubarb. I didn't like rhubarb, and nobody in my family liked rhubarb and it grew endlessly in our backyard.
Gary Oppenheimer is the founder of Ampleharvest.org in New York. I now like rhubarb, Gary, but back in the day, and I guess there are people like this, there are things growing, they're deliberately growing fruits and vegetables because that's a great thing to do, but often you can't manage the yield and you have more than you can use or you'd like to do something with some of your great harvest, and you're helping people do that?
OPPENHEIMER: Yes, Ampleharvest.org was a website that I created last year to enable the more than more 40 million people in America who grow food in their home gardens to be able to donate the excess food from their gardens to a local food pantry.
Most people didn't know that they could, many people hadn't thought about the idea, some people were afraid of doing it. And I set up a mechanism where it's very easy to basically go on the site, key in your address, find a list of food pantries and distance order. Pick the one you want to donate to and make the donation.
As I said, there are 49 million people according to the USDA in America who are food insecure, which is a fancy government way of saying either you don't have enough food or you're at real risk for not having enough food and we have over 40 million gardeners who grow. You know, even if only 10 percent or 20 percent of those people make donations, it's a lot.
VELSHI: Are we thinking that the people who are going to make those donations are people who have excess stuff or might they be even growing it because of the fact that they know the cost is low and they someone will benefit from it as opposed to it going into the garbage?
OPPENHEIMER: Some may be that generous. Frankly, what we tell people is that they should be enjoying, preserving and giving away as much as they can, because they've grown the food for themselves -- These are home gardeners, of course -- but whatever is leftover, the excess produce, that should not be thrown away, that should be donated to a food pantry.
And just to give you a case in point, I received an e-mail this morning from one grower who said that last year he had thrown away two 55-gallons drums of lemons, four 55-gallon drums of grapefruits and two of oranges because he didn't know he could give them away. Most people don't grow that much, but nonetheless, that was wasted food, that could have helped his community.
VELSHI: OK, so now tell me how this works. What's the system?
OPPENHEIMER: Very simple. First of all we encourage pantries around the county, we are almost approaching 2,000 pantries --
VELSHI: When you say pantries, are these the same as food banks sort of idea?
OPPENHEIMER: There not exactly. A food bank, there are around 250-plus food banks around America. Each one -- think of the large warehouse operation or regional operation that collects government and private food donations and they turn around and disburse it to the food pantries, 30,000 plus around the country in the communities. So the average person who is in need of food is actually going to a food pantry that may be in the basement of a church or a YMCA or something like that.
VELSHI: So your donations go right to the pantry. So get people -- you identify the pantry that (INAUDIBLE) -- and they get it right -- right to the pantry.
OPPENHEIMER: Yes, think of this like a Google. You can go to Ampleharvest.org, find a pantry near you and you take your food straight to the pantry and hopefully, you'll do that for the rest of your life as you continue gardening.
VELSHI: OK, what did it take to get the system going? Was it complicated? Were people looking at you like we didn't need this system, or did people say what a great thing that you were doing?
OPPENHEIMER: I think I was in somewhat unchartered territory. I had the idea last year in march after creating a similar program in the community garden in North Jersey where I'm the director of. I had an idea in March, in seven weeks' time it went from an idea to rollout on May 18th of 2009. All along nobody said it was a bad idea, simply that nobody had ever done it before. And it took off very, very fast and it's been very, very well received all throughout and it's growing wonderfully. It's a good thing for the communities. It's a good thing for the people. It's a good thing for the future health of America.
VELSHI: Let me ask you this. I'm a city guy and if I were volunteering at a pantry or worked at one, I would know what canned goods would look like, I would know what bread is supposed to look like. I don't really know that much about produce. Not that I want to be advertising that on TV, I should probably be eating more myself. But I don't know that much about produce.
How do your pantries know what they're getting, what the quality of it, what it might even be called?
OPPENHEIMER: OK. Well, that's a really good question.
First of all, on the website, we have a "Frequently Asked" section, three sections -- one targeted to the general public, one targeted to the gardeners and one to the pantries.
To the gardeners, we basically tell them what they really should be doing is harvesting the crops on the morning of when they're going to make the donation and they should be inspecting that they're donating. It should be a quality equal to or better than you would buy for themselves in a supermarket. Spoiled stuff, stuff that has insects in it or whatever, should never be donated. But if it's something you would buy for your family, that's what you want donated.
Now once it gets to the food pantry, they can also, if they want, take a look at, but that's what become available. An interesting problem we've run into and we have a solution we're going to be working on later this summer, is that many people are donating apples and carrots and potatoes, the routine things that everybody from a supermarket knows about and those are well received in pantries.
But many gardeners, myself included, like to grow weird things like blue potatoes and kohlrabi or starfood or what have you, and many pantry clients and many pantries don't quite know what it is. We'll be working on a picture dictionary later this summer for the benefit for the pantries around the country to help the pantries understand and their clients understand what they're getting, the nutritional value how to use it, et cetera, et cetera. No food in this country should go to waste.
VELSHI: Gary, I tell you, first of all, I think it's fantastic and I'm glad you're here talking about it and we congratulate you on it. But when you get the picture -- the produce picture directory? Send me one. I need -- I need a produce picture directory, just so I know when it comes on my plate. That's the kohlrabi, the blew potato.
Gary, great to see you. Great work. Thank you very much.
OPPENHEIMER: Thank you very much.
VELSHI: Gary Oppenheimer is the founder of Ampleharvest.org. Visit the website. That's great.
Take a look at the Dow, up 32 points, still in positive territory. Investors a little bit wary of what happened yesterday in the market. A lot of people are worried about the financial problems in Europe and how they may actually end up affecting the rest of the world.
And the Gulf of Mexico, BP plans to start pumping a sealer into the gushing oil well this weekend, if everything goes according to plan and very little has gone according to plan so far, BP said the leak driveway sealing companies near me could stop next week. Meanwhile the Environmental Protection Agency has told BP to find a less toxic chemical to disperse the oil.
And for the first time commercial trucks will have to follow regulations on fuel economy. Today President Obama ordered the EPA and Transportation officials to draw up the new rules which will go into effect in 2014. They'll apply to the kinds of medium and heavy- duty trucks you see on the road every day.
All right. Where is he? Where is he? Ed Henry. Is he there? There he is!
ED HENRY, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
VELSHI: Where he's supposed to be, at the White House. Which, by the way, taking heat over this oil spill. Ed's going to fill us in when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, every day we take it over to Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent, for "The Ed Henry Segment." He is at the White House. You think, you know what? It's Friday afternoon, almost summer, everybody wants to take it easy. Robert Gibbs, press secretary, did not get to take it easy today. He was hammered about this oil spill.
HENRY: It's pretty warm out and he was taking heat in the briefing room, you're right.
Look, I was asking him about it yesterday, some of my colleagues were asking him about it; today, Dan Lothian and some of our colleagues from other networks were really pushing Robert Gibbs on the notion how much longer can you wait for BP to get this done?
And Robert kept saying that, basically, look, BP's in charge, they're responsible for this and the government's just overseeing it. But you heard, you know, just sort of a litany of questions of can the government just sort of stand by and let BP continue to kind driveway sealer of shift this story and what not. Yesterday, changing it from 5,000 barrels a day that now actually as many scientists have been saying it's spilling out more than 5,000 barrels a day.
And Robert kept basically sent saying, look, legally and every other which way, BP is responsible so the federal government can't step in here, can't push them out of the way, but at some point it's going to become a political problem for the White House if BP can't get it done and then the government is standing by.
VELSHI: Right, and this daily litany of new things being tried and not working isn't feeling all that good.
Listen, let's talk about we've had these primaries this week. We had an election in -- in Pennsylvania for Jack Murtha's old seat. What's going on with fundraising with these two parties as we're heating up toward November?
HENRY: Very interesting thing, we can't let go unnoticed. The Democratic National Committee over the last month, they just reported they raised about $10.5 million; the RNC, about $3.5 million less. They both still have a lot of money in the bank and RNC Chairman Michael Steele put out an e-mail saying they've got money all around the country, they think they're building grassroots networks that are going to make sure they do well in the midterms just about five months from now.
But I think the fact that the DNC outraised the RNC by $3.5 million in what is not a particularly friendly environment for the president or the party in power, reminds us that while the democrats may take -- you know, may take some hits in November, it might not be as bad as many predicted. They were still far way off. But money is important here.
Message, of course, important as well. President feels pretty good about getting this victory on Wall Street reform yesterday, as you know. I mean, look, if you had said, say, five, six months ago how close is he to getting health care reform and Wall Street reform, we all were saying these are both big, heavy lifts and now he's gotten them both done.
VELSHI: Ed, we appreciate, I think, most of the nation when they watch a correspondent like you from the White House see the same shot all the time. You mix it up for us a lot. I have to ask you, are you like in a driveway? Where are you? We've seen this shot a little bit. So there's a guy over in that little portico who was trying to come out. He had a suitcase and comes out, and then he walks out and sees that you were on TV and he walks back in.
Where are you?
HENRY: There's like a break room back there for the Secret Service, and so that's why a lot of Secret Service officers come by here. We're right here by the briefing room. I'll walk down a little bit. And Bill Burton's his office is here, you know he's got his shade down. He walked by a minute ago, I was trying to get Bill Burton, the deputy White House press secretary, to join us in the segment today, but he wanted to get back to work.
VELSHI: Here's the guy. He's over your shoulder. The fellow carrying the luggage. He was trying to come out, he doesn't care and he's going to rouge your shot anyway.
HENRY: I think people want to move quickly. They don't necessarily want to be part of it. VELSHI: Speaking of being in the middle of a path, the president was speaking and a mouse went by, a rat or some kind of rodent.
HENRY: Down here we see the little critters and a few moments ago, we were hoping they would run out. There were two of them that jumped into the bushes here. We think they're rats. But yesterday, at least one of them was running past the president's podium in the Rose Garden before the president was going to speak. A lot of people got pictures and wondered if it was a rat or a mouse. Robert Gibbs was asked about it, and here's his answer --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president didn't see this yesterday. So, I was telling him about it today. And Reggie says field mouse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Way too big.
GIBBS: I said -- I said based on the size of the photograph comparing it to the diameter of -- my sense is that Reggie has lived in some houses with field -- field mice. But I would say, again, judging the -- judging the size of the animal, based on the diameter of the seal, I got to tell you, that's a rat.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: I got to tell you, Ed, a field mouse is the size of my thumb, a rat is a rat.
HENRY: A rat is about this big, I driveway sealing home depot think. And it's too bad he won't join the segment because he ran by a few moments ago. His tail is sort of medium. I don't know if it's a rat or a mouse.
Robert obviously thinks it's a rat. He was talking about Reggie Love, the president's body guy who that follows him all around, former Duke basketball player -- by the way, Duke coming here next week because of their NCAA championship. So Reggie Love and some of the Duke fans are pretty happen.
But I would bet if you gave Robert Gibbs some truth serum, he would say that's not the only rat running around the press briefing room.
VELSHI: Ed, you have a good weekend.
HENRY: You, too. You got any big plans?
VELSHI: I might head up to the northeast.
HENRY: Have a good weekend. I might ghee going that way, too.
VELSHI: Why don't you join me in Atlantic City?
HENRY: Atlantic City, maybe we'll make a segment of it next week.
VELSHI: All right, fine, have a good weekend. Ed Henry --
HENRY: Don't get into any trouble.
VELSHI: Absolutely not. But bring bail money just in case.
Stocks, up, down, when the stock market goes way up and suddenly comes way down fast, there's a word for it. But not the word you were thinking of yesterday, because this is a family show. I'll show you next on "Wordplay."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for a correction. We hate that word in our business. It means we got something wrong to begin with. That's not the kind of correction I'm talking about. Long-term investors don't like correction either.
Today's edition of "Wordplay," that's the kind of correction I'm talking about. In the stock market a correction is a drop of 10 percent or more from a recent peak in the stock price or index. Yesterday's plunge in the Dow took us to Correctionville in a hurry. Clearly if you're among those kinds of people who sell stocks at their peak, you don't mind corrections at all because you don't own the stock. Everyone else is left to ask whether a downturn is a temporary pause or the first step to a bear market. I wish I could tell you.
Dancer, poet, activist, inspiration, Maya Angelou is all of those things, I met her yesterday and I will never forget her. My "XYZ," it's for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for "The XYZ of It."
Yesterday I got to meet a true legend, one of those rare people whose presence is so strong you feel it when you are near her. Dr. Maya Angelou has been everything from a cable car operator to a friend and activist alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she's also a poet and one of Oprah's best friends.
The artist, mother, activist, singer, dancer, poet -- and that's not all, by the way -- who seems to have been everywhere and done everything celebrated her 82cd birthday yesterday. Eighty-two years just aren't a blur of Grammys and bestsellers and game changing next to timeless icons, they're a woven fabric of courage, perseverance, authenticity and optimism. She abused and even a mute, she rose above it all and went on to inspire countless people across the world.
One thing she said to me really stuck out, never complain. Quote, "The world is better than we have been," she said, "but we are not as good off as we could be." She encouraged fighting through hard times and respecting all regardless of color, gender, orientation or circumstance. She's the kind of lady you pose a question to and she answers with a song, sometimes in another language. She tosses out wisdom on a whim that makes you kick yourself wishing you had a pen to write it down and never forget it. And what she says isn't only true, it's backed up by her actions. She walks it like she talks it.
What I found most remarkable is what she would say to people who wanted a picture next her as she sat in her wheelchair. Don't lean over me, she said, stand strong and stand tall. We could all learn a little something from that. Stand strong, stand tall, stop the complaining, get out and just plain do stuff. She said it best at the end of her famous poem read to the nation on Inauguration Day, 1993. Quote, "Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise, I rise, I rise."
That's my "XYZ." Have a great weekend. Here's Rick.